Curse

lightblade · Feb 16, 2007, 03:31 PM // 15:31

freeze on load is not caused by memory problem. it's caused by download and/or decompress problem. A quick fix to this is to use the -image command to download and decompress all the files before loading.

glazzkak · Feb 16, 2007, 04:23 PM // 16:23

I just installed a 1gb module yesterday in my laptop that I use for GW, and maybe just my imagination, but it greatly improved my speed...and no lag?...maybe it wasnt anet it was me

Razors Edge · Feb 16, 2007, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Alright, I registered just to post here. I read half of the first page.

I consider myself a professional, I have been building systems from the age of 12, and i'll clear a few things up.

If you have 512 memory, 1 gig will not make that much differnce. I own a small pc shop in NY, and belive me, I have seen it all. I've built systems that have quad core,4 gig memory, SLI 8800's, the whole shebang. now UNLESS you're the gamer that plays the battlefield 2142, FEAR, all that new shit, you don't need more then 1 gig.

If you're computer is for basic needs such as internet,media, and guild wars and stuff, 512 will accually work fine. I mean I don't care if I play guild wars on a 512 mb machine or a 4 gb machine, the differnce is really slim. As for loading maps and such, that REALLY has almost no effect on the memory, it depends 75% on you're internet connection. I have cable, and with my wireless, I never pass 700kilobytes per second.

A ddr stick of 512 starts at around $40, DDR2 price is close to that aswell.

Aerian_Skybane · Feb 16, 2007, 06:22 PM // 18:22

I have to disagree with you Razor, from one techie to another (I work in ITS). I upgraded my crappy Dell 5150 Laptop a month ago from 512mb (2x256) to 1.25 GB (1x1GB + one of the old 256s that I will probably remove since I think it is slowing it down slightly).

My Guild Wars (especially in NF where most of my lag was), has become exponentially faster. Load times are nothing, I rarely experience hardware lag, etc etc. I tried it out at Consulate Docks where last time I played it with 512, lagged all the way to the end, making me completely useless everytime I played it, not just the first time. Not a SECOND of lag since then. I still have slower load times than say my GFs brand new computer, but I am not boring her with how long it took before.

My crappy crappy specs:
CPU: 3.2 Ghz P4
NVIDIA GeForce Go 64mb (ouch)
Memory: 1.25 gigs (1 gig + 256 mb (want to remove the 256 but havent seen any latency issues, yet)
HD: 40 gigs, almost running out, and thats a problem, getting the dreaded repair data file startup too much now (has to do with fragmentation and having not much HD space on compy really hurts)
On a high speed university network.

I get the occasional network (probably on my end) lag (everything stopping, etc etc), but I have barely had any lag, until my vid card cant take some of the world effects (like after killing Varesh for instance), so it chops up, but nothing life threatening. I am stubborn and refuse to turn down some of the looks, because I am like that, but if I did I bet I would see better performance.

My point, upgrading my RAM helped me innumerably. But, in fairness, not all systems are the same.

Dex · Feb 16, 2007, 06:24 PM // 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razors Edge

Alright, I registered just to post here. I read half of the first page.

I consider myself a professional, I have been building systems from the age of 12, and i'll clear a few things up.

If you have 512 memory, 1 gig will not make that much differnce. I own a small pc shop in NY, and belive me, I have seen it all. I've built systems that have quad core,4 gig memory, SLI 8800's, the whole shebang. now UNLESS you're the gamer that plays the battlefield 2142, FEAR, all that new shit, you don't need more then 1 gig.

If you're computer is for basic needs such as internet,media, and guild wars and stuff, 512 will accually work fine. I mean I don't care if I play guild wars on a 512 mb machine or a 4 gb machine, the differnce is really slim. As for loading maps and such, that REALLY has almost no effect on the memory, it depends 75% on you're internet connection. I have cable, and with my wireless, I never pass 700kilobytes per second.

A ddr stick of 512 starts at around $40, DDR2 price is close to that aswell.

Well, I have to disagree with you on one point. You WILL see a noticable difference between 512MB of RAM and 1GB of RAM. However, you won't see much difference between 1GB and 2GB (unless you do some very memory intensive things with your PC beyond gaming....like I do), and you won't see any difference at all between 2GB and 4GB. Unless you're doing hardcore video editing and, say, CAD while listening to music and gaming on the side 4GB of RAM is a total waste under Windows XP. Even then, it's a pretty well-documented fact that Windows XP doesn't handle anything above 3GB very well, and can actually decrease your overall system speed. The person that made the "more the better" comment is dead wrong.

I also STRONGLY disagree about the amount of memory not affecting loading times. Yes, your internet connection has an impact on that when you need to download the new content and process the toons in an outpost, etc, but beyond that loading times are all about having at least 1GB of RAM. This is true with just about any game that needs to load scene and actor data between areas. When you have plenty of RAM the system can store data that it's still using while loading the new data. With 512MB of RAM or less it's constantly needing to dump data to make room for what it's currently doing and then re-loading the data it just had to dump.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a professional software engineer with a computer engineering degree who's been building systems for 13 years....

To the OP: yes, upgrading to 1GB of RAM will help your load times.

Horseman Of War · Feb 16, 2007, 06:28 PM // 18:28

i used to have a 5500, its the graphics card. i did the same thing two years ago; upgrading from 512mb ram to a gig.

Ashleigh McMahon · Feb 16, 2007, 07:00 PM // 19:00

News...

After waiting a good few hours for my PC to return, I must say my first 5min of play have dramatically shown improvements in speed.

At first, I was jumping like hell around my guildhall when I moved, but since then I've RA'd a few times and loaded almost instantly.

I've not jumped since I first booted up.

Thanks for all the help and advise guys.

Tachyon · Feb 16, 2007, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razors Edge

now UNLESS you're the gamer that plays the battlefield 2142, FEAR, all that new shit, you don't need more then 1 gig.

Now seen as you're the professional you should now that if you slide the textures to maximum on BF2/BF2142 they eat up 1.5GB, so obviously 1GB ain't going to cut it and you end up with 30 seconds of micro-stutters as the map loads. Now stick in 2GB and the problem goes away.

But hey, you're the professional and I've only been building, programming and using computers for 25+ years!

{BHC}KingWarman88 · Feb 16, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Hey,

Yea, I went from my old comp, 756MHz, 128 RAM (lol) to my new one

2.8 GHz
512RAM
Radoen 256MB 1300x (I think it is)

and it's pretty good. I'm going to upgrade to 1GB of RAM for better peformance on games like BF2 and MTW2 and even GW,so good luck man

Dex · Feb 16, 2007, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azagoth

Now seen as you're the professional you should now that if you slide the textures to maximum on BF2/BF2142 they eat up 1.5GB, so obviously 1GB ain't going to cut it and you end up with 30 seconds of micro-stutters as the map loads. Now stick in 2GB and the problem goes away.

But hey, you're the professional and I've only been building, programming and using computers for 25+ years!

Absolutely! There are a handful of games out there (BF, Oblivion, etc.) that will utilize nearly 2GB of RAM. Guild Wars doesn't happen to be one of them, but they exist. Unfortunately, for games to use much more than that effectively you're going to need Vista. Windows XP swaps background stuff to the swap file whether you have free RAM for it or not, so bumping up to 4GB under XP is overkill.

Bottom line is that XP is happiest with 1GB - 3GB of RAM. Less than 1GB is hurting performance. Pretty much everyone running XP is best off to have 1GB, with hardcore gamers and power users running 2GB - 3GB.

{BHC}KingWarman88 · Feb 16, 2007, 08:40 PM // 20:40

Hey,

Jesus Chirst,They go up to 3-4GB of RAM? I think to get up to speed here with my tech stuff..

Kuldebar Valiturus · Feb 16, 2007, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashleigh McMahon

Hey. A few hours away from getting my pc back. Using an old one atm.

Looking forward.

Need one question answered though:

Will 1gb cure my 'freeze on load' problems + long load times?

Thanks
Ashleigh

It should because adding system memory to a system that had insufficient memory is the most common way to improve application load times, etc.

But, as you have seen in the discussion so far, there can be other factors: malware, disk fragmentation, Windows XP bloat, etc.

If you haven't already, I'd advise you do a -image for your Guild Wars install because that also significantly reduces load times/delays in the game. <keep in mind the Canthan Festival has slowed things down a bit as well>

A qualified, "yes" is the answer to your question, though.

Ashleigh McMahon · Feb 16, 2007, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Please instruct me on how to perform this 'image' process?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuldebar Valiturus

It should because adding system memory to a system that had insufficient memory is the most common way to improve application load times, etc.

But, as you have seen in the discussion so far, there can be other factors: malware, disk fragmentation, Windows XP bloat, etc.

If you haven't already, I'd advise you do a -image for your Guild Wars install because that also significantly reduces load times/delays in the game. <keep in mind the Canthan Festival has slowed things down a bit as well>

A qualified, "yes" is the answer to your question, though.

llsektorll · Feb 16, 2007, 09:39 PM // 21:39

right click your guild wars shortcut then click properties
in the target field it should read something like this (it may change depending on where you installed guild wars)
Target: "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\GW.exe"

all you have to do is change to target to this

Target: "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\GW.exe" -image

there is a thread with all the commands available in a guru thread check it out ... i have auto login enabled as well

Ashleigh McMahon · Feb 16, 2007, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Ok and what does this actually do?

Thanks

Dex · Feb 16, 2007, 10:14 PM // 22:14

It's going to download all of the game data to your gw.dat so that it doesn't have to download data from the server between areas....until the next major update...

llsektorll · Feb 16, 2007, 10:39 PM // 22:39

it extracts all the compressed files that you download when you download updates. The compressed files take time to decompress as you load the new zone. Thats why you get that "extracting" bar as a you load the map. To eliminate this guild wars has this -image command which extracts all the files at the same time (it does take some time up to an hour sometimes). Once this is done your cpu will not have to work overtime to extract and can instead just focus on loading the map and gpu can render all your areas.

Dex · Feb 16, 2007, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by llsektorll

it extracts all the compressed files that you download when you download updates. The compressed files take time to decompress as you load the new zone. Thats why you get that "extracting" bar as a you load the map. To eliminate this guild wars has this -image command which extracts all the files at the same time (it does take some time up to an hour sometimes). Once this is done your cpu will not have to work overtime to extract and can instead just focus on loading the map and gpu can render all your areas.

It downloads the updated areas and then extracts the data. When you get an update when you first start Guild Wars you're just getting the game engine updates. Updates relevant to specific areas download when you enter the area. The "-image" command-line switch downloads and extracts all of the current game data and essentially builds you a full, extracted, ready-to-use gw.dat that doesn't require any downloading or file processing in-game.

erfweiss · Feb 17, 2007, 08:20 AM // 08:20

One statement about adding more RAM: before you even hop in the car to the store to buy it, check out the motherboard specifications of your machine. It is possible your machine can't handle that RAM, especially if it's an older machine.

For example, I have a 2600+ Athlon. However, based on the motherboard that I picked up, it only had a 1GB max memory that it could handle (running two 512 mb chips). I could easily put 2GB in there (two 1 gb chips), but the motherboard couldn't handle it, and it would be money out the window.

Just keep this in mind when buying RAM for an upgrade.

Ashleigh McMahon · Feb 17, 2007, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Cheers. Any risks I can run if I perform this 'Image' process? Like corrupted files ect?

Thanks