Curse

USMCDvlDog · Apr 08, 2006, 01:37 AM // 01:37

For some reason when I'm in-game my mouse pointer flickers on and off so I can barely see the thing when I'm playing. How in the hell do I fix this?

Blade Rez · Apr 08, 2006, 02:01 AM // 02:01

What is your mouse?

USMCDvlDog · Apr 08, 2006, 02:18 AM // 02:18

I have a dell laser mouse....if that's what you're asking. It's not like this in any other game though.

aeroclown · Apr 08, 2006, 02:57 AM // 02:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by USMCDvlDog

I have a dell laser mouse....if that's what you're asking. It's not like this in any other game though.

Had a similar problem except my pointer would disappear completely. I dumped the mouse bought a new one and the problem has never resurfaced. So since anet had no idea, it is either a software conflict or a hardware failure, which in this case is not all that helpful. All I can tell you is that a new mouse worked for me.

Blade Rez · Apr 08, 2006, 03:00 AM // 03:00

Well you could do that.... or find some drivers for your mouse

Wrath Of Dragons · Apr 08, 2006, 03:06 AM // 03:06

if your mouse came with an install cd, but you didnt put it in, try that. or if you have installed the mouse, try uninstalling it and just using it as "plug-n-play"

Ghozer · Apr 08, 2006, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Whats your GFX Card and drivers??? a flickering pointer is often caused by your GFX card not supporting hardware cursor... so its all software drawn, which causes it to flicker...

Kalki · Apr 08, 2006, 01:36 PM // 13:36

I've been having the same exact problems with my mouse over the past couple days while playing Guild Wars.

I have an Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 USB.

The first night it happened I played for about 4 hours, and it got worse throughout the night. It would start out where every minute for 1-3 seconds the mouse would stop functioning. My laser light would even go off when it should've been on. Eventually another problem creeped up where I would start running forward without giving any command to move forward (I have auto-run mapped to mouse button 4). Eventually my mouse just stopped working completely and I had to finish the mission with just my keyboard.

So I Alt-F4 to my desktop and the mouse still isn't working. I restart my computer, and the mouse isn't even lighting up through start up, and doesn't function at all. I unplug it from the PS/2 port and try USB without the adapter. It still doesn't work at all. I try my old optical mouse in both ports. That doesn't work either. At this point I'm wondering if there's a hardware failure, but thinking it's doubtful cause my other PS/2 port with my keyboard is still functioning and my other USB port with speakers plugged into them is still working as well.

After ruling hardware problems out, I start thinking that maybe I have a corrupt system file or maybe a virus. This problem is becoming too much of a pain to try fixing without use of my mouse. So I reformat my hard drive and reinstall my operating system. Anyway, I hadn't formatted in a year, and felt I was due. Throughout the installation of Win98 (which I have to install first before XP upgrade) I still don't have use of my mouse. At this point I'm just resolved to the fact my computer is horribly broken, and either needing to be replaced, or needing a ton of work to fix. After the installation of Win98 and during the restart I access my bios setup by hiting the Delete key. While on this screen I test my mouse and it's working again (yay!), and continues to work without a flaw for the rest of the day while I finished reinstalling until I played Guild Wars again today.

Before I played Guild Wars today I installed DirectX 9.0c and the latest Nvidia drivers. I have a Nvidia Ti 4200 128 MB video card. I didn't install mouse drivers and usually use the ones that come with XP. It is a Microsoft mouse afterall. I played Guild Wars for exactly 2 hours (I know this cause that new "You've been playing for 2 hours" message came up), and my mouse completely dies on me. No warning signs this time. No flickering like before. But it's dead just like it was before with the laser being off again. So I finish up my quest just using my keyboard, alt-F4 out the game, and just like before my mouse isn't even working on my desktop. At this point of my story I'm not in the mood to troubleshoot or reinstall again so I turn my computer off, go have a cup of tea, and throw a ball to my dog for an hour. After I'm calmed about the ordeal, I power my computer back up, and to my delighted suprise my mouse is working again. I start browsing forums, come across this post, and now that I'm seeing other people have similar problems I'm thinking the latest Guild Wars update might be the cause.

Some additional notes:
- I have not done a virus scan yet with my new system install.
- Approximately 4 days ago I changed from playing Guild Wars in 1024x768 resolution to 1280x1024 resolution. When my mouse first started losing power I thought maybe it was just lag, and my computer couldn't handle this resolution. I haven't tested 1024x768 resolution for any length of time cause I'd have to resize my customized interface.
- I remember a post on April 1st of someone saying he was losing control of his character and it didn't seem like lag. He thought it was a GM.
- On April 1st a public voice server I was using for Guild Wars at gw-vent.com was hacked. I just thought it was a horrible joke at the time. Who knows who got my IP address on that day.
- A rank 17 guild was recently hacked when someone got the password of an officer from hacking the guilds phpBB forum.

I'll post more in this thread later after I get more info or resolve this. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

DutchGun · Apr 09, 2006, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Generally speaking, if things start acting funny after a period of time... or, if you let your computer rest for a while and then things 'magically' start working again... we're likely dealing with overheating issues. Some component in your system may be overheating (gw is fairly demanding on both CPU and GPU), and thus causing this problem to get worse over time.

I'd check out your vid card and CPU for excess heat buildup. Is your case dusty? Dust is a magnificent insulator, and can cause problems in your system if there's a nice warm blanket coating everything. Or maybe there's a fan that stopped spinning or is running too slowly? If your components are too hot to touch (careful), then this is a very likely culprit.

Edit: just to make sure it's not dx9 causing the problem, see if you can make the problem go away by adding -dx8 to the command line in the shortcut.