Curse

pully2183 · May 27, 2005, 11:50 PM // 23:50

I can play guild wars fine in PvP mode but it keeps on crashing when I try to play the role playing game.

When it crashes it freezes for and then the screen goes all blocky (like you've put the resolution down to something stupidly low). I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL or ALT-TAB back into windows but then my pc runs extraordinarily slow until I restart it. Aside from the screen going blocky I don't get any error messages or a BSOD.

The game most often crashes when I am in populated places like cities. This obviously makes the first few missions nearly impossible since I have to restart every 5 mins. Also since I can't build up a RPG character I can't access many skills in PvP.

My Pc specs:
Windows XP SP2
AMD Athlon 64 3400
1 Gb RAM
200 GB HD
300 W PSU
ATI Radeon 9800 SE 128-bit,256 MB Graphics card. Successfully soft modded to open up the other 4 pixel pipelines.
Direct X 9
750 kb/s internet connection run through a lynksys dsl router.

My graphics card used to overheat and shut down (the monitor stopped getting a signal) when I used to play games on it but I reciently changed the GPU cooler to a Zalman VF700-CU and I'm no longer having this problem.

I can run 3dmark 2005 with no problems so I'm thinking it's not the graphics card. I'll try running prime 95 overnight to test my cpu and memory.

Frankly I'm at a bit of a loss as of what to do. I've scanned for viruses and adware and found nothing. Can anyone offer any possible solutions? Preferably not involving wiping my pc back to factory settings of messing about in the registry.

Thanks in advance.

Svenn · May 28, 2005, 01:48 AM // 01:48

I have no idea why PvP would be any different than PvE.

With the exception of the PSU (probably not the problem here), your system looks more than adequate, as long as you are certain that GPU temps are staying within a reasonable range.

You should consider putting in a ticket with GW Support, while you are testing the other things. There will be a delay of several days, most likely. They know things that we can't, like if PvE is more sensitive to latency than PvP. I haven't seen any mention of this type of problem in the last 3-4 weeks. The forum is difficult to search for short words like "PvE", "RPG" and "PvP", but you could try Google to possibly find similar problems that might have occurred during the beta.

termite · May 28, 2005, 01:53 AM // 01:53

It could be the low power supply. An AMD 64 would need atleast 380-450 with the stuff you got running in there. Also, the video card isn't running the way it was meant to be when you originally bought it, so that might also be a problem. Third suggestion (usually what many phone technicians would recommend) is a clean windows installation.

pully2183 · May 28, 2005, 02:28 AM // 02:28

I'm assuming it crashes in PvE as opposed to PvP since there are a lot more characters in a small area at a given time in PvE.

I've tried the video card with the normal drivers it makes no difference.

termite · May 28, 2005, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Try a better power supply and a non-overclocked/hacked-up video card.

pully2183 · May 28, 2005, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by pully2183

I've tried the video card with the normal drivers it makes no difference.

But when I tried the video card with the normal drivers and left my case open EUREKA! I played PvE for a couple of hours with no crashes. Obviously guild wars really cranks up the heat on the GPU. I think I'll leave my card overclocked for now, extra pixel pipelines be damned.