Curse

Domino · Jan 07, 2011, 06:44 PM // 18:44

I'm not sure really where to post this, hopefully there is at least one more Alienware M11x user out there (or someone with a comparable setup) that can maybe shed some insight on this problem with Guild Wars.

So long story short, this christmas I got my hands on an Alienware m11x and for the most part it's been a very pleasant experience. So I download Guild Wars, fire it up, and I'm ready to rock and roll.

Now my previous laptop ran Guild Wars at max settings w/ 4x AA just fine with no issues whatsoever... and I'll be honest... I was feeling rowdy this afternoon and decided to crank all the settings up. Everything maxed out, 4x AA, the whole works.

So Guild Wars is running like a champ. I'm killing stuff in Pre-Searing, admiring the awesome visuals when suddenly my game freezes. The music keeps playing in the background, no stuttering or anything like that, just freezes in place. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this... perhaps it was a fluke? Did I lose internet connectivity?

Turns out Guild Wars froze for me every time, right about the 5 minute mark... like clockwork. No matter what I was doing, where I was, etc... the game would freeze. The only way to fix it was to Ctrl + Alt Delete and try to force close GW.exe .... and of course Windows isn't able to close it... so the only answer was a total reboot.

So my first thought was... maybe Steam is interfering with Guild Wars. I had had trouble with the Steam in-game and Guild Wars in the past. (Never anything like freezing, but it was worth a shot) - So I turn off Steam completely and try Guild Wars again. No such luck. Froze at the 5 minute mark.

So after closing just about every program I could find, turning all the settings to "Low" and still having Guild Wars freeze, I tried running Guild Wars using the Intel Graphics accelerator (the secondary GPU in my Alienware) and what do you know... the game ran for an hour with no problems.

It's my graphics card... my nVidia graphics card is (for whatever reason) causing Guild Wars to freeze. I'm not sure why... and upgrading from my stock nvidia drivers that came from the laptop, to the newer 260.99 drivers does not seem to fix the issue. In fact, while the 260.99 nvidia drivers give a little better performance in some games, there seems to be some kind of glitch in them that makes antialiasing not work under any circumstances.

So I guess my question is.... does anyone know if nVidia or ArenaNet knows why this is happening? Surely I'm not the only one with a optimus dual GPU laptop that's having issues. This is quite disappointing because one of the reasons I was looking forward to this ultra slim notebook was to play Guild Wars on the go... and unless they get this driver thing sorted out, I don't see that happening.

Can anyone help me out here?

jeri blade · Jan 07, 2011, 08:06 PM // 20:06

hi dont know if this will help but am on my second alienware laptop now started with a m11 had to have them out to put new gpu in them work great then got a m17 and same prob gpu again they came out replaced it work great again dont know why 2 laptop same prob mit be that try emailing them see what they say

Elder III · Jan 07, 2011, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Check your temperatures, use GPUZ or a similar program to log the temperatures so that you can go back and see what you were hitting at the 5 mon mark. Also, test it out with a couple other games and see if it does the same thing, preferably at least one of the other games would be something more graphically demanding than GW.

diabiosx · Jan 07, 2011, 09:48 PM // 21:48

forum.notebookreview.com/alienware. This is a classic case of optimus glitches, it happens to almost every1's R2 in every game. But heres the kicker, most game developers has actually fixed their games to address optimus and im pretty sure GW(being 6years old and quickly running out of money with GW2 development) doesnt have time to address these types of issue to a small audience of R2 users. My suggestion: get your money back and downgrade to m11xR1.

hahahi20 · Jan 08, 2011, 10:39 AM // 10:39

i have one tip for your force close, open taks management (you call it like that in english?) and don't go for the tab applications but for processes, there is the whole list of applications running on your computer.
select GW.exe, or what it is called and then click end proces, then there comes some kind of menu with are you sure?, click yes, the computer will now close the application with no need to reboot

UNOXani · Jan 08, 2011, 11:29 AM // 11:29

Ahhh someone else who got lucky with an M11X for xmas

Also got one, gave up trying to convince the missus why it was better than my Samsung NC10 netbook (Yes netbook, to her they look the same, and why would I want ANOTHER laptop... blah!), until she saw the colour changing keyboard, now all of a sudden its worth the cost... I will never understand!

Anyways on topic, ive clocked about 10 hours of GW on it, no problems at all so far. Mostly playing New Vegas though, mostly due to the fact when im on the move I have no or very limited net access

I think mine's an r1 though, I just went for the Dual core version (Not I5), maybe my tightness paid off lol. (Optimus is the auto switching chipset right? Mines not got that I have to do Function F5 or whatever it is, without looking at it I cant remember).

Domino · Jan 11, 2011, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Just an update for you all, yes I'm still having this issue with some of my games. I'm almost 99.9999999% sure that this freezing issue is an Nvidia Optimus issue. The 260.99 drivers are a little better... (I'm currently using the beta 266.3something drivers) but I'm still getting freezing on some of my games.

This is really kinda disappointing. I love my M11x because it's so portable and awesome to play games on, but it seems currently crippled right now until they find a way to fix this Optimus thing.

anyway, anyone else out there with an m11x R2... I feel your pain right now. Believe me I do.