Curse

zk_ · Dec 15, 2011, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Does anyone know if guild wars could work with an external usb-based video card that's hooked up to a separate monitor?

JEVillen · Dec 15, 2011, 02:50 PM // 14:50

EDIT: Maybe if you got a card like this one that uses your existing GPU to drive the video it may work: http://www.evga.com/uvplus/
I'm a little wary about such uncommon implementations because they may be buggy.
Can I have the model of your computer's current video card / IGP?

Am I to assume you want to play with multiple accounts on 2 monitors? If so, you'll want a real video card to push the second GW onto the other monitor. Even the cheapest DirectX 10 capable card can run GW these days given that it's an old game.
If you're wanting to have GW on one monitor and something that isn't 3D (e.g. web browser) on the other monitor, then put the GW on your primary monitor.

Quaker · Dec 15, 2011, 04:07 PM // 16:07

From what I've seen/read, external USB video processors are not generally good for gaming. Generally speaking, given the power requirements and cooling that would be needed for any serious performance, the external chips are very limited, low-end GPUs.

The systems that use your internal GPU to send data through USB involve a lot of encoding/compression and decoding/expanding and also suffer a large performance hit.

At this time, external GPUs are mostly of benefit only to those who want to spread productivity apps over several monitors, but only have a laptop or a GPU that doesn't support multiple monitors.

On the other hand, GW could "work" with an external unit (maybe), in the sense that it wouldn't crash, but it would be a slide-show and be basically un-playable in a normal sense. It could be useful for transferring things between accounts or selling stuff in Kamadan and other less intensive tasks, though.

Edit - if you do find an external unit that sounds promising, be sure to read reviews.

zk_ · Dec 16, 2011, 02:24 AM // 02:24

JEVillen:
Actually I have an all-in-one kind of desktop, and the GPU it came with can't be modified, like most laptops. It runs most of guild wars at an acceptable level, but certain areas crash it with the message "Guild Wars has encountered an unrecoverable graphics driver error and must terminate", with a link to here. But it seems like that page isn't really applicable to me, since I don't have an ATI or NVIDIA card.
The display adapter says it's an Intel G33/G31 Express Chipset Family. Whatever that means. I'm afraid I'm not very tech-savvy.

Quaker:
hrm, sounds like this isn't what I'm looking for then.

Thanks for the replies.

Quaker · Dec 16, 2011, 04:22 PM // 16:22

The Intel G33 is what's known as integrated graphics - basically, the graphics functions are 'integrated' into the motherboard chipset. There is no separate graphics chip or card.
And, yes, it basically sucks for gaming.

KZaske · Dec 26, 2011, 07:37 AM // 07:37

zk, what model of computer is it. Some AIOs have a PCI maybe even a PCIe slot that you could install a video card into, which would be faster than a G33.
If we knew what model we could look up the specs and give you a better reply.

zk_ · Jan 04, 2012, 01:13 AM // 01:13

KZaske:
Dell, XPS One seems to be what I've got.