Curse

Eldin · Jun 10, 2006, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Pardons if this has been answered. The search engine is of no use nowadays.

I have not been on Guild Wars since late April, and have noticed an increased amount of game instability for me. I have not changed my system specs in any way since last time.

Often, usually after a couple of hours of nonstop playing, my game would freeze in this fashion:
1) The screen would get a tad darker.
2) The graphics would freeze, though I could still hear the sounds of the game, as if it was still running.
3) Attempting to window, minimize, or close the game by using any of the interface buttons in the top right corner does, indeed, return me to my desktop. However, Guild Wars still stays on my screen. My cursor reverts to normal, and I can tell I'm moving my mouse over desktop icons and buttons. Still, the game screen will not vanish. Neither alt+f4 nor ctrl+alt+delete do anything to fix this problem. The only way I know so far to fix this, is to restart my computer.

I run Guild Wars with all graphic settings maxxed out, except reflections on default, and AA on 2x. (I don't have factions yet, though I plan to, soon)

Intel Pentium 4 (2.19Ghz)
1GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 5500 FX (AGP)

Let me know if you need any other specs. I sent this to NC support yesterday, but so far I only got a "we will forward this to our Tech Support Team, who will help you from there" response so far.

ducktape · Jun 11, 2006, 07:13 PM // 19:13

I'm guessing you might be overheating since it happens after you play for an extended amount of time. Do you have any temperature monitoring utilities for your motherboard or video card? If so, check those and make sure they're not hot. If you have no temperature monitoring, take the side off of your case and have a fan blow into your computer while you play and see if that makes the game stop locking up.

You could also be having a problem with the sound, it seems to make the game flip out with no warning or have bad performance. Try turning the sound quality slider in GW down to the halfway mark, or lower (lowest or 1/4 marker still sound fine) and see if that changes it. You should also grab the new directx that came out on friday, and check for updates to your sound drivers.

You could also try the newest nvidia drivers for your video card and see if that takes care of it, the sound and overheating are more likely to be the problem though. Post back if none of those work and we'll see what else we can do to help you.