Odd freezing problem that's destroying my GW-life.

Hello hello.

Every time I play GW I have the same problem. Whether I PvE or PvP it always happens and it's destroying all the fun.

I play a minute or so, then the characters slow down. I cannot move, but I can change the camera angles and spin on the spot. A few seconds later it returns to normal, all moves I did whilst waiting are performed at lightning speed and the frame rate returns to normal. It NEVER happens in towns, nor when standing still with little action. On the other hand it ALWAYS seems to happen when I engage an enemy. In PvE it's okay since I can rely on my heroes and henchies, but in PvP (I prefer AB and Aspenwood) I NEVER (I'm not exaggerating here, NEVER) win any 1 on 1's thanks to everything freezing while my helpless character gets crushed.

I have a brand new Vista computer with Nvidia gfx card and updated drivers. I run GW windowed, but the problem persists in full screen too. I have reinstalled the client TWICE. Once where I downloaded everything and once with disks. I have -image'd, defragmented the drive AND gw.dat several times. I have also tried running in different resolutions, qualities and with/without sound.

The problem appears to only be on the new computer because my nearly 5 year old DELL runs it quite smoothly, but I cannot use that computer for normal playing for practical reasons.

Does anyone have the slightest clue what's going on? Could it be firewall related? I currently use the windows built in firewall, but can anyone echomend a better FW?

thank you very muchly in advance.

Sounds like you're experiencing severe lag! That should have nothing to do with your machine but will most probably be down to your internet connection or some routing problem between you and the GW servers.

When you experience it again note down the server IP address, found by hovering your mouse over the little green/amber/red dot (normally found at the bottom right of the screen), and then run a traceroute to that address and see if anything anomalous is present.

This is what I got, but it doesn't really make any sense to me as it's my first time

206.127.146.43 is from United States(US) in region North America

TraceRoute to 206.127.146.43 [206-127-146-43.plaync.com]
Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name
1 1 0 0 66.98.244.1 gphou-66-98-244-1.ev1servers.net
2 0 0 0 66.98.241.13 gphou-66-98-241-13.ev1servers.net
3 72 5 200 129.250.11.137 ge-1-11.r04.hstntx01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net
4 3 3 3 129.250.4.233 xe-1-3-0.r20.hstntx01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net
5 13 26 9 129.250.3.129 as-0.r20.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net
6 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
7 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
8 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
9 Timed out Timed out Timed out -

Trace aborted.

This looks highly suspect to me. When I read your issue it screams that its an internet lag problem. Were you using the same internet connection with your old computer?

Yes, I were. It's even the same model wireless card.

Try to update the drivers of your network card.
I know somebody who had the same problem and latest driver update fixed it.

It's probably Vista checking for new wireless connections every so often. I use a program called Vista Anti-Lag to stop it from doing so.

That may VERY well be it. Try as I might I cannot find a download site for it without getting 404. Anyone got a site?

It can be found on the creator's webpage - http://www.codecase.de/ You might need to translate it from German if you want to read the site; or just get the installer from the download page.
If you are connecting using a program that came with your wireless card, you may need to turn it off and just use the Vista one before running Vista Anti-Lag.

After a few days with VAL I'm sorry to say that the problem is still there. There's no change whatsoever. However, I notice that my signal i nowhere as strong as it used to be on my old computer. I got ca. 50% here now and I used to have 90%. How can I increase my signal strength? Moving closer to the router wont work and the old comp was just as far away anyway. the network-card has a small antenna with 360* movement.