Updates

I guess thought this was ironic, Guild Wars new system that means 'There is no down time when a update is released. Yet when they do update it becomes unplayable till the update is finished. For a small update this is fine, but please uses some sense.
For the summer update take the servers off line and update. Otherwise those with slower internet connections will really suffer and likely cause pain for other players in groups.

Thats unless you are already updateing it, as the game was laggy as hell for me 15mins ago, and my system is on a 1mb adsl, 3ghz p4 with 1g ddr, ati xt800xt 256mb graphics. It sould never lagg.

ooohh... nasty.
i have no idea what any of those numbers mean but i presume you do.
i must admit that this update is likely to be rather large and there will be a lot of people running into wall for no reason in all major cities.
if they took the severs off-line there would probably be more complaints than about the lag.
pesonally the only times i ever really encounter bad lag are when Norton decides to have a random spot check for viruses.

GIVE ME YOUR COMPUTER!!!!! AND YOUR CONNECTION!!!!....then i'll solve your problems with lag.....

Lag happens, it's not always ANets or your computers fault. Remember, the internet is a series of linked computers, if computer D in a series of You-A-B-C-D-E-F-ANet is running slow, etc, you're gonna feel lag.

I hear ya on the Norton Virus scan. Every Saturday night at 7pm my Norton is set to scan. I ALWAYS forget about this and I haven't changed it yet. (Silly ME) I am right in the middle of healing the group and *BING* my screen disapears. I also ALWAYS run my Norton Internet Security while playing this game. It doesnt seem to slow down anything and always askes me if I want to allow the updates. I like to be asked. I know some people shut down all that stuff...but not me. I like feeling I have that little extra to protect me.

As for LAG mine is few and far between. When it happens to me it is usually happening to many others too. I'll just tell the group to stop. Let the LAG "Spell" pass then go on and finish what we were doing. When you have had most of your Adult computer life with Dial-Up and had to deal with that slowness...a Little LAG from this Game is not all that bad.

Been playing GW since release.

- turn off all virus checks
- turn off all spyware checks
- turn off crap listeners such as: Quicktime, Real Player, AIM sign-in, BigFix, etc...
- turn off un-needed services: SQL Server, etc...

I have zero spyware, adware, virus', hackware, hijackers, etc... on my machine, BUT everything runs smoother and I have more memory free for the game. Right now the machine gets rebooted after any gaming (which will turn everything back on for non-online gaming computer usage).


System:
AMD Athlon 64 (2.8)
1GB Ram
1600 MHz front-side bus
1.5 MB L2 cache
DSL 256k connection on a router sharing with 2 54Mb/s wireless gamers
[only bottleneck] - 64 MB ATI Video (9550)
Laptop system (15.4" - 1200x800)


PS> for the record - I do not use AIM, one of the biggest transporters of spyware (next to Kazaa-type software) there is. BUt if you do - turn off completely before logging into GW.

You more than likely WILL NOT download the entire update at once. GW works so that you only download the files when you need them. So in essence (unless they decide to do it another way) you will only download the specific files when you enter the two new areas. The same thing goes with the "new content." You only download things on a need-to-have basis. Granted I could be wrong seeing as I do not work for A.net, but I would assume it would be the same as any other update, just bigger.

I disagree with the first two. You should never shut down anti-virus and anti-spyware, that's what it is there for. You should be able to run anything fine with those type of services running. Just don't be doing any scans.

The third one should rarely happen as it is.

I've run AIM while playing Guild Wars, even had GW windowed to chat in AIM, hehe. AIM has the Wild Tangent spyware that can be easily removed.

No, when there is a major update there is often 50MB or more to download before you hit the log-in screen.
For broadband users, this may take a few minutes, but for Dialup users it can take an hour or two. It happened to me before, when I was still on dialup.

They update the server whilest you are playing thats what causes the lag, NOT when you update your version.
Yes you may DL parts individually when the version thats running on your home PC needs them.
So alas Omega Complex whilest you are correct about how the home user updates, you are wrong about the server when that updates, the part before it says restart GW as a new version is available, thats when the lag hits.

I'm not an expert on updates on GW servers :P...Thanks for the correction Avenger.

Yeah when Norton pops up and minimises GW I just want to shoot it.

I have a feeling only the required files will be downloaded when you start, then when you enter the new areas it will download the new content in that area.

Wow... umm, interesting advice update that pretty much says "turn everything off".

I run with MSN, Steam, AV, Outlook, usually Winamp for some music... and who knows how many other backgrounds services all ON. And the only lag I suffer is the occasional 'warp' where I end up somewhere 5 meters away from where I was.

This is on either one of my systems, the slower of the two being P4 2.4. Guess I just get lucky. The day I turn off all my protection services, or luxuries like music for that matter, will be the same day I spam to everyone in the world "Oh please hack me!!".

One logic point was up there, the internet is a series of devices connecting two points together. Issues anywhere along the path are more likely to cause lag than that of anything running locally on your system (unless of course its that low end).

Well I always shut off pre-loaded CRAP. Winamp,messenger,yahoo,etc. I dont see the need to have them pre-loaded in the first place. They do not take that long to load when you need them.

Any protection is alwasy on. However, norton is one of the biggest memory HOGS of them all. *sigh*

I don't think they should crash the servers just becuase of the 50-500 people with a 28k modem >.>

All the downloads I have ever gotten were finished in less than 10 seconds and I have Sprint DSL which is made for sending data, not receiving it O.o

I have never had a problem with lag, either server-side or client-side.

I run:

[PROC] AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 4800+ (939pin, 2000MHz FSB, .09 micron)
[RAM] 4x 2048MB Dual Channel 533MHz ECC Registered PC4200 DD2 RAM (8GB Total)
[HD] 2x Western Digital Raptor 74GB Serial ATA-150 (10K RPM, 8MB Cache, 5.2ms seek)
[HD] 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB Serial ATA-150 (7.2K RPM, 8MB Cache, <7.9ms seek)
[VID] nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX OC (25MB DDR3, PCI-E, SLI, Dual DVI)
[SND] Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
[MONI] IBM ThinkVision L200p LCD (20.1")
[KEYPAD] X-Keys Desktop USB 20 Key Programmable Keypad
[INET] Cable Internet (8192KBs down/2048KBs up)

Never had a problem before.

With a setup like that, yep I couldn't imagine much of a problem with anything. Little overkill for well... any... game in existance. But if I ever won the lottery I'd do the same thing.

I'm not sure if something faster than T3 can still be classified as Cable...

I do play a lot of Guild Wars, but I recieve grants from the University (Old Dominion University) to keep my computer up to date for research purposes (computer programming) as well as 3D model design (3dsmax, lightwave, etc). So for me, it's not only free, but necessary to do my work in a timely manner. (The faster I do my work, the more GW I play.)

You can get much faster than a T3 over cable. Most cable ISPs cap your bandwidth. I know, I work for a telecommunications company [Since I'm posting from work, I'll keep my job position/company anonymous].

I run Guild Wars with winamp, photoshop, opera, steam, AIM and generally a vent and teamspeak client open as well as an FTP Server and a Port Tunneler at all times...I never experience any lag other than the 'warp' lag that Teklord described.

p.s. antivirus software is for noobs

Zehly: that system is a bit overkill even for an animator/modeller...but if you're not the one paying for it more power to ya