Guild Wars stuttering randomly?

Randomly, although I suppose at least once every minute, the game will stutter for a moment, like it's loading, but just for about a second. It's really annoying and has happened in pvp battles. Is it just the game having problems with lag?

I have a 5mbit cable line, radeon x800 pro 256mb video card, and sound blaster audigy 2 zs gamer sound card... 1gig of system ram.

Anyone have this problem or know why it happens? Thanks guys.

I didn't notice that. I have a AMD64 3000+ (2gig), 1gig ram and a 6600GT and everything is running smoothly. Only thing I noticed when I set the AA at 8x after 2 hours or so the ground getting all white.. I just changed the setting from 8x to 4x and everything is back to normal. Otherwise, everything is fine.

sometimes the game will lag up for everyone when instaling new content

Well, no matter what resolution or graphical or audio setting I set it to, it always has that little stutter at least once every 30 seconds. It only happens for a second or less, but it's REALLY f'ing annoying and I can't get it to stop.

Are you still having the problems? Anet servers have been pretty bogged down the last couple of days. I've noticed steady improvement though so hopefully they'll have it back up to BWE level soon enough.

Also, if you noticed a little tiny downloading content icon in the top right of your screen you will probably stutter some unless you have a blazing fast computer.

Finally someone who is having the same problem with Guild Wars as I am!

I have posted on other forums looking for an answer to this problem.

So to save some time...a repost of my other post:

I am running a decent computer.

P4 2.6, 500mhz FSB
1gig pc2100 ram
GeForce 5900

I also play EQ2 and it actually runs pretty smooth.

So I figured GW would run even smoother....which it DOES (I sit at about 30-60 fps on max settings and 4x AA), except for ONE thing!

About every 10-30 seconds the game stutters briefly. Its not a continuous stutter. Just a brief pause.

It does this stuttering/pause thing under 3 different circumstances:

1. When I am running in the wild (about every 30-60 seconds on a continuous run).

2. Right when I kill something, just as it is dying and dropping whatever loot it has on it (about every 7-10 mobs).

3. And when I click on an npc, right before its text/store window pops up (about every 5 nps).

Again, game runs VERY smooth other than that. And it doesnt stutter/pause EVERY time under the previously mentioned circumstances, very random infact. I get no pausing at all while standing still even in the busiest of towns.

I keep my computer VERY clean. Run Adaware every single day. Defragment every single day. No virus'. And again, games like EQ2 (which if anyone has played, knows it takes a decent computer to run) run very well with no stuttering at all.

I am just wondering if this is just normal and something EVERYONE gets? Seems the pausing is associated with loading data (opening an npc window, loading graphics as I am running, loading the loot a mob drops, etc).
***** Link to the original thread *****


Is this also the problem you are seeing? People think I am describing stuttering..which it isnt! Its just a half second pause then the game runs perfectly smooth again.

Maybe this is normal and it is just pausing briefly while it is loading landscape as I am running?

i cant help you, this is my problem as well...ive posted on other forums, opened a support ticket and no responses...

Not quite sure if this is the problem, but some motherboards have problems with Fast Write. Try turning this off and try it again? If not, then i have no clue.

Already tried turning Fast Writes off....no luck

I'm rubberbanding as well. It happens is some games and it's client-based, not your computer. Horizons went through a spell where it was real bad. A couple of other games I beta'd had a lot of rubber-banding till the devs got it tweaked right.

I have the exaxt same problem.

Try disabling your Anti-virus software while GW is running and see if the pause still occurs. It's possible that when you need to load some new info in from the GW.dat file, your virus scanner is hitting it first causing the pause.

I haven't tested this theory, but it sounds plausible.

Possible causes:

a) Overheating, vidcard is throttling (making some pauses to bring core temperature down before continuing drawing again, atleast on newer generation NVidia cards, not sure on newer ATi cards, how they behave when overheating)

b) Fast Writes with some vidcard-motherboard combos.

c) Drivers. (Apparently anything ABOVE 5.4 Catalyst for ATi doesn't work right with GW, don't know about NVidia driver incompatibilities with GW, haven't encountered any)

Thanks for your suggestions.

Overheating doesn't seem to be an issue. My card runs at around 63C under full load, which I've been told is quite good for the Radeon X800 series. And as always, I'll bring in the argument that other games cause no such problems.

I've tested Guild Wars on the 5.4, 5.12 and 6.1 catalyst drivers without significant differences in perfomance and without apparent results in attempting to cure this bug.

Disabling Fast Writes and even Write Combining has no apparent results either.

Also, the problem seems to occur on my laptop as well (which is running a mobile Radeon X700). I would say it's either a problem with Radeon cards in general, or a slowdown in the game (as in: the game loading up data), which most people simply don't seem to notice.

I also think you might be able to quite easily reproduce the tiny stutter we get by opening your inventory screen while autorunning. This should cause a very brief pause in the game, comparable to the "bug". This also leads me to believe that the problem is not related to the video card but to the way the game accesses its resources from memory.

Are you sure you don't have a program like Norton Antivirus downloading updates in the background?

There is a new official sound driver (today I think) for several audigy cards you may want to check out. I would go here: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/su.asp

There was also a post about someone had trouble with ATI drivers (newer) and memory leaking but I don't remember the thread or what card and what driver they had to role back too.

Absolutely positive. I'm a purist when it comes to this.

Running in the background are nothing but the most essential Windows services and a Logitech mousedriver (I tried disabling it, but no such luck in ridding me of the issue).

Is this durning the opening or during a music change (DirectSong changing music if you have DirectSong installed?)

Thanks for the heads-up. I installed the update (I've got an Audigy 2 ZS), but unfortunately no change in-game.

It's definitely not an issue related to a single driver. Also, I wouldn't call it a memory leak, since the bug is present at all times and the game runs perfectly otherwise. It's really more of an annoyance than anything else.

I don't have DirectSong installed.

Basically it happens at the following times (to quote Xagoth's previous post):

So it doesn't really happen at random. It just randomly happens IF one of those things are happening.

I've had this problem for ages, but I just blamed my rather naff PC set up. As it is only a minor irritation, and everything else is running find on my box I've decided not to worry about it. Still, might be nice if I look into it properly someday...