Guild Wars, a complete resource hog.

-edit- I did read some of this (http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10014590) thread. However, from the amount I read, it seemed no viable solution was ever found. Perhaps more people experiencing the problem will help expedite a solution or at least find some common ground between those of us experiencing it, or maybe even a cause. Wishful thinking? Hope not.

You know, at one point GW didn't suck up all my PC's resources, but lately this is not so.

Graphic Settings: Absolute Lowest

I have 2 PCs, one of them is a slightly modded eMachines T3085 running an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Processor (2.17 GHz), 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce 4 MX video card. The other is a Dell, 3.1 GHz with 1.5 gigs of RAM. Sadly, the eMachine runs it better than the Dell, which is odd considering the huge difference between the two. You'd think the Dell would run it better.

My problem is, that every time I open up Guild Wars it completely sucks up all my RAM and sends Processor usage up to 100%. It's MUCH worse on the 3GHz Dell than my 2.17GHz eMachine.

I've noticed it is even more laggy in Canthan areas, like Kaineng Center. I can understand lag being caused by a mass of people in the same area, but when I leave town to explore with a group of henchmen, it still lags extremely bad. I'm not talking 0.5 or 1 second lag either. Sometimes it's upward of 5 second lag.

I'm on an 8mb cable internet connection, so my connection to the server isn't the problem. This never USED to happen either. I've done nothing to either PC that'd make it happen, as I know how to properly maintain a PC and keep spyware and other malicious programs off of it.

The way things are going, it almost seems that ArenaNet's "recommended" system requirements should be listed as the MINIMUM requirements, as my PCs BOTH exceed the recommended requirements and have a tough time keeping the game from lagging.

Frankly it's starting to piss me off. I can play games that are graphically superior to Guild Wars without a problem, both online and off, without any problems. I cannot understand why GW is such a resource hog now.

Any ideas, suggestions, advice on how I may be able to get it back to the good old, lag free days?

Add -pref to your guildwars shortcut,
"C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\gw.exe" -perf

See if it is low frame rate or bandwidth.

As for resources it's a game. There is a reason people can pay thousands for an dual CPU dual graphics dual channel ram. All games eat computers resources. If you want resources might want to upgrade.

Lag does NOT always equal bad game engine / taxing system resouces.
I run right aroudn 100% and it's not that choppy for me.

Problem is lag can be caused by the following:

• Software / Driver issues with client
• Any Connection between you, your ISP, the cloud, there ISP, there Sever.
• Possible issues with there server

Things they implemented recently, EAX 3D sound which unless your running a high end Creative labs card, it's going to take a cpu hit. If this is the case turn down the slider on Audio Quality down a notch, and disable / uncheck EAX.

Also see this: http://support.plaync.com/cgi-bin/pl...p?p_faqid=2744

I hope someone makes a sticky about 100% CPU usage not being an issue.

But sorry to hear you get lag refyused, I hope you can find a solution.

1) ANY software which does continuous calculations, e.g. any 3D game, will ALWAYS use 100% of your CPU unless there's other applications competing for CPU time. That GW uses 100% of your CPU doesn't mean you're maxed out, it means that GW runs as fast as it can on your CPU. If it used 75%, say, that'd mean some other program was using the 25%, and GW was only running at 75% of its top speed. In other words your 3GHz machine is running GW well, and you have a problem on the 2GHz machine where GW isn't running at 100%.

2) 512MB RAM is not a lot, to be brutally honest. A "clean" Windows XP alone will use about 250 of those MB. That'd still leave enough RAM for GW, but you likely have various accessory software running (useless CPU monitor temp meter crap like all motherboard vendors like to bundle these days, Viruskillers, firewall, MSMessenger etc etc) meaning the game at start probably have about 100MB RAM. That's not a lot, and *will* hurt your performance, and is part of the reason your slower machine runs GW better (on that machine GW has over a gig of ram to kick about in!).

Next you've got a Geforce 4MX. You don't say WHICH Geforce4MX, but that whole line of cards are scaled-down cost-reduced budget cards with performance ranging from "absolute rock-bottom crap not suitable for anything but MS Office" (the Geforce4MX420, which manages to be slower than a Geforce *1* in 3D games) to "barely passable provided you don't care about graphics quality" (the Geforce4MX460).

In short, you've got a nice CPU, borderline amounts of RAM, and a graphics card which _at best_ is borderline acceptable.

But unless your gfx card is a geforce4mx420, you should STILL not see that horrendous lag you're describing.

My guess is that most of the lag is actually due to you having software on your computer which accesses the internet while you play. It could be fileshareing software, or a viruskiller doing updates, or a RSS feed to Internet Explorer, or internet radio, or maybe your machine is infected with a virus sending out spam, whatever - the point is that ANY application which accesses the net while you play will cause the type of lag you describe. It doesn't matter how fast your internet connection is either.

That's where I would start looking for the problem.

Then I'd upgrade the graphics card to *at least* a Geforce 6600GT or ATI Radeon 9800pro, and buy another 512MB RAM.

I understand that 100% isn't maxed out processor. But I think you were going on the assumption that it's always been like this.

To clarify, it has NEVER had this problem until a week or so ago. What's more is my 2.2 GHz machine runs it BETTER than my 3 GHz machine. The 3GHz machine has 1.5 gigs of RAM, a very nice video card, and shouldn't have any problems running GW. The only trouble the 2 GHz machine has is occasional lag in Cantha.

No, I don't have any background apps running. I may have bought a vendor-created machine but I know more than enough about computers to disable their pre-packaged crap that I'll never use. I also close useless backgroun operations using Task Manager to make as many resources available as possible.

Both computers can run games which are MUCH more graphically advanced than Guild wars without any lag, which is why I posted here. The Dell (3 GHz) is a gaming machine, the eMachine was (at the time) top of the line, and purchased for media stuff like video editing, 3D rendering, etc..

Pretty much everything you said is common sense and while I appreciate the help, (for the most part) isn't the problem I'm having.

I think I'm just going to reformat one of them and start clean again, see how that goes. Kind of tired of trying to fix all kinds of things that aren't broken or causing the problem, and there's enough clutter on it anyway, may as well.

Thanks for the input though, appreciate it.

Your 2Ghz machine is an AMD, and an easy way to compare the two accurately is this:

You have an Athlon 3000+, and another, non-AMD with 3.1 Ghz. The Athlon runs at about the equivalent of a single-core CPU at 3 Ghz. You can take the "3000" and make that "3 Ghz" as a fairly accurate comparison speed.

Oh, one more thing. You said your 3Ghz was a Dell? My suggestion: do not get a Dell for games. Not all of them have problems but a LOT do. Like mine. Artifacts everywhere even when I'm not even playing a game. Terrible lag too, especially in the Factions areas. Luckily, parts are coming within the week for me to build my own ^^.

One last thing. If you want a top-of-the-line processor, go with the Intel Core 2 Duo. They're the best on the market and for the first time in years, beat the latest AMD in tests.

OK. Then whatever software you installed one week ago is the culprit, even if it's something you wouldn't expect to be using the internet (like, say Adobe Acrobat, WinAmp, or Norton Antivirus - those call home all the time).

So it's the 2GHz machine who's running the Geforce4MX and has 512MB RAM? OK, I got it completely backwards, sorry.

Yes, but that only means that you can rule out graphics complexity as the cause of the lag, ie if you turn graphics detail to max you shouldn't get worse performance (try that, btw).

With 1.5GB RAM and a 3GHz CPU we can rule out RAM and CPU as cause of the lag also.

Which again brings us back to the internet connection, and that some app is accessing the net while you're playing.

Basically the only other option is that you've installed drivers (perhaps without knowing so, e.g. the hidden starforce drm drivers stealth-installed with some games are notorious for their ability to cause trouble) which are buggy or conflict with your old drivers.

Yeah, if that's an option it's probably the fastest way to fix it.

Appreciate the advice, but I haven't installed anything new.

However, since it is an option, I'm just going to reformat it and start new. May as well skip the grey area, and it only takes an hour or so, if that.

But no, I don't need - or want - to upgrade/have a "top of the line" machine. Mine functions just fine (the eMachine does). <rant>The Dell has been nothing but a headache since day one, and their tech support is even worse. They told me I couldn't get tech support unless I bought it from them for $40. $40 to get a PC THEY sent me broken, fixed, the way it SHOULD'VE been when I bought it?! </rant> I know how to build my own PC, but as a matter of cost I choose not to. The only game I play anymore is Guild Wars, I'm not an avid gamer who's concerned about the next HALO release, or whatever the popular game at the time is.

*shrugs*
I run GW on a 800MHz/256mbRAM comp with an ASUS9250 128mb video card; I have ADSL, but nowhere near 8mb inbound.

Yes, laggy in Cantha (esp. Kaineng and big fights), but at least I know why. Video quality set to low (textures to medium), shadows etc off, any and all other programs shut down. Of course, TS is out of the question. GW.exe runs at cca 98%, as usual.

So I guess the minimum holds. I figure with +2GHz/+512mb, suitable power supply and a clear internet conn everything should be peachy. Like the man said, try killing the background processes that might clog it up with unnecessary activity.

I hope you figure it out, gl.

EDIT: ah, yes, of course- also defrag, format, clean, wash the dishes - the basics

Hah, yeah I can't say I've never tried to run GW on a minimum spec computer. I successfully ran it on my old, 500MHz computer that only had 256mb of ran. Granted it was laggy, and took ages to load an area, it still ran on it.

I used that PC to help transfer stuff between accounts/run accounts, until it died. Now I have to use the trick to run two clients on one PC.

i refomated my computer when the lag started happening...now its gone =D

Excellent. When I format, probably Monday, maybe Sunday night, I'll let you all know if it helped =)

I started getting the same prob with the last build that was released, when I got to certain places, especially the fire islands, my fps drops to 1 and my bits/sec stays at 0. This has never happened to me before and my system specs are pretty decent. I run a Athlon64 3400 754 socket, 1gig ram, antec true control 2.0 550 watt ps, sapphire radeon x800 pro, asus k8n4-e deluxe mobo. I didnt mess with any settings on my pc or game. I can play any other game just fine Its gw that gives me probs like if I overclock my pc to a certain points, the amount of error 7's I get doubles or triples. I dont wanna have to resort to formatting the hdd.