Bad Lag? Try This. - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

Dwiggit

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Apr 2005

Heroes Unlimited (HaCK)

R/Mo

02 Sep 2006 at 01:27 - 41

There is an easy way to defrag such a large file such as gw.dat.
Just copy it to a different directory, delete the old file, and move the new one back to the guid wars folder.

The act of copying moves the file into a contiguous segment, as long as your hard drive has a large enough contiguous space available.

Dwig

Dwiggit

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Apr 2005

Heroes Unlimited (HaCK)

R/Mo

02 Sep 2006 at 01:38 - 42

Quote:

Originally Posted by mode06

hi, i was looking over this and mine was at 3000+ when i first started, but now i can't get it any lower than this:

does anyone have any ideas on how to get it any lower, seeing as you guys are getting amazingly low in comparison? it's going down very slowly and i've run it 4 times doing 2 defrags each time, because the first time i ran it, i did the defrag 5 times and it started going up =/

any help would be much appreciated =D

Mode, check your available free space on your hard drive. I'm guessing you are probably approaching 90% full.

Your hard drive probably doesn't have enough contiguous free space to reduce the size. By the fact that you had nearly 3000 fragments afterwards makes me think that your hard drive is both nearly full and utterly fragmented.

My suggestions:
1) First, try to free up some space on your drive. Empty browser cache, clean out the temp directory (Use Start-->Run and type "%temp%"), uninstall some unused programs, delete some mp3s, etc.
2) Then do a FULL defrag on the whole hard drive

I hope that helps!
Dwig

TreeDude

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2005

Buffalo, NY, USA

Dragon Storm

E/Mo

02 Sep 2006 at 03:25 - 43

Hmm... mine was very low in comparison to everyone else's. Went from 33 to 1. But that may be because I've been using the -image for a long time, and I regularly defrag using perfect disk.

Xenex Xclame

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Mar 2006

DPX

R/

02 Sep 2006 at 04:14 - 44

From 187 to 1 lol.Lets see if any difference is seen.

Mordakai

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Aug 2005

Kyhlo

W/

02 Sep 2006 at 04:34 - 45

Well, after much screwing around (not very computer savy, or smart). Took me three tries of getting "not recognized" before I realized I just needed to move the Contig folder under C: Documents and Settings ---> owner.

So, after getting it to finally work, wow 1442 frags/file.

I hope this solves my my problem, I've been lagging and sometime I just lock up and lose my connection (still have internet access, just not to GW).

If it continues, I'll contact GW support.

Hockster

Banned

Join Date: Jul 2005

02 Sep 2006 at 23:09 - 46

Mine was only 8 to begin with. Mind you, I use PerfectDisk from Raxco to defrag all dries on a weekly schedule. Best dam defrag app I've ever found.

http://www.raxco.com/

mode06

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2006

03 Sep 2006 at 01:54 - 47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dwiggit

Mode, check your available free space on your hard drive. I'm guessing you are probably approaching 90% full.

Your hard drive probably doesn't have enough contiguous free space to reduce the size. By the fact that you had nearly 3000 fragments afterwards makes me think that your hard drive is both nearly full and utterly fragmented.

My suggestions:
1) First, try to free up some space on your drive. Empty browser cache, clean out the temp directory (Use Start-->Run and type "%temp%"), uninstall some unused programs, delete some mp3s, etc.
2) Then do a FULL defrag on the whole hard drive

I hope that helps!
Dwig

heh, you've got it in one, i've only got 16gb left out of my 80gb capacity

too much music, i guess i should uninstall C&C the first decade, i never use it and that's 9gb

thanks for the help, i'll try it and see how i get on

Mr Toraan

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

Ohio

We Don't Do it on Purpose [pimp]

Mo/Me

03 Sep 2006 at 02:07 - 48

Ok I feel weird. I've been bad and haven't defragged regularly and my gw.dat was at 7 frags lol

mode06

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2006

03 Sep 2006 at 03:38 - 49

so I deleted a load of stuff, uninstalled a few things, freeing up about 12gb in all, moved one large folder to C:\, moved gw.dat to D:\ then ran it again and well...see for yourself!

it took an hour to complete, but hopefully it'll run much better!

again, thanks for the help!

KillerGuitar666

Academy Page

Join Date: Mar 2006

Eternal Sorrows

R/Me

03 Sep 2006 at 04:05 - 50

will this mess up your GW account?
what i mean is, will Anet think your trying to install an illegal program or whatever they are called?

Kruzing Low

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2006

03 Sep 2006 at 04:56 - 51

i hope not since i just did it too lol
1033 to 3
it isnt a big noticeable difference in performancebut im loading into ta/ra at about 22-24 seconds now compared to 12-16 seconds before

Kai Nui

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2005

Behind you with a knife

Celebrity Gangsters [FamE]

Me/

03 Sep 2006 at 06:44 - 52

A very easy and commonly unknown way to check lag is to press Shift+F10 in game.

onerabbit

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

Thanks to all the guru [mods]

03 Sep 2006 at 15:59 - 53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hockster

Mine was only 8 to begin with. Mind you, I use PerfectDisk from Raxco to defrag all dries on a weekly schedule. Best dam defrag app I've ever found.

http://www.raxco.com/

PerfectDisk FTW!
well, it cut my lag down, just got to get this thing working now :\

N8DOGG

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2005

here

Modified Soul Society [SOUL]

W/Mo

03 Sep 2006 at 18:15 - 54

Nice ...mine was only 7 to start no its down to 1

my second account was only 11 and that went to 1

I clean my computer almost every day, I try to keep it as clean as possible.

Avari Zi

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2005

04 Sep 2006 at 08:17 - 55

I highly recommend to everyone at least try the program Diskeeper. It works much better than the Windows' defrag tool. It defrags your hard drive(s) much more effectively. It does not skip over large files and with alittle extra knowlege you can even use it to defrag your paging file and place it closer to the beginning of your hard drive. On the downside this program is not free, but I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to get the best from their machine. I apologize ahead of time if anyone has already mentioned this program. ^^;

Jebus

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2006

Belgium

Legion of Sacred Light [LSL]

W/

04 Sep 2006 at 16:59 - 56

Look at mine ^.^.

Never defragged it before.

sky the unstopable

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2006

radicals agianst tyrants

R/Mo

05 Sep 2006 at 08:04 - 57

i was at one and i can remember defraging once since ive owned this laptop. however i know what my problem is. im on dial up! i wish someone would have told me what i was in for before i got addicted to this game.

Relambrien

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jan 2006

Delaware, USA

Error Seven Operators [Call]

W/

07 Sep 2006 at 02:20 - 58

I just used this on my new comp to get from 50 frags to 1. Still no lag fix. Connection's fine, comp's fine, everything is fine and still lag. Here are the specs.

Custom-built computer:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 Ghz (1066Mhz FSB)
Asus P5B Wifi/AP edition motherboard.
XFX Geforce 7900GT (PCIe x16) with Zalman VF900 cooling fan/heatsink
2x1 GB Corsair XMS dual-channel DDR2 800 RAM
320GB Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM Hard drive

I have an onboard LAN and sound card, LAN is 10/100mbps, and I'm connected using an Ethernet cable. When I'm experiencing GW lag/err7 there are *no* problems anywhere else, as I'll usually browse the Internet to check. No connection problem. Defragging has had no effect. Therefore, this is a problem with either Anet or their ISP. Most likely their ISP. My brother, on a Dell Dimension 9150, experiences lag and err7's at the same time I do, as well as an alliance member of mine about 400 miles away from me. And I'm talking about the exact same time. Therefore, it is not a problem on our ends but something between us and Anet, closer to Anet.

This isn't so much of a question as it's a statement that no, not all of these problems are the fault of the user or the user's ISP. However, it's likely that the majority isn't Anet's fault either. Chances are something is screwed up between us and Anet that neither of us can help. All we can do is keep working to trace it.

~Relambrien, Lag Magnet.

IrishCatholicNewYorker

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2006

FL (from Long Island NY)

Rage Against The Dying [RAGE]

Me/W

07 Sep 2006 at 02:51 - 59

ya i might have to get rid of my beatles collection put it on other comp =p or on a disk i have every cd they realeased (welll pretty much) so as u can Imagine (lol like the john lennon song) its alot... thnks for help i might buy that raxco thing looks good. Hows the windows defragmenter compared to the raxco one??? And heres a newb question for all of u how do i get to my comps info on space (how do i get to the page u kno like the screenshots posted by Dwiggit an Jebus) Plz help me yesterday I was waiting like 5-6 mins on a loading screen (that never happens and no i don't have dial up) if it helps I play GW on a laptop.

Perfected Shadow

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2006

Zul'Aman

Umes Uranger U[bot]

10 Sep 2006 at 10:48 - 60

Was as high as 47325 fragments at one point. Still gotta wait till I'm not capped by my ISP anymore to see if there's a big difference.

aeroclown

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

Louisiana

E/Mo

12 Sep 2006 at 19:43 - 61

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

*WARNING* Major flaw in the client design which they *forgot* to mention.

64 bit editions of windows are not supported by guildwars, even if its a caching issue.

I would also like to mention that I performed a test before making this last edit.

My Gw.dat file had 795 fragments, and after a windows defrag it was at 1 fragment. My assumption would be that you do not have ample disk space available to perfrom the defrag in the manner in which windows defrag does so. I also verified the results with contig.

Bare in mind you must keep atleast 15% of your drive free in order to perfrom the largest file operations, if you start getting into the 10% range your systems ability to swap data and handle large transactions tends to slow, especially if you are using a swap system that windows dynamically adjust.

Gorebrex

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2006

14 Sep 2006 at 12:38 - 62

What about increasing Swapfile size? Would that help, or are you talking about 10% of total disk space?

aeroclown

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

Louisiana

E/Mo

14 Sep 2006 at 19:11 - 63

As far as defraging goes yes I am refering to total disk space. If you drop below the 15% range, i don't know that windows still does this, but it used to at one time warn you that it could no longer defrage the system effectively. By that it means it will be unable to probably move and defrag the largest files.

Keep in mind that swaping is secondary to defragmentation of your file tables, you will always need around 10-15% of the drive free to do a good defrag and I would tend to go with the higher number, especially if you have lots of large files, that not the word of God that has just been my experience.

You can yes set a static swap size, though keeping in mind that you still need enough space for windows to work in and enough space to defrag in. While that can help, to my knowledge and experience for that matter, it would appear that if you get low on diskspace things just become horribly slow. I don't know the mechanics of why, though my thoughts would be that windows is having problems cacheing and moving stuff around as you access it. A static swap size may rid you of problems associated with that as the swap space I would think would be allocated to the windows swap system preventing you from encrouching on its space. Ultimately try as hard as possible to avoid filling up your disk, try your best to keep 10-15% of the drive free. While I am unsure that it will remove lag for anyone, it should help with the performance of your system overall.

bigo688

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

14 Sep 2006 at 22:01 - 64

contig' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file

Ya, Im having the same problem.As someone early was. I tried typing it in exactly moving around the folders so they were in the same. Everything looks right to me contig was opened right. Guild wars was installed in the default setting. Any ideas ? Also i have lots of free space.

aeroclown

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

Louisiana

E/Mo

17 Sep 2006 at 02:12 - 65

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigo688

contig' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file

Ya, Im having the same problem.As someone early was. I tried typing it in exactly moving around the folders so they were in the same. Everything looks right to me contig was opened right. Guild wars was installed in the default setting. Any ideas ? Also i have lots of free space.

Grab the compressed archive and then extract it to a folder on your desktop. Open up that folder and grab the contig executable and drop it into:

[x]:\Windows\System32
Where x replaces the letter of the correct drive.

Then try to run contig again from the command line.

Set

Academy Page

Join Date: Sep 2006

Troy, MI

World Of Darkness

25 Sep 2006 at 02:44 - 66

Very nice tool, I used contig and it works great. I'll have to keep this in mind when I have other apps that seem to need some speed. I'm rating your post a 5.

cyrus186

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Oct 2006

Odin's Hammer

W/Mo

03 Oct 2006 at 04:13 - 67

i dont have a system32 folder so i cant put the contig program in there. i tried re-installing the client and my pc exceeds the recomended requirements and im getting like 15-25fps also i dont know what the lightning bolt thing in the top right hand corner is but the number beside it just keeps getting higher ive gotten over 100MB what is it for and is that normal for it to just keep climbing like that im still getting bad lag so bad i cant play. when i try to move i just stand there and like 2 seconds later it does all the movements at once and i start running off most of the time its right into a group of enemies

Matix411

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

Ontario

03 Oct 2006 at 04:29 - 68

K this isn't making sense to me, I tried it and all I'm getting is "'contig' is not recognized as an internal or external command'.
I unzipped the "Contig.exe" file to the system32 folder and everything.

My system32 folder has nothing in it ........................................ except the contig.exe file.
Sooo maybe the system32 folder isn't the ACTUAL one and I don't have one? I dunno.
It's not working either way.
I'm too lazy to uninstall the client because I don't feel like re-downloading all the crap for GW.

cyrus186

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Oct 2006

Odin's Hammer

W/Mo

05 Oct 2006 at 04:14 - 69

ok i got the contig program to work and it said i only have 4 frags
so if thats not the problem i dont know what is going on it just started doing this the day the nightfall preview came out so i didnt get to play it

could that have anything to do with it

mhsdrums

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Sep 2006

winters bane

A/R

05 Oct 2006 at 04:30 - 70

that is the type of lag i always get since i bought the game cyrus, i have no clue why it foes this. i have gotten used ot it but i wish that the lag was gone. every now and then i do get to log in at my friends house and thats always cool. ya so if any1 can fhelp with this problem, plz do, cause it will help more than 1!

aeroclown

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

Louisiana

E/Mo

08 Oct 2006 at 17:38 - 71

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matix411

K this isn't making sense to me, I tried it and all I'm getting is "'contig' is not recognized as an internal or external command'.
I unzipped the "Contig.exe" file to the system32 folder and everything.

My system32 folder has nothing in it ........................................ except the contig.exe file.
Sooo maybe the system32 folder isn't the ACTUAL one and I don't have one? I dunno.
It's not working either way.
I'm too lazy to uninstall the client because I don't feel like re-downloading all the crap for GW.

I would say if you are running windows xp and C:\windows\system32 is empty and you have the right to access and view the folder you have much,MUCH larger problems then just guildwars not working right. This folder usually contains a host of system files and applications as well as a portion of the built in drivers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrus 186

i dont have a system32 folder so i cant put the contig program in there. i tried re-installing the client and my pc exceeds the recomended requirements and im getting like 15-25fps also i dont know what the lightning bolt thing in the top right hand corner is but the number beside it just keeps getting higher ive gotten over 100MB what is it for and is that normal for it to just keep climbing like that im still getting bad lag so bad i cant play. when i try to move i just stand there and like 2 seconds later it does all the movements at once and i start running off most of the time its right into a group of enemies

Check the processes running, make sure your video card supports the seetings you have set in game. Just because you exceed the minimum requirements does not mean you meet the requirements of your setings. Things like antilaising use alot of system power and even more if the reslution you play at is high.

The lightning bolt is normal, this is part of Guildwars Streaming update system, when the bolt is visible you are actively downloading updates to your guildwars dat file. These are not new builds as are downloaded before entry into the game. Streaming updates very often include content you havn't seen before, Updates to exsisting content, Data for events. The system is designed to allow area net to stream the data to you if they so choose before an event or a release without you ever being able to see it util its activated. This allows you to see content with out waiting though it can affect your performance online.

iya

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2006

Conlegium Ineptus Ambulo

W/

09 Oct 2006 at 16:34 - 72

i'm having the exact same problem as cyrus. since the nightfall preview i had really bad lag (rubberbanding, regular slowdowns, err7) and it's not normal for me, i've never had lag that bad before. after 2 weeks of this lag i re-installed my client, ran -image, defragged the .dat file (now 17 frags) and i STILL got the lag. its not my ISP (ping plotter shows the packet loss on anets side) and no-one else using my ISP experiences lag in GW. I can play CS:S and FEAR combat fine with no lag at all, but GW is unplayable from lag. what exactly am i doing wrong? or what is anet doing wrong?

Verticle Cleave

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Sep 2006

11 Oct 2006 at 02:24 - 73

You guys want a good laugh? Check it:

GG Guild Wars. @_@;

aeroclown

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

Louisiana

E/Mo

11 Oct 2006 at 04:47 - 74

Like I said in an above post you should try to maintain a buffer of 10 - 15 % of free disk space at all times. Doing so allows you to defrag large files with windows tools and third party tools and will most probably improve the performance of your system.

BeatWolf

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

11 Oct 2006 at 18:27 - 75

It keeps saying to me No fragmented files when i have over 700 fragmented on Gw.dat please help it wont work.

BeatWolf

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

11 Oct 2006 at 18:27 - 76

It keeps saying to me No fragmented files when i have over 700 fragmented on Gw.dat when i run contig.

Kroziun

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Oct 2006

Old Elite Warriors [Oew]

A/

12 Oct 2006 at 12:15 - 77

Quote:

Originally Posted by KillerGuitar666

will this mess up your GW account?
what i mean is, will Anet think your trying to install an illegal program or whatever they are called?

No, they will not. You are simply 'tidying' your hard drive and the gw.dat file will not be altered.

BeatWolf

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

12 Oct 2006 at 13:42 - 78

OK i need some help i took a screenshot of the CMD thing and here is what i get:

it wont de-frag the Gw.dat file for some reason and it has over 700 fragments on it. Please help i gettting alot of lag on this game and it loads horribly slow.

Redwinter

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2006

[BotW]

Me/

12 Oct 2006 at 15:31 - 79

Just out of curiosity, how long does this defrag typically take? I'm not sure if it froze or if it's just active.

ectospasm

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2006

13 Oct 2006 at 13:23 - 80

is there a way to connect to a guild wars server that is closer to your geograpical location? i noticed several pings in my network diagnostics were in the 200's and i have a 3mb cable line... ive been getting bad lag in gw for a few days now.