High end system...very low FPS. PLEASE HELP! - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

T H E H U N T E R

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2006

01 Oct 2006 at 05:19 - 1

G'day

I'm getting very low FPS (down to 6) in almost all areas of Guild Wars. This is especially noticible in Bukdek Byway when going from Kaineng Center. I start the game and the menu has 60FPS. I enter Kaineng Center and it drops to 30fps. Once i enter Bukdek Byway the frame rate continues to gradually get worse to the point where i've spent about 30min in the areas and frame rate is at 6fps!

I'm not sure if its a recent thing but i sure didnt notice it before when i completed Prophecies.

My system stats:

Pentium D 3.00GHz 800MHZ FBS
Intel D955XBK Motherboard
1GB DDR2 RAM
WinFast GeForce 7800GTX
Soundblaster Live! 5.1 DE (yes...it's old)
2 200GB 7200 RPM Western Digital Sata2 HDs

What i've tried:

Reformating
Reinstalling Guild Wars from the Prophecies and Factions cds
Updating every single driver
Shutting down all non-estential background processes
Defraging whole hardive as well as just the Gw.dat file
Virus scan with AVG
Spyware scan with Spybot
reducing in game graphic settings to lowest
turning off transparency AA
using -nosound in the shortcut

I've read through this forum and i am at a loss. Any suggestions?

Wrath Of Dragons

Burninate Stuff

Join Date: Aug 2005

New Mexico

E/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 05:45 - 2

do you use directx 8 or 9? update them if you havnt since august.
it still shouldnt be that bad..........
Did you run the game in windowed or fullscreen?
run a dxdiag, see how much ram is recorded (maybe a piece is loose or something)

T H E H U N T E R

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2006

01 Oct 2006 at 06:41 - 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrath Of Dragons

do you use directx 8 or 9? update them if you havnt since august.
it still shouldnt be that bad..........
Did you run the game in windowed or fullscreen?
run a dxdiag, see how much ram is recorded (maybe a piece is loose or something)

i have directx 9.0c
1020MB in dxdiag
running in fullscreen...windowed and fullscreen both have bad performance.

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 06:48 - 4

Your system might be gettting over-heated. Check on what cooler you have because you have pretty high specs and Factions is more demanding than Prophecies. Your graphics card should've come with some temperature monitoring program. Does this only happen in Gw or other games as well?

lightblade

Forge Runner

Join Date: May 2005

The Etereal Guard

Me/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 07:03 - 5

I would say it's the motherboard. I just checked with Intel's website on the board. The onboard chipset is not nforce, and therefore there's a possibility that it's not compatable with your graphic card.

T H E H U N T E R

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2006

01 Oct 2006 at 07:20 - 6

the weird thing is i dont have this problem with any other games. I run oblivion on almost max setting as a good 25-30fps average and HL2 on full quality is a breeze at more than 40fps and quake 4 doesnt even sweat my system at highest settings with constant 75fps.

My cpu is running at 69 degrees C and video at 67 degrees C after a full day of GW playing.

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 07:27 - 7

Hmmmm, those temps are pretty normal and I doubt it's the hardware since other games work. My advice is to take it to a computer repair shop because they will definetly find out whats wrong and fix it (if your budget allows it). Then again it might just be something to do with Gw

.

cannonfodder

Tech Monkeh Mod

Join Date: May 2005

Good Old North East of England

Mo/Me

01 Oct 2006 at 08:30 - 8

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightblade

I would say it's the motherboard. I just checked with Intel's website on the board. The onboard chipset is not nforce, and therefore there's a possibility that it's not compatable with your graphic card.

Where on earth did you hear that from, because its wrong!, any board with a pci-e slot will accept any card without problem. If what you believe to be true then it would not be compatible with an ATi card, would it.

What I would suggest is to visit the intel website, download motherboard drivers , update graphics card driver and reinstall direct x, the do a defrag. If none of this works post back.

EDIT also overheating will not reduce frame rate, if anything your pc will either artifact badly on your monitor, or it will reboot.

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

01 Oct 2006 at 13:46 - 9

Quote:

Originally Posted by T H E H U N T E R

the weird thing is i dont have this problem with any other games. I run oblivion on almost max setting as a good 25-30fps average and HL2 on full quality is a breeze at more than 40fps and quake 4 doesnt even sweat my system at highest settings with constant 75fps.

My cpu is running at 69 degrees C and video at 67 degrees C after a full day of GW playing.

that could be your problem right there.

check to see if your CPU is equipped with a *heat throttle* that cuts performance back til the processor can live.

69 C is to me extreamly high as my CPU runs at 38- 45C MAX

B Ephekt

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2006

Team Crystalline [TC]

Mo/

01 Oct 2006 at 18:15 - 10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

that could be your problem right there.

check to see if your CPU is equipped with a *heat throttle* that cuts performance back til the processor can live.

69 C is to me extreamly high as my CPU runs at 38- 45C MAX

69C is not very hot at all for a Pentium D.

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

01 Oct 2006 at 18:26 - 11

Quote:

Originally Posted by B Ephekt

69C is not very hot at all for a Pentium D.

thank you for the info.

my last intel chip was a DX-2 66MHZ so it has been a bit.

if my AMD were that hot i would freak.

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 19:49 - 12

I doubt it's over-heating. My cpu and gpu run at about 60 degrees and I have no problem. I got a MSI Nvidia 7800gt and Intel P4 3.8ghz. Another reason why I don't think it's overheating is that Oblivion, which is extremely demanding works fine.

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 19:57 - 13

I just thought of this now....Are you sure it's not lag? What internet connection do you have. Also it's possible that when you defrag, it misses Gw, that's what it says at http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10037429. Check that thread out since it has a link to download a special defraging program that lets you defrag individual files.

P.S- If you have another computer available, install Gw on that one and then transfer it to your computer. This might work if it's a cache problem. I've had a lot of games that didn't work on my pc so I installed them on my laptop and transfered them back to my pc and then they all worked.

Abuh

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2005

The Netherlands

[MAD]

N/

01 Oct 2006 at 20:05 - 14

I have that sometimes but only when im running winamp. Settings dont seem to matter then it just drops to about 6-9 fps.

mq nn

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Sep 2006

01 Oct 2006 at 20:15 - 15

is vsync on? if it is turn it off. and wat resolution are you running? if its too high then try to lower it.

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

01 Oct 2006 at 20:19 - 16

Vsync only takes off about 3-5fps but it could be an improvement to turn it off.

Note- With Vsync turned off, when things move quickly on the screen, the images will rip.

Abuh

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2005

The Netherlands

[MAD]

N/

01 Oct 2006 at 21:42 - 17

Actually v-sync limits the fps to a divisor of the refresh rate so it can give huge drops and very small drops. It's pretty much meant to correct the framebuffer while the monitor is between drawing the last line on the monitor and the first one so you wont see half of frame 1 on the top of the screen and half of frame 2 on the bottom.

onerabbit

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

Thanks to all the guru [mods]

02 Oct 2006 at 00:34 - 18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

thank you for the info.

my last intel chip was a DX-2 66MHZ so it has been a bit.

if my AMD were that hot i would freak.

My AMD is around 69 degrees C, and i dnt have any probs

just since NF preview, i keep getting lagg spikes, and freezes. ( not total lock up)

T H E H U N T E R

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2006

02 Oct 2006 at 04:50 - 19

recent update:
The frame rate has become alot more varied often jumping to its max 70fps and then back down to around 13fps. The high frame rate bursts dont last very long though, only about 2min.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dameros

I just thought of this now....Are you sure it's not lag? What internet connection do you have. Also it's possible that when you defrag, it misses Gw, that's what it says at http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10037429. Check that thread out since it has a link to download a special defraging program that lets you defrag individual files.

P.S- If you have another computer available, install Gw on that one and then transfer it to your computer. This might work if it's a cache problem. I've had a lot of games that didn't work on my pc so I installed them on my laptop and transfered them back to my pc and then they all worked.

I'm on 512 ADSL connection but i do live in Australia playing on the American server. My mate who lives in Ipswitch doesn't have the same problem so i doubt its lag.

I have checked that thread and got the special defragger however it said that it's in 1 file therefore not requirng defragmentation.

I have not tried compying the game files, i'll do so now. So to clarify though:

i install game on another machine
copy the game filea accross without any installing
run the copied verison

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

02 Oct 2006 at 05:26 - 20

Yep, so just install the game on another machine, copy the file and then run the game. The game won't need to install again. Tell us how it goes

.

Tachyon

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

Stoke, England

The Godless [GOD]

W/

02 Oct 2006 at 17:15 - 21

Quote:

Originally Posted by onerabbit

My AMD is around 69 degrees C, and i dnt have any probs

just since NF preview, i keep getting lagg spikes, and freezes. ( not total lock up)

Man, 69C on an AMD is pretty hot. My overclocked Athlon64 3200+ 'Venice' only get's to 36C max under a full load.

Tommy

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Oct 2005

Grotto,The Paradise of GW Afkers

Afkers Never [CRY]

W/Rt

05 Oct 2006 at 13:44 - 22

your pc is low end imao. well below the average new pc atleast

PD is terrible for gaming. get a Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon64x2 4400+ instead the video card is not so good either.. you should get 7900GT or 7950GT.

TESAmadeus

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2006

Scotland

The Elixes os Soul

N/Mo

05 Oct 2006 at 14:28 - 23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tommy

your pc is low end imao. well below the average new pc atleast

PD is terrible for gaming. get a Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon64x2 4400+ instead the video card is not so good either.. you should get 7900GT or 7950GT.

What do you mean low end lol

1st the specs on the machine are still fairly high end in comparision to what you can buy pre built from the likes of HP, Dell etc.

And the cost difference to go from a 7800 to a 7900 or 7950 is really pointless as that gfx card will play all the latest games out and coming out in the near future, waiting until vista is released and see the gfx cards coming out then would be better.

@OP i would suggest that there could be a conflict between you drivers and GW or if you had an ATI card in the system previously it may not have removed all the previous drivers.

Tommy

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Oct 2005

Grotto,The Paradise of GW Afkers

Afkers Never [CRY]

W/Rt

05 Oct 2006 at 14:37 - 24

Quote:

Originally Posted by TESAmadeus

What do you mean low end lol

1st the specs on the machine are still fairly high end in comparision to what you can buy pre built from the likes of HP, Dell etc.

And the cost difference to go from a 7800 to a 7900 or 7950 is really pointless as that gfx card will play all the latest games out and coming out in the near future, waiting until vista is released and see the gfx cards coming out then would be better.

@OP i would suggest that there could be a conflict between you drivers and GW or if you had an ATI card in the system previously it may not have removed all the previous drivers.

i run a local white-box pc store. the pc we are selling this year are much better than the one he listed. The most *GAMING* pcs we selling already outfited with 2GB of DDR2 memory. A better dual Core and a better video card. PD run terribly hot and while it running hot it hurts FR. so i suggest you upgrade your motheboard and cpu

and dont forget to put another 1GB of ram in there.

Hollerith

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Sep 2005

05 Oct 2006 at 15:28 - 25

That's pretty poor advice, his system is not low end at all. Just because it's not bleeding edge doesn't mean he should upgrade... Hell I have a P4 3.0c X800 and it plays the game beautifully at max settings.

I'd try uninstalling the sound card and see if that helps, I've never had much luck with old soundblasters. Can you disable any unused onboard devides (ie, onboard sound)?

Tommy

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Oct 2005

Grotto,The Paradise of GW Afkers

Afkers Never [CRY]

W/Rt

05 Oct 2006 at 15:45 - 26

his pc is nothing closed to cutting-edge.. i would suggest to update to lastest drivers. do a fresh installation. 1st install the window, update the window to the lastest version<sp2 etc> then install the motherboard's driver,
then video card,sound card. make sure that you got the lastest one

Tachyon

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

Stoke, England

The Godless [GOD]

W/

05 Oct 2006 at 16:52 - 27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tommy

i would suggest to update to lastest drivers. do a fresh installation. 1st install the window, update the window to the lastest version<sp2 etc> then install the motherboard's driver,
then video card,sound card. make sure that you got the lastest one

Great advice by the way. Having problems running Guild Wars? Just go and get yourself a 7950GX2 and a Core 2 Duo to fix the problem.

For someone who runs's a PC store you don't read very well do you? The OP has already stated that he's done all that you mentioned in his first post. Perhaps before you start slagging someone elses machine off you could read the post first and then try to offer some sound advice.

Omega X

Ninja Unveiler

Join Date: Jun 2005

Louisiana, USA

Boston Guild[BG]

W/Me

05 Oct 2006 at 17:33 - 28

69c is seriously hot for any processor.

What is the specs on the Power Supply?

TESAmadeus

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2006

Scotland

The Elixes os Soul

N/Mo

05 Oct 2006 at 18:25 - 29

The cpu is running very high i am running a Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz
and it runs at 44 degrees i would suggest checking what is causing the cpu temp to run so high.

Possible causes could be a poorly fitted heat sink, cpu fan not working, dust reducing the airflow to the processor

Plushie Penguin

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Apr 2006

That plushie penguin on a shelf in your bed room

Rt/E

05 Oct 2006 at 19:17 - 30

sorry if this has been said in different words, I'm not all the great with computers, how much video memory do you have and what's your ram divided with? I have 700 something and 200 some odd is put into windows while the rest is divided with whatever programs I have running, I think in one of the old topics in here said you needed 700 something free for this game[which would explain why my fps sucks some times]..[I could be wrong on these things, but video memory and ram do effect your fps]

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

05 Oct 2006 at 19:42 - 31

Tommy....what the in world are you on about? You see Guild Wars doesn't require *a bleeding edge gaming pc*. That's why half the Gw population play it. I have a 7800gt, P4 3.8ghz, 1G ram and my computer run Gw perfectly at max settings. There's absolutely no need to upgrade his hardware since his computer should be able to run Gw at max settings.

dameros

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2006

New Zealand

Im Targeting The Ghostly (HeRo)

W/Mo

05 Oct 2006 at 19:43 - 32

Tommy....what in the world are you on about? You see Guild Wars doesn't require *a bleeding edge gaming pc*. That's why half the Gw population play it. I have a 7800gt, P4 3.8ghz, 1G ram and my computer run Gw perfectly at max settings. There's absolutely no need to upgrade his hardware since his computer should be able to run Gw at max settings.

Mr.H.Mishima

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2006

The Summit of Human Evolution

W/

05 Oct 2006 at 20:38 - 33

Reminds me of a problem I had a while ago...

Got a new AMD 64 and motherboard, vid card, etc. GW would play fine then just crap out with frame rate. Temps on the RAM of the vid card were getting much too hot. Swapped vid cards, problem went away...and this was ONLY with GW. Other games didn't do it.

Try a different video card first, then check that the RAM on the card is adequately cooled as well.

T H E H U N T E R

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2006

06 Oct 2006 at 13:59 - 34

LOL Tommy are you trying to sell me a PC or help me fix the problem here :P

OK so here's an update:
I've done a clean windows install becuase i wanted to RAID 0 my new hard drive. When i played HL2 Lost Coast i was gettin terrible FPS after awhile. It seems that all those who were screaming for extra cooling might be right

i'll check out the cpu fan and heatsink and grab a few extra fans.

thanks every1 for your help. i'll tell you how it goes.

Hollerith

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Sep 2005

06 Oct 2006 at 14:04 - 35

Open up the case and point a house fan into it, see if it helps (when the comp's running).

Tachyon

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

Stoke, England

The Godless [GOD]

W/

06 Oct 2006 at 16:16 - 36

Quote:

Originally Posted by T H E H U N T E R

i'll check out the cpu fan and heatsink and grab a few extra fans.

TheHunter,

I take it you're using socket 775? If so you could do no worse than purchase and fix one of these Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro's. I have the 64 Pro version on my Athlon64 and the difference between stock cooling is simply amazing.

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?idx=79&disc=

For around £15 it's a bargin, plus it's easy to fit too. Comes with Thermal paste already applied so all you have to do is clean your CPU of the old paste and attach the new fan.

Here it is in my PC covering the Athlon64. It's slightly larger than the stock but if you have the room then it's a damn bargin.

Tachyon

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

Stoke, England

The Godless [GOD]

W/

06 Oct 2006 at 16:19 - 37

Quote:

Originally Posted by T H E H U N T E R

i'll check out the cpu fan and heatsink and grab a few extra fans.

TheHunter,

I take it you're using socket 775? If so you could do no worse than purchase and fix one of these Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro's. I have the 64 Pro version on my Athlon64 and the difference between stock cooling is simply amazing.

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?idx=79&disc=

For around £15 it's a bargain, plus it's easy to fit too. Comes with Thermal paste already applied so all you have to do is clean your CPU of the old paste and attach the new fan.

Here it is in my PC covering the Athlon64. It's slightly larger than the stock but if you have the room then it's a damn bargain. Plus it's a lot quieter than stock cooling too, almost silent.

johnmedgla

Academy Page

Join Date: Dec 2005

Dark

N/Me

06 Oct 2006 at 17:02 - 38

No one has mentioned this yet, so I'll give it a go. In the game options, where are your sound settings? I have an FX 60 and an X-Fi Fatal1ty, but if I turn on GW ingame EAX or set sound to Max quality, the fps drop from stupid high numbers right down to 15 or even less. I've had this problem with every version of Creative's Drivers, on this card and on the Audigy 4 Pro I had before it, in Windows XP and XP64, so I can only conclude it's a problem with the ingame sound system and creative cards - I run with EAX off and qualirt one notch to the right of centre.

It may not work for you, but it's something to bear in mind.

Tachyon

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2005

Stoke, England

The Godless [GOD]

W/

06 Oct 2006 at 17:10 - 39

Yeah, I have the exact same problem if I turn EAX on. I've tested it with both with my Creative XFI and the onboard sound and yet still get a massive FPS hit with both. Especially in the RoF island chain.

Running with the sound slider maxed out is not a problem if I turn EAX off. It's just EAX that seems to be the problem.

T H E H U N T E R

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2006

07 Oct 2006 at 14:25 - 40

UPDATE
well it seems it was the cooling. I removed the heatsink and got rid of the gunky wax and put on some nice Arctic Silver...and got rid of the mountain of dusts clogging the fins

I also turned off auto fan speed adjustment in the bios, so the fans are at full speed now.

This seems to have fixed it...however i'm not sure if this was the only problem because i followed dameros' advice and got my bro to install GW on his machine then copy it accross. so that however might haved fixed the problem...
...but considering other games started running slow and now run better than ever (Oblivion is super smooth), i attribute the problem to cooling.

I'll be grabbing a better heatsink in the near future to bring the temperature even down further.

johnmedgla and Azagoth, i've had no problems with my EAX settings. i guess they dont make them like they used too

THANKS FOR HELPING EVERYONE!!