Graphics card failure at Yatendi Canyons...

I've been happily playing along through Guild Wars Nightfall for half a week, but have now finally got through Kourna (which was great fun compared to boring Istan) and hit a "Guild Wars has encountered an unrecoverable graphics driver error" message.

***VERY, VERY MINOR SPOILERS*** Everytime I set foot in Yatendi Canyons (first part of Vabbi you reach) I get the message and the game crashes.

My PC is no beasts, it's just a standard home PC that is about 18 months old. However, it has always run Guild Wars Prophecies and Factions okay. Sure I turn most of the settings down and Kaineng City gives a fair bit of lag but otherwise, no problem.

Basically just wondering whether it's simply the case that to play through Vabbi I would need a new graphics card? I really don't feel like buying one, but if it's possibly just the case that only Yatendi Canyons have this graphical trickery that's killing my card I could find a way around that.

I wasn't sure whether to post this on this forum or the Nightfall PvE forum but ah well. I've wondered if re-installing GW (maybe from the Nightfall DVD) would help... any ideas?

I just had this problem too! I made a different post... We might have had the error at the same time. I had it for Wehhan Terraces, which is a first stop in Vabbi as well.

omfg I have the EXACT same problem at wehhan terraces bibblenorn. It's really frustrating and I have no idea what to do. Every time I zone out to do the primary quest I get taken to this site:

http://www.guildwars.com/support/en-...er_failure.php

I'm using a dell optiplex gx270 with an Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 2 integrated blah blah blah. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one having this problem, I even went out to buy a new graphics card but my AGP slot on my motherboard is probably dead.

Anyone know what's causing this problem? I updated my drivers and it still occurs. My game still works EVERYWHERE except tehhan terraces, but it's been so frustrating I've barely been on except to get some hats

Anyone know what's going on? Should I go to the Guild Wars support page and submit a form?

(I'm glad to know I'm not the only one running into this problem in the exact same location!)

UPDATE, At least for me, from the PlayNC website:
looks like I need a new graphics card, which I've purchased, but saw this thread and couldn't resist sharing my story. Unfortuantely, I can't seem to install the damn thing.

It is kinda odd, that this is the only place I have had graphics problems in... umm... well, I have never had graphics problems with GW. I sent in a support ticket. My other chars are functioning normally, but I am not about to take one to Vabbi and sacrifice it to this bug. There has to be something about that point in the game. *sigh*

It does seem very strange that up until vabbi, no problems, once you get there, you're done.

It sounds like that AGP is turned off in your BIOS. Reboot your computer, as it starts to boot up tap on the F2 key every couple of seconds. This should bring you into the BIOS. Look around and you should find an area dealing with graphics. Make sure that AGP is enabled and you should also be able to set it to be the default video option. I'm no expert on DELL machines and BIOSes vary extremely from one manufacturer to another, so I appologize up front if you can't find anything related to graphics on your particular machine, but there should be something in there about the graphics. You may be able to find something on DELL's support site also or as a last resort maybe try calling the tech support number (ugh).

I fixed it!

I don't know if this is permanent or not, but I seem to be able to use GW just fine now.

Here is what I did:

I asked my fiancee to load my account on his computer, which is newer and nicer than mine. He was able to load the town, and claimed the unclaimed items from the mission. After he logged out of my account, I logged back in, and the town loaded ok. I can now use GW.

I contacted the support people about this, because this implies that this might not be entirely due to my cruddy computer. We'll see what happens. I hope you others with this problem can do something simlar to my solution.

Edit: Ah, nevermind. This will work just long enough to get you to a place where you can deposit gold if you have to. Try to map to anything Vabbi and beyond, and the error comes back... darned video card.

Hmm... I had been wondering if it was just that one outpost or in my case explorable area, but it appears not then... must be some new graphical effect going on in Vabbi.

Think I'm gonna have to steal a friend's computer and do a maranthon session to get through all of Vabbi... then hope that the Desolation and Realm of Torment are playable.

It's a shame I won't ever get to mess around in Vabbi but not a massive deal if the Desolation runs okay... that's what I really wanted to see!

I fixed this problem with 3D-Analyze and these settings. Open gw.exe, check the boxes and run the game.

Read this for more informations.

Melaina, I did what you suggested. You are my hero. I owe you big time. it totally loaded.

Ooh... login screen looks somewhat differant with those settings, much stronger lighting... however cannot log on right now, Euro Servers seem to be up the creek without a paddle...

I solved my problem well and good. I have a brand new laptop on order. (And before anyone comments, yes, I need it to be a laptop. I have reasons.) it will have a really nice videocard, and a ton of memory. My old laptop bit the dust.

I feel poor now.
Rice-a-roni is my new friend.

wow, i had this same problem too, and thnx melaina for fixing it.

I just wanna know if I'm gonna need this program while I'm in Vabbi or if i can stop using it once im past the canyons. if anyone could answer, I'd really appreciate it, thnx.

Aha! It works!

Only one complaint...


EVERYTHING IS GREEN!

Anyone know how to change this?

bump for a friend. check out melaina's post. I've been doing it everytime I run GW.

My new laptop came in today. Which is good since my old one died and started oozing goo. Black goo.

Anyways, I have to say, Yatendi Canyon and thereabouts is gorgeous. I had never had graphics anywhere near that nice. Full settings are wonderful. And I'd never seen that 3d effect before.

A new computer definitely solves this problem.

And a heartfelt kudos to the graphics people at A-net. I'd never appreciated the beauty before.

Thanks for all the help here.

Does anyone know what all those settings do?...There are many graphical glitches while using this program, one of which is that skills are not grayed out while they're recharging. They flicker when they're used and when they finish recharging, but the rest of the time they look perfectly normal. This is a problem. Does anyone know how to fix it?

Hey can some one post a new image of the boxes to check because that link doesn't work anymore

works fine here but for future reference

force zbuffer
shaders
textures
force 24 bit zbuffer (with stencil)