Teaching a new video card to get along with an older PC via GW.

Hi, all...looking for a bit of advice here.

The integrated video on my Emachines W3052 died a couple of months back, and the guy who owns our website has kindly provided me with a very nice video card...an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro. I had it installed today, but there's a problem with Guild Wars. It was locking up the comp...first at the login screen, then at download screen (I missed a lot of updates). Then I actually got on, tried to move my character, and it locked the PC up again. Finally I was on a few minutes ago, trying to figure out how to resolve this. I can't move the "visual quality" slider in the graphics options to turn them down as a friend suggested I do. Then another guildmate logged on, and a white box appeared where he appeared on screen. I shut the game down before it could lock up again.

GW does start and looks beautiful and very, very fast. I'm sure whatever this is, it's merely an adjustment I need to make somewhere. Can anyone out there advise me?

Thanks,

Tanith

Open the guild wars shortcut properties box and put -dx8 into the target box

If you still have some problems, add the -noshaders switch too, it'll be less taxing on your video card.

Here's a link to the other switches you can use maybe there are some other ones that might help you too http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=94814

Make sure you have the proper drivers too. If you, for example, installed the drivers from the CD that came with the card they're more than likely far too old for Guild Wars.

might be a power supply problem. most factory built PCs have weak power supplies, and yours might be overloaded with the new card.

other than that, it should be a driver issue.

Well, I tried the "dx8" shortcut, here's what happened.

GW booted. Selected my ranger, our guild hall began downloading, then my monitor went black and displayed the message "Out of range 21.K 26 Hz" as the monitor's LED blinked frantically. I could still hear the background music and sound effects, but the computer was unresponsive and I had to manually reboot.

Just as an aside...the only other game I play regularly is Diablo II. I tried booting it up today, and it ran just fine. So whatever this issue is, it's specifically related to GW.

Also, there was no CD that came with the card. The card was provided by a friend who works with computers and has access to lots of them...but he directed me to the drivers that went with the card. He does this stuff for a living, so I assume he knows what he's talking about.

The power supply is 300W, which I'm told is sufficient for that card. That's something I was warned about, so I was sure to check it out.

I'll keep investigating...I'm sure this is a correctable problem. After all, I used to play GW all the time before my integrated video died. Thanks for your help, folks...I'll keep you updated.

Tanith

I can tell you this much - It's definitely an issue with the video card for sure. I think the card is fine, though. When the onboard video died, did you or your friend disable it through the BIOS?

It most likely tried to set the output to a refresh rate that your monitor doesn't support.

Or it's specifically related to games with a 3D graphics engine...or any game that's newer than Diablo. Diablo II is quite old. It doesn't surprise me that it works while a newer game like GW fails.

Never assume that! Just kidding!

Well, I would say that you're either still having a driver problem, a power problem, or perhaps the card he gave you has had some kind of damage (like static electric shock, etc.) First, where did you get the driver you're using? Second, is there a power plug on the card that needs to be plugged into the power supply (probably not on a 9500, but doesn't hurt to check). As was mentioned, was the old integrated video disabled in the BIOS (if necessary)? Finally, is the card AGP or PCI? I would assume it's AGP. If it's AGP, do you know which version of the AGP bus you have....? (he asked, assuming the answer "no"...most people probably don't)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port
There are three different flavors of the AGP bus that operate at different voltages. I believe the slots are keyed differently, though, so that's probably not the issue. If you were using the wrong version (some had bad keys that allowed this) you'd probably be having motherboard problems by now.

The 9500 is or as far as I know is a DX9 Capable card there is no reason to run in DX 8 Mode, remove that switch, the problem is more likely a power or driver issue. However I am not sure what shader set Gw now requires or if it steps back on its own, though I did play guild wars for a long time on a Mobile 9550 without ever having a problem and the settings maxed though I had a gig of ram onboard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R300

Another update...I discovered that the old display driver had not been disabled through the add/remove programs menu as I thought, so I disabled it. I also removed the dx8 switch as I've been advised to do.

Booted up GW, and tenatively tried to edit our guild announcement to memorialize a fallen guildmate. I noticed that my cursor was very "flickery", and had sort of a box around it. A couple of minutes later, the screen went black and the computer locked up again. At least there was no alarming "out of range" message.

As far as I know (my friend who provided the card is stranded by bad weather in Boston this weekend), the driver for my ATI card is the correct one. I downloaded it from their site. Oh, and it is an AGP card.

One friend is advising me to reinstall DirectX, which repairs it. When I ran the dxdiag test the other day, one sound test was off, though all the video tests did fine.

One other thing...I cannot access my GW controls at all...attempting to move the slider that controls the graphics options does nothing. What da heck's up with that?

My thanks for you continued help...I mean to get this straightened out.

Tanith

I think it is a driver issue. Go to the ATI website and from that it will be self-explanatory.

Just a heads up, the card you have will run Guild Wars, but not perfectly. You might have to change the settings, lower them a bit.

Well, that's kinda what I mean...attempting to lower the graphics options in game does nothing...I can't move the slider. Not sure what the cause of that is.

How about uninstalling/reinstalling the game...think that will do anything?

Tanith

i think you havent removed the old drivers fully, if i was you i would make totally sure the old drivers were gone, best way to do this is to format.

but if u not capable of formatting i think theres some driver cleanup tools out there,

Well, it's not simply a GW problem anymore...D2 also locked up on my this afternoon. I'll look into driver cleaners, not sure what else to do (I sure as hell don't trust myself to reformat).

Thanks again,

Tanith