Game crashing at Wehhan Gates.

Without using spoilers, I completed the mission to gain access to this area this morning. However, the game crashed in the "area loading" screen, to a message saying there is a video card error. Strange thing is, I can play in Prophecies and Factions, and can even start a new Nightfall character and play fine, with new areas loading correctly.

My game has been running fine until the last update, which reduced my sound to miscellaniuos scratches of varying volume, but I could deal with that.

As this is my first time to the area, I do not know if it is the update or a larger problem.

I have run the diagnostic utility, dxdiag, and re-installed the last drivers. Tried rebooting, etc... all with no luck. I should note that even with my minimum specs the game has been perfectly playable until now.

Anyone have any ideas?

Even stranger, now that I can't boot my character, she shows up on the character selection screen without armor. I don't know the relevance of this.

My machine:

P4 2.8ghz
Intel 865G Graphics (yes, I know, but it works fine...)
"Soundmax" onboard sound (which worked fine until the update)
512 Megs RAM
WinXP Home

Any help is greatly appreciated!! Thanks in advance!

If you've got those scratching sounds, try adding -dsound to the Guild Wars command line. Got that from another thread regarding sound problems.

Should look like this:
For your character having no armor in the select screen, try adding -image to the Guild Wars command line to download all the content instead of downloading it from background. It'll take a long while if your on dial up.

Should look like this:
Regarding your GFX card, it might be an overheating problem.

Hope this helps.

I tried adding -dsound to the command line. Still some strange sounds, especially at transitions, but it's livable. I've been using the -image for a while now, but thanks for that. Now, sometimes she appears at the character select screen with armor, sometimes "nude", but still crashes out either way.

As far as the GFX, I dunno. Other games play fine, even other characters in GW - it's just this one character :-(

Try checking with Intel to see if they have some driver updates for you. You'll have to know your Motherboard's full model number to get the specifc drivers, but this should give you a start -

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...product+ID+%23.

Try that and let us know what happens.

Unfortunately, the last graphic driver for the chipset was released in December of 2005 :-(

if i remember correctly, the wehhan area is part of vabbi. intel GMA's tend to crash in that area due to a serious lack of lighting and shading abilities. if you are using the -dx8 command, remove it. that area is dx9 only. if that doesn't work, try the 3danalyze program (search the forums for it). it will cause some funky graphic glitches, but it will allow you to play through that area.

get a new gfx card, mines ok n reasonable price gf7950gt 512mb pci express costs 200 pounds or did when i brought it

And 3danalyze for the win! Disabling detection of pixel and vertex shaders let me into Vabbi. Other than a strong yellow tint, and NPC names in black boxes instead of clear, there aren't any glitches (ie; nothing unplayable at all).

My many thanks to all of those who put on their thinking caps for me, and a special thanks to Moriz for the game(un)breaker!! Thanks folks!

Wonder if this is related to the reason why Green Hill County is making me crash?

I knew someone who was having crash issues at this particular portal as well, mostly due to her having a bad videocard (older onboard), but she also had no issues whatsoever with Prophecies or Factions up to this point. I kept telling her to send a support email to ANet, but I don't think she ever did. This was a few months ago.

If it's really true that you need DirectX 9 just to enter the portal into Yahtendi Canyons, then ANet need to tweak it a bit to handle the older stuff. It's not like there's some awesome DX9 stuff going on back there.