Guild Wars FPS loss when minimizing in Vista

fsckfsck

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2007

Me/E

16 Aug 2007 at 22:04 - 41
Quote:
Originally Posted by fsckfsck
EotN is fully Vista supported, and ANet are seeking Vista certification - so like you, I hope this will be resolved shortly.
I've had a sort of definitive / final reply from PlayNC on this.

Quote:
I am going to agree with your previous comment that we're probably looking at a Vista driver issue. The reason I say that is I can replicate the issue you are describing but only in Vista. With the exact same machine and driver set, only booted in to XP, this issue does not occur.

Unfortunately, I don't know much of anything else to tell you. The things that would normally fix this issue haven't and we've exhausted any potential culprits except for the things we can't change; i.e. driver code.

I would definitely keep hammering away at the Nvidia forums and see if you can get an answer that way.
So what they're saying is:
1. They can reproduce the error
2. They can't fix it with their code
3. Talk to nVidia.

In terms of what's going on here, the systems effected are:
GeForce 7600GT
Geforce Go 7600
GeForce 7700
GeForce 7800GT

The systems not effected are:
GeForce Go 6150
GeForce 6800GS
GeForce 7950GTX

"Only 7600/7700/7800" at this stage appears to be the golden rule.

fsckfsck

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2007

Me/E

26 Aug 2007 at 02:00 - 42
BTW, I've discovered you can report a bug directly to nVidia:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/vistaqualityassurance.html

Go to the bottom, and select, "Report a bug with the NVIDIA graphics driver." That will let you fill out a bunch of stuff and submit it to them formally.

I'd recommend everyone having this trouble go off and do that so that they can get some stats directly in their system - it'll help with diagnosis.

vibrancy

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2007

28 Aug 2007 at 02:01 - 43
Although I am not experiencing the drop in FPS when minimized, then maximized, I do just experience low FPS now... I just recently installed Vista and I can't get over 63fps, even with vsync turned off in both the nvidia control panel and in game... on XP i was able to get over 280fps with graphics maxed... I am running the nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2 - I think vista just has a lot of problems that need to be fixed, all my games now seem to run slower, and even my apps that are heavily dependant on my video card run slower. My friend is running the reg 7950 GT KO on XP and our system are identical accept I have 3 gigs ram and he has 1, and he is getting a constant 75+ fps in game, and in normal situations I get around 25...

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

28 Aug 2007 at 02:33 - 44
Vista wouldn't cause such a drop in FPS. Look into your drivers etc

Nosjack

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Nov 2006

Sydney

[LOL]

Me/E

04 Sep 2007 at 14:03 - 45
My GW doesnt have the minimizing issue, instead after 1-2 mins, it just drops to less then 10FPS.

Which quite frankly, is unplayable to someone who is used to smooth motions of 50FPS.

I'm on Vista Ultimate with 2 nVidia GeForce 7800GTX's, and it doesnt matter what I do, run it with -NOSOUND, disable SLi mode, enable it, different drivers, change the graphics quality from lowest to highest, change the priority that is inexplicably at "Lowest" to "Normal" or "Highest", exit every conceivable application I can think of that might be chewing up CPU and RAM memory NOTHING makes a difference.

I dont know whether its Vista, or GW or whatever, but I contacted Anet Support and I'll let you guys know what happens, but like I said, it doesn't just happen when I Alt+Tab in and out.

and vibrancy, I'm with you, I have detected lower FPS with Vista compared with XP.

Corth

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2005

Sentinels of Eternal Souls

N/

27 Sep 2007 at 08:57 - 46
I had a crappy 6600 nvidia card for a while and it had the same problem. It got really really annoying, so I went and bought a Radeon HD2600 pro for 100 bucks and now the problem is gone, I can alt-tab again, so I dont have to keep asking group members/guildies to look something up for me on wiki.

I'm glad one card manufacturer has it right.

iridescentfyre

iridescentfyre

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Mar 2006

W/

28 Sep 2007 at 23:05 - 47
I used to run Vista Ultimate, and have a BFG Geforce 7800 that (at the time) had the most up-to-date Vista drivers. I never experienced any issues like this, though my framerate was definitely lower in general than on XP.