GW:EN-Related Problem: Display Driver Stopped Responding

add GMA 945, 950, and 965 into that mix.

what's even wierder, is the fact that there are people with these IGPs and they CAN run the preview. maybe the problem is not really because of the IGPs, but something else that's common with the affected computers.

add ATI Radeon 9600 AGP card to the list (at least mine!) I can run EotN if I use the -noshaders command line switch, otherwise it's crash after crash. Card has been, and still does, run beautifully in the first 3 campaigns with shaders enabled at high level! Go figure. No newer drivers available that I can find.

I'd like to add the Nvidia GeForce Fx 5200 to the list. I have the same issues that Da'fino has. I could Max out and run beautifully in the first three but now... sigh, I'm considering canceling my Gwen order till they fix things.

I do realize that this is the tech forum, but I just wanted to thank GW Anet, and NCsoft for screwing us intel and gforce owners over royally.

Thanks for taking my money, giving me a standard tech support answer, and then refusing to respond any further.

Again I say you wont be getting any more of my money.

(Not directed to the ppl who attempt to help on this thread)

Well I can its both Nvidia and ATI cards too. I swapped my Nvidia 6200LE PCI-Eout with my ATI x600 PCI-E and both crash also. Good thing I have more than 1 computer. My Geforce AGP 5200 FX ran fine this weekend though. Bad enough I had to work half the weekend. Then putting up with the crashing sucked, Not to mention my other comp I did manage to play with the voices wasnt working for some odd reason.

Just a update on the support ticket I sent to ncsoft about this issue.
Last I heard from them was two days ago (48hrs) that I needed to update my drivers, or reinstall.
I replied that I had reinstalled and was still having issues. I have heard absolutely nothing from them since then.
Good luck to all of you during the release I do hope they fix this for you, but at this time I just dont see it happening.
Please those of you having these issues, make sure you drop a support ticket with them. Not saying it will do any good, but it cant hurt.

Yet another update.. I found a number for ncsoft support this is what I was told.
Intel cards are not officially or will they ever be supported by Guildwars.

You can call for solutions such as -dx8 if you wish by calling this number.
512-225-6359 Monday through Friday 12:00pm and 5:00pm Central time.
Call them and let them know you are not pleased.

http://www.plaync.com/us/support/doc_2664.html

Will my Intel® Graphics Controller work with Guild Wars?

The newer Intel® Graphics Controllers - for example, the 915G and the 945G - display Guild Wars very well. Some older Intel Graphics Controllers are not supported and may not run Guild Wars as it was intended...

http://www.plaync.com/us/games/gwen/specs.html

Minimum Requirements:

ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 Series

Recommended:

ATI Radeon 9600 or GeForce FX 5700 series video card or above

And yet clearly, this is not the case:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:...Peek_Weeke nd

I very much plan to call; their preview launch of GW:EN and their handling of the situation has been nothing but insulting, pathetic and unprofessional.

I feel the need to chime in here. I dont understand why the graphics engine was jacked up so high for GW:EN. I run an Nvidia 6150LE onboard and in the above ground areas of GW:EN my card handled it fine, in the dungeon areas on the other hand I was sooo lagged from the graphics that it was almost impossible to play. I turned my graphics WAAAYYY down and it helped , but not that much.
This is an expansion, why would you program the graphics so high as to alienate players who have played all three chapters. Its an expansion, it makes no sense. My wife runs a machine with Intel graphics and was not able to play the preview, and when we called NCSoft we were told basically too bad. Quote: "We have never supported intel graphics and Never will." Seems funny the intel worked just beautiful on all three of the other chapters.
I enjoy gaming with my wife and with this stance even though my machine does run GW:EN it is very much in question as to weather I will actually purchase GW:EN.
I would urge everyone with Intel graphics to call the number that B/P Ranger posted. It may not get anything done but alteast our voices will be heard.

These are all the cards that had frequent crashes during the weekend, and not all are intel. Anet really dropped the ball for a lot of long-time players this weekend.

Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Acer aspire 5602WLMi
Intel Integrated GMA 950/945G, Motherboards and the ordinary white MacBook 2006+
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Toshiba Satellite A100
Integrated Intel Media Accelerator 9000 Grapics, Dell Inspiron 6000
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X60s
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, HP dv2000 series
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Compaq NC4400
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Dell XPS M1210
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Dell Inspiron 640m
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Dell Inspiron E1705
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Dell Latitude D620
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Dell Inspiron 6400
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Dell Inspiron E1505
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, AMILO Pi 1505
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, AMILO Pro V8210
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Gateway MX6956
Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family
Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family, Dell Dimension DV051
Intel 82945g Express Chipset Family, Dell Optiplex
Intel 945 chipset hp media center pc
Mobile Intel(R)945GM Express Chipset Family, BenQ S61 -
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Alienware Sentia 3450 Mobile
ASUS N6600/TD/128 GeForce 6600 (NVIDIA Drivers)
Nvidia GeForce 6100 Integrated Chipset Family
GeForce 6150 Integrated Chipset Family
GeForce Fx 5200
Nvidia 6200LE PCI-E
ATI x600 PCI-E

what's more curious is that there are plenty of people with those graphic cards and they could run the event just fine. my geforce fx5500, which is similar to the geforce fx5200, ran it quite well (just with low framerates. but it runs everything poorly).

Interestingly, they deleted their Intel Graphics support page for this matter over the night. Interesting, indeed. http://www.plaync.com/us/support/doc_2664.html

This is googles cached version of the intel video supported.
I present the cached version

http://search.plaync.com/search?q=ca...ars&oe=UT F-8

and my screenshot

Proof my card is or at least was supported by Guildwars.
http://www.plaync.com/us/support/doc_4691.html



edited to add the right screenshot

To say these two models of card are similar by comparison is very short sighted. There are atleast 5 different versions on each model. As in a 128mb/256mb model of each with several different ramdac options. Not to mention that there are differences in the GPU on the low end version of the 5200 as compared to the higher GPU speed on the high end version of the 5500. I would caution everyone about making assumptions about a cards performance based on the series number of the card.
As a matter of fact I ran a Nvidia MX4000 with 64mb memory that actually outperformed the fx5200 in the Guild Wars game. Look at the GPU speed....the MX 4000 gpu is faster than the FX5200, it just had less memory.
Trust me when I say that video cards can be very confusing.
I dont believe that anyones response at this point should be to tell someone that it is their machine. If their game was running fine before the preview and now they cant even run the regular GW without a fresh install, then it isnt their machine. B/P Ranger's Intel card is one that NCSoft listed as running GW quite well and now the page stating that has been removed. Seems like someone is covering their tracks here. Furthermore, to program an EXPANSION in such a manner as to make it unusable is utterly preposterous. If it were a new chapter then I would have to side with NCSoft, but its NOT!!

You know, I was looking for this during the preview weekend to see if I could get any answers. I remember looking at it before when I first installed the game to correct the inventory crash I was having.

And it's been removed?

NCSoft, this conduct is f'ing disgusting. Not only is it dishonest, it's also condescending and an insult. Do you think we wouldn't notice?

Hello.

I have also Intel 945GM express video card and latest driver on my laptop. I can run ll other 3 games perfectly but i experienced the same error u guys/girls experienced during sneek-peek.

I turned shadow option off and shader quality to low. It straingly never crashed again. But this is not what i want. I want shadows and everything very much on because 256MB graphic card should be easely able to do that with GW games.

I contacted playNC Support and they were kind of nice to me. They sent me back the e-mail containing next steps i must now do (they returned message in 24 hours).

The next Step is to run GW diagnostics. I didnt know GW games had that tool but they do. Then i must send the log that will be created as attachment file to NcSoft so they can determine the problem and eventually solve it (i hope so).

The reason im writting this in future is because im going to do this after 31st when game launches. I still can perfectly play all other GW games so no need to runn diagnostics on that.

daryo

Well, in the end i had to go out and buy a new case & motherboard just to be able to play the event for the last hour

I'm also stuck with lower quality graphics till i can get a decent graphics card for this machine. I'm thinking of getting the ATI X1650 PRO from here. as its fairly cheap. I'll have to wait 2 weeks for it though as i've already spent all my cash

Jeers to you Guild Wars. Jeers!

The worst part - they admit no mistake. At least say - oops, our bad, we will work to fix it. Not - it's all your fault you don't have one of the two whole video cards that we "technically" support. Seriously, how many people playing have specifically ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3? I'm sure they are very popular video cards but I would guess at least 2 out of the 4 Million players they claim don't have them. Again - Jeers!

Was looking at buying a new video card - had graphics problems in GW until the weekend.

Then the preview went live and I was able to play fine at maximum settings nearly 12 hrs a day - not a flicker of a problem.

Then they updated to end the preview and suddenly the problems are back.

So my card, ATI x1900 GS, runs guildwars fine as long as EOTN is up and running but has problems when it's not ?????????????

Guess I'll wait till I see what happens when EOTN goes live this friday before buying a new card.

Edit: Looks like someone on GWOnline is having the same kind of problems with an ATI x1650 pro.

Just a small update. They are looking into this further. Not saying the cards will work, but they are looking into it.

Not saying there isnt a problem with GW in this regard but since almost all the problems seem to be with integrated GPU's I have to ask:

Did you update your GPU drivers AND your chipset drivers to the latest versions?

Most of these issues sound to me like driver issues, one of the biggest issues with the Intel IGM's is that they dont support hardware T&L and shaders, this has been fixed in part for the latest generation by new Intel drivers but I dont know how extensive they've been tested.

Also, please note that onboard GPU's will always have the caveat of 'should work' since no gaming company can guarantee that the producers of the mainboards havent taken shortcuts and deviated from Intel or Nvidia reference designs.
Anyways, good luck, I hope this gets fixed for all concerned.

You are correct it is a driver error. And most of us did update our drivers.
My specific graphics adapter has been supported by GW since prophicies.

Point is that they know there is a problem, and they are investigating it.

Meaning there is hope for us with these cards.

I was crashing during the preview event and finally gave up on playing EotN (but hopefully not forever). I just wanted to add my info.

CPU/Graphics Info:
Processor Type: Pentium M
Processor ID: 06D8
Current Clock Speed: 2.00 GHz
Minimum Clock Speed: 800 MHz
Maximum Clock Speed: 2.00 Ghz
Processor Cache Size: 2048
Hyperthreading Capable: No

Graphics capabilities are integrated with the processor (I don't know if I said that right).

GW Graphics Settings:
I run Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall with the graphics dialed all the way up and experience no problems. I didn't change my graphics settings for Eye of the North.

PROBLEM: Eye of the North either ran perfectly fine with no lag (and with no other indications of the processor being overstrained) -OR- it would crash immediately and unexpectedly (no lag before hand or anything like that).

The problem persisted even when I took my character out of the EotN map areas. In NF, I continued to crash. All of my other characters (whom I didn't take into EotN) played perfectly fine with no crashes whatsoever.

I crashed approximately 7 times (I think).

I'm hoping that I'll be able to play EotN.

Here is some information for you straight from the ArenaNet Team members most expert in video cards:

• We do support the Intel 915 and 945 chipsets.
• There may have been some misinformation amongst the TS Team at NCsoft, but they've been informed by the ArenaNet Team that we do still support those chipsets.
• The support page was taken down in error, and has been or will be replaced. No conspiracy, no secret meaning, no subterfuge.
• The issue that most players are experiencing is related to a driver error. We cannot control driver errors, but we have several team members working directly with Intel to make adjustments to the content that is, essentially, "arguing" with the new drivers.
• We were not able to get the changes in place before the Sneak Peek Weekend, and for that we are sorry.
• We will have the updates in place that will improve functionality prior to release this Friday.

Here is exact wording that you may find of interest:

"It looks like the problem is due to a 2d texture being bound to a stage where a pixel shader expects a cubemap. The nVidia and ATI drivers are handling it gracefully but the Intel driver with the 915 and 945 is failing. This can definitely be fixed by release but does not look like there's a quick fix that can get out immediately since there are some content changes involved.

The good news is in every place I've seen the problem, switching to "low" shader quality does work around it. You can set low shader quality by going to graphics options (f11) then look under the Advanced section of the Graphics tab and there is 'Shader Quality.'" And again, this should not be necessary at release.

We are sorry for this situation, and are working very hard for a prompt and full remedy.

Gaile, thank you for replying to this thread!

I don't know much about computers & cpu's & graphics cards. Are you saying that a solution will probably be found for processors with integrated graphics processing too? Or just those graphics *cards* which are experiencing problems?

I realize you may not be able to answer that. Is there anyone I can contact about that?

Thanks.

Gaile

Thank you for taking the time to address these issues on this thread. It is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for replying Gaile, but if you look at all the reports, and from first hand experience, I can tell you many Nvidia Geforce and ATI cards are definately -Not- handling it gracefully.

VT, I'm still tracking this. What you've posted is a very long and very detailed list. Can you tell me the source for this specific information? I may want to go to that source and check for the currency of the list.

There is a list on wiki
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:...Peek_Weeke nd

There was a list put on wiki as B/P Ranger said. On most GW forums the same graphics cards were mentioned numerous times, so a list was compiled by them. I also have two PCs with Nvidia Geforce series 6 cards with current drivers and both on GW will randomly freeze and play the last sound heard on loop until the computers are rebooted. They never used to do that until the new build for GW was released during GWEN.

Same thing for an ATI Radeon 9600, with latest drivers (going BACK one driver helps, but does not cure the problems). Using -noshaders did solve the problem.

So i can enjoy full graphics this weekend crash free?

Gimmie a sec gaile, i need to bake you a dozen cookies

/I<3Anet

wooo this is awesome news!

-noshaders seemed to solve my problem too. bur for some reason I had to restart my computer for the -noshaders command to work.

looking forward to fix.

I hate to be the one to point this out but, if you are trying to use the -noshader switch now and thinking it has solved a problem.....Hello? GW:EN isnt running now so how are you testing it? Everyone just needs to sit tight till friday and see what happens. You cant test something if it isnt running.

And Good job Anet on addressing this problem. Glad to see that we the players may be improtant after all hehehee. Thanx guys.

Having a problem with my laptop's GeForce 6600 too, older driver helped but didnt fix everything. When GW:EN comes out,i'll try -noshader ot see if it fixed some of my graphic problems.

Um, Gaile did not say it was related to GWEN itself but rather that it was an issue with NEW DRIVERS. She also recommended the low shader setting and said that usually "solves" the problem. If it were merely GWEN related there would be no reason for her to mention that (since she said it after the preview closed and they will have it fixed before the GWEN release] So it seems obvious that it is a problem with a broader scope than GWEN

No, the issue is only with content in GW:EN. The system crashes and reboots are due to the drivers as opposed to the Guild Wars client but the error ultimately stems from some characters and monsters using the wrong texture types.

She was talking about the new Intel drivers only and pointed out that Nvidia and ATI handled the new shaders gracefully, which is not the case at all. If it was just the new Intel drivers many people using Nvidia and ATI cards wouldn't be having the same crashes.