Abysmally low FPS in GWEN!! (on 8800GTS 640mb)

Just before the release of GWEN, I started having a certain kind of lag that I never experienced in GW before. It wasn't like a "usual" lag. It was more like everything in very slow motion. Someone might say that this is a definition of lag, but in my case lag is usually defined as "slow jerks" in movement, leaping, and some slowness.

Anyway... I was quite confused because the ping was normal like always, and I usually get at least 60fps everywhere I go in GW. This time I noticed that my fps is only around 22!!

Things I did:

Defragged HD
Did full system scan with Kaspersy Antivirus.
Did a full system scan with ADAware 2007.
used contig to defrag GW.dat
NOTHING HELPED!!

Then I reinstalled GW client. SAME THING!!
Used contig again to defrag gw.dat
NO DIFFERENCE!

Ping is great, fps is terrible! Once I got GWEN and went into that dugeon right after Umbral Grotto, I got only around 17-19fps, falling to 7fps in some areas!!!

I went into option and set all options to lowest possible. Res to 800x600. SAME FPS!!

Ran Far Cry... 67-90fps with highest settings as usual!!


This is truly unbelievable... Any ideas??


EDIT: Forgot to mention that my video driver is the latest one there is, so that also cant be the cause.

Windows XP or Vista?

ive had same problems, and other problems, that occured now more and more often, since GW:EN exists somehow, and when its only the stuff from SPE...

Today and last days, my FPS was ever like 7-18 , game looked, as if i would play in slow motion, or as if the game would have an uber lag cause of massive high pings like 10k+.
I said to me, ok, this maybe normal now for a time, cause of milions of players, which storm now EotN, cause its new ... this was on all campaigns same so...
But what was never so, and this is my personal 2nd problem is, that the lag becomes mostly while being in missions so big, that the game short freezes totally and than your desktop says "goodbye" to you, going off .. u see then only black screen and you can't do anything then anymore, cause you don#t see anything naturally anymore.
You can try as often as u want to get your desktop back on, pushing desktop start button off and on ..nothing happens, no reaction... the only thign that you can do then is to shut down your PC and restart it then and restart the game to use then the rejoin-function.

This happened never before so much often, until SPE started and FPS went so much down ... before all that i could play theoretically a half day without any problem with my dekstop shutting down by hisself after massive lag.

A problem I really can't understand and it really happens mostly only while you are in a mission oO and thats naturally very annoying

Everyone and their Grandma is probably playing GW today, so I'm trying to have some patience - which is wearing thin. My lag issue is that during gameplay, everything stops.. my characters put down their arms as if they're waiting for me to do something, commands I've issued aren't being carried out, and then about 10-30 seconds later, everything starts up again, usually ending with me being dead or close to it.

It is, however, getting very annoying.. enough so that a nap is in my future :-)

XP Professional SP2. All latest patches installed.

Hello ibex33, I have the very same problem you seem to have.

I also have an Nvidia 8800gts 640. Since GWEN came out, it seems like everywhere I go I cant escape this 'slow-motion-like' lag. I get between 15 to 25 fps depending on where I am playing. On other games (more demanding ones), I hit around 60 to 80+ FPS...

What's going on?

This sounds to me as if the graphics card is not getting enough power from the PSU. When you are in an area that the card is under stress it will use more power than the PSU can give and make the machine reset or turn off.

I hope we'll find a solution soon. If you find it faster than me, please let me know. I'll be sure to do the same for you.

Which area's, I will keep an eye out, using an 7600 GT myself, own Gwen... just can't fully play it till tonight.

Something you may want to try, make sure you have the newest revision of Direct X 9 (Newest as of this post is Aug 07).
http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US...DirectX10.aspx

I dont have the same high end graohic card as you guys, but my card was always at 85 fps all time, since gwen as said before started to exist i found some very low fps goint to like 25 fps or even lower, and all gwen outposts for me are workin under 30 fps, yes, my card is under more stress for sure, not only the lots of ppl in town are the cause, becouse empty outposts are low fps as well, i noticed my card is runnin hotter too, so something changed, not sure what is, anyone else have the same ??

This is clearly not just an 8 series problem. This is an nVidia problem.

I started a thread here: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=44767

You guys might want to check it every now and then.

Downloading DX right now. I'm pretty sure I had the latest one though.

EDIT: and all areas off course. some worse than others.

I always have 12 fps.

Solution?
DEAL WITH IT.

As long as you don't have 5 fps with 300 ping, it's still plenty playable (minus the tears).

Hey ibex333, what is your power supply? Can you tell me its maximum AMPS reading on the 12volts rail?

Also, how high is the temperature while running games?

If your temperature is high and the AMPS not higher than 15a, this may be our problem. I hope not...

-Hicks

Not likely.

I use an OCZ GameXtream 700w PSU. Besides.. Think about it. If the PSU was the culprit, why would the problem only develop recently? Why is it that we never experienced it before? I only started having it about a week ago. Prior to this I had this issue too(for a short time), but that was a long time ago, and somehow went away by itself... Also I'm not sure if it was exactly the same problem.


I have no idea what my video card, and my "case" temps are, because I have no way of measuring them. My CPU temp is 41-43 idle and 52-56 on load. That with an [email protected]

Sorry bud. I don't "deal" with things. I take care of them. (especially when it comes to computers)




UPDATE: It seems this whole thing might be Anet's fault. I went out of my way to dig up my original video driver CD that came with the card. I remember 100% that with original drivers I used to get a steady 60fps everywhere in GW.

I installed it and.... SAME THING HAPPENS!! 14-20fps!!!
Someone on nVidia forums mentioned a problem with Creative Audigy drivers... I went and got the latest ones.. Off course that was bollocks because nothing changed. gg Anet. (off course I'll take that back and apologize if it turns out it wasnt Anet's fault. Never too proud for that.)

i can tell u right away u can forget about the powerissue
there might be something wrong with nvidias drivers for the 8 series

im running perfect on a 6600GT
sure a bit lower fps now then before
only in GWEN areas tho, specially if i linger in town i get ~30'ish fps
outside i get a decent 45-60'ish fps

it sounds weird to me tho that 8800GT performs worse then my card
and i play at 1600x1200 maxed settings

so thats why im guessing it might be a 8 series drivers VS GuildWars issue

Oh well... I use to have the same problem in NWN2 and STALKER. Nvidia told me it had to be my PSU not delivering enaugh AMPS, so I bought a dual 15a one.

I'll keep looking...

A friend of mine had this issue and was able to work around it. It appears to be a deferred defect in the driver as it occurs with several different video cards when using a 90+ video driver and when specific texture commands are called. I will post again as soon as my friend gets me the information I requested from him.
Perhaps turning off the driver’s eye candy will help. At this point, I would turn everything in the driver to application controlled and disable game profiles. It might help, might not. Good luck.

I own an eVGA 8800GTS 640mb loaded with the latest drivers, and GW:EN runs at a nice 60+ FPS windowed. Obviously since it's not a problem exclusive to one person, it's most likely a problem on ANet's side. Then again, the fact that I'm running Vista might make a difference.

The one thing that stumps me is that your FPS is the same no matter what your video settings are. This is the only thing that I can see pointing toward drivers or software in general.

Here's a question: are you running nVidia nTune?

I own a 320mb 8800 GTS on my power comp and installed the most recent drivers just a couple of days ago and everything runs at a smooth 60 FPS. I also use Windows XP SP2. Your power supply shouldn't be a problem since it's 200 above mine.

Have you tried a clean drivers reinstallation?

Im having the exact same problem, it all started a couple of days ago aswell. I've been at a loss as to the cause, i tried the same sort of things as you ,Ran anti virus, adware,defragged HD and GW.dat file, turned all the settings down to the lowest, it doesn't seem to matter what my graphic settings are im still getting the same low fps rate. I was in the preview event for gw:en and it was perfect i had no lag and i was never disconnected like some people i know were.

No... I usually install over the old ones. You think that would make a difference?

Heh.. Same here! Peculiar.. Very peculiar.

Found the problem!

I'm not sure if Anet found a way to fix their game codes or anything, but this morning I tried to tweak my card settings, with interesting results. I now get 60-70 FPS everywhere.

This is what I did:

-Open up your NVIDIA control panel. (Latest drivers installed)
-Browse 'Manage 3D Settings' under '3D Settings'.
-Select the 'Program Settings' panel.
-Find Guildwars in the program list. Click on it.
-In the settings right under it, find 'Anisotropic Filtering' and 'Antialiasing - Mode'
-Set both values to 'Application Controlled'.
-Make sure EVERY other values are set to 'Use global setting'.
-Edit: If the problem still persist, try turning on 'Tripple Buffering'.

So far it worked for me. I'll try again later tonight when there's more net traffic and see if its not Anet-related.

Hope that helps.

Doesn't work for me. 7-10fps in Vlox's falls... around 20 max everywhere else. I'm gonna stop playing this thing until a fix is found.



UPDATE:

WOOOHOOO!!!! PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

After I tried what you said, I went to my father's computer and installed GW there... I played it on his PC before with a steady 45-50fps, but a long time ago. I know 100%, that nothing new was installed on that PC since then. Driver was never updated. Anyway.. I ran GW and I got only 7-12fps. That made me 99.9% certain it's Anet's fault. Not nVidia's and not mine.

Anyway, I went back to my PC and went into the program options in nVidia panel again. double checked to see if I did everything exactly as you said. Turn out everything is set correctly... I kept looking through the options... All of a sudden I saw that my triple buffering is OFF. I decided to try and set it to on. Went back into GW... STEADY 60fps!!


Turns out one must do everything you said, PLUS turn on triple buffering. That solves the issue. (that is untill Anet cleans up their act)

I hope the setting changes hold for you ibex333, but it is an issue with nvidia in that GW is not the only game with this issue. Even windows vista with glide turned on is effected.
60FPS? I get 110 to 70 everywhere with my 6800 GT. My previously mentioned friend drops 110 just before he lags out he gets around 125 under full load while I putt by at just 30.
I am not sure of the settings yet but I do know he tweaked the settings using RivaTuner. Here is a link to be able to download it" http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163
I am still trying to get the specific settings.

Even Win Vista? Vista is notorious for all kinds of problems. It's too new. At this point it's not BETTER than XP for gamers. It's WORSE.


You have vsync off I have it on. That's why you have more fps than me. I don't want to have more fps because 60 is plenty. If I wanted to, I could probably pump out more than 200fps from this baby, but what's the use?

Thanx for the RivaTuner. I know about it, because I used to OC my 6600GT so I could play FEAR at acceptable speeds. This time I don't want to OC yet, because there's not a single game that can drop my card's fps below 60. Maybe Bioshock will - then I can OC.

PS: I really hope Hiks' settings will help people get their fps up. Thanx to everyone who replied.

Success!!! I have an ATI Radeon Card so i went into its setting and set them similar to what you said, and like you again ibex332 i had to turn on Triple Buffering aswell for it to work. I'd like give a big thanks to you Hicks for suggesting this and i hope it helps everyone else out.

Weird... I had Tripple Buffering turned off this whole time. Yet, when I turn it on, I dont seem to get much anything from it. I am not really happy by the fact that I am only pumping 50-60 fps from my 8800gts and e6600 2.4 Dual Core CPU either, but oh well... At least its running fine.

Glad I could have helped.

I also got the same problem
I have tried solution above but it seems not to work for me. i Got Ati X1600
It does not matter what graphic settings i have it still give me 7-14 fps in city with people and about 25 out side. Before Gwen i had 55-60 easily on max settings.

I guess i spoke too soon it was working for about an hour now it's back doing the same thing again

I got the same! It looked like ok for 1 hour and after that

Hmm.. Same here. This is ridiculous. I bet Hicks got the same problem now. I hope he replies.

Well I guess problem not solved.. I'll keep looking and will post here as soon as I get any results.


EDIT: OK... I think I found out what the problem is. I felt it from the start, but I denied as hard as I could....

GUILD WARS DOESNT LIKE OVERCLOCKED CPUs. I went into my BIOS, and set everyhing to stock. Rebooted and VOILA! I'm back to 60fps.

Someone might say I have an unstable OC, but it's just about as stable as it gets! No lockups ever, no errors... Temps never exceed 56C.. All games except GW run perfectly well, and actually GAIN performance from the Oc instead of loosing it. I guess I'll play GW at stock, and OC every time I do anything else.

I don't OC and I'm having the exact same issues as everyone has described here on an ATI Radeon x1600.

I've done everything posted here plus everything I could think of like checking BIOS/PSU/RAM, etc. I've basically given up trying to resolve the issue.

Finally, someone who has the same problems as I do.

I built my machine about a month ago:
Dual-Core E6600 OC'ed to 3.2
EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb
2 Gigs of RAM
Windows XP Pro
etc.

Starting the night that the GW:EN content was loaded, my machine started the intermittent lockups. At first I thought I just had an unlucky streak with XP, by the next day I realized something was wrong. Not only would Guild Wars fail to play (crashing before entering), but all of my games stopped working. At first I attributed this to the fact that I was running beta ForceWare drivers for Bioshock (163.44 for 32 bit XP), and they had stability issues. I unstalled the beta drivers and installed the latest stable (162.18). At first I thought it worked, as I was able to actually login to GW, but it crashed after 10 seconds or so. I tried a couple of times, monitoring my temps and voltage.

One of the times it crashed, my BIOS decided to revert back to the factory settings, and figuring I would give GW another shot. Lo and behold, I was able to play for a couple of minutes. This perplexed me, as I spent a great deal of time stress-testing my setup after I got it put together, and I had been playing Bioshock on max settings for the past week. I reloaded my stable OC profile, and tried just using Firefox. Alas, even that was crashing it.

I then decided that a reformat was in order. Fortunately, when I got my PC running with stable drivers and no excess software installed, I created a backup disc image, in case of emergency. I'm running older ForceWare drivers now, and I spent most of today doing every test possible (stress and diagnostic), with everything turning out stable. I'm pretty sure that the beta video drivers are to blame for some of it, but even afterwards, the stable ones saw problems. Also, I didn't have any problems with anything (GW or otherwise) until the GW:EN release night.

Until I can figure this out, I'm staying away from installing GW. I spent forever trying to actually get into the store and forever making the store accept my card. I've got a couple of Photoshop projects I need to do, and I'm hesitant to do another fresh install.

I'm having really low frame rates(5-10) in big places since a few days ago.
It was running fine in GW:EN untill it started going reeeeealy slow the next day, suddenly I get a message saying "A new guild of GW is available..." so I restart GW and the lag is gone!
Now it's back again, strange :l

Maybe you should put it in the Riverside Inn, no one reads this x.x

lol.. I thought the same thing. Let me assure you that this is NOT the case. I took my original driver CD that came with the card and installed the driver from that, and that made no difference. I played on another computer that I remember getting about 50fps on in the past. SAME THING. Read my previous replies in this thread to see a more thorough explanation.


As for me, I now pretty much confirmed that most of my fps problems were due to the overclock. The fps sometimes does drop to 20fps for unknown reasons, but for the most part it's in the 60's and jumps to 130+ quite often.

If you want this thread to stay alive and you want more people to notice it, please bump it up every now and then... I don't think this belongs in riverside, but if you do, you're welcome to xfer it there and/or quote me.

If you want this thread to stay alive and you want more people to notice it, please bump it up every now and then... I don't think this belongs in riverside, but if you do, you're welcome to xfer it there and/or quote me.

Perhaps it is in the DirectDraw 3D settings.
Here is what my friend told me about the issue with is two 8800s. "Anyway, wish I knew what it was... (is this what you are talking about) the main thing is (in RivaTuner) that you have to click on "DirectDraw and Direct3D settings" and click on Defaults on each tab in that area. That always fixed it for me." I am not sure where to look for this with an ATI card. I really hope this helps.

Contig was the answer to me. It just amazes me how each system differs.

It's definately an Nvidia thing. My other PC with an ATI X1300 gets about 30-40fps on GWEN whereas my 8600GT has never gone above 20 yet.

I haven't tried the things you tried because I realised it was only a GW thing since I still get the usual 60+ fps on my other games.

22 Fps? seriosly?
Ive never had a higher frame rate then 12 fps. i dont see what you are complaining about