GuildWars 4gb/wxp64x

Hey guys,

Just recently built a new pc, a Q6600 with 2gb of ram (OCZ PC2 8500 reaper), and with a 8800GTS card (Running Windows XP 64bit). Everything was runningly happily, getting constant fps of 150+ (with vsync off), all was happy

Then around a month ago I added 2gb of ram (Same type), I cant pinpoint when all the problems started, but id say around then....

All of a sudden my fps dropped to 10-12fps after about 20min of playing, occassionally peaking out at around 30fps. This quite obviously drove me insane

Ive tested my theory by removing the extra ram, and everything seems fine again, going to give it some testing later (Sadly this thing called work comes between me and testing), but I just wondered if anyone else was running with 4gb of ram, or was it possibly something not setup right on my pc?

No other games were affected by the extra ram, the OS was stable and running quite happily, infact is around 2mth old and its never crashed once, which suggests things are stable, just GW seems unhappy.

Any ideas oh great ones ? Or do I just stick with 2gb and donate the ram away

Did you just remove the extra rams or did you switch them?

You were probably running the original RAM you had in dual channel mode. If you add new RAM, even if it is the same type, it has a high chance of instability. That's why they sell packages of RAM to ensure stability.

In other words, go to the store and buy a 4x1GB package, or disable dual channel mode. I'd recommend the first one.

Tried both now, works fine with (either) matched pair in, but not all 4, eg 4GB (They were bought as 2x1GB matched pairs). Ill try what you suggested to Aera. As I said before just GW affected, everything else appears fine.

Ok slight update, its doing it with the 2gb ram as well, seems in all but the smallest outpost its slowing down to a halt. Tried setting graphics options and res to low etc, anyone else having strange slowdown compared to what its normally like? Ill keep on it, but I dont think its the ram now. Tried the single core trick that I found in another thread to, made no difference.

sounds like a .dat corruption. Delete the .dat and start all over using -image. It will take a looooooong time but I had the same problem back in the day. Sometimes that extra memory inexplicably (well theres a reason, but its fairly glitchy random so inexplicable = easiest ) corrupted my game, but a fresh new .dat was all I needed to fix the latency problems (in Guild Wars, as you said, and had happened to me, everything else didn't care/got better with more RAM).

My question is; does the motherboard support 4GB of RAM? When you install all four gigs, how much RAM does the motherboard report during post? If all 4096MB (4GB or 4184304KB) is shown, check System Properties to ensure it is being seen properly then it is a Guild Wars issue. If the motherboard can see all the RAM (and there are many that can not) then you may need to reinstall windows.

Yup the motherboard supports 4gb of ram.

Anyways think I may have cracked it (again, maybe im being hopeful), was quick to blame the ram (As it seemed to tie in with my memory of it starting) but it may have nothing to do with it.

The motherboard is a asus P5KE (wish id read up before I bought it as it seems to be plagued with problems, board at initial release wasnt at its best) however asus have released several new bios's for it fixing allsorts, running the latest now and it so far as been playing ok. Going to sneak the ram back in later, see what happens, maybe if its lucky it can have the SB Live XFi card back in... im missing sound lol.

Failing that ill try deleting the .dat and let it rebuild over night,

Thanks for help so far everyone, ill keep you posted if it fixes it then it may help others who have the P5KE motherboard.

Could have hit the nail on the head with this suggestion, thanks. My old GW.DAT was (wait for it) 15.5GB . After deleting it and recreating it with -image its a more reasonable 4GB (This sound right?). Dont ask me why the original was so big, no I havent been feeding it burgers! Playing game now and its running alot faster, all round including loading (Which makes sense if it has a smaller file to process).

Thanks for your help guys think with a combination your your suggestions, me dismembering of my PC, and a overall spring clean of GW ive cracked it, gonna give it some heavy testing today but otherwise think its fixed.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Mark

I'm getting the p5k-e/wifi-ap too, for my new system in april. Is it really that bad?

Never given me any problems, flashing the bios to the latest version has improved things slightly but I think my problem was caused mostly by a corrupt/oversized .dat file.

Early on the board was "unstable" according to alot of the techie sites, especially when it came to certain memory/cpu combinations, but I think its now a perfectly good board, been stable for 3mth now (Give or take). If you buy the board now chances are it wont have one of the early bios re revisions, and be much better stability wise out the box than what mine was (but as ive said ive never had any problems with it anyways). Mines the wifi one to (But I dont use the wifi)

I was planning on getting an e8400 with it, and 2gb's of corsair twin2x8500c5d memory

I did a quick search for specs on this MB, very few reviews of the P5K-E that scored it at 50% or lower. The average 4.5 stars on a scale of 1-5 There were several complaints about the wifi version not having a very strong signal or not working well in thier home. Overall I would say it looks like a nice board.