Freezing at login screen.

Hello, I'm having this problem that is annoying, but let me start from the beginning.

I've played Guild Wars since It came out about the first month. I've had a few crashing problems but I fixed them all out after sorting out my graphics. I played for a good while until I quit a little before Nightfall. Then I played again a little before Eye of the North came out before I quit again. Now I'm back once more, but with a problem I've never experienced before.

Whenever I'm at the log in screen, my games freezes within 10 seconds. I was lucky once and managed to beat the time and log in to one of my characters. The game itself was fine, so I just reinstalled and still the same problem persist.

I theorize that the Eye of the North animated background may be causing this, if there isn't anything you guys could think of; is there anyway to delete the background? Or at least change it? I've managed to slowly change my graphics settings to as low as possible yet I still crash too. No I have not submitted a ticket first, I figured why bother them when someone else could help me? There's nothing that I can do right now, and I really need the help please.

EDIT: Yes, I have looked through many posts and I have tried everything including wiping my hard drive, de-fragging, etc... Anything you could think of, I might have done. Except for actually changing the screen itself.

Are you using the SAME PC from the first time you played GW? If you are, check the fans and air ports, make sure they aren't clogged with dust (causing parts to overheat), but before you do that....reinstall your graphics drivers and see if it keeps happening.

Tried, still happens. I can gaurentee it's this new login screen though, as when I was in-game everything went perfectly fine. Exactly the way I remebered it.

Are you using one of those Integrated Intel Cards?

Sadly, yes. I assure you the game itself runs fine though.

I'm sure it runs fine. Few years back I played GW for a split sec on my cousins old Dell notebook which had the infamous 64 MB GMA950 Chipset...it ran great...anyways, ontopic: That's your problem. You haven't visited the locations below yet have you?

Here's the locations that hate Intel cards that I can remember:
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rata_Sum#Notes
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wehhan_Terraces#Notes

Just a heads up

No, I haven't been to those places. Fact of the matter is, I can't get there anyways because I can't get past the login screen.

There may be command line switches to help you. Maybe someone else, who knows/remembers what they are can answer, or you could search these forums for "gma950", or whatever PoS IIG you have.

Btw, if it's a desktop computer, you should consider getting an actual graphics card for it. If it's a laptop, you're SoL.

I'm about to get a new gaming laptop soon, and ditching this desktop. So I don't feel like putting any money into it.

Anyays, what's with this command line? I've heard of it, what can I do with it?

Ok, I just tried the command line options and it didn't help. Still freezes.

There isn't any way I could just get rid of the background/change it?

is your AV/firewall blocking or limiting access to GW, any error messages when it crashes? What are your full system specs???

Shitty GPU. 3 options:

1.Try graphic tags for booting. Like -dx8 or -opengl
2.Purchase new GPU
3.Fiddle with your Graphics settings, turn off shaders, Screen res, stuff like that.


If those 3 don't work you got other issues. Also, post your effing specs. If you are running Vistaids your problem could be as simple as your GPU not liking visual themes with GW, and the solution could just be setting GW to run with them disabled.

I don't have vista, so I doubt I have "Vistaids".
Yes, I've already tried graphic tags.

Like I said before, Can't I just play the game without that graphic background? I've already said this three times now.

No, I already ran the exception through, and I don't get an error. It's a hard crash.

Specs-



CPU
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz


CPU Speed
3.19 GHz


RAM
1023.4 MB


OS
Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Build Service Pack 32600)


Video Card
GeForce FX 5200
Video RAM 128.0 MB
3D Yes
Hardware T&L Yes


DirectX version
9.0c


Sound Card
SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio


Free Disk Space
147.7 GB

CD-ROM
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8162B


That is what it looks like when I run my PC on that system requirements site. I honestly don't know how, since I only get 30fps on medium settings.

Well your system meets the minimum specs and beyond for GW, so as long as the hardware is working you should be fine there. Have you tried defragging the gw.dat file specifically? Also, have you tried to do an image of the gw.dat file? (here's how to do it: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments )

No you cannot change the background, there may be some mod that will do it, but you don't want to mess with them when it's already not working right.

One more thing, post the system temperatures that you have both at idle and when you get as far as you can with gw. I like to use everest ultimate for that (they have a free version you can download too).

No offense, but I know my computer can't take that background. That is the problem, as when I do play it works fine. Not to mention all of the other backgrounds from the older campaigns worked fine for me. I know my computer is the problem, but I'm not going to spend any money to upgrade my PC. Are there anymore ways to fix it without spending money?


Yes, I have done the -image. Along with using -dx8, and -noshaders, and -opengl.

Now for defragging the .dat file itself, it's a fresh install. I'll give it a try anyways.

from Guild Wars website: These are for Eye of the North.

Recommended System Specs:

* Windows XP/2000/Vista
* Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* DVD-ROM Drive
* 4 GB Available HDD Space
* ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 series video card or above
* 16-bit Sound Card
* Internet connection
* Keyboard and mouse
* DirectX 9


I personally don't know if the background/loggin should prevent you from being able to play, but the 5200 that you have is likely to struggle with EoTN gameplaywise - so it is possible that the video card is the problem. I would still really like to know what temperatures you are reaching with that video card, both idle and under load. A video card upgrade would not cost very much, but I can understand if you didn't want to put money into an older computer such as this.

Well, even so I couldn't test it. Seeing how I can't get in-game.

I understand it's not much, but I'm only going to have this computer for 3-4 more months.

There is a possibility that your video card is faulty. It would be obscure, but stranger things have happened. The fault could be in some section of the video card that is only accessed by certain EotN things.
One way to check, of course, would be to replace the card. I know you say you don't want to spend any money on it, but a used FX5200 should be pretty cheap to get. Check around with friends, local computer shops, or buy/sell websites - someone may have one (or something similar) they can give you, or you should be able to buy one for around $10-$20.

Hmm, I'll consider that. For now I'll just create my character on my friends laptop and I can login from my PC.

How are you going to do that, if you can't make it past your login screen?

.....

If I do it fast enough, 1/10 I can make it past and just login to my character.

Still though, isn't there a mod for different backgrounds?

Time based crash, weird. If you tried everything I dunno what to say other than invest in a cheapo card. You can get ATi Radeon 9500 to 9800 cheap nowadays, since you don't want to put too much money into your computer.