GW Only graphics issue

Okay, here's the problem I'm having. Guild Wars causes my graphics driver to crash so I get all these weird graphics problems, usually they are solved by just alt+tabbing out and going to desktop, but they've gotten worse.

This is what it looks like in-game;



And nothing fixes it, so my only option at that point is to go out to the desktop which looks like this (the 'clear' spot is where I just dragged and did a random desktop selection);



And then I fix that by going into sleep mode.

Normally I'd think it was just my graphics card going out or something, but I'm able to play other games, like SW:TFU or MW2 fine without any issues at all. The only game I have any problems in is GW. I've updated my graphics drivers since this started happening, but to no effect.

I have an Nvidea 8600 GT, Windows Vista HP. Any ideas?

I am having this Exact problem! I also have a NVIDIA 8600 GT, Windows 7 x64. I also updated my Graphics Drivers but no effect. I have been loking around the internet and i have no solution at all. The only way i can re-solve mine is by re-starting my PC. Anybody with information will help me alot as well!

Exact same thing happened to me the other day after alt + tabbing, though its never happened using minimise / maximise

ATI x4850 in crossfire with Cat 10.6, Win XP

Either overheating or a corrupted gw.dat file = monitor your temperatures and/or run the "-image" command.

I had the same thing with my old VGA, don't know the specs anymore. After changing the card it didn't happen again. I didn't reinstall or debugged gw.dat. So my guess is overheating.

Looks like either a failing card or overheating.

I suggest you check the card is properly seated in the slot, that the fan is working and the fan isn't full of dust.

I would also guess overheating. I would think that an 8600GT might have to struggle a bit to do GW at 1680x1050 at max settings. You could try knocking the graphics settings down a notch - particularly, set AA to 2x (if it's higher than that) or even OFF.

Not sure what SW:TFU is (Star Wars something?) and I guess MW2 is MechWarrior, but in any case, although you might think those games are graphically intensive, they don't necessarily utilize a lot of the more GPU intensive goodies that GW can.

Seems like overheating to me as well. I don't really have any fix suggestions that haven't already been said.

SW:TFU is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, I believe, and MW2 is Modern Warfare 2.

Had the same problem with my old card (which WAS overheating, I found out.)
Replaced it with a 9800GT less than a month ago, and it's still happening even if GPU temperature doesn't go above 50C.

At this point, I figure either the dat is corrupted, or I'm having voltage issues. So if your card isn't dying, check your PSU and reimage your dat file.

mine definitely wasnt overheating, I monitor the temps closely, even have a shortcut key to view them in game and I clean my fans out regularly

to everyone its happened to: do you alt + tab or use the minimise button at the top?

its only happened to me after I alt + tabbed, never when using the minimise button

Hsiv is correct on that, it's The Force Unleashed and Modern Warfare 2, both of which I would *think* would be far, far more graphically intensive than Guild Wars. I have MW2 running with 2x AA at full 1680x1050 resolution and it never skips a beat - Force Unleashed running at 1440x900 and it only has some problems on the really heavy physics areas. I've played MW2 and TFU for several hours at a time and nothing happens with the graphics to indicate a problem. And yet yesterday in Guild Wars it took less than 10 minutes for this to manifest. I know that GW can be surprisingly graphics oriented, but I would think if it was a heating problem it would be happening across the board in all games, not *just* in Guild Wars.

That would lead me to think that it probably is a problem with the .dat. I didn't think that would be an issue, but I suppose there are graphics oriented drivers in there that could cause a problem. I'll try re-downloading it when I have some time.

Though I guess I should test the simplest thing first, how do you monitor heating on the GPU? I've never been 'hardcore' enough to have to do something like that?

:edit:

I use both Alt+tab and the Restore Down options relatively often to check wiki and other things, though my problem manifests regardless of whether I use them or not.

To monitor your GPU temperature, you can use a program like GPU-Z, which will monitor only your GPU but tell you everything there is to know about it as well, or a program that monitors CPU, HDD and GPU like HWmonitor, HWiNFO32 or Everest. The makers of CCleaner also have a monitoring program.

Thanks!

I used GPU-X while I messed around in GW for a few minutes. It looks like it topped out at about 79 degrees C. I'll have it up while I play GW for real this evening. 79 seems a little hot to me, but the people on the internet say about 75-85 is on the high end of the okay range for a GPU under load. Does that seem reasonable to you guys?

Yeah, 79 is high but should not endanger most GPUs. I'd still check for dust in your GPU fan since some GPUs are a little more sensitive to heat than others. You can also check your temps while playing MW2 since the game runs fine, it will give you a good reference point.

I would check temperatures after 30 mins to get a more realistic reading.

On another note, while you are right that MW2 and SW:TFU are more graphically intensive than GW, it always depends on your graphical settings: textures, shadows etc.

EDIT: Check the average and max temperatures as well as the current reading.

EDIT2: After an hour of playing GW, doing battle fro LA among other thing 1080p i got 75C max temp on a MR HD5870 so 79C on a desktop 8600 does indeed seem pretty high.

GW is notoriously heat sensitive - it will often choke on temperatures that other, more graphically impressive games, run smoothly on...

Compare your heat to MW2 and SW:TFU after playing all 3 for at least 20-30 mins. Most likely they'll be around 80°C+, so you better clean your GPU in time before it burns out. Mine did years ago ^^.
You could also try repairing or reinstalling GW, but I doubt that well help.

Mine is doing the same thing.

This never happened with my old 6800 on a much weaker computer playing GW for hours. Now I have a 9600 and this pops up after a few minutes.

Back in the day I remember NVidia cards really only played Guild Wars successfuly on a few versions of the drivers. Is it possible that one of the new drivers has a conflict with Guild Wars?

I'm not familiar with the graphics details of those games, but don't confuse "lots of fast moving graphics" with the amount of graphics power required. It doesn't matter as much to the video card, how fast the graphics move or the number of objects, as it matters what sort of graphics processes are being done on each pixel. In other words, just because GW is a slower moving game than those other titles, does not mean that the video card doesn't have to work hard to render all the lighting, reflections, AA, etc., routines that maxed out GW can use.

I did the -image to no avail.

My Guild Wars seems fixed from a good cleaning inside my computer.

Seems like you had a little too much dust in there, causing it to run hotter... not uncommon for GW.

I guess I spoke too soon.

I am having the same problem again. There is no way that enough dust got inside to clog up the cooling already.

I think there is some mix of Vista, 8600, and Driver Version 197.45 that creates poison with Guild Wars.

Can I get a Driver Version Check from those that are having problems and those that are not?

Have you tried reducing the graphics settings in GW?

But, it may be too late now. It often seems that, once a chip has been overheated a few times, it just gets worse.

I'm going to bump this at the risk of getting flamed.

I have had this issue on my laptop for about a year now. I am running a Geforce 8600m GT. I can tell you with great confidence that it is not heat related, nor a hardware failure, nor a fault of Vistas. So far I have been unable to confidently determine what causes it, but I have eliminated those three possibilities. I cannot manage to reproduce the problem with any consistency; it seems completely random as to when it happens.

When I first had it happen, I definitely thought it was heat. As I said I use a laptop, and heat is not an uncommon issue for them. However after dismantling and cleaning my machine, it still occurred. I thought it might be a malfunction with the cooling fans, but to no avail. The moment I realized it was not a heat issue was when I monitored the game for 5+ hours with GPU-Z with no oddities showing up (card only heated up very little from it's idle state), and the game did not malfunction. About a day later I managed to get it to crash during a GPU logging session; no temperature or voltage changes on the gpu occurred when the crash did. Then later, after a cold boot, first thing I opened was Guild Wars and bam, happened on login. So, the odds of it being a temperature related issue is really unlikely.

Then I thought my hardware was possibly at fault. Luckily I have a great warranty. However, after replacing every piece in my laptop twice (I'm talking EVERYTHING, including about 90% of the chassis), I still have the issue (it doesn't even occur less often, though I haven't been able to keep track of its stats). So, hardware malfunction is also unlikely.

Then I thought maybe it was just Vista and/or some driver issue between Vista and Nvidia... No go. First of all, I tried every major release of graphics drivers compatible with my card, with no luck. Then I tried Windows 7, and it still occurred. So Vista being the culprit is unlikely. Unfortunately I don't have an XP license (or care enough) to install that and try it, but even if it worked, it would be a pointless gesture.

My current theory as to the cause of this issue is an incompatibility between Guild Wars itself, and the 8x and 9x series Nvidia chips. This problem didn't affect my older 7x series card, and didn't always affect the 8x series either (my roommate used one about 2 years ago with no issues) so it may have been an update to GW within the past two years that caused this. I've poked around on here and other forums to see that others with these cards have had this issue.

Any other thoughts on this issue? The game is still playable, for the most part, but it crashes the display driver a lot, sometimes it recovers, sometimes it doesn't; but damn if it isn't annoying.

P.S. I've tried everything dealing with Guild Wars settings that you can possibly imagine, including, but not limited to, forcing DX8, no sound, diagnostic mode, and varying the detail level. Though I recently came across the -mce command line argument, and realised I hadn't tried that (though I doubt it could fix it, but you never know).

P.S.S. I've contacted Anet support over this, and they blamed my hardware, despite the facts I've listed above. Also despite the fact that I can't get any other game, or benchmark, or test to produce these kinds symptoms on my computer.

Well,

I seemed to fix my issue by getting a new Video card, and ditching Vista for 7.

I did find that my old video card had more dust in it after I cleaned it out that was not visible until after I removed it for replacement.

I upgraded anyway, so I have the old card as a backup.

What card did you get to replace the old one?

9800 gtx+

I keep forgetting to mention that these problems can sometimes simply be caused by the video card not setting in it's socket correctly - not fully seated, dirty contact, etc.
You could try simply removing the card and re-installing it.

One thing struck me whilst reviewing this thread - how could it be a gw.dat problem if the screen corruption was occurring in Windows too?

(Refers to the OP's screenshots, not necessarily the same problem as Vinceant.)

Well, I could post screenshots of my game behaving exactly like the OPs. It happens rarely for me now like that, but it still happens (like I said it was always random as to when it would totally crash like that).

It came to my attention that my brother is having his graphics drivers crash as well while playing this game. He's using an 8600. That further supports my theory of some kind of imcompatability with that series of cards, though it's far from proving it, or even giving those of us affected by the bug any proper info on how to deal with it.

I would agree that this could be an issue if this were happening in anything video related, but it isn't. I can't speak for the OP, but my brother and I play a variety of different games with no issues even remotely similar to this. Even so, I have dismantled/reassembled my laptop personally several times since my discovery of this annoying bug, so I doubt it's a seating issue. Nice thought though.

I should probably mention that I'm a field technician by trade, so I've tried a lot of this stuff already just out of habit. I have a pretty good computer "sense", if that makes any sense (some call me the computer whisperer! Not really, but it'd be funny if they did); this problem continues to elude me though, and that's almost as annoying as the bug itself.

I was referring to the OP's computer, not your's.
In your case it's probably just overheating. Try reducing the graphics settings in GW.

Btw, measuring the temperatures of the card doesn't necessarily indicate anything. A "field technician" should be aware that a thermal fault can show up in any device, well within normal operating temperature. A thermal fault is a problem with a device that mostly shows up when the device warms up. In the case of electronic devices, it's often a bad solder joint or a microscopic crack in a component.

If that were the case then several things would be much more apparent.

A. Most games would cause this issue. Currently Guild Wars is the only game I've had do anything remotely like this. I've ran games that heated up my card far more than Guild Wars and had no crashing issues at all, nor have they completely scrambled my graphics.

B. The issue would be easily replicated. Currently it's not. It's sometimes very hard to get the game to break, and sometimes it happens when I open the game. In other words, it would happen a lot more consistently. It's pretty hard to test it if it doesn't happen consistently.

C. Replacing the hardware would fix this issue. Again I say I've replaced all my hardware twice. lol The odds of three motherboards and video cards having this specific issue is unlikely. It's not impossible, but chances are that if the "new" hardware had problems, they would be either more or less evident, or completely different. The problem didn't occur less often with the newer hardware.

It's likely a hardware to software configuration specific issue. Driver interaction with Guild Wars and your particular set of hardware.

Unfortunately, that's only fixed by changing a piece of hardware to something completely different.

Goodness, I didn't realize this rated top billing!

As a response to the earlier questions, GPU-Z showed the temperatures as being a relatively nominal 77 degrees C after playing for about 10 minutes, and looking back at the notes I took here on my stickies after GW had been running for 'a few minutes' ( don't remember what that means :/ ) the error happened when it was running at 75 degrees to 72 degrees.

Since then however, since about mid August, did a fresh install from windows Vista 32 bit to windows 7 64 bit. I havn't had the problem in the OP since then, though there have been a few little graphical hicups here and there. Nothing that crashes out the game like it did before the format and reinstall though.

However I think I have to agree with Vinceant and Sojar, it seems like this is some kind of issue related to GW and the GPU. I havn't done the research to see if it's the 8600 specifically or the 8000 series in general, though it seems suspicious to me that we have, what, 4 people here with 8600 GPUs and they are all reporting similar, if not exactly the same, problems?

ive had a similar problem lately i been running my computer the same way for about 2 years and no prob until 4 days ago my system crashes when i play GW only

so far i have
cleaned my fans on the CPU and GPU
unmounted and mounted my graphics card,
reinstalled all drivers pertaining my computer especially my graphics card downloaded speedfan to check my temperatues all temps seem fine even when the system crashes temps dont go up
and also reinstalled the game using both the client ,once it froze on me again i installed using the CD

when my pc crashes i cant do anything at all and the sound loops

these probs started Thursday/Friday

im running

windows 7
ATI radeon HD 4650 1G
4G of ram
and the CPU is a AMD athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (2CPU ~2.2GHz)

Direct X 11

ive even done a stress test using different programs including FurMark And BurnInTest and it shows everything well

and ive also done a clean install of windows seven just in case something was wrong with the OS itself

ive played oblivion and DMC4 just to check the GPU temp but all is fine and system doesnt crash with those games

(yes old games but their still more demanding than GW im sure of that lol