Choppy Gameplay

Setup:

Win2000 Pro
P4 1.6 Ghz
384 MB SD Ram PC133 (256 + 128)
ATI Radeon 9600 (128MB)

Why the heck does this game run so choppy? Only thing I have running is AvG Antivirus on this PC, but GW runs choppy on the lowest settings possible. I mean, it's movie much better than when I had my ATI Radeon 7000 (64 MB) in there with Win98, but after the last few updates, the game is just slug city.

I'm considering throwing another 256 in there so I'll have 512MB, butI'm not sure this'll do a whole lot. At least my other rig runs it, but that's a different story and a much more powerful PC.

Are you running it in a window? I know mine runs choppy in a window and I have 1 gig of memory and running it under XP. 512 menory might make it run better.

Nope...

Running with all visual settings on lowest at 1024x786.

I understand what Virtual Ram does to an application, but this is rediculous. And at 384 of actual ram, I wouldn't expect this many problems. It seems to be more apparent since the last update.

You could try disabling AVG while playing GW, I have never had luck with GW not being choppy while it is churning the Hard Drive at the same time searching for viruses.

well, AvG isn't set to search for viruses, but just act in sentinal mode. I know I can disable AvG, but that's never been a problem before.

Hmm... I have to ask again, I wonder if some of the recent updates to GW haven't affected my PC's performance.

Either way... I might just have to get the 256MB upgrade. I know other applications that could benefit from it as well

Are you running the game on the same drive as the virtual memory is on? It is possible that it could slow it down and make it choppy.

Windows will take up alomost 256megs of your ram for it to run....

Also...what do you have your resolution set at? 1024x768? Try 800x600.

Did try running it at 800x600. That doesn't change a thing. Besides, shouldn't the video card determin the rez you can run it at? I thought if your card is strong enough, you should have that load being passed off to your Vid Card.

Although... Last night, I did notice that while my wife was playing on our power PC (2.2Ghz, 1GB Ram, GeForce 6600 256MB), the game was nearly unplayable due to lag and such.

Start > Run > REGEDIT

Export your registry using the file menu (to make a backup)

Start > Run > MSCONFIG

Go to startup, disable all non-essential processes (for me, I only ever have 1 or 2 things checked in there). Go to services, check Hide all Microsoft services, disable any non-essential services.

Update your catalyst drivers (if you haven't already).

Move your page file onto a drive seperate to the games installation (or reinstall to a different drive) if you have one available.

If it's still not fixed, Start > Run > DXDIAG

Click Save all information.

Send the report to the games support site & see what they can come up with.

Of course if it's not client-side 'lag' you may be out of luck.

Hope you get it resolved.

Here is why its choppy, do not be angry at the game be angry at your PC.
To play a game decently these days you need at least 1gig ram.

I changed the motherboard on my PC the other day and one of the 2 512 ram I had did not work with the new mobo, so I'm running 512 and the game loads way slower than it was with the 1 gig.

Upgrade.

Ram is probably the main problem. 1Gb is the minimum that "I" like to have. Actually I have 4gb of ram...over kill...but future proof!

You'd be surprised how little the graphics card actually does besides letting you be able to run the graphic processes...

99% of every thing you see happening is because of CPU, RAM, or Internet Connection.

or HD activity. Paging, etc. (RAM-related of course though)

First, let's get this straight


The PC inquestion is:
(I'll call this PC2)
Win2000 Pro
1.6Ghz
384MB SD Ram (256+128)
ATI Radeon 9600 (128MB)


The other PC was the:
(I'll call this PC1 since it's main computer)
WinXP Home
2.2Ghz
1GB Ram
GeForce 6600 (256MB)




Heh... it sounds more Ram related, but I've started to notice issues on my other PC1, and that's why I started to wonder.

PC1 started to studder when I had nothing running but GW and AvG AntiVirus. Otherwise, I was thinking the Ram would've been the source of the problem on PC2. Still, I'm pretty sure I'll be upgrading my system ram on PC2 soon. The question is a matter of having the extra $$.

But I have that lingering question of why PC2 was running smooth a week or two ago with the same configuration, and PC1 is just starting to have issues. It's especially curious since there have been a few updates that came through before both PC's started giving problems.

Either way...
thanks for the help.


If anyone wants to take a stab at why PC1 with the specs listed above is giving me greif, I'd like to hear that one.

OMG!! 1 Gig to play games---give me a break, GW does not need 1 Gig to run extremely well, when you say "choppy", do you mean your character seems to jump ahead and/or back sometimes? If so, this is a known issue since the last update or two, thousands of users, myself included, have been experiencing huge packet losses, sometimes even losing connection all together. Apparently, Anet is aware of the trouble but so far no solutions---and please do not tell me it could be trouble at my end---It is not

Umm... having 1 GB of RAM will make just about any game run extremely well, especially if you're jumping up from 384 or 512 MB. As games become more complex, computer hardware has to improve in order to keep up and make sure they continue running smoothly.

I highly doubt, everything else being equal, that a jump from 512 mb of RAM to 1 gig (for GW) would have any noticeable difference, if the character tries to run across a town and finds himself jumping ahead in huge steps, I can pretty sure say it is the packet loss problem and NOT Ram

Sounds like it's a known issue then. I mean... I was in a GvG when my necro jumped into a mountain then back. It seemed like I was teleporting more than walking. With a 3MB connection on PC1, I wouldn't think that I'd get that error. And, Given the min requirements for GW, PC2 meets everything and should run smoothly. It was really since the last update, so I'm thinking that you're correct about the update being the source of the problem.

When someone says a game is "choppy" then I think of it studdering...not the lag problems we all can receive due to connections.

Having more then 512mb of ram on a newer games of today is critical. It will smooth it out. WINXP will use up almost 256Mb of ram for it's pigish ways. When I added more ram to my system it was amazing at how smooth the game play was in all games I play...not just Guild Wars.

I upgraded my system from 1Gb to 2Gb of ram and Guild Wars was silky smooth. I upgraded from 2Gb to 4Gb and there was really no difference. The reason I did that last upgrade was....because I can. I always wanted to have a system maxed out on ram. I am also ready for Vista. I figure my system is good for at least two more years.

This helps a lil, i always do a defrag on my pc. and i have a 1gig ram. but my vid card is a PCI radeon 9250 pro (max my pc can take)

For Windows XP/2000 users:

Open your Windows START menu
Go to your Control Panel
Go to "System"
Open the "Advanced" tab
Click the "Settings" button in the Performance section
Go to the "Advanced" tab
Click the "Change" button in the "Virtual memory" section
Click the "Custom size" radio button on and set the "Initial size (MB)" 0 (zero)
Click "OK" to close the "Virtual memory" window
Click "OK" to close the "Performance Options" window
Click "OK" to close the "System Properties" window
Defragment your hard drive and then return to the paging file settings
Change the "Initial size (MB)" setting to 1024 and the "Maximum size (MB)" to 3072 (make sure you have approximately 3 GB of space available on the hard drive)
Click "Set" and "OK" to approve all changes and close the windows. (Note: To get to the Disk Defragmenter in Windows XP/2000: open your Windows START menu, right click "My Computer," select "Manage," click on Disk Defragmenter.)

When I had 1Gb of ram I made the Page File 2Gb. When I had 2Gb of ram I made the Page File 4Gb. Now that I have 4Gb of ram I left it at 4Gb.