I've tried it all, still getting choppy/jerky play

I've read just about every thread on this forum ( and the others ) trying to find something to fix this problem.

It happens in towns, in missions, when im running, when im turning, when i fight mobs.. in other words, completely random and nothing triggers it.

I've checked firewall permissions, i've even disabled the firewall to see if it was that. I've checked router firewall, making sure ports isnt the issue.

I've scanned for malware, nada turned up.

Checked BIOS for AGP Aperture setting, it was set to 64mb at one point, and i changed it to 128mb and it fixed my problem for a couple days, i've not installed/deleted/changed anything since then and this performance loss as reoccurred.

Defragged both drives ( c: d: ) scandisked as well.

I've tested each ram stick to make sure it wasn't going out. Performance was just slightly worse running 1 stick than both.

I ran a benchmark from the FFXI developers and scored just above 4000.

I've installed GW on a different harddrive to see if that was the problem, didnt fix it.

Computer Specs:
Windows XP SP2
DX9c
nVidia 5900XT (128mb video ram) forceware 71.89
1gb DDR2700 PNY brand ram
2.2ghz intel p4 533 FSB(? i think thats right)
WD harddrives 7200 RPM ~ ample disk space , over 20gb free on each

Its just gotten so annoying i cant really tolerate playing the game, which really sucks because its really really fun. Any help would be great

Try taking the side of your case. I had the same problem up until a couple of days ago when I was fiddling around and left the side of, decided to play GW and problem solved.

Have been playing with the side off =/ dont think cooling is the issue either. As i said, i ran a benchmark and scored really well. so i dont really think its a hardware dilemma

Are you sure dont have any program / service running (like a scheduled defrag, antivirus, etc) that can launch itself while running?

Sometimes the solution is that easy...

i have no scheduled maintainence programs running at all whatsoever

What are the sympthoms you suffer? Your char suddenly "teleports" a few steps away or instead what happens is you get very few fps ?

I ask this because "choppy/jerky" is a... rare description.

Also, you can add "-perf" without cuotes to the game shortcut command line, so it shows the number of triangles it draws, the fps and the bytes/sec. It could help determine where the problem is

I never liked those GeForce 5XXX cards. The older GeForce4 cards seem faster. My little GeForce4 TI 4200 128meg card is faster then most of those 5XXX cards. You might want to try to load an older driver as well.

EDIT: Also you might want to run a RegCleaner. Your registry could be full of "dung". There is a free regcleaner called "RegScrubXP". It is very technical, so beware. But it will clean out crap that has built up in your system. I also reformat and re-ghost my machines at least once a year.

Actually what you describe sounds like "network" lag to me. Is it intermittent? Do you have lag issues in any other games? Do you get good pings. Doesn it go away in instances?

I bet the choppiness thanks to Norton Antivirus - it defaults to running an scan after it has updated its virus database, and it updates it at least daily. And when Norton runs a scan, all other programs running will suffer.

The quick-fix is to alt-tab out of Guildwars, open Norton Antivirus (this will tell Norton that you're using the computer, and it'll halt the scan), then go back to Guildwars.
The permanent fix is to turn off "scan after update" in Norton preferences.

Alt-tabbing out of Guildwars will also help if it's a misconfigured screensaver or similar that's started running in the background.

Ever since todays patch (26 May) i have had near unplayable lag when in not in a town. People will move like they are a chess piece being updated every 7 seconds (sorry i dont know how else to say this :P)

AMD Athlon 2400+
512 RAM
GF6800
Abit NF7-S

As i said this problem never existed for me up until today

if your character is bouncing around the screen, randomly ending up places where you dont think he should be and whatnot, that has to do with your internet connection, not your system

if you were running all over, and when people cast spells something crazy happened, then maybe your system, or if the graphics were 'tearing', but if its a little jittery, its probably your internet connection

its best to not being using your internet connection for any bandwidth intensive things while you play, ie. downloading various things, etc.

Yea but the point is, it was running perfectly until the update today

I used to have this issue, it turns out my CPU clock speed was not stable with 200mhz bus speed.

I realize this by turning on my 3DMark 2k5, under system information, my cpu clock speed appears different everytime I restart 3DMark.

Fix:
Modify a setting in Motherboard BIOS, enable "Spread spectrum" seems to stablize my CPU clock speed. And it fixed my problem with laggy(not cause by network or system spec)

I've had this same problem I think. The game seems to stop doing anything. Characters/Monsters stay still (even in the middle of combat). It looks really funny because one moment we're all fighting for our lives, the next it looks like we're having a pleasant conversation with a horde of Charr. Then after a while (15-50 seconds) it starts up again and the battle is finished.

Things are clearly happening, it just isn't showing me on screen. This has caused my death and party deaths a number of times because of course I can't react to things or perform skills since I don't know what's happening. And trying to follow another player is just as annoying, because it'll freeze, and when it comes back, the player is way far away already or in battle.

I can do things like rotate the camera, move the mouse, and get hover text on things while it's "frozen" too.

Kind of Fix: Strangely enough, if I bring up the Inventory screen, everything updates and "unfreezes". So if I get frozen, I just bring up Inventory and close it right away. This really helps, but it's not an actual fix. Hopefully this helps anyone else who is having that same problem.

Any suggestions?

This are no doubt the symphoms of laggy connection. The question now is why bringing up the inventory fixes the problem

I used that -perf command for the game to see my fps and internet rate. It turns out that it is definitely a connection issue. Whenever the characters stop doing anything my internet rate drops to 0. I've never had a connection problem with any internet program before, however.

And like you said momo2oo2, why on earth would bringing up the inventory force the connection rate to "unfreeze"? It sounds like it's a Guild Wars issue rather than my internet connection, because of how that works. But who knows. I think I should message customer support and tell them so they can look into it, in case it is a problem with Guild Wars.

Than can be a combination of strange network behavior both your internet connection and the way GW manages it.

I mean, your internet connection can do strange things when you dont request or send anything, so when you open the inventory your local pc request to the GW server the contents in the inventory (that i assume is stored in the GW servers) so the internet connection "recovers" and comes back again.

Anyway, contact the support and see what do they say, it could be a known problem...

Well...my problem was Spyware Doctor. I didn't really concider it at first because on the second computer it doesn't effect the game at all. But it seems on my computer it sucks up 40k memory usage...while on the other computer it used 8k. Game runs like a dream now.

i have same prob one minute im running along fine the next its like im jumping and warping all over and cant move properly, its like lag gone haywire yet im on a stable 4 meg connection, only thing i can think of is that it only seems to happen during teams when on quests so could it be caused by another player affecting all of us.. then again no one else seems to have the problem when i gt it, only other thing is i run through a router...heck i dont know what with game crashing upto 30 times a day soemtimes too i just give up!

I never crash...but I do warp up to a monster. I targeted/spacebared a boss that was just out side my "ring" and bam I was right in front of him. I had to click on my spells/skills really fast...I wasn't ready yet It seems to me that only in human groups that I seen the warping around thing too. Another thing that really burns my shorts is when I am STUCK on another player and people are dying because I as a W/Mo can't get there to draw the fire from them....but that is another story

I'm having the same exact problem. My character just freezes and can't move, and no one else moves either. Then 30 seconds to a minute later, everybody is like 100 feet away from me and monsters are already dead. The "jumping around" issue other people are experiencing is due to not recovering from the lag completely yet, I think. An easy way to tell when you recover from lag is to type a message in team chat (or whatever chat). I usually say, "Wtf, lagged out again!". If the message doesn't show up in the log, you know you're not recovered yet. Even if things start moving again, and the message hasn't showed up, you're not recovered. If you try to move when this happens, you'll simply be warped all over the place until you ARE recovered.

This is really annoying for me, and I'm actually having lag issues in EVERY game I own now. I have no malware on my system, I don't have anti-virus programs running, and Comcast (my cable internet company) says my signal is fine. I think they're lying though, or are just simply pinging me for a short time. I have reason to believe the connection between comcast and arenanet is messed up, because I ran ipconfig /all on arenanet's servers and almost all the hops had 0% packet loss, but some of them were like at 95-98% (3 of them I think). VERY annoying stuff. I can download at lightning speed (400kb/sec, I'm not complaining!), but it seems that for games, I'm stuck.