Unrecoverable graphics driver error

[Soul Sabre]

Okay so this has been happening since the very first time i played. After about 2-3 hours of playing the sound will go off and a box highlighting where the cursor appears come on. I can still play for a little bit until it finally crashes and i get this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/Churchillohyes/untitled.jpg

at which point i thought id check out the official site which said to reinstall the graphics card. I did so and this didnt work, i then tried omega drivers which also didnt work and am now unsure of just what is causing this :confused: Any help would be appreciated :happy14:

My specs are:
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
Windows XP SP2
512 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600

[crosshead35]

I bought the game yesterday and I have an identical problem. In my case, I think it might be because my graphics card is not strong enough. I don’t know much about this stuff, but I have been able to play diablo2 LOD and counterstrike with my current card (came with the computer, but I’m not sure what it is). Can anyone suggest a cheap graphics card that will work for me? I only want to be able to run it, even if its in the worst graphics mode, and have it run smoothly. Thanks.

[Soul Sabre]

try lowering your graphics to lower setting first

[REI ONRYOU]

I have the problem too. And my graphics are set to the lowest.

I'm on a Geforce3 64mb card.

What soundcard do you guys have? I'm trying to figure out a pattern in there somewhere. I'm on a Soundblaster Live! card.

[denhard76]

You have installed the latest Drivers for your card? If so try messing with the display settings in windows instead of in game. There are adjustments that you can make if your card is having problems.

[Soul Sabre]

I dont know if its right but would this be mine:
Realtek AC'97?

Maybe the game is overloaded because of screen resolution? Im running at 1024x768 on a 19" screen...

[rickdangle]

I am having the exact same problem. I am on an athlon XP 1900, 512 MB ram, and a geforce4 ti 4400. It ran for the first day or so flawlessly. Now it freezes every 5-30 minutes.

Also I just re-formatted and installed WinXP last week, and my other games still work fine.

I have found some other things to try to improve the stability of the game, but I won't be able to test them out until tonight. I also have an issue open with their tech support, if I find something that fixes my issue, i'll post it here.

Also, is everyone else having this issue using WinXP? I have access to win2k and may have to try rolling back to that...


Here is what has transpired thus far with my support issue (my response in italics):

EDIT: I had left out my initial description.

My game keeps crashing to the desktop, purportedly because of the graphics driver. I had the game installed on the same PC with Windows 2000 (same hardware & drivers) and never had a problem (granted only for a couple of days). At one stretch I probably played for 6+ hours straight. Now I can't play for more than 45 minutes before it crashes to the desktop, which is pretty annoying when you are trying to quest with a friend. The crash usually happens when I am walking in the countryside, but it hasn't been one specific place or with one particular class. It is pretty universal. I have also uninstalled the graphics driver and reinstalled them (with 5 different versions of Nvidia's drivers) but it still keeps happening. Anyway, thanks in advance.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting technical support. To further investigate the error you are receiving I would like for you to run a DirectX Diagnostic test on you system. This test (Dxdiag) is simple and easy to run. To do so, please go to your Start Menu and then Select the Run command. When the Run Dialogue box appears, please type in "Dxdiag", without the quotes and click OK. A DirectX Diagnostics window will appear after a few moments. Once it has, please select the "Save All Information" button. This will save the generated output from the report we have just run. Then please attach and enclose the report to this email response. Once I receive it, I'll have a much better understanding of what is going on with your PC.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Well.......

If you'll look at the incident report I already attached that file when I submitted it originally, along with a picture of the error message that I get. I checked the incident to verify that the dxdiag.txt document and the picture are attached to the incident. They are. If for some reason you need a new copy of it, I attached it to this email as well. Thank you in advance.

Hello,

Please try to play after disabling anti-aliasing (if it isn't already) and post processing effects. Those can be disabled in the game configuration menu at the login screen. Make those adjustments and let us know whether that helps to prevent crashes or not. We hope that the suggestions do.

Regards,
Guildwars Technical Support

Both are disabled and have been. I messed around with the screen resolution by lowering it to 800x600 (from 1024x768)and reducing the detail level and the crashes still occur. Sometimes they occur after 15-20 minutes and sometimes it takes as long as 45 minutes, but it still always crashes. What should I try next? Thanks in advance.

[calderstrake]

@Soulsabre
The first thing I would recommend is NOT using 3rd party drivers. If you have an nVIDIA card, use nVIDIA drivers.

@rickdangle

Check the heat dissipation on your card. Is it REALLY hot? You may need to cahnge the heatsink/fan.

[Desom]

I have the same exact problem. Same symptoms, everything.

Specs:

Abit KA7 motherboard
AMD Athlon 1.4GHz
1GB DDR SDRAM
nVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600 64mb
DirectX 9.0c
80GB HD with 20GB free space

I have the latest nVidia drivers, from their page. I have tried reinstalling the game several times, from the disk, and from the client patch. I have reinstalled the video drivers several different ways, both old drivers and new ones (removing completely and just reinstalling over old ones). Haven't tried third party nVidia drivers, can't seem to find any. I've tried reinstalling sound card drivers. After that didn't work, I tried removing my sound card alltogether. Still same deal. I've tried a number of different video setting combinations in Guild Wars, high, low, medium, AA, no AA, post-processing effects, no post-processing effects, different classes, and still nothing. I've even tried not closing the party window while running around in the instances. I've noticed the problem happen most while I'm instancing and killing stuff (ie not standing around in town doing nothing). I've dusted the inside of my computer very well, and checked the temps. Nothing is too hot, nothing is overheating. The side of my box is wide open, letting cool air in. Still that same error. If anybody figures out what it is, please reply, because this is rediculous. I'm running out of ideas.

I'm gonna try setting my video card to 4x AGP instead of 8x (if it isn't already, in which case, I'll try 8x) in BIOS.

Does anybody know of any place to download third party nVidia drivers? Would be very appreciated.

[calderstrake]

Guru3d (http://www.guru3d.com/) is the best place I know to get 3rd party nVIDIA drivers. I have used these to run FarCry before, so I can attest that they do work, I just don't know about GW. They should have a real good driver for your GF4 card.

My suspicion is it is not your drivers. Here are a few more suggestions:

1) Run memtest86 to check your memory ( http://www.memtest86.com/ )
2) Turn OFF fast writes for your AGP in the BIOS
3) If you are using a add-in sound card, turn off Windows Audio Service -AND- try an older sound driver.

[Desom]

Thanks for the tips and links, calderstrake. While I was poking around in the Advanced Chipset settings, I decided to try and change my AGP Aperture size from 128 to 256 MB. It seems to have done the trick. Played today with no errors. Changed it back to 128 to check, and game crashed again after about five minutes of play.

So I think one solution could be to increase the AGP Aperture size... Although I did notice the game lag a bit when it loads if I do this. Gonna try disabling fastwrite tomorrow instead of increasing AGP Aperture.

Thanks again.

[Desom]

Yeah, disabling fast write didn't do anything. Guess Guild Wars loves that texture memory. It does load higher resolution textures as you walk around, however, so that would explain why boosting the aperture would get rid of crashes.

[REI ONRYOU]

I've increased AGP Aperture to 256Mb, but I won't know if it has worked for a while yet. I doubt it's overheating, so I hope this does work. It may be worth anyone having this trouble doing the same thing.