Guild Wars 2
Developers | |
---|---|
ArenaNet | |
Publishers | |
NCsoft | |
Engines | |
Guild Wars engine | |
Release dates | |
Windows | August 28, 2012 |
macOS (OS X) | August 28, 2012 |
Warnings
- This game requires a constant internet connection for all game modes.
Guild Wars | |
---|---|
Guild Wars | 2005 |
Guild Wars 2 | 2012 |
General information
- Game Status Updates - Game status update page of the official wiki, posted with the latest information from the developers.
- Guild Wars 2 Forums - The official Guild Wars 2 forums, hosted by Arenanet (Multiple languages available).
- r/GuildWars2 Subreddit
- Guild Wars 2 Guru - Fansite with a large community and active forum.
- Guild Wars 2 Support - Comprehensive list of error codes and fixes.
- Guild Wars 2 Wiki - Official wiki for Guild Wars 2 - accessible in-game using the
/wiki
command. - GuildHead - Item database, skill editor and interactive map from the Wowhead founders.
- The Guild Wars 2 Database - Comprehensive item, skill and recipe database by Curse and Guild Wars 2 Guru.
- Guild Wars 2 Build Editor - PVP character build editor, with linkable builds.
Availability
- All versions unlock on the Developer Website.
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
System | Location |
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Save game cloud syncing
- No save game cloud syncing information; you can edit this page to add it.
Video settings
Input settings
Audio settings
Performance
Guild Wars 2 is a graphically and computationally intense game. Despite the relatively low "Recommended" system requirements, the game would not run well on these systems and requires better hardware than what has been stated. However, ArenaNet are constantly trying to improve the performance of the game.
Drivers
Recent driver releases from AMD and Nvidia have improved the performance of Guild Wars 2, significantly so for Nvidia. According to various reports, the next version of the AMD Catalyst Driver (12.9) will feature a significant performance boost for Guild Wars 2.
- Nvidia 306.02 BETA Driver 32bit 64bit - significant performance boosts from WHQL driver 301.42.
- AMD Catalyst 12.8 Driver 32bit 64bit - reported graphical fixing and slight performance boosts from previous drivers.
CPU Speed
With the complicated technologies at work in Guild Wars 2, it has become a very CPU intense game. The game has a sweet spot for performance at 4 cores, but will utilize more and requires quite a bit of power to run smoothly. As shown in this article, current generation AMD CPU's struggle to play the game, even when given the best available hardware. Older generation (Phenom and below), perform significantly better in this regard. The only solution, short of buying a different CPU, is to significantly overclock. A Reddit thread discussing the issue can be found here.
Another way of improving CPU performance - especially with first generation Intel i3, i5 and i7 processors - could be turning off core parking, a feature in Windows that automatically turns off CPU cores when they are not used to save power. Here is a forum post describing the process.
Issues fixed
In game fills with white from all sides
Can occur with AMD graphics cards when trying to override application AA/AF settings. Go to Catalyst Control Center > 3D Application Settings and set AA and AF to use application defaults.
Cannot connect to the Internet
Allow an exception for Gw2.exe in your system firewall.
Error Codes
There are several common error codes that may occur when attempting to play the game. Error codes starting with 7, 42, or 58 pertain to an inability to log in. Troubleshooting steps for these errors and others can be found on this support page.
Command Line
These arguments can be added after the last quotation mark in the target in the properties of your Guild Wars 2 shortcut.
- -autologin
- If client is set to remember Account Name and Password the game will login on launch.
- -bmp
- Forces the game to create screenshots as .BMP files. Use for creating high-quality screenshots at the expense of much larger files.
- -diag
- Creates, at startup, a detailed diagnostic logfile which contains data about connection tests and hardware information, located in your game directory or "Documents\Guild Wars 2" (NetworkDiag.log). Useful for determining what is wrong when Guild Wars 2 is not functioning properly.
- Important: The program terminates after the logfile is created; since Guild Wars 2 will not be able run with this parameter on, make sure to remove it once Guild Wars 2 has finished creating the logfile.
- -email <string>
- Sets the e-mail address, as specified in <string>, on the log-in screen. Combine with -password to create an auto-log-in shortcut for a specific account.
- -fps <number>
- Sets maximum frames per second parameter, as specified in <number>.
- -image
- Forces the game to download all known updates.
- The program terminates after the update is completed; Guild Wars 2 will not be able run with this parameter on.
- Recommended: Create an extra Guild Wars 2 shortcut (e.g. "Guild Wars 2 Updater") specifically to use this command line switch.
- -image updates gw2.dat; after updating, that file can be be transferred over to other machines.
- There can be up to 25 gigabytes of data to download. Once -image completes, the exact file size of gw2.dat will vary across installations.
- The program terminates after the update is completed; Guild Wars 2 will not be able run with this parameter on.
- -mce
- Start the client with Windows Media Center compatibility, switching the game to full screen and restarting Media Center (if available) after the client is closed.
- -noui
- Disables the user interface, producing the same effect as when one pushes Ctrl+Shift+H in-game to toggle it.
- -nosound
- Disables audio system completely.
- -password <string>
- Enables auto-log-in if <string> is the correct password for the account, and either (A) is used with -email or (B) details have previously been saved using the "Remember Account Name" checkbox. This argument must not be preceded by any other argument.
- Warning: Putting your password in a shortcut or a batch file makes it easily accessible to everybody with access to your computer. Never use this option if you are sharing your computer with other people whom you do not trust.
- -perf
- Displays performance indicators such as; Triangles, memory usage, frames per second and transfer rate in bytes per second are displayed in multi-colored text in the middle of the right side of the Guild Wars 2 window.
- -repair
- Start the client, checks the files for errors and repair then was needed.
- -useOldFov
- Changes the FoV back to how it was originally.
- -windowed
- Forces Guild Wars 2 to run in windowed mode.
- Note: You can easily switch to windowed mode by pressing Alt+Enter or clicking the window icon in the upper right corner while the game is already running.
- /clientport <number>
- Forces the game to run through a specific port, useful when your ISP is throttling certain ports and causing lag. Port 80 is recommended when using this switch
System requirements
Windows | ||
---|---|---|
Minimum | ||
Operating system (OS) | XP SP2 or better | |
Processor (CPU) | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better | |
System memory (RAM) | ||
Hard disk drive (HDD) | 25 GB available HDD space | |
Video card (GPU) | NVIDIA GeForce 7800, ATI Radeon X1800, Intel HD 3000 or better (256 MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better) |
- These are the finalized system requirements at launch, but as with any MMO these may change over time.[1]