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Guild Wars 2 black screen - any Mac owners with the same problem?

M

Moriarty

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 3, 2008
436
208
I have a very annoying issue with GW2. If other Mac owners are or aren't having issues, it might help to try and isolate the cause... I'm playing on an rMBP using an external display via HDMI (1680*1050).

Sometimes while playing, at a random point in the game (not reproducible) the game screen turns black. I can still bring up the F11 menu and esc menu but not other menus like hero or inventory. Normal UI elements disappear - I can only see menus and the mouse cursor. If I press esc and click logout, to try to go back to character selection, that doesn't work either. I have to quit via task manager and restart the game.

Strangest thing is, after a couple of crashes and restarts, the problem goes away until I restart my computer. First crash is usually after maybe 5 minutes. Second crash maybe half an hour, and usually it's fine after that.

I've tried both 304.79 and 296.49 drivers, same issue. Not tried the very latest ones - will do so tonight.

Anyone else with the same problem?
 
I've played quite a bit of GW2 (see my sig), but I am not using an external monitor, and have not seen this. I realize, not very helpful.
 
I'm currently playing the game at 1600x900 with medium-high settings getting ~30fps avg. Works for me. No stuttering issues or major slowdown during fights with lots of players.

There are still issues with certain "events", but definitely best MMO launch ever. lol

I have an AMD graphics card so I can't really compare to your issues. I'm currently using the just released 12.8 AMD Catalyst drivers.
 
Moriarty said:
I have a very annoying issue with GW2. If other Mac owners are or aren't having issues, it might help to try and isolate the cause... I'm playing on an rMBP using an external display via HDMI (1680*1050).

Sometimes while playing, at a random point in the game (not reproducible) the game screen turns black. I can still bring up the F11 menu and esc menu but not other menus like hero or inventory. Normal UI elements disappear - I can only see menus and the mouse cursor. If I press esc and click logout, to try to go back to character selection, that doesn't work either. I have to quit via task manager and restart the game.

Strangest thing is, after a couple of crashes and restarts, the problem goes away until I restart my computer. First crash is usually after maybe 5 minutes. Second crash maybe half an hour, and usually it's fine after that.

I've tried both 304.79 and 296.49 drivers, same issue. Not tried the very latest ones - will do so tonight.

Anyone else with the same problem?
Click to expand...

My machine is.

MacPro
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
OS X 10.6.8
6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 4870

When I run Gw2 in Bootcamp it black screens after 5 to 10 minutes of playing, many many many PC owners are getting the same problem.

What is strange is that GW2 runs under Wineskin all be it with the odd light glitch.
 
Recently I hooked up a Optiquest 22" monitor to my MBP. So far no problems with the display... I'm also using an external USB Apple keyboard, a Razer Naga and a Razer Nostromo both hooked into the keyboard. So far so good.
 
Still no go here with GW2 in Bootcamp, done the AMD Catalyst download and install for Bootcamp, then set up Catalyst as recommended by Arenanet.


Link to AMD for Catalyst if people want it - http://support.amd.com/US/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

Oh well back to Wineskin again, the game plays and looks so much better in Bootcamp, just wish it would work for more than ten minutes :(
 
Last edited:
I have a somewhat similar problem:

Every 30 seconds or so the screen will go dark completely, and come back on in 5 seconds. I have not tried to see if I could being up and see and any menus during the blackouts.
I have yet to find a pattern that reproduces this issue. Sometimes it plays fine for hours while other times this happens within 5 minutes into the game.
My set up is Mini DP -> HDMI to an Acer 23" LED screen. I'm running Windows 7 Pro with latest updates and service pack, latest nVidia WHQL drivers (306.xx).
 
ctbear said:
I have a somewhat similar problem:

Every 30 seconds or so the screen will go dark completely, and come back on in 5 seconds. I have not tried to see if I could being up and see and any menus during the blackouts.
I have yet to find a pattern that reproduces this issue. Sometimes it plays fine for hours while other times this happens within 5 minutes into the game.
My set up is Mini DP -> HDMI to an Acer 23" LED screen. I'm running Windows 7 Pro with latest updates and service pack, latest nVidia WHQL drivers (306.xx).
Click to expand...

What confused me is in the fact that it runs under Wineskin, it SHOULD run better in Bootcamp on the same machine surely ?
 
Washac said:
What confused me is in the fact that it runs under Wineskin, it SHOULD run better in Bootcamp on the same machine surely ?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't have a lot of issues beside the one I described above. It runs smoothly on med-high settings in most situations. And I never have the blackout when using the internal screen.
This is on a base rMBP btw.
 
Washac said:
Still no go here with GW2 in Bootcamp, done the AMD Catalyst download and install for Bootcamp, then set up Catalyst as recommended by Arenanet.


Link to AMD for Catalyst if people want it - http://support.amd.com/US/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

Oh well back to Wineskin again, the game plays and looks so much better in Bootcamp, just wish it would work for more than ten minutes :(
Click to expand...

Did you try different resolutions while running the game to see if that made a difference?
 
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