Graphics question

I'm not even sure how to pose this question as I'm not computer savvy, but my brother just bought me a new graphics card (Invidia gtx1080 with 8gb ram) for my computer (Windows 10, 64 bit, 16gb ram) and I saw gorgeous graphics in the game that I had never seen before. Wow is this how the game is supposed to look? But then Sunday morning Aug 9, poof! they were gone. Everything went dull and flat. He tried to help me get them back long distance (yes I do have everything in the game turned on highest settings and highest quality) but they never improved so I finally took my computer to his house where he has high speed internet and they were back to being perfectly fine. I went home and they are back to dull and flat. I have Broadband internet, and have checked with the company and it is running at peak. I guess my question is, are the graphics in GW2 downloaded dynamically over the internet? But then why would they work and suddenly quit? I, too am one of those players who are getting that weird in-game message that says, "Game Client unable to access log-in server" all the time and wonder if these two events are tied.

Do you have an onboard graphics card as well? Make sure your computer is using the Nvidia card and not the other card.Make sure the Nvidia card hasn't become unseated, as well.

Good luck.

All rendering is done client side, so graphics quality are not affected by network speed (with perhaps the exception of FPS which can be lag in disguise sometimes). The "game client unable to access etc...) is pretty common and there is a thing here : https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015860488. I recently port triggered ports 80, 443 and 6112 on my router so maybe it will fix it. Ask your brother for more help if you don't know how to do it. It is not hard once you know how.

EDIT: So after setting up Port Triggering for the above ports I still get the same "login server unavailable" message as before. No difference.

As to your graphics, the first thing that came to mind was what Inculpus above says. I would go one step further and disable your on-board graphics card so it isn't even available for your system to use. Your new 1080 will blow whatever it is out of the water anyway so why have your crummy on-board card keep butting in accidentally.

@"bucolicat.6182" said:I'm not even sure how to pose this question as I'm not computer savvy, but my brother just bought me a new graphics card (Invidia gtx1080 with 8gb ram) for my computer (Windows 10, 64 bit, 16gb ram) and I saw gorgeous graphics in the game that I had never seen before. Wow is this how the game is supposed to look? But then Sunday morning Aug 9, poof! they were gone. Everything went dull and flat. He tried to help me get them back long distance (yes I do have everything in the game turned on highest settings and highest quality) but they never improved so I finally took my computer to his house where he has high speed internet and they were back to being perfectly fine. I went home and they are back to dull and flat. I have Broadband internet, and have checked with the company and it is running at peak. I guess my question is, are the graphics in GW2 downloaded dynamically over the internet? But then why would they work and suddenly quit? I, too am one of those players who are getting that weird in-game message that says, "Game Client unable to access log-in server" all the time and wonder if these two events are tied.

Check in Option>Graphics that you have not set "Settings Preset" to Best Performance as that will reduce your visual quality to get better performance.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Options#Graphics_Options

As for dull and flat, maybe you mean the difference between Postprocessing modes?

On "none" it will look very different from when it is set to "high". On high you get lightning effects and a couple of other things including tint (colour) that make game look more "dream like" and vivid in colour space, but I prefer to disable this (none) as it also introduce a lot of particle effects that I find disturbing on my eyes. With nVidia's new filter I have manage to get good colour (adjusting both video cards colour, filter and my display which also have controls for same how much brightness, saturation and background light (from LEDs) which also have an impact on how colours look.

In nVidia control panel make sure that you set up gw2-x64.exe as the main app that will have its own profile and use settings there that will improve some features that client will not do by itself. So far we don't know what CPU you are using.

In this link you can see an example of Intel CPU with an iGPU (Intel® UHD Graphics 630). This is how Intel keep track of different version of CPUs and make it possible to see what features each and one support for the public and consumers. AMD should also have something of the same on their page for their CPU, but I haven't used AMD for some time now so I can't guide you there.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199283/intel-core-i3-10100-processor-6m-cache-up-to-4-30-ghz.html

Use GPU-Z to detect what kind of GPU you have on your system. There is a small pulldown window in the left corner where you can switch between GPU (picture on front page for dl of GPU-Z show GTX 1080 TI in pulldown window) if you have one discrete (GTX 1080) and one that is integrated like Intel UHD 630 type on your CPU. If you have iGPU it is possible to disable it from your BIOS/UEFI which always needs to run first when you boot up a computer to check your hardware from failures, to set up basic configuration and then boot up from your OS. Look you up your mainboards manual how to do this. Most manual for mainboard can be found on producers Support page for each mainboard and is possible to download as a PDF file.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

As for your question about: are the graphics in GW2 downloaded dynamically over the internet? Yes, if you have set Options>Streaming to On Demand.

On Demand asks the game to download content only when the game requires it. This setting is useful for those who have data caps to worry about. This setting may cause issues of models popping in.

In short if you have a slow internet and only download section of maps that you are on then it will have to fetch other parts of map when you enter in range of visual seeing that part (loading screen). You will get a message if you want to download that part before you enter this area of map.

This shouldn't have a big impact on gameplay or visual, but this is happening in the background for most part and you will not notice it (much) when you have fast enough internet connection, your hardware are fast enough as for memory, CPU and storage device (slow mechanical hard disk will take more time, then a SSD to download and uncompress files before those can be used). It is the same as when you sometimes have a new patch you need to wait until you have passed an arrow on downloading line until you can actually get to character screen before those necessary files have been fully downloaded, then rest can then load in the background after you have entered client/can play.

Also, make sure your GPU isn't overheating, which can lead to various issues (the worst would be a defective card).

Make sure your monitor is plugged into the video card, and not your motherboard

@bucolicat.6182This is an old post. Is your problem solved?