Flashing Screen= Unable to play

Try lowering your graphics settings and see if that helps.

Also moving this to Tech Support.

I've done all you guys suggested to do. It doesn't make a difference.
But the camera angle HAS helped.

Unfortunately, I have to keep it in aerial view and at a medium distance. Which is stupid, because I can't see where I'm going.

Seriously, this isn't cool.

Lowering the graphics it doesn't work.
People haveing windows vista and windows 7 seems to have this problem the ones useing XP everything works smooth and some users with vista & 7 with Nvidia cards they don't have any problem.
I have Windows 7 and ATI card and I have this freakin problem really annoying.

Been like this since the expansion came out, GM's not doing anything about it, disapointed alot.

I to have the same problem..I am running window Vista 32 with Internet Explorer 8..Wasnt like this until i download the patch..I guess i dont feel so bad since others are having the same problem as me..b:chuckle

And no i wont lower my graphic or anything else..They were all on high settings before the patch and had no problems..Really i am not that desperate to play..I will wait for a fix..

So far only 1 person offered any meaningful information that could be of help resolving this issue.
They stated that Widows vista + ATI graphics was involved.
Question: Is it onboard ATI graphics? OR is it an add on graphics card?
Question: How much system memory do you have?(NOT hard drive size lmao)
Question: Has a local geek "tweaked" your pc? (question has obvious meaning after reading this post completely)
Question: Do you have a CRT monitor? OR is it LCD?

If you told a mechanic over the phone "My car won't roll!" I assure you he'd laugh you to point you hang up on him, then you'd tell everyone else what an **** the mechanic is!

If you want a problem resolved, you really need to provide as much information as possible.

My wife has an eMachine PC with Windows Vista + ATI on board graphics.
(on board = GPU built into Motherboard as opposed to PCI add on card)
I have a homemade PC with Windows XP and ATI on board graphics.

[THE "ONBOARD" graphics is a very important point to identify - as you will see Further down in this post]

She and I were both able to play PWI without issue, prior to expansion!
After the expansion/update My PC was still able to play the game without issue.

My wife, on the other hand could not play the expansion character she created - due to the screen blinking on log in AND blacking out in game.

She could, how ever, log in and play her original characters as usual, without issue.

ABOUT ONBOARD GRAPHICS
PCI graphics cards have a GPU(Graphic processor Unit) and it's own dedicated memory to Process your PC's graphics(what you see on your display monitor).
Onboard graphics means that the GPU is built onto the Mainboard of your PC, and uses a memory management process called "Shared memory" to process the things displayed on your monitor.

If your PC has 1 Gigabyte of system memory, a portion of that memory is dedicated solely for the onboard graphics. This poses 2 potential problems - 1 is that it decreases the amount of memory available for all PC functions, the 2nd is the limited amount of memory available to the PC graphics.

Windows uses something called a swap file to provide "pretend" memory - to be used when your PC's physical memory capacity is exceeded. (Real memory is superfast and the pretend memory is much slower)

As you might guess by my post here - I am not a PC noob. I habitually tweak my PC's for faster performance. Sometimes my tweaks come back and bite me in the **** - lmao!!

One thing I do is manually set my swap file size, or no swap file at all.

Manually setting the swap file size keeps windows from making an oversized bloated swap file which robs me of hard drive space(not an issue anymore with modern hard drive sizes).

Using NO Swap file forces my pc to use max amount of real memory without accessing the slower "pretend" memory. (THIS OPTION can backfire because some programs are desigend to access a swap file whether it really needs it or not)

My PC (winxp) has 6 gig of real memory so I use no swap file at all. I allow my onboard graphics to grab as much memory as it wants, on demand.

My wifes PC (Vista) has 4 gig's real memory and I had the swap file turned off there also. This worked great - no problems running PW - UNTIL THE NEW EXPANSION.

I just reset the Widows swap file to default windows settings for her PC, made sure the "Game" monitor settings were same as the PC monitor settings(1600x900 PC and 1600x900 Game).

NOW, the problem isn't completely gone, BUT she can log into game and play the expansion longer before she encounters problems.

The point here is that the problem seems to be related "solely" to individual PC's and how those PC's proces/manage the graphics associated with the new expansion.

By providing your Harware specifics as best you can, knowledgeable people will be able to recognize commonalities between all those suffering - only then can a specific FIX be provided.

BTW - These problems should be submitted thru TICKET process so the programers can isolate the problem and perhaps make improvements in game code. That is likely to be the ultimate resolution anyway.

Despite gaining minor improvement as stated earlier - the problem still exists.

The overwhelming theme seems to be Win7/Vista + ATI GPU

Altering settings for PC and/or game seems to have spotty effects at best.

This has to be associated to Game code and it's interaction with Win7/Vista and/or ATI GPU.

Good news is they obviously are aware of the problem now and can/will create a patch to resolve the issue.

Only real solution is patience - and a soon to be released patch.

Skilzman - Heavens Tear wrote: »

This is realy not a hardware problem, i have the same problem in the Tideborn area.
My computer is a Core I7 with a Ati 5970 graphics card. So lowering the settings would be ridiculous.
It seems that the most people with this problem have Windows 7 and a Ati card but common the problem is at de developments side. I realy hope the confirm this so there will be a patch soon.

same problem... I've noticed if you use "WASD" To back out of the area, it stops... at least for me =/

i dont have a graphix card... i have a chip set (yes i know, dont laugh) But i've played PWI on this computer (Full Detail) with No problems whatsoever

I came back to PWI after a long absence... only to come back to THIS.

Highestelf - Heavens Tear wrote: »

So far only 1 person offered any meaningful information that could be of help resolving this issue.
They stated that Widows vista + ATI graphics was involved.
Question: Is it onboard ATI graphics? OR is it an add on graphics card?
Question: How much system memory do you have?(NOT hard drive size lmao)
Question: Has a local geek "tweaked" your pc? (question has obvious meaning after reading this post completely)
Question: Do you have a CRT monitor? OR is it LCD?

If you told a mechanic over the phone "My car won't roll!" I assure you he'd laugh you to point you hang up on him, then you'd tell everyone else what an **** the mechanic is!

If you want a problem resolved, you really need to provide as much information as possible.... (deleted the remainder of that wall of quoted text)

...(conclusion)BTW - These problems should be submitted thru TICKET process so the programers can isolate the problem and perhaps make improvements in game code. That is likely to be the ultimate resolution anyway.

1. Wow if it's this complicated & so much work it would just be easier to find a more user friendly game to play.

2. If PWI can't figure out where they went wrong after getting hundreds of tickets on the same issue, then sending thousands is going to magically solve the problem? I don't think so.

Walls of text talking down to people & insinuating they should labor for many hours & take responsibility for something that isn't their fault is not helpful to any of us.

To Highestelf:
In all honesty, why in the world would you recommend something that you admit might cause conflict with other programs? As you put it, some programs are made to run using the swap feature. Turning off the swap feature would cause a conflict for those programs. Recommending a fix that may cause another problem is counter productive. The majority of the players don't use those kind of "tweaks".

Secondly, PWI is meant to run WITHOUT making those kind of changes in your system. That means the problem is not on the user end.

3) If your wife is still having those troubles on her computer, is it anywhere in the Tideborn area or only when the camera is pointing in a certain direction?

I've found our problem occurs when either my wife and I point the camera in the direction of the Dragonfang village portal that goes to Raging Tide city. Even if we are a good distance away. If we point that camera at it or get to close to it, the flashing screen occurs; but only when we use full screen mode. Adjusting the graphic's setting lower did not help it any. Going to window mode has stopped the flashing. I've also notice a second area, just south of Nightfire. The Shark Tower area (can't remember it's exact name at the moment lol)

I had the same problem...
Same story Windows7 + Ati Graphic Card.

To solve, or at least to avoid it, i played in window mode.
No flashing Everytime i need to go to the Tideborn starter village i go back to window mode and every thing works fine.

Its not the best solution, but it works and its simple.