Guild Wars 2 goes 64bit in beta client upgrade, makes memory crashes history

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is designed with the intention that players can become the most powerful upright lions in the land by doing only the things they like best. But lately fans of meta events, the sprawling, multi-objective stories that tell the tale of an entire area, have been grappling with regular crashes.

“We are rolling out a beta version of a 64 bit client,” advised game director Colin Johanson yesterday. “Please give this a shot if you’re having crash issues and let us know if that does the trick!”

These are the best MMOs on PC. Are you playing one?

Sure enough, the beta client is now available if you have a Guild Wars 2 account. It’s a big download – though ArenaNet suggest file duplication can be avoided by placing the launcher’s .exe directly into your existing install folder and making a new shortcut for the game.

The new client is identical in functionality to the 32bit one – but takes advantage of the higher memory limits enabled by 64bit processors, leading to fewer crashes.

“There may be some very slight [performance] differences in favor of either client depending on your computer’s configuration,” write ArenaNet. “In the vast majority of cases it should be negligible.”

The developers are planning to release a Mac version, too, but can’t say when that’s likely to happen. Think you’ll upgrade?