Guild Wars Display/Windowed Mode Issues on Gigabyte G5 Laptop (Black Screen, Transparent Window, Flickering, OBS/Discord Weirdness)

    Hi everyone,

    I'm hoping to pick the brains of some Guild Wars veterans because I've been fighting a very strange display issue for weeks and have not been able to solve it.

    System:

    • Gigabyte G5 laptop (KF/MF series)
    • Windows 11
    • Laptop display: 144Hz
    • External MSI monitor: 75Hz
    • Dual monitor setup
    • NVIDIA GPU

    The issue started after Guild Wars had already been working normally. At one point I was able to play without any major issues, but now I am experiencing a combination of problems depending on display mode.

    Symptoms:

    Fullscreen:

    • Sometimes works, sometimes behaves strangely.
    • Game can launch and I can move around normally.

    Windowed / Borderless / Windowed Fullscreen:

    • Black window.
    • White window.
    • Transparent/see-through window.
    • Sometimes the game appears to be running but the window itself is unusable.

    Alt+Enter Behavior:

    • One of the strangest things I've seen.
    • At one point, after using Alt+Enter, the game appeared correctly on my laptop screen while the broken/blank window remained on the external MSI monitor.
    • I could still move my character and interact with the game.

    Discord Test:

    • I streamed Guild Wars to friends through Discord.
    • Friends could see the game.
    • However, they reported that the stream flickered heavily.
    • When I switched between display modes, they could also see the black/white/transparent window issues.

    OBS Test:

    • I tested streaming through OBS.
    • I could see Guild Wars on my MSI monitor and move around using WASD.
    • OBS itself showed a black screen.
    • Input and cursor behavior became strange and seemed tied to the wrong display.

    Additional Weirdness:

    • The game is clearly running.
    • I can log in.
    • I can hear audio.
    • I can move my character.
    • The issue seems related to how Windows and/or Guild Wars is presenting the image rather than the game failing to launch.

    Things I've Tried:

    • Reinstalling Guild Wars.
    • Reinstalling GW Reforged.
    • NVIDIA driver updates.
    • Different display modes.
    • Alt+Enter.
    • Windowed mode.
    • Borderless/windowed fullscreen.
    • Fullscreen.
    • Various launch options.
    • Refresh rate testing.

    Refresh Rate Testing:

    • Laptop panel is 144Hz.
    • External MSI monitor is 75Hz.
    • I temporarily set BOTH displays to 60Hz to see if mismatched refresh rates were causing the issue.
    • No improvement.

    Current Theory:
    At this point I am leaning toward some kind of interaction between:

    • Windows 11
    • NVIDIA
    • Multi-monitor setup
    • DirectX 9 / Guild Wars rendering
    • Overlay or capture software

    The game itself does not appear to be crashing because:

    • I can log in.
    • I can move.
    • Audio works.
    • Discord sometimes sees the game.
    • OBS sometimes sees a black screen instead.

    Has anyone seen anything remotely similar with Guild Wars, especially on Windows 11 laptops using an external monitor?

    Any ideas would be appreciated because I feel like I've exhausted most of the obvious fixes.

    Thanks.