Guild Wars 2

Just wondering what GPU has the ability to play gw2 on the highest settings at 60+ fps. My GPU is my bottleneck on my system and I’m Looking to upgrade. I have a Intel 3770k 16gig ram and a Solid state. Im guessing my 660ti is the bottleneck. Anyone able to get 60+ fps on a budget card?

The GPU isn’t the limiting factor in most cases but the CPU. This game isn’t one where high end GPUs help as much as they do in FPS games.

Behellagh.1468:

The GPU isn’t the limiting factor in most cases but the CPU. This game isn’t one where high end GPUs help as much as they do in FPS games.

My CPU isn’t having a trouble at max settings. Never uses more thank 60%. That’s why I’m thinking GPU

PCaddicted.4071:

Behellagh.1468:

The GPU isn’t the limiting factor in most cases but the CPU. This game isn’t one where high end GPUs help as much as they do in FPS games.

My CPU isn’t having a trouble at max settings. Never uses more thank 60%. That’s why I’m thinking GPU

What’s your GPU?

CPU usage is not a good indicator.

choon.6308:

PCaddicted.4071:

Behellagh.1468:

The GPU isn’t the limiting factor in most cases but the CPU. This game isn’t one where high end GPUs help as much as they do in FPS games.

My CPU isn’t having a trouble at max settings. Never uses more thank 60%. That’s why I’m thinking GPU

What’s your GPU?

CPU usage is not a good indicator.

Nvidea 660ti

You could upgrade to a GTX 960, but in the end you’ll only see noticeable improvement if you upgrade your mobo and CPU.

I went from i7 3770K to i7 4790K (kept GTX 970 from old system) and saw massive performance gains in WvW.

My main problems are shadows shaders character textures and character limit

PCaddicted.4071:

Behellagh.1468:

The GPU isn’t the limiting factor in most cases but the CPU. This game isn’t one where high end GPUs help as much as they do in FPS games.

My CPU isn’t having a trouble at max settings. Never uses more thank 60%. That’s why I’m thinking GPU

And that’s the common misconception about how CPUs work running programs.

This game has two primary threads, in terms of CPU usage, and a handful of helper threads that use considerably less CPU usage. This is why everyone stresses the performance of a single core on your CPU, for this game. Not that this game uses only a single core, it will use all the cores, it’s because each individual thread in a program can never exceed the total performance of a single core.

Now I’m not saying that moving up from a 660Ti, which is kind of slow these days, won’t improve your performance, I’m just saying it won’t improve it as much as you would expect if you went nuts and got a GTX 980. Considerably less improvement than what you would get in FarBattleDutyCrysis 43.

Lagg.3960:

You could upgrade to a GTX 960, but in the end you’ll only see noticeable improvement if you upgrade your mobo and CPU.

I went from i7 3770K to i7 4790K (kept GTX 970 from old system) and saw massive performance gains in WvW.

I expect you went from windows 7 to windows 8, in the process also changing from a pci-e 16x v2.0 support to a pci-e 16 v3.0 support, effectively doubling bandwith…

In windows 7 it is actually possible to enable pci-e v3.0 if both your Motherbord and Garphics card support it, which was no priority for most system builders as most people c-/sh-/wouldn’t care anyways.

For me it’s the difference between 35-45 FPS and 60 FPS in LA…

I run a i7 3930K Hex Core @3.8Ghz, with 2 GTX 780’s in SLi

I max out 2 cores or the 6 Primary cores effectively runing 33% CPU

and

I run my graphics cards with 2 screens attached at 1920*1200 windowed fullscreen so I can use the 2nd (1920*1080) for youtube/movies/internet (40-55% GPU)
OR I use the main screen full screen at 3840*2400 on the 1920*1200, for nicer images. (65-85% GPU)

FPS willvary from 150-160 (peak 185-200) when alone to 12 -20 FPS at World Bosses

The engine struggles to provide data on 100+ people spamming skills on their legendaries in the particle blob fest. Same with WvWvW Blob vs Blob (vs Blob) fights…

There are people ingame running i7 5960X’s with titans having 5000 dollar/euro machines who experience the same….

Fastest atm are i5’s, high OC’d with Mid-high End GPU’s

And you can figure out what amount of cash you want to spend on cooling your rig, as the limited USAGE of threads (max 2) is the main problem of this game at present.. if they’d open this up to multicore.

Your GPU will not be the bottleneck at present.

560,570,660,670,760 will all be capable of running this game without serious problems

680,770,780,960,970,980’s Titans, are all more then capable to render the images certainly on 1920*1080 Trust us. These cards will remain partially (10-65+%) unused at this moment. Any SLi/ X-Fire is a over the top investment.

BUT if the game was improved to use a quad/multi- core optimized engine the CPU would not be the bottleneck anymore, and you would actually notice lower GPU’s being the bottleneck, but we have no idea if it’s considered or ETA’s on any such improvement even though it would be appreciated by a large part of the community… (hex/octacore users or hyperthreaded PC (AMD, Intel i7))

Behellagh.1468:

PCaddicted.4071:

Behellagh.1468:

The GPU isn’t the limiting factor in most cases but the CPU. This game isn’t one where high end GPUs help as much as they do in FPS games.

My CPU isn’t having a trouble at max settings. Never uses more thank 60%. That’s why I’m thinking GPU

And that’s the common misconception about how CPUs work running programs.

This game has two primary threads, in terms of CPU usage, and a handful of helper threads that use considerably less CPU usage. This is why everyone stresses the performance of a single core on your CPU, for this game. Not that this game uses only a single core, it will use all the cores, it’s because each individual thread in a program can never exceed the total performance of a single core.

Now I’m not saying that moving up from a 660Ti, which is kind of slow these days, won’t improve your performance, I’m just saying it won’t improve it as much as you would expect if you went nuts and got a GTX 980. Considerably less improvement than what you would get in FarBattleDutyCrysis 43.

Lol farbattledutycrysis 43. What about assasinsworldofhalocraft 28? thanks for the explanation

I have an i7 3770k oced to 4.6 stable; with a gtx 970 oced to 1500mhz; and i still barely get 110fps with 1080p.

I barely get 40-50 at 4k on a single monitor in normal areas, while other games work great

PCaddicted.4071:

My main problems are shadows shaders character textures and character limit

Those are CPU bound. Trust me, I’ve upgraded GPU before CPU and was disappointed. Upgraded from FX-6300 to i5-4590 and the difference can be measured in light years

Thank you for all the replies. It seems like I’m going to need a CPU and a GPU upgrade to get a constant 60+fps. Any recommendations on the best for the price would be welcome.

Best CPU prices are in Micro center. i5-4590 is $160 and i3-4160 is $100 both of them are much faster than AMD CPU’s.

PCaddicted.4071:

Thank you for all the replies. It seems like I’m going to need a CPU and a GPU upgrade to get a constant 60+fps. Any recommendations on the best for the price would be welcome.

I would wait.

there isnt a wothwhile upgrade past 3770k

loseridoit.2756:

PCaddicted.4071:

Thank you for all the replies. It seems like I’m going to need a CPU and a GPU upgrade to get a constant 60+fps. Any recommendations on the best for the price would be welcome.

I would wait.

there isnt a wothwhile upgrade past 3770k

Not for a while =D Mines still going strong, and with the new iterations, unless you’re building a new PC, or are just an enthusiast who upgrades often, theres no reason to upgrade.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

loseridoit.2756:

PCaddicted.4071:

Thank you for all the replies. It seems like I’m going to need a CPU and a GPU upgrade to get a constant 60+fps. Any recommendations on the best for the price would be welcome.

I would wait.

there isnt a wothwhile upgrade past 3770k

Not for a while =D Mines still going strong, and with the new iterations, unless you’re building a new PC, or are just an enthusiast who upgrades often, theres no reason to upgrade.

dont know what to say

ivy bridge overclock is pretty competitive.

Intel and AMD are having lots of issues making faster chips.

loseridoit.2756:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

loseridoit.2756:

PCaddicted.4071:

Thank you for all the replies. It seems like I’m going to need a CPU and a GPU upgrade to get a constant 60+fps. Any recommendations on the best for the price would be welcome.

I would wait.

there isnt a wothwhile upgrade past 3770k

Not for a while =D Mines still going strong, and with the new iterations, unless you’re building a new PC, or are just an enthusiast who upgrades often, theres no reason to upgrade.

dont know what to say

ivy bridge overclock is pretty competitive.

Intel and AMD are having lots of issues making faster chips.

They are hitting the inevitable CPU wall. transistors can only get so small before the spaces between them disappear, unless new technology evolves or comes out.

At this point, CPU’s are not really getting faster, they are simply getting more efficient. If you look at the i7 3370k to the newest generation, they realistically hit the same clock speeds, bu the differences are:

Newer cpu;s with more transistors require less power
They’re more efficient and dont require OC, or as much oc to hi the same clocks
They might add more l3 cache or other things in small amounts

But the differences aren’t enough for someone with a 3770k to switch to the new haswell E models, unless you have a reason to upgrade.

This might include using new features implemented on the newer motherboards that weren’t available on the z77 boards, but if you really need those features, chances are you’re more of an enthusiast who would change their stuff often anyways

I’m using an Nvidia GTX 760 and yes, it makes a huge difference in my FPS. Mine is around 70+ just running around. The two things to consider are:

o You must have a 256 bit memory bus (Memory Bandwidth) if you want the eye candy. Many good GPU’s get bottle-necked by a 128 bit bus.

o Turn V-Sync OFF. If you leave it on you’ll be limited to 60 FPS because of the common 60 Hz refresh rate.

Here’s a shot of some of my settings. Note “Override” is on. Stock drivers w/o SweetFX.

Oh, and I’m using an i5 2500K CPU Stock Speeds. Never thought of the game as “CPU Bound” as many seem to. I suspect it’s a configuration issue not a Hardware issue for some players.

Memory bandwidth on the video card is everything. There was a time when some manufacturers would off the same GPU with twice the memory but the memory was much, much slower. Newbs would buy such cards because of the popular rule of them that “more memory is better”, which is true if the speeds are the same.

Bus width is often a hint to the “back end” of the GPU. Simple texture mapping frame buffer operations. A 128-bit bus can output 4, 32 bit pixels at a time, 256-bit 8 at a time, etc. Memory width is an issue when it comes to board the GPU is mounted on. All those traces take up space or adds layers which raises the price.

How well does a GTX 970 perform for GW2? I’ve also acquired an i5 4440, and 8GB RAM, but I target my question to the graphics card specifically.

^Got 60+fps (usually 100+fps in most pve maps) almost everywhere with a i7 4970k at stock speed with supersample @1920x1080. GPU usage is almost always 99% except for big zergs

Valento.9852:

How well does a GTX 970 perform for GW2? I’ve also acquired an i5 4440, and 8GB RAM, but I target my question to the graphics card specifically.

Works fine for me. With my setup i hit ~110fps in normal combat; 45 in boss trains with everything maxed, 40-50 in 4k in normal situations

MFoy.3284:

Oh, and I’m using an i5 2500K CPU Stock Speeds. Never thought of the game as “CPU Bound” as many seem to. I suspect it’s a configuration issue not a Hardware issue for most players.

GW2 IS very CPU bound, but the 2500k is a very good CPU for gaming since it has a good speed per core, and also OC really well if you think in doing so someday.

Well I have a gf 560 ti and can run GW2 on max settings with 0 lag with my I7 4790K 4.0G CPU. I cap it at 30 though because the GPU gets too hot when I raise the frame limit. XD waiting for a new case and warranty replacement in the mail currently. ;x

Wow, thanks guys! I’ve discovered there are some issues with 970’s VRAM, but I’m glad it performs so nicely. #HandsCookies

The VRAM issue shouldn’t affect GW2 at all, I rarely use more than 1.5gigs in gw2

idk.9315:

The VRAM issue shouldn’t affect GW2 at all, I rarely use more than 1.5gigs in gw2

Oh, that’s awesome. I won’t use my new PC for fancy games, and wow, 1.5 is very far from 3.5.

btw GW2 is easily becoming one of the best optimized MMOs I’ve seen so far. I’m surprised how well it even runs on my crappy integrated work PC that can barely run a lot of games, like Secret World for example which is 100% unplayable. ;s

MFoy.3284:

Oh, and I’m using an i5 2500K CPU Stock Speeds. Never thought of the game as “CPU Bound” as many seem to. I suspect it’s a configuration issue not a Hardware issue for some players.

The i5-2500K is still a very good CPU. Only about 15-25% slower than a stock speed i5-4690K, only 10% slower in some cases.

It’s still 40% faster than the i5-750, 45% faster than the Q9650 and 30% faster than the PII X4 980. The AMD FX line aren’t even a challenge.

Sounds like a pretty smart group here that agrees on lots of this stuff. Good deal. At some point I always have problems seeing much difference in the image quality with so many permutations to choose from.

K, here’s my in-game settings to complete the circle. Note, even though I’m using “Override” in the drivers I have to turn FXAA on to get any AA. I’d guess it has something to do with the code passing along the AA data. However, never turn FXAA on at the driver level since it kills the FPS and image quality.

Anyone see anything they’d tweak?

Any comments from the smart kids at ArenaNet? Yeah, I know this config isn’t officially supported and limited liability is a concept I fully support in matters like these.

Well… This is in open field while on the move, not in a WvW battle..

The second is in combat due to some ghosts popping up when I wanted to make my picture. All Plains of Ashford…

FPS will drop significantly when on world bosses or on wvw battles… so this is just to show it is possible to get good Fps.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

I have an i7 3770k oced to 4.6 stable; with a gtx 970 oced to 1500mhz; and i still barely get 110fps with 1080p.

I barely get 40-50 at 4k on a single monitor in normal areas, while other games work great

I have exactly the same setup as you though I OCed my 3770k to 4,5Ghz stable and I get noticeably less FPS than you. How is that possible?

In LA I usually sit around 60FPS with 1080p. In dungeons and low-pop zones I’ll usually get double that (120FPS) while during world bosses I get only a third of that (20FPS on average).

I wonder why it is that my performance is less than yours while logically it shouldn’t be. Could it be because I’m running the game in windowed fullscreen or because I run a dual-monitor setup and have my browser and teamspeak open on the 2nd monitor?

Windowed fullscreen costs you 20% FPS. When running Full screen My PC places just the backgopund on my 2nd screen and ignores any further rendering, just placing the still screen…

When windowed full screen your pc just renders the second screen at same speed and ingame speed, even when nothing happens… wasting a 2M ( ~8M calculations) pixels worth of calculations (FPS) times a second.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Well… This is in open field while on the move, not in a WvW battle..

The second is in combat due to some ghosts popping up when I wanted to make my picture. All Plains of Ashford…

FPS will drop significantly when on world bosses or on wvw battles… so this is just to show it is possible to get good Fps.

This just proves the points people have been making though. You shouldn’t have to blunt-force trauma your way through a 3 year old game with two 780GTX’s. 2 of those cards can run anything like that. This game should be getting that kind of performance out of a single card solution.

This game runs on DirectX 9, an API that’s more than 10 years old & was designed in part to run the old Xbox 360, but has reasonably modern graphics, & a lot of CPU bound calculations. It will never use your PC to its potential. This game has an amazing way of finding bottlenecks no matter what you do. Maybe if they follow the same route as WoW, or even lots of low-end games such as DDO, they will add support for newer versions of DirectX, as DirectX 12 would probably alleviate many of the problems people are seeing with this game. If they don’t update the game to run in DirectX 12, however, I’m afraid that in a year or 2, we’ll all look back at Guild Wars 2 and see it as a dinosaur already.

Otokomae.9356:

This game runs on DirectX 9, an API that’s more than 10 years old & was designed in part to run the old Xbox 360, but has reasonably modern graphics, & a lot of CPU bound calculations. It will never use your PC to its potential. This game has an amazing way of finding bottlenecks no matter what you do. Maybe if they follow the same route as WoW, or even lots of low-end games such as DDO, they will add support for newer versions of DirectX, as DirectX 12 would probably alleviate many of the problems people are seeing with this game. If they don’t update the game to run in DirectX 12, however, I’m afraid that in a year or 2, we’ll all look back at Guild Wars 2 and see it as a dinosaur already.

Flawed argument. DirectX12 improves the speed significantly in certain things over DirectX9, true… but GW2 is more than likely not using any of that. We dont know that the renderer in GW2 does better on DirectX12. 10-20% increase perhaps, if you are lucky. Buying a new graphics card and CPU in 2 years will probably increase your speeds by 150-200% instead, regardless of running DirectX9 or 12.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

I have an i7 3770k oced to 4.6 stable; with a gtx 970 oced to 1500mhz; and i still barely get 110fps with 1080p.

I barely get 40-50 at 4k on a single monitor in normal areas, while other games work great

I have exactly the same setup as you though I OCed my 3770k to 4,5Ghz stable and I get noticeably less FPS than you. How is that possible?

In LA I usually sit around 60FPS with 1080p. In dungeons and low-pop zones I’ll usually get double that (120FPS) while during world bosses I get only a third of that (20FPS on average).

I wonder why it is that my performance is less than yours while logically it shouldn’t be. Could it be because I’m running the game in windowed fullscreen or because I run a dual-monitor setup and have my browser and teamspeak open on the 2nd monitor?

Windowed fullscreen.

It has to run settings within windows and anything else at the same time in “windowed” mode so at the same resolution it will ALWAYS be worse by some margin.

Fullscreen allows direct x to have full control and divert all of the graphics attention to it as a priority allowing it to function better. Lower end games won’t see much of a drop, but high graphics games like this, or far cry, etc, you’ll see a noticeable dip. That being said unless you’re using 12-hz monitors, i typically lock my fps to 60 fps anyways

I’m using a 660Ti just fine. I just uprgraded my mobo, CPU and ram though to a ASOOOOOS (learn it people) Maxiumus vii mobo, 4790k i7 though.

This game along with Diablo 3 and any other HIGH MOB COUNT GAME is bottlenecked by the cpu.

The real bottleneck of any cpu is when it has to handle 100’s of AI’s at once. That is why Minecraft can bog a computer down even though it’s a simple game graphically. The cpu is having to handle every single block as a separate unit when say 100 blocks of TNT explode.

In my opinion now that I’ve built 20+ computers over 10 years of pc gaming is always go with the the better cpu over the better gpu. Especially if you play large scale games involving tons of models/AI’s.

Let’s say I had the choice of getting a 200$ cpu and 300$ gpu vs a 300$ cpu and a 200$ gpu. I’d get the better cpu combo. Besides you’re going to be stuck with the cpu longer than the gpu more than likely.

My 2 cents.

Wow Pax, really nice Image Quality and FPS for that resolution. Two 780’s in SLI?!? whadda monster. I did notice from your settings that I missed the Supersample option added a long time ago. Even on “Override” it has a minor effect on the quality. Geez, now ya got me messing with my settings again. Here’s a sample to show you what I’m getting with my 1920 monitor. I will add, the game is stellar at supporting all this pixel polishing. Once again, kudo’s to the Art Group.

Oh, and for the record, every system has a bottleneck. No matter what you run there is always a slowest component rather it’s a car or computer. I will say the one time I upgraded just the CPU on a rig I was really unhappy with the results. What I’ve noticed is it’s the memory bus speed that really makes an upgrade worth it. So, that’s CPU, MoBo (Yeah, Always ASUS) and RAM. Those seem to last me about 5 years while I upgrade the graphics card every 3 years or so. At some point I always gotta say “uh… ok, this makes me happy.”

For now.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Well… This is in open field while on the move, not in a WvW battle..

The second is in combat due to some ghosts popping up when I wanted to make my picture. All Plains of Ashford…

FPS will drop significantly when on world bosses or on wvw battles… so this is just to show it is possible to get good Fps.

I’m curious what your setup is.

I have a decent rig that maxes everything, but for you to get 90fpson 4k you must have some other good stuff in there.

Either that or the whole “cpu” thing is debunked as far as regular play goes(cpu only comes into effect really during larger engagements), and maybe your graphics cards are handling the scenery at that point at 4k.

I know with my 3770k and a gtx 970 i barely get 45fps with everything maxed in combat at 4k. I am, however using sweet FX, so im sure thats dropping me 10-20fps at 4k as well, but I’m wondering if i should sli another 970.

4k for a lot of games is still not a viable solution unless you run 2 gtx titan x’s or 2 r295’s currently(At least that are graphic reliant)

ok… so ya… used to be a hardcore raider back in the wow days and got a job to support my wow habit… hell i got my guildmates here in Dallas and we moved in to support our wow habit and upgrades for our comps but recently i haven’t upgraded in a long time so here’s my advice…
1. donate your comp to me and write it off as a tax refund
2. buy a new comp that wont exist till beginning of summer
3. stop making me cry due to my old comp
4. (and last) everyone is going to have a new opinion on what is the “new thing” but you might take a look at what some of the comps being viewed in some of the upcoming summer game competitions and what’s going to be offered or talked about at those competitions. but that’s all =)

ok this is my actual makeup reply :

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor?
16GB Memory
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ Titan Z graphics with 24GB total (2x 12GB) GDDR5

“Performance and design highlighted in brilliant form. Accept nothing less than perfection with Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ Titan Z GPUs. Standard with Windows 8.1.” but i truly dislike using windows 8 so that was just a quote from the Alienware site, but it is also listing the Titan Z as being insane $$-wise so I’ll leave the link to the comparison which is primarily about the GPUs so this is just to leave you the comparison for you to choose on the GPU Selection.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-area51-r2/pd?ref=PD_OC

Razputin.6079:

ok this is my actual makeup reply :

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor?
16GB Memory
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ Titan Z graphics with 24GB total (2x 12GB) GDDR5

“Performance and design highlighted in brilliant form. Accept nothing less than perfection with Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ Titan Z GPUs. Standard with Windows 8.1.” but i truly dislike using windows 8 so that was just a quote from the Alienware site, but it is also listing the Titan Z as being insane $$-wise so I’ll leave the link to the comparison which is primarily about the GPUs so this is just to leave you the comparison for you to choose on the GPU Selection.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-area51-r2/pd?ref=PD_OC

I hope you’re playing in 4k on everything you do, otherwise that was a huge waste

OP, not much you can do even if you have the best graphic card in the world. this game is very CPU bound.

from my test, changing the setting from showing the basic character model (lowest) to high quality at low number increase the temperature by 5 degree celcius.

my guess is even the drawing task is done by CPU. getting better graphic card wouldn’t improve your FPS by much.

azizul.8469:

my guess is even the drawing task is done by CPU. getting better graphic card wouldn’t improve your FPS by much.

Its a little late in the computer era to use software graphics rendering.

If you think GW2 is running in 640×480 resolution with 256 colors, unfiltered 32×32 pixel textures, no lighting, no shadows and have hideous polygon rendering performance… then sure. Its doing the drawing on the CPU.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Well… This is in open field while on the move, not in a WvW battle..

The second is in combat due to some ghosts popping up when I wanted to make my picture. All Plains of Ashford…

FPS will drop significantly when on world bosses or on wvw battles… so this is just to show it is possible to get good Fps.

I’m curious what your setup is.

I have a decent rig that maxes everything, but for you to get 90fpson 4k you must have some other good stuff in there.

Either that or the whole “cpu” thing is debunked as far as regular play goes(cpu only comes into effect really during larger engagements), and maybe your graphics cards are handling the scenery at that point at 4k.

I know with my 3770k and a gtx 970 i barely get 45fps with everything maxed in combat at 4k. I am, however using sweet FX, so im sure thats dropping me 10-20fps at 4k as well, but I’m wondering if i should sli another 970.

4k for a lot of games is still not a viable solution unless you run 2 gtx titan x’s or 2 r295’s currently(At least that are graphic reliant)

Base system:

A Hex Core Intel i7 3930K @ 3.8Ghz on a
Asus Rampage IV Extreme cooled with a
Scythe Mugen 3 in a
Thermaltake Chaser A71with a
Toughpower 1200 Watt modular PSU.
32 Gb Ram (DDR3-1866 on 1600 (1866 seems to work but causes hangs on 10-15% of boots, so i’m not finding it stable enough, offcially the i7 3930 has a 1600Mhz max mem controller, though oc-ing sh-/could be possible, but I guess 1 of my eight 4Gb modules is not good/stable enough. All slots filled)

2 Nvidia GTX 780 (non-OC, stock) in SLi both on a PCI-E 16x v3.0 port on 3.0 (Full range enabled, forced on PCI-e 16 v3.0)
(running either :
1920*1200 with my 2nd screen on 1920*1080 in windowed full screen or
3840*2400 on full screen.)

Audio and network from mainboard.

1 256 Gb OCZ Vertex 4 (SATA 3) on SATA 3(OS and Programs)
1 250 Gb WD Velociraptor (SATA 3) on SATA 3 (User and Swaps/internet cache)
2 1Tb WD Reds (SATA 3) on SATA 3 (backup Velociraptor/ Storage)
1 DVD RW (SATA 2) on SATA 2 (cause I’m oldfashioned)

Mouse: Sharkoon Drakonia Black
Keyboard: Corsair K95
Headset (main): Roccat Cave 5.1
Speakers (alt) Generic 2.0 Logitech set but due to the fact I have wife and 2 kids I’m on headset 99% of the time, my speakers are for my little girl(s) if she/they want to watch Postman Pat, Fireman Sam or other streamed stuff.

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate (generally up to date.)(Doesn’t NATIVELY support pci-e 16x v3.0!!, make registry changes to update)
Nvidia driver: 347.88 (No Beta allowed in settings. generally up to date.)

(I seldomly run services in the background, no active scanning, but I do run autoscan for virus and malware on shutdown or demand. Active programsin background : windows (lightly tuned), Nvidia, mouse, keyboard, headset, printer driver and a small program (Display Fusion (it gives me a second taskbar on my 2nd screen, independently configurable))

1 remark though: Fighting spawns in a map doesn’t cause to much FPS drop,
generally it is only when encountering other players which seems to cause a lot of FPS drop…

My PC is on the attic, where we have all PC’s ( my wifes old Q6600, and my old dual opteron 2376) it can get very hot in the summer with ambient going easily over 27 celsius, so I do not OC too much, as good OC-ing requires a stable ambient temp. if all PC’s are running thay add a lot to the ambient temperature, up to outside temperatures… Mid summer I only game in the morning and the evenings. (something with not completely wanting to no-life my life, PC’s will be off during the day. )

Hope this is all the info you need. During the summer my PC will be set to throttle, so clock will be lower.

An ancient DX + the lack of x64 capability will always cap your game to potato level performances at best, regardless of how many upgrades you make.

What worries me is the lack of info or communication/plans related to the game’s performance.

Why do you turn all V-Sync off? I hate tearing

Not everyone has tearing on vsync off lol. I almost never have it..like 90% of times.

Depends a lot on your monitor.