Guild Wars 2

kenshinakh.3672:

In games, bare minimum specs means exactly what it means. It means your game will run on lowest setting, and your performance isn’t going to be optimal.

Which….is exactly what I said?

It’s like how you can use integrated graphics to play Call of Duty. You’re going to be at a disadvantage running around with 10 FPS, but at least you can play.

“Disadvantage” is putting it mildly. At 10 FPS, you’re lucky if the game is actually playable.

Suddenflame.2601:

Minium or refers to the minium specs needed to run the game without it crashing on opening. It does not refer to anything about actually playing the game.

No, it refers to the minimum specifications required to play the game. Not to “open” the file.

People don’t pay $60 for a file. They pay $60 for a game, one that they should be able to play. Even if the experience isn’t optimal, it needs to be playable. Culling has made that difficult, if not impossible, even for people whose specs aren’t just above the minimum.

And no, the current system isn’t “playable”. Massive culling even in groups of just 20-30 players is not acceptable.

Jski.6180:

-snip-

I have no problem blaming someone’s computer for the game not running optimally.

I have a serious problem with blaming someone’s computer if the game isn’t actually playable, especially if they meet or exceed the game’s minimum specs.

That’s the difference between me and the complainers you’re talking about.

critickitten.1498:

I have no problem blaming someone’s computer for the game not running optimally.

I have a serious problem with blaming someone’s computer if the game isn’t actually playable, especially if they meet or exceed the game’s minimum specs.

That’s the difference between me and the complainers you’re talking about.

My exact same thoughts.

I hope any options to the player are available individually for party, squad, guild, allies, enemy, npc, etc.

It would be nice to see your party members’ models and enemies as name tags for example.

Yea is a great thing the culling fix. But there is another big problem… the terrible skill delay when there are lot of people nearly… in www near a zerg i can t heal my self…. i can t hide my self. My skill never start… is there a plan or solution for this problem? Because www is totaly unplayable now. I hope you answer my question. Cya

favo.3619:

Yea is a great thing the culling fix. But there is another big problem… the terrible skill delay when there are lot of people nearly… in www near a zerg i can t heal my self…. i can t hide my self. My skill never start… is there a plan or solution for this problem? Because www is totaly unplayable now. I hope you answer my question. Cya

I have the exact issue sometimes. The Main attacks works, but other skills as Shouts, and the “Fs” ones, they have an huge delay… Can’t understand why is that, since just happens to some people in the X area and not to everybody.

critickitten.1498:

kenshinakh.3672:

In games, bare minimum specs means exactly what it means. It means your game will run on lowest setting, and your performance isn’t going to be optimal.

Which….is exactly what I said?

It’s like how you can use integrated graphics to play Call of Duty. You’re going to be at a disadvantage running around with 10 FPS, but at least you can play.

“Disadvantage” is putting it mildly. At 10 FPS, you’re lucky if the game is actually playable.

Yes, the game will run, and you can play, but it’s not like you aren’t expecting FPS drops. People with low end systems know this very well. They’re not going to complain about it because their system can already barely handle it. They expect to be able to barely play. That’s something you know when you play for a long time with integrated graphics. You usually don’t blame the game if you have a bad system.

Either way, this new change sounds like it’s going to be more scalable for lower end system, especially with the name tags and low-res models, while letting high-end computers render everything without being forced to cull. It’s a win-win situation for both high end and low end. It’s sounds like an improvement, so I don’t see why anyone would complain about it.

You didn’t experience culling in pve cause everyone was stuck in dungeons, now people actually want to play in the world it’s crushing the system :p

Victim of success it seems.

crap… yeah the culling in PvE seems worse than it ever was in WvW. Really needs to be fixed big time.

You didn’t experience culling in pve cause everyone was stuck in dungeons, now people actually want to play in the world it’s crushing the system :p

Victim of success it seems.

not at all. They reported making changes to PvE Culling which was when it started looking like crap. THEN they started making changes to the open world. the PvE culling is simply higher now than it was before.

Good news indeed.

My prediction is, that as soon as culling is fixed people will start complaining more about invisibility and swiftness in WvW.

Xolo.3580:

Good news indeed.

My prediction is, that as soon as culling is fixed people will start complaining more about invisibility and swiftness in WvW.

I doubt it, I have a bad gut feeling that ability delay will get significantly worse with this update.

Bye bye culling, welcome lagfest.

DarksunG.9537:

crap… yeah the culling in PvE seems worse than it ever was in WvW. Really needs to be fixed big time.

You didn’t experience culling in pve cause everyone was stuck in dungeons, now people actually want to play in the world it’s crushing the system :p

Victim of success it seems.

not at all. They reported making changes to PvE Culling which was when it started looking like crap. THEN they started making changes to the open world. the PvE culling is simply higher now than it was before.

This is why I’ll reserve praise until I see the culling fixed. But if the culling isn’t fixed in this next patch I doubt I’ll stick around for the next.

kenshinakh.3672:

Either way, this new change sounds like it’s going to be more scalable for lower end system, especially with the name tags and low-res models, while letting high-end computers render everything without being forced to cull. It’s a win-win situation for both high end and low end. It’s sounds like an improvement, so I don’t see why anyone would complain about it.

You are confusing “complaining” with “has serious doubts”.

The Jan patch was supposed to improve culling by a minor amount, and it only made the game’s culling much worse. So when the devs are announcing “the end of culling”, I have my doubts, and any reasonable person should be at least a bit wary about it too. Because it seems like a pretty darn big leap to go from “bad” to “worse” to “gone”. I’m afraid that, once again, they’re overselling their progress.

It’d be lovely if they prove me wrong. But I’m not holding my breath until I see the patch go in.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Max Lexandre.6279:

Hello.

I just saw the great news for WvW.

But since January Patch that I started to have Culling in PVE for the first times, mainly in Meta Events where even Mobs are Invisible sometimes!

Then, does the end of Culling affects also PVE? Or do we need to get used to “Invisible Events” in PVE?

I would like only to say, that I know Culling is also also about our Computer… but, the game must think in every kind of PCs, not only with high-end Ones.

The initial release of this system will be for WvW only. There are additional complications we need to solve with PvE due to the number and variety of creatures on screen that WvW doesn’t need to account for. Later this year, we’ll be expanding as much of the changes to the PvE open world as we can as well.

Why was this not a high priority before you took people’s money?

critickitten.1498:

kenshinakh.3672:

In games, bare minimum specs means exactly what it means. It means your game will run on lowest setting, and your performance isn’t going to be optimal.

Which….is exactly what I said?

It’s like how you can use integrated graphics to play Call of Duty. You’re going to be at a disadvantage running around with 10 FPS, but at least you can play.

“Disadvantage” is putting it mildly. At 10 FPS, you’re lucky if the game is actually playable.

Suddenflame.2601:

Minium or refers to the minium specs needed to run the game without it crashing on opening. It does not refer to anything about actually playing the game.

No, it refers to the minimum specifications required to play the game. Not to “open” the file.

People don’t pay $60 for a file. They pay $60 for a game, one that they should be able to play. Even if the experience isn’t optimal, it needs to be playable. Culling has made that difficult, if not impossible, even for people whose specs aren’t just above the minimum.

And no, the current system isn’t “playable”. Massive culling even in groups of just 20-30 players is not acceptable.

Jski.6180:

-snip-

I have no problem blaming someone’s computer for the game not running optimally.

I have a serious problem with blaming someone’s computer if the game isn’t actually playable, especially if they meet or exceed the game’s minimum specs.

That’s the difference between me and the complainers you’re talking about.

As i said before, i’m playing on a low end PC. Barely above the minimum specs. And i can tell your right now that roaming tyria and doing dungeons in medium or even high settings gives me 60 fps.

So in this case, Anet HAS delivered to me what they advertised regarding minimum specs.

I will admit that WvWvW was tuned for High end PC’s because of the huge amount of assets that needs to be loaded.

NOW however, there is a possibilty that i can now enjoy WvWvW at 60 FpS because this patch has given me the option to tune down culling (or remove it completely if you have a high end PC)

And people are telling me that i SHOULD complain about it because I SHOULd play WvWvW in high settings with my low end PC in an event that obviously requires a high end PC for said settings?

Are you serious? Really? I can’t see the logic in that.

A pretty fair change with this update giving us options to calibrate what our PCs can handle.

We absolutely need culling controls in PvE:

When I’m farming Modniir in the Hinterlands with the other 35 farmers, I don’t need to see the other players, other then the downed ones, and I certainly don’t need to see their projectiles. What I need to see is the enemy, yet the game clearly has this ordering:

Player projectiles and effects>Player models>Enemy projectiles>Enemies, when it should be opposite. And if it would mean less lag in high population boss battles, I’d turn off player models and effects entirely, other then combo field circles.

critickitten.1498:

kenshinakh.3672:

Either way, this new change sounds like it’s going to be more scalable for lower end system, especially with the name tags and low-res models, while letting high-end computers render everything without being forced to cull. It’s a win-win situation for both high end and low end. It’s sounds like an improvement, so I don’t see why anyone would complain about it.

You are confusing “complaining” with “has serious doubts”.

The Jan patch was supposed to improve culling by a minor amount, and it only made the game’s culling much worse. So when the devs are announcing “the end of culling”, I have my doubts, and any reasonable person should be at least a bit wary about it too. Because it seems like a pretty darn big leap to go from “bad” to “worse” to “gone”. I’m afraid that, once again, they’re overselling their progress.

It’d be lovely if they prove me wrong. But I’m not holding my breath until I see the patch go in.

Jan’s patch improved culling for some people, and others it didn’t. That doesn’t mean it got worse for everyone. I noticed that Jan’s culling improved in some situations, but once in a while, I’ll get a really bad case of zergs disappearing or appearing out of nowwhere.

The end of culling refers to the server-side culling, which is a big part of it. Right now, culling works on two sides. The server side is where the server doesn’t send you the player data is that the post refers to, and it’s the main issue of culling for most people. I just wanted to point out that your concerns with low vs high spec computers shouldn’t be an issue and you won’t really have to worry :P. Theoretically, it’s better than what we have now, so it’s a positive thing, not something to be negative about lol.

@kenshinakh

Thank you!

kenshinakh.3672:

Jan’s patch improved culling for some people, and others it didn’t. That doesn’t mean it got worse for everyone. I noticed that Jan’s culling improved in some situations, but once in a while, I’ll get a really bad case of zergs disappearing or appearing out of nowwhere.

Er, I don’t recall a single person reporting in this forum that their experience improved after the Jan patch. I do recall a lot of threads saying their experience was far worse, however. My own experience was significantly worse after Jan, as well.

But I’ll take your word for it.

The end of culling refers to the server-side culling, which is a big part of it. Right now, culling works on two sides. The server side is where the server doesn’t send you the player data is that the post refers to, and it’s the main issue of culling for most people. I just wanted to point out that your concerns with low vs high spec computers shouldn’t be an issue and you won’t really have to worry :P. Theoretically, it’s better than what we have now, so it’s a positive thing, not something to be negative about lol.

And this is me being positive. But also skeptical. As I said, they’ve claimed to make progress on culling before, and I think it’s safe to say that we still experience plenty of it. So I’m looking forward to the patch, but I don’t think it will be nearly as effective as they’re spinning it because it sounds like all they’re doing is allowing players to decide how much culling they want to put up with, rather than really “fixing” it.

The big thing here is that they’re really putting themselves out there by claiming that it’s “the end of culling”. I would have thought that they’d learned by now not to make such broad PR statements, because people will expect them to deliver exactly that: a zero-culling game. And if they don’t deliver that (or, god forbid, somehow make it worse), I fully expect the forums to light up like Christmas. It won’t take very much for this to go south.

Doing Grenth Events or other large scale events like that and fighting invisible foes is not fun at all. Hope it will be fixed someday.

The way I see it, it IS the end of culling. In the sense that the server will no longer limit how much information the client is going to recieve.

So yes, it IS the END of CULLING.

Then here comes the next big issue: if there is no more culling, how then can people with low end PC’s handle the HUGE amount of graphical assests that will bombard their PC during 50 vs. 50 in WvWvW?

Answer: Give them the OPTION to cull graphics without sacrificing player performance in WvWvW (i.e., nameplates only, placeholder models, etc.)

Indeed, we also need the option to remove all graphical gubbings associated with this “non culled customized model”.

Take the first picture in their news article.
See all those wonderful spell effects without player models?
Now imagine the same picture with just name tags showing.
Not good enough!

Option to remove spell effects and shiny wot-nots is most necessary.
My client doesn’t need to receive or process this unnecessary information.
Would also lighten the load server side too ?

Yes, I agree that the option to ADJUST spell particles should also be implimented.

I also agree that Anet should also put in the same culling options in major PVE Dynamic events.

The main dragon DE and the main Temple DE are isolated from other DE in the area as well as from other “trash” mobs. So perhaps they can impliment an “instanced” culling removal zone in that isolated area.

Very important change.

Many time did i rush into one enemy and see several more popping up like mushrooms within seconds. It just baffled me, the unconsciously suicidal WvW player

I can see how this should be a major improvement for WvW as it looks like it will place the decision into the player’s hands:
Want more detail? Your frame rate may suffer.
Want more awareness? Your detail may suffer.

It’s exactly what should have been available since release, IMO.

I’m hoping that the community will collect data on playable settings for various PC configurations. It should make decisions on hardware upgrades easier for many.

End of the year for pve culling to be removed? That is too long. I would think it would be easier to remove it from pve than wvw.

It’s very annoying, and the game ran just as we’ll or better when it didn’t have it in pve.

I feel that the one odd complication in PvE culling is the fact that the enemy mobs are culled as well as players.

This in itself is kinda fixable due to the fact that the players can be culled all they like [perhaps with party members getting a sort of superiority in the order in which player models draw to keep tabs on one’s group in a fight easier], but the enemies shouldn’t be at all. At most they should be impostered, but since that’s what we’re focusing on as a huge group then the enemies should be constantly visible and select-able.

Now I don’t purport to know what actual technical hurdles the devs face in the PvE culling issue but I just figured I’d throw my own ideas out there.

You know that lodge north of the frozen maw, theres this event where wurms are assaulting the lodge door. When culling is on, it’s one of the most horrific experiences in GW2. The event finishes, and you’d have about 5 wurms popping out of the ground and instantly falling dead, constantly all over the place.

This event alone qualifies GW2 as a survival horror game.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Max Lexandre.6279:

Hello.

I just saw the great news for WvW.

But since January Patch that I started to have Culling in PVE for the first times, mainly in Meta Events where even Mobs are Invisible sometimes!

Then, does the end of Culling affects also PVE? Or do we need to get used to “Invisible Events” in PVE?

I would like only to say, that I know Culling is also also about our Computer… but, the game must think in every kind of PCs, not only with high-end Ones.

The initial release of this system will be for WvW only. There are additional complications we need to solve with PvE due to the number and variety of creatures on screen that WvW doesn’t need to account for. Later this year, we’ll be expanding as much of the changes to the PvE open world as we can as well.

What’s weird, though, Colin, is that there never used to be culling issues in PvE. They’ve only really become an issue since you started talking about the push to fix culling in WvW! So, what is up with that?

Good to hear that this will be the end of “culling” in WvW!

I hope it’s going to work well without causing more lags (as already from time to time) and I wished that the graphic card would be used more instead of the heavy CPU usage. Today most games going that way, so the graphic card is usually the most current hardware in any specs, because PC gamers count on that and is the easiest part to upgrade (because of all the different CPU Slots out there you are actually forced to upgrade your mainboard and more stuff, just to be able to use a current CPU!)…

However, if the end of “culling” in WvW is working well for everyone, let’s hope they can transport those results to the PvE world as well!

It’s incredible how people find fault in every single thing.

Nevertheless, ANet, thank you so much. I know this has been very difficult to achieve and I am very thankful. Keep up the great job!

As to the others, this only changes network culling and adds options for everyone of you to control the graphic culling so it suits your machine. This means, that if it ran before, it will run after.

And yes, this is the end of culling, NETWORK culling. Nobody said that this will allow you to see a million characters on the screen, just that a million characters will be reported to your machine. If you want to also be able to see a million characters, buy a better PC.

Yes, I said “buy a better PC”. Some of you might shake your heads so violently at this statement that you’ll get dizzy. The thing is that this is not console-realm. There are no 7-year life cycles. No, this is a PC game and we are PC gamers. And the burden of bearing this fabulous title is that you have to throw money and AMD and Intel and Nvidia every 2 years. This is the reality, deal with it.

Oh and one last thing, some people say that before the January patch there was no culling in PvE. Well, this is not true. You just did not notice the culling in PvE until then. So no, Anet did not make PvE worse, they just made WvW better.

Fiontar.4695:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Max Lexandre.6279:

Hello.

I just saw the great news for WvW.

But since January Patch that I started to have Culling in PVE for the first times, mainly in Meta Events where even Mobs are Invisible sometimes!

Then, does the end of Culling affects also PVE? Or do we need to get used to “Invisible Events” in PVE?

I would like only to say, that I know Culling is also also about our Computer… but, the game must think in every kind of PCs, not only with high-end Ones.

The initial release of this system will be for WvW only. There are additional complications we need to solve with PvE due to the number and variety of creatures on screen that WvW doesn’t need to account for. Later this year, we’ll be expanding as much of the changes to the PvE open world as we can as well.

What’s weird, though, Colin, is that there never used to be culling issues in PvE. They’ve only really become an issue since you started talking about the push to fix culling in WvW! So, what is up with that?

Culling was already present in PVE even before they said they’re going to fix it in WvWvW. I started at around mid November last year and i experienced it in dragon events (although i did not know it was called that back then).

The major culprit of culling issues in PVE is guesting and the overall improvements of drop rates in chest events. The increase in the amount of players participating in chest events due to improvement in chest drops resulted in serious culling issues in those events.

So if I WvWvW my PC will blow up? my settings are on the Lowest of lows. 10-30FPS. Dragon events and stuff 1-6 FPS so this will just outright blow my box up? I don’t have 150$ to spend on a decent Card. if I did I would. if so please leave this out of PVE I don’t want to kill my box. it already runs super hot when playing now.

EvoNeiko.8930:

So if I WvWvW my PC will blow up? my settings are on the Lowest of lows. 10-30FPS. Dragon events and stuff 1-6 FPS so this will just outright blow my box up? I don’t have 150$ to spend on a decent Card. if I did I would. if so please leave this out of PVE I don’t want to kill my box. it already runs super hot when playing now.

Errr… I don’t think you quite got what the intention of removing culling is.

The aim is that with your low end PC (as you said) you can WvWvW with 50 other people while your FPS remains at your stable 30 FPS.

And we also want that in PVE during chest events.

Hope that clears up some stuff for you.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

They added ponies to the Dreamer.
They added invisible enemies.
They added riding clothes.

Conclusion:
Invisible Pink Unicorn Mounts of the Mist!

On a serious note, what other changes are coming to WvW?
Rank?
Can we get Badges > Commander?
WvW Ascended Gear?

The whole March patch is culling removal?

Ofcourse not! It’s culling removal + … LIVING STORY! (which is 3 npc dialogs + 2 grinding achivements)

Balao.3016:

I think this is an awesome feature they are implementing for WvW, it’ll allow us low end system users to have a much better experience.

I like that ANet is looking to expand it to pve at some point down the road, it is sorely needed, especially on the higher pop servers where dragon fights are just a huge mess for low end users. If I could run fraps I would totally record it, but needless to say, it’s just ridiculous.

I think it’s good times for WvW, and hopefully good times for everyone else later down the road.

You might want to re-read the info on what they are doing, the clues are given in the dev post a few posts down from yours… it seriously sounds to me that actually culling will still be there but providing the user an option to dumb down their own game settings to help reduce the effects of it.. but at the same time you will in turn loose the ability to see the details of whats around you still withthe exception of a nameplate…

To me it merely looks like shift of responsibility for the real issue, therefore those of us with high end hardware set ups might see very little difference to what was perhaps noticeable before the Jan patch (I hope, cos right now even my rig – i7 3700K, 16Gb RipJaw DDR3, dual GTX560Ti’s and Mushkin SSD’s is getting terrible performance since Jan patch) but anything lower and you will be almost forced into reducing those settings and effectively culling the game for yourself to get a playable performance in WvWvW albeit to the point you still won’t see anything around you until your nose is deeply embedded up another players thong or a mobs furry nakedness… except you might see some ghostly nameplates running around.

I am not holding my breath on this one I am afraid… hopefully they will shock me.

Habib Loew.6239:

One important thing to keep in mind is that this change ensures that all characters within visibility range will be reported to your client. So, even if you choose to turn the WvW character settings down to their lowest (i.e. nameplates only on most characters) while you still won’t see models for every character you will at least see nameplates. In the end it was important to us that no matter what your settings all the players in range will be visible in one way or another.

One of our goals with this patch was to turn off culling without degrading performance. We have attempted to have the default settings mimic the current performance environment as closely as possible, with options to go up or down depending on your machine specs. I strongly encourage everyone to play with the settings a bit to find out what is the right fit for you.

Hi, and thank you for this change. It makes perfect sense. I even made a suggestion to this end a couple of weeks ago.

1) I’d like to just make sure that, even though it is a huge improvement to be able to see nameplates from very far away, that we will never have to fight against a nameplate only. This would be impossible as you wouldn’t really have a sense of where the character is exactly, or what they’re doing (dodge, interrupt, …). Characters must be rendered if they’re within shooting distance (perhaps starting from 2500 units). How they are rendered, details, resolution, would be up to the player to choose.

2) Does it really save that much to render norn, human and sylvari all alike? That takes away a lot from the game, and so does rendering the same armor for all (they seem to all look like assassins to me when rendered in this way). How about making it an option to render the true race and gender, as well as the true armor, but not rendering any body details such as the multitude of colors, tattoos, face details, weapon SFX etc… (i.e. a char = real race + gender + height + hairstyle (if visible) + 6 pieces of armor + weapons with no effects — all real models already stored in our hard disks, I presume). Rendering all the same way will make particular enemies unrecognisable.

3) Lastly, I really wish you also normalised the world colors: Friendlies (we) are green, enemies are red (in all respects: name color, body color and map icon color). The other enemy has to have another hostile color, so I propose a violet tint to contrast with the red of the first enemy. It is confusing to have to look up which color you are this week (our names are green, but we are the red team… their names are red but they are the green team), and giving the 2 enemies different colors allows you to see from far away who they are without having to read the names.

Thanks.

Complains about culling.

Complains when ANet tries to fix culling.

Minimum specifications for running a game are exactly that: what you need to run the game at the minimum quality settings. This change has actually decreased the minimum specifications (provided ANet have set it up so that you can decrease the model count to a value lower than it was pre-patch). The people who could previously render 80 models with no performance problems will still be able to render 80 models (and 1000 nameplates). In fact, players will who were previously excluded from WvW because of their machines will now be able to participate (again, provided the nameplate setting can be dropped to very low values). You are complaining that they haven’t done the impossible and drawn blood (high-end graphics) from a stone (-age machine). They have done what they can for you and have opened up WvW to more players.

Thanks for the hard work ANet, I hope the patch release goes off well.

One thing does concern me about nameplates though: that are a bit immaterial (and probably hard for clicky-players to target). Maybe use large class icons in the place of the model (when it is nameplated)?

zamalek.2154:

One thing does concern me about nameplates though: that are a bit immaterial (and probably hard for clicky-players to target). Maybe use large class icons in the place of the model (when it is nameplated)?

If the system is tuned correctly you should only see nameplates for enemies that are too far to target anyway.

As far as I understand, your computer will draw apply the anti-culling settings considering also the distance of models from your toon: the nearest ones will be fully-drawn models as usual until the limit is reached, then you get the fallback models at medium range until their limit is reached and only at last you get the nameplates.

As long as your computer is not completely rubbish, you should be fine.

I look forward to play this patch, Habib and his team made me extremely happy today.

when roaming, culling is VERY annoying so I look forward this update

About the awfull perfomance of Meta Events since Jan this year….

It’s not that culling is worse, it’s that they changed that one-time per day lootable Chest and all server, a tsunami of guests go into the maps when it’s starting to do thoose events.

It shows with no doubts how thoose events weren’t done to handle that much people in one area.
I Supose if the guest get’s limited to don’t overload that areas of meta-events, this situation could improve since the maps wont be in overflow.

zamalek.2154:

Minimum specifications for running a game are exactly that: what you need to run the game at the minimum quality settings.

Then, please, explain me why I get the same amount of fps (15-35) with nearly everything at max while tuning the settings all the way to ultra-low doesn’t even change a thing.
The only thing able to change the fps value are the shadows, a setting I don’t really care for because I am satisfied with medium.

Having to wait to start a voice acted dialogue because the game needs to load a high definition model 1km away from my position is absurd.
Having to wait to do anything in Lion’s Arch because it needs to load my character AFTER loading the map is ridicolous.
Having to stare a very low fps situation in WvWvW because of the bad particle management with ZERO differences with ultra-low and ultra-high is beyond my comprehension.

I do appreciate Anet’s hard work but sometimes it is mature to admit that “not” telling everything or just being no true on claiming the minimum requirements is a bad thing.
Anyway, since the first BWE I had a fair fps boost after launch (from 10-25 to 15-45 depending on the situation); I know what optimization is and I now there is always space for improvements and for that I have faith on Anet.

I do surpass minimum requirements by a fair amount and since setting everything to low or to max does not change a thing I generally prefer to set everything to max.
And, please, don’t tell me that I have to run a defragmentation.

happyjedi.1372:

The only thing able to change the fps value are the shadows, a setting I don’t really care for because I am satisfied with medium.

Since whatever patch it was, even if you have this option set to none, there are certain areas where shadows are still processed and displayed.
LA TP and certain dungeons are two that I recall.

FPS hit? Of course.

Habib Loew.6239:

One important thing to keep in mind is that this change ensures that all characters within visibility range will be reported to your client. So, even if you choose to turn the WvW character settings down to their lowest (i.e. nameplates only on most characters) while you still won’t see models for every character you will at least see nameplates. In the end it was important to us that no matter what your settings all the players in range will be visible in one way or another.

One of our goals with this patch was to turn off culling without degrading performance. We have attempted to have the default settings mimic the current performance environment as closely as possible, with options to go up or down depending on your machine specs. I strongly encourage everyone to play with the settings a bit to find out what is the right fit for you.

Did you also work on the insane CPU usage in WvW? My GTX 670 almost idles at 25% usage, even with supersampling and so on, in heavy fights while my Core i7-920@3,7GHz is heavily loaded. I’m seriously worried that this will get even worse, my GPU won’t have any problems rendering additional details, but any CPU not overclocked to way beyond 4GHz already struggles to keep up now. And considering the minimum setting will be to show nameplates at least, I’m afraid the CPU load will be even increased. And I somehow doubt you actually tested this with >100 players in a real world situation.

Just to add to that pic of CPU/GPU usage.

Here’s one of the average bandwidth required around LA TP.
Hmm, 3KB/s.
Somehow I don’t think the players’ internet connection is an issue.

While I am staggered that they actually made a patch that will somehow try to improve performance, I think that this is going to cause more problems than fix them.
The GW2 engine is far from close to being able to run as intended in large scale battles. There have been numerous posts in the tech forums regarding how poorly the engine uses client resources.
It will be interesting to see how this patch affects the ludicrous performance so far in large scale events/wvw. I see this as a stop-gap fix until the engine itself can be recoded to use more threads efficiently. DX11 is just a pipe dream as well

As to whether or not this resolves the WvW issue or not will remain to be seen. I personally only do WvW for the PvE Map completion(an issue for a later time).

As for the culling issue with PvE… The issue is a self-inflicted problem brought on by one very specific NON-Programing change by the powers that be…Guesting!

You want to fix the problem in PvE, simple:
One chest…per character…per day. Done! You will notice I did not say “Per Server”.

I am sure I have just incurred the wrath of the Server Hoppers, so be it. Just because you Can do a thing, does not mean you Should do a thing. Not only will this stop the people who flood our server just to get more drops then are entitled to a single server but I will again be able to actually tag an enemy before its instant untimely death.

I know the Server Hoppers feel they have the right to flood my server for the 30 seconds that it takes for the Jungle Wurm to drop, pick up the chest and Jump to the next server. I however, come from a different school of thought.

If you opened the Meta Chest on your server already, you’re done…move along…nothing to see here!

Now don’t get me wrong, this can NOT be a player imposed restriction, oh no, that will Never happen. This has to be Anet setting the restriction and allow those of us who do not glut up other servers, have fun again.

One of the WvW factors is number of troops.
No full status = The unlimited troops!

niwaar.5631:

[…] back in November/December[?] Where we had 100+ people on screen [during the Lost Shore events] with little to no culling? What exactly changed between then and now to make the game engine run so badly that we have major culling in PvE?

I would like to hear from more people that were participating in lost shores or any world events in past months where you could see more than 25-40 people on your screen at once. I don’t think anything has changed, but I could be wrong.

I am not as worried about PvE culling because it is not NEARLY as critical to success and having fun as it is in WvW IMO.