Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. I have a two part question concerning whether or not the resources the client takes up is reasonable and I am also looking advice as to what I should upgrade.

Since the launch of Heart of Thorns, I’ve been experiencing some extreme lag issues in the new maps, as well as crashes. I’ve heard crashes are common, but I wanted to address my lag issue. I get huge FPS drops and computer lag, likely due to the fact that there are a lot of people running around me trying to get events done. I looked up the resources taken up and saw that my memory and CPU were sitting at about 94% and 85% respectively when I was standing in Verdant Brink.

This was a screenshot taken in Lion’s arch:
http://i66.tinypic.com/2rqiy2t.png

This is after I closed the client, idling with miscellaneous stuff I have the background, it seems.
http://i65.tinypic.com/20t3si1.png

My PC Specs:
Processor: AMD Phenom II (Quad Core) 955 BE
GPU: Geforce GTX 560 TI
Memory: 4GB

The minimum settings to run the game require 2GB. I suppose if I play on medium settings, it actually is reasonable that the game takes up about 3 GB of memory? Should it also take up that much processing power? This computer is about 4-5 years old, so it would make sense for me to require an upgrade. I’m a college student, so I’m on a budget. Anything you guys would recommend?

Thanks

how about a screenshot anywhere but LA? That place is very crowded.

A few things to try before you replace parts:
In game: set the model limit to lowest so you see fewer players. This vastly improves performance.

In windows: increase your paging file (amount of hard drive space used for virtual ram, basically). This will give you a slight performance boost.

GW2 runs mainly off the CPU, not the GPU. You can force it to do more with overclocking and the like, but the first component you should save up to replace is your processor.

Hey roach!

I chose LA because it would be analogous to the amount of people encountered in the new HOT maps. I was scared that I would end up crashing if I did anything when I was really lagging in VB, so didn’t screenshot there. I get almost no lag in dungeons/fractals where there are far fewer people, obviously. I’ll try the suggested options, thanks a lot!

Looks like I’ll be in the market for a new CPU, then. Thanks again.