Guild Wars 2

I just bought a copy of Guild Wars 2, and to get straight to the point, I’m having FPS issues. I have to run GW2 on the lowest settings in which I only get 20-30 FPS. I was wondering if it was either a problem with my computer or a driver, I see most people are having problems running it as well, though I’ve seen some videos of some running it perfectly on their MacBooks with lower specs than mine.
I’m running:
OSX 10.8.2
Intel i7 2.6 Ghz
8GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GT 650M
Also, I’m not running bootcamp.

That system should be getting much better performance than you’re reporting. I have a model 2 generations older than yours and I’m averaging 50-60 FPS on low-medium custom settings. I only get the settings you report when I have everything running on High settings with extras checked.

That said, there’s a couple of things that you can check:

What is your native setting resolution at in-game, and in System Preferences. Ideally it should match. 1440 × 900 should work best.

Go to the App Store and download a free app called gfxCardStatus. This app monitors your GPU switching and allows you to manually manage them. For the purposes of this test, just make sure that a message pops up that tells you your graphics card has switched to your Discrete (dedicated) card, rather than the integrated card (the HD 4000).

Leave all 4 boxes at the bottom of your Graphics Options unchecked, and keep your shaders on low settings until you identify your issue. Again, make sure your resolution is set to Full Screen 1440 × 900.

I covet your Graphics Card and Processor (Ivy Bridge yummeh!). While I have twice the amount of RAM you have, yours is faster. The only other big difference is that I’ve swapped out the generic 5400 RPM hard drive for a faster Hybrid 7200/SSD… but I don’t think that would cause such a dramatic change in performance.

Good luck!

I also use a Macbook Pro for GW2 and am finding the fps drop considerably during large events and group events.

So every time I start up GW2 it switches over to the dedicated GPU. When i run GW2 on the native resolution my FPS drops down to roughly 20 FPS with everything on low.

Do you have anything selected in the “Frame Limiter” field?

it’s set to unlimited

Spit – I have the same problem before, reset SMC!!!!))
Good luck!

What is the native resolution? You’re not trying to run it at full res on a retina MBP, are you?

Ruslnc, if I could grab you and kiss your right now! It worked! with everything on high my FPS is roughly high 30 – 50. I just recently purchased this macbook so I didn’t know about that functionality. Just curious, now that i reset the SMC, is there anything I should be cautious about? I notice that now my macbook is working harder and heating up quickly.

HI,
I’m also on a 2012 macbook pro (retina), and the performance is only so-so.
Can anyone tell me what SMC is? How do you reset it?

:)))))))))

Spit – you dont need worry about anything after you reset your SMC.
Bjarnel – here you can read more information (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964)

See you in the game

Well, here I was all ready to post about my FPS issues and RusInc came along and made my day!

I’ve got the same computer that the original thread creator has and at the lowest settings I was only getting about 30fps in most areas and lower than that in Divinity’s Reach. With some tweaking I finally landed on some settings that seemed like a decent trade off between graphical quality and FPS.

After resetting my SMC, and re-starting the game, without any changes I went from averaging 24 FPS to over 60 FPS! (Looks like I can bump up those settings a little bit now too)

Hopefully ArenaNet can find a way to take advantage of this with their Mac Client.

Also, thank you so much ArenaNet for making this game available for us Mac geeks!

Can you guys confirm that after resetting SMC, fps is high but then after awhile it goes down to 30fps?

@Xandman I played for for about 5 hours after resetting my SMC last night and it stayed consistently high for me. I’m not yet sure what several days of playing will do. I’ll report back and let you know.

Something I’ve noticed with the beta client is it runs fine as the only running application but paired with Chrome (Streaming music, etc) the frame rate drops to 1-2 fps, close your other applications and see how it does.

I don’t know what ArenaNet did with the new client tonight, but my FPS literally doubled! Thanks so much! It’s running beautifully now.

I am running a hackintosh pc that has windows 7 and OSX 10.8.2
I have optimised the system on both platforms and have great results on both sides on this computer. When I 1st started playing GW2 I was having to use Windows 7.
I had an fps average of around 60 now on the mac beta client this has dropped down by half to an average of around 30. This is using the same settings and of course exactly the same hardware.
The mac version is far from optimised yet though I have noticed a small improvement from the patch today.

im having this problem aswell on a 2010 iMac when i started playing this game ( about a week ago) i had fps around 30-50 now im running on 8-15 fps wich is really laggy . somebody please help me

Please post your system specs.

(btw, did you try anything listed above?)

I am running Guild Wars 2 basically all on low but some things can be medium to high like textures. This bring me to around 20FPS. I want it to be a bit faster and have no problem running on medium! I was wondering if there is still hope for me if the mac beta is updated sometime to make it better. OR is it my specs that are throwing me down. I know however I am a step up from the minimum requirements. Is it possible to get better FPS?

I have a brand new retina display 13" 2013
My specs are:
Intel i7 3.0hz
8 GB RAM
500+ SSD
Intel HD4000

CF, you could try making sure no other programs are running and there are little tweaks you could make to the config file but first, you could try this: (read completely before attempting)

1.) delete the contents of the gw2 data folder, it’s a pain to get to the right one: this step is a general fix for many tp and graphics issues, even without other steps

Mine is located under the hidden Library folder (navigate using finder, do not use spotlight to search)

/[yourharddrivename]/users/[yourusername]/library/application support/guild wars 2

You may want to copy/paste this folder to your desktop as a temporary back up, just in case.

Delete the contents of that specific folder (you should see files like this contained within “config, dyndata.dat, user.reg, userdef.reg, and folders p_drive and wineserver…namestuff…loca..[long name]” just to list a few), then re-run the client..

~~Your folder is probably hidden (as is the default). Hidden folders display as greyed out text and icons. I found this after googling:

http://m.wikihow.com/See-Hidden-Folders-on-Mac-OS-X-and-Other-Recent-Models

Others claim alt+clicking a file/folder unhides the contents, but that was never successful for me. At least the link has visuals for you. Hope it helps.

2.) check support.mac.com for instructions on how to reset your pram and smc.

Try these, then test your game. Warning, deleting the contents of the gw2 folder will RESET all of your in-game settings and you will lose your saved login details if you have that enabled… Make sure you know your password.

Post back whether this helped or not, also, please post your video ram.

CFCalvo.5960:

I am running Guild Wars 2 basically all on low but some things can be medium to high like textures. This bring me to around 20FPS. I want it to be a bit faster and have no problem running on medium! I was wondering if there is still hope for me if the mac beta is updated sometime to make it better. OR is it my specs that are throwing me down. I know however I am a step up from the minimum requirements. Is it possible to get better FPS?

I have a brand new retina display 13" 2013
My specs are:
Intel i7 3.0hz
8 GB RAM
500+ SSD
Intel HD4000

It’s your graphics card that is letting you down. It is an Intel integrated card so it’s power is limited.

The one big suggestion I can make. Don’t run GW2 at a retina resolution. 1280×800 is the typical 13" resolution so I suggest you run it at that, anything higher is putting strain on your graphics card and processor.

Also note that there are events going on at the moment so there are a lot of players around. That means that in a lot of areas your FPS will be much lower than it would otherwise be.

Hi guys, i have mid 2009 Macbook Pro, specs are:

Processor: 2.26 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 8 GB 2067 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
OS X 10.8.4

I get roughly 8-10 FPS in gw2 on best performance settings (lowest on everything), whereas i would get a much much higher fps in wow and other MMOs that ive played and im confused.

Are there any fixes that i can do to make it run smoother, or any cheap upgrades (willing to spend upwards of $150) i can make to my mac that will greatly help performance? or would you reccomend finally making the leap to a new macbook because its not worth pumping money into a mid 2009 mac? Thanks for your help

I’m not really familiar with NVIDIA graphics cards so I have no idea how decent yours is. Your processor is only a core 2 duo though, which is a bit of a hindrance.
Pretty sure you can’t upgrade anything other than the RAM on a MBP so your best bet is probably to shift to a newer 15" MBP if you want decent FPS.

Of course WoW has higher FPS, it’s a game from 2004 so it is nowhere near as graphically intensive as GW2 is. You also have to take into account that the GW2 OSX client is a port. It runs inside a Cider Wrapper so it is basically emulating parts of Windows, that means your system has to work a lot harder to run the game than it would if the client were native or you were running the game in Windows.

Just a side note, if you can try installing Windows via Bootcamp and seeing what FPS you get there because you may find it much better without having to shell out money on a new mac.

ah thank you so much for the help, is there a reason 15" would be preferable to a 13"?

Better video cards!

^— Yup. the 13" all have integrated graphics card (I think), so they don’t do a very good job.

Also getting very low FPS. Running a somewhat older MacBook Pro

Intel Core i5 2.53ghz
4gb ram
nVidia GT330M 256mb

Something I can do to smoothen it? Got everything on low (Shadows turned off actually) and still getting pretty bad framerates.

I did the SMC reset and all that and i still cant get the game running at more than 30 fps (thats with all the settings on low)

Im with a retina mid 2012 here.Any other suggestions of what to do?

Euforiata.9750:

I did the SMC reset and all that and i still cant get the game running at more than 30 fps (thats with all the settings on low)

Im with a retina mid 2012 here.Any other suggestions of what to do?

what resolution do you use for the game?
window mode or not also?

Hitsig, you may want to check the temps of your GPU and CPU. Post both temps of your system when running idle and also post those temps after running gw2 for about 15 minutes. Istat has a free widget you could use.

Euforiata, you may want to make sure your game resolution is 1440×900 and test it out.