Guild Wars 2

So which one would be the best for a 15" mid 12 mbpro?
16gb ram, 650M 1024 MB , 1x 1tb ssd (owc) another 1tb ssd is ready but doesn’t recognize it, internetz says its the cable and I should bring it to a mac shop.
Therefore also, which OX supports raid ssd configuration?

Or does the mac model not matter this much and I can just take the newest windows?

couldn’t find a thread with this config but there are plenty I can read up on if the hardware doesn’t matter too much.
thank you!

why? the new content is really nice and I’d like to experience at least some of its graphics. the great new updates really make me hope for a mac client but realistically i’ll stick to windows until then.
Still no gem purchases for me

Uh, I don’t think any Windows OS will support your SSD? But I’m not super knowledgeable on that.

In general 64bit Windows 7 is your best bet in terms of performance for GW2.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Uh, I don’t think any Windows OS will support your SSD? But I’m not super knowledgeable on that.

In general 64bit Windows 7 is your best bet in terms of performance for GW2.

No, that’s absolutely incorrect. Windows 8 64bit would work perfectly fine, provided the correct drivers are installed. If you do a quick Google search, many users are even saying Win8.1 helped them get better FPS compared to Win7.:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/223vbg/run_guildwars_2_on_81/
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/68683389
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/windows-7-vs-windows-8-for-gw2

A clean installation of the OS is best, since you won’t have any annoying files laying around that may slug up your system. Windows requires a lot of maintenance compared to Mac OS X, so make sure to defrag and all that. I don’t know where FlamingFoxx is getting his/her information..

As for your SSD working, putting an SSD into a Mac that didn’t originally come with it can be a tricky situation. Apple doesn’t really provide a lot of support for users with SSDs that were added after the initial purchase, since Apple uses a specific make and model of SSDs for their machines. I wouldn’t be surprised if Raid didn’t work. Make sure you have an external HDD/SSD to back up your data if you haven’t installed Bootcamp yet.

Windows 8 scores consistently lower in gaming benchmarks than Windows 7 (Running on the same hardware). So yeah, some people may find that Windows 8 works better for them, but that’s often very machine specific and it can come down to something as simple as installing Windows 8 removing some of the bloat that had accumulated on their computers over years.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Windows 8 scores consistently lower in gaming benchmarks than Windows 7 (Running on the same hardware). So yeah, some people may find that Windows 8 works better for them, but that’s often very machine specific and it can come down to something as simple as installing Windows 8 removing some of the bloat that had accumulated on their computers over years.

“Windows 8 scores consistently lower in gaming benchmarks than Windows 7 (Running on the same hardware).”

Although that may be true with older games, show us proof, recent proof, that the statement is true with Guild Wars 2. I posted a few links, most from this year, that proves you’re wrong. Recent benchmarks from games consistently show that Win8 runs games just fine. Guild Wars 2 is a game that runs flawlessly on Windows 8. There may have been some issues when it first came out, but it’s mostly been ironed out across the board. Windows 8 is a very solid operating system, and users who constantly complain about it just whine about Metro. Don’t tell users to use an old operating system just because you heard it runs worse on the newer version. As long as the drivers are updated there shouldn’t be any problems with FPS.

“but that’s often very machine specific and it can come down to something as simple as installing Windows 8 removing some of the bloat that had accumulated on their computers over years.”

When you say it’s “very machine specific”, you’re implying hardware, when you say “it can come down to something as simple as installing Windows 8 removing some of the bloat that had accumulated on their computers over years.” that is not hardware related. In all actuality, most hardware that can run Windows 7 can run Windows 8. When it comes to maintaining your computer, I stated that it’s best to do a clean install, especially with Bootcamp.

However, even then it wouldn’t effect FPS very much; as long as there is sufficient space on the SSD for Guild Wars 2 the user should be just fine. Just because the machine is bloated doesn’t mean games will take an FPS hit.

Hey guys, thank you!

The SSD is supported as far as I know, don’t lose warranty. Really love OWC, got a 12tb firewire raid and I’ll check them out for a thunderbolt one real soon.

I think I actually might go for windows 8, gonna see if I really can’t find anybody with my spec

@flamingfox
you play on 7 right? what machine do you have? Btw don’t worry about backups, I have 2 x raid 1 back ups, call me paranoid

@Aeris
I take it you play on 8? what is your set up and experience?

Michael Walker.8150:

Hey guys, thank you!

The SSD is supported as far as I know, don’t lose warranty. Really love OWC, got a 12tb firewire raid and I’ll check them out for a thunderbolt one real soon.

I think I actually might go for windows 8, gonna see if I really can’t find anybody with my spec

@flamingfox
you play on 7 right? what machine do you have? Btw don’t worry about backups, I have 2 x raid 1 back ups, call me paranoid

@Aeris
I take it you play on 8? what is your set up and experience?

Before I switched out my HDD for my new SSD, I used to play GW2 on Win8. I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro, i7, 8gb ram, AMD Radeon HD 6750M. I would, on average, get about 35FPS on medium-high settings with the shaders on low. Ran flawlessly until I got my new SSD and couldn’t install Windows on it :/

My machine has around the same specs, except it is late 2011 and only has 4GB of RAM. I get around 35-40 FPS on average with everything turned to high (including Shaders, Shadows, and Post Processing). The exception to that are WvW which obviously runs a bit slower when there are a ton of people on the map, and also the new Dry Top map (and to a lesser degree Southsun) which is a little more taxing and requires me to turn Shaders and Shadows down to maintain my FPS.

First of all, thank you again for your help!

I went with Windows 8 after all, the tiles made no sense though so I’m back to classic mode :P

It feels great again to actually see what GW2 looks like, won’t be going back to the Mac Alpha anytime soon, except of maybe checking tp if I become active again.

I’m getting the same fps with everything set to maximum basically, reduce it a little and I’m having a really smooth experience.

Player count is on low though.

If I don’t limit frames to 30, the game goes nuts, jumping 10fps incraments from 30 to 20 to 10 and back to 30 (not back to 20 first).
With a 30fps limiter it says its 22 fps constantly but it feels smoother than that, no idea what is going on. Feels more like 35-40fps like flamingfoxx is getting…

I have 16gb ram as mentioned, what are the settings that make most use of this?

The drivers that have been downloaded by bootcamp, are they up to date? should I download different ones?

There is a combat/UI mod to remove the black border and other elements, I forgot the name though, somebody knows what I’m talking about?

Really nice graphics this game has, sadly the wrapper works so bad for a lot of configurations.

thx again and maybe you guys now one or the other answer to my questions

The graphics drivers that bootcamp installs are usually quite outdated – the easiest way to observe this is to go to an area with a lot of trees, turn shadows up to high and then see if you get distinct shadows or if it is just a blurry mess. If you just google your graphics card + bootcamp drivers you ckittenually find a link (I can’t just give you a link since I have no idea if you have an nVIDIA or ATI graphics card)

The mod you’re talking about is probably just the “GW2 combat mod” – once again, googling it will give you what you’re looking for

Michael Walker.8150:

I have 16gb ram as mentioned, what are the settings that make most use of this?

None, really. Even at highest settings the game uses 2GB RAM at most. The gw2.exe is a 32bit process, therefore it can’t use more RAM, no matter how much you actually have in the system.