Guild Wars 2

I’ll open this topic with an image: left is ingame, right is some data

My Computer specs:

Windows 10
Intel i5 2500k @ 3.4ghz (issue occurs at 4.0 overclock as well)
16gb DDR3 RAM
Radeon HD 7970 (Using new beta drivers, problem occurs on rolled back drivers as well)
OCZ-AGILITY4 128gb SSD (Game installation drive, OS is on a Crucial M4)

I am at complete wits end. I am the one who usually helps people with issues of this nature. I have run the extreme gamut of ideas to identify and fix the problem I am having with JUST Guild Wars 2. I am getting >100 FPS in Planetside 2 (a game with legendary performance issues) with all settings maxed in quiet areas, and 40-60 FPS in busy fights. My computer also runs just fine in Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft. An hour long Prime95 test did not unearth any facts either.

I was running around Tangled Depths last night when my frames suddenly dropped to ~5 FPS. I figured it was some sort of antivirus scan so I opened up task manager to find that Guild Wars 2 was utilizing <20% of my CPU instead of the usual 80%+. Figuring a fluke, I restarted the game and watched the CPU usage. Everything up to and including the character screen worked fine. I could rotate my characters, swap between them easily and they would load all nicely and behave. However, the moment I would try to enter the game world, GW2 CPU utilization would begin dipping rapidly, and my frames would go with it.

A full restart of my computer proved fruitless, with the pattern repeating itself no matter what I tried while using the 64-bit client. I tried just about every option and command line available to modify how the game would run. I tried many permutations of graphics options from extremely low (on average a 1 FPS gain) to extremely high (no difference). I tried this same testing on the 32-bit client as well. I copied the game folder over to another one of my SSD’s and tried running the game from there — still ~5 FPS and <20% CPU utilization.

In frustration, I formatted my C drive and did a full reinstall of Windows 10 to rule out any malware present that would specifically target GW2. I installed the latest beta drivers from AMD for the 7970 and started the game with nothing else installed and all options left default. To my dismay, 5 FPS and <20% CPU utilization. I ported to different zones, Divinity’s Reach and Auric Basin to see if it was a zone specific issue (god save the queen) to no avail. I took the next logical step and uninstalled my GPU drivers and removed the 7970 and ran the game on integrated graphics. Predictably the game ran incredibly poorly, but still indicated <20% CPU utilization on the task manager.

My computer is clean, inside and out. Temperatures are not a problem, I do not smell anything burning and my fans are functioning. I have made zero hardware changes recently (what is money? baby don’t hurt me) and prior to the issue, no driver or other software/firmware changes that would explain this.

(Note on DxDiag — I installed the AMD beta drivers after I started experiencing this problem. Before the format and reinstallation of Windows 10 I tried an older set of drivers and that did not help either.)
DxDiag:
http://pastebin.com/QEjVBFMu

same story to me this happened today in the morning my specs
i5 2500k
amd 7700

Low fps you want low fps i will show you.PC specs I5 6600k ;8gib ram ddr4 2133 ;Gtx 770 windforce oc 3.

Dronikal you’re in a fight with a few dozen people in an area with some sketchy optimization. My issue is persistent in all game modes with no discernible reason why.

Staring at the floor in Auric Basin in an area with 1-2 people was about 3 FPS.

Toastiekins.3594:

Dronikal you’re in a fight with a few dozen people in an area with some sketchy optimization. My issue is persistent in all game modes with no discernible reason why.

Staring at the floor in Auric Basin in an area with 1-2 people was about 3 FPS.

3 fps with that cpu, ahhhh, is your CPU throttling down to 800 MHz or something?"
Which would make no sense at all. What does CPU-Z say when you are playing Guild Wars 2? I kinda doubt the GPU could be throttling to cause that low fps, cause if it was, wouldn’t there be more FPS with that situation? Because the main factor for GW2 for FPS is the CPU. Even a throttled GPU from my experience can push out way more than 3 FPS.

Check your Windows event viewer and see if it’s throwing errors or warnings somewhere that might point to an issue.

Just as a test, try lowering your GPU clock speed to, say 830 (~10% reduction), just to see if anything changes. Probably won’t help in this case, but would potentially rule out flakey GPU overclock as a possible cause. GW2 tends to be very GPU heavy and can cause issues with overclocked GPUs, even those that are factory overclocked.

Leamas.5803:

Check your Windows event viewer and see if it’s throwing errors or warnings somewhere that might point to an issue.

Just as a test, try lowering your GPU clock speed to, say 830 (~10% reduction), just to see if anything changes. Probably won’t help in this case, but would potentially rule out flakey GPU overclock as a possible cause. GW2 tends to be very GPU heavy and can cause issues with overclocked GPUs, even those that are factory overclocked.

Event Viewer:
Nothing out of the ordinary here, mainly just service announcements to tell me they are enabled. I do have one warning that is interesting, it is telling me one of my ethernet cables is not plugged in. This is true, as only one of my NIC ports is filled.

GPU:
With the base overclock

With the underclock

I’ll mark this as tentatively solved for now. Thank you for the assistance. After swapping some more parts out, my preliminary diagnosis is either a bad RAM stick or a dirty socket. Using some 6 year old RAM seems to be working, though I may not be able to survive at 8 gigs.

Framerate is still low? Nothing has changed in the hardware and it used to work? Did it correspond with a client update? Last x64 client update was on the 9th and the last dat file update was on the 6th. Have you run memtest86 to check your memory? What does GPU-Z say the load is when no games are running? I know you said, you reinstalled Windows from scratch, but could some background process be hijacking your GPU? Could it perhaps be Spyware? i.e. Were you or someone else using the machine maybe perusing the less savory areas of the Internet or opened up an e-mail worm or the like? I’ve heard of Spyware that will hijack the GPU and use it for bitcoin mining.

I would try the Intel Processor Diagnostic Utility see if it detects any specific issues with the processor.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool-64-bit-

The ROG Asus Realbench utility (Works for any brand of motherboard, not just Asus) can be used to benchmark the machine and has a test that will stress both CPU and GPU at the same time rather than isolated tests, such as Furmark.
http://rog.asus.com/file/?download=RealBench_v2.41.zip

Toastiekins.3594:

I’ll mark this as tentatively solved for now. Thank you for the assistance. After swapping some more parts out, my preliminary diagnosis is either a bad RAM stick or a dirty socket. Using some 6 year old RAM seems to be working, though I may not be able to survive at 8 gigs.

Bonus.

Not ALL memory is compatible, although Windows may claim so.

Leamas.5803:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool-64-bit-

The ROG Asus Realbench utility (Works for any brand of motherboard, not just Asus) can be used to benchmark the machine and has a test that will stress both CPU and GPU at the same time rather than isolated tests, such as Furmark.
http://rog.asus.com/file/?download=RealBench_v2.41.zip

These will be useful for any diagnostics in the future, thanks!

It looks like the RAM was the culprit, even though it had been stable for quite a long time beforehand. I’ve already placed an order for some new RAM from Amazon. The performance decrease was just completely unexpected and occurred in the middle of a play session for no discernible reason. Nor could I figure out the cause. Just trial and error of going through each and every piece of hardware/software and whatnot proved to be my solution.

Try to delete your loacal.dat .. had that problem a while ago for whatever reason
suddenly i only had 9-10 fps. First checked if my GPU ran @x16 .. everything fine.

Then i tested my second account, and that also ran fine, so i copied the local.dat
from second to first account, and it was ok again, however after some days i had
the same problem again .. and after having that 3-4 times i finally deleted the
local.dat and made all setting new by hand.

I have the same CPU and a Radeon R9 280x btw.

I have the exact same problem. also trying everything I can to solve this, have almost the same specs as OP (just a 6900 series graphic card)…
Completly out of options now too. Last option for me will be switching and cleaning ram. (have no reserve sadly)
This MUST be an anet or microsoft (windows 10) related thing since we have at least 3 people now with this issue.
My cpu usage is at ~20-30% (should be a lot higher).

For those of you experiencing this issue look into swapping some RAM! Another friend of mine experienced this very same issue(!!!) and swapping some new RAM in fixed it entirely.

I’m using a pc with Intel I7 CPU 860 @2,8GHz, RAM 6GB and a GeForce GT220 and a Windows7 is running.
I’m experiencing the same issue: low FPS (10-15) with a very low consume of CPU and a high consume of RAM (running the game), between 85% and 95%.
The problems were dramatic after Hot launch.
Can anybody help me to solve it? Thank you

Update for my issue:
I somehow managed to fix it. opened my Computer Case, switched the 2 rams I have, put some new cooling gel on my cpu and switched slot for my graphic card. If nothing else helps for other people, try that too.