Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I’d like to ask for some help regarding my FPS. I usually get 20-28 fps when playing in populated areas and when exploring I get around 35-40 (25-35 when players are around doing an event quest). Is there any way too boost my fps?

My specs are:
CPU: AMD A8-3870k black edition 3.0 gHz (ancient I know)
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: GTX 650 Ti OC

Two years old. So ancient. :p

The common recommendations is turn down reflections to sky only or none and Shadows to low.

That said it’s tough to recommend without knowing what your current settings are. So post a screen shot of your graphic settings. You can add pics on this forum if click on the “More postings & formatting options…”. Multiple pics by cycling though preview after adding your first picture.

lowest character model limit, no reflections and shadows to none, dynamic shadows are enabled at low and take up alot of cpu power. plus an A8 apu + 650ti seems a strange combo to have.

- something is wrong…

set settings to lowest … then just change render sampling to native and you can use FXAA too.

I’d rather go with Behellagh’s advice. He knows the first generation APU very well since he uses one although without a dedicated GPU to the best of my knowledge.
However, with your own dedicated GTX 650TI, turn off shadows and reflections and maybe turn down character model quality and visible player count. Should help. Or better yet you could experiment with CPU overclocking if your hardware can do it.

In response to dodgycookies, dynamic shadows actually start at medium. At low they have little to no effect on performance.

at low its still dynamic, but just a blob on the ground, at medium they begin to draw the outline shape and spot lights which eats up the most cpu cycles. Shadows at none landscape only. personally i get a few more fps in wvw from switching low to none on a 4820k

Yes I have the 2.5GHz version of that APU. Mines the OEM A8-3820. But knowing my GPU is trash compared to the GTX 650Ti I’m curious about his graphic settings. Now a 20% faster CPU and a GPU that’s at least 3x faster than mine I would imagine a bit more kick in frame rate over what I’m getting.

So until I see their graphic settings in game as well as their resolution, a GPU-Z screen shot would also be helpful, can’t really tell what setting tweaks may help.

dodgycookies.4562:

at low its still dynamic, but just a blob on the ground

Which is what makes it not dynamic. The other shadows, such as the shadows from structures on the OFF setting are literally just darker texture colours. The blobs are just… shadow disks that neither get larger or smaller. They’re like a commander tag for example, but a shadow. I can’t believe there would be any performance impact aside from something running the bottom of the barrel APU like AMD C3-5 APU.

Behellagh.1468:

Two years old. So ancient. :p

The common recommendations is turn down reflections to sky only or none and Shadows to low.

That said it’s tough to recommend without knowing what your current settings are. So post a screen shot of your graphic settings. You can add pics on this forum if click on the “More postings & formatting options…”. Multiple pics by cycling though preview after adding your first picture.

So I tried fiddling with the settings. These are the current settings I have… The FPS I’m getting in the pic is my FPS at Black Citadel. It even hits 19 sometimes (lowest it can go).

Turn down character model limit and quality, I have mine at low and medium even though I have 4670K. Also shadows at medium enables dynamic shadows – turning them to low helps to a certain degrew.

Hey Lolisamu. After checking out your screenshot, I think, this is a hunch mostly, that the best settings for you would be to set shadows to low or off, disable Reflections completely, turn down Character model limit to medium, can probably have model quality to maximum after it’s set to medium, I’d turn off FXAA since it’s… awful. It literally just makes things more blurry the further it is. It’s fake anti-aliasing. But it has pretty much no impact on most or all systems.

Render sampling… This one is weird. I got better FPS set to super sampling than I did with native back when I was using an AMD FX-8350. I’d give that a try and see if it helps at all.

I’m pretty sure you’d be able to have animations at maximum, environment at maximum, I don’t think post processing will have any noticeable impact being changed to maximum and neither with shaders since you’re running with a GTX 650 TI. These are suggestions only that I’m sure you can have enabled for the eyecandy :P The others are the most processor heavy I know of.

lolisamu.2730:

Hey guys, I’d like to ask for some help regarding my FPS. I usually get 20-28 fps when playing in populated areas and when exploring I get around 35-40 (25-35 when players are around doing an event quest). Is there any way too boost my fps?

My specs are:
CPU: AMD A8-3870k black edition 3.0 gHz (ancient I know)
RAM: 8 GB
GPU: GTX 650 Ti OC

get a good heatsink+fan and OverClock that APU. You should be able to get 4.5Ghz+ easily on that APU. that will be the best thing you can do.

APU’s are weaker then Athlon/FX as they lack L3 cache. Their ‘turbo’ boost Clock is actually only for 1 core at a time, and not the entire APU. And they have core leveling issues if you leave them stock.

To fix it, set your pstates in the BIOS to lock the APU for state0 and state1 at your OC speed, and tune states 7-2 for stable leveling. This will force the APU to clock all the cores the same (rather then core0 and core1 for boost) and you will get 50-65% more performance out of that APU.

example, Llano. My A6-3510MX stock at 1.8ghz with a HD7690M (rebadged HD6790) would get a max of 35FPS in GW2 at 1600×900. When I OC that APU from 1.8ghz to 3.2ghz it went up to 90FPS. and that was a Laptop, btw.

I have also OC’d a desktop using the same leveling/steps I used on my Llano. and I saw the same performance gains.

So just overclock that APU :-)

No Sir Squishy. The A8-3850 are tweaked Athlon II quads with double the L2 cache plus a GPU. Only the mainstream Phenom IIs had L3 cache.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare_CPUs/AMD_AD3850WNZ43GX,AMD_ADX635WFK42GM/

Behellagh.1468:

No Sir Squishy. The A8-3850 are tweaked Athlon II quads with double the L2 cache plus a GPU. Only the mainstream Phenom IIs had L3 cache.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare_CPUs/AMD_AD3850WNZ43GX,AMD_ADX635WFK42GM/

ah right, meant the Phemon II’s.

APU’s are Althon2’s with a GPU added on.

Aren’t the first generation desktop Lianos 32nn versions of the Phenom II with the added GPU?

Avelos.6798:

Aren’t the first generation desktop Lianos 32nn versions of the Phenom II with the added GPU?

more or less, they P2’s with L3 dropped and a GPU added. Multiplier was unlocked.

Phenom IIs without L3 cache is an Athlon II.

Like I said they took an Athlon II quad core, doubled the L2 cache and stuck on an underclocked HD 5570.

Or you could say they started with a Phenom II, ripped out the L3 cache, double the L2 cache and stuck on an underclocked HD 5570.

Either way the Athlon II, Phenom II and Llano are K10 based CPUs.