Guild Wars 2

I am running on a gtx 660 ti and i3 540, I assumed the reason I was running GW2 at 20 to 30 fps (especially in cities) was because of my processor, I decided to check my cpu temps after seeing someone with the same problem, and I found out that after playing the game for about 5 minutes, my cpu was running at 84 degrees Celsius. I am wondering if this could somehow throttle my cpu and cause it to perform worse, as my cpu usage is only at around 70%.

Read Part 4 of this thread here

70% CPU load is normal, you won’t really get 100%. 84c CPU temp is on the high side, you could be throttled depending on your mobo’s settings etc. You’re probably using stock cooling, I suggest get Hyper 212 Evo or get better case ventilation/dust it.

Should I replace the thermal paste and check the fan for dust? I am thinking abou possible getting an i7 920, as I am stuck with first generation processors thanks to my motherboard. I would replce the whole mobo, but that would cost more than I am willing to spend on this problem.

Upgrading to an i7 920 would require a new board. You’re running on an 1156 pin board, where the 920 runs on a 1366 pin board. The best you could upgrade processor-wise is to a first gen i5, specifically this one: http://ark.intel.com/products/48504/Intel-Core-i5-680-Processor-4M-Cache-3_60-GHz

I was fairly certain that my mobo supoorted that specific i7, but if it doesn’t, I am certain it supports core 2 quad, so should I “downgrade” to that for increased fps?

I’m pretty sure C2Q and C2D are all 775 pin. Unless your motherboard has multiple sockets I don’t think you can downgrade to that without getting a new board. What motherboard do you have?

I misspoke earlier, you can upgrade to a i7 8xx processor on an 1156 board. The highest end one you can get is the i7 880.

If I were you and didn’t want to spend money on an entire new mobo/CPU. I would overclock your CPU once you get your temperature situation under control. I was able to get my old i7 930 from 2.8 Ghz to 4.1 Ghz running within the safe vcore voltage limit. It’s basically like a free performance boost.

However, if you can’t get your temps under control, dislike the thought of overclocking, and only want to get a new CPU; getting an i7 8xx is your best bet giving you 2 more cores and 4 more threads than first gen i3/i5, plus a higher clock. However, the cost of a i7 8xx from what I have seen is arguably more expensive than just grabbing a i5 3570K and a 1155 mobo which will result in a much better performance/dollar upgrade.

Another note: Even with the latest generation i5/i7 processors, at stock speeds you won’t get excellent performance in chaotic WvW battles. For this you’ll need an overclock of around 4.5 Ghz to get at least a solid 30 fps in the most hectic WvW battles. This can be blamed on the way GW2 is coded, which relies on heavily on single thread performance.

TBH 1st gen ’i’s and Core 2 Quads have simular single thread performance so it wont help with GW2.

Your best bet is upgrading to a 2nd or 3rd gen i5. Preferably one which is a K version so u can OC to get the best performance u can.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Temp wise.. yes it is high as Kirito said but it wont be throttling yet so i doubt that a new cooler will help.

The problem I have with upgrading my mobo and getting a new processor now is that there are new processors with a different socket coming out at the end of this year, and I don’t want to drop a bunch of money down now when I could wait until then.

The processors you are referring to are codenamed Haswell, they are due out at the end of Q2 this year. If you can wait 4ish more months, you should start seeing Haswell out and about.

TBH ur on the edge of waiting being worth it.

Any more than 4 months and u end up always waiting.

At this point in time i dont think u could go wrong if u get a Ivybridge. its up to u how long u can put up with the performance.

its like me waiting on the Nvidia 700 series and AMD 8000 series. I started waiting in December. They ‘should’ be coming out around March time.. So again ..roughly 4 months. I can wait though becouse my GPU is handling this perfectly fine atm. Its only just started reaching its absolute limits in recent games.
However for som1 who has already got a computer or computer part that is past its limits and is now causing greif ..i couldnt wait 4 months myself.

I know what its like to buy somthing then 2 months down the line somthing MAJORLY better comes out ..its sucks ..specialy if u do what i did and put over almost £2000 into it (this was like 5 years ago).
However in ur case ur wont be putting that much money into it and tbh i dont forsee Haswell being THAT much of a major improvment…think about it…. Intel really dont have the competition to force them to bring somthing so ground breaking out atm ..they can afford to sit on it and charge more for their cheaper tech. Marketing 101.

If I fixed the temps and overclocked a bit, would I be able to hold off until quarter 2 with fairly decent fps?

Well that would be up to u .. i dont think OC’ing that particular CPU would give u a much better experiance. .it would increase fps ..but not by much.

I have been seeing a bunch of these threads on here about low fps.

Couple reasons besides the raw power of the machine it’s partly software as well and not all just Anet’s either. Windows 7 and core parking plus thread handling is meh with certain CPU’s.
Another thing is the lack of DX11 which is a more moderen API than of DX9 and I’m not referring to eye candy either. As much as the DX11 visual effects are nice the updated performance aspects of it like thread handling and GPU scaling is far better than of DX9.

A 64-bit client would be nice as well, loading times would be cut in half for people with the proper specs just for starters it would also help with bottle necking in the memory stacks and sim ways of the CPU cores.

As far as the CPU temp issues I seen a lot of good suggestions on here only thing I can add on to it is check for dust if you haven’t already, make sure the heat sink is properly seated, a good thermal compound like the artic silver types goes a long way as well.
If you do get a new Fan which is an option just make sure it will work with future builds this way your not just throwing away money.
Another point is normally with heat issues rather than low FPS you are more likely to get stability issues very similar to low voltage issues where you will get blue screens with random faults, mostly memory corruptions errors or just flat out lock up. Some motherboards will simply shut down the whole system to prevent damage as well.

Either way check it out as “Heat” and “Vibration” are the main causes damage on electronic semi-conductors and IC’s. So it takes away from the life span of your components.

the haswell architecture is going to be so little of a performance increase from the current ivy bridge that it isnt even funny the things they are changing are the socket and the chipset so a 3770k or a 3570k are not going to be out of date by any stretch of the imagination

I cleaned out my cpu and now I am getting at max 61 degrees Celsius after a few hours of play, still only getting around 30 fps, which I guess is playable, I just assumed that because one of my friends run the game on a dual core similar to mine, but he got 60 fps most of the time. He has upgraded his processor since then, he was running that at release, and I heard that this game was much more optimized then than now.