Guild Wars 2

I only love doing WvW but I am forced to use best performance and everyone looks terrible. Half the time I cant even see what Im attacking either. With my setting set to best performance I can only see the commander tag and like 5 character models at a time. If Im on my Ele I can raise the settings a little since Im never in the blob. But my Guardian is unplayable on anything other than garbage settings. I hope I only need a new GPU. Right now this is my setup.

i5-2500k OCed to 4.3
8 gigs RAM
GeForce 560ti

Can spend around $250 so what should I throw in to make the game playable on normal settings?

Your vid card while perhaps not the latest, is more than enough for GW2. Your cpu will be the weakest link in this game.

Channels inner Bee
Ok, the issue is that you aren’t using Mantle which I can implement since I’m a software dev and I GOT THIS!!! The other issue is also that you are an intelfanboi so that’s why your fps is bad and you don’t have an FX-4300 that totally beats an i5 in Archage which is why Crytek is superior.
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But seriously, your vid card is more than fine for GW2. You CAN upgrade to something more modern if you are aiming at better numbers in games like Metro Last Light, Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3, etc. But you have a good setup, it’s just that this game is so cpu dependent it is absolutely nuts.

I run an I5-4670K, with 8 gigs of ram and a GTX 570. I don’t have any issues like you’re describing, and my settings are in the high area.

The 4670k is around 15-20% faster than your sandy 2500K, but I was running the same CPU before I upgraded, and had no real issues then, either (I was also running a GTX 460 that died and EVGA RMA’d the 570 to me in it’s place).

I wasn’t getting 40 fps in a zerg, but I could see all the name plates and it was playable.

You might try making sure all your drivers are up to date, and make sure your system is running the way it should (as well as stopping any programs from running that you aren’t using and that your system doesn’t need, i.e. bloatware, apps etc).

Also make sure you aren’t having heat issues with your CPU in case it’s throttling back for that reason.

If you do end up spending cash on a new GPU, you can get a GTX 760 for that price.

My settings:

Fade.7658:

I run an I5-4670K, with 8 gigs of ram and a GTX 570. I don’t have any issues like you’re describing, and my settings are in the high area.

The 4670k is around 15-20% faster than your sandy 2500K, but I was running the same CPU before I upgraded, and had no real issues then, either (I was also running a GTX 460 that died and EVGA RMA’d the 570 to me in it’s place).

I wasn’t getting 40 fps in a zerg, but I could see all the name plates and it was playable.

You might try making sure all your drivers are up to date, and make sure your system is running the way it should (as well as stopping any programs from running that you aren’t using and that your system doesn’t need, i.e. bloatware, apps etc).

Also make sure you aren’t having heat issues with your CPU in case it’s throttling back for that reason.

If you do end up spending cash on a new GPU, you can get a GTX 760 for that price.

My settings:

Mildly offtopic, but may I ask what monitor you use and the resolution on it? I’m looking around for an upgrade of my current monitors, which are, and some people will laugh at this, 19" CRT monitors that are about 7 years old. Most of the monitors I’ve looked at have worse resolution than they do since I’m looking at the lower price range.

I suspect that your GPU is just fine as well. If you get decent framerate when soloing you shouldn’t see any increase upgrading your card. What you can do is download GPU-Z and see where your GPU usage % is when you dip down to low fps.

I use an AoC q2963 pm, 29" ultra-wide monitor. 2560 × 1080 resolution.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824160162

It’s about as tall as a 23-24" monitor, but ~as wide as a 30". It’s also IPS, and doesn’t need the same high end card that a 27" 2560×1440 monitor does to run nicely.

For MMOs and shooters, the extra width is really noticeable, and you’ll miss it if you go back to a normal monitor.

Resolution doesn’t play too much of a factor unless it’s a lower end system… so I think that’s not the problem.

More pixels means more work when it comes to shaders which can run on every pixel. True number of polys don’t change, much, when it comes to resolution but at lower resolutions some polys may scale into 0 pixels and are simply discarded from the remainder of the rendering pipeline.

If resolution doesn’t make a difference, then why do games like Metro: Last Light lose over 1/3 of their frame rate going from 1080p to 2560×1600 on a GTX 780Ti? It certainly isn’t low end hardware.

Of course it counts, the need to render a bigger picture = more work needed to be done. I think what Avelos meant was in this game as most the GPUs are capable of producing those 60+ fps and whatnot. What I suspect Fade meant however wasn’t the about the performance but about the added FOV the ultra-wide monitor gives.

It’s more of a memory issue and available bandwidth regarding higher resolution. I originally looked at those Korean 27" QHD monitors before settling on the AoC I bought. They were right around the same price.

What I discovered during my research, was that more advanced titles that took advantage of the tech, such as Crysis 3, absolutely demanded that your video card required at least 3 gigs of memory for the highest settings, with 4 being optimal.

Titles like Guild Wars 2 wouldn’t be as demanding, as it uses older tech like DX9. That’s not to say a better card wouldn’t bring more, just that the bar is a bit lower. The 570 GTX I run would likely have been more than sufficient for GW2, but with only 1.28 gigs of ram, it would’ve choked on Crysis 3 on the highest settings.

I vaguely remembering reading that going from a 1920×1080 res to 2560×1440 was ~70% more work for the gpu, going by pixel count.

As for the OP topic, I really think something isn’t quite right. I ran a similar system, and never experienced what he is describing.

Side note for those looking for a new monitor, regardless of size or resolution, if you don’t need a 120 mhz for those twitch moments, you NEED an IPS monitor. The difference is night and day for picture quality.

Here’s the difference the extra FOV makes in BF3, 2560×1080 vs. 1920×1080

http://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-219-2560-x-1080-experience

(about halfway down te page)

OC your CPu higher 4.3Ghz for i5 2500K .. get at least 4.6Ghz+

must have been my drivers. they updated for a pretty decent amount of time. after restart could play on auto detect just fine even in large scale fights. also getting 70-80 fps in large cities. only had to turn off shadows and reflections but who plays with those on anyways.

turn down even character model limit to the lowest

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

turn down even character model limit to the lowest

Read the OP’s post please. He wants to be able to see other players.

sorry didnt saw that

Dabrixmgp.4758:

must have been my drivers. they updated for a pretty decent amount of time. after restart could play on auto detect just fine even in large scale fights. also getting 70-80 fps in large cities. only had to turn off shadows and reflections but who plays with those on anyways.

If you wanted to upgrade the 560TI, I would recommend looking at a R7-265, Nvidia 660TI, or a 7870. They are all with in that $250 Price range. And all capable of being pushed with the graphical settings you want.

the issue, as mentioned before, comes from your CPU. Model limit, Reflections, Sampling, and Shadows all affect how much your CPU is being pushed. And those settings NEED to be tweaked for the best visual performance vs experience.

NOT that your CPU is bad or anything. Hell even on my i5-4670K there are times that it cannot keep up with the demands of this game (yet on TitanFall I run Max ingame settings and get a constant 140FPS – KillerBee Reference here!).

Thats just how the game is, the DX9 API holds it back and nothing we can do to fix that with hardware at this point. We will have to wait for 1 of 2 things to happen to get 40-60FPS across the board with this game.

1. They upgrade from DX9 to DX11+ (Single Threaded to Multithreaded, basically)
2. We get CPUs that can clock at 8.5Ghz and be stable

until one of the above is met, we are stuck with sub 20FPS zerg content.

First of all, for a 560ti you should be able to play with most settings on medium-high (don’t use the games presets because they are terrible).

Use custom settings:
Animation: Medium/High
Anti-Alias: FXAA/none
Enviornment: Medium/High
Lod Distance: Medium/High
Reflections: None/Terrain
Textures: Medium/High
Render Sampling: Native
Shadows: off
Shaders: Medium
Character Limit: Medium/Low
Character Quality: Medium

Character Limit along with dynamic shadows (medium shadows or higher) is the real cpu killer. Anything above medium limit with dynamic shadows on in a 60v60v60 zerg fight becomes a slideshow on even the most expensive cpus, thats just how it is.

As for upgrading, really depends if you play other games, the 560ti is a bit lacking in other modern titles. If you must upgrade now, then with that 250 budget i would suggest a r9 270(x)/gtx760, depending on the deals you can get for each one. With those cards you will we able to max all the graphics options @1080p in most games. In Gw2 max everything other than the previously mentioned ones, even supersampling.

Though in your situation i would hold off on upgrading, wait for a next gen maxwell/amd equivilent and just do a complete system rebuild.