Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, oRx here!

Im currently playing GW2 on my laptop which is roughly 4 years old and it just isn’t eorking for me properly…

So I decided to buy a new computer, a desktop one this time, as Ive heard desktop computers are better for gaming needs.

I’m not very good with computers, so I wonder what specifications my computer should have.

Also, what internet speed would I need to optimise my GW2 gametime?

So, how much RAM, what graphic cards properties, what CPUs, etc… and what internet speed would one need to be able to play WvW laglessly.

Thanks in advance guys..

Regards, oRx

Basically you cannot expect to play wvw laglessly (is that a word?). It will not make a difference whether you have a 5k dollar machine or a 800 dollar machine, both will have lag.

That said it doesn’t really take much to run GW2 at it’s best potential.

For that (and others can correct me here) we are shooting for:

@1080
i5-3570k or better
8gb 1600 RAM or better
750 ti or r9 270 or better
ssd for load times
psu based on cpu/gpu choices
aftermarket cpu cooler……cm 212+ or better (purely a recommendation)
mobo to match cpu/gpu choices….no need to go overboard
case to match preferences

Essence Snow.3194:

Basically you cannot expect to play wvw laglessly (is that a word?). It will not make a difference whether you have a 5k dollar machine or a 800 dollar machine, both will have lag.

That said it doesn’t really take much to run GW2 at it’s best potential.

For that (and others can correct me here) we are shooting for:

@1080
i5-3570k or better
8gb 1600 RAM or better
750 ti or r9 270 or better
ssd for load times
psu based on cpu/gpu choices
aftermarket cpu cooler……cm 212+ or better (purely a recommendation)
mobo to match cpu/gpu choices….no need to go overboard
case to match preferences

Basically all this.

Your absolute best bet is to get a current gen i7 (4790K) and Bin(Buy more CPUs and return the ones that do not meet your needs) until you get a chip that can OC to 5Ghz at 1.4v or less(1.38v is deal). Then buy the best water cooling loop you can find (450~ for a high end custom) and run your CPU at 5Ghz 24×7.

That is the only way to get better FPS in Zerg/Blob Content. And you will see better low end performance out of a i7 then i5 due to Hyper-threading.

Then you need a GTX770 or higher to NOT bottle neck your 5Ghz CPU. GTX770, GTX780, GTX970, R9 280x, R9 290 are your logical options. Ideally you want to use PCIE version 3 GPUs, and not PCIE Version 2. as the additional PCIE Link speeds on Version 3 also helps with the low end side of the FPS you will see in Zergs/Blobs.

Aside from that, youll want an SSD (MX100 or 840Evo ideally), CL9 1600mhz or better Paired Ram (you WANT dual channel) to help with the caching that GW2.exe does when it hits 2GB+ of used RAM.

and so on, so on…ect

Go with Essence Snow.3194s recommendation unless u want to spend the extra money. there is no real configuration that will let u play WvW laglessly.

Alternatively you can use an AMD 8350, it would work well, as well.
The SSD is optional but a great thing to have.

Great suggestions overall.

I was also playing with a laptop and last week I bought a new desktop.

I have an i5 4690k (which I’m having it at 4,4ghz), 8gb 2133, ssd mx100 and r9 285 (~+10% oc).

I play the game insanely better. With everything at max, unless shadows and characters set to medium: 60-70 fps in LA, 90 fps in open world and 32-35 fps in bosses like tequalt, jormag or golem II.

I see GW2 doesn’t need an i7. In my i5, 1st core is running 70-90%, but the rest around 55-75%, so even 4 threads are not used fully.
About ram, 8gb is more than enough. Haven’t tested different ram speeds, but as it is a cpu based game, I think it runs better with higher speed ram. Prices are more or less the same till 2400, so I’d go for the best you can.
Gpu, wouldn’t be looking for less than gtx 760/r9 280. Prices have dropped a lot in those two and you can find them even for less than 200€.
Finally, since I bought an ssd last summer (put it in laptop also), I cannot go back to hdd. It speeds a lot the OS in general, opening any kind of software, maps in gw2 are charged much more faster…

Triforcecwp.7659:

Go with Essence Snow.3194s recommendation unless u want to spend the extra money. there is no real configuration that will let u play WvW laglessly.

Alternatively you can use an AMD 8350, it would work well, as well.
The SSD is optional but a great thing to have.

Great suggestions overall.

AMD’s FX line is 50%-65% slower then Intel for GW2 since the IPC on each of AMD’s core is weaker then Intels.

Do NOT buy a FX8350, FX6300, FX4300….ect, as you will NOT get the top performance in WvW/Zerg/Blob content with any of the FX line.

as for internet requirements,

it not so much about speed as most mmos do not use a lot of bandwidth. The more important part is ping (latency) and that depends on many factors including your isp, your router, modem etc.

Most basic recommendation is that if the modem or router is more than 4 – 5 years old it might be time to replace it.

Great posts guys, thanks alot for the information!

I was looking at this computer earlier today, and wonder what you guys think about it; will it be able to run GW2 smoothly, without the need to run on like minimum settings lol;

Processor: intel core i5-4440
RAM capacity: 8GB (1×8GB)
Graphics card: Nvidia geforce gt730
Graphics card capacity (idk what this is): 1024 MB

So my question is, would this be a decent computer to play GW2 on? Also, if not, which of the components need improving?

oRx.9584:

Great posts guys, thanks alot for the information!

I was looking at this computer earlier today, and wonder what you guys think about it; will it be able to run GW2 smoothly, without the need to run on like minimum settings lol;

Processor: intel core i5-4440
RAM capacity: 8GB (1×8GB)
Graphics card: Nvidia geforce gt730
Graphics card capacity (idk what this is): 1024 MB

So my question is, would this be a decent computer to play GW2 on? Also, if not, which of the components need improving?

I would build my system, not buy a packaged deal. the i5-4440 is the best part of that system. The weakest is the GT730 (sad poor excuse for a GPU if you ask me).

sirsquishy.8531:

oRx.9584:

Great posts guys, thanks alot for the information!

I was looking at this computer earlier today, and wonder what you guys think about it; will it be able to run GW2 smoothly, without the need to run on like minimum settings lol;

Processor: intel core i5-4440
RAM capacity: 8GB (1×8GB)
Graphics card: Nvidia geforce gt730
Graphics card capacity (idk what this is): 1024 MB

So my question is, would this be a decent computer to play GW2 on? Also, if not, which of the components need improving?

I would build my system, not buy a packaged deal. the i5-4440 is the best part of that system. The weakest is the GT730 (sad poor excuse for a GPU if you ask me).

Appreciate your response alot, but frankly, I don’t think I’ll build my own system.

There are several reasons for this, the main one being I’m not very skilled with computer hardware, and therefore do not have an idea what goes where, or what it is good with.

I’ve had a self-built computer before, it turned out the processor was too good for the vents to be able to cool it off properly, which resulted in poor functionality and after a while the death of my system.

Another problem is, if I buy it part-by-part, I will have trouble fixing it if anything goes south, since there are several shops included then, and nobody I can complain to really, since it’s self-built.

Yeah… I’ll stick to pre-mades I’m sure, they know what they put in I guess… :P

Anyways I’ll keep searching and come back with more ideas once I get them

Thanks again, appreciate it alot.

Regards, oRx.

I just found another one, but doesn’t really seem that good, I can’t tell though since I’m not an expert lol. The specifications are next:

Processor: Intel Core i3 4160 (3,5 GHz)
Graphics card: HD 4400
RAM: 4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz

Is this better or worse than the previous one?

Also, you haven’t really answered my main question yet squishy, which is whether these computers are sufficient for GW2 playing on mid+ graphics smoothly?

Im really not willing to play any more demanding games than GW2 is for now, so if it runs GW2 smoothly, it’s a win-win. I don’t need anything else.

Thanks in advance, oRx.

Since you won’t build it you are going to be paying a premium;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100019096%20600494689%20600494693%20600439567%20600488245%20600490266%20600453348%20600015149&IsNodeId=1&name=8GB%20DDR3

(Organize by Lowest price)

that search list should be a good start for a desktop that can play GW2 at decent settings. Low being 699.99.

sirsquishy.8531:

Triforcecwp.7659:

Go with Essence Snow.3194s recommendation unless u want to spend the extra money. there is no real configuration that will let u play WvW laglessly.

Alternatively you can use an AMD 8350, it would work well, as well.
The SSD is optional but a great thing to have.

Great suggestions overall.

AMD’s FX line is 50%-65% slower then Intel for GW2 since the IPC on each of AMD’s core is weaker then Intels.

Do NOT buy a FX8350, FX6300, FX4300….ect, as you will NOT get the top performance in WvW/Zerg/Blob content with any of the FX line.

The low performance in WvW and large blobs is a limitation and optimization of the game itsself. Many people with Cpus far better than yours drop significantly in FPS, in wvw.

Triforcecwp.7659:

sirsquishy.8531:

Triforcecwp.7659:

Go with Essence Snow.3194s recommendation unless u want to spend the extra money. there is no real configuration that will let u play WvW laglessly.

Alternatively you can use an AMD 8350, it would work well, as well.
The SSD is optional but a great thing to have.

Great suggestions overall.

AMD’s FX line is 50%-65% slower then Intel for GW2 since the IPC on each of AMD’s core is weaker then Intels.

Do NOT buy a FX8350, FX6300, FX4300….ect, as you will NOT get the top performance in WvW/Zerg/Blob content with any of the FX line.

The low performance in WvW and large blobs is a limitation and optimization of the game itsself. Many people with Cpus far better than yours drop significantly in FPS, in wvw.

It’s not actually. Its the way AMD designed their CPUs. Due to their design they run at 50%-65% slower then Intels when it comes down to single threaded tasks, and that is why AMD is not a good fit for GW2. It has nothing to do with ‘lack of optimizations’ which there really aren’t any. It’s really not Anet’s fault that Intel just has a faster IPC per core then AMD does.

The ‘optimization’ issues your talking about drop down to the DX9 render thread. This affects EVERY SYSTEM. The more character models on the screen the slower your system is going to run. Having a faster CPU helps to combat this. That is all.

And as far as ‘many people with far better CPU’s then mine’, You do realize that the i7-4790K is the BEST cpu you can get for the 1150 Socket and uses the same cores on the 6core and 8core socket 2011v3 cpus right? And we all suffer the same issues, just less since our IPC is at the top of the Charts for single threaded performance.

sirsquishy.8531:

It’s not actually. Its the way AMD designed their CPUs. Due to their design they run at 50%-65% slower then Intels when it comes down to single threaded tasks, and that is why AMD is not a good fit for GW2. It has nothing to do with ‘lack of optimizations’ which there really aren’t any. It’s really not Anet’s fault that Intel just has a faster IPC per core then AMD does.

The ‘optimization’ issues your talking about drop down to the DX9 render thread. This affects EVERY SYSTEM. The more character models on the screen the slower your system is going to run. Having a faster CPU helps to combat this. That is all.

And as far as ‘many people with far better CPU’s then mine’, You do realize that the i7-4790K is the BEST cpu you can get for the 1150 Socket and uses the same cores on the 6core and 8core socket 2011v3 cpus right? And we all suffer the same issues, just less since our IPC is at the top of the Charts for single threaded performance.

Within his price range your numbers are completely wrong.

Stick as close you can do Essence Snow.3194s recomendation, its a good one.

Triforcecwp.7659:

sirsquishy.8531:

It’s not actually. Its the way AMD designed their CPUs. Due to their design they run at 50%-65% slower then Intels when it comes down to single threaded tasks, and that is why AMD is not a good fit for GW2. It has nothing to do with ‘lack of optimizations’ which there really aren’t any. It’s really not Anet’s fault that Intel just has a faster IPC per core then AMD does.

The ‘optimization’ issues your talking about drop down to the DX9 render thread. This affects EVERY SYSTEM. The more character models on the screen the slower your system is going to run. Having a faster CPU helps to combat this. That is all.

And as far as ‘many people with far better CPU’s then mine’, You do realize that the i7-4790K is the BEST cpu you can get for the 1150 Socket and uses the same cores on the 6core and 8core socket 2011v3 cpus right? And we all suffer the same issues, just less since our IPC is at the top of the Charts for single threaded performance.

Within his price range your numbers are completely wrong.

No price range was given, so no my numbers are not wrong at all. And I already told him that since he wants to buy a pre-built system there is going to be a premium.

your not being helpful anymore, please stop polluting this thread.

sirsquishy.8531:

Triforcecwp.7659:

Go with Essence Snow.3194s recommendation unless u want to spend the extra money. there is no real configuration that will let u play WvW laglessly.

Alternatively you can use an AMD 8350, it would work well, as well.
The SSD is optional but a great thing to have.

Great suggestions overall.

AMD’s FX line is 50%-65% slower then Intel for GW2 since the IPC on each of AMD’s core is weaker then Intels.

Do NOT buy a FX8350, FX6300, FX4300….ect, as you will NOT get the top performance in WvW/Zerg/Blob content with any of the FX line.

listen to squishy. My FX-8350 overclocked to 4.7ghz is still slower in this game than my last gen AMD Phenom II at 4.1ghz. Despite the FX performing better in every other game I own. This game craves IPC that only Intel has at the moment. Its the only way to get this game to play properly. Sucks if you’re morally opposed to buying from intel like myself. If you have no such objections and this game is a long term investment for you don’t punish yourself paying 200+ for an FX processor that won’t net you the performance you want. There is no AMD processor that can keep you over 30fps in this game. Only intel can do that at the moment and there is no point crossing your fingers waiting for patch that wont come to fix that.