Guild Wars 2

So I did the systemrequirementslab test, and it said I can run GW2, And I can. The bar is just less than half slow-fast and over the minimum requirements by about 1/3. Everything passes,
CPU
Minimum: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better
You Have: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz
RAM
Minimum: 2 GB
You Have: 2.1 GB
OS
Minimum: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or better
You Have: Microsoft Windows Vista Business Edition Service Pack 2 (build 6002), 32-bit
Video Card
Minimum: NVIDIA GeForce 7800, ATI Radeon X1800, Intel HD 3000 or better (256 MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)
You Have: AMD Radeon HD 6670
Sound Card
Minimum: Yes
You Have: AMD High Definition Audio Device
Free Disk Space
Minimum: 25 GB
You Have: 163.5 GB
Apart from CPU speed.. which is:
You Have: 2.4 GHz
Why? I admit, my PC isn’t new, its a few years old, but surely if the CPU passes so should the speed? How can I make it faster?
It’s annoying, I can play on full settings but it lags, however it still does occasionally on the lowest settings.
What do I need to get rid of the lag?
Will my PC not meet the requirements when/if an expansion is released?

I’m worried. =(

(Also I get strange fps fluctuations recently, it was like that just after launch but then stopped for a week or so and is back.. what’s that?)

Thanks.

its a shame this has to be explained so often but.

Minimum requirments are there to say “this game will ‘run’ on your computer”
It is not “this game will be ‘playable’ on your computer”

Your requirments may beat the stated minimum needed to ‘run’ the game, but it is not by much.

Going down the list.

The old Core 2 Duo’s/Quads/Extremes, are all outdated and will strugle with GW2 unless OC’d to VERY high levels. The base Architecture of the CPU is not fast enough to handle a game as CPU dependant as GW2, so even OC’ing will only help slightly.

RAM, it says 2GB minimum, thats ..ambitious… Adittionaly, you need to understand that memory does not come in ‘exact’ numbers. A 1GB stick for example is not 1000mb .its actualy around 1024mb. meaning depending on the software it will read 2gb as ether a flat 2gb or 2048mb ..if its rounded it may well register as 2.1gb ..there for you have the minimum ..not above.

Your OS is Vista, Vista is not a very good OS when it comes to gaming, its rather slow and uses alot of system resources.

Your GPu, now im used ot nvidia cards ..but i belve the 6670 is equivlanet to a Geforce 9800, which again is OLD. it WAS a very good card back in its day, but today its nowhere near enough to play demanding games.

Now finaly. You say ‘Lag’ ..do you actualy mean ‘Lag’ as in latency from internet connection.. i.e you do somthing like press a skill and it isnt instant… or like in a FPS game where you shoot and it takes second or 2 for actually shoot.
or do you mean low Frame rates ?

if its frame rates, then im afraid theres not much you can do, your computer just isn’t up to the task. if its actually Lag, then that could indicate a connection problem, in which case you should go to speedtest.net and see what your speed is, you can also go to pingtest.net to check your ping.

Hi Seveer,

Would you be able to run the Guild Wars Game Advisor program on you computer so that we can see the report?

also there are many things we can try to get your frame rate decent enough to enjoy the game.

I currently use the following system:

Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Intel Quad Core Q9550 @ 2.8GHz
4GB DDR2-800MHz Ram
Nvidia GTX480

I am enjoying the game very well and I am reaching between 50fps – 60fps with vsync enable and most settings on high details and around 30+ fps on WvWvW.

As you can see my cpu is from around the same age as yours, although slightly faster I do not think that this makes a huge difference in the performance gap, its more likely to do with the graphics card I have.

now one of the major concerns is that your system currently has 2.1GB of Memory, this memory has to be shared between the Operating System and any other programs or resources that require it. On Windows Vista this could easily be in the margins of 600MB – 1GB of you memory used before you even start guild wars 2 (which has minimum requirement of 2GB) this in a worse case scenario would only leave around 1GB of freely usable memory.

The second problem you will face is your Operating System (Windows Vista) its currently a 32-bit operating system which limits your choices when choosing to upgrade your memory. If you wanted to add more memory to your computer it would be advisable to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system (preferable Windows 7 rather than vista).

There is also the option of maintenance, depending on how well you keep you computer. You can help your computer perform better under stres by physically cleaning the hardware i.e. Cleaning out any dust from the p.c. and the fans. Keeping your operating system in good shape is also very important, having too many open programs running in the background could lower the overall resources available to the game when it tries to run.

Finally there are other options available, such as previously suggested route: overclocking. Others include upgrading or buying a new system.

I personally believe with a bit optimising and possibly and upgrade in Memory and OS could gain reasonable results without forking out for a whole new system. Please bear in mind that the game is still in a constant state of change as Arena net work hard to better optimise the game for everyone.

Thank you for the advice I am running game adviser now and will post when it’s done, I also noticed that If I open task manager the physical memory usage is nearly 95%! How would I decrease that statistic? RAM? Cpu?

Also by lag I mean the game “Stuttering” (Can’t describe it) and freezing for about 2 seconds and running slow when near a big battle or just some detailed scenery, such as CoE.

Ok test done, but it’s extremely long.. I don’t think I should post it may be classed as “Spam”. But I do Have CPU-Z so I can tell you anything about my PC, just ask and I’ll try to find it.

Hi seveer,

You can attach the log document to your post just like any other forum, this allows us to view the details without any of the text being shown.

95% memory usage is high, is that before guild wars 2 starts or after? both are still bad situations as running out of memory is when you’ll notice the biggest slow downs since the computer then has to substitute hard drive space as memory (hard drives are slow compared to RAM).

Also attaching an image of GPU-Z and CPU-Z wouldn’t hurt, if you can then the memory page on CPU-Z would also be beneficial to help recommend which memory upgrades could help (if thats an option you wish to consider).

2 GB RAM seems low to me.

Your computer compensates for lack of RAM by copying memory to the disk (swap file) as needed to make more RAM available.

This works very well up to a point. But it has a downside when the programs running on the computer all want more memory than there is RAM at the same time. Programmers call that state ‘thrashing’. The computer can become unusable as the OS spends most of it’s time dealing with the shortage of physical memory.

Anwyay, if it was me, and I was going to try one somewhat affordable upgrade option, I would see if I could bump the RAM up 4 GB which I believe is the maximum usable by most versions of Vista.

Seems like someone else is running ok with a similar config, otherwise.

Sadly, gaming PCs have a longevity limit of 3 or at most 4 years. Upgrading video cards is often a solution, but Guild Wars 2 seems to be very demanding, and seems to run best on new hardware.

One huge issue is going to be the 2GB of RAM. The operating system (and it’s associated drivers, services, and utilities) alone can take up 1.5 GB or more. And if you’re running anything else (web browsers, etc) they take up even more. Then you add GW2 to the mix, and it likes to use up 1 GB minimum (on my system, I’ve seen it up to 1.6 GB on occasion). That means that your system is “using” at least 2.5 GB of the 2.1 GB it has available. So it’s going to have to do memory paging constantly, which is going to drop your gaming performance well below acceptable levels.

Your video card should be fine. You’re CPU is on the low side and will hold you back some. The real killer at the moment, though, is the RAM. I’d suggest bumping it up to 3GB, which is the maximum that your system can handle with a 32-bit operating system. That should eliminate a lot of the memory paging, and hopefully get things into the realm of playable.

Indeed your RAM is probably causing your slight freezes as information has to be pulled directly form your hardrive instead of the RAM.

Do note however when i said “your computer isnt up to the task” i meant that it wouldnt be able to keep a sustained playable frame rate, and “playable” is down to personal opinion, i personaly see it as being as close to 60fps as possible.

Chances are if you can sqeeze as much performance out of your computer as possible (once you get more RAM that is) you could potentialy get 30ish FPS out of it on absolute minimum settings. But it likely wont be ‘smooth’ you may still get instances were the frame rates drop dramticaly under heavy load or loading up new areas when panning the camera. (which will be down to the CPU and GPU being slow)

To help with your RAM usage you can disable all NON windows functions by using msconfig.exe and going to ‘Services’ tab ..check ‘hide all microsoft services’ so you cant see them on the list, then hit ‘disable all’ . now all you need do is reactive those few things that you may need, things that control any performance orientate settings like Catalyst control centre ..any sound driver Ui you may use and such.

I also beleve you can download a program that can do this for you but i personaly think you should do it yourself to get best results.

Once you have done that you could also look into OC’ing your CPU a tad. maybe to 3ghz. You would have to check your BIOS to see if your motherboard allows any tweeking. If you can, then do make sure you have temperature monitoring software installed beforhand to make sure what ever cooler you have is up to the task.