Guild Wars 2

I held off on buying this game because I saw that people claimed 5 fps etc. With my hardware. I have found this to be completely false. The only performance I see that isn’t great even on this older machine is in WvW, and it is playable.

Playing this atm on an older computer, e8400 Duo Core at 3.8 ghz (these will almost always OC to 3.6 even without a voltage change) with 4gigs of OC DDR 800, a sata 2 HD (LOL), and a GTX 250 216 core and Win 7 64 bit. Have just about everything on high, except for Shadows (kills performance in ALL mmo’s) and AA (same).

My GPU is horrible for this generation of games, but it sits at 100 percent load and the game looks and plays beautifully, even in spvp (usually 40-50 fps at a 1600x res).

Now on to some things you can do, to make those dinosaur computers like mine play well.

1) Remove all unnecessary Windows 7 services. Google this. There are step by step guides. Aero is a GIGANTIC hit to performance if you have an older machine. All these things take up ram, and hit performance. Most of these services are things you will never use.

2) Remove all the programs running in the background, that aren’t unnecessary. Yes this means “anti virus programs” as well. All you should need to keep a Windows 7 64 bit machine running well? Is free. Go to ninite.com. Download CCleaner. Download Malwarebytes/Superantispyware. Run them. Set them not to start at startup. Run them once in awhile. Congrats. You shouldn’t have to ever format again. There are also other options to Adobe Reader etc, that take up less resources, and don’t boot with the system. The “trick”? ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS read the options when installing a program. Most will autoupdate/load on startup or add stupid toolbars to your internet. Make sure those are off.

3) Overclocking steps. Have quality parts. Know what those parts are (motherboard and chip/ram make), and read up on it. Never overclock a CPU with software if you can help it. This should be done from the Bios. Also on overclocking video cards. If you have a NVIDIA? EVGA precision will work for ANY make nvidia card. Again read up on it. If you have a ATI chip? MSI Afterburner. Don’t overclock the ram. Why? Cus it is usually already overclocked to hell and back. Utilities to help OC cpu? CPU-Z, intel burn test, orthos (prime). For GPU, ati tool to check for artifacts (does not require an ATI card). If you have artifacts? You are clocked to high.

If you want to play WvW at insane frames per second with many people on screen? Expect to need a Sandy/Ivy Bridge with a high clock rate (unlocked/oc). Almost all MMO’s have this “problem”. It is not unique to this game. Some AMD chips have struggled in many MMO’s. It has nothing to do with the game maker. It has to do with low (and slow) cache put on some CPU’s, and lower clock rates on some chips.

If you are buying a new computer for MMO’s? I5-2500k or Ivy Bridge. Do not pass go. Anything else is garbage. Microcenter has some killer deals on these chips. This game is far better optimized then people give it credit for. The problem? You are expecting to play a newer game with tons of people on the screen at high FPS on low end, outdated hardware. Be glad it is playable. SWTOR? Couldn’t support more then like 8 people on the screen lol.

couldn’t agreed more, in fact, there are people who purposely “trim” down win7 to enjoy more gaming experience. which helps to elimate possible interference caused by unnecessary service/apps.

+1 this

its been said time and again ..but its always good to have more people saying it though ..as we always get those people who refuse to accept that maybe their computer just cant cut it ..or that a peice of software of the same generation as their PC is actually reaching the PC’s limits for once..it happens. .rarely to the cpu (tis usualy the gpu but you can run more than 1 of those to get around that problem) ..but it happens ..and this is one of those times.

So a few months ago I built a new computer. I get 60fps is most explorable areas. In LA or other city, I can’t seem to get a consistent 60fps. And in sPvp the fps dips to around 30-50fps. This is all on max settings at 1920×1080.

Specs:
i7 3770k stock speed
Nvidia GTX 670 4gb Overclock Edition
16gb ram

I feel like I could get better results that what I am currently getting. These things aren’t the problem though. The problem that annoys me is that very frequently when I turn the camera, my fps drops dramatically to maybe 5fps or lower then it is fine for a little while again. I figure it is loading the map or something. Seriously though, it shoudn’t hit my fps like that all of the time. It sort of ruins my experience…

Any suggestions?

I have a PC like yours, and it’s unplayable on lowest settings, just because it runs well on your PC it doesn’t mean that the game has no issues…

Klinch.2964:

So a few months ago I built a new computer. I get 60fps is most explorable areas. In LA or other city, I can’t seem to get a consistent 60fps. And in sPvp the fps dips to around 30-50fps. This is all on max settings at 1920×1080.

Specs:
i7 3770k stock speed
Nvidia GTX 670 4gb Overclock Edition
16gb ram

I feel like I could get better results that what I am currently getting. These things aren’t the problem though. The problem that annoys me is that very frequently when I turn the camera, my fps drops dramatically to maybe 5fps or lower then it is fine for a little while again. I figure it is loading the map or something. Seriously though, it shoudn’t hit my fps like that all of the time. It sort of ruins my experience…

Any suggestions?

Crowded cities are problematic for most if not everyone. Read Q13 on fps issue when rotating camera

This is why I do a clean install for every new game I get and only run that game. I have 2 PCs my gaming rig and my Internet and everything else rig. On the gaming rig I run a stripped done version of windows and only run the current game I’m playing and no other software not even antivirus. I have no issues with the game, most all video setting are maxed and I get 60+ fps on a first gen quad core with a 2 year old high end video card, also very little to no lag. I think most people’s lag issue may be from stuff running in the background grabbing there Internet.

kirito.4138:

Klinch.2964:

So a few months ago I built a new computer. I get 60fps is most explorable areas. In LA or other city, I can’t seem to get a consistent 60fps. And in sPvp the fps dips to around 30-50fps. This is all on max settings at 1920×1080.

Specs:
i7 3770k stock speed
Nvidia GTX 670 4gb Overclock Edition
16gb ram

I feel like I could get better results that what I am currently getting. These things aren’t the problem though. The problem that annoys me is that very frequently when I turn the camera, my fps drops dramatically to maybe 5fps or lower then it is fine for a little while again. I figure it is loading the map or something. Seriously though, it shoudn’t hit my fps like that all of the time. It sort of ruins my experience…

Any suggestions?

Crowded cities are problematic for most if not everyone. Read Q13 on fps issue when rotating camera

Thanks for pointing this out to me! I don’t think my cpu or gpu are holding it back, and I’m already on an SSD… So I’ll go ahead and assume the cause is the software bug they mention. I turned off the reflections and shadows, and fps still drops every once in a while when I rotate the camera…

oh well I suppose :/

Thanks so much for posting your tips. I bought the game on launch mistakenly and i have an old rig like yours, looking for solutions every day to make this playable on my machine. Only difference is i havent oc my e8400 as i only have a stock cooler and temps get too high through bios tweaking. Got to 3.3mhz but was worried about 85 to 90 degrees with fan on full (1600). I have a 1 gig gtx 260 and 6 gig of ram. After much fiddling about im playing at 1920×1080 on auto detect settings, a few things are on low but im getting 35 to 40fps in pve. Not going to touch pvp or wvw (in it for the journey). Im going to disable some windows 7 services tonight and see if i can pull a few more frames is it dips a bit in heavily populated places.

Only thing is my gpu sits at around 35% most of the time and cpu on full so something may be wrong there.

Overclocking using software makes sense as you can have custom profile for different situations. I have a custom profile for GW2 in Asus Evo tool (or whatever that’s called.)

For example, I can OC to 4.7 Ghz for GW2. But that’s not going to work well if I wanted to run stability on Prime 95. GW2 only uses a few cores, so I can aggressively OC it, knowing heat won’t be as much of an issue.