Guild Wars 2

so, i’ve been out of the game for a while (maybe 6-8 months?) and when i come back, i noticed some big fps drops every 5 mins or so (usually during combat), lasting for about 10 seconds.

it didn’t take me long to find the issue. during the lag spikes, gw2 would be suddenly using 30-50% more CPU than normal, even during large fights, which apparently my CPU cant handle well

cpu: fx-8120 @ 4 GHz
gpu: gigabyte r9 280x

drivers up to date (trust me)
temps are fine (trust me)

the problem is DEFINITELY because gw2 suddenly tries to use a whole lot more cpu than it apparently should. while playing and browsing, usually only 6 or 7 cores are being used, but when the lag spike happens, all 8 cores go above 80% and i get the lag.
the question is, why is it happening?

GW2 is known to be CPU hog, but it’s also said it doesn’t use effectively more than 4 cores. I have a 4670K which has 4 cores but each of them is almost twice as powerful as the cores of 8120, and I’m at 95-100% usage when there are even some people on screen fighting. CPU does the calculations for “non-predicted” actions (those that haven’t been programmed to do something specific, i.e. player actions) so logic says more players on the screen = more CPU usage right?

You say it lasts for about 10 seconds. If the battle goes on (basically every non-boss fight is over in less than 10 seconds) after this, does it get any easier?

What I’m basically saying is that when you get into a big fight, like world boss or WvW zerg, your fps is bound to drop and you don’t have to feel bad about that.

im just worried because it feels really random, really

sometimes in in a big WvW group and fine
sometimes im in a small scale sPvP battle and it sucks for a few seconds, and then normalizes again

What about board?

motherboard?
asus m5a78l-le

just so that i can test it better, which graphics settings weight heavier on the CPU?

FXAA – turn it off
Reflections – turn it to terrain & sky at most
Shadows – turn it to low at most
Postprocessing – turn it off
CharQuality – turn it to medium at most
CharLimit – turn it low at most

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78L_LE/

for 125W TDP CPU- great
1. Run prime 95 and check if your CPU is throttling
2. Go to bios set as 4 cores and under-volt it
- set as 1.3-1.32V and 4.0Ghz

i’m confident my OC is working well with current clock and voltage, and not throttling.
will try disabling CPU intensive options. this didnt happen with my old asus 6870. i guess my new GPU just works too fast for my CPU to follow, compared to the last one.

strangely enough it seems to have auto-fixed itself.
started playing again, lag was still happening. tried disabling some options (which really didnt seem to lower cpu usage at all) and didnt see the lag occur anymore. tried turning all the options to their previous values and still no more lag…
go figure.
my guess is my computer was running something on my back, and whatever it was it didnt even show up in task manager.

You have R9 280X
R9 280X is way to fast for any CPU in this game! It is a MONSTER!

That mobo wont let you to OC this CPU – maybe mobo cause CPU throttle = FPS pikes

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

You have R9 280X
R9 280X is way to fast for any CPU in this game! It is a MONSTER!

That mobo wont let you to OC this CPU – maybe mobo cause CPU throttle = FPS pikes

it actually does let me OC just fine

locx.6412:

FXAA – turn it off
Reflections – turn it to terrain & sky at most
Shadows – turn it to low at most
Postprocessing – turn it off
CharQuality – turn it to medium at most
CharLimit – turn it low at most

FXAA is a GPU only function. It’s a post process filter that has extremely little impact on framerate or CPU usage. Turn it off because you don’t like the side effects but it doesn’t bog down the CPU.

Behellagh.1468:

FXAA is a GPU only function. It’s a post process filter that has extremely little impact on framerate or CPU usage. Turn it off because you don’t like the side effects but it doesn’t bog down the CPU.

i actualy like the sharp edges smoothness from FXAA and my GPU handles it like a boss.

So still CPU pikes?

Like i said i thing that your mobo is throttling you CPU . Try it
Go to bios set as 4 core and OC it to 4.2Ghz wioth 1.32V or less do a test
Then you can also try as one core per module (one core per CU)

i mean 4 phase for 95W TDP CPU …