Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I just got my GTX 690 delivered, DOA.. fml.

Anyway, using a AMD 7970 xfx ghost now and the performance is rather disheartening to say the least.

My rig:
i5 3570k stock
xfx 7970 ghost
2×8 1600 kingston ram
asus z77 lv-x mb
intel 330 120 gb ssd (os, gw2 and all the drivers are installed here)
2tb mechanical disk, random stuff here
1000w silver strider gold cert psu

I got my rig yesterday, put everything in its place (using esd braclet ofc) I then installed windows 8 enterprise, installed all the drivers for the chipset, mb etc. Installed AMD 12.11 beta drivers. Downloaded Gw2 and started it up.

I logged out in LA so when I got in I had about 8 fps with everything on ulta / all the eye candy on. Tweaked some settings, turned off some eye candy, turned of shadows completly. 15 fps

Went to another zone, just me here, no events or players nearby that I could see. With everything on ultra as when I logged in LA it hovered at 40-50 fps. Tweaked some settings again and it managed to keep roughly 60 fps.

When I flipped my camera real fast the fps drops to about 20-30 fps for 2-3 seconds then goes back to normal. Small fights between me and a few enemies gives me 50ish fps.

Some things ive checked (spent a few hours on google) Made sure the gpu was in a pci-3 x16 slot, it is. Tested the psu to make sure it delivers power and doesnt ribble, everything in order. Checked temperatues, everything is fine here.

I tried the 12.10 drivers for the gpu but its the same.

Now im running with mixed setting of medium / high, no eye candy, no shadows at all and it keeps at around 60-75 fps. I generaly try to keep my fps close to a 100 (this isnt that big of an issue in gw2 but in fps it is) to not get a massive headache after a little while.

I got a 120hz benQ montitor on this rig. Is this game really heavy bound by the cpu? Even if it is, shouldnt a top of the line ivy bridge quad core take this with ease? I havent turned of HT yet, altough I read that can help a bit, will try that later.

On my laptop im getting similar results, i7 3610qm, 2×4 1333 ram, 7970m, same kind of ssd with the same installment setup.

Any tips on things to try or general brainstorm would be very welcome

Hello.I have this same problem.I had Radeon 6670 and im played on medium/high and I have 30+FPS in LA. I change my video card on GTX 660 and now I have on low settings 20FPS in LA, on High 10FPS. I wrote to support and the gave me tips but nothing will improve. I don’t have any idea what we can do.
AMD FX-6100
GTX 660
OCZ 700W
8GB
Asus M5A97
Im tried reinstall game, install drivers and the tips from support.

No idea with the first one but oneknife did you reinstal windows after switching cards? I know you can use driver sweeper etc to get rid of old ones but its not always an option. I had to reinstal whole windows when i upgraded to 12.11 from 12.10 ati otherwise the system was hella unstable even after i used driver sweeper and fusion in safe mode.

No rig out can manage 100 FPS stable in GW2, the engine just isnt efficient enough.

The BEST you can expect is a minimum FPS of 30 in places like LA, and WvW battles. You should be able to do that with ur rig asuming you OC your CPU to 4.5ghz or higiher.

However, even at stock 8fps in LA is to low, CPU matters ..but not as much as in WvW ..so somthing is of. Other than drivers i cant see anythin that could be causing the issue. Have you checked ot make sure the AMD control control center (Cataylst control center) is running GW2 with all settings on ‘let applicaiton decide’ ..making sure its not forcing anyting?

Also check cpu and gpu usage ..i suspect your GPU is not being used much and is probably downlclocked itself. .iv seen this issue before.

Can you confirm that your 7970 is running at 16x and not 4x in gpu-z. That is awfully low. It is either running at 4x or your computer is using integrated graphics and not using the 7970 at all. Also download msi afterburner and you can use the on screen display to figure out if your 7970 is being utilized at all.

Megido.9456:

No idea with the first one but oneknife did you reinstal windows after switching cards? I know you can use driver sweeper etc to get rid of old ones but its not always an option. I had to reinstal whole windows when i upgraded to 12.11 from 12.10 ati otherwise the system was hella unstable even after i used driver sweeper and fusion in safe mode.

Yes I reinstall widnows after switching card.

After some more testing was done, me and a work mate finally found something that solved this issue for me.

I completly reinstalled Windows 8 Ent, 64 bit just like last time. Redid all the things I did before and got the same results… hm.

My mate sugested: We reinstall my computer with PXE via my vpn to my office with a custom made profile. Into that package he added that my drivers should be the 12.11 and no other vga drivers where to be installed at all, not even the intel 4000. Lo and behold, by making sure that the drivers that was installed for the GPU was the AMD 12.11 from the very begining (and not the ones windows finds) it seems to work.

Now, this is of course a solution that most people (including myself) cant do and shouldnt have to do, but it works now so im fine with that.

As you can see in my attachment, the gpu is running a pci-e 3.0 x16 just like before. For some reason MSI afterburner wont display information on top of my gw2 but I marked the graph for when I was in the game. I did some fractals before this and checked the graph, 95-99% usage the whole time. And the temps are like before.

As for your issues oneknife, I cant really help you there, AMD have always been a tad dodgy on the driver side

couple of quick things to note. Right now with all the particle effects, Lions Arch is going to really test systems more than it used to. I would not use it as a reference for performance. I am getting myself 6x better performance in every other zone.

Other thing.. Windows 8.. ugh.

I am not saying that is the problem nor do i think it is, but just something to think about in comparisons

Glad you got it working. It sounds like gw2 for some reason was using the integrated graphics and not your 7970.

Madmardagan.7945:

couple of quick things to note. Right now with all the particle effects, Lions Arch is going to really test systems more than it used to. I would not use it as a reference for performance. I am getting myself 6x better performance in every other zone.

Other thing.. Windows 8.. ugh.

I am not saying that is the problem nor do i think it is, but just something to think about in comparisons

Yeah LA is a bad spot to measure performance by but now im getting at least 30+ fps while running around as uposed to 15 before. Im also getting 100-120 fps outside, double performance in both zones with higher settings even.

Whats wrong with windows 8? Its really ace if you got a proper laptop with a touchscreen, like I got at work. Granted, its a bit weird at points with a stationary computer but overall pretty nice.

Swordbreaker.2581:

Glad you got it working. It sounds like gw2 for some reason was using the integrated graphics and not your 7970.

Nah, im pretty sure i wasnt using intel 4000 to run gw2. I tried it on my laptop and it didnt run nearly at the same level that my 7970 did even when it had wrong drivers. I tried it on this computer as well and i got 25 fps or so in a empty zone with intel 4000.

With any new operating system, its such a massive thing that it is hard to test all scenarios so you never know what sort of conflicts and bugs might arise. Result is you can get oddities that nobody has answers to yet, much less patches to fix from Windows

Just off top of head.. how are chipset drivers? I noticed that Asus put out Windows 8 drivers for your board. Just to be thorough, that might be in order too