Guild Wars 2

If you have a z68 / z77 board, chances are you’re able to download and make use of a program called virtu MVP.

Do it.

Go to your motherboards manufacturer site, look at the downloads list and find the latest version, for example;

Here for ASRocks z77 Extreme 4M

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme4/?cat=Beta
Open it up, enable Hyperformance.

Go to the Applications tab and manually add GW2. It will tell you it’s not supported but that’s fine. Make sure it’s in D-mode and tick the box in the H column.

Launch GW2.

On my setup;

i7 2600K
GTX 670

In Lion’s arch I would tank frames, running through the middle of the city (near bank, forge and trading post) my frames would tank on best appearance (reflections off) – maxing at around 50, dropping as low as 25, averaging around 35

When Virtu MVP is enabled, my frames no longer tank. In fact, they stay at a solid 55-60 FPS, which is an improvement of over 20FPS in the city (vsync on).

I haven’t tried this in WvW yet, but I would love it if someone did.

If someone can get the Virtual Vsync to work with GW2, let me know. You might have to disable Vsync in game.

I use radeon pro and enable limit framerate to refresh(not vsync but similar and dosnt effect crossfire in a bad way, does keep cards cooler tho!!!)

I get the feeling the program your using is probably auto overclocking the chip to compensate for the load, this is good and bad, a manual overclock would likely give you the same results but without the need to deal with software that could be….buggy….

This program isn’t overclocking it’s using the built in iGPU to do some of the work freeing up your GPU to do other stuff… Pretty amazing tech if it works. Going to try it tonight.

You don’t need to run virtu MVP with a GTX 670, it should be more than enough to run GW2.

The problem is with Vsync it will half your FPS if you can’t maintain 60 fps and in LA your CPU will be bottlenecked so it can be hard hold steady 60fps.

Use frame limiter and/or use nvidia adaptive vsync if you must.

sounds like this software uses the igpu and it probably works because intels igpu is x86 based…..if it works for you, good for you, if not……be glad you didnt pay 30bucks for it.

also note, this tool breaks sli/cf according to many forums…..so….it may help or harm perf or do nothing at all….

I recently starting testing Virtu MVP software after reading a reddit thread about it and GW2. My motherboard shipped with a copy and after reading up about it (not much real info out there other than marketing hype), I decided to install it and see for myself. There are a lot of conflicting opinions/reports concerning this software. However, I have had positive results.

My hardware consists of an Asus P8Z77-V, Intel i7 3770K, and Nvidia GTX680. I recently moved to a 30" monitor (60hz) and at native 2556×1600, my framerate had dropped considerably (below 60fps with highest possible settings). So I was very interested in anything that could help boost responsiveness or framerate. My initial install of the Virtu MVP software that shipped with the motherboard was positive. I ran GW2 in d-mode with hyperformance enabled and vsync disabled. While there was no real significant increase in fps, my perceived input latency was much lower (read more responsive). While this counters what most people have said regarding there being no benefit unless your fps was above 60 to begin with, I can attest to the game feeling more responsive from mouse to screen (something I consider myself very attuned to). There was a sluggishness prior to this test. Now whether I actually lost a few frames to achieve this responsiveness, I don’t know. And it is counter to what I’ve read, but it actually does feel more responsive and that’s all I cared about.

However, I then proceeded to purchase the 2.0 version of the software for $55US and install it. My results this time were basically the same as running without Virtu MVP. I’m not sure why. It’s not a big deal, I just uninstalled everything and reinstalled the original oem version and it was fine. I did waste some coin on 2.0. I’m not sure how the exact combination of Intel drivers vs Nvidia drivers vs Virtu MVP software comes into play. But with my particular combination – my experience was positive.

Due to the lack of technical information regarding this product, one can only speculate (and there’s tons of speculation out there) as to the how and why of things. But again, my particular setup was ideal for this software and I’ll continue to use it. YMMV.

Didn’t seem like that much when I was typing it. Too much coffee, I guess.

Be honest, you read it.

no i didnt, but I did get infracted for my post making sport of it, dont be surprised if you get infracted for your last post either….since the excuse was it was “off topic”

despite the fact that What I said was in effect “please edit your post to be more readable” but in a funny way.

Im waiting for AMD to find a way to do something like this with APP would be nice to be able to offload some stuff that dosnt need good branch prediction (where gpu’s currently fall on their face)

I love the IDEA of offloading to gpu, its just sad that its not likely to happen with gw2 due to anet wanting to support as wide a range of hardware as they can.

xp is loosing driver support soon(everybody is gonna start phasing out xp driver updates soon….ms EOL’d it after all) so they will also have to support old drivers for those still trying to use xp……

the best move I think would be for them to work on a major FREE content and client update and phase out XP support, move to 64bit, dx11 and fix the threading so the game runs decent on systems with multi cores…..(you know, the bulk of todays systems)

I like gw2, but the games got some serious issues…..so much so its driven me back to tera…..at least that game scales with settings…..(you can make it look like its from the 90’s/early 2000’s and it will run better on old systems…)

I think you have mistaken the factual functionality of this application.
It is not an equivalent to crossfire/SLI. The IGP will not collaborate with your discrete graphics to help render the game faster. No, this application will simply allow the use of the IGP instead of the PEG, for regular desktop usage. It will also allow the for hardware accelerated video encoding. It will switch back to PEG , when the application detects a demanding 3D environment, such as a video game.

The only benefit of using this would be the reduced power usage, heat and possibly noise production, as well extended product life as the PEG card is powered off until it’s needed.

IvanHoe.3468:

I think you have mistaken the factual functionality of this application.
It is not an equivalent to crossfire/SLI. The IGP will not collaborate with your discrete graphics to help render the game faster. No, this application will simply allow the use of the IGP instead of the PEG, for regular desktop usage. It will also allow the for hardware accelerated video encoding. It will switch back to PEG , when the application detects a demanding 3D environment, such as a video game.

The only benefit of using this would be the reduced power usage, heat and possibly noise production, as well extended product life as the PEG card is powered off until it’s needed.

dude, google it, many many many people report that with this enabled, sli/cfx do not function, its probably a bug, but who knows.

intels igpu is x86 based, its quite possible they are using it to offload some processing in some apps/games, that would explain a perf boost if the igpu could take for example 1 or more of the heavy threads and offload it to the igpu cores rather then the normal cpu cores.

IvanHoe.3468:

It is not an equivalent to crossfire/SLI. The IGP will not collaborate with your discrete graphics to help render the game faster.

I take that back. After investigating a little, it seems that this application IS like sli/crossfire. However it works with any graphics card, it is not restricted to specific brands or models.
Here is a fairly recent review: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Virtu-Universal-MVP-Review/1548/1
Official product description: http://www.lucidlogix.com/product-virtu-mvp.kittenml

Even though there are certainly positive performance gains, GW2 is cpu bound. If your graphics card is being held back by your struggling CPU, you are not going to see much if any performance gain. Secondly, if you have an OCed CPU, by activating the IGP you will generate more heat and consume more power. You might need to revise your overclocking settings, and possibly adjust the voltage to obtain a stable OC.

In any case I’m definitely trying it out

I had a generally negative experience with this tech. With it installed and using D-mode for the Heaven DX11 benchmark (HDMI cable plugged into the 670), the benchmark refused to start. I would have to turn several features off to get the benchmark to run, which really defeated the point of the software. Going to try it again when I have the time, but so far Virtu MVP doesn’t cut it with me.