Guild Wars 2

Few months ago i bought a new PC, here are the specs:

CPU: AMD X4 FX-4300 3.8GHz AM3+
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990xa-UD3 AM3+
RAM: KINGSTON HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz 8GB x 4 (32GB in total)
GPU: GIGABYTE AMD HD7950 3GB DDR5 384bit
HDD: SSD Samsung drive 120GB

After installing Windows 7 64bit Home Edition and drivers, I took Guild Wars 2 for a spin. Right away I noticed some stuttering when camera was rotated, along with huge fps drops on bigger events and wvw (sometimes even around 5fps). I was using an old LCD Monitor then (1024×768 resolution).

A friend that I was playing with had an older PC, with similar specs but half a year older or so. I remember his GPU was AMD HD 78xx. He was running the game at 1920×1080 resolution with highest details and his fps never dropped under 30, and 100fps+ while standing idle, at the same time my character was standing next to his, facing the same direction, running 30-50fps at 1024×768 resolution! Something was terribly wrong there.

Since then I’ve:
- Bought a new monitor with a 1920×1080 resolution, since the old one wasn’t using a HDMI cable and i thought that might be the issue
- Tried using Windows 7 Professional (since Home doesn’t support more than 16gb of ram)
- Tried pretty much all drivers I could find, old and new, beta versions too
- Reinstalled Windows numerous times

After a month or so, I just gave up.

But recently, after the new Gauntlet Arenas were added, I got really interested in them. Problem was, whenever I went up to the balcony where arenas were located, my fps dropped to 25fps when being idle, 5-10fps when fighting in the arena. So i’ve turned everything down to low in the graphic options, and even then I’ve had a maximum 20fps while fighting!

I began investigating the problem again, with no luck.
I can run the game in a small window or full screen, doesn’t matter, fps will remain the same.

I don’t know if this is relevant, but in the AMD Catalyst Control Center, in the Graphics OverDrive Section I’ve noticed you can set the clock for GPU and memory. By default it was set to 1000MHz for GPU and 1250MHz for memory. Out of curiosity I set the GPU and memory clocks to the lowest settings (300MHz/150MHz). When I ran Guild Wars 2, I was surprised to see the same fps, no change at all. If i crippled my GPU and Memory like that, shouldn’t my fps drop at least a little bit? Also if I were to believe the activity clock in the control center, it seems the GPU isn’t used in 100%…

Here are some screen shots:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199494/%5BImages%5D/Guild%20Wars%202/amd/gw2.png
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199494/%5BImages%5D/Guild%20Wars%202/amd/gw2(2).png

If anyone has any ideas, please help. Thanks in advance.

AMD FX series isn’t really the best for GW2 because it lacks the single threaded performance that I read about pretty much everywhere on the tech support forums related to this. For that Crown Pavillion area, turn off Shadows and FPS will be increased.

“So i’ve turned everything down to low in the graphic options, and even then I’ve had a maximum 20fps while fighting!”

check to make sure that your graphics and CPU are not underperforming. I’ve read about some people having like an i7 and the use on GW2 dropped to around 5-10% use and FPS grinding to a halt.
GPUz to check graphics interface is not any lower than x16 lane mode, other programs for CPU (Don’t know of any, but google might)

That place you posted on screenshots is very CPU bound. You will get much better results if you overclock your CPU.

miiksu.3741:

That place you posted on screenshots is very CPU bound. You will get much better results if you overclock your CPU.

Well, if he’s able to rather, and can.

Regarding what Avelos mentioned about making sure your card is running at PCI-E x16

In this photo, is your card socketed into the PCIEx16 slot (right blue) or the PCIEx8 slot (center blue)?

http://cdn.overclock.net/2/2c/2c317822_vbattach215785.jpeg

It sounds like it may be socketed into the x8 slot since you’ve decreased your card clocks down to minimal in AMD OD and saw no performance change. Were it socketed into the x16 slot then there should have been a noticeable change in performance.

If it is socketed into the PCI-E x16 slot then, due to GW2 being so heavily CPU bound, perhaps it isn’t related to your GPU settings. Try focusing on your CPU.

• Disable Core Parking and unpark the CPU cores
• Check your pc power settings in control panel and remove the CPU usage limitations

“Disable CPU Core Parking Utility”
http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility

“What is CPU Parking (aka core parking, or CPU parking)?” – more info and another utility
http://bitsum.com/about_cpu_core_parking.php

In response to Avelos.6798 and StinVec.3621 posts I’ve made some screen shots and a photo. Gonna try that CPU Core Parking Utility now.

I personally do not believe that that core parking patch that is not officially tested will make things better. I’ve tried it before and only tried one game with it (Crysis 3) and the performance was terrible in comparison to how it was. So I got rid of it. Although later on I may have picked up a new patch via windows update that I didn’t really see because, weirdly enough for this game, with each core I disable from computing Gw2 from eight, the performance drops by 1/8.

CPU Core Parking Utility does not help, no cores are parked while Guild Wars 2 is active. You can see that clearly in my previous screen shots (above the Guild Wars 2 window), all cores are up and running at around 60% each.

A core being parked does not mean that it is not used or prevented from running at the 60% seen in your screenshots.

If you aren’t interested in that route, alright then. But just wanted you to understand what parking actually is and how it limits the CPU before saying it won’t help. You might want to consider looking at the info I linked in the second link I offered on core parking.
“You can easily have a 75% total CPU load and still have parked cores!”

StinVec: THANK YOU for the information on core parking. Using the 2nd utility in your post, LA went from a bouncy 11FPS, AA off/shadows low to 21-30FPS AA on/shadows high. Steady 35FPS AA off/Shadows low.

If you don’t want to go that route, which should help if your CPU does park cores, and would rather focus on your GPU, then perhaps look into the GPU clock stepping between 2d and 3d applications that AMD cards have had an issue with not stepping up the clock when 3D programs are running.

One quick way is to fully disable 2d clock settings, so the card is forced to always run at 3d clock settings when a game is running. This application has a good and quick 2d clock setting disable option: http://www.hisdigital.com/un/news_show-237.shtml

Core parking can help but usualy only on very low end rigs. The FX 4k line probably wont show ‘much’ of a difference, any difference coud easily be confused for ‘margin of error’ between tests.

x16 PCI-e vs x8 PCI-e : Ok so ..×8 is PERFECTLY capable of handle any single card out atm. Remember, in SLI/Xfire on ur average motherboard, ur running at x8. LGA2011 boards are the exception where they can run 2x x16 cards (in native pci-e ports), only going down to x8 when a 3rd is installed.

You should only ever consider the PCI-E lane being to slow if its running on x4 or x1.

As for a solution. I cant think of anything at thise time tbh. hardware is fine, you should be getitng more. it is certainly a software problem, what it is specificaly though i cannot tell.

Jax.5106:

Few months ago i bought a new PC, here are the specs:

CPU: AMD X4 FX-4300 3.8GHz AM3+
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990xa-UD3 AM3+
RAM: KINGSTON HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz 8GB x 4 (32GB in total)
GPU: GIGABYTE AMD HD7950 3GB DDR5 384bit
HDD: SSD Samsung drive 120GB

After installing Windows 7 64bit Home Edition and drivers, I took Guild Wars 2 for a spin. Right away I noticed some stuttering when camera was rotated, along with huge fps drops on bigger events and wvw (sometimes even around 5fps). I was using an old LCD Monitor then (1024×768 resolution).

A friend that I was playing with had an older PC, with similar specs but half a year older or so. I remember his GPU was AMD HD 78xx. He was running the game at 1920×1080 resolution with highest details and his fps never dropped under 30, and 100fps+ while standing idle, at the same time my character was standing next to his, facing the same direction, running 30-50fps at 1024×768 resolution! Something was terribly wrong there.

Since then I’ve:
- Bought a new monitor with a 1920×1080 resolution, since the old one wasn’t using a HDMI cable and i thought that might be the issue
- Tried using Windows 7 Professional (since Home doesn’t support more than 16gb of ram)
- Tried pretty much all drivers I could find, old and new, beta versions too
- Reinstalled Windows numerous times

After a month or so, I just gave up.

But recently, after the new Gauntlet Arenas were added, I got really interested in them. Problem was, whenever I went up to the balcony where arenas were located, my fps dropped to 25fps when being idle, 5-10fps when fighting in the arena. So i’ve turned everything down to low in the graphic options, and even then I’ve had a maximum 20fps while fighting!

I began investigating the problem again, with no luck.
I can run the game in a small window or full screen, doesn’t matter, fps will remain the same.

I don’t know if this is relevant, but in the AMD Catalyst Control Center, in the Graphics OverDrive Section I’ve noticed you can set the clock for GPU and memory. By default it was set to 1000MHz for GPU and 1250MHz for memory. Out of curiosity I set the GPU and memory clocks to the lowest settings (300MHz/150MHz). When I ran Guild Wars 2, I was surprised to see the same fps, no change at all. If i crippled my GPU and Memory like that, shouldn’t my fps drop at least a little bit? Also if I were to believe the activity clock in the control center, it seems the GPU isn’t used in 100%…

Here are some screen shots:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199494/%5BImages%5D/Guild%20Wars%202/amd/gw2.png
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/199494/%5BImages%5D/Guild%20Wars%202/amd/gw2(2).png

If anyone has any ideas, please help. Thanks in advance.

in bold is the key of your problem . the game;s engine is dx 9 optimized show give a try to play the game in xp sp3 compatibility mode ( right click on the gw2 shortcut and choose under the compatibility tab the xp sp3 option ) and post here if you continue have fps problems

Reborn.2934:

in bold is the key of your problem . the game;s engine is dx 9 optimized show give a try to play the game in xp sp3 compatibility mode ( right click on the gw2 shortcut and choose under the compatibility tab the xp sp3 option ) and post here if you continue have fps problems

I’m not in a position to try this at the moment, but can anyone confirm this is a possible solution to FPS woes?

If so, sir/madam, you deserve kudos of the highest order!

@ Reborn.2934
Sorry to disappoint you, xp compatibility doesn’t help me at all.

@ StinVec.3621
I am 100% sure no CPU cores are parked when I play GW2.
Also tried running it with no 2d clock options enabled, no change.