Guild Wars 2

So about a week ago, I began to suffer from random FPS drops and audio hiccuping. After a clean reinstall of the game, several driver updates and defragging my PC, it seemed to be resolved. Until yesterday.

Initially, I thought it came along with having too many processes on at once. Rebooted my PC, turned off some other programs – also disabled SweetFX – and it seemed okay. For an hour.

Even now as only Guild Wars 2 runs, the sound keeps making unbearable crackling and stuttering noises, whilst my framerate wavers between 10 and 60 whilst idling in an empty area.

There seems to be no clear reason why this happens.
Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Just in case, here’s my system and in-game settings:

Windows 7, 32-bit. 4 GB RAM.
AMD Athlon II X3 four55 Processor (3.30GHz)
AMD Radeon HD 6850.
(Note: I am aware this PC is not ideal for gaming these days. Up until recently, however, it ran Guild Wars 2 at medium settings without too much FPS issues allround – WvW excluded. Also: the forum thinks my processor number is leetspeak for someone’s rear, hence the added “four”.)

Graphic settings:
Windowed Fullscreen.
FPS limit: 60.
Animation: low.
Antialiasing: none.
Environment: medium.
LOD distance: low.
Reflections: none.
Textures: medium.
Render Sampling: native.
Shadows: low.
Shaders: medium.
Postprocessing: low.
Character model limit: lowest.
Character model quality: low.
Best texture filtering: off.
Depth blur: off.
Effect LOD: on.
Vertical sync: on.

Audio settings – quality, interval, mixing buffer size – are on default.

The 4GB of ram worries me a little. windows 7 uses like 2gb sitting idle. but your processor and video card should be fine.

with a minimal amount of ram you cant afford to run anything else in the background while GW2 is running. Not even a internet browser.

have a look at this page for some excellent tweakage:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

I have used all/most everything on that page at some point or another. Some of it may be a tad technical but most of it works well.

Tried to check the link, but it gives this message:
vBulletin Message
Invalid Post specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

Do I have to have an account there in order to access the post, or did you accidentally muck up the link?

Also, from what I understood the 4GB RAM should more or less suffice. I’ve been told by multiple people, including a tech at my local PC store and an Arena Net support team member, that I’d benefit more from an upgrade to a 64-bit version of Windows 7.
Yet, all over this forum, people say the Guild Wars 2 client is only a 32-bit client, and suggest that such an upgrade would thus be mundane. True?

fixed the link, not sure what happened there.

Windows 32/64 vs a 32 bit client isn’t a comparability thing. The main difference between Windows 32 and Windows 64 is Windows 64 allows you to utilize memory over 4gb. I don’t understand why someone would tell you to upgrade to Windows 64 when you only have 4 gb of ram. unless they assumed you would be upgrading to more ram as well. Windows 32 uses up to 4 gb of ram and nothing more.

also you are a prime candidate for game booster:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

I realize it sounds tacky but I’ve gotten a 10 fps increase using it.

NeedCoffee.1402:

fixed the link, not sure what happened there.

Windows 32/64 vs a 32 bit client isn’t a comparability thing. The main difference between Windows 32 and Windows 64 is Windows 64 allows you to utilize memory over 4gb. I don’t understand why someone would tell you to upgrade to Windows 64 when you only have 4 gb of ram. unless they assumed you would be upgrading to more ram as well. Windows 32 uses up to 4 gb of ram and nothing more.

also you are a prime candidate for game booster:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

I realize it sounds tacky but I’ve gotten a 10 fps increase using it.

Win32bit limits each application poll to 3.25GB of ram (32bit mask Limit), Win64bit limits each Application pool to about 64GB of ram(for 64Bit Applications Only). That is the difference.

While Win32bit normally cannot see more then 4GB, if you enable PAE you can see up to 64GB of ram on Win32bit as well. Application Polling is still limited to 3.25GB (which GW2 is 32bit, so that is it’s limit under either OS).

4GB of ram is not an issue with GW2, since GW2 will rarely go above 1.9GB of used Ram. Win732/64 bit normally wont use more then 1.2GB of ram (after a fresh boot, let it sit for a good 15mins and youll see it page that unused service memory back down. Win7 at boot will use 2.9GB of ram). So even with 4GB of ram, you should have about 1,1GB of ram free (or SO) while running GW2. So that is enough to run 1-2 additional applications (Such as Firefox with Pandora) in the background.

Auruan.2837:

So about a week ago, I began to suffer from random FPS drops and audio hiccuping. After a clean reinstall of the game, several driver updates and defragging my PC, it seemed to be resolved. Until yesterday.

Initially, I thought it came along with having too many processes on at once. Rebooted my PC, turned off some other programs – also disabled SweetFX – and it seemed okay. For an hour.

Even now as only Guild Wars 2 runs, the sound keeps making unbearable crackling and stuttering noises, whilst my framerate wavers between 10 and 60 whilst idling in an empty area.

Have you checked your heat/Temp readings?

FPS stutter like that makes me think your CPU is over heating and throttling performance.

CPU-Z
GPU-Z (Sensor tab)
CoreTemp

To monitor your system performance and Temps.

Thanks for the fixed link, NeedCoffee! I did recently update my GPU drivers though. I cleaned the old ones out with CCleaner and TuneUp, double-checked the registry and had it defragged as suggested. Also went through Arena Net’s suggestions for the AMD Catalyst Center settings and so on: they seem to match the ones in your link at first glimpse. Will definitely look into this more.

As for the explanation for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit: much obliged, sirsquishy.
Temperature is no issue though. I actually checked and cleaned my PC’s fans last week and they run smoothly and silently, temperatures are kept in check too. Did that after the first audio stuttering began to show up, come to think of it.

Still, the only application to suffer these framerate and audio mishaps is Guild Wars 2.
And only as of late. I’m almost beginning to hope this is all to do with the holiday season and the Wintersday updates… but we’ll see when this passes if that is so.
One can hope, right?

And in the meantime, I’ll be sure to try and fix whatever it is that’s hampering my PC. Might as well go through it all, for the sake of it. Who knows what this old thing can still cough up, haha. It might just surprise me with what it can do.

sirsquishy.8531:

NeedCoffee.1402:

fixed the link, not sure what happened there.

Windows 32/64 vs a 32 bit client isn’t a comparability thing. The main difference between Windows 32 and Windows 64 is Windows 64 allows you to utilize memory over 4gb. I don’t understand why someone would tell you to upgrade to Windows 64 when you only have 4 gb of ram. unless they assumed you would be upgrading to more ram as well. Windows 32 uses up to 4 gb of ram and nothing more.

also you are a prime candidate for game booster:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

I realize it sounds tacky but I’ve gotten a 10 fps increase using it.

Win32bit limits each application poll to 3.25GB of ram (32bit mask Limit), Win64bit limits each Application pool to about 64GB of ram(for 64Bit Applications Only). That is the difference.

While Win32bit normally cannot see more then 4GB, if you enable PAE you can see up to 64GB of ram on Win32bit as well. Application Polling is still limited to 3.25GB (which GW2 is 32bit, so that is it’s limit under either OS).

4GB of ram is not an issue with GW2, since GW2 will rarely go above 1.9GB of used Ram. Win732/64 bit normally wont use more then 1.2GB of ram (after a fresh boot, let it sit for a good 15mins and youll see it page that unused service memory back down. Win7 at boot will use 2.9GB of ram). So even with 4GB of ram, you should have about 1,1GB of ram free (or SO) while running GW2. So that is enough to run 1-2 additional applications (Such as Firefox with Pandora) in the background.

I prefer to Dumb things down so the average user can understand what I’m explaining.
and I get upstaged by a tech head….real nice.

It could still be his memory. we have no idea what he has running in the back ground.

it could be his psu, if he’s only running a 4-5 hundred watt psu with a 5 GHz overclock and a video card something will come up short.

truth is we don’t have enough info, so at this point it’s all guesses.

NeedCoffee.1402:

I prefer to Dumb things down so the average user can understand what I’m explaining.
and I get upstaged by a tech head….real nice.

It could still be his memory. we have no idea what he has running in the back ground.

it could be his psu, if he’s only running a 4-5 hundred watt psu with a 5 GHz overclock and a video card something will come up short.

truth is we don’t have enough info, so at this point it’s all guesses.

Not really my fault that this ‘teach head’ could just explain it better :-)

If it isn’t throttling; it could be something running in the background that’s keeping the CPU and/or hard drive really busy – Windows update? Antivirus update or scan? etc.

As for memory usage, my Windows 7 (64 bit) uses less than 900 Meg at idle. I just finished fixing up an older Win 7 (32 bit) machine and it uses about 550 Meg of RAM at idle. However, one reason for the low idle memory RAM usage is because I use Avast anti-virus (lowest memory footprint of any AV I’ve tested).

I do have a few unneeded services turned off though (stuff like Search Indexer, Windows Defender, etc.).

abomally.2694:

If it isn’t throttling; it could be something running in the background that’s keeping the CPU and/or hard drive really busy – Windows update? Antivirus update or scan? etc.

As for memory usage, my Windows 7 (64 bit) uses less than 900 Meg at idle. I just finished fixing up an older Win 7 (32 bit) machine and it uses about 550 Meg of RAM at idle. However, one reason for the low idle memory RAM usage is because I use Avast anti-virus (lowest memory footprint of any AV I’ve tested).

I do have a few unneeded services turned off though (stuff like Search Indexer, Windows Defender, etc.).

I like avast too but I always have compatibility problems with avast and unity.
If your interested, there is a free program that does mass service shut offs for win7 called smart v2
http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/3676-smart_utility
I use it all the time.

off topic: a 3DO EMU? thats awesome!!! I used to have that console but i cant remember a single game on that system.

NeedCoffee.1402:

off topic: a 3DO EMU? thats awesome!!! I used to have that console but i cant remember a single game on that system.

Hah, yea. I even remember the commercials for that system (3DO/CD-I)

‘whats the meaning of Life’

Worst gaming Concept of all time :-)

Ever play the 3 Zelda games on it?

NeedCoffee.1402:

off topic: a 3DO EMU? thats awesome!!! I used to have that console but i cant remember a single game on that system.

Lol, yeah. It’s called 4DO and it works great. I still have my 3DO FZ-10, but it needs a new laser. I’ll fix it eventually, it’s just not a high priority right now. The 3DO didn’t have a lot of good games, but I still like it for some reason.

Edited to add: I’m using Avast 8.0.1497. Version 9 seemed a bit aggressive when I tried it; no issues with 8 though. I do have the Smart utility V2, but you have to be careful with it. It often disables services that should really be set to manual. This can actually cause weird performance problems.