Guild Wars 2

Hi! I’m just looking for a little bit of advice…
I bought GW2 a while ago hoping to play but my macbook wasn’t up to standard
I’m (hopefully) purchasing a windows laptop next week, I believe i’ve found one but I don’t really understand much.
It has:
AMD quad core A8 4555M processor (1.6 GHZ, 4MB cache)
AMD Radeon HD 7600G
1TB storage
8GB memory

I’m just looking for a little help in knowing whether it will run smoothly with the game.

Thankyou!

Hatter.

Hatter.9540:

Hi! I’m just looking for a little bit of advice…
I bought GW2 a while ago hoping to play but my macbook wasn’t up to standard
I’m (hopefully) purchasing a windows laptop next week, I believe i’ve found one but I don’t really understand much.
It has:
AMD quad core A8 4555M processor (1.6 GHZ, 4MB cache)
AMD Radeon HD 7600G
1TB storage
8GB memory

I’m just looking for a little help in knowing whether it will run smoothly with the game.

Thankyou!

Hatter.

While the HD7600 is ‘ok’ for graphics, that APU/CPU is not strong enough. You want something from AMD Clocked atleast at 2.0ghz (and then you will overclock that to 2.6ghz via K10Stat)

BUT…I would currently stay away from AMD Based CPUs for this game. They do not stand up to the i3/i5 when just talking about GW2.

Even my laptop (DV6z-6c00) which is finely tuned cannot get more then 8-12FPS in a full on zerg in this game. yet I will get 60-75FPS almost everywhere else (30FPS in LA looking at the fountain). And that’s with my 1.8Ghz CPU overclock to 2.8Ghz, and my GPU overclocked from 600Core/800Memory to 740Core/920Memory. (1080P LCD, I run a 1600×900 Resolution for GW2)

I would suggest looking into a laptop that has an i5 and a medium grade Nvidia GPU (650 or 750…ect). I have not seen any laptops with an i5 and AMD GPU (7690, or higher) for less then 1k USD right now.

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: What do you want to do in game? WvW is off limits, I’m suspecting less than 10 fps in like 10 vs 10 battle. With the lowest settings you might be able to play with 20-30 fps in PvE and this excludes world bosses where multiple people are killing it.

To be fair, no matter how powerful laptop you get you won’t get smooth gameplay in WvW zerg vs zerg situations. To be even more fair, even a top-end desktop can’t do that. So you’re kitten ed if you do and kitten ed if you don’t. Just have roll with what we have.

EDIT: ninja’d by who else than mr. sirsquishy

You may what to look for a laptop with an i5 or better, stay away from the AMD CPUs for this game you will not be happy with the performance. It’s something to do with the architecture of the AMD CPU over the Intel, maybe someone cane explain it to better then I can but get an intel based laptop and the 64bit version of windows.

sirsquishy.8531:

Hatter.9540:

Hi! I’m just looking for a little bit of advice…
I bought GW2 a while ago hoping to play but my macbook wasn’t up to standard
I’m (hopefully) purchasing a windows laptop next week, I believe i’ve found one but I don’t really understand much.
It has:
AMD quad core A8 4555M processor (1.6 GHZ, 4MB cache)
AMD Radeon HD 7600G
1TB storage
8GB memory

I’m just looking for a little help in knowing whether it will run smoothly with the game.

Thankyou!

Hatter.

While the HD7600 is ‘ok’ for graphics, that APU/CPU is not strong enough. You want something from AMD Clocked atleast at 2.0ghz (and then you will overclock that to 2.6ghz via K10Stat)

BUT…I would currently stay away from AMD Based CPUs for this game. They do not stand up to the i3/i5 when just talking about GW2.

Even my laptop (DV6z-6c00) which is finely tuned cannot get more then 8-12FPS in a full on zerg in this game. yet I will get 60-75FPS almost everywhere else (30FPS in LA looking at the fountain). And that’s with my 1.8Ghz CPU overclock to 2.8Ghz, and my GPU overclocked from 600Core/800Memory to 740Core/920Memory. (1080P LCD, I run a 1600×900 Resolution for GW2)

I would suggest looking into a laptop that has an i5 and a medium grade Nvidia GPU (650 or 750…ect). I have not seen any laptops with an i5 and AMD GPU (7690, or higher) for less then 1k USD right now.

Everyone seems to have similar answers, like i said i have basic understanding about these kinds of things and have never had much knowledge on AMD CPU’s, in fact someone did tell me to steer clear. My price range is around 400 to 450 so theres not much chance of me being able to get an amazing one, I’m a student so I cant break the bank. Do you have any suggestions??
Also, Is 8GB required or is 4 okay as well??

Thankyou for your help!

Hatter.9540:

Everyone seems to have similar answers, like i said i have basic understanding about these kinds of things and have never had much knowledge on AMD CPU’s, in fact someone did tell me to steer clear. My price range is around 400 to 450 so theres not much chance of me being able to get an amazing one, I’m a student so I cant break the bank. Do you have any suggestions??
Also, Is 8GB required or is 4 okay as well??

Thankyou for your help!

If 500 is your limit, you are stuck with AMD I’m afraid.

About 2 weeks ago I started to look for a laptop replacement that would be ‘better’ then my HP. And the cheapest I could find was about 750. It was an i5 with a Nvidia 755M. Which would have been better on the CPU side, but about the same on the GPU side. So I didn’t buy it yet.

Depending on your Tech Skill and what your willing to put up with, you might want to look into a refurb or used buy. You could easily shave 200-300 off the purchase price and get something a lot better then buying new.

But stay away from HP if you do that. All HP laptops have a fusion issue between the Solder used on the GPU/NorthBrige Chip and the motherboard. It cracks and needs to be reflowed/Baked to be fixed. Used/Refurbed machines almost always end up with these issues. (I have a reflowing kit, so its not so much of an issue for me)

No matter what you buy, your end goal should be the following;

i5 Gen3 or gen4
High end Class 2 or Low end Class 1 Graphics Card – Use http://www.notebookcheck.net to do research on this. Compare Benchmarks between a HD7690M and Nvidia 755M to get a grasp of what I mean
8GB of ram
HDD – Buy with a low end HDD and upgrade it later on. You can get SSDs that are 128GBs for 99Bucks now.
LCD – Important part. STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets. You want 1440×900, 1600×900, or 1920×1080. That 900 and/or 1080 is the HEIGHT of the LCD, the taller the better it is for ‘school’ work. This also directly affects gaming. Larger res = the need of a more powerful GPU to drive your desired settings at the higher Res. If you were to buy a laptop with 1366×768, you could swap out the LCD for a 1080P LCD. But you need to part match and also replace the LCD’s Ribbon to the Motherboard. If the laptop comes with 1366×768, the Ribbon is single channel and will NOT drive a 1080p LCD. So that is why you would also need to do that. Upgrading 1366×768 to 1080p costs about 150bucks (depending on LCD options)
The rest of the machine doesnt really matter all that much, other then Brand.

Complicated, yea. But if you want to come in under 500 it has to be complicated.

Hatter.9540:

i5-3337U processor (1.8 GHz, 2.7 GHZ wih turboboost, 3 MB cache)
6GB DDR3

Thats what i found within my price range, What are your thought??

What Video card is in that laptop?

Wow look at what I found;

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/tabelle_18.jpg <- Just the chart
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Guild-Wars-2-Benchmarked.81604.0.html <- Full on Performance review!

A chart of CPU/GPU combos and FPS performance for GW2. This should be used as a buying guild vs performance that you want :-)

sirsquishy.8531:

Wow look at what I found;

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/tabelle_18.jpg <- Just the chart
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Guild-Wars-2-Benchmarked.81604.0.html <- Full on Performance review!

A chart of CPU/GPU combos and FPS performance for GW2. This should be used as a buying guild vs performance that you want :-)

Haha!! That’s so good in this situation !! And as for that laptop its http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v5-571p-15-6-touchscreen-laptop-silver-21414702-pdt.html
But i don’t think it’s any good :’( and thats outta my price range….
dang

Hatter.9540:

sirsquishy.8531:

Wow look at what I found;

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/tabelle_18.jpg <- Just the chart
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Guild-Wars-2-Benchmarked.81604.0.html <- Full on Performance review!

A chart of CPU/GPU combos and FPS performance for GW2. This should be used as a buying guild vs performance that you want :-)

Haha!! That’s so good in this situation !! And as for that laptop its http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v5-571p-15-6-touchscreen-laptop-silver-21414702-pdt.html
But i don’t think it’s any good :’( and thats outta my price range….
dang

No, that has the Intel HD graphics. While is ok on Medium to Low, it will bomb in Zerg and large open world events (My Work laptop is setup exactly like the one you linked….trust me, dont buy it).

sirsquishy.8531:

Hatter.9540:

sirsquishy.8531:

Wow look at what I found;

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_migrated/pics/tabelle_18.jpg <- Just the chart
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Guild-Wars-2-Benchmarked.81604.0.html <- Full on Performance review!

A chart of CPU/GPU combos and FPS performance for GW2. This should be used as a buying guild vs performance that you want :-)

Haha!! That’s so good in this situation !! And as for that laptop its http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v5-571p-15-6-touchscreen-laptop-silver-21414702-pdt.html
But i don’t think it’s any good :’( and thats outta my price range….
dang

No, that has the Intel HD graphics. While is ok on Medium to Low, it will bomb in Zerg and large open world events (My Work laptop is setup exactly like the one you linked….trust me, dont buy it).

wow, aside what you said earlier i don’t think theres much way of me being able to play unfortunately. I just don’t have the right sort of cash i’ve pushed my budget to around 550 and i’m not having much luck. I just want something that plays smoothly on medium graphics and doesn’t crash when theres a large amount of player around.
Who knows, maybe after uni i’ll be able to afford one and play guild wars 3….

best I could find, again, http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E2E34AV?HP-ENVY-15t-j100-Quad-Edition-Notebook-PC-ENERGY-STAR-

i7-4700MQ Processor
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory
1080P
8GB Ram
$834.99

If they would let me drop the i7 down to an i5, that would be 734.99 (like the IBM i found before xmas).

But, there you have it. new, that is the price to expect (734.99 for an i5, or 834.99 for an i7).

sirsquishy.8531:

best I could find, again, http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E2E34AV?HP-ENVY-15t-j100-Quad-Edition-Notebook-PC-ENERGY-STAR-

i7-4700MQ Processor
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory
1080P
8GB Ram
$834.99

If they would let me drop the i7 down to an i5, that would be 734.99 (like the IBM i found before xmas).

But, there you have it. new, that is the price to expect (734.99 for an i5, or 834.99 for an i7).

Well thats fantastic ! To me thats just over £500.
I’m just trying to find it on a UK site now but i don’t believe we have it as silly as that sounds.
Why must there always be obstacles

I did find
http://h20386.www2.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=F5C51EA&opt=ABU&sel=PCNB#merch-tech-specs
which was under the ‘entertainment and multimedia’ section. It’s not as good but still affordable ect. Doesn’t seem too bad

sirsquishy”

STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets

Getting terribly OT here, but what are you basing this on? I have a tablet/laptop hybrid with 1366×768 resolution and Excel opens up 20×20 grid with toolbar visible. Granted I don’t use Excel too much but what is it lacking in 768 pixels that it gains at 900? Just curious.

locx.6412:

sirsquishy”

STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets

Getting terribly OT here, but what are you basing this on? I have a tablet/laptop hybrid with 1366×768 resolution and Excel opens up 20×20 grid with toolbar visible. Granted I don’t use Excel too much but what is it lacking in 768 pixels that it gains at 900? Just curious.

Resolution = Viewable area, yea?
So a document that opens in 1366×768 wont have as large of a workable area as 1920×1080 or 1600×900.

I have this issue ALOT when it comes down to network and server administration applications. To me, Viewable area > everything else.

Word, Excel, PPT, MSTSC, PDF, Clac(openOffice), Dude(WindowsNMS program), NetFlowRawDataGraphs, SolarWindsGraphs, Certain Webpages….ect, List can go on for ever for me here…..

All those above applications are directly affected by the LCD’s native resolution. And affect not only my performance (how fast and efficient I can get work done) but also my quality of life about that.

Example, working in Excel, doing math and verification of cells from A76 over to T87 requires a lot more panning and sheet movement then it would if you ran a high res.

Hatter.9540:

I did find
http://h20386.www2.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=F5C51EA&opt=ABU&sel=PCNB#merch-tech-specs
which was under the ‘entertainment and multimedia’ section. It’s not as good but still affordable ect. Doesn’t seem too bad

Can’t reach the page, can you post the specs and the cost?

locx.6412:

sirsquishy”

STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets

Getting terribly OT here, but what are you basing this on? I have a tablet/laptop hybrid with 1366×768 resolution and Excel opens up 20×20 grid with toolbar visible. Granted I don’t use Excel too much but what is it lacking in 768 pixels that it gains at 900? Just curious.

I don’t fully understand what you mean, basing what on exactly??

Hatter.9540:

locx.6412:

sirsquishy”

STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets

Getting terribly OT here, but what are you basing this on? I have a tablet/laptop hybrid with 1366×768 resolution and Excel opens up 20×20 grid with toolbar visible. Granted I don’t use Excel too much but what is it lacking in 768 pixels that it gains at 900? Just curious.

I don’t fully understand what you mean, basing what on exactly??

He was just asking why my opinion is the way it is for the different resolutions and ‘office work’.

sirsquishy.8531:

Hatter.9540:

locx.6412:

sirsquishy”

STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets

Getting terribly OT here, but what are you basing this on? I have a tablet/laptop hybrid with 1366×768 resolution and Excel opens up 20×20 grid with toolbar visible. Granted I don’t use Excel too much but what is it lacking in 768 pixels that it gains at 900? Just curious.

I don’t fully understand what you mean, basing what on exactly??

He was just asking why my opinion is the way it is for the different resolutions and ‘office work’.

Oh my goodness, my bad. I’m in my own world haha, sorry !!

sirsquishy.8531:

Hatter.9540:

I did find
http://h20386.www2.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=F5C51EA&opt=ABU&sel=PCNB#merch-tech-specs
which was under the ‘entertainment and multimedia’ section. It’s not as good but still affordable ect. Doesn’t seem too bad

Can’t reach the page, can you post the specs and the cost?

Processor family
Intel® Core™ i5 processor
Processor
Intel® Core™ i5-4200U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 (1.6 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)
4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM (1 × 4 GB)
intel HD Graphics 4400

sorry for the delay