Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I posted this as a bug and as a seperate issue, but now I’m thinking there is something wrong on my end. Here is what I have: 31 FPS during most of my gameplay bar WvW, 10ish FPS during any close-quarters combat with explosions from grenades, mesmer AoE – you name it. Lowering my settings makes NO difference. I’m attaching some screens as proof.

Here are my computer speccs:
Nvidia GeForce 540m CUDA* 2GB
Intel HD graphics 3000 (not my main GPU, but thought I’d add that)
intel core i5-2430m, 2.4GHz (2.9GHz with boost technology)
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium
6GB RAM
HDD 750GB
Realtek High Definition Speakers

Just to clarify: I am definitely running the game on my GeForce 540m and not my integrated intel card. Latest driver 306.23 WHQL cleanly installed. Computer up-to-date. GW2 client repaired.

Below you can see my screenshots of the issue as well as my in-game settings:

Erm your frame limiter is set to 30 ..thats why your maxing out at 30 for one thing.

Also run some monitoring software and tell use your cpu and gpu usage when running GW2.

Since its smoke that causing your slow downs its probably becouse your graphics card doesnt have enough grunt to handle it. I.e not enough shaders etc.

Yeah I purposefully set it to 30, since it’s the only stable framerate for me.

I’m downloading a GPU monitor right now I’ll give you the numbers in a bit.

I get between 40-55% GPU usage and 60-70% CPU usage, when I do the grenade thing it’s about the same. Not sure if that helps.

It helps. I beleve that you cpu is your bottleneck.

it does not have to reach 99% usage on the cpu to bottleneck unlike a GPU.

Normaly i would advise a small OC, but since its a laptop i wouldnt recommend that.

It isnt your ram ether 6gb is enough.

have you made sure your laptop power management is set to performance etc ..also check nvidia control panel make sure its set GW2 using the correct settings.

Turn up your graphics settings. If your performance doesn’t change, you have a CPU bottleneck and you might as well keep your settings high.

If your performance gets worse, you have a GPU bottleneck.

Either way, there’s not much you can do about it on a laptop.

I see, well thanks a lot for the info – SolarNova I’ve made sure to have my laptop power management on high perfomance and it helps a tad, still no luck with the massive frame drops I guess Ill have to live with it. I’ve also double checked now that nvidia is running GW2 at best perfomane rather than quality. So you wouldn’t advise OCing? I guess it is pretty risky, but if I watch my temps I should be ok right?

I think at a certain graphic setting my GPU starts to fail, in certain areas with shaders on high, it drops to a sluggish pace unless I put it at medium so I’ll keep it at that, that seems to be the most stable. In other areas such as WvW it is definitely a CPU issue, as no matter what graphics setting I put it at, I’ll still be getting 15-20 frames in massive battles, which I suppose isn’t all that bad.

I do wish there was some way to reduce the particle effects in this game, they really aren’t all that necessary for me. Thanks a lot for the answers again.

I read somewhere about unparking my CPU’s through the registry so that they are all running regardless, is that safe?

My game was running good till today, i dont know what happened, i didnt install any new software, nothing changed at my computer or game but game today is running is slow motiom fps 5 in most of areas

15-20 FPs in massive battles isn’t that bad. On a Q6600 (OC’d to 3.2 GHz) and GTX 460, I was down to 7-15 FPS in large WvW battles. Not ideal, but playable. Definitely look into building a desktop PC at some point, though.

I wouldn’t advise overclocking a laptop CPU. They tend to get hot enough as it is.

If you are using “High Performance” power management setting they are already unparked.

Sonvil.3670:

I read somewhere about unparking my CPU’s through the registry so that they are all running regardless, is that safe?

Some things in the game are just poorly done. Check out this screenshot. It’s pretty inexcusable the performance hit incurring from this one effect.

Before
http://chattypics.com/files/gw001_9f0o80b095.jpg

After
http://chattypics.com/files/gw002_ukmou9lu3x.jpg

Depending on the laptop and its heat disipation ..you could try OC’ing it a tad BUT do not do it if it already gets hot as standard. The main reason people dont OC laptops is becouse they suck at keeping cool. So if it already gets up to say 80c dont bother trying.

Actually laptop parts are made to withstand high heat. Intel I7-M is rated at TJ-MAX 100C. Once it hits this temp it will auto throttle to reduce heat.

SolarNova.1052:

Depending on the laptop and its heat disipation ..you could try OC’ing it a tad BUT do not do it if it already gets hot as standard. The main reason people dont OC laptops is becouse they suck at keeping cool. So if it already gets up to say 80c dont bother trying.

TJMax is just there to stop it insta dieing.

genral rull of thumb is ..once over 85C you are reducing the cpu;s life span.

Thats why most OC’s make sure they stop OC’ing once their cpu reaches a personal set temperature depending on how safe they want to play it.

For example my rig. I decided i would stop OC’ing once my air cooling could not keep the cpu bellow 75c or there abouts. Why? becouse once a really hot day comes along you can add 5c to that making it around 80c (at 100% load). Any hotter and i risk reducing its lifespan.

now desktop and laptop cpu’s have the same tjmax 90-100c depending on make and generation. That doesnt mean its ok to run them a few degress under that number :P

This is one reason i’m starting to lean more toward laptops now vs building my own systems. Besides being more portable, good performance, and free UPS because of the battery. Most laptops now are modular and everything can be upgraded and best of all they have awesome warranties most of the time. In the warranty window I will run my system ragged and get the most out of it I can and if something blows up it’s covered. Besides running the CPU/GPU higher than 80C vs 85C-90C reducing the life seems to be all speculation. Where are the tests? I mean the CPU lasts 3-5 years instead of 5+? Most people will have upgraded by then, especially in the laptop world.

BTW I am not condoning you run anything at or near TJMax. 99.99999999% of the time you won’t even get near TJMax anyway, most laptop manufacturers set their throttling aggressively so you won’t get near it.

I’m pretty sure Intel isn’t going to set a TJMax that is right at the threshold of their product melting / catching on fire. 100C is probably pretty aggressive. If you are hitting 85C-90C on an I7 laptop chip I wouldn’t worry. If you are hitting 95C+ I would start to worry.

SolarNova.1052:

TJMax is just there to stop it insta dieing.

genral rull of thumb is ..once over 85C you are reducing the cpu;s life span.

Thats why most OC’s make sure they stop OC’ing once their cpu reaches a personal set temperature depending on how safe they want to play it.

For example my rig. I decided i would stop OC’ing once my air cooling could not keep the cpu bellow 75c or there abouts. Why? becouse once a really hot day comes along you can add 5c to that making it around 80c (at 100% load). Any hotter and i risk reducing its lifespan.

now desktop and laptop cpu’s have the same tjmax 90-100c depending on make and generation. That doesnt mean its ok to run them a few degress under that number :P

Yes well like i said it comes down to personal prefrence and how safe you want to play it. High temperatures do reduce life span even intel has stated it.

BUT since each cpu is individualy different, you can never say diffintivly what temperature is ok. 2 cpus of the same type could burn out at different tempeartures.
I tried 2 3930k cpu’s the 1st didnt OC very well in terms of its stability ..but could get to 1.38v before my air cooling started to become inadiquet. My second 3930k can OC better with lower volts but my cooling can only handle it up to 1.37v.
Goes to show that thermal dynamics of the cpu’s were slightly different and thus each ones threshold was different.

I prefer to air on the side of caution when it comes to expensive components

Agreed. I air on the side of caution especially with desktop parts. Laptops are a little different. I have a 2 year full coverage warranty from MSI. They have some really nice high performance gaming notebooks with support for overclocking and so on. Two years is a long time to sit on the same piece of hardware. By that time it will be moved to secondary computing and replaced by something else and the overclocking for it won’t even be warranted.

SolarNova.1052:

Yes well like i said it comes down to personal prefrence and how safe you want to play it. High temperatures do reduce life span even intel has stated it.

BUT since each cpu is individualy different, you can never say diffintivly what temperature is ok. 2 cpus of the same type could burn out at different tempeartures.
I tried 2 3930k cpu’s the 1st didnt OC very well in terms of its stability ..but could get to 1.38v before my air cooling started to become inadiquet. My second 3930k can OC better with lower volts but my cooling can only handle it up to 1.37v.
Goes to show that thermal dynamics of the cpu’s were slightly different and thus each ones threshold was different.

I prefer to air on the side of caution when it comes to expensive components