Guild Wars 2

Good day everyone,

First… this is my current setup:

Processor: AMD Phenom™ X4 9950 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Graphic Card: MSI Radeon R6850 1GB DDR5
Motherboard: Gigabyte M61PME-S2P
RAM: 4 GB DDR2
OS: Windows 7 x64

The problem is that i run Guild Wars 2 in my monitor’s native resolution of 1920 × 1080(p) (60.000Hz) and i am getting very poor performance. I customized my graphic settings so that the game doesn’t lose a lot of frames and still looks relatively good and it’s still in vain. The difference between the maximum settings and the lowest settings in Guild Wars 2, for me, is an average of about 10 frames. So… the game runs all maxed out in an average of 20 – 30 fps, and with the lowest possible settings in an average of 30 – 40 fps.
Here is where it gets problematic… a good number of people have suggested me to start uploading gaming videos, go into live-streaming since apparently i am quite good at games, and so i did… i recorded my first video yesterday using fraps. When i record using fraps my fps get cut in half, so not only it becomes an unpleasant gaming experience, it’s also provides a bad performance video wise.

The problem gets even more complicated since i see that in-game my cpu usage gets to like 80% on all 4 cores, and my GPU goes up to 70%. I’ve also spoken with a lot of people and it seems that using my CPU alongside a Radeon 6990 makes the game run perfectly fully maxed out. Also i heard that my graphics card alongside an I5 processor also seems to run the game perfectly fully maxed out… I also heard that the game runs better on I5 then on I7… so, i don’t know what to think.

My video card is the newest addition to my computer, so it should be it’s strong point. I’ve had my eye for some time on a new CPU, the AMD FX-8150 Eight-Core@3.60Ghz (max overclock 5.4Ghz) which has a benchmark score of 8,166
My CPU has a benchmark score of 3,007 and the I5-3550@3.30Ghz has a CPU benchmark score of 7,455.

Now here is the problem… if i opt to go for the AMD FX-8150 i need to change my motherboard to something like MB GIGABYTE 780T-D3L and while i’m at it i could add 2x DIMM 4GB DDR3 PC12800 KINGMAX FLGF-DDR3-4G1600 because the motherboard and the ram only costs an extra 110$, so with the CPU i get to 400$.
The question is… will this make the game run perfectly in high settings even if i try recording ? Should i get a stronger video card instead ?
Bare in mind that the 400$ is my maximum upgrade budget since where i am from the average salary per month is 150$, so this is the best solution for me money-wise. Is it performance wise though ? Will it give me what i need ?

ps: am i allowed to post my first gaming video somewhere on this forum ? I could do with some more feedback

Your video card is not terrible. The CPU would be my target if I were you. That one is several years old now, and I don’t even think you can buy them anymore. You will probably have to upgrade your motherboard at the same time…

This is a good priced combo in the mid-range: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2204333&CatId=14

Hickeroar.9734:

Your video card is not terrible. The CPU would be my target if I were you. That one is several years old now, and I don’t even think you can buy them anymore. You will probably have to upgrade your motherboard at the same time…

This is a good priced combo in the mid-range: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2204333&CatId=14

That was my initial thought as well, the question is… will that CPU alongside my video card get me to where i need to be ? Will my game run perfectly even while recording ? I saw people saying they run the game perfectly with I5s CPUs, and not so great with I7 CPUs, no one said anything about the AMD FX-8150, or… any AMD CPUs to tell you the truth…

Thanks for your feedback, waiting for more…

AshleySegovia.3948:

Hi Nemesis – your setup isn’t bad and your graphics card is pretty good. Generally I would first recommend upgrading your memory, processor, and motherboard before throwing in a new video card and in this case I would start with motherboard and then maybe memory. Unfortunately I cannot suggest anything specifically but your motherboard and memory would be a good place to start. You don’t want to bottleneck the rest of your system with an overpowered video card.

Thank you for answering… Can you give me at least an 80% chance that if i buy, let’s say an CPU INTEL CORE I7 I7-3770 3.40GHZ 8MB BX80637I7377 which is even stronger then the AMD FX-8150 by 20%, not to mention the integrated graphic processor, plus the mainboard and the 8GB of ram… can you assure me, just a little, that i may get high performance in high settings even while streaming or recording ?
Like i said it’s a very big investment… equivalent to 4 monthly salaries in this country… so i need as much information as possible before i decide to buy anything.

Also… am i allowed to post my first Guild Wars 2 video somewhere on these forums ? I don’t know if this would be considered advertising, and i also don’t know if this kind of advertising is allowed… but i would like some more feedback and i think this would be a good place to start.

Thank you again for the quick replay

Nemesis.8593:

Thank you for answering… Can you give me at least an 80% chance that if i buy, let’s say an CPU INTEL CORE I7 I7-3770 3.40GHZ 8MB BX80637I7377 which is even stronger then the AMD FX-8150 by 20%, not to mention the integrated graphic processor, plus the mainboard and the 8GB of ram… can you assure me, just a little, that i may get high performance in high settings even while streaming or recording ?
Like i said it’s a very big investment… equivalent to 4 monthly salaries in this country… so i need as much information as possible before i decide to buy anything.

You can’t expect top performance with the videocard that you have, it’s considered a budget videocard. That being said, it’s still going to be better than any of the onboard GPUs included by either Intel or AMD.

For reference, I get around 45FPS with the computer in my sig with everything set to “Best Performance” and I play at 1920×1200- that’s with both of 6870 cards running in CrossFire. If I switch to windowed mode to only use one card my framerate drops into the 20s.

with 3770 ofc you will have better performance than the fx8150… But I dont believe he will assure you about that since the game is horrible optimized at its current state….

I won’t waste your and my time, just a few words for a decent medium budget set up for you:
Processor: core i5 3570k (no need for 3770k)
Motherboard: Asus Maximus V Gene Intel Z77 Lga 1155 Pci-ex 3.0
HD: Ssd Corsair Force 3 Gt F120 (buy 2 for raid O config if you can) + any solid drive for data (like the Western Digital Caviar Green 2Tb Sata3 6gbs 64mb)
MRam: 8Gb is ok. You don’t need to buy 1600MHZ+ version, cos it will be the same for performance. My pick? Corsair Vengeance series.
VGA: nvidia EVGA gts 670 ftw 2gb (buy one, you can run the game with top graphics always with 60+ FPS with just one card; buy another one for SLI if you can)
Monitor: any with REAL 120Hz (otherwise your set up will be locked at 60Hz, or, in other words, 60fps etc). My pick? SAMSUNG S27A950D Black 27"

Change any spec but the processor, MB and VGAs and pick any 2 SSD for raid O and you’ll be fine.

Don’t guess: take measurements. How loaded is your GPU when FPS drops? CPUs? RAM? (paging?)

Intel took back the gaming crown from AMD when the C2D arrived and kept it ever since.

22 days days old, his CPU was the bottleneck combined with slow memory