Guild Wars 2

Yamar Denitche.7130:

For those looking for the config file for the 64bit – yes it does exist.

Go to /Library/Application Support/Guild Wars 2 and the config is there.

The game runs… somewhat better with 11GB of Vram vs 256MB, but I’m still lucky if I can super occasionially break 60fps on not-the-highest-but-pretty-nice settings, and I’m running a bloody 1080Ti… not super pleased with the FPS I’m getting for having that card, but it’s somewhat better than the 32 bit at least… no out of memory crashes at any rate.

I also (randomly, between 3 mins and 3 hours really…) get the no keyboard bug, where 1-9 and a-z don’t work, but arrow keys, F keys etc. all function; as well as the “everything glows” bug that is apparently from ambient occlusion from what someone said earlier.

I have not played enough to see if the “all text disappears and nothing works” bug happens anymore, hopefully not as that was incredibly annoying.

Specs:
3.5Ghz i7
32GB DDR3 Ram
256GB SSD
GTX 1080ti
OSX 10.12.5

I take it that the Local.dat is the config file? For me there is only gibberish in the file. Nothing understandable or readable. I can’t even find the value ‘256’ in the file either. Am I missing something?

Hollow.9758:

The two main problems I have are with the fact that sense its a port, and the lack of support. Its a native widows client being forced through the mac ox through a filter of some sort. I’m not a programmer so i don’t know how it works exactly. I just know it is TERRIBLE to attempt to play sometimes.

And who knows when the next time we’ll see communication from anybody official again.

That’s how i feel.

What really is happening is that there is a very very limited ‘virtual box’ being emulated on the computer at that time. I say very limited because it only emulates the Windows parts it really needs. This is not as bad as it seems but as you can read here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Common-Errors-What-we-really-need/first#post3433145

The biggest problem is with the client not supporting multi-threading. Something only NCSoft can really fix. Easily said, it just doesn’t play nice with this emulating layer, and therefore it doesn’t use all the power in your CPU. Your CPU is mostly sitting around being bored while playing Guild Wars 2, because it’s not getting the instructions to do it’s job.

Damage.2170:

OpenGL is a provably more efficient pipeline than D3D. Abstracting D3D on top of an OpenGL based system (Mac/Linux) is considerably less efficient than it could and should be. While I appreciate the tone and intention of your post, it’s not really accurate to say that this Transgaming port of the Windows code will ever be efficient like native code.

The native client for WoW makes this obvious.

Even though you are right about this, I can understand that a native client is not interesting for a developer. Therefore a Wine/Cider/Transgaming port is not as bad as you’d think. Most games for Mac (read: almost all) are a Wine port.

I’ve ported Skyrim myself, and although it runs worse on Mac and has some limitations (Direct 3D injector modding), it still runs very decent. This isn’t the case for Guild Wars 2, it runs like s***, pardon my language. I can play games like The Witcher 2 on Ultra settings, whilst not being able to run Guild Wars 2 on any setting on my iMac 27".

It all comes down to this single factor of not using multi-threading, I think this is a bug that they were not able to fix. I can’t seem to port Guild Wars 2 myself with multi-threading… So they just stuck with holding this single core application.

The funny thing is, the higher the resolution and more powerful your rig is.. The more problems you’ll face because the single core CPU can’t cope with the data throughput. It runs relatively smooth on my 2011 Macbook Pro 15", but that game runs at 1440×900.

This also explains why Lion’s Arch is absolute hell, it is the most CPU intensive place with all the custom player textures that need to be loaded. Sitting around in Lion’s Arch for a few minutes smoothes out the frame rate by a lot, but it still isn’t fast.

StagehandApollo.1620:

I have all these problems as well:
update issue, camera issue, gem purchases
and the fixit didn’t fixit unfortunately.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/TgUpdate-1-11-everytime-i-open-the-launcher/3394514

I would like you to take a look at this thread of mine. Most problems are fixed there, at least explained in detail:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Common-Errors-What-we-really-need/first#post3425003

Furthermore, the gem purchase error is reported to be fixed after properly patching the client. Please follow the steps in the post above, as it has been reported working.

Hello OSX players out there!

I noticed that a lot of people have all sorts of different bugs such as the launcher to keep updating; crazy mouse behaviour; or even some rare cases of the c0000005 error .

For most of these cases there are workarounds. I would like to use this topic as a general help location for common errors and workarounds. But I would also like to dedicate this topic on getting people to know about a issue which we all face.

The biggest problem with the client right now is the performance, and we often go search in the wrong direction on this one. Yes, there have been reports of people with really bad performance, that an SMC reset would help. But on average the client runs about twice as bad as it would on Windows, and this is something we are all experiencing.

A native client would be awesome but not really necessary. But a fix on the CPU threading would make the cider port almost as fast as the native Windows client would.

“What?!” I hear you scream. Well to be precise, there are people like me, with an iMac with a decent graphics card that bottleneck on CPU performance issues. This is because the GPU does not get the data it needs in time, which is best noticed in Lion’s Arch.

The native Windows client is multithreaded, meaning that it uses all the cores and threads on your CPU. However, the Mac client is single threaded. Only one core is used, meaning that in cases like mine, 3 cores remain unused.

Now here is the message to NCSoft: Please, please look into the threading issue. This is a thing only you can do! The small issues and bugs have workaround solutions. But this one is something we all face while playing.

With that said, it’s time for some common solutions:

TgUpdate 1.11 on launcher start
1. Check current version # of TG Wrapper by navigating to Applications -> Guild Wars 2 -> Get Info

2. If the version is older than 1.0.009524, download TG Update. You can get the TG Update here: http://cider.ncplatform.net/Live/GWII-Update-009524.tgz.

3. After downloading, manually unpack the .TGZ file by double-clicking on it

4. Updater should now be unzipped and visible. Double-click updater and you will be prompted to select your output app

5. Navigate to where your Guild Wars 2 client is located. (default location is Applications -> Guild Wars 2)

6. After selecting Guild Wars 2 you may be prompted by your Mac to allow the update to make changes, if so enter your password and the updater should resume updating. Note: If you are getting a message: “GWII-Update-009524.app” can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer". You must allow third party apps in your System Preferences->Security & Privacy->“Allow apps downloaded from anywhere”

7. Once patching has been completed confirm that TG Wrapper version has updated to Version 1.0.009524 by re-following step #1

8. After the update is completed try launching the game client

Crash code c000005
1. Delete all files ~/Library/Application Support/Guild Wars 2/

2. Try launching the game client

Crazy mouse camera turning
1. In-game press esc.

2. Go to “Options” and check if the Camera -> Rotation Speed is set to the lowest setting. With fast mouse sensitivity the game amplifies it too much.

3. If step #2 is indeed on lowest setting, try pressing cmd+tab on the keyboard, minimising the game. After you see the desktop cmd+tab again selecting the Guild Wars 2 icon, this should make the game full screen again.

4. The mouse should behave normally now.

Gem purchasing is bugged
1. Do the “TgUpdate 1.11 on launcher start” fix from above

2. Check if your launcher version is NOT older then 1.0.009524

3. Validate if this fixed your problem.

Please keep this topic clean, questions are more than welcome. please be clear and detailed with the question you provide. And just do not make this into a slow chat.

To keep you guys posted. I’ve made some attempts in compiling different wine wrappers with different versions of wine. After extensive searching I’ve found out that there is a problem with the CPU threading in all wine en cider ports of Guild Wars 2.

The slow FPS is not always due to the GPU bottlenecking, but the GPU not getting the data in time. Why? Well… Guild Wars 2 only uses one thread of the CPU. One core, if you will.

Noone on the outside can really fix it, only NCSoft has a slight chance of fixing this issue. But I wager it takes them too much resources and risks so they might not do it, unless they see that Guild Wars 2 will have a very long lifespan.

I have however ported some other games to mac, including Skyrim. But this is not the place to discus that I guess. If you are really interested you could send me a private message.

So far no luck at all with all the efforts on trying to speed up GW2 with Mac OSX. Most games play pretty nice with Wineskin, even games like The Witcher 2 use it as their wrapper. That game runs silky smooth on my iMac.

Yet, for some reason I can’t get the GW2 client to run smoothly. Not with Direct3D boost nothing, it all just runs at exactly the same speed as the original Mac client does.

Other than that, sadly Wine64 is not supported on Mac OSX. It will probably not be any time soon either.

I will however try and port various other games soon, like Skyrim etc. Will post a link here where you’ll find all these ports wrapped and ready to launch on another website soon.

Felicja.6891:

For the problems with GW2 on Mavericks, try updating the client as described in the topic:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/TgUpdate-1-11-everytime-i-open-the-launcher/page/2#post3394645

Let me know if this worked for you:)

Thanks for sharing that, it does not increase the performance sadly.. But I might find something interesting in the updater itself! I will keep you all posted

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I don’t remember exactly, I’m sure they’re listed on the WineHQ forums. I think there was a direct input problem relating to the mouse and camera rotation as well as something to do with chromium and the trading post.

I experienced the ingame trading post problem.. Trying to fix this now Good chances of fixing it.

EDIT: Fixed chromium bug, now all I need to fix is the performance itself hehe.. It now performs the same as the origional Guild Wars does… Blehhh.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I don’t remember exactly, I’m sure they’re listed on the WineHQ forums. I think there was a direct input problem relating to the mouse and camera rotation as well as something to do with chromium and the trading post.

No input problems found other than control not being mapped to command. But I will fix that very soon, I will also check out chromium trading post in a second.. Right now I’m working on multi_threaded optimisation. This should result in an 80% increase of performance.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

You might struggle a little bit because as far as I know there are a couple of issues that the Wine community has been unable to solve since launch. But of course I wish you the best of luck and I will be very interested to see how you go!

What problems are those, it’s good to know about those.. Let’s see how far I can come.. I’m copying a lot of shaders and dx3d files from a real Windows desktop environment, which is known to run Guild Wars 2.

EDIT: I’ve got a working wrapper right now.. Same performance as the client that is currently send out to you guys.. Though it’s easier for me to edit this client, because I know how it works :P

FlamingFoxx.1305:

^— Yup. High res is only available on 64bit systems/client. So at the moment only 64bit windows can use it.

I’m not exactly looking to enable that feature.. I’m just looking to create a better wrapper so that the game runs more smoothly

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Yep, there are two. I’ve played around with the VideRam setting in both of them before, but was unable to procure a result from it.
There is one particular setting in the config file – MTD3D. By default the value is 4, but when the client was initially released the value was 0, putting it back to 0 did seem to provide a small boost to performance with no loss of visual quality. Mine is back on 4 now, but I can’t remember if I changed it manually or if it’s been overwritten by an update? So you could always try setting that value to 0 again.

MTD3D is already set to 0 in the current version. So no luck there mate, I’m actually making a custom Wine wrapper right now.. I will share the project with you guys as soon as I’ve had some success, and most importantly some performance increasement.

EDIT: Making excellent progress on porting, loading seems faster.. I’ve forced the wrapper to auto detect available videoram. Once I get everything up and running I will defiantly share it with you all for download. No hardcore installation required or anything.. Just dragging the application to your application folder.

I’ve been investigating for about an hour now, found a lot of interesting tweaks. There is a Wine config out there. By default it states:

“VideoRam” = “256”
“AGPVertexRam” = “128”

But upping this will not result in any behavior differences.. Just as editing the “CiderSettings.plist” command line options.. I’ve asked it to show detailed information by adding -perf. But no changes in that, it’s almost like it’s ignoring everything.

EDIT: I’ve found a config file in ~/Library/ApplicationSupport/GuildWars2/ that is exactly the same as the default one in the application contents.. So I’m gonna try editing that one instead.

It’s also true to be running on Mac OSX, as you can clearly see that it has “High-res character textures” disabled, like Mac clients always have. He’s not really making us believe Mac is capable of running it.

I’m gonna take the liberty of checking the Guild Wars 2 application contents to see if there are specific .ini settings that might help. I’ll keep you posted on my findings.

I had this problem two days ago.. I just did the thing I usually do on Windows with mouse problems… Minimizing and maximizing the game fixed it for me (command+tab)

Hello peeps,

I’ve recently switched from Windows to Mac OSX because I use my desktop more for programming work, than for actual gaming. However, I do want to play some Guild Wars 2 every now and then.

I ordered and just received an iMac 27" with a Nvidia GTX780M, which has 4GB of VRAM. However, I can not seem to run the game fluently. I have some weird ‘frame-lock’ going on everywhere. No matter what I try (tried resetting SMC) I do not gain any performance increasing. Maybe I’m doing something wrong trying to reset the SMC, probably not…

In any case, the speed is locked. No matter what graphics settings I try, nothing changes this frame lock. Not even setting it to 1024×768 with everything turned down to the very lowest settings possible.

Framerates I get;
- Lions Arch: 19FPS flat,
- Battlegrounds: 30FPS flat,
- Other areas: 30FPS flat.

Now you would suspect I have turned on V-sync or a frame locker. The locker is set to ‘Unlimited’.

It’s not my hardware either, because I play games like Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite on 2560×1440 with everything set to high. No problems there on in anything else. Does anyone else know a good solution for my problem?

Thanks guys!

P.S. I know this is a Wine port and Windows will probably get me a better frame-rate; However, I’ve had contact with someone that made a YouTube video and he says (and proves) to get 60FPS in battlegrounds and outdoor area’s. Same hardware and same OS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQQLtwXrktA