Guild Wars 2

Like I said, I’m not a programmer, I have no idea about “rebuilding the main stack” and “ripping out the memory system” and stuff, but from what I’ve heard these problems aren’t simple to solve. GW2 (and MMOs in general) just have so much information to process; there’s no way to avoid memory accessing queues.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Very few people have computers that are DX12 compatible.

Really? Are you sure about that?

DX12 will be compatible with — at the very least — all DX11 hardware, and perhaps even all hardware that currently exists. Only some features — some advanced special features — will be for DX12 specific cards only.

Most people playing GW2 today are using DX11 compatible GPUs, no?

Unfortunately it seems it’s not as easy as DX12/64-bit to solve GW2’s performance issues.

Here is a post an engine programmer made on the GW2 subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ajnso/bad_optimalization_in_gw2/csdnn3n

The problem is apparently not something that can be solved by APIs, but by the lower-level code itself. It was not programmed to work in parallel, so even if you make it multithreaded, those different threads all try to access the same data at once, and have to wait their turn.

One thing that stood out to me though, was that the developer said the main stack is the bottleneck. This doesn’t line up with the story about the different threads having to queue for memory access. I am wondering if, despite this developer’s claims, DX12 would relieve the main stack bottleneck by reducing the impact of the rendering stack/draw calls. But I am not a programmer, I am just speculating there.

kindofabuzz.9357:

I’ve noticed fps is better, maybe even normal, if you just bump it down one resolution. Seems that native resolution is giving the drops. (makes it playable at least for me)

That’s because lowering the resolution decreases the amount of work the GPU has to do (less pixels to render). It seems the UI is weighing heavily on the GPU at the moment, so anywhere else you can decrease the load will help out.

Rebound.3409:

Don’t worry about it. I have the new generation 5820K, 16gb DDR4 2400mhz, 7970 OCed with both SSHD and SSD and i get 45-50FPS in LA with literally 8 ppl around me AFKing and 2 at the mystic forge…that for the price of my PC going nuts on noctua fans. The game is unbelievably bad at performance. Am not planning on playing a game that takes out so much of my PC for far too long. Will probably quit if nothing is done about this. I prefer keeping my PC alive rather then sacrificing it for this game.

Exactly lol, it’s a mess. It’s like we are using candles when light bulbs have been out for years. And solar-powered lights are coming out next year (DX12)!

This thread was just to show off the kind of performance that is available. I never meant to imply that it would be easy to switch over. I think it’s worth it though. WvW with that kind of smoothness is practically a dream come true for me.

They keep hinting that many of the new systems in HoT are actually ground work for the future growth of the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if they want this game to last for many more years. Also, haven’t they only just released in China? Seems like this is just the beginning.

If they want a system that is gonna last they need to update the renderer. It was borderline embarassing in 2012 (DX11 came out in 2009), to still have dx9, now, in 2015? It’s just…. ugh, please update it!

DX12 allows the CPU to fully use all cores. Previously, rendering would be stuck on one core, so there was only so much you could push through. A whole different kind of “CPU bottleneck”. Now that can be alleviated, and I am certain we would see massive performance increases on all hardware.

This video got me thinking. With the ability to handle over 1000 units that shoot light sources as ammunition, would GW2 not become amazingly smooth in WvW if multiple CPU cores could send the GPU information?

Alchymista.8192:

zaw.6741:

cmon, you say we should get 2015 top gpu for game looking like from 2010?

no! read what i wrote again..
u dont need top 2015 GPU to play GW2..
i said u need to get better GPU if u want more FPS because better CPU wont help u

I have R9 290X and I get regular fps drops to 30. You don’t know what you’re talking about, please stop.

Tom Gore.4035:

Gazareth.7230:

I would imagine that most people nowadays are on windows 7/8/8.1. All of these people get a free upgrade the first year Windows 10 is out.

Where did you read about that? Microsoft giving their newest OS for free for people who have bought Windows 7 three years ago? I don’t think so.

It’s definitely true. Microsoft did a press conference about a week or so ago about Windows 10 and confirmed that everyone with at least Windows 7 will get a free upgrade to Win10.

Microsoft are undoubtedly making this a lot easier for Anet. DX12 hype!

Let’s not have this devolve into AMD vs NVidia. This is about Guild Wars 2 and optimisation of its engine.

Spiuk.8421:

And there’s not much they can do on that front since DirectX12 is clearly not an option. Even if they waited for it to come out before getting into engine stuff (which they won’t do) it will be Windows 10 only.

I would imagine that most people nowadays are on windows 7/8/8.1. All of these people get a free upgrade the first year Windows 10 is out.

You’re right about MMOs always having this problem, but I feel that GW2 is particularly bad. Another thing to note about MMOs as well is that they always have worse graphics. I guess having to render large amount of players really does a number on hardware.

Gibon.1705:

Then how would you explain that for some it works fine and for some it does not?
Your complaining does not help anyone either.

I don’t need to explain that. Anet should. The game should work fine (and perform like a game from 2015, once the expansion drops) for everyone.

Since the big boss battles are a core feature of the game, they should’ve made sure the technology was there. As it stands, the greatest consumer PC in the world will be crippled by the large crowds (that are forced to occur via game mechanics) in GW2, and the effects/lighting aren’t even that impressive.

My complaint doesn’t help? I’m complaining for the sake of improvement. I want the game engine to be improved. What do you want? To call people liars when the game doesn’t run well? If we all complained, ANet would be more inclined to improve the game engine. Is that not something you want?

Gibon.1705:

@ATI/AMD – I knew that AMD bought ATI but that does not matter, AMD processors are kittenty too They are both making hardware that in theory has better stats than intel/nvidia but are not as efficient. (maybe with exception of the latest radeon series)

Less good =/= bad.

Without AMD, Intel and Nvidia would have exploited a monopolistic stranglehold in their respective industries, forcing us to pay more for less innovation. Yes, their CPUs are behind, and their GPUs produce more heat and use more power, but that doesn’t mean you should write AMD off entirely.

Whether you like them or not, they are good for the industry, and they haven’t committed anywhere near as many shady things as Intel and NVidia in order to get ahead.

Gibon.1705:

As ATI hater

ATI is no longer. AMD bought ATI and now produce their GPUs. So, yeah. Shows how much you know!

Gibon.1705:

It USED to have really bad optimalization back 1.5year ago but now its really fine. At least for everyone I know.

Listen to this (1 month ago):

I’ve got the 4790k @ 4,6ghz and believe it doesn’t go over 80% with GW2.
There’s always a huge drop in FPS, I go from 40-60 fps to 7-11 on full maps world bosses. (Karka, Svanir)
GPU: GTX770

So even an overclocked 4790k with GTX770 is reportedly getting 40-60 fps, down to 7-11 at times! And I’ve seen other people saying similar things.

That processor is practically the best single-threaded one money can buy in 2015.

I was looking at getting one for Heart of Thorns, but if I don’t get >60fps at all times with the greatest processor money can buy, there’s a problem with the game.

Don’t give me this bs that “the game’s fine afaik”, you’re not helping anyone. We need Anet to get on this and improve the game for the sake of everyone.

There have been a few threads about this since the announcement, and I am interested in it myself. Unfortunately, no word from Anet.

I’ve been trying out GW2 with the Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) feature that came with *AMD*’s omega drivers. I understand that NVidia users have a similar option called DSR (Dynamic). I’m using the highest one I can, 3200×1800. This is being downscaled to my 1080p monitor.

Unfortunately there are two problems with this setup:

• The mouse position isn’t registering properly. When using the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the world map, the mouse is treated as though it is actually on a 1080p window of the game, which takes up about 2/3rds of the actual screen. So if the mouse is at the bottom or on the right hand side of the screen, the scrolling won’t register. Also, you actually zoom in to a point that is offset south-east of the actual mouse position.
• The UI is too small. I have it set to “Largest” in the graphics options menu, but it’s still a little smaller than I’d like, and the text is slightly hard to read. In an ideal world I’d actually be going up to 4k, and this problem would be even worse.

The mouse-mapping needs to take downscaling into account, and the UI needs to have more extreme scaling options.

sminkiottone.6972:

Tom Gore.4035:

haresean.3856:

Tom Gore.4035:

Drop your detailed model display count to low or lowest and you’ll see huge improvements in your FPS.

However that increases your framerate, I would never do that because I would hate to see everyone wear the same armour.

Well here we come to the problem. People expect to be able to run a hundred super-detailed, unique character models on the screen with silky smooth 60+ FPS. Again, show me ONE game that can do it today.

So far I’ve only gotten some non-comparable examples of single-player games. Those comparisons just don’t apply, so try again.

ESO, with better graphic, more people and more effects on screen runs better than GW2.

Exactly, ESO pretty much shuts down the whole “buh i hav to load 100s of unique character!” arugment.

Apart from the fact that, it shouldn’t be our jobs as consumers to make the game run smoothly. If the devs want huge battles with 100s of unique-looking players, it’s their job to make sure the technology supports that. As it stands, even the best systems with the latest components have a tough time running GW2 smoothly even though it’s years old.

GeDoSaTo (or Generic Downsampling Tool) created by the dude who made DSFix (Durante), is another way to do this kind of thing.

Until the recent (Omega) drivers, AMD users were unable to downscale, and even now that they can, I prefer to use GeDoSaTo due to its great tweaking and wide array of other features.

I’ve never tried it with GW2, but it seems to work with every DX game. If you want some help setting it up you can PM me.

LINK.

That looks like 3D has been enabled. Isn’t there a stereoscopic option in the graphics options menu?

Yeah, the point is that GW2 doesn’t look good enough to warrant the kind of system it demands to run it smoothly. This means it is poorly optimised, which is something that needs to be fixed.

Behellagh.1468:

But you will need Dx12 video cards to run all of Dx12. Dx11.x cards will not support all Dx12 features.

So as a developer do you target the portion of Dx12 that is supported by existing Dx11 hardware? Whose hardware? Intel’s embedded GPU on Haswell or Ivy Bridge? Does the renderer need to be structured differently to maximize Dx12 performance compared to maximizing for Dx11?

Honestly some people here are over simplifying the problem. It’s just not replacing calls to Dx9 with Dx11, Dx12, mantle and poof, super improved performance.

I think you are missing some information. Here is a quote from Microsoft about it, from this article.

“The power and frame rate wins we demonstrated come from improvements in CPU usage in the OS runtime and device drivers. And this was on DX11 devices.”

Bearing in mind these performance boosts with DX12 are apparently up to 50% , things look pretty good.

Rashy.4165:

What people are actually saying, without really saying it: 30-40 FPS is playable, but I want 60FPS because reasons (I had different wording for this, but decided to tone it down). It’s the same thing with resolution (minimum 1080p, some are even going as far as to claim the minimum is 1440p for a “good” computer).

“Because reasons”. What are you implying here? That it’s arbitrary? Illogical? Not grounded in reality? 60 FPS is objectively better than anything below it. It’s the standard on PC, and any developers that fail to meet it are doing a disservice to their players.

Rashy.4165:

The main reason for the low performance on high end systems: DirectX 9. ArenaNet is targeting ultra-low end systems without really considering high end system capabilities. When they started developing GW2, that was a valid reason.

When GW2 first game out I had an ultra-low system. I Had an Intel Q6600, which was a pretty solid quad core, but fairly old. GW2 ran terribly. I upgraded my GPU from the old NVidia one I was using to a Radeon HD 7870 and it still ran terribly. Granted, I could put some settings up a bit, but there’s no stopping the CPU bottleneck in LA or other high-people-density areas.

GW2’s performance is bad across the board, on any hardware because the engine is poorly optimised, which- by definition- means that it makes poor use of any hardware components available.

Zaklex.6308:

Go read the preview announcement again, not everyone will be given a free upgrade to Win10 from older versions. Some people that are running Win7 and Win 8/8.1 will/are still going to have to pay for an upgrade.

Source on that? According to this page, everyone will get an upgrade, the only exceptions being some weird small print.

We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

…

*Hardware and software requirements apply. No additional charge. Feature availability may vary by device. Some editions excluded. More details at http://www.windows.com.

Seems like as long as your hardware can run it, you’ll be eligible for the free upgrade within the first year of release. And I can’t see the system requirements being too much different from 8/8.1.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

correct me if I’m wrong but does x32 architecture not limit also amount of CPU cores that game can use?

I’m looking currently on usage of each core with game launched and last of my 4 cores is barely used and sometimes even paused in work cause of no serious work to do while first core is a little bit loaded by a game

No I think that’s just a result of the lack of thread-safe code in the engine.

Okay, well first of all it’s not a “little” difference. The number of frames being displayed each second is being split in half. If you only see a little difference when the number of updates you get to see is being literally doubled… (Read: 100% increase), I would say that is your problem.

Secondly, these are mere videos. When you are actually controlling the action (like you do in games), it helps when your actions are being represented as smoothly and losslessly as possible. When your computer drops down to 30fps from 60, you’re missing half of the data. Your brain has to make up and interpolate what is happening between each frame, which is detrimental to game-feel, and immersion. The lower the time between each frame is, the better experience you get.

Thirdly, this is all besides the point. The point is that Guild Wars 2 is poorly optimised. There is no machine on the market that can run it with complete smoothness. That would be the expected outcome, if the game actually looked great and had state-of-the-art technology, but it’s not. GW2’s engine is a poor effort from Anet.

When I play Guild Wars 2, I want a great experience in all areas. I don’t just want a functional one. That’s a pretty low bar to set. “Well, it works! We’re done here.”

Games are technology just as much as they are art. When I play GW2, I really enjoy the game-design, art design and lore, but the other half- the technical side- is very disappointing, and it detracts from the overall feel of the game. Instead of getting a great experience, I get a sub-par one. An amazing world, marred by technological inefficiencies that should not be still present two and a half years after the game released. (especially considering the game is to live on well beyond 2015 with the expansion)

lordkrall.7241:

Oh, so getting lower than 60 FPS = crippled computer?

Yes, on a game that looks like it’s from 2010 (technologically), the best machine money can buy in 2015 should be able to 144Hz it.

Heck I don’t even see a difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS.

Okay.

LINK

See it now?

LINK 2

How about now?

The jiterring and choppiness are detrimental to a smooth, responsive and overall enjoyable playing experience. 30FPS is generally unnacceptible in my eyes because of this. The only time 30fps is arguably acceptible is when it looks beyond amazing. Example 1, Example 2.

lordkrall.7241:

dutchy.3175:

I love this game but the performance of it is the monster under the bed. Server wide events and WvW cripple any computer. New content is really nice but I really would like stable FPS during chaotic battle. 64 bit and dx 11 pretty pretty please, with sugar on top.

Huh? I wonder what I play on then, because it is rather unusual for any of that to “cripple my computer”.

I find this difficult to believe. Nobody gets a steady 60 in this game. Here is an excerpt from a post I wrote on another thread:

Look at this video, of someone with a 4790k, the best single-thread performing CPU on the market. And a GTX 780, a high-end video card that released a year after Guild Wars 2. A card that can achieve 60FPS in Metro: Last Light Only getting up to ~90FPS in GW2 (not even the most intensive city either), and the GPU is only using 60-80% of its power, meaning the best single-thread CPU in the world is bottle-necking it…

Bear in mind that the frame-rate drops below 60 at times, even in this relatively empty city area. As soon as you start going to places with high densities of people, you will never see 60 on this machine. A machine that has arguably the best CPU money can buy for GW2.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the 4790k could handle the game perfectly well, only the engine makes poor use of it. Most people with CPU bottlenecks on multi-core CPUs report low CPU usage when playing GW2 (from say, task manager’s resource monitor).

Fair enough. Guess Anet have their work cut out for them!

abomally.2694:

That would involve re-writing the game engine.

Are you sure? I’m pretty sure the API is a separate thing to the game engine. Sure, they communicate a lot and in an intricate way, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel just to put it on a different car.

Ansau.7326:

I’m not assuming: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic
In minute 8 of this video they say it took them 6 months with a full team dedicated to it, just to implement new tecnologies in gw1 engine, even before they created the engine for gw2.

You’re kind of misrepresenting what they said. What they were talking about is how they prototyped the ‘heart’ system in GW1. That has nothing to do with graphics programming. The 6 months was how long they spent testing out the new ‘quests’ system. They didn’t say anything about how long it took to do the graphics updates.

Ansau.7326:

Finally, and to end this discussion, despite the game engine and API used, the game is already 2.5 years old, and a lot of performance improvements have been made over this time.

It’s kinda sad, really. I wish I was a graphics programmer. I would totally apply to work at Anet and fix them up a DX12 version of GW2. Because, honestly I think the game is great. The ideas and mechanics are really enjoyable.

As it stands though, I’ve only done high level stuff like game mechanics programming in C++, so… sorry guys, it aint happening!

Brother Grimm.5176:

It’s highly unlikely ANY game developer would attempt to re-write their existing game engine to completely revamp the performance of a 2.5 year old game.

Who’s asking them to re-write the engine? Adding in support for a newer API isn’t quite that big of a task.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Anyone expecting a 4K display to run at a HIGHER frame rate than what you can normally get at standard HD resolutions, does not understand how graphics in a PC work….at all.

What’s this in reference to? I don’t remember seeing anyone talking about 4k? GW2 could probably be fine on 4k, anyway. Usually the GPU handles higher resolutions, not the CPU. Guild Wars has CPU issues, so upgrading your GPU to accommodate for higher resolutions should already work fine.

Ansau.7326:

What we are trying to say is that, even the game needs better optimization, it won’t happen. It would need tons of resources and time to achieve that, and the need to code a new game engine, which could literally take years.

I don’t think a whole new game engine is required. I mean, yeah it would probably help a ton, but too much work. I think a new API, on the other hand, could be implemented within a few months, but I am not a graphics programmer, so I am just estimating here based on assumptions. The thing is, though, I think you are, too.

Ansau.7326:

The more I read, the more I think the problem is in the game engine, not the API. Gw2 began development in 2007, back then the game engine was fresh and new, dx11 wasn’t launched yet and dx10 only supported vista.
This game engine has major problems than dx9 exclusivity, like it doesn’t support 64 bits, so no more than 2GB of ram can be used, or since they use deferred renderer, hardware antialiasing methods don’t work well and there are problems and bandwidth bottleneck when using multiple materials.

It might well be that the engine is the bigger problem, but you are missing something that I will discuss below. Also, 32-Bit applications can use up to 4GB ram I think, not 2GB.

Ansau.7326:

So, will a new API help solving performance problems? Now I doubt it. Here are some examples of games that have both dx9 and dx11 implementations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fOj7U_sVMc

That guy’s conclusion was pretty much “yeah DX11 is better in general.” It’s not a big enough improvement to warrant a team of graphics devs upgrading GW2 though. Not for DX11, anyway.

But DirectX 12, could be the salvation. Microsoft are reporting better use of both the GPU and (more importantly for GW2) the CPU. Apparently there’s up to 50% performance boosts. If GW2 could get a boost like that, just from implementing DX12, it would be phenomenal. Definitely worth the dev time imo.

[Continuation since I ran out of characters…]

What if I wanted to fork out and buy a system that runs GW2 on a 144Hz monitor? You can’t. You literally cannot buy the hardware to achieve this. It doesn’t exist. The game demands hardware so much more powerful that it’s worth. The game does not look good enough to deserve that powerful of a system!

Also…

mambastik.8735:

Ansau.7326:

Try this:
- Monitor cpu and gpu temperatures (should be lower than 85ºC).
- Make sure your cores are unparked (look for google if you don’t know how to do it)
- The gpu has to be placed into the closest pci-e line to cpu and running at x16.
- In graphic options put frame limiter to unlimited.
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Low-FPS-100-usage-and-minimal-CPU-usage/first#post4731885 That guy has similar hardware than you and enabling VT-d seemed to solve his problem.

Thanks for the quick reply. I do have all those checked. Both cpu and gpu are <60c, so thermal throttling is out. I did apply the patch which unparks the cores, did not set an fps limit, the gpu is installed at x16, and my VT-d was set to enabled by default (tested it with it disabled but got same results). My mobo is linked here. I’m gonna have to keep going through bios and see what things I can change, at this point I really have no idea what’s going on.

And because my cpu is pretty much locked at 35-40% usage, any overclock provides 0 fps gain.

When did this become a tech support thread?

Behellagh.1468:

but you ignore that WoW had an order of magnitude or more income for multiple years before their Dx10/11 and 64-bit upgrade came out. We are talking Scrooge McDuck piles of money here. My point was that they could have had more programmers than ANet has in it’s entirety tasked solely on rebuilding the engine over multiple years.

I’m ignoring it because it’s irrelevant. Every other game that is created has the budget for graphics programming. It’s a necessity. Using the latest DX version is a basic standard, to provide paying consumer with the best technology. We will be paying for the expansion, but the game still incorporates technology a decade old. Technology with readily available updates, that accommodate for people with all kinds of system configurations. And an API update could easily be included as part of the cost of the expansion.

To have a game release in 2015 with an API from 2002 is, in my eyes, a colossal failure from Anet to provide the consumer with acceptable technological standards. Granted, it’s only an expansion of a game that’s actually three years old, but it’s still ridiculous. I don’t care if they need to hire a graphics team. The game performs disappointingly on all systems.

Ansau.7326:

You have an interpretation problem if from making the game more alive a proper it you understand better performance… All I’ve seen is new content, but nothing is about improving game performance.

I never said they were going to improve performance, I’m trying to argue that they should.

Ansau.7326:

And about the time, note that the engine of this game is anet owns, they created it. Coding for any other API would require a full team of programmers working for maybe 1 year. It’s not a thing devs can do at the same time they develop the new expansion.

I’m not sure it would require a ‘full team’ (how many is a full team, anyway?), but if that’s what it takes to have up-to-date technology, that’s what I expect from them. Y’know, seeing as they are a professional/experienced video game developer and all that.

Ansau.7326:

Souces about WoW problems are all over the internet, just search wow dx11 w8…

Just because a few thousand cases of hardware problems comes up on Google, doesn’t mean it’s a majority problem. Out of the millions of players and hardware configurations that run WoW, obviously some people are going to have issues. For those people, we will help them through it, or they can continue to experience the game in DX9 (read: like they have been doing this whole time!) until they can get a change of hardware.

Ansau.7326:

Again, the fact that new APi’s allow better graphics doesn’t mean a game will have them. You need to code the new things, which will take even more time. Porting a game to a new API is what most games have done, and there’s no graphic difference.

No, but it’s likely that a newer API will use everyone’s hardware better and more efficiently to improve performance inherently.

Ansau.7326:

About the graphic level, again, gw2 only has performance problems when there are +50 people combating on your screen. But in open world, in dungeons, while roaming… performance is quite good. Hell I’m getting 70-80 fps in pve maps with a midrange pc.

Depends what you consider to be performance problems. Considering how the game looks, a high-end system should always be running at >60fps. Also you should be getting more than that with a mid-range PC, because GW2 is less than a mid-range-looking game. I know that MMOs generally look worse than other games but honestly GW2 feels just like GW1 but with higher texture resolutions and a fresh art design.

Ansau.7326:

And if you feel the game doesn’t look good, then be our master and develop a wonderful game ngine that will blow our eyes.

This argument is a violation of Ebert’s law.

Ansau.7326:

If you could post your pc… but I think I already know where they come all those complains.

Look at this video, of someone with a 4790k, the best single-thread performing CPU on the market. And a GTX 780, a high-end video card that released a year after Guild Wars 2. A card that can achieve 60FPS in Metro: Last Light Only getting up to ~90FPS in GW2 (not even the most intensive city either), and the GPU is only using 60-80% of its power, meaning the best single-thread CPU in the world is bottle-necking it…

Ansau.7326:

Even if they move or implement, this would require a lot of time, and what I tried to say is if they didn’t do it in the developing state, they pretty much won’t do it now. That would require months of coding, and with the new expansion and their policy of new content, something would need to be stopped for a long time.

How do you know they won’t do it now? With the announcement of the “first” expansion (as it says on the official website), it appears that they want the game to live on and prosper. You say it would take months of coding, well the expansion also won’t be here for months, and the people who are working on that are not the same as the graphics engineers needed to implement a new API, it’s not like they’d get in each other’s way, it’s completely separate departments.

Ansau.7326:

And funny you talk about wow, a lot of people have reported worse performance in dx11 than dx9, even in W8 dx11 crashes and people has to use dx9 to play. Which means the problem is not the API, but the game code, how it’s designed and coded. So bringing gw2 to dx11 or dx12 is not garanteed to have better performance.

Source? I find it difficult to believe that this is not just a scarce minority of cases. Each iteration of DirectX is generally an across-the-board improvement. Hell, just look at this line from the wiki page about v11.1:

Direct3D 11.1 includes new feature level 11_1, which brings minor updates to the shader language, such as larger constant buffers and optional double-precision instructions, as well as improved blending modes and mandatory support for 16-bit color formats to improve the performance of entry-level GPUs such as Intel HD Graphics

…Even the relatively poor Intel GPUs were getting some love in what is currently one of the latest versions of DX.

Ansau.7326:

If you want better performance, get better hardware, welcome to pc gaming I mean, the game is quite graphically complex and it’s a MMO, so a minimum hardware is required.

I’m very familiar with PC gaming, thank you very much, and that’s how I know that a game released in 2012 that looks like a game from 2010 should run at >90fps on hardware from 2013. What you’re arguing is besides the point.

The game isn’t graphically complex, that’s the problem. If it was graphically complex, like with realistic lighting and tesellation and super high-res textures, then I’d be like, “Okay, you can make my system chug a bit, at least you earned it with your good looks.”

The art design is spectacular, but the graphics technology is basic. I know that it’s an MMO, but let’s just look at Crysis 2 for a second, a game that came out a year earlier than GW2. Look at the complex shading, the motion blur, the detailed textures. Guild Wars 2 barely looks half as good, but it runs twice as bad. That’s not how it should work.

Ansau.7326:

so using dx9 or a different API won’t improve them.

Well apparently Microsoft are boasting 50% performance improvements with DX12, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who’s making things up when Win10 drops.

Behellagh.1468:

Do not underestimate what $1,000,000,000 a year in income can buy you toward development…

It’s no excuse. I buy an expansion pack for a game in 2015, I expect it NOT to come with a graphics API that’s from 2002. Especially when you consider that there have been multiple signifigant improvements with that very technology since then.

Everyone who’s getting the expansion will be paying for it, and it’s expected that part of that cost goes into graphics technology, as it does with every other game you buy ever.

I want to buy the expansion. I want it to be great. The aesthetics, lore and gameplay of GW2 are so good, and will be even better in the expansion… But I don’t want to go through the same disappointment as GW2, where the technology is 10 years behind, and runs as smooth as a tractor on a road of a million potholes, with a machine built the year the game came out.

I think that in general, there’s a certain standard that today’s games should meet in terms of performance. After all, games are just as much art as they are technology. It’s easy to see how GW2:HoT will be an objectively poor game if you factor in the weight that technology has on enjoyability of games. I will likely resort to calling it that, “a bad game”, if the peformance is not resolved, and it’s a real shame.

Ansau.7326:

I don’t think so. They already explained why they kept to dx9, so people with older systems could still play it. Moving the game to dx12 would go in the opposite direction from the one they took.

This is based on a misconception. The game wouldn’t move over from DX9, the game could support both APIs at once, where users select which one to run from the graphics options menu. This is what WoW has done.

Apart from the fact that using a more efficient API would work better on all systems, allowing more people to attain playable experiences with poorer hardware configurations.

Ansau.7326:

Also, the performance has improved quite a lot since the release. I remember having less than 10fps in soft ZvZ with my laptop at release, last year I could get 10-13fps while recording big ZvZ and nowadays I don’t drop 17fps from recording the same.

Okay, good, I’m glad it’s improved, but It’s still not good enough.

Ansau.7326:

With this better optimization and the fact that in next years it is expected big hardware improvements, in both cpu (Skylake and Zen) and gpu (r9 300/Pascal and new HBM memory), moving to a much newer graphic API will not be primordial, not when nowadays an i5 + 200 bucks range gpu has solid +60fps at ultra anywhere besides ZvZ and big bosses…

We shouldn’t need state of the art hardware to smoothly run a game that looks like it’s from pre-2010 (technologically).

(Just to clarify, I’m not trying to bash on the game out of frustration. I like the aesthetic and colours of GW2. But the lighting, the shaders, just the technology in general, holds the game back, and probably holds the art devs back as well, which is obviously very unfortunate).

Feirlista Xv.1425:

Most likely not, DX12 according to Microsoft will only be released in Windows10 you may not see to many existing games being reworked for DX12 and Windows10 any time soon after the Windows8 fiasco

Microsoft will be offering free upgrades to Win10 from 7 and 8/8.1 for the first year after 10’s release. I know for sure I will take that opportunity. Maybe I will wait a month or two for bugs to be ironed out, but yeah, sounds good.

Also, Windows 8.1 is fine. I like it more than 7, and I think it is objectively better as well (in terms of background processes/services hogging the CPU).

I think adding DX12 into the mix for GW2 for better performance and future-proofing would be a really good move.

Astralporing.1957:

Coelho Nat.4697:

Also, you have only 4 Gb memory. It is too few even for softer programs nowadays.

Doesn’t matter, we already know that gw2.exe is 32bit and can’t address that much anyway.

Well if you only have 4GB of RAM total, that needs to cover GW2, your OS, and whatever background programs/services you have running at the same time. This means you’re probably not giving GW2 the full 4GB. Maybe it doesn’t need it all anyway, just thought I’d point that technicality out. I would assume in general it’s better to have slightly too much ram than too little though.

Peril of Darkness.9830:

Targeting DX12 doesn’t magically fix things. It opens up the ability to more efficiently use the cores available on the processor, and appears to have more low-level adjustments available. This means that a lot of time spent and optimizing would be necessary. Yes, it would in theory be nice, but the upcoming content looks good and should be enjoyable regardless.

I’m no graphics programmer, but I would assume that many of the actions that (Guild Wars 2’s implementation of) DX9 attempts to do, would be done more efficiently with a later DX, especially DX12 which has been rewritten from the ground up to give drastically improved performance across the board.

These are APIs, these are what communicate with the hardware and tell it how to render things. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d assume that DX12 can communicate more efficiently, regardless of what’s being asked.

Arhon.1638:

A change to DirectX can wait for years to come, what we really need is a change from 32-bit code to 64-bit code because the 32-bit code severely limits what you can do and how much RAM you can use when its become standard to have 8GB-16GB RAM nowdays.

Currently with 32-bit code the maximum it can use is 4GB RAM as state to the Guild Wars 2 System Requirements.

Guild Wars 2 has been made from the ground up with the 4GB RAM requirement in-mind. If they’ve managed to do what they have so far with that limit, I think they’re fine. You’d have to ask the developers if they ever came across a scenario where they were saying “oooh, if only we had more RAM to use here.”

As for “the 32-bit code severely limits what you can do and how much RAM” mind being more specific on these limits? Because it sounds like something made-up. I’ve only ever heard that x64 offers extra RAM over x32, nothing else.

Rainmaker.7594:

They actually did increase performance a bit over the past 2 years. The patch during the marionette time-period doubled my zerg fps in that event on an AMD FX-8150 (OC to 4.0). There were other smaller performance increases a few times too.

Yeah I’ve read about that, might have to boot up the game again just to see how things are. I’m on an FX-8350 @ 4.4GHz so things might be good.

Khenzy.9348:

64bit support is what you want. And then you can start from there. It’s not going to happen any time soon, sadly.

Doesn’t that just give you extra ram? Is that needed? What we want is better low-level use of our components. Guild wars 2 is a good looking game… aesthetically but not graphically (technologically). So it makes no sense that it runs like tosh. It seems like (given the early performance reports by Microsoft) if it was running on DX12, this problem would be almost completely absolved.

Celestina.2894:

and is exactly what some vets might want and need to hear first before returning.

That’s exactly why I’m here. I haven’t played the game in over two years because of the performance problems I was having. I heard about the expansion yesterday, and it sounds really cool! If they add on top of that an upgrade to DX12, I will be back on my necromancer in a heartbeat.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Rashy.4165:

In addition, Windows 7 and 8 users get a free upgrade to Windows 10. Older cards will support DX12.

“There will be DX 11.1 cards that take advantage of a lot of the driver and software tech that we’re bringing in Windows 10, but if you want the full benefits of DX12, you’re going to need a DX12 card.”

http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/22/7874793/directx-12-wont-require-a-new-graphics-card-after-all

Anyways its not my problem. PS. they released today gtx 960.

I feel like what you quoted sounds slightly less optimistic. Throw this in there (from the same article):

“The power and frame rate wins we demonstrated come from improvements in CPU usage in the OS runtime and device drivers. And this was on DX11 devices.”

…And suddenly everyone running DX11 cards (which is probably most of us) is very happy.

(Bearing in mind these performance boosts with DX12 are apparently up to 50% ).

lordkrall.7241:

Visiroth.5914:

Microsoft is offering win10 & DX12 as a free upgrade to win7 users so that point is moot.

Keep in mind however that not everyone might want/be able to to upgrade. Also keep in mind that not everyone is using Windows 7 or 8.1.

The game still works on XP and (I assume) Vista after all.

Also keep in mind that many games (Most relevant example being WoW) can run with multiple API’s simultaneously, where each individual user can choose which one runs best (or at all) for them.

Meaning that the implementation of DX12 would be in addition to DX9 and only be a benefit to the game, not detrimental in any way.

My suggestion was conceived when I was thinking about how cool it would be to permanently have free waypoint travel. (PFWT)

Forgive me for my ignorance, for example if this is already available, or if there’s some blatant reason it should never be implemented, (I’m not completely knowledgeable about the game!) but I think it could be a great endgame goal. Also forgive me if something similar has been suggested/requested before, I don’t lurk here much.

So I figured that you wouldn’t want it so that every player has achieved PFWT, and didn’t have to pay for any waypoints they use. This would mean that the method for unlocking this awesome power would be long and arduous, not for the feint hearted.

It would be cool if it was a really long and difficult quest that not many people tried or even completed. The thing I am thinking of right now is The Villainy of Galrath. This quest was nowhere near impossible, but it was difficult to find a group good enough to do it, I managed to get to Galrath himself once, but failed at killing him, then people left etc. and I never managed to complete that quest.

I think not many people attempted Galrath due to the lack of rewards, (I think it was just EXP and a weapon) but it was so epic, it took you right through the dark and dingy undead swamps of Kryta and eventually out into the open fields on cliffs by the water, where you could see the floating Wizard’s Tower.

If this were to come to fruition, a great balance between difficulty and the reward I suggested would have to be in place. I don’t mind how hard it is as long as it’s not impossible. I wouldn’t even mind if it took weeks to do (say the quest was split into multiple parts: Part 1- get ancient artifact. Part 2- Wait for ancient artifact to ‘awaken’ and give clues to what Part 3 might be. Etc.)

I just think there’s a lack of ‘Galrath-caliber’ quests and such quests desire great rewards. I would be so determined to overcome even the most difficult content to get free waypoint access. The great thing is that the sky’s the limit where difficulty is concerned aswell, you aren’t alienating players from content, (I suppose you’d be making them pay for waypoints because they’re ‘bad’ or don’t have the time to invest in such a quest(chain), but you could argue that waypoints aren’t a huge cost anyway, and those that play the game less end up paying less for waypoints too!)

So my suggestion: a really difficult quest/chain with a really awesome reward.

I hope I have provided some compelling reasons/ideas to get such an awesome quest in the game and of course earning permanent free waypoints would be like walking into the gates of heaven…whatever that’s like.

NvN.4321:

There is a reason that it’s called rifle. Did you ever shot from rifle holding it near your eyeball?

I don’t mean pressing it against my eye, I mean simply looking down the scope, which you can’t do whilst the rifle is down by your stomach.

Soon I intend to obtain a new processor, (When the AMD FX-8350 arrives in the UK) and I expect to finally be able to have a smooth experience in this game. (currently on a Q6600@3GHz) When this happens I’ll be creating a new character- an Engineer- and I’ll be aiming for the Legendary Rifle. I noticed it would make an awesome sniper so that’s how I’d like to play.

I have watched videos on-line and noticed that Engineers hold the rifle down by their hip/stomach which, obviously does not follow with my fantasy. (As a Sniper, I’d hold the scope up to my eye, and aim more precisely.)

I have noticed that Warriors take a more… appropriate… stance with the rifle, but they wear heavy armour and don’t use bombs and such. Engineer is definitely the way I want to go in terms of looks and playstyle.

So on to my suggestion…

How about some different weapon stances? These wouldn’t have to have any actual effect on combat, and just be animations for cosmetic reasons.

For example:
Holding the rifle up to the eye.
Holding the rifle with only your left arm and extended.
Holding the rifle with only your right arm and extended.

(I understand the final two are a little unrealistic but would look really cool!)

It would be great if you could just switch between these at any time when out of combat and it might just spice things up if you’ve been using the same weapon for a while, especially as this game looks so great on ‘max settings’.

You could even incorporate it as “Rifle Training” or something, which people would pay for (or even have people complete little events to prove their Rifle proficiency and earn rifle ranks).

So yeah… pretty simple suggestion, ’hope it at least sparks some thought.

Thanks for reading.

ulukaiulukai.2584:

That’s your problem right there.

What do you mean that’s my problem? Surely this is the best way to illustrate the effect of the FoV change?

That gif is awesome!

MajorMelchett.6042:

Gazareth.7230:

Contrary to information from posts of others, the horizontal viewable area doesn’t change. I can of course zoom-out one more ‘notch’ in the client with the beta change enabled, and I can see more in the horizontal direction- but this is zooming out. not an increased hFoV.

You don’t see the extra horizontal in those pics because of the close range pillars, look at my post above yours (check the top and bottom pics) – at long distance (and middle distance) you can actully see more horizontal despite them both having the exact same zoom position.
-
Also this pic posted earlier by steffan show it best.
http://sh2606.bplaced.net/comparison.jpg

Firstly, surely I would see more round the sides of the pillars, if the FoV was increased?

Secondly, I believe all three of your images have (at least) slightly different zoom distances.

Finally, I really don’t understand steffan’s image. Why is he comparing his 1080p image to a 1580×889? Of course a 1080p image should have a greater FoV, as the screen is generally larger.

In some of my previous posts I argued that there is no distinction between ‘zooming out’ and this change. I decided to test this out by taking a screenshot in each mode with my camera in the same position (zoomed-in one ‘notch’ in the ‘changed’ client).

In comparing these two images you can clearly see the effect that the Vertical FoV change has on the game. Contrary to information from posts of others, the horizontal viewable area doesn’t change. I can of course zoom-out one more ‘notch’ in the client with the beta change enabled, and I can see more in the horizontal direction- but this is zooming out. not an increased hFoV.

This vFoV change hardly does anything, I hope you have fixed whatever bug you were trying to fix, but I would really like to see more horizontally.

(in the second image, the sylvari on the right seems to lose his clothes! wtf!?)

Pluton.7364:

1 screen is default 75° h-FOV (47° v-FOV)
2 screen is beta test 85° h-FOV (55° v-FOV)
3 screen is “comfortable” 90° h-FOV (59° v-FOV)

my 2c

nineti pls.

Seriously though, when I was in-game I BARELY noticed the improvement when using the beta vFoV. I’m not sure if my game isn’t producing the effect correctly but I was only able to definitively distinguish the screenshots when I put them side by side.

With all these extremely positive posts, some of which come close to, e.g. “Thanks Anet this is the best thing that ever happened to the world!”. It makes me think there is some kind of placebo effect going on. I mean really? I couldn’t even tell the difference when in-game, yet you guys think this is a huge improvement?

I’m not trying to attack people here, I’m trying to attack the issue: I felt no more comfortable with the new FoV (or at least I didn’t realise it was more comfortable, I only played for about 15 mins) than the default. I would like it to be increased, to see if it starts to feel great at about 90 like the quote suggests.

I also still don’t see how people are distinguishing between ‘zooming out’ and ‘increased FoV’. I provide two images: one with and one without the FoV change, it is clearly a very similar image, it just looks like the edges have been cropped from one, as though the camera has simply moved towards the character a short distance.