Thank you SO much! I started playing a few weeks ago and have always had terrible fps even with everything on low.
Now I run the game with medium textures and get +55fps. Only dipping during zergs.
I also tried this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/FPS-and-Performance-based-issues-1
I found your write up a little hard to read at points. Basically for others having trouble.
Right click GW2 desktop icon > Properties
Change the Target Path to [“c:\\…..\GW2.exe” -nosound] without the [ ] and a space after the second “ .
I found I had to type " -nosound" manually as copy and pasting from this thread did not work.
My system:
Intel E8500 Duo 3.16GHz
4GB Ram
GeForce 460 GTX
All components apart from the GPU (which is still second hand) have been part of my computer for over 5 years. So like OP, also using old and very used components.