Guild Wars 2

I can tell the my 2010 MBP (15 inch i5 2.4GHz, Geforce GT330m) ran at 80-85C while gaming.
I played a lot of games and it never had any problems, often long sessions like 5 hours or so a few days a week. (WHen I say “ran” is because I traded it for a MBA some month ago)

Fullscreen windowed mode is not implemented in transgamings wrapper system and the only solution would be for GW2 to support custom resolution at the moment.

The mid 2010 MBP with Core 2 has an NVidia 320M, which is an integrated chipset graphics. This is even bare minimum even in bootcamp.

You might squeeze out a few extra FPS in bootcamp, but you’ll never get a stable good FPS.

The 67xxM cards however are dedicated graphics and roughly five times faster than the 320M, and also coupled with second generation Core i5/i7 CPUs compared to the Core2 Duo, which overall will give a much better experience.

Unless aNet makes a native client you can only hope for a 10-20% performance increase in the Mac client.

The transgaming wrapping system Anet uses for GW2 has a performance tax compared to a native client, and if you can GW2 at 60FPS in bootcamp at decent settings it will run well on Mac too, however, if your machine only runs at 30FPS on low to mid settings, the performance tax might be too high to be worth playing in OSX.

I have an 2500k and i do 4.3GHz at 1.284V.
Are you still on stock cooling? I would not just lock it at 1.2V as most need more like 1.25V at 3.3GHz.

There are plenty of cheap coolers that are good, like CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO.

As long as your temps are ok, I wouldn’t worry much, and 2500k can run upto 1.52V according to intel, although I would recommend under 1.4

What is this with apple not supporting SL, because the do.

Summer 2011 SL all macs still shipped with SL. Lion only lasted 12 months before ML was released, which was a very short-lived OS version.

Apple would actually have legal issues with dropping support for SL after 12 months in many countries.
And do not compare win xp, which is from 2001, and SL which was released 2009.
SL support will stop eventually, but not this year.

Also since it is still supported you still get the security updates in Apple Update, so do not worry.

As for Anet deciding to not support SL, well I can understand that they don’t, they have a limited staff and should focus on getting the best possible support for the most recent OS

Varna.5162:

First time I’ve read that article VirtualBS.

Are these test for real? No difference between a i5-2500k @ 3.0 VS 4.0GHZ?

That would explain some stuff on my end… man, this game… :/

In WvW there is a huge difference. With my 4.2Ghz i5 my FPS goes down in the largest battles, and at the same time my GPU usage drops, so when the biggest battles goes on even a 4GHz+ quad core is struggling to keep 60 FPS.
Don’t get me wrong, an i5 @4GHz will be fully playable and responsive in the largest battles, but it will not be able to keep 60 FPS all the time, but i can live with drops to 40-45 FPS when the heat is really on.

The q6600 will be fine for most PVE, in WvW it will suffer a bit.

The 8600GT however is not up to the task. 8600GT is slower than the 7800GT which is minimum for GW2.

I would recommend getting a new graphics card, and possibly over clock the q6600.
For around $100-120 you can get something like a Geforce 550TI or a Radeon 6850, those will be able to bump up your frame rates pretty much. You could go higher, but then again you’ll be limited by your CPU.

The q6600 is one of the better over clockers, and I’ve seen people running it on 3.5Ghz and 3.0-3.2 Ghz should be doable with even modest cooling.

Also, many good advices in this thread already, and be sure you have enough power cables.

I’m pretty sure most 8600GT need one 6 pin power lead, which should be enough for 550TI and 6850, although some might need two.

There is also a 7750 which is slower than 6850 and 550TI, but it should be able to be used without additional power. It’s still miles faster than the 8600GT

I have a Norwegian one.
Link to all apple keyboard, with pictures: (official from apple)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2841?viewlocale=en_US

Hello!

First of, thanks for a mac client!

I have a little issue, sometimes the grass turns white.
It is not always doing this but from time to time, if I move it usually turns green again, but it is fairly annoying.

Here is a screenshot:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47547860/GW2WHITE.jpg

I’m running Mac OSX 10.8.1 and have an NVidia GTX 285

GTX650 isn’t out yet officially, as far as I know.
GTX550TI and 7770 is just about the same performance.
Also ln these cards, 2GB VRAM is usually worse than 1GB, because it often uses cheaper VRAM and no one of these cards can run at settings that needs more than 1GB anyways.

The GT640 is half the speed of the rest, but still twice as fast as the GT520.

For future references:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

VirtualBS.3165:

I was using the reference point of the GTX 670 for all my percentages. Anyway, this should give a precise comparison between GTX 670 vs AMD 7870:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=548

Also, between GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=647
660Ti and 7870: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/647?vs=548

@Tanira.8157: My list of components above is specific to the shop the op referred http://www.cclonline.com. The sniper.m3 is a great board for that price point, with a good audio and network chip — here’s the feature comparison between both:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck=2&pids=4140,4168
I also agree that the 660Ti is a great card, although a bit memory bandwidth starved.

Yeah, I agree it’s a nice board, but looking at what OP needs he can cut the price from 120 to 80 on a board without ever notice anything.

For mainstream boards from gigabyte (which i mean gives better value for money than asus, my personal opinion here)

GA-Z77-D3H, cheaper by 40gbp
You get VIA audio which is worse, no SLI support.
Atheros NIC, which should be fine.
A bit fewer OC settings. No cooling on VRMs (which should only matter if OCing much)

OCing with the new 3D UEFI bios on Gigabyte is very easy. It’s a menu where you can use mouse and you can do by just changing multiplier on the different turbo boosts. With low OC, like setting TB on 1-2 cores to x43 (4300mhz) and TB on 3 and 4 cores to x42 (4200mhz) can be done without any additional tweaking. I know some will say that you should never use those auto features, but mobo’s are more intelligent now and there is no need for it at low clocks. However, when you start to go beyond 4.5GHz on all cores you need to be more careful and preferably use manual settings.

As for graphics, 670 is the better card, but in GW2 i can assure you that you won’t notice the difference between them at all, unless you have a monster screen.

This would shave 110gbp of the price, although you get a slightly weaker build.

zqa the monk.6094:

Dam, thought this thread would’ve died out by now ? well I think I’m going to go for..

(ty virtual) on top of a monitor this leaves me with £30 left over of my 1k spending budget. So with this £30 are there any small improvements I can make to the list above or should I get windows 7 operating system?

You posted this just before I answered

Get a full ATX board, the sniper is fine, but it is a micro board, and expensive micro board. Z77-dh3 is a nice mainstream boards, or get a z77x board if you want it a bit more fancy.

And get a third party cooler, do it, just don’t ever think about getting a “k” CPU on a stock intel cooler!
Most tower coolers is more than enough, CM 212 EVO is a popular and cheap one, CM 412s is actually priced the same at that store, but it’s a bit bigger.

ZaxanRazor.6235:

A 660Ti is a lot more than 10% slower. It flat out struggles to get 60FPS in quite a few games, according to benchmarks. The 670 doesn’t.

The 660Ti is limited by memory bandwidth, which means that things like 8xMSAA is gonna kill it’s performance.

If you look at normal 1980×1080 res with either FXAA or 4xMSAA or lower, the 660TI is pretty much dead on the 670. In some games like Portal 2, it’s actually faster.

670 is however clearly the better card, but the 660ti is 220, (including borderlands 2 which sells for 40-50 new) and the 670 is 290 on the site they’re linking.

I have never tested them against each other myself, so my numbers is clearly based upon reviews I’ve read like:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/12
This review does also include 7950 and 7870 in the benchmarks, so you can compare against those too.

I do not own neither a GTX660TI or a GTX670, so I’m not biased, like most people are when it comes to stuff they have spent their money on.

I still have a GTX285, which I can confirm can run this game maxed at 50-60 FPS most of the time at 1680×1050 res. I do believe the client has had some improvements since the test toms hardware did. For reference this card is ranked between the 7770 and the GTX560 in toms hardware graphic card hierarchy.

Test that was linked: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-6.html

If one of the cards are 200 and the other is 300.
The ones that is 300, is 50% more expensive than 200.
However 200 is 33.3% cheaper than the one for 300.

Anyways, if the price target is 600GBP, then buying a 310GBP card is waste, because the rest of the system will have to seriously be cut down on.

The boards, sniper.m3 is a micro -atx board. You can also save 40 on getting a standard Z77 board, like GA-z77-d3h.

A 660Ti is about 10% slower than the 670, and costs 70 less. (and they give you a free Borderlands 2 copy, which you can probably sell for 30 or something).

If you are going for a “k” cpu, then not adding a third party cooler is a crime, a CM 212 EVO is less than 30GBP.

A 1.7GHz Clarksfield CPU and a GeForce 435M is just not gonna cut it for Guild Wars 2,
there isn’t much you can do except replace it.

Do NOT waste money on buying a very good graphics card for guild wars 2.

World vs World is CPU bound, even with a modest GPU.
I recently upgraded my machine, from a Core 2 (OC to 4.05GHz) to a i5 (OC to 4.30GHz)
I still have same gfx, but framerate is doubled in normal situations, and four times as good in WvW.
I have a GTX285, which is ancient.
In WvW my GPU use is anywhere from 50%-80%,
in the largest battles my GPU is used less, because my CPU can’t feed it.
Once the battles calm a bit, my GPU goes to 100% and FPS goes up again.
To be said, I always stay above 30 FPS and have 60 fps most of the time.

Unless you have a monster screen or play a lot of other games, don’t waste more money than a 560Ti or equivalent would cost you.

If you wanna save money on CPU get a i5-2500k, even my granny could oc it to 4.0GHz

I own around 100 mac games, where some are native, some are cider wrapped and some are even wrapped with wine.
Native games can be the best, they can achieve almost 100% of the performance in windows/d3d. OSX does use OpenGL, but have usually had old drivers, and old Open GL.
Snow Leopard f.ex does only support OpenGL 2.1, and even GeForce 8xxx series does support OpenGL 3.3, and those cards are from 2006.

The big native games for mac the last few years are valves source games (portal, team fortress, cs, good, l4d, etc) and might be the best mac games around.
The other big games are blizzard games. Wow have always had a mac client, and I’ve played since the start and there have been tons of issues. Feature that PC users got when Cata came, just got to mac users with the Mop patch. (Turning up liquid details and sun shafts while having AA..) The Mac 64 bit client doesn’t support in game video cutscenes, iTunes overlay and so forth. Don’t even wanna mention problems in Diablo 3.

Some native mac games like Crusader Kings 2 have never worked on my system at a playable setting, or have you ever tried Civ 5 multiplayer on a big map, I’ve been sitting at 5-10 FPS on a MacPro on the ends of the games. KIng’s Bounty series runs faster in wine for me than the native mac version.

When it comes to cider, there are several big games around, the Dragon Age series, Sims, Command and Conquer, GTA series, Warhammer Online, etc.
These games might not reach the performance of the best games available on Mac, but they are usually far better than some of the games.

Cider is a solution that makes updating and patching the client very easy for the devs, it requires less maintenance and does offer ok performance.

As for future improvements, I do not believe we’ll get a big boost on mac, unless the PC clients gets faster too. Cider does run at 70-80% of windows speed in best case scenarios, and on my system we’re already there.

Also, Guild Wars 2 was never announced as a mac game, but got a mac beta after launch, Anet is clear about this, but maybe some retailers try to milk it already.

Please!
I just retried this mission, still no go..

i think the kitten is censoring. If you write as then the number five, it says kitten instead of " ‘as’ ´5´" which could be a persons behind.
Same with Core i7-2600 with a “k” which could be goo and the letter..
So i7kitten is actually a i7-2600 with unlocked multiplier.

I guess some funny forum mod found out that this was a funny censor, which actually kinda makes some debates look stupid

I have a GTX285.
Before I had a E8500 @4.05GHz.
FPS 20-30, maybe 40 in quiet places.
WvW at 5-15 FPS

I swapped the E8500 for a i5-2500k@4.3GHz (mobo too)
FPS locked at 60 everywhere, except in WvW it’s now 30-60 depending on how huge the battle is. Actually in the biggest battles my GPU is only running at 60% load (90-100% load in medium sized battles), because the i5@4.3ghz is the bottleneck.. It seems GW2 can max 1-2 cores, but I never get full load on core 3-4

The game is clearly CPU bound and you need a i5/i7 at 4GHz + to unleash the full power of your GPU in WvW (if you have a decent GPU)

As for the GTS250, which is about half the speed of an GTX285 should be able to play pretty decent with a slight adjustment on graphics settings.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

10.6.8 is unsupported. You need to upgrade to either Lion or Mountain Lion, Apple only supports their most recent two operating systems (Lion and Mountain Lion) so Anet is doing the same.

Apple is still supporting SL, just yesterday there was released updates for SL.
According to the monthly steam hardware survey SL still has a 27% market share (and 2.6% runs 10.5), which means 1/3rd of the macs are unsupported by Apple?

However I can understand that a third party like Anet won’t support it, although the GW2 beta runs fine on SL

Got “hack”
Z77 chipset, Intel i5@4.3GHz
16 GB RAM
NVidia Geforce GTX285
OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
1680×1050 res screen

Running OSX 10.8.1 i have the FPS locked 60 FPS and get 50-60 FPS everywhere except in WvW where it goes down to 30 in heavy battles.

Pretty satisfied with the performance, estimating about 20% loss compared to win7.
Running most setting maxed, except post processing (which i prefer on low, else it too “glossy” for me)

I can confirm that this is an issues with Norwegian keys as well

I wouldn’t bother with more RAM, Gw2 runs happily on 4GB.
Your issue is the 9400.
Get and GTX560 or maybe the new GT650, they will make your life a lot easier!

You could probably add some cooling and get that 9550 up to 3.4GHz easily, some even go 4.0GHz on them, will help a lot in WvWvW.

Revenant.4906:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 at 3.06 GHz.

5-8 FPS in world v world and large fights, high 20s FPS doing nothing in town.

90-100% CPU usage whenever GW2’s active.

I have a low-end video card (256 MB) and only 3 GB of RAM, but that shouldn’t have such a huge impact on performance.

Is it a problem with the CPU?

It’s probably both. My E8500 @4.05Ghz slowed my GTX285 a lot,
but a 256MB card might be a bottleneck too.
I’m seeing VRAM usage up in the 700s MB from time to time, although much of the time as low as 350-400

God Of Fissures.8627:

Is your refresh rate set to 50hz?

To check, right click on the desktop, choose “Screen Resolution”, select “Advanced settings”, navigate to the “Monitor” tab, and your refresh rate is listed under “Screen refresh rate”.

Actually when I V-synch i get 60 fps. My screen is set to 60Hz

I changed my E8500 (4.05GHz) for an i5-2500k.
I still have same disks and same GPU (GTX285). (new mobo and ram too off, but I guess hat doesn’t matter)
Before I had 30-50 in around in the world at quiet places, 30ish in sPvP and in Lions Arch.
In WvWvW i had from 5-25FPS.

With the i5-2500k (4.2GHz) I now have 40-60 FPS in WvWvW, If i unlock the FPS counter I have like 60-100 in Divinitys reach.

My E8500 was at 80-100% load all the time, and my GPU on 30-50%, now my CPU is from 30-60% load and my gpu from 70-100% load.

I’m pretty sure that if you have a fairly OK gfx card, you’re better off getting a new CPU than a new GPU.

The E8500 has served me well for many years now and before guild wars 2 i never thought about changing it, I was unsure with the GTX285, but it seems it handles GuildWars2 extremely well.

Hello!

When I cap the FPS at 60 FPS the game gets capped at 50 FPS.
Im running:
Win 7 64 bit Ultimate.
Gigabyte z77 mobo, i5-2500k 4.2GHz
16GB RAM
GTX 285, latest driver from Nvidia (306,23 driver)

I have a friend that has a system with 560TI and he also has the same issue with fps lock at 50 instead of 60