I’ve discovered the issue while re-seating the GPU.
Apparently, and I honestly can’t figure out how this happened, the CPU fan hasn’t been attached to the CPU for well over a week and for possibly months. After re-seating the fan ontop of the CPU, I’m getting a minimum of 100FPS and up to 300 FPS in PvE as well as a constant 40-60FPS in “The Grove”.
GW2 is highly dependent on the CPU, so when it’s running, open the task manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) and ensure that there’s no other high CPU processes running.
You can try disabling all non-essential services and programs. Press WindowsKey+R and open msconfig. Under the general tab, select selective startup and uncheck startup items. Under the services tab, check hide all from Microsoft, then click disable all. Ok and reboot. If you want to go all the way, clean install Windows 10, especially if you did the upgrade.
I’ve seen people claim that re-installing DX9 helped, though re-installing DX can’t be normally done. You can use the command “sfc /scannow” as an administrator to instead verify the files.
Also check for Documents/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat, since if it exists, it’ll take priority. You’ll know if you deleted the right file however since your graphics settings will return to the defaults and be in full screen mode.
I’ve deleted the remaining files from the Documents folder.
I’ve installed DX9.0c.
I’ve run “sfc /scannow”.
No difference in performance after these steps.
As for CPU usage. GW2 is generally using <20% of the CPU while all other processes combined are at around 5%.
Uninstalled the xbox app VIA uninstalling the xbox app using powershell and through the registry. (See link at the bottom of the post.)
Uninstalled GeForce Experience.
Ensured the GFX card is running at x16. It’s also in the slot closest to the CPU.
Downgraded the GFX drivers to “361.91-desktop-win10-64bit-international-whql”.
Deleted the GW2 folder in the AppData folder.
After following through with all points above, I entered the game and set the settings to “Best Performance” and in Fullscreen mode rather than Windowed Fullscreen. FPS hovered around 25-30 while in “The Grove”. Switching to “Best Appearance” downed the FPS to around 5-14.
Over the past few days I’ve begun playing GW2. While playing I’ve noticed that I’m getting around 15-25FPS in PvE and <15FPS in “The Grove” and “Metrica” while using maxed out settings.
After combing through a few dozen threads, all with similar FPS issues and similar systems, I’ve reached the point where I can’t seem to find anything left to try, so I decided to make a thread to see if anyone has any more suggestions for me.
My current settings have helped to boost my FPS for the time being. PvE jumps between 20-50FPS depending on the area and I’m up to a constant 17-24FPS in “The Grove” and “Metrica”
A more detailed overview of the settings and systems specs, that I thought may be relevant, can be found in the attached image. If you require more information, just tell me where to look and I’ll post it.
System Specs:
i7 4970k
GTX 970
16GB RAM
1920×1080 Monitor
Windows 10 Professional Edition
SSD
Things I’ve Tried:
Ensuring both my GPU/CPU/Motherboard drivers are up-to-date.
Running the (“-repair”?) command to ensure the game files are uncorrupted and in working order.
Altering all of the settings in various combinations based on suggestions from “GW2 Optimization Guides” and other posts similar to this. The only real boosts game from reducing the “Character Model Limit” and “Shadows” settings to Medium.
From my few observations, the CPU is hardly even being used by the game. It seems to hover around 10% in Task Manager and rarely goes past 20% even in “The Grove”.
Ran a number of tests to ensure my internet connection is running fine. I’m on a fiber line with sufficient speeds and a ping of around 100 in most cases.
The temperature in my room is generally cool and I’m fairly certain that none of the components are overheating and slowing themselves down to prevent hardware damage.
Running the game with the x64-bit executable file. I didn’t think this would have much affect, but it was worth a shot. Loading times seem to be a little bit better though.
Running the game in Fullscreen mode rather than Windowed Fullscreen as I normally do. The FPS gain was negligible.
