Guild Wars 2

This laptop will run the game at high settings well enough for regular play. You’ll want to turn them down for WVW though if you do that. The processor can handle all but huge zergs though. Well, maybe it can handle some pretty harsh zergs but I don’t think it could do the epic zergs. Not very well anyway.

SolarNova: Laptops can run Guild Wars 2 fairly well but the sad reality is that they have to be expensive high end gaming laptops. An i7 3630QM with GTX 670MX can do it and anything beyond that will do better. My buddy’s MSI GT60 with i7 4700MQ and GTX 770M plays the game no problem (and even BF4 at ultra preset which includes MSAAx4 but BF4 is not a comparison to GW2, but I’m just adding that as an example of how powerful the machine is. 50+ FPS averaging)

I know that a Sandy Bridge i5 and GT540M can play the game fairly well on medium settings with 1366×768. I’d have to wager that this HP Envy here can do the same settings at 1920×1080 fairly well.

But for that price, 1500 dollars for this HP Envy, it’s totally not worth it at all when you can get a laptop with a GPU more than three times as powerful for the same price, such as an Asus G750JX or MSI GT series GT60/70 (same price for both units literally the only difference is one is 15.6 and the other is 17.3) and possibly 50 dollars less for the MSI.

I even went and checked for ya on the MSI ones.
15.6:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152404 100 dollars less than that HP Envy
(Buddy of mine has the 15.6 version and it’s amazing. Totally worth the performance and visual aesthetic)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152452 same price, but 17.3 inch
Both of these units are the same price or 100 dollars less and are in my opinion, ten times better for gaming and ability to stay cool while being heavy in battle.

Well I’m never going to see the difference because I don’t want to play that game lol

I tried to play Planetside 2. That game can go blow it for all I care because I can’t sign in to it no matter what I do. I’ve sworn of Sony Entertainment Online.

I’m a little bothered that people are even suggesting hardware like GTX 780/780TI or other out-of-question expensive pieces. OP asked for a $1,000 to 1,400 dollar build, not a $2,400 dollar build.

New build for Guild Wars 2?
Intel i5 3570K or Intel i5 4670K with Cooler Master Hyper 212Plus
Regular case of your picking, maybe something in the 70 dollar range.
8 GB DDR3 1600 (Don’t even need to shop for specific speeds. Honestly, buy what you think looks cool but isn’t pricey.)
An Asus/Gigabyte/MSI Z77 if Ivybridge
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837 (One suggestion)
and same brands for Z87.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131981 Z87 suggestion board.
1TB HDD
Regular disk drive (lol 30 dollars)
650 watt power supply
GTX 670 (I think this is a good purchase because it’s still quite fast and recently it became last generation but it’s high power for a low price) or a GTX 760 (might be same speed for same price)
And a Windows 7 or 8 product key.

I think this could come around to being like 1,100-1,300 dollars if your ceiling is 1,400.

The specs I have listed here are for a good high end budget gaming computer capable of overclocking a bit. It won’t get THE BEST wvw FPS but it’ll get good enough that it won’t be an utter slideshow at the drop of a hand. The system is overclock ready as well. If you want to overclock, please do look up some guides for it. Or you could have a professional overclock it for you (if they’re trustworthy) and so on.

If you have any money left over and would like to add a little more to your system, some good recommendations would be like a 120 GB Solid State for Windows, or a mid range Closed Loop liquid cooler from Corsair or Cooler Master or other brands. Like, a Corsair H60. I think that one is around 40-50 dollars. Or you could buy yourself a decent wireless network card if you want to. I assume you’ll be using a cable connection so I never listed any. (But really a USB wifi stick is all you’d need for GW2 anyway. I’ve played BF3 no problem on a D-Link N150 as well)

Or you could even take your spouse (if you have one) out to a fancy dinner haha.

Most mainstream build I see from players is an i5 3570K with 8 GB DDR3 and a GTX 660/660Ti/670 or Radeon HD 7770/7790/7850/7870.

Hope this helps

sobe.4157:

The 780 Ti is a full GK110 chip

I was about to say the Titan had more but then I looked it up… a whole 200 more cuda cores than Titan, wow. Now I want one. Actually two. ._.

Aza.2105:

This is a misunderstanding, you can’t compare amd’s core speed to intel. In fact you can’t compare the two cpus at all. They are totally different architectures.

It already happens all the time. They may be different architecture and they do perform totally different in Guild Wars 2.

Aza.2105:

The only thing that is factual is that the way Anet coded Guild Wars 2 takes advantage of intel architecture and not amd. Its the real reason why amd cpus perform so badly in comparison to intel.

I don’t necessarily think Guild Wars 2 is coded for Intel Processors. I believe that it just so happens that Intel has what it takes to run the game to as good as it can get. It’s already obvious that AMD lacks in single thread performance anyway.

Aza.2105:

If GW2 was coded for Amd architecture then intel would be slower, since its architecture is very different.

Quite a number of titles I’ve seen coded for AMD I’ve seen played better on an Intel system, but those titles aren’t MMORPGs either so I guess this statement is kinda… just there.

But I don’t believe there’s really any comparison anyway. Intel CPU is just better for this game, period. My laptop’s intel i7 3630QM out performs my AMD FX-8350 in most areas that matter in Guild Wars 2. 3.2 GHz quad core with HT against a pseudo 8 core at 4.1 GHz (turboing) is pretty bad in my opinion.

NeedCoffee.1402:

Avelos.6798:

I’m gonna look into this thread and links provided. I get the same FPS under the exact same settings and hardware (R9 280X is rebadged 7970)

[Edit]
I’ve installed ProcessLasso and tried out the Game Mode on it and I think so far it’s just the core parking modification doing some work here but I’ve gotten a whole 2 FPS increase at the least. I’m sure I could get to what Rogier’s at though with some more working.

your not gonna see huge fps increase with process lasso, but you will see smoother game play. next time you have gw2 running, minimize it and pull up process lasso. right click on gw2 and choose for gw2 to run in high priority.

I uninstalled ProcessLasso because after an hour it started spamming me with “BUY ME BUY ME!” crap so it’s gone. I can basically do the same thing with task manager, setting the game to run high priority.

azizul.8469:

try this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkfIFP0g2xY

Considering that’s for Battlefield 4, which is a completely different game and is more GPU bound than CPU bound, I doubt that will help much.

I’m gonna look into this thread and links provided. I get the same FPS under the exact same settings and hardware (R9 280X is rebadged 7970)

[Edit]
I’ve installed ProcessLasso and tried out the Game Mode on it and I think so far it’s just the core parking modification doing some work here but I’ve gotten a whole 2 FPS increase at the least. I’m sure I could get to what Rogier’s at though with some more working.

If you’re fine with 30 FPS and a budget of 600 or less, then a any laptop with an intel i3 or i5 with Intel HD 4000 will do the trick if you just want to level on it. A few of my friends game on laptops with those processors and graphics and say at medium it looks and runs fine.

Radeon R9 290 is a GPU that will keep you set for high end gaming graphics for a number of years. I’d buy it if you want the longevity but for GW2 I don’t think you need anymore than a Radeon HD 7870 / GTX 660 TI.
If you have a good intel CPU to go with it like an i5 or an i7, or even a highly overclocked intel i3 (don’t ask. One of my friends plays with an i3 clocked at 4.2 and it does the job as good as an i5 at around 4 GHz) will do just the trick.

I haven’t tried it in WVW yet because I don’t do that, but my i7 based laptop with GTX 670MX actually runs GW2 pretty enjoyably well. So I’m sure that the i5 + GTX 660 TI combo will do just as good or better.

Before you invest in a new CPU and graphics chip, be sure that your PSU can even handle it to begin with. Judging by the current system specs, an upgrade to both of those suggests to me that you’d want to jump up to a 450-500 watt power supply. The extra money if you get an i5 can be split between a better graphics card and a PSU.

I also recommend checking out GTX 660 and GTX 660 TI. Main difference I notice about those two is the 660 having 960 cuda cores and the 660 TI having 1344. However reason why I recommend looking at them is that they are previous generation hardware so the price could be fairly low on them. But keep in mind your PSU output if it can sustain it.

You’re welcome for the info!

The parts that I focus on when I look at Nvidia cards is the CUDA core count. Where the GTX 650 (any kepler variant) sits at 768, the GTX 760 sits at 1152. More CUDA cores means more power. The core speed in MHz on the 650 may be like 860-1000 MHz while the GTX 760 could be around 800-950 MHz. Or in general, lower than the 650 core speed. But since there’s more CUDA cores, there’s more to use and more overall performance in that regard. Another point is the memory bus being 128 bit on the 650, and the GTX 760 uses 256 bit VRAM. I’d have to wager that the GTX 760’s RAM performance may be up to twice as fast.
Honestly, you get what you pay for in a graphics card. If you pay 200 dollars for a graphics card, you get 200 dollars of performance. Same story with a 1000 dollar card like a GTX 690 or a GTX Titan.
However, the GTX 760 does require more power than a GTX 650.

I would recommend seeing how much power your PSU can output first and then check what kind of GPUs you can upgrade to.

Oh. I just er… read it wrong and listed the differences between 650 and 760. I don’t wanna erase all that ;__; So here goes.

The GTX 650, again uses 128 bit VRAM which will be slower in comparison to the TI Boost version of the GTX 650. Kepler version 650, and 650 TI and Ti Boost all have 768 Cuda cores (There’s ones with like 384 cuda cores… I kinda think they’re Fermi rebrands) the RAM on the TI Boost is slightly faster and it has a built in boost feature of course when your game needs a bit more umf. GTX 650, including TI and TI Boost are in my opinion the best bang for your buck kind of GPU in this generation of graphics cards on a budget system. Again if you wanted a 650 TI or TI Boost, check your power supply to make sure that it can adequately handle this graphics card.

Basically the 650 TI Boost is a bit faster than the base GTX 650. I recommend it for budget systems from time to time.

Upgrading an overclockable processor like an i5 is pointless when he could just overclock it if he’s capable. Unneeded waste of money if it’s good enough. I’d say there would be an improvement from a GPU update.

Your best bet would be one of those GTX 650 TI BOOST cards or a GTX 760 in my opinion. Doesn’t really take much to get the most visual eye candy out of this game.
Sad reality it’s more a CPU bound game and the more you brute force it, the better the FPS. An individual SolarNova around these tech support forums is running an i7 3930K overclocked to 4.6 GHz and I think last I checked, he gets around 30 fps on a good day in wvw.

Servers are down for maintenance. Estimated time period now until finished, probably one more hour.

just take a moment to read the thread, guys.

Servers are down for maintenance. Estimated time period now until finished, 2 hours.

SolarNova.1052:

it will do ‘ok’.

No. Assuming none of the parts that go into that are crap, it will do GREAT.
The most mainstream build I hear of for this game is a GTX 660 TI, i5 3570K overclocked or not and 8 GB DDR3.
Handles the game fairly enough for a budget-high end system.

in my opinion, GW2 does it perfectly because you can use in game currency to exchange to what you need.

If you want decent FPS in Guild Wars 2 and WVW, don’t buy this notebook.
If you still want a laptop to game on and get decent fps, you’ll need something more pricey. my i7 3630QM based laptop equipped with GTX 670 MX is playable and enjoyable. But it cost 1400. (bought it for 900 mint condition off a friend)
You’d want to buy something with at least the higher end of the i5 line as well as perhaps armed with a GTX 660M but again that price will likely be higher than 800 dollars.
My advice is build a desktop twice as powerful for 800 dollars.

I used to have this issue all the time. I didn’t think it was an issue though. I always thought it was just downloading the what could be called a save file and such from the server. But eventually it just stopped doing that. I never had to turn on run as admin for this game though which is weird.

I threw a ten dollar bill at my screen earlier (because coins would damage it) and nothing happened ANet. Please ANet, resolve this issue I’m having with my attempts to give my money to you.

I’d look into seeing if your CPU’s being throttled because of an unstable overclock.

BF4 is a good example of an AMD optimized game ^

I don’t know lol I tend to look past the battery life and look more at the portability of a unit with so much power, easier to move than an entire desktop with monitor. Ignoring the price, even the new Alienware 18 appeals to me. The one armed with SLI GTX 780M

Sobe, I’m officially jelly of you. I want a G750JH so much. ;-;

I currently use an Asus G75VX laptop with an i7 3630QM, 12 GB DDR3 and a GTX 670MX if I am gaming on the laptop. Otherwise, it’s my tower. I got that for 900 because I bought if off a friend (mint condition)

However that laptop spec you listed there I doubt you could find any much better than that for 850 dollars.

SirSquishy, DDR3 800 is the absolute bottom of the barrel, just no one makes it :P

OP, your processor is decent enough to handle the game as is. Though if you wanted a system to handle the game at decent performance, I’d recommend something like an i5 3570K or 4670K, or even i7 3770K and 4770K paired with a GTX 670, or 760, or 770, or Radeon HD 7870 GHz, 7950, 7970, or R series equivalent. You can keep your current RAM because let’s be honest: That high speed 3133 MHZ RAM literally makes no difference if the CAS Latency is high, like 11 or 12 or 13. DDR3 800 CL6 can keep up with DDR3 3000 CL11. Like a 2.5 FPS difference between the two.

Another point about the game’s performance base is that it’s CPU heavy and it’s essentially not optimized for anything. Just Intel’s got what the game wants, and giving it more is always better. So you pretty much have to brute force the game to get maximum FPS which, as it currently stands, includes overclocking. Putting a 3570K or 4670K at something like 4.4 GHz or any of the i7s at the same frequencies would yield much better results. but not too much better in WVW case (Pls note, do not attempt overclocking unless you understand the risks associated with it and please take the time to understand your board and processor’s capabilities, as well as your cooler’s ability to cool the CPU)

^ That’s just NCSoft. don’t be mad.

SolarNova.1052:

waves
Im one of those 6 core i7 users :P

I was actually going to name you because I knew you had a 3930K at 4.6 :P

Also for the record I got a buddy who has an i5 2400 running at 3.9 Ghz :P
______
So to avoid posting two messages physically, I’ll just add on to this one.

I’ver overclocked my FX-8350 to 4.7 GHz once and had hardly any increase to my game FPS on guild wars 2. Same overclock on an Intel processor would probably yield much better results…

I do not think that you should overclock your graphics card. If you want to though, MSI Afterburner can help you with that. Otherwise, you do not need to do that for this game, Guild Wars 2 is more CPU intensive. The unfortunate reality of this game is that literally only the strongest CPU based computers can get the most FPS (brute forcing is the way to win apparently) so for an i5 processor, I’d have to say that getting to a clock frequency okittenHz will start to yield better FPS.

Another user I’ve seen with 6 core Intel i7 processors at very high clocks (like 4.4 to 4.6 GHz) said that they don’t even get the best FPS in the game on wvw.

What model is your processor specifically? and your board? If you have a capable cooler, then I’d recommend looking up overclocking tips for your board and processor combination. Otherwise I’d recommend start turning down CPU heavy graphics like shadows, reflection, character detailing and culling levels.

Wiz.1543:

Awesome so nice to have old + new costume brawl toys and armor so happy now :P Edit ty for placing the costume brawl items form last year

Yeah I’ve been wanting to get it since I saw it for the first time and was looking forward.

Dear ArenaNet,
I wanted to tell you that I love you for putting the Mad King’s Outfit in the black lion trading co gem store. That is all. I felt the need to make this thread just for that reason to tell you this.

Sincerely, Avelos.

Funny enough it’s the combination of the character names plus the character models all grouped together that make me think a place looks full. If I turn that off, it still looks full but not as full feeling.

Yeah I wouldn’t doubt that it’s lower than at least 150. I kinda feel like it might be around 150 or 200 or even 250.

Just a curious question I soon thought of when I entered a Queensdale overflow.
What are the population caps of the regular world maps? I read that there is a 500 limit for WVW maps split across three servers, 500 per map.

But what about PVE?

Oh yeah, I know that, the i5 and i7 is a quad core, one with hyper threading. (And the i3 is a dual core with hyper threading to give it that quad core look in windows)
I’m pretty much considering AMD FX-8350 a quad core with it’s own version of multi threading just as the i7 has hyper threading (besides, would a real 8 core processor cost 200 dollars? Maybe the crappiest of 8 core processors on the planet but even then it might still cost 600)
Sure I can save a bit and just grab an i5 but you know… I want to pick up the best out of the line.

The problem with G-sync then is that if I switched to NVidia GeForce (which I don’t think I will any time soon, nothing personal against them I love the GTX 670Mx in my laptop) that would also require buying a kit or a new monitor to make it useable which is a bunch of money on top of even more money. Since I have two graphics cards… I doubt I could go anything less than two graphics cards, or a single card as powerful as two GPU xD

Earlier I had a tank in FPS as well in Lion’s Arch on black gate, all over the map. The first thing I did was check my network usage. I noticed immediately that the data I was receiving in an environment area with no other players was fairly high, as if I was in a world boss event or a smaller zerg battle in world versus world. I came to the conclusion that someone had found an item that they can either equip or drop an item at a high enough rate to spam it and lag other people out.
That is my theory.

Stormcrow.7513:

You wont get one.

I doubt that. Much less important things have received ‘official responses’

No, no AMD does not destroy the Intel CPU in guild wars 2. I can get on Guild Wars 2 on my laptop right now and get better performance out of the Intel i7 3630QM at 3.2 GHz than my AMD FX-8350 clocked at 4.1 GHz. when it comes to the i7 and AMD FX-8350, considering them for the fact that they both have eight threads and are at the top of the line before going into extreme processors (Intel LGA 2011 or AMD FX-9370/9590,) I’m confident that the i7 4770K crushes FX-8350. Maybe if the 8350 was clocked at a horrifying 5.5 GHz or more it would be a different story, but that is not the case here. This is base frequencies with the turbos included. And my board is not good for overclocking beyond something like 4.5 GHz anyway. Biostar TA990FXE is a good starting board if you want to have all the good stuff like SATA 3, Crossfire/SLI and AMD FX native support for a low price, then that is the board to go with. Overclocking is very poor beyond the point I specified.

Yes considering the consoles will be using AMD Jaguar with at least a 1.75 GHz clock, that could mean better performance geared towards AMD FX-8/9 processors especially, but I figure that since Guild Wars 2 has been the game that I’ve been playing the most out of every single game I have for the past year, this sort of upgrade would make the game much more enjoyable for me.

Why wait to spend money on something that may or may not get me better enjoyability out of a game I play so much of when I could spend money on something I know will get me better enjoyability?
____

SolarNova.1052:

Texture culling on medium still looks pritty good tbh. The number of people it allows to be fully textured is enough for battles to look fine, whilst those in the distance are green, u barely notice it, and this is coming form som1 who uses a 42" screen. its deffinatly worth the performance boost it gives in zergs.

Character culling stays on Highest, u want to be able to see every1 at all times

I will keep that in mind then

Oh I know it won’t make wvw any better than maybe as much as 30 fps in good times. I got a Corsair H100 ready to go for it too so overclocking to at least 4 GHz shouldn’t be a problem. Also ew culling I never turn that down lol. After playing the game on my i7 based laptop with GTX 670MX I finally decided I want to get that wicked FPS and playability in most areas. the 3630QM at 3.2 GHz which it maxes out at for all four core turboing can crank out some pretty good FPS paired with a GTX 670MX so I expect the 4770K will do even better with one of my 7970s.

I have a 1K PSU because it’s a Rosewill Lightning. It’s got all sorts of neat lighting on it and the cabling is great, not to mention I have two 7970s, 2×2TB HDD and SSD along currently with a 125 watt processor. Giving dat headroom. I read that the intel i7 4770K has around 50+% more single threaded performance so going off that compared to my current FPS, I can see an increase happening. I also plan to try and crank the i7 up to 4.5GHz at least. (plus the 1K was a steal at 180 dollars)

Alright so I’m more than positively likely going to be buying an i7 4770K next week (and then saving up for a board, and yes I do mean the i7, I’m dead set on it) and I will be moving up from the AMD FX-8350 (I still think it’s a great processor, oh yeah.) so what could I expect from such an upgrade? And why I chose the i7 over the i5 is that both the AMD FX-8350 and i7 have 8 threads so I don’t want to lose four threads. I like… keeping it the same, or better without losing anything. Or much.

I can imagine world events would be much more enjoyable in FPS and such, WVW will play better.
Would there be any drawbacks though?
I read that Hyper Threading can pose a problem but over the years of it’s use, the bits of technology have made the issue of the conflict of on dye resources a nearly non-existent problem. But, anything else?

My PC is pretty loaded as it is. Two 7970s, a 1000W PSU, 16 GB DDR3, etc.

Well then I guess power is not a problem lol

It probably would play gw2 decently.

…Is your power supply able to handle the vast jump from the GTX 580 to the GTX Titan?

Oh I see lol
Well start savin’ dat gold!

Lol they will never do that. Make more money for it or forget about it. Also… isn’t this a sort of attack thread?