Guild Wars 2

15 chests 1 ticket

Evidently for many peoples’ setups

Thanks for the reports guys.

I agree with tota in that I really think there needs to be more comprehensive graphical settings to allow the user to pick and choose exactly what he or she would like to show on the screen. That way each user can tweak the settings to their heart’s content.

Further the effects of the game do seem they are rather poorly optimized. IIRC, there was an particle effects slider back in the beta, why not put that back, and let it affect smoke plzzzzzzz

Glad, I’m bringing this issue to light for more and more people. Hopefully Anet sees that this is a serious problem.

If this were fixed, the FPS issues in MANY different smoke situations would be fixed.

Again, this problem has been around for a looooooong while. I hope it gets resolved soon.

Thanks for your reply SirHypnotoad, have you tried my bug reproducing technique listed above?

Find any campfire with a smoke effect (make sure animation setting is at medium or higher). Zoom all the way out while looking down at the fire, and look at your FPS, then zoom all the way in and check your FPS again.

As confirmed by the other posters as well as all the youtube links that I provided, this is a problem regarding the way gw2 chooses to render smoke effects…

Check it out and let us know your results.

almost exclusively botters, should report them if you can… but teleporting botters are extremely difficult to report because you lose track of them once they disappear

I agree that the game should have DX11 support, but that is for another thread.
I still would like to bring attention to this performance issue.

If anet can’t replicate this at the office, then please maybe let us know what we can do to fix this issue. Because it clearly is not an isolated problem.

Charr Male, I think second thinnest physique : crotch clips through CoF armor…

thanks very much for your tests rental

well spoke too soon, smoke still produces the problem, I found out that if i put animations down to low it will eliminate some of the smoke in the world, however when there IS smoke, the FPS hit is still present

This still needs to be FIXED!

also confirmed

i5-3570
8GB DDR3 2400
GTX460
Samsung 830 SSD

Most likely a missing texture or effect and the fall back is the checkered board flat texture. Notice how the location and orientation of the texture is lined up with the shatter.

This was an issue back in beta with certain art assets being missing, they would replace them w/ weird colored checkered boxes or checkered textures.

oh by the way, this hasn’t been fixed in the latest patch, just FYI

The reason I didn’t immediately say that his graphics card is overheating is that the quality of the image was also degraded. Unless an actual graphical artifacts are showing up, usually GPU throtelling only results in slower performance, not a drop in image quality.

This is also the reason why I asked for screenshots.

But I think basketcase has a point, you should check the thermals for your system during the drop just to see if anything is getting out of hand. Make sure to match to the recommended operating temperatures.

where do you get this freezing, is it everywhere or just one specific area? (wvw perhaps?)

Can you provide some screenshots of before and after, with the graphics panel up so that we can observe the change in both FPS and quality?

I have a feeling that you didn’t even bother to look at the videos links that I posted above.

I quote “I understand this is not a problem for everyone but a significant portion of the user base is affected…”

that’s what I said.
You said that it doesn’t happen to you, great! But that doesn’t mean that the problem doens’t exist. You’re the one making assumption saying that just because this doesn’t happen to you that it’s inherently a problem with my computer. Isn’t that the exact kind of logic that you’re arguing against?

I will continue to post about this bug, until it is resolved.

Or, if you know what’s wrong w/ my GTX460 please let me know… Drivers are up to date, settings are as per recommended by the NCSoft Tech Support, or numerous other settings that I have tried. Do you have a 3rd party driver or tuning program that I could use to fix this problem?

If you have a solution please offer it, otherwise don’t assume its my system.

I also really wish Anet would just sell the skins in the BLTC

I’ve had confirmation from at least four different sources that this is an issue. Please do not dismiss this as “I don’t have this problem, so he must be him”. My hardware is well tune, I ran all the diagnostics and tests that tech support asked of me during the Ticket, and they found nothing wrong w/ my system. I had a score of 750 for Heaven Benchmark, and generally the game runs fine. EXCEPT during smoke!

I understand this is not a problem for everyone but a significant portion of the user base is affected by this performance issue that I must bring it to light.

Check the links to the youtube videos, all are the fire elemental events within the past month. Each one recorded by a different person, and in each instance there is a frame rate dip exactly during spawn where there is the smoke effect and the FPS jumps after the smoke clears.

yeah… I guess they don’t want to bring attention to bugs they can’t fix yet…

either way, have you tried the test I suggested?
in the post directly above yours, give it a shot and see if it affects you

Found an ez way to test if this bug affects you or not.

Go to lion’s arch, and go to the refugee camp.
Stand directly over the campfire and look straight down on top of your character with the camera zoomed all the way out. Your FPS should be fine at this point. However if you zoom in all the way, your FPS will tank to maybe a third of what you should be getting.

hehe I wish you the best of luck, I will play it when it comes out most likely.

I REALLY hope its B2P similar to gw2 model.
That’s one of the things I really like about gw2, no sub

To stay on topic … anet fix this please, will improve game performance for MANY people in MANY situations, all listed above.

This is what I expect to be the final correspondence from NCSoft support

Hello *,

Thanks for getting back to us. I reviewed you issue and unfortunately we’re out of ideas to improve your FPS issue. We’d be happy to forward your information to Arenanet for further investigation if you like. Otherwise my hope is that your issue may be resolved with the next patch.

If you have any further questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
******
NCsoft Technical Support
________

So after two days of diagnostics and installed several of third part data gathering programs, and tweaks to my system, they inform me that they will forward the issue to Arena Net.

Hopefully Anet sees this

I will continue to harp on this issue until I get an official response that this is a known performance issue, and is on their to do list, since it affects not only the fire elemental spawn, but any time that i play w/ an engineer… or go into wvw or participate in any event with mortars/trebs…. essentially anywhere that there are smoke/explosion effects.

Also, here is proof that this is not just happening to me…

In this recent video (not by me) that shows off the start of the fire elemental event

Notice the lag during the smoke effects, and as soon as they clear, the player’s FPS gets smooth. This is the exact same thing that happens to my system, so I don’t think it’s an isolated problem.

Here are some more examples (again, none of these were created by me)

here
and here (less noticable, but it’s there)
and here

All of these videos were posted within the past month…

I’d like to emphasize that this FPS drop is not isolated to the fire elemental spawn event, it occurs anywhere there are heavy smoke effects, especially when the player’s point of view is extremely close to the smoke effect, it tanks the FPS to almost nothing.

IMO, this is very clearly a problem with the game and not any individual system…

hehe, we’ll see how NW turns out, and I’m pretty excited about ESO, but I really don’t wan to pay a sub fee haha =P

Just a side note, my game runs at a completely acceptable level even during zergs (20-30FPS), it’s ONLY during these explosions and smoke effects do I completely tank, so if they can help me get that resolved w/o threatening anymore bans LOLZ, I’ll be happy.

As an update to my issue, they are now asking me to run a bunch of diagnostics and try a bunch of different settings, so we’ll see how that goes.

ROFL, yeah we’ll see how all this turns out, I’ve provided all the appropriate information as instructed by their support staff, now I’m just waiting on an answer.

At worst, I can get a temp ban or using the mod, at best I can get my issue resolved.
I’m assuming the outcome it going to be somewhere in between. Perhaps my bug will get reported…

have fun in NW
I’ve heard its a good game

yup log in servers are down for me as well, hopefully its resolved soon.

now they want video proof?
sure I can try to get that, as well as screenshot proof WITHOUT combat mode

that’s fine
I’ll get it taken care of soon, just don’t blame fraps

Hello.

I know full well what combat mode does and that it’s not supported. Providing links to reddit does not support this case and I am sorry for that. As a player myself, I really do understand why it’s use would be desired. However, I must follow the rules and regulations set forth by Arenanet. If you can show that Guild Wars 2 is still having this issue while running in it’s intended mode, then yes, I would be happy to keep troubleshooting this issue with you. However, that means I need a Game Advisor showing that the intended Guild Wars 2 executable was being used and a video showing that with this executable being used, explosions are slowing down your performance.

I am sorry for having to request you jump through more hoops just to get the same level of support but in this case, my hands are tied.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any additional issues, questions or concerns.

Regards,
********
NCsoft Technical Support

so… full disclosure, I use combat mode 1.1
I don’t think anyone has ever been banned specifically for their use of combat mode…
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10s4s6/combat_mode_11/

see reddit thread
the 3rd party program offers absolutely no advantage to me as a player other than rebinding my keys and allowing for full time mouse look without me having to hold down the right mouse button all the time.

It contains absolutely no macros, and clearly does not read any memory from the game during runtime, or modify any game files. I srsly don’t know why this would be against the terms of service… NOW.

I’ve also never had anyone, anet or otherwise, say that I’m cheating or hacking…

Further, it clearly doesn’t have anything to do with the performance issue that I’m having, since this issue has been around since launch, waaaaay before combat mode existed.

and this is the response I got from anet

Hello.

I reviewed the data you provided and it appears you are using an illegal 3rd party tool called “Guild Wars 2 Combat Mode.”

The use of any third party addon or mod is in direct violation of our Rules of Conduct (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/) and User Agreement (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/) can be subject to action. We can not offer any support for this type of issue as you are not using the game in a manner that it was intended. Please note, continued use of this mod/addon can result in actions taken against your account, including but not limited to account closure.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any additional issues, questions or concerns.

Regards,
*NAME BLEEPED OUT FOR PRIVACY*
NCsoft Technical Support
________________________________________________

I am speechless >.<

I have been a loyal fan of guild wars 2 since launch, but this support has really got me flabbergasted.

In my reply, I have offered to uninstall combat mode, and to resubmit my logs if it will get this issue resolved…

I await their next response.

As proof of this issue, some screenshots
Before spawn 81FPS
during spawn (notice the smoke effect) 24FPS
immediately after spawn 61FPS

and this is all while on LOW shaders, if it was on high shaders, it would be more like 0-5FPS.

then, I’d appreciate not posting anything that isn’t further addressing the issue at hand.

I understand your opinion of anet, but please keep that out of this thread.

I just want my issue resolved, and they’ve already answer my ticket with a reply.

Not the one that I was looking for but, at least it’s something, I will continue to have discussion through the ticket, and hopefully come to some resolution on this problem.

submitted a ticket as advised, hopefully I get a response

I’m assuming that they are not actively working on this issue, so I’m going to bump this for a while, maybe get some more people to notice this.

Yes I read the thread. The support from Anet has been disappointing, however I still like the game, the minor performance hiccups aside.

Can confirm that this is still an ongoing issue.
Huge thread on this has been going on essentially since, yet no fix is in sight.

And yes, I can also confirm that lowering your sound quality to the medium setting will greatly reduce the changes of experiencing this bug.

I’m not here to start a ESO v GW2 v WoW or whatev thread.
I don’t care about how the games compare.

I just care if the devs acknowledge or even know of this issue.
If so, is it on their to do list.

Or if the problem has already been solved, via drivers or a specific direct X fix, a link to the fix would be appreciated.

Official response would be much appreciated.

still nothin’ on this huh?

dumping it, hopefully if others still have this same issue we can get some attention to this

this problem has been reported before…

I just wanted an update or if anyone has found a solution, that’d be helpful

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Asura-Pistol-Bug-Massive-FPS-Drops-From-Explosions

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Huge-FPS-dip-when-effects-close-to-the-camera

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/61956-slow-downs-when-tribushe-hits-the-ground/

All of these are the same exact problem, this happens when there are explosion effects.

I want to reiterate that my game runs perfectly fine when there are NO explosions, but drops SEVERELY when I have large explosions on screen, especially when zoomed in.

Just to confirm, this issue still exists.

Turning down the sound quality down to medium has helped somewhat, but I still get the bug, and then subsequent crash every now and again.

And as has been said, occurs during large world events (almost assuredly because of the # of people).

THIS BUG HAS BEEN CONFIRMED MULTIPLE TIMES

It is still present in the 2014 build of the game.

Testing on this Performance Issue:

Go to lion’s arch, and go to the refugee camp.
Stand directly over the campfire and look straight down on top of your character with the camera zoomed all the way out. Your FPS should be fine at this point. However if you zoom in all the way, your FPS will tank to maybe a third of what you should be getting.

NOTE: this does not affect everyone, especially if you turn your animations setting down to low, you still not see any smoke coming from the fire meaning that you won’t be able to reproduce this performance issue.

see screenshots below as examples
it has been shown that this does not affect everyone.
For those that are replying to the thread, it would be helpful to include system specs, as well as a driver versions, anet log, etc.

Thanks in advance!

SMOKE EFFECTS not well optimized in game.

Engineers Bombs, Campfire, Dredge Bombs, Trebuchet, Mortars, Fire Elemental Spawning, Living Story Personnel Carrier Event Explosions etc etc.

If I zoom in on the smoke effect, my normally acceptable frame rate tanks to 5-10FPS.

I’ve search the forums, but only really old posts have surfaced. It’s clear that this problem has been around since launch and has never been addressed. This problem occurs in almost all aspects of the game, because smoke effects are used extensively throughout.

If this problem is solved, then there would be a significant performance gain for a large portion of the player base, especially during larger battles.

My Specs:

i5-3570
8GB DDR3
Samsung 830 SSD
nV GTX 460

Update 1 : SOLVED FOR THE CAMPFIRE
but issue still persists elsewhere in the world
ANYWHERE there is smoke…

At least for me, I’ve figured out a workaround for this issue, only for the campfire.

Animation quality, HIGH / MEDIUM settings FPS tanks to nothing when viewing smoke at close proximity, LOW setting for animation quality only fixes this issue because it completely removes smoke from the campfire.

If this setting were to remove all smoke effects from the game that would solve this performance issue.

Update 2 : This issue still persist as shown by the many posts below. It’s magnified the closer your point of view is to the smoke effect. For example during the dredge fractal at the bomb carrying spot, if you are downed next to a wall, your FPS will essentially stall from all the explosions and smoke effects being so close to your point of view.

Update 3 : It seems like this issue has cropped up more frequently for people after some of the most recent patches. I myself have experienced this since beta, which is also evident by some of the other threads that have posted on essentially the same topic. However, I am entertaining that this is a recently intorduced issue and hopefully Anet can iron it out for all of the affected parties.

Update 4 : I performed a completely new install of guild wars 2 and it didn’t seem to have any affect regarding this bug. So we can most likely rule out an issue with the patcher.

Update 5 : Fire Elemental Spawn has now been fixed, because Anet removed all smoke effects during the spawn. The performance issues remains a problem with all other smoke effects, including engineer bomb kits. My suggestion again, is that there be a checkbox to remove all smoke effects from the game in the options menu.

Is there anyway to turn down effects in the game.

I’m getting good FPS essentially everywhere, EXCEPT during heavy explosions.
For example, the mortars near the entrance of Sorrow’s Embrace.

can someone please help?

thanks

i7-3550
8GB DDR3
GTX460
Samsung 830 SSD

Ravnodaus.5130:

Da Poolp.6809:

Warrior longbow got 20% like the ranger longbow, not 100%

Loki.4871:

Back to that longbow; 20% chance, yes. If you’ve got a devourer next to you, that’s 3 projectiles with a 20% chance each, so you’ve got a 60% chance for something

Probability doesn’t work like that :p

In some regards, it does work like that.
snip

Just have to jump in here and say that yes, while you’re looking at the effective proc rate, you’re not taking into account the attack rate of the different projectiles.

Same issue

Did most of my book completion and event completion in the during first two acts.
ToT bags were during act 3
Carving was act 4

@metadata look at the screenshot

I have the same issue >.<

same issue on Sanctum of Rall

Well with the new patch (9/25, updated dungeon rewards), I think this is entire thread is null and void

If the devs fixed pets I think rangers will be fine. Right now the pets can’t track moving targets, and are easily avoided. Also F2 skills (especially the buffs and debuffs) need to be instant cast, w/o animation, would fix a lot of issues.

I go into heart of the mists (hotm), distribute all trait points, and assign major trait in all my lines.

I exit hotm and then re-enter, skirmishing line of major traits are unassigned…
This is a major annoyance for those that bounce in and out of sPVP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgWlsXB4UHA

The problem has gotten worse since yesterday.
Now all but wilderness survival major traits are unassigned when I re-enter hotm.
>.<

Can someone either confirm this is a bug or tell me what I’m doing wrong???

Weirwynn.2390:

The idea of three (or less) dungeons per month is a good one; a person should be able to reasonably complete all timed achievements in the (same) allotted time period. Eight dungeons times the number of paths for each dungeon is way too many to expect any reasonable person to be able to complete in a month.

I believe you misread my original post.
I specifically stated that each of the dungeons should have separate achievements.
So for example if you completed all wings of AC35 and then all wings of CM45 you’d get both rewards from both dungeons. So essentially 8 totally achievements one for each of the dungeons.

no one else has this issue?

Only tested with ranger.
I go into heart of the mists (hotm), distribute all trait points, and assign major trait in all my lines.

I exit hotm and then re-enter, skirmishing line of major traits are unassigned…

This is a major annoyance for those that bounce in and out of sPVP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgWlsXB4UHA

The problem has gotten worse since yesterday.
Now all but wilderness survival major traits are unassigned when I re-enter hotm.

>.<

Can someone either confirm this is a bug or tell me what I’m doing wrong???