Guild Wars 2

sirsquishy.8531:

NeedCoffee.1402:

so i can use the one from the 80’s? sweet, that should be accurate.

can you explain in your best storage architect voice why crystal disk isn’t good enough?

With that tone, no. even responding to this is a waste of my time now.

tone? like you or all the other negative nancies don’t have a tone?
Ohhhh but i poke fun at you antique software I all of a sudden a tone.

you people aren’t easy be friendly around.

Well until i learn how to use this overly complicated nonsense, my 5gb per second on crystal disk will have to suffice.

so i can use the one from the 80’s? sweet, that should be accurate.

can you explain in your best storage architect voice why crystal disk isn’t good enough?

sirsquishy.8531:

Unless you test your SSD/HDD with IOMeter you do not know what performance metrics you are getting.

While SSDs will out peform HDDs 3:1 MOST OF THE TIME, there are instances where they are 1:1.

Load up IOMeter and run 4 Workers (1 per CPU, Ignore HT, if you have an 8 core CPU then run 8 workers). On each worker Build a test profile.

You will edit the test profile 8 times, once for each test.
64K 100% Read – Random
64K 100% Write – Random
4M 100% Read – Random
4M 100% Write – Random

64K 100% Read – Sequential
64K 100% Write – Sequential
4M 100% Read – Sequential
4M 100% Write – Sequential

On Top end SSDs you will see that while Random Reads/Writes will push the SSD to its max, Seq Reads/Writes bottom out at 4MB Block Sizes. My OCZ Vertex4 will push 350MB/s on 64K and 4M randoms, but Bottoms at 125MB on Sequential. My WD Black Spindles Will Bottom out at 35MB/s on Random Reads/Writes, but outperforms my SSDs on Sequential at 165MB/s

Then you have the 2 different types of SSDs to consider, SLC and MLCs.

MLCs are TERRIBLE, and found in 99% of the cheapest hdd sales. They provide some serious read ability, but have HORRIBLE writes. And they burn out the fastest, so make sure TRIM is enabled for MLCs. SLCs are the best and most expensive SSDs on the market. They are found in the 179+ Range.

And in this write up, im not even going over IOPS (operations per second) against the SSD/Disk, mainly because it does not play for this game. The max IO this game seems to push is about 80, and thats when you load into LA on a busy night. Most HHDs will push 75IOPS, max (some can push 85 if they are high quality and limit their platter density). So I am talking purely Read/Writes here.

And while your SataII,III,6 connections can push 3Gbps, 6Gbps…ect, You are limited at the Drive’s ability. To get your true SataII+ port speeds, you would need to stack 2-3 Drives per port and setup Raid0. So in reality, the difference between SataII+ is minimal in these cases.

So am I supposed to use to 15 year old version? or the 8 year old version?
or better yet link me the ver. that would make you happy.

your welcome.

your gonna love that board, it’s too sexy to only cost 200. that’s one of the cool things about asus though. they love their gamer customers and try not to overcharge them.

also I read great things about that 4way optimization, and.your gonna have the z87 uefi bios which I’m I tad jealous of. I’m stuck with the x79 uefi.

didja want to see my crystal Mark benches?

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

For some reason I was an exception to the rule.

I was using a SATA 3 HDD drive and recently upgraded to a Samsung 840 EVO SSD and installed my Windows OS GW2 on that instead. My load times were about 20-25 seconds for lions arch on the HDD and are about the same using the SSD… so…

The SSD is fine. Ran benchmarks and the speeds are good, so I guess I just had a really fast HDD lol. It also didn’t appear to make a major difference in how fast Battlefield 4 loads.

use sata 2 instead and I promise you will see performance increase.
there are problems with sata 3. like my RIVE mobo for example sata3 is controlled by a
asmedia driver. and the driver is garbage. I have the same SSD, the Samsung 840 and I get
5Gb a second on sata2.

wvw cripples even the fastest processors. But you should be getting better than 1 to 3 fps.
use game booster to unpark those cores and you should see a noticeable difference.

The reason for dx9 is because it’s an older game engine, and to be honest most games today are still dx9.
further more I’ve tried dx11 in other games (smite) and I get worse performance.

The difference isn’t just noticeable, it’s ridiculous.
I have completely abandoned HDD’s in favor of SSD.
HHD’s with a stupid spinning disk, moving parts and gears, and heat are long obsolete.

SSD is vastly superior in every way except amount of storage vs price.

and with the program primo cache your SSD IS as fast as a ram disk.

Rampage.7145:

Download “process Lasso” it is a very advanced task manager (what windows should have if wasn’t an OS made for kitten ppl), it will allow u to set up the games to use the “non hyperthread cores only” by default, Problem solved, no need to turn HT off, why would u buy an i7 instead an i5 if u want to turn HT off???? Some ppl just buy without making a minimum research…
http://bitsum.com/prolasso.php
There ya go, make sure u download the 64 bits version.

thank you. finally, someone else who knows the power of process lasso.

disabling multithreading as a performance gain is a myth. The problem is how Windows
handles core parking. just un-park those cores during gaming and you will be good to go.

z87 board with a i5 4670K would give you the most bang for your buck, but personally Id go with the Asus hero board. its only $200 and offers almost everything its 500$ big brother (maximus extreme) has. Both together, out the door would be about $450.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131989

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1532693

Do you already have ram you can use from your Biostar H55?

sirsquishy.8531:

Kendra Nightwind.8734:

I would advise you double check to make sure that your processor driver is properly installed and that your video card is actually running at full PCI-E x16 speeds.
To check your video sub-system check into GPU-Z.
To check your processor driver; load up a CPU monitor that will provide you with a load chart for each core then launch an application that will load up all of the cores and keep them loaded. After about then minutes load up Guild Wars 2, you should see one or two cores close to 100% while the rest are running at somewhere between 10-30% (depending on your system). If that is not what you are seeing, your processor driver is not properly installed. Uninstall it, then install the oldest and try again working your way up to the “latest and greatest” or you are satisfied with the performance of the processor.

Processor driver? Really?

I think he ment psu drivers…

no, but seriously. OP have you ever tried unparking those cores? If not I guarantee it will improve your performance.

the Poseidon 2 has blue back lights on black, and 24 good newegg reviews.

no usb 3.0 though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823162027

Ruskapeikko.5046:

if its bad, then why can i play other games?

Because GW2 is about the most demanding game out there.

Besides, you can’t be implying its GW2 thats the problem. Because the same logic would apply “if its GW2, then why can thousands of others play it without shutdowns”

sobe.4157:

To get 60 FPS, learn programming, create an overlay program that places a static message at the top left of the screen during games with “FPS: 60”.

Problem solved….

LOL, that was super funny. Outta sight outta mind….kinda

yeah, im starting to side with the others about the possibility of a bad power supply.
If your load is only 30-58% you probably are not getting that hot.

so, not a laptop. But i still say its overheating.
Stock heatsink?
Run your task manager while GW2 is running, also use something like speedfan or HWMonitor, or coretemp to monitor your cpu temps.

let us know what temps you are seeing, and if cpu usage is maxed out in task manager or not.

is this as laptop, or desk top?
either way, sound like it’s over heading to me.

while it’s always fun to purchase and install new gpu , that 770 will only give you a small fps boost. @ 3 to 4 hundred $ it’s b hard to justify. lock’s idea would give you the most bang for your buck, but again costly and hard to justify.

@locx
I read a long time ago they bought a license for pathengine which isn’t a game engine but more of an AI engine. so I doubt it’s 100% home made.

Its impossible to use WvW to measure fps. Typically I stay above 60, (sometimes drop down to 30) but last night there was a huge zerg vs zerg clash SoR vs JQ well over 50 players in each zerg and my fps dropped below 20 (which its never done before) and whats worse is the game felt laggy for the first time on this rig.

I’m posting a guide soon that may help. Keep an eye out for it.
If you cant wait, or dont want to… do some research on core parking and read over this:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

@Omaris: yeah, GW2 is built on a modified version of GW1 engine, which was started to develop over 10 years ago. Bad decision for us indeed, however I’ve heard ANet is trying to break into Chinese and other Asian markets as well, where most of the hardware is noticeably older than in EU/US (In China the most used OS is still Win XP I think), and doing that with a Dx11 game wouldn’t make sense. I don’t know all the facts here, this is just what I’ve heard, but I guess we just have to wait and see if there’s going to be some optimization updates along the way.

hmmm, i had no idea. Though the idea crossed my mind. Any thoughts as to if its Unity based?

don’t be too upset. I used to have a 5 year old AMD rig and I had decent fps (well decent for gw2) the only thing that killed me was wvw.
I simply used a few Windows tweaks. I’m at work right now. pm me if your interested.

loading times have to do with the speed of your hard drive. locx is correct kitten is the obvious soultion, but if your looking for a quick fix
there is a free program called primo cache that makes your hard drive read faster by caching your ram to it.
http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/download.html

all you do is install it and assign an amount of ram to it.

its pretty amazing. I use to make my SSD drives read as fast as a ramdisk. 5gb a second :P

Does is always happen during world boss fights and wvw? or only During prime time?

nice rig I like the NH-D14 push/pull. I realize it wouldn’t make a noticeable difference but couldn’t you use 3 fans for push, pull, pull?

I’m still reading over Kirito’s guide. Why did this never get stickied?
Ill make sure I reference it. I like how he made the table of contents as links to posts further down the thread. Not sure i know how that do that, but I’m sure i can figure it out.

MakkeOnMies.4718:

Should we make a thread which contains all the tips, tweaking, etc? Would BE alot easier just to give link there than always write same tips? What do you say? I can maintain it IF none else wants.

It is a good idea. I’ll try to put something together.

ohhhhh custom water loop. show us pictures when you done

Here is a screenshot in Lions Arch. 77 FPS. It actually spiked up to 80 but came back down to 75-77.

65 was my max pre 3.0 so maybe 10% is accurate (ish) but its worth it, and your silly for saying otherwise.

So locx, squish, and Nova are always telling people to run GPU-Z while GW2 is running in order to trouble shoot GPU issues.
I just realized I have GPU-z, but had yet to run it. (since CPU-Z gives you a some gpu info) so i tried it and realized I have been only using PCI-E 2.0.

googled some info and found this to force PCI-E 3.0: http://www.trickmasterpc.com/force-enable-gen3-pcie-3.html

I realized this only helps a small amount of players, but WOW I’m getting sick FPS.
In a small zerg in wvw (10-15) I stayed between 80 and 120 FPS.

I’ll test it some more later with screenshots in a bigger zerg.

here’s what I use:
https://mega.co.nz/#!1R1mHZpY!CpUV-E4Csjj7vrC2JeEM3Af2ZQ1AqYwdruIsVFWF7vQ

I cant seem to get bloom to look like I want, but this is pretty good.

what about using FXAA from sweetFX?

or better yet SMAA from sweetFX?

I’m a little confused as to why no one is telling you what you are experiencing is normal.
If you are seeing 20 ish fps during a zerg vs zerg situation then you are currently experiencing wvw at its best.
No one is getting more than 20-30 fps during a zerg vs zerg. If someone tells you otherwise, they are lying to you.

there are some things you can do software wise to improve your frames by a small amount and make game play a little smoother.
If your interested pm me.

I can understand the want to get the X9650 and play with it. I am just as much a tech nerd as I am a gamer nerd. But what everyone is saying is true. It may only be 60$ but that 60$ could be spent on a really good heatsink on your upgrade.

I didnt’t read the patch notes but i think i remember reading a while ago celestial sets weren’t working properly. so maybe its less of a nerf and more of a “they work as intended now”…?

If you 2 really enjoy this game and wvw, there isn’t much out there that compares to GW2 (imho). Having said that when i get frustrated/board with GW2 I switch to smite for a while. Give smite a try its a really great game. But make sure you came back to GW2.

I think the first thing you need to understand is NO ONE is getting over 30 fps in a zerg vs zerg situation.

having said that, what kind of fps is she experiencing in wvw?

that QX9650 wont do a heck of alot in wvw. But the catch 22 is its hard to justify a decent upgrade just for wvw.

currently the best upgrade for the $ is a z87 motherboard with a haswell i5 k-series.

we have similar systems, I get avg.40-60 fps in LA.

Its difficult to measure an avg fps in zergs in wvw. the more players on the screen the less the frames. if its small to medium sized zerg vs zerg 30-50 fps but when black gate crashes into your zerg with every player they have……30-20fps

there is an excellent website that helps increase fps in games:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

also razor game booster:
http://www.razerzone.com/gamebooster

I use both assets listed.

Again, the state of the game currently is horrible. ANET are seemingly either being naive to issues or ignorant in general performance debugging etc.

As far as them refusing help from nVidia, the same story is true of AMD. It seems that Arena Net is attempting to take the “we can do it ourselves, go away” approach to the help either company is offering.

I doubt this “help” that those companies are offering is free. I’m positive they charge an arm an a leg for that kind of “help”. If I were in charge of a small game company that hap programmers that “could” (but hasn’t) wrote optimization code, then I would make the same choice.

I realize everyone will think in the opposite direction and say something like “shows what you know, your company would fail because no one would want to play your slow un-optimized game”

…but companies that are paying licensing fees to epic for unreal engine, and paying valve to allow them to have their UE3 game on steam are making NOTHING.

sirsquishy.8531:

I can’t speak against or for process lasso, But I use the unpark util. And that bit is great (15-20 FPS gain, Seriously).

But, Running a process in real-time can be damaging to your system if you have other ‘real-time’ processes running. Such as A/V. If the AV cannot scan into the ‘forced’ process that is now running Real-Time, it will actually cause a performance Hindrance.

Same goes for Windows based services that need to activate.

Now, High Priority there is NOTHING wrong with putting any process there (Since 90% of the processes are Normal anyway). But I would never recommend Real-Time.

yes, i understand the risk. the same way we all understand the risk of overclocking.
But thats also kinda the point of running process lasso. Process lasso will NOT let AV run in realtime. Process lasso takes control of process managing away form windows.
and if it doesn’t, you can manually configure it to do so.

anyway here is my super caffeinated windows 7 reg tweak:
https://mega.co.nz/#!gQc0ybQY!ae6QRSxmNit2OnMzmWnQZGF2CPEQsLppCrCRId6ZjV8
please create a restore point before using it. I am not responsible if you computer catches on fire.

Actually, you should not disable the page file. There are programs that will not work correctly without it (certain versions of Microsoft Office, for example) and Windows, is, in fact, designed to use it and will always use it – no matter how much RAM you have.

I knew that would happen.

OGDeadHead.8326:

I’m a fan of Process Lasso, have bought the family license to support Jeremy, he’s a really great guy and one of few developers you actually can talk to directly.

However, this:

and assign it high, or real time priority

…I feel is a bad advice. Higher priority doesn’t necessarily mean better performance, it can have quite the opposite effect. Also, you don’t need PL for that!

I agree. the guy that developed process lasso is a genius. I also love his core unparking program.

I have been running games in high/realtime performance since windows xp. I have never had an issue. In many cases I have seen it increase game performance or at the very least smoother gameplay. Saying its bad to do so, is like the silly people that say “dont disable page file” In a day in age where its common to apply extra voltage to a cpu to get an extra fps?, yet people are worried your gonna crash windows with some crazy extreme tweak? come’on now.

I have the same problem . But I’ve had my naga for a long time, and I remember it working once apon a time. I think the problem is with the synapse running in the back ground. gw2 may see this as some kind of potential hack.
someone try to run your naga setup with admin privileges instead of accessing it from the background menu. I’m at work. I’ll try it when I get home.

The great thing about process lasso isn’t just that it’s a more intelligent way to automatically manage processes, but it also allows you to configure each process the way you want. while gw2 is running alt tab out and open up process lasso.
Right click on gw2 in the process window. assign it high power scheme (or what ever yours may be called), make it run in game mode, and assign it high, or real time priority.

I’m on the road right now. But when I get home I’ll upload that reg. tweak to mega and give you a link.

Shaard.9741:

NeedCoffee.1402:

you can try the tweaks listed here:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

I’ve used most of them with good results.

I tried some of them and haven’t seen any update ,and a lot of them I’ve already tried. I may just follow the advice and get an i5 of some sort and maybe a better cooling system to OC everything up a bit and get more out of my system that way, and hopefully that’ll bump me up at least past 45 fps

I know everyone gives me a hard time for saying this, but have you tried gamebooster?

I have been using it since 2010, and I love it.

what ave you tried form von dach’s list of tweaks?
process lasso? (very important)
smart v2?
tcp optimizer?
the reg edit tweak? (I have a better one if your interested)
Timer resolution?
core parking disabled?

you can try the tweaks listed here:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

I’ve used most of them with good results.

MaciKeks.2415:

Well, k – I overclocked my CPU now to 4.4 GHz in the BIOS. But well nothing really changed in GW2. Here’s a screenshot of GW2 at lowest graphics and windowed mode – + CPU-Z And that programm that came with my motherboard.

[img]http://epvpimg.com/RqSrb.png[/img]

27 FPS as you can see… (My game is on German :p)
Did I do sth. wrong?

EDIT: After I got a Bluescreen I removed the overclock again, lol.

Please, please, please read through Von Dach’s list of tweaks.
I have been using them for a long time now. they work. Some of them may not apply to your haswell rig, but alot of them will. using one or two of them may not yield big results, but using alot of them will.

MakkeOnMies.4718:

NeedCoffee.1402:

Try all the things on this list that apply to your pc:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

also use gamebooster:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

and i promise you your fps will improve.

or just manually shutsdown backround softwares instead of installing 1 more resource hog? only thing these so called “boosters” do is killing/freezing backround services/software which is not in need, if you think anything else its just placebo.

thats funny. from your enlightening and helpful post i know you have never tried the software.
gamebooster has more than a “background shutdown” or however you say it.

installing gamebooster and using the tweaks alone will give you a 5-10 fps boost.

I don’t even use the “boost” option, as i like having things running while i game.

and what about Von Dach’s tweaks? got anything intelligent to say about that?

Try all the things on this list that apply to your pc:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

also use gamebooster:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

and i promise you your fps will improve.

have you tried deleting the gw2.dat file?
The program will create a new one upon booting.

the fx-4100 is decent cpu. you may want to consider a small overclock and see if that helps your situation.
What kind of cooling solution are you using on that 4100? If your using stock I heard of people getting 4.0-4.1 with stock cooler.

your video card should be fine. Is it a 1gb or 2gb model?

the sad truth is even if you went out today, dropped mad cash and bought the latest and greatest, you would only see about 20-25 fps in a zerg vs zerg situation.

Another solution is to try out as many of the tweaks listed here as you have patients for:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922

also Ive seen the program gamebooster improve fps by as much as 10. So maybe try that too.
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

What do you have running in the back ground?
What kind of mouse is it? (It shouldn’t matter what kind of mouse, but maybe it’s a weird driver conflict?)
have you tried windowed mode vs non windowed mode?

Zezariz.6845:

First off thank you for all the fine advice I plan on trying all your tips xD

sirsquishy.8531:

And I would suggest considering overclocking that CPU to 4.5-4.6Ghz. While the Single thread on the FX is slower then Intel, CPUs seem to do better on this game at 4.6Ghz~.

second I have a question about overclocking. I know how to do it, I’ve done my research. However I cannot decided weather my current cooling setup is sufficient to support it.

I have a Noctua NH-D14 sitting on my CPU and 7 120 mm fans in total. (2 intake on front and sides 2 exhaust on the top and 1 in back) Out of the box I have never seen my CPU go over 37 degrees while stressed.

I was told go liquid cooling if i plan on overclocking. I’m just mad nervous about leaks and what not. Let me know what you think I am in the process of tweaking all of my settings :P

Noctura makes good cooling devices. You don’t NEED to go liquid to overclock, but many recommend it. All cpu’s are different, some wont overclock over 4.3 even if you have some kind of liquid setup. And some will overclock to 5.0 on air. Dont shoot for 4.6 off the bat, take baby steps. try something like 4.0 and play GW2 for a few hours.
If your PC doesn’t crash, try 4.1. wash, rinse, repeat.

If you decide you want a liquid setup, closed loops are fairly safe and not much more $ than good air heatsinks.

- Disabled Core parking very important – Win 7.xx and Win 8.xx have a bugged core parking feature which is by default enabled. While GW2 does not use multiple cores beyond 2nd a little bit, it helps because you can have the game run on 1 core while system on another and background apps on yet another. What happens now is cores get parked, and fail to re-initialize when called to do so, but falsely reported as such. If you disable core parking completely you will eliminate this possibility. To do so requires a manual registry edit of 3 keys. I forgot which they are, but you can just google “Diable Core Parking” Windows 7, Windows 8

this is what i was leading up to, But im positive squish knows about core parking.

I prefer this FREE core parking program:
http://bitsum.com/about_cpu_core_parking.php

the guys at bitsum are geniuses.