Guild Wars 2

If drivers aren’t the issue, one or more of the following is out of tolerance with respect to the other two:
- Temperature
- Power (GPU)
- Clock (GPU, VRAM, Shader)

Lowering clocks will address all of those.

SolarNova is right on both points: 600-series seem to have issues (I get the impression they are underpowered—GPU needs more juice than what is being delivered—test it by increasing voltage) and Alienwares are overpriced and I will add with no guarantee of stability—basically, you’re going to have to screw with it anyway. (I highly recommend reading the sticky that discusses it, “How to get performance” or some such is the title.) BTW, 660 is mid-range, not high-end; 690 or 680 SLI is high-end.

Is your Alienware overclocked? If so, they may not have done it right. CPU freezes indicate that. Additionally, make sure cooling is adequate; I don’t like that teeny-tiny case with with its goofy arrangement (take the panel off, point a desk/floor fan at it).

In all honesty, if you can return it, I couldn’t recommend that enough.

Your hardware is definitely NOT up to the task. CPU is slow, not enough RAM, video is ancient. It has provided many years of good service; it’s time to build a new box and keep that one for wiki-ing without alt-tabbing.

CPU: Sandy Bridge overclocks better than Ivy Bridge since 1) Ivy’s TDP is only 77W (vice 95W) and 2) Intel used cheap thermal paste (!) in the heat spreader rather than flux-less solder. cf. http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/sebuncha/20120511_532119.html

As far as the i7 goes, I didn’t feel hyperthreading was worth the extra C-note; put it towards video since your GPU will bottleneck before your CPU. (Caveat: GW2 will peg both on occasion but I’ve not experienced sustained bottlenecks with it.)

Cooler: Pretty much any aftermarket one will let you hit your OC potential. I like Zalman: they are quiet and look very, very nice but you’ll pay for’em.

Motherboard: Gigabyte indeed. I’ve built several UD3s an UD4s and I don’t see the UD4’s beefier VRM array do any better than the UD3’s at sub-5GHz (basically, anything do-able on air), so you needn’t splurge for it.

Video: The 660Ti is probably your best bet but the 560Ti is cheap and two of ’em might outperform a single 660Ti but you lose scalability.

SSD: I avoided SandForce 22xx when I bought mine because it had issues at the time. I started using them several months later and mushkin’s Chronos kicks the crap out of my m4 (both are friggin’ fast regardless).

RAM: Again, mushkin (fast, lower voltage, inexpensive). Don’t get anything less than 2133; it doesn’t cost any more and RAM speed does have a direct impact on FPS (cf. Tom’s Hardware; I don’t have the link). 8GB is plenty and keep to two sticks (not four, hurts performance).

Mouse: I like my Logitech G9x (5700 dpi for buttery smoothness but, truth be told, I’m not at 5700 unless I’m first-person-shooting) and their quality and customer service is top-notch** and has been since I can remember (early 90’s). I don’t like Razer; their quality is crap.

_ **I inquired about ordering a new mouse cable since my cat chewed through mine and they just sent me a whole new-in-box mouse; I didn’t have to pay anything._

Too funny, must be a trend:

Lots of logical fallacies here:
- It isn’t either-or; it isn’t only easy or only difficult
- Again, not either-or: “play your way” isn’t “anything goes”; the issue is that it seems only one or maybe two ways go
- Everyone who takes exception to dungeon design is not a Trophy Generation cry-baby
- I criticised the articles strategy: I didn’t say those were necessary only that others felt it was

Zenyatoo.4059:

elementalist can lay down and proc combo fields better than any other class. At least fire ones for sure (which imo are the most useful, because 3 stacks of might is gooood)

True if:
- You only play staff
- You stay alive through the ire of those in your AoE
- There are enough hostiles in the AoE to rack up the damage
- Enough teammates finish the combo and you don’t have other teammates dropping combo fields concurrently (they don’t stack; only one takes effect)

Drew.1865:

Rolo.9248:

I honestly can’t find anything the elementalist does that the other classes do better.

I tank with mine and I have so many shields and escape methods it’s crazy.

But a guardian or a warrior can do it better whilst dealing far more damage, which was my point.

FourthVariety.5463:

If you think dungeons are too difficult, then here is a list of what you should do:
http://www.wartower.de/artikel/artikel.php?id=672

So what we’re supposed to do is level to 80, use 400-level food, and buy exotic weapons to complete a level 30 story mode dungeon. Kittening brilliant!

Silly me: I just wanted to complete the story mode when the story was still relevant and I was thinking explorer mode was for later. How foolish I was.

miya.5160:

As for damage, elementalists and warriors stand out.

Playing an elementalist, I can say that I’ve observed warrior’s damage consistently higher than my own and without the waifyness.

I honestly can’t find anything the elementalist does that the other classes do better.

General PvE is far too /faceroll to give any indication how your character will perform in dungeons. That “play as you want” crap doesn’t apply to dungeons.

Flame Of The Titan.3649:

The fact that risen can frenzy is. It increases the damage output of them by times 2. So it feels like you are fighting 10 of them.

I thought I was clear: this isn’t about perception; I literally counted twelve mobs attacking me when I died. More than once. I guess I was the last supper.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

At this point I decided to research the instance, viewing a number of fan videos and reading a swath of forum posts and blog posts.

This is the personal story, not raiding, not explorer dungeons, not group-coordinated instances; I shouldn’t have to stop and do research to complete it.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

getting to the NPC or exit when directed.

That’s where I’m completely stuck; there are too many spawns on me the entire time and mechanics prevent completing the objectives.

Tinni.4351:

My Guardian didn’t have as much fun when fighting the big dragon thing in Claw island because Guardian ranged isn’t the greatest and I don’t have reflexes fast enough to dodge well while in melee range. But not being able to dodge fast enough is MY issue, not the games. Possibly I can say its the games fault that Guardians don’t have as powerful a ranged option as other classes/sceptres need a buff. But it is also a fact that my Guardian had little difficulty until the dragon boss. So what is it exactly that you want Anet to do?

Give me viable options like they said they were.
Do you honestly think “not dodging fast enough” is the cause of repeated failed missions? Are you even reading the grievances? Pithy statements like these are insulting, unhelpful, and dismissive.

Examples of how nobody can “dodge fast enough” just in the mission where I’m stuck:
- Undead zoom up to me like a Benny Hill skit—chill, dodge and it’s immediately right back on me; dodge again, it’s there. I’m out of endurance at this point and RTL is already on CD
- AoEs of AoEs. The entire ground is covered in poison, leaving nowhere to dodge to
- Dodge to a vacant spot? No problem, a respawn will be there to greet you
- One objective is to revive an NPC. I don’t know how to dodge and revive simultaneously (I had an invulnerability skill that worked for that but between that and condition removal, I don’t have any more slots or points for vigour/endurance boosts)

The whole endeavour was one big WTK?

The personal story should be fun and approachable and it is not. I don’t wish it to be /faceroll like non-dungeon PvE is but I don’t want it to be dungeon-difficulty either. Frankly, I’m only playing it at this point because I want to see the story and the writing and voice acting is very entertaining.

I don’t want a casual stroll and I don’t want to run sprints; I do want to go for a fulfilling jog and without stepping on a rake every few steps.

Dorn.5867:

I would like to see situations that make sense in terms of who the mobs are attacking and why. If I open up with all my aoe abilities right from the get go, then I fully expect that every single mob hit will go for me. That’s on me as a player, not on the AI. If I am selective, and focus my spells/abilies on one mob, then if that mob goes for me then that’s also on me as a player. I earned that threat. But if I sit in the back, determining who to attack and all of a sudden the boss and his 3 cronies all turn and attack me out of the blue, what caused that? Did I insult them on some level because I wasn’t participating? I consider myself a knowledgeble average player. I am not “elite” but I know my class, I look at my abilities and know when and how to use them. I know to dodge out of the way and not stand in the fire. … I’m looking for clarification as to why things are the way they are and what is being done to resolve them. Running from way points is not good dungeon design.

Absolutely ditto.
CM was too easy but now its just kittening ridiculous.

rgrwng.4072:

I would also like to add i had much difficulty with the next lv50 mission “The Battle of Claw Island”. For the Risen, as they are undead, how do they all of the sudden become marathon sprinters?

That definitely falls under WTK? (“What The Kitten?”)

They pretty much teleport and there is always at least one on you no matter what you do. If the sheer volume of mobs and aoes aren’t enough, this definitely makes dodging useless as it can’t be sustained. Don’t tell me “l2dodge”.

The insane health/toughness they have requires high damage but anyone specced in high damage is a glass cannon and that doesn’t work in GW2. DPS is out.

Strong regen and condition removal only postpones the inevitable as there will always be more aoes on top of aoes and more mobs respawning every several seconds which also inflict poison, so condition removal is ineffective.

I can only get a few seconds of stability, blind, knockdown and they don’t compare to my getting knocked down every few seconds for several seconds—since I’m out of endurance, snares and in spite of my living and their not living, their diseased, rotten corpses can move far faster than I. WTK? What’s is left for me to try here?

The difficulty of this story mission requires high mobility, high aoe shut-down, high damage, high toughness, high vitality, high condition removal, high invulnerability (for rez ‘cos you aren’t mobile).

I don’t have that many skill slots; I have all skills but Charrzooka (which is inconsequential since the long casting time of the elite ensures its being interrupted and I’ll not survive the cooldown) and I have more trait points than the level of the quest.

I am not having fun at all. Perhaps those who say “GW2 isn’t the game for you” are correct. Now that it’s out, can we get more GW1 expansions? (pipe dream, I know, but GW1 is a fun game)

This mission is kitteny kitten kitten.

Why these devs can’t find a middle-ground, I don’t know: these personal story missions are either far to easy (boring) or impossible. I can’t begin to figure this one out.

Twelve mobs (that’s not an exaggeration) on me aren’t enough you have to keep respawning more on top of them? Really?

Acaelus Thorne.3862:

Well I have to agree, it feels like people don’t take the time to formulate a tactical plan how to over come a difficult mobs in the storyline. Yes I have die a lot in my personal of my Elementalist, and Mesmer. I alway try different tactical plan to see which works best on which mob. I have it easy on my main who is a Ranger.

(bold added)
Your ranger is a better tactician than your cloth-wearers or is it that his pocket-tank is this “tactical plan”?
I also have noticed that things are far easier playing my wife’s ranger (with a build I wouldn’t choose and without knowing what most of the skills do as I don’t spend time with it) than all my efforts with my elementalist.

No matter how you say it, “you’re playing it wrong” is just dismissive.

Acaelus Thorne.3862:

Most personal story you have a NPC with you.

…for about 2 seconds, then splat

Let them tank he boss and always take the add out quickly.

A build that can take anything out quickly would be the “glass cannon”, which fall under “you’re playing it wrong” because DPS is zero when you’re dead.
Spec for survivability and you aren’t taking anything out quickly (except fun factor because it gets tedious even when successful).
Make a balanced build and, well, survivability still sucks.

It seems, generally, the classes that can chain aoe shutdowns (guardian, thief) or have personal tanks (rangers) do well.

Pneumothorax.2964:

Asura Elementalist, now 80 – So far I’ve the felt the difficulty is fine. Bugs are another matter, but I’ve found the difficulty perfectly reasonable.

Good for you but that doesn’t negate others having much difficulty and little fun.

MerryBelle.3917:

This is really garbage. I’m tired of either dying or running around in circles while npcs kill off everything.

Your NPCs kill things? Neat.

Mine are mediocre speed-bumps (“meat shield” would be giving them far too much credit).

Specifics? “The battle of Claw Island” but it’s pretty much across the board. I haven’t developed/tested the game for years and I’m not inclined to beat my head against the wall trying to get to that level the hard way.

Is it fun? Really? It’s ridiculous. I don’t want it easy but I don’t want dungeon-level aggravation in my personal story.

Ele is my first char and the question to ask is, “Am I viable to be an Elementalist?”!

There are other classes for single-target spike damage: play those if that’s what you want to do. Always remember: your DPS is ZERO when you’re dead.

If you want more variety, options, complexity, try ele. The few times I played my wife’s ranger, I got bored because its a lot less demanding.

There are a dozen other, more important, things to look at during combat; you may forget all about it/no longer notice.

(Wife plays a female charr ranger and I only notice when longbow #2 skill won’t stop firing, long after combat! too funny…)

Bloodtau.4672:

This has got to be the worst city out of them all. It’s so boring and frustrating.

Boring? Really? We went from Charr carvings to Superior Charr carvings to THIS! It made me wonder if contractors consider moral issues before taking on a contract…

Frustrating? have you been to Divinity’s Reach? Oy vey.
I was aggravated by both in the beginning because my sense of direction kinda sucks and lack of camera zooming out to any useful distance. I didn’t leave it until I had Charrgrimmar 100% complete…“Patience….discipline”—oh, wait, wrong game.

Bloodtau.4672:

For example, I apparently still have 3 POI inside imperator’s core, yet i’ve been around every inch of it and they still say they are above me.

That was definitely the, “Where’s Sulu?” question. They are instanced; go through the sci-fi-like red doors.

I agree with AuldWolf in that BC’s crafting area is the best.

No…those are lilacs; the Asura are just standing underneath them.

“My cat’s breath smells like cat food.” —Ralphie Wiggum

I’m having a hard time not using this skill. I’m still figuring out the game and came here looking for insight.

The ranges in this game all sound much farther to me than what they really are. (Probably because of large numbers of a unit that has no frame of reference.)

I play a human in real-life; I want something different for my gaming.

EQ2: Sarnak; WoW: Tauren

I keep wanting to call the Charr skill “Battle Roar”, “Bloodlust”

VVolfsong.7012:

It actually sounds like he’s suddenly really confused and goes “HUH???”. To me it makes my character sound like hes a moron, and I find it incredibly annoying.

I love that grunt; it cracks me up every time, never gets old!
I only hear it when I’m doing jumping puzzles, vistas and quite often expresses how I feel at the time.

…And it quenches the urge to find out who at Anet I need to punch for making the jumping puzzles…well played Anet…well played….

And don’t forget Bloodcovered Backstabbin’ Blackjack the Blade!
:D

flyaway.9257:

my lvl 22 warrior does twice single target damage i can do on my lvl 80 full rare gear elle

Does it do twice AoE damage as well or are you only comparing 1/10th of one class to 1/10th of another?

Without anyone illustrating why a class is unbalanced, I can only surmise that the player hasn’t figured out how to play said class.

In the case of eles, I wonder if it the same eles in GW who start the fight with their biggest nuke and then complain when they get immediately, appropriately squished. (I played ele and I played warr in GW and was the silly ele and was the annoyed “tank”)

I don’t want bursty damage; I want to deal appropriate damage without drawing attention to myself, denying hostiles the ability to deal damage, and to enable nearby allies to do the same (allies help that whole not-getting-attention-from-foes thing).

I am far from mastering the class and I had the same knee-jerk perceptions but I’m going to “L2P” before I have the hubris to tell Anet that they don’t know what they’re doing and “demanding” they turn my ele into a thief (who, in my last dungeon was getting squished the entire time—CM story, mind you!—and the two eles weren’t—I and the ranger almost got monthly survivor but there just wasn’t enough XP in the dungeon—and none of us were in CM before except the guardian who disconnected from ISP issues right after we entered and never returned).

Right now I’m playing 30 water w/staff and sceptre/focus and like it. I don’t kill things quickly solo but champion plus two veterans plus respawning trash doesn’t make me fret either (man that was a fun fight…long fight but fun fight and I learned to dodge-roll better and I felt nigh invincible rather than squishy, so there’s a continuum here).

I intend to revisit D/D after I hit a certain level of competence with S/F. A fire-centric build doesn’t appeal to me but I will eventually try it (I like trying different things to find what clicks for me and to see what fits best in different contexts—I just wish we could change traits more easily), which is all part of mastering a class anyway.

My advice to a new player would be if you want something more straightforward, then avoid Elementalist and Engineer and maybe Necromancer. If said new player is bent on only dealing damage and without doing anything else,—errrrrmmmm….GW2 might not be for you; go in with a group with specific builds perhaps or just get with the program.

Note that I am not saying eles are “just fine”—I don’t know enough to say either way—but I am asserting that neither does most anyone else, who’s posts reflect such.

[BUG] Moving a signet from one slot to another kills its passive effect. For example:
1. Equip Signet of Water in slot 7
2. Equip Signet of Earth in slot 9
3. Equip Signet of Earth in slot 7 (to swap their slots): toughness increase no longer takes effect (the effects icon is missing and the stat isn’t modified)

-+-

I don’t know if this is a bug or an intended effect but Water Magic’s skill X does not give regeneration when casting Conjure Frost Bow, only when picking up the conjured Frost Bow

Gear does play a part: a lvl 50 in a lvl 40 zone with lvl 50 gear will have higher stats than with lvl 40 gear (try it).

No matter how it works, it still makes for OP chars (for me since lvl 5, now lvl 65—20 levels too high) and the game too easy, forcing the missus and I to find areas where people aren’t in order to find some semblance of a good fight, which is contrary to what this mechanic is supposed to do.

Samaul.6073:

I agree that overlocking and building your own system can be fun but it can also be very frustrating and expensive.

I’ve already addressed that it isn’t more expensive and projecting your frustration onto everyone else isn’t ‘advice’. Personally, I don’t find it frustrating at all—it can be a smidge tedious but that’s what books, magazines, another computer are for (to pass the time waiting for test results that most probably rush and frustrate themselves).

Samaul.6073:

Building my own was a never ending process of
…RMAs and returns for defective components and endless upgrades.

Don’t buy cheap crap.
Umm….and according to you, your AW is no different:

I have made only one change to my AW system, I upgraded the video cards from GTX 460s to GTX 560 tis. If something goes wrong with my system, I call alienware and they replace any failed or defective components.

Soooo…you’ve upgraded two video cards and have to RMA components (after AW will have you test them because nobody will pay to exchange parts without bona fide diagnostics identifying they are faulty).
I’ve not upgraded this machine yet and don’t intend to anytime soon as there really isn’t anywhere to go. After the 600s prove themselves, I may stick a 680 in the wife’s and move her 580 with mine (same lot so hardware and firmware revisions match)—or I’ll wait until the 700s since even numbered models seem to be the ones to avoid. (_4_60s? Really? The “endless” research you take exception to would have saved you the upgrade since it would have revealed 400s were nVidia’s haphazard rush to get something to the market before they were really finished with development on what you have now!)

Samaul.6073:

Lets try to limit the advice in this thread to non-invasive, non-destructive system modifications and tweaks.

Nobody has suggested such. Your not able/wanting to DIY doesn’t mean its dangerous.

Samaul.6073:

Again the purpose of this thread is to help others tweak their existing system so that it runs GW2 better, not win benchmark contests with liquid-notrogen cooled super systems.

Nobody suggested that either—and you are the one who suggested benchmarks!
To optimally tweak a system one has to find the optimal clocks and voltages one’s components can reliably run at full load.

Samaul.6073:

Building your own and overclocking it is very risky.

Not if you can read for comprehension and exercise sound judgement.

Samaul.6073:

By definition when you overclock if you do it right, you are pushing your system to its limit of performance, stability and heat tolerance.

Incorrect
- OC isn’t always “pushing” as it is typically only utilising what is already avalable
- OC is about finding performance limits that already exist but aren’t relied upon en masse by the OEM
- My OC components run cooler than stock
- I’m retired military and have the 100% fully-mission-capable mindset; I want neither my or my wife’s hardware to fail during operational use—ever!

Samaul.6073:

When you exceed your systems specifications, you risk damaging its components.

Systems don’t have specs: components do. Do you know your components’ specs? If you did, you would know that all but extreme OC remains within manufacturer-published specifications. Intel-published specs for the i5-2500k are 1.52v and 100C TJmax—most OCs go nowhere near that (mine is <1.4v, energy-saving ON and 66C max under sustained full load with a 27.2% OC).

nVidia specs for the GF110 state 1.1v (1.0v is as-delivered) and also 100C; I’m at 1.05v, 72C max but I’m at 14.2% OC and my card runs GW2 more smoothly than at stock (which I think 1.0v is too low and more who run GW2 are discovering this and I’m beginning to think stock voltages for the 600-series cards is off the mark).

Samaul.6073:

There is no way to avoid the risk if you build your own and overclock.

Yes there is: read for comprehension and sound judgement; risk comes from doing foolish things and that alone

Samaul.6073:

In my experience, Alienware and Falcon-Northwest are only slightly more costly than buying high quality components and building it yourself.

No, it isn’t: I paid literally half for mine and it’s a better machine. I can also troubleshoot and fix it more effectively because I built it.

I even sell said better machines for less than retail and still make a few bucks for myself (and it’s also how I get to play with hardware without paying for it).

Samaul.6073:

When you guy a pre-configured, factory overclocked system, you are letting falcon-nw and aw take the risk for you.

You think they are taking risks with hardware?

Samaul.6073:

They can afford to buy components in massive bulk and test them. They run components through a process called binning. They stress-test components and then put them in separate stacks or bins based on how well they dissapate heat and perform. Can you afford to buy components by the thousands, test them all, keep the good ones and throw out or return the bad ones?

This was true many, many years ago (when you bought a CPU based on the plant where it was fabricated—Malaysian FTW) but not now. Every 2500K I’ve built runs at 4.2GHz at stock voltages with an aftermarket air cooler and I pound the crap out of hardware—keeping everything at 100% utilisation overnight—before I call it ‘good’, which is far shorter than it used to be with 2-3-4-86s: 72-hour burn-in. The point is that the fabrication process has improved exponentially.

Samaul.6073:

I am here to play GW2, not spend all my time tweaking my system so that I can get a few more fps out of it.

I would say you spent more time arguing against DIY OC than I did OC my system. OK maybe not but I spent a week building/tweaking an i5 platform I could use for a few years and to sell. I’ve sold enough in a few months (I only do this as a hobby and for people I know, not a business) that it paid for my and my wife’s PCs and nobody is complaining that their computers are crashing, underperfoming, or locking up—an ounce of prevention.

Samaul.6073:

I am happy to let aw do that for me.

There is nothing wrong with that. Also, there is nothing wrong with DIY either and, frankly, I do a better job than AW or FNW as mine hit the trifecta: faster, better, cheaper.

Slamz? Iggles-type from The Purge?

/wave

Darmikau.9413:

I’m sorry but that is absolutely ridiculous. I have 0 interest in WvW combat

Have you tried it? …given it an honest go?

Darmikau.9413:

yet I have to have it forced down my throat in order to get a PvE based goal?

WvW was designed for folks not particularly interested in PvP.
In the original Guild Wars, cartography required mapping PvP areas as well. Up hills. Both ways. In the snow.

Darmikau.9413:

I already have to spend tons of gold teleporting between waypoints,

Did you take an arrow to the knee?

Darmikau.9413:

fixing armor

Ah, I see, you have. Perhaps re-examine your strategy (build) and tactics (see arrow, move knees; see hostiles, move knees, see friendlies, move knees).

Darmikau.9413:

and dealing with terrible drops and experience from PvE areas

I’ve observed two different loot tables always in effect: one for the area and one for the player; I get level-appropriate drops even in far lower-level areas. Besides, the TP has better loot.

Darmikau.9413:

and now I also have to deal with a gametype I had absolutely no intention of playing

Why not? Give it a go ol’ boy! You may enjoy it.

Darmikau.9413:

one that forces me to deal with real players who go out of their way to keep me from doing objectives that are trivial compared to the real goals.

You’re condemning something based on assumption? tsk tsk

Darmikau.9413:

I’m not sure who thought this would be a good idea,

Perhaps the folks who called it Guild Wars.
Perhaps they thought that this would be a way to get some out of their shell (don’t get me wrong: I like my shell, it’s safe and comfortable) and quash assumptions.

Darmikau.9413:

but they clearly never considered that massive grief potential in killing players who are trying to get exploration objectives rather than focusing on actual WvW goals.

Have you experienced this? No. Why go on about it?
Besides, killing the enemy is a part of WvW goals. Why not find WvW goals being worked and go with the flow and discover your areas along the way? (worked for my cartography)

Needless to say having ANY goals inside the WvW arenas that aren’t specifically beneficial to WvW is completely counterintuitive in the first place.

Are they even mutually exclusive? (people who have actually played WvW say ‘no’)

Darmikau.9413:

Sorry Anet, but this is probably the biggest middle finger you’ve given the PvE community since you gut half the skills in GW1 for the sake of PvP balance before the skill split.

- Because you inferred it does not mean they implied it (c’mon..give Anet more credit than that)
- They tried to keep it unified but, after hard effort, they split the skills; I, for one, appreciate the significant undertaking Anet took upon itself and gave us awesome games as a result

My advice is to really, really get out of the Trophy Generation mentality.

AshleySegovia.3948:

I might suggest reseating your graphics card to ensure that it is running at x16 rather than x4 or x1.

I would suggest running a diagnostic to view its current PCIe speed rather than shooting first and asking questions later.

Brandon.4027:

I have GPU-Z and it says the BUS INTERFACE is PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x16 1.1

It also states that it’s running at PCI-Express x16 v1.1 but supports v2.0

I have no clue what the v2.0 and v1.1 is but that doesn’t seem right, I would think it would be running at v2.0, could this be a problem and is there a solution?

Yes, clicking the question mark next to this gives you a render button to put a load on the GPU to switch to its highest bus speed.

rebalnz.3869:

dont worry, there’s heaps of people with this issue. i have a i7 2600k and a gtx670. and exactly same thing happens to me. even if i play around with the settings makes no difference in big cities.

When this happens:
Is your CPU at 100%?
Is your GPU at 100%?

Unless your CPU is ancient, it has multiple CPU cores: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_processor

In the BIOS, you can limit the number of cores being used, which will decrease thermal output to help troubleshoot cooling issues.

CptBadger.5918:

So it seems to me, that 95% of PC owners have trouble with their hardware.

Frankly, you don’t have nearly enough data to arrive at that conclusion and assumptions help noone. What you are perceiving is the “vocal minority”.

Reporting low FPS without specific performance measurements isn’t actionable.

Why can’t I quote? …only have a “link post” button

- GW2 can and does peg a 4.2GHz i5-2500k
- GW2 can and does peg any GPU to date
— Don’t assume either of these when there are tools to measure them; griping on assumption helps noone
— If your hardware is pegged, either turn down settings and/or upgrade your hardware

Moderator, can we please have a thread exclusively for choppy FPS when hardware is not the bottleneck?

Dan.4658:

Blue Screen error- Memory dump (or something along the lines of that)

And you didn’t think this information on this diagnostic screen was important enough to note and report?

Zipzo.6753:

This is NOT a shutdown. It is a hard reset. Laptops submitted to overheating will shutdown, not hard reset.

The computer just reboots.

99.44% of the time this is the PSU failing to meet the load.

Clearly there is an issue with compatibility here because pretty much any unlucky soul who happens to own this specific laptop has this issue.

Actually, this is lamp-lighting the laptop for not being able to perform under heavy load. GW2 is written against the OS, not specific hardware.

Eulanna.9458:

The reason for my time out is that the hard resets have (likely) caused my current problem where windows crashes during start up. Start up repair – not fun to run!

Windows isn’t crashing during startup; if you read the screen, it is telling you that it did not shut down properly and is giving you options to recover if necessary.

BTW, “crash” means code failed to execute and typically provides an error code.

Balthor.9482:

So the more casual players can’t have dungeons?

“So the less casual players can’t have content?”

…is what would happen if you reduce the entire game to the lowest common denominator. We’re talking about—what?—5-10% of the PvE content here?

“…but you can’t fool/please all of the people all of the time.”

My only criticism is flow: AC for a first dungeon (ow—WTB wide-angle camera) and then CM (cakewalk).

funforums.4850:

Nontheless, turning up VOLTAGE without turning up CLOCK is nonsense, since you’re just overheating your video card, as more current is flowing into it, without using it.

It isn’t nonsense: increasing voltage makes a cleaner wave-shape; if the current clock is a little too much to be 100% reliable, an increase in voltage can fix that.

Additionally, voltage and current are two separate things. Voltage increase does increase thermal output but not necessarily overheating it, which depends on the cooler attached to it.

-+-

This everything FPS merger eliminates redundant topics but it creates confusion as there are several reasons for low FPS: CPU-limits, GPU limits, game limits; the first two the user can remedy and really can be its own thread and I tried to start a thread that clearly identifies (not guessing) a software limitation.

Remembrance.2639:

You can try disabling your page file, defragging then setting your page file again.

My pagefile is on my SSD.

Typhi.4287:

And yes I checked my PCI-E bandwidth already, it’s on x16 2.0

Likewise.

Tanira.8157:

When I cap the FPS at 60 FPS the game gets capped at 50 FPS.

That started happening to me a few days ago as well.
Just leave vsynch on and don’t cap it since that’s redundant anyway.

Increasing my clock and voltage did boost my FPS but it wasn’t that low to begin with.

This will happen if you never bought, consumed the Master Training Manual.

BlckDrgn.1960:

Edit: I’ve been in IT for over 10yrs (I know, I know, everyone on the internet is a computer expert, as well as a brain scientist and a rocket surgeon…)

Since you mentioned it, 31 years here and I worked with rocket scientists at my last job.

BlckDrgn.1960:

and the only thing parked cores do is save power which equals less heat.

Since all you’re doing is keeping idle cores active, you are generating more heat:

From the app’s page (bold added, the part that gets disabled):
However, if you are running something that requires a lot of CPU power, all the cores, which were previously parked, will be placed in the active state (unparked) to perform the task. And after it’s done, they will be parked again.

Yes, many laptops are having issues running this very demanding app—that’s a testament to the laptops in question, not the app.

A guilde had disable 2/4 cores to keep it from locking up whilst playing GW2.

Cooling.
Power.
Clocks.

At least one of these isn’t keeping up.

Heat.
Power.
Clocks.

At least one of these can’t stay in spec or perform in spec with the other two.

If you can’t change CPU clock, disable some cores.

Don’t guess; use perfmon or any other CPU monitoring tool to see if your CPU is the bottleneck but I’m pretty sure the x2 can’t keep your 6790 busy enough. The 955 seems to be a great value.

That error is a memory access violation. Have you run memtest86+ overnight w/no errors?

Padwa.5160:

Can someone please help me, I dont have time for these crappy Dcs every 5 mins
I paid for the game to play, not spend hours researching the problem as im getting no support from any admins.

Then buy an Xbox.
re: support. You get out of it what you put into it; the admin will likely respond to requests that have actual information in them before ones that don’t.

Normally, I have consistently fluid framerates (60 FPS w/vsynch) with the occasional drop from either a GPU limitation (100% utilisation) or CPU limitation (one or more cores 100%); these are understandable.

My issue is with sub-60 FPS when neither the CPU nor GPU aren’t anywhere near max utilisation; what can be causing this and how can I correct it or work around it?

3 atch:
1. NCScoft Game Advisor dump
2. Picture of GPU @ 62%, CPU ~70%, 48 FPS
3. My graphics settings