Guild Wars 2

My wife’s a Ranger and she loves using my Ice Bow.

I’m getting Conjure Earth Shield next…can’t wait now…sounds impishly fun (almost like Rift’s Cabalist skill that sucked enemies to a vortex for much AoE pounding).

What you’re saying is that you are a caster who doesn’t like to be around foes. Do you think the enemy casters would like to be next to a [prepared for it] foe? (Churning Earth, Obsidian Flesh off the top of my head)

Good thread.

Brayzen.6287:

I still cannot get comfortable with the idea of using air from a compressor.

I don’t remember anybody mentioning air compressors, only canned air and small vacuum cleaners.

Brayzen.6287:

As far as using a vacum cleaner, my concerns were the risk of static electricity.I am leery of it and take precautions when inside my case such as wearing surgical gloves,

Ever rub a balloon? Surgical gloves = bad idea
Use proper ESD equipment (mat, wrist strap, bags), keep components grounded (if possible) and ground all tools prior to their touching components and don’t introduce new differences of potential (surgical gloves, balloons, cats).

Brayzen.6287:

A plastic nozzle of a vacuum is NOT an insulator against static discharge.In some research I have done on the topic in the past I have learned that the air/dust mixture going through the tip of the nozzle creates static….

And neither are your gloves. You don’t touch equipment with the plastic nozzle.
By your logic, you must never, ever clean your PC, leaving dust to cause thermal issues and, if in a humid environment, can trap moisture and become a conductor.
If it is that much of an issue for you, buy an ESD-certified vacuum.

--
re: memtest86. This should always be run when getting BSODs to avoid barking up the wrong tree if the STOP code doesn’t get you anywhere. VMT (Video Memory Test) is a separate program that tests your GPU RAM.

re: 3Dmark. Benchmarks don’t really reflect real-world performance (ATI proved that, heh) and performance varies from game to game. The only performance that matters is sustained FPS in the game(s) one plays.

re: overclocking. I don’t recommend those designer systems for three chief reasons: cost, knowledge, and performance. For the price, one can build a far better performer or save the money (which would allow more users to have high-performance hardware).

For the knowledge that when you build it yourself, you can troubleshoot it and tweak it optimally; you won’t have practical experience if someone else does it for you. For performance for two reasons: you’ll pick better hardware because overhead isn’t an issue and you’ll tune it to its full capability rather than what’s commonly reliable without adding to tech support requests.

There are plenty of guides (from actual publishers too) and discussions that any reasonable, prudent person can overclock without issue. Personally, I couldn’t sleep at night knowing my components aren’t performing at their maximum capability.

If it says “+” chance, then I take that to mean they are additive (in this case, 30% chance of quickness)

If it doesn’t say “+” and you have three separate 10% chance to proc, then you have three separate 10% chances: 1-(1-0.1)(1-0.1)(1-0.1)=27.1% chance—assuming said things all stack. The wiki says Bloodlust/Corruption sigils do not stack; check your specific sigil.

I think the warning pertains to some MMO’s anti-cheat software detecting TS as a cheat (GameGuard used to detect Logitech driver software as a cheat program).

dacooli.6712:

Shouldnt be required to OVERCLOCK my cpu which nvidia suggested to be able to max this game.

Wait…you were using the same nVidia guy to blame Anet and now you’re arguing with him also?

With all due respect, if you can’t accept these things that go with PC gaming, then you need to just plug in an Xbox/PS3/Wii and enjoy.

dacooli.6712:

I play all other games as I should and its not about drivers;

Drivers are written against games, so drivers do play a significant role; read the driver’s patch notes.

dacooli.6712:

NVIDIA SAID on the forums that they can’t do anything about it

That was in a particular context, not a blanket statement absolving nVidia of any GW2 driver development.

dacooli.6712:

since its so heavily CPU based

GW2 isn’t “so heavily” CPU-based. Every game is CPU-bound when your graphics subsystem is powerful enough; there will always be a bottleneck somewhere. This, however, doesn’t explain your issue; it only explains why a 6xx card won’t perform any better than a 4-or-5xx card in certain circumstances.

dacooli.6712:

(too cpu based = bad optimized)

That’s a nice jump to conclusions mat you got there. Besides, name me one program that isn’t “CPU based” since they all seem to need that CPU thingamabob :/

dacooli.6712:

I play all other games as I should and I get much better performance than you in most games.

Apples and oranges: all games are not alike. MMO is far more demanding than an FPS and an RTS even more so.

Anet did not “fail”, your argument fails because its assumption-based rather than factual. If there is something for Anet to fix, whining to Anet and quoting some guy out of context doesn’t give anyone anything useful to work with; providing actual tech data and proper troubleshooting outcomes to eliminate your configuration as the issue is useful because for every one of you, there are hundreds/thousands who don’t have a problem.

GuildWars.9862:

" People who played guild wars 1 would be able to play guild wars 2 with minor updates to there system "

“The road to Hell…”

There is no “updating” a 7-year old computer.

GuildWars.9862:

I could max out GW and still get over 40+ fps in massive mob battles. No with everything turned to low/off i get around 10 fps in places with no players/enemies/missions in GW2.

You couldn’t max a 2005 game (<60FPS isn’t max) and you expect to run a brand new game 7 years later? That is not how PC gaming works.

Frame limiter is unnecessary if you have vsynch on. When I had it set to 60, it actually capped my FPS at 50; there may be a conflict there.

Calavera.1086:

Also if I burn my CPU that’s the reason I was looking for to upgrade it anyways

That’s the right attitude! (but you can do it new and if something is wrong, it’s under warranty)

If you can do it properly, overclock everything (CPU, GPU, RAM). If you are impatient or can’t exercise prudence and proper discipline, leave it alone.

GW2 does peg CPU and GPUs; you’ll have to monitor the CPU constantly to see it, depending on your game-play and monitoring tools (namely, polling interval).

There are dozens of threads on this. Check your CPU utilisation first before looking at GPU upgrades, especially since I’m not sure your C2Q will even supply data fast enough to a 7xxx GPU (a C2D definitely won’t come close).

Varna.5162:

This change results in an -additional- FPS drop at a time when a higher ROP domain clockspeed is needed to maintain consistent FPS.

If that’s the case, NiBiTor can work around it when it supports 6xx cards.

I’m wondering if the camera-pan-FPS-drop is due to PCIe 3.0/texture (re)loading or some such.

rebalnz.3869:

im also going to OC my cpu 100mhz to see how much extra fps i get. (cant OC my cpu to much heating is a big issue no custom cooler.)

Stock cooler will keep you at 3.3/3.4 with a sustained load when you hit TJmax; spend the $25-$40 for a decent aftermarket one (I use Zalman but they’re >$40)

ZaxanRazor.6235:

I’m running my 2600K on stock settings at the moment. I don’t see the need in overclocking it yet.

You must not have looked; GW2 does peg my 4.2GHz in some situations and I imagine you’ll run into it more than I at 3.3GHz.

ZaxanRazor.6235:

Take the overclock off your CPU and see if that stops it, others have said that this causes issues with the game.

Then they haven’t OC properly; unlike the granny in the Intel commercial, OC is not just changing the clock and assuming it’s all good. (Note that removing all overclocks is a proper troubleshooting step.)

-+-

re: core parking. This only applies to idle cores, of which none are during GW2 game-play (look for yourself before applying some stranger’s regedits).

daemonlama.5413:

And this is the type of self entitled, hostile, self serving attitude that breeds perfectly in an a automatic lfd. This is why WoW’s is so miserable to use.

No, WoW is miserable to use because of WoW’s grind. I don’t think most folks repeat the same dungeons 100 times because its just soooooo much fun but in order to progress, they have to; it’s work and not fun and that surely leads to community curtness.

To say this will happen in GW2 is insulting to GW2 and its community.

I agree..pop-up dialogs (especially in the middle of the screen in the middle of combat) are asinine.

The compass already states “Overflow” on it (one flash would do the trick I think…no need to acknowledge everything with a click; this isn’t a missile silo); perhaps moving the (Travel|Stay|Leave) dialog in/tangent to the compass to make it unobtrusive as well.

hehe…mouth harp…like the one Snoopy has….

Franz Mesmer actually used magnets.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

What’s wrong with the trading post ?

Seriously? Fair enough, a legitimate question.

Look at Diablo III’s auction house UI: I can look for precisely what I want with a few clicks. I can’t come close to that in GW2 TP.

Let’s say I want to find chest armour with +vitality and +condition damage. The best I can do is search for “Armour” | “Chest” and wade through all the medium and heavy armour and hover over tool-tips for each stat. Oy vey.

Additionally, the rest of the interface just…sucks…constantly sliding back, doesn’t remember last searches, slow load times…

I’m hoping the current TP is nowhere near the desired end-state and is something that was decided to further develop after launch rather than wait.

Gokki.9574:

I made a few jute bolts and someone wanted to buy overpriced and i was eager to sell them – only i couldn’t because neither could i COD the bolts to them nor i could trade with them directly.

And that’s one reason why Anet did what they did.

poot.5487:

Solution: both players confirm both halves of the trade before anything happens. Once one player confirms one section, that section is locked (except for a full cancellation of the entire trade.) The downside is that if you screw something up, you have to start over completely. If the other guy keeps “screwing up” over and over… well, he’s probably trying to scam you, but he can only succeed if you utterly refuse to pay attention to what’s happening.

Boom, hire me.

“Don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Did you even read the post above how that worked in GW1? It was far from convenient; it was a royal pain when one trades with one’s wife all the time.

660Ti is a great value, performing slightly better than the 580 and at a lower price.

haddock.4625:

I have checked my hard disks, and they seem to be ok.

I don’t know what that means. Did you run chkdsk /r on all drives?

I would also run memtest86+ overnight; bad memory can corrupt disk read/writes.

Make sure wonky permissions haven’t entered into it also (are you running as administrator?)

Lastly, security software could interfere as well.

Alakaar.7240:

Forgot to say one thing, when the FPS drops happen they only last a few seconds then it goes back to normal, then in a while it drops again then goes back up. These drops are at the same time the GPU usage drops and goes back up so if I could somehow force my GPU to stay at a certain point, that would be nice.

Check power-saving features (laptop’s, Windows, and nVidia’s) and background tasks.
I’m not sure how much you can get out of a 560m (or the rest of the laptop); what in-game settings are you using? How much video RAM does it have? (it may be texture-swapping, try going to low textures)

Rootz.6270:

There is not for nothing zillion of post made by now that state how crap the engine deals with cpu utilization.

And all of them are running 600-series cards and none of them have any actual facts illustrating CPU overloading is crippling their frame rates and they don’t take into account all the other folks who aren’t having issues.

Victus.9631:

Running with everything at maximum with supersampling set to native I average 35-50FPS.

Did you even bother fiddling with the in-game settings? Reflections: All is hella demanding.

High-end hardware has never meant that you could max everything and get 60FPS.

Rootz.6270:

I point fingers when i have facts

You haven’t presented any facts, only gossip.

My GW2 works swimmingly well.

Zelta.6829:

I don’t think the constant crashing is driver related, it’s most likely to be Windows related since your hardware is professionally tested.

I wouldn’t assume said professionals 1) did all tests, 2) are competent. “Trust but verify”. Unless diagnostics prove otherwise, all hardware is suspect.

Also, I didn’t take any of your comments as directed towards me; I was just speaking my observations.

killimandros.5087:

We spent 2 hours on testing different graphic cards. We tried changing ram.

Sounds like the kind of “troubleshooting” that’s more likely to inject more problems than fix.

- Does memtest86+ pass overnight? (Why was RAM swapped? Are these professional guessers we’re dealing with here?)
- Does Prime95 pass overnight?
- Does Intel Burn Test pass on max after a few hours?
- Does VMT pass?
- Does Unigine Heaven run flawlessly?
- Sandra?
- DXdiag? (can you post it and a precise listing of all your hardware?)
- Was DirectX installed from Microsoft’s installer?

killimandros.5087:

They tried 4 different graphic cards, cards which would cost me my car if I were to buy it. Wanna know the funny side? Game crashes.

Were all four cards 600-series? Either all four cards/drivers are the issue or something with the rest of the computer is the issue.

killimandros.5087:

My 630 should run the game WITHOUT the crashing issues.

But it doesn’t, so on to figure out why by isolating the problem. I’ll be honest: cheap parts do have these problems and why I won’t touch them.

killimandros.5087:

Youre not doing Anet any good by tossing mud at the ones reporting BAD CODING from Anet.

I haven’t seen any reports of bad coding from Anet, only scapegoating.

killimandros.5087:

[redacted]

And personal attacks aren’t getting anyone any closer to finding a solution.
Many of us (I included) will be happy to help you but being more eager to state the facts and willing to troubleshoot will find the solution better than rampaging in the forums.

SILENTPHEER.2574:

Now for my Rant, I’m honestly tired of people complaining about there computer’s low FPS when they are on low-end trash “Pre-builts” PCs or "Gaming laptop,’’ Thinking they can max the game (They are trying to make the game playable, not so everyone can max it, duh). The game has fine optimization.

I say-a aaaAAAAAAAaaameeeen! Preach it, brothah!
heh

SILENTPHEER.2574:

Be in mind this is NOT a GPU intensive game, It’s CPU Intensive/bound.

It is both; it has occasionally pegs a CPU or two but it does peg the GPU more so, especially with them there reflections set to all. Which one any one PC will run into most will depend on the PC.

SILENTPHEER.2574:

2. Download Driver Fusion

What an ugly, UGLY piece of software. I can’t recommend it since its chances of breaking something are greater than doing any good. nVidia and ATI (I assume AMD kept up) have excellent driver (un)installation software. All other drivers should be bookmarked and checked about every 6 mos. when you do your thorough cleaning of the computer’s case and peripherals. Some motherboard/PC manufacturers already have a program to check for new drivers.

SILENTPHEER.2574:

5. If you considering and PC Upgrade Avoid it for a while. Many people are telling people they should upgrade. They should have a “Patch” hopefully soon for you all.

Blanket generalities aren’t good advice. (_get it? that was one there..ehhh? eHHH?)

Whether to upgrade or not depends on the PC in question. The conversations here that don’t just assume Anet’s code sucks are productive; there are plenty here who would help to answer a user’s specific question on upgrading. As a rule of thumb, I recommend reformatting/reinstalling Windows to eliminate software issues and bloat to see if the hardware is really inadequate first.

Zelta.6829:

It is unfair for the people who have high end system (me included) to simply criticise those who are unfortunate to upgrade. We should also be helping them in finding ways to optimise the system, the game and so on.

I’m not seeing that; I’m only Anet being criticised for releasing supposedly un-optimised code.

Besides, optimising isn’t just for non-high-end systems because any high-end system can be made to perform like a slug.

killimandros.5087:

This is my rig; Win7, 64-bit
i7 processor 3770
NVIDIA GeForce 660ts
12gb DDR3 mem
2tb hd

Tell me. WHY should I not be able to run games on full settings? WHY should I not be able to play THIS game on full settings?I even grabbed 2 external hd’s just now.

Generally, no game can be run at full settings since software capabilites outpace hardware—what do you think drives hardware capabilities (and sales)? Oblivion took, what, 6 years before you could max it at 60FPS?

I don’t know what two external HDDs are supposed to do for GW2 performance, heh.

You didn’t specify speeds in your hardware and you didn’t specify the points I mentioned above, so can’t help you beyond:

- Your stock CPU isn’t any better than my OC one unless hyperthreading helps, which I’m inclined to think it doesn’t but folks posting some numbers (or Anet chiming in..eh? eeeehhhHH?) would help to figure that out. I opted for the i5 over the i7 (at the time) to get better OC and put the $100 where I know it would boost performance rather than hope

- I’ve yet to use 8GB and I know GW2 doesn’t come close. You’d be hard-pressed to find faster RAM than mine and triple-channel doesn’t do anything dual already doesn’t

- The 660Ti is a skosh better in performance than the stock 580, so my 580 is about on par with your 660 but without the headaches that the 600s seem to have

- You don’t have an SSD; I honestly don’t think that matters (beyond initially loading the game)

To answer your question, “Why?”, is that your “rig” might be as good as this one I built a year ago and I can’t max everything and get a constant 60FPS.

Don’t even think about maxing settings until you plan to spend $1-2K on video cards alone. (been there, done that once and I still couldn’t max Oblivion)

Phaze Delta One.2834:

Eventually Bethesda released a patch that fixed the CPU code in the game and increased performance by a crap ton lol.

Which is easy to do when 1) Bethesda started with crap code and 2) they incorporated changes made by the player-base.

-+-

I’m only seeing Kepler users complaining; Fermi and prior users seem to be happy with GW2 performance. Perhaps there are issues with the 600-series cards and this game, especially since nVidia has stated it hasn’t looked at GW2 yet.

Tips for PC noobs:
- Don’t assume. Find facts. Go where they point and if you want help, present the facts. i.e.:
— Look at your CPU utilisation and clock speeds
— Look at your GPU utilisation and clock speeds (how embarrassing if Flash were dropping your GPU speed to 400MHz)
— Look at your pagefile usage if < 4GB RAM
— Look at your resource usage by other processes (I didn’t think a background torrent client would be a problem!)
— Post real FPS and its context; “lags” isn’t specific or measurable (or even the right term)

RedZebra.2345:

Rolo 70 is the gpu temp, the cpu sits around 60. Don’t compare laptop components with desktops ones. ex. I7 2630 which is the mobile one is specified until 100 celsius. The power supply shouldn’t be a problem it’s 150w, didn’t have a problem with it while oc under full load, however some G73SW owners who oc’d cpu and gpu claimed to have power failures and use a 200w one. But yeah as you say it won’t arm to check it.

Desktop TJmax is also 100C (in the design sheet and I’ve personally tested it; the stock coolers make it easy, hehe). That’s not my concern, my concern, in your shoes, would be case/motherboard temperature and power delivery. Quantity of power (W) isn’t the only issue, quality of it is also, especially when your VRMs may be getting heated to where they are out of tolerance.

The easiest way to check for either is to lower clocks. The only way I can think to eliminate heat is to run it outside its shell, which is likely not practical.

TBH, I quit buying Asus ~2006 with the P5W deluxe and NV51 being my last; their quality nosedived. I don’t know what it is now as I have no recent first-hand experience.

I just noticed Amen said his auto-restarted rather than shut down in OP. Is it restarting because of a BSOD (turn off auto-restart option) or spontaneously rebooting? If the former, post the STOP code (should be in Event Log); if the latter….power supply is 99.9% the cause.

dacooli.6712:

You call lag with gtx 680 optimized?

I call lag network latency because that’s what it is.

I call anyone who can’t accurately report a technical issue with proper vernacular and technical data a user with self-inflicted problems before anything else.

Hey…you asked.

GW2 runs smoothly on my *5*80, with smoothly being defined as 60FPS on high settings with a few reasonable, occasional, momentary exceptions.

I have a Logitech G9x and it does not give me the option to program MWHEEL UP/DN, so that isn’t always a solution.

The OP hasn’t stated what mousewheel up/down will be doing, so nobody can answer if its against the ToS. If you are just using AHK (or any software) to bind MWHEEL UP/DN to a single existing in-game function, then I don’t see a problem.

Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. It doesn’t matter the tool one uses, its whether its used to automate to circumvent manually performing a sequence of actions, which I could use my G19 keyboard software to do.

70C? What is 70C? The CPU, GPU, motherboard? If supporting components are overheating (bad airflow in that tiny, tiny space), you’ll get the same result. That is one possibility that isn’t ruled out yet.

However, I’m more inclined to go with power: either a fault or the components are drawing more than what the power system can give. To test this, lower your clocks (say, 20%) to see if the problem subisdes. (This would also lower heat generation.)

Additionally, power is regulated on desktop motherboards (look around the CPU socket), not just laptops.

I did have one story instance lock up right when I finished and it was going back to the ‘real’ world. However, I was fiddling with GPU overclocking at the time so I can’t say whether it was a software issue or hardware (lockups suggest hardware, crashes suggest software mostly)

I don’t agree that GW2 is poorly optimised; in fact, I’d say it is quite optimised, better than other MMOs that have been out for years.

Frankly, the OP’s PC is ancient and any upgrade for it would still be ancient.

If you’re inclined to build your own, do so as you’ll get a better value. There are plenty of guides/magazines that illustrate how to do this and what components to select based on any budget (Maximum PC being the foremost publication, making sub-$500, $1K, and unlimited budget [~$10K] versions).

WoW’s LFD tool is universe-wide, not the same as a server-only LFD tool. WoW is also very, very short on tanks (healers also but tanks far more) and that is the bottleneck to it; GW2 doesn’t have fixed roles to fill, so, again, the comparison fails.

If you don’t want to use it, then don’t but I fail to see any reason to deny others a UI as an alternative to spamming map chat or otherwise waiting.

No, it isn’t the same effect. Scaling takes into account your gear, a level 56 wearing level 25 gear is not the same as a level 25 with the same gear.

Additionally, I’m not “hampering” myself, I just want to complete content at the appropriate level or even below it.

Besides, I shouldn’t have to monkey around disjointed mechanics. I’m not trophy generation and I don’t need constant head-patting.

Ziggy.7319:

INTRODUCTION:
inflation (since it can’t be truly avoided as gold is constantly being generated and introduced into the market)

That’s only half of it: money is also being consumed and I’m sure Anet has many money-sink ideas for when the time comes.

I would really like to right-click the XP bar and select “Enable/Disable XP gain”.

I would like to play/develop my character at my own pace; the game’s hurling me at 80 is hampering my enjoyment and keeps me detached.

I’m level 56 and still have level 15-20 content to do and my story is at 42 in a level 20 area and have only done AC story dungeon; it’s all over the place.

Downlevelling is not a sufficient work-around; I’m OP and I still don’t have control over my character’s progression.

Augestflex.4219:

Please enable trading between players without mandating the use of the mail system. … there is no real reason I couldn’t pick up some cool new piece of armor, look at it, and then hand it over to them to use.

You can already do that now: target the player, right-click the item and select “Mail” and it will open a mail window with the targeted player’s name already in the To: block and hit send. I can’t see how that can get any easier.

A trade window would be more cumbersome: right-click, trade, drag and drop, click offer, wait for recipient to click offer, click accept, wait for recipient to click accept, oh, wait, recipient decided to offer you something else, so he drops it in there and hits offer, then you have to hit offer again because the trade has changed, then he hits accept, then you hit accept (again), then the trade fails because one of you didn’t have room in your inventory and you have to start all over again. This is what GW1 “simple trade window” evolved into. No Thank You.

Mail is quick, easy and gives me the option of taking items into my inventory or to leave them in mail for later.

Lorati.7361:

The major reason behind a trading UI is to prevent scams. It would take some work to add it, but the reduction of scam reports would probably add up to money saved for them over time.

But it didn’t prevent scams because people don’t pay attention because of the cumbersome nature of the trade UI (and laziness). The trading post is the only way to prevent scams (and ensure everyone gets the market price); Anet explained this in the dev blog.

I would like that philosophy if the trading post didn’t, well, suck (downtime notwithstanding even).

Tharjax.9068:

I feel this tears down community and peoples need to communicate.

- I would agree for cross-server LFG but it doesn’t have to be
- Spamming map chat is “communicating”? This is the 21st century where we have billions of transistors under our desk to remove such less effective mundanities

Tharjax.9068:

Basically its best use is so people can zerg dungeons so they can keep re-running the dungeon in chance of a getting a piece of gear they want.

People will do that anyway, irrespective of a LFG tool. Besides, LFG tool doesn’t have to teleport everyone, just form the group.

Also, I think the gear sucks or is just for appearance anyway, no?

Tharjax.9068:

Honestly I am excited to meet people or meet guild mates at dungeons, its kind of like an “adventure” if you will.

So your guild is, basically, a narrowly-scoped LFG tool?

I would use a server-wide LFG tool; it would facilitate my further involvement in the server’s community rather than hole-up in a 50-person-or-so one and its web site calendar making a dental appointment.

I thought it already did this but with the caveat that “closest foe” has some weird rules to it (like closest in front of you, not the ettin clubbing you back of the head)

Though down-levelling does prevent much grief and it isn’t bad like EQ2’s mentoring system, it is still OP: the traits, skills are still there and it is area level+1 (why!?).

It is something that should be in MMOs all around (or get rid of levelling all together).

GSB, this is a real suggestion and no need to spam Internet memes to “QQ” about someone making it. There is an auto-loot function for coins, perhaps we should have to click every single one of them so the game doesn’t play itself for us? Perhaps auto-attack should go as well…I mean, if anything is playing for us, it’s that one! And that Trading Post…waaaaaay to easy…one should have to be Nicholas the Traveler to buy and sell wares and walk to the trading post first! In the snow! Up the hill, both ways!

Just because one doesn’t like hassle doesn’t mean one’s lazy. I don’t like having to spam F all the time either and would like auto-loot to auto-loot everything (or at least have the option to) as well.

Making said deposit button would also be nice.

An ounce of prevention. Anet could waste time righting the wrongdoings facilitated by their design or they could just make a COD option in mail (like in ahem Rift) that would facilitate personal quick and easy untrusted trades without (trying) to force everyone to use the impersonal clunky, slow, fee-based trading post for something that should be simple, straightforward.

So what I’m saying is to submit a suggestion in addition to your ticket.

Zalastra.6290:

the Keeper.9310:

Also, the human eye can’t even see 30 frames per second, so trying for more than that is a waste of money.

nuhuh. Eyes see continuously, they however don’t sent data to the brains very often. Most modern games will implement a degree of motion blur and will therefor be fluent enough around 30 fps.

The human eye updates ~72Hz. You can verify this with a CRT monitor: I had to have a minimum of 75Hz refresh to not see flicker and 85Hz kept me from seeing any phosphor decay at all.

NTSC is only 60Hz and PAL is only 50Hz and movies are generally 24 or 29.9 FPS but those have motion blur to keep everything looking smooth; computer games don’t have that and are more like the stick-figure-on-a-notepad-animation-flip where you can see jerkiness because the notepad doesn’t have motion blur to smooth the gaps. You see Mr. Stickman’s lines jumping to simulate motion. You can make smaller jumps but you would have to increase FPS if you wanted Mr. Stickman to move at the same speed; this is what you’re seeing with computer games with <60 FPS being wholly perceptible (I can’t stand <60 FPS).

-+-

Re: OP. To decide which component to upgrade, you need to identify where your bottleneck(s) is(are):

- Is your CPU hitting 100% but your GPU isn’t? Upgrade your CPU.
- Is your GPU hitting 100% but your CPU is <85-90%? Upgrade your GPU.

Note, however, that CPUs and GPUs have to be matched: sure, a GTX580 on a Core2 Duo will do better than a GTS250 but the 580 won’t get even halfway utilised; a GTX260/280 would be more fitting at half the price (but not worth the money at this point; the 660Ti is a great value now and performs slightly better than the 580.

In your case, there really is no upgrading since everything (namely architecture) has changed. Getting the platform (motherboard, CPU, RAM) first is a good idea and you can upgrade your video card at any time later—your GPU will definitely be your bottleneck at that point.

Maelzrael.8142:

After 18 days of play, and 118 hours total, i still have no idea which class i want to get to 80 first. I’ve literally tried them all multiple times, an love them all for different reasons.

This is why man created the Magic 8-Ball.

“A good plan today is better than the perfect plan tomorrow.” – Gen. Patton

Ralcore.9354:

Why does everyone think they can roll all DPS and not deserve to be one shot?

Maybe those silly folks thought—I don’t know—that they had the option.
They probably also foolishly thought that story mode dungeons wouldn’t be raid-like-difficulty with raid-requirements when there’s explorable mode for that.

I mostly agree with BobF with the exception that “time and effort” is enjoyable to many—people who want to game (like Chess is a game) versus people who want to be entertained via the 21st century boob tube (like yelling at the Wheel of Fortune contestant for not figuring it out yet).

I agree with Mintyfresh (heh) that there should be a better bridge between regular PvE/story and story dungeons to facilitate the player having the correct paradigm beyond one NPC stating that it is “difficult” and requires a group (implying that if you have a group per Anet’s manifesto that any character can successfully play with any other character(s) then you’re good to go).

I’d say it’s more of a presentation issue, less a difficulty issue.; however, personally, I would prefer a learning curve rather than a learning brick wall and that would entail adjusting earlier difficulties or adding earlier dungeons (i.e. at levels 10 and 20).

I would argue, though, that story mode shouldn’t be too difficult for the masses because it is the story and I would suggest that keeping part of the story from the majority isn’t a good, fun design. I’m not suggesting making it facerollable but it shouldn’t be hard mode/elite content either. (Why must there only be “easy” or “hard”? There’s a continuum here…)

As far as AC story is concerned, I will assert that its design is poor. One example is that the trash mobs (beginning with the first encounter) were far more difficult than the bosses, with the final supposedly big-bad boss being an anticlimactic faceroll. And our PUG wasn’t very good, waypoint Zerging a few times.

re: Svenn’s reply. My observations are based on what folks have suggested/how they completed dungeons where one infers that one must spec a certain way and have a tank and a healer and my experience (so far, mind you) doesn’t disagree with that since one-shotting seems to be a GM favourite, requiring boosted vitality/toughness since dodge-rolling is limited and doesn’t avoid large AoE and kiting (not fun for me BTW) is ineffective since every-flippin’-thing runs (almost teleports) faster than I no matter how speed-boosted I am (air). Then we have the camera angles…

I wouldn’t mind that so much if we could respec as easily as in GW1 but GW2 isn’t designed that way, implying that any trait setup would be effective all-around with dynamic skill selection for different areas. And maybe armour-switching but that’s a little over the top.

I’m going to guess necro with carrion armour.

A & D should be strafe; keyboard turning is silly and I don’t know why so many games have that as default

You may be interested in a Logitech G13. I use the stick to move with my thumb and its keys to cast everything; my fumbling has nothing to do with my controls.

Brayzen.6287:

Most compressed air does have liquid, it is liquid Nitrogen.
Nitrogen has to be extremely cold to remain a liquid, it vaporizes as soon as it enters the air.

Canned air does NOT contain LH2, which is only a liquid below -300-something degrees Fahrenheit; it contains fluorocarbons (FC). LH2 would freeze and shatter your PC and your hands.

Brayzen.6287:

the only risk from this is getting a cold liquid on hot PC components.

Electronics love cold (inverse temperature coefficient) and this can be one way to troubleshoot component breakdown, likewise with a heat gun. The risk is generating static electricity, which components like as much as you’d like being struck by lightning.

Brayzen.6287:

Turning the can upsidedown or close to will also let the cold liquid escape so try to keep the can upright.

This part is true. When the can gets cold, stop using it until it goes back to room temperature. The cold isn’t from the FCs, it is from the rapid pressure drop created by exhausting compressed air.

Brayzen.6287:

compressing air with a compressor adds moisture to the air so you would need water traps and filters, I think i’ll stick with my cans of dust remover

Unless you are in a very arid region, the air already contains ~40% moisture, which electronics like anyway (dampens static electricity discharges); compressing air and then discharging it won’t make a garden hose. Your can of dust remover already has liquid FCs in it.

Brayzen.6287:

and there is no way a vacum cleaner is ever getting close to my rig!

There are ESD vacuums specifically made for this purpose. It’s a bit over the top and, frankly, I don’t use one; I use a $60 non-ESD-certified “data vac” that works perfectly and quickly without ongoing costs.

Laurie.1698:

I know there must be more I can check for (I hope hehe) because I’m still getting the bluescreen crashing. Its random, all the sudden, loud buzzing noise in my headphones and I’m bluescreened with memory dump and reboot. I looked at the dump file and there were a few indicators that it might have been from my virus program which is Avast, so I disabled before I played and its still happening.

It isn’t random; it may be difficult to see the pattern/circumstances but some set of conditions are met to cause it. Also, I don’t know why so many people report that they get an error but leave out what that error is: it is your primary lead into diagnosing the issue.

SideByEach.3614:

BTW, is there a FPS monitor in GW2?

The options screen. Additionally, you can use MSI Afterburner to display more useful info (GPU util, temp, FPS, VRAM usage, GPU fan speed) on an on-screen display or Logitech G13, G15, G19 displays.

You also need to monitor CPU utilisation as—and this is where I eat crow for having stated otherwise—the CPU does limit GW2 in some situations:
I went to Canal Ward waypoint, looking at a very foggy Lion’s Arch. My FPS dropped to 50 but my GPU util was only 70% but my CPUs were ~90% with CPU1 hitting 100%. This is after some more tweaking* and trying to find an area that got me <60FPS. My next question would be, “would more cores help?” since I’m at 4.2GHz and I neither want to increase CPU voltage nor want liquid/Peltier cooling.

*My GPU tweaking thus far, prompted by others’ FPS posts giving my the impression my performance isn’t where it should be. I went back to “Auto-detect” (everything on high) but still set reflections to “Terrain & sky”. I increased my GPU voltage to 1.025v and increased clock from 833 to 866 and this card really woke up; I get an unwaivering 60FPS where I didn’t before. I’m still looking for the threshold (GPU resets, lock-ups) but right now, my sub-60FPS is due to GW2 being CPU-bound in this particular context (all that fog has something to do with it; there isn’t much else going on).

Edit: a few minutes after posting this, standing in the same location in LA shows a little less fog, a few more players, but a solid 60FPS with CPUs ~65% util

Indeed an oversight: reporting an account for spamming should, at least, also add that account to a temporary (until log-out) block list. Another game (Rift IIRC) did this and it was nice. Otherwise, as stated in-game, many just ignore rather than report.

You just have to play the entire rest of the game camping the Shadow Behemoth in Godslost swamp area because when he’s up, your FOV and camera zoom become like GW1, very nice.