Guild Wars 2

I’m using EVGA PrecisionX Version 3.0.2 with Nvidia Drivers 306.97. OSD always on, alongwith custom fan speed curve.

No problems.

I sugest trying different Graphics driver or Program versions.

Im affraid a $420 Laptop will nto run GW2 very well.

The problem with laptops is, if u find one with a good CPU at a cheap price, it will ether use the onboard GPU or come with a really crappy dedicated one. Or you will find a Laptop with a really nice GPU ..but a really crappy CPU.

GW2 requirs a strong CPU, and although no laptop CPU out atm can keep GW2 from dropping below 30 fps in WvW, you can still find some that will still be ‘playable’. The lowest i would go myself would be a Intel 3630QM.

These are the CPU’s i would look for:
3840QM
3820QM
3740QM
3720QM
3630QM

Problem is once u find a laptop with both a good CPU like those above AND a good GPU ..ur looking at $1000 minimum.

GW2 is not a ‘budget freindly’ game to look for a computer for. Not unless ur willing to put up with horrible FPS for most of the game ..which tbh, i would never buy a laptop or Desktop knowing thats the performance im paying hundreds of $‘s/£’s to get.

The laptop spec u listed will RUN the game ..but dont expect good performance.

Tiny:
Your GPU is fine and you will likely be able to RUN with high settings.. Though i advice you kep reflection to terrain And Sky as its kinda bugged on All ..the perofrmanceh it is MASSIVE.

Your CPU though will hold it back alot, likely droping below 30 fps in LA and deffiantly dropping below 30 FPS in WvW battles.

Treeline thats becouse ur CPU is holding it back.. AKA: CPU Bottlenecking.

Be sure to take advantage of the 3570K’s OC’ing. Do some research on it ..it isnt hard i promise. And OC to as close to 4.5ghz as ur temperatures allow.

http://www.overclock.net/f/5/intel-cpus

That link will take you to a Forum for Intel CPU’s and will have Guides posted, and members/people who can help you OC.

The OC will stop you from droping to low on the FramsPerSecond (FPS) during WvW battles. If u get a good OC u can keep it from droping below 30fps, and average around 45fps or more.

Nah. TBH most Motherboards of reasonable quality will have one, but if u dont need it ..u just dont connect a wire to it

Ok try this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wxLq

Iv changed the CPU, Motherboard, RAM, and Graphics Card.

I would bassicaly set it up exactly as Enthilzha.1856 has if i were doing it, though i would not want to try JP’s with it ..a mouse is just so much more accurate

No.

If ur building specificaly for Gw2 ..stay away form AMD, they dont have the single thread performance neccessery to run GW2 good.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

So u would want to change the CPU + motherboard and, if u can, stretch to a 660ti over a non ti 660.

I would recommend a 3570k or 2550k/2500k + LGA 1155 mothebroard.
The Coolermaster 212 Evo would allow u to OC close to 4.5ghz which is what GW2 requirs to stay above 30 fps in places like Heavy WvW battles.

I say change to a 660ti simply becouse its worth the extra money for the extra performance imo. BUT if u cant afford it, then the 660 will play GW2 perfectly fine.

If u get a 3570K, u really should OC it, ,thats what the k version is designed for.
Do push ur budget and get a Z77, its worth it.

If u were going purely on CPU performance in GW2, then to stay above 30fps in massive WvW battles u would need a 4.5ghz OC. This would mean u would need a good CPU cooler like the Coolermaster 212 Evo or Noctua NH-D14..the later would get to 4.5ghz, the former ..might strugle.

If u can stretch to a Z77 board and the 3570K but not get a good cooler, then thats fine ..run it at stock till u can aford it, a simple stock $15 cooler should be OK till u can afford to get a OC worthy one.

garyoak.7284

Well, I’ve read that the GTX 690 has lower temperatures and lower power consumption than a pair of 680 in SLI. Is this true?

What brand of RAM do you recommend if I’m looking for a dual channel kit of 2x 8gb sticks?

I like using mid-tower cases as I use the extra space on my desk for a printer and 5 surround sound speakers.
What about the Corsair Obsidian 550D? Will the GTX 690 or two GTX 680 in SLI even fit in such a case?

I’ve heard that water cooling can pose a problem in mid-towers as they may prove too big for those cases. Since you recommended Corsair, is the Corsair H100 a good idea in a case like the Corsair Obsidian 550D?

Yes the 690 ‘should’ have lower power and heat ..but tbh when ur looking at a 690 ur likely going to be building a monster performance rig ..and saving energy or thinking of heat is not somthing u should be worrying about, since a bigger PSU and better cooling will fix this.

RAM: G.Skill,Mushkin, and Corsair all do 2×8Gb kits.

As for the 680 and 690 grpahics cards, they should fit in all modern day mid towers and above.

Water cooling in the 550D would be fine if u went with a Corsair h100 as it uses a 240mm Rad, and the 550D case is designed with their own cooling setups in mind. So if u want the 550D then u should be able to water cool if you want. But tbh for $150 u could get,imo, better cases.. NZXT comes to mind, so does Coolermaster.
I would also go completly custom if i went water cooling, otherwise i would stick with top end Air cooling, the jump from a Noctua NH-D14 to a H100 temp wise isnt much and imo not worth the ~$30 price jump. However case space becomes a premium wiht the Noctua..its massive, it is however VERY quiet even at full speed.. quieter than the H100 stock fans.

If u went Noctua CPu cooler & case fans + a GTX 680 this would be what ur case would be like inside.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165930
Depending on the graphics card u get and power supply ..that setup would be silent.

OK so the PC crash is highly likely due to a ‘out of memory’ error caused by your 32bit operatin system. Swtich to 64bit and try that.

Your laptop might be overheating ..check temps on the GPU as it sounds like its stoping and restarting causeing the game to crash but the system to stay on. Also check CPu temps though just incase. If temps are ok then its not that. Try changing graphics drivers ..ether update to the latest, or if ur on the latest ..downgrade to the 306.97 drivers.

Short of a total format and reinstall of OS drivers and GW2, all u can do is slowly work through all the possible softare issues that could be causing it ..starting with drivers, other running programs, and then moving onto the GW2 installation itself.

The chart/list is per core.
So the 690 performance score is its performance on 1 of its cores. Remember the 690 is a dual GPU card so its bassicaly SLI in 1 card. Each core is more less a downclocked 680, hence why its beaten by the 680,670, 7970 and 580. But unless ur wiling to spend close to $1000 on graphics card, u need not worry about where the 690 comes in that list tbh :P

Besides unless ur going for a Quad (4) ‘card’ setup there is no reason to get the 690 as 2x 680’s will outperform an single 690. Only time its worth getting a 690 is if u get 3 or 4 of them, since getting 2 is the same as 4x 680’s which would give better performance, and since 4 cards is the most u can fit on a mothebroard (that i know of) only when u go above 4 GPU’s is it worth getting the 690, in which case u would be getting 3 or 4 of them.

Ok so RAM:
8gb is enough, and easy to get in Dual Channel, bassicaly 2 sticks of 4gb, however it wouldn’t be considered super overkill to get 16gb since it doesnt cost much anyway. I would recommend however if u go 16gb, that u get again a dual channel kit of 2x 8gb sticks, since the Ivybridge processors are dual channel optimised.
Make wise …well it depends on what CPU cooler u go for, if u get top of the range air coolers, they tend to be massive (like the Noctua NH-D14) and hang over the top of the RAM slots, so you need low profile RAM, in which case G.Skill or Mushkin are good for. If u get a smaller Air cooler or go water cooling, then Corsair would do fine.

In a nutshell. Your CPU isnt strong enough.

More details ::::

You need 4 cores/4threads minimum to start with.
You then need the CPU to be new and up to date so it has fast single thread performance.
You then need to OC it (~4.5ghz), becouse no CPU out atm at stock can manage good FPS in WvW.

If you take all those points your left with a limited number of CPU’s.

Intel: Cores/Threads
2500k(4/4)
2550k(4/4)
3570k(4/4)
2600k(4/8)
2700k(4/8)
3770k(4/8)
3930k(6/12)

AMD:
FX 8350

And those are your options for a desktop bassicaly. You CAN choose other CPU’s but these are honestly the only ones that currently run GW2 as best as it can atm(which tbh isnt good enough imo, droping to 30fps with these OC’ed rigs is rediculus, but thats the game Engine for u).
That said, the only reason i mention the FX 8350 AMD CPU is becouse ..well i have to mention an AMD CPU, or ill get yelled at by som1 eventually :P ..however i would put other Intel CPU’s ,not on the above Intel list, above the FX 8350 still, so its only really an option if u have a motherboard compatable with the 8350 and dont have enough money to swtich to a Intel setup.

GPU wise the 550ti should give OK fps on medium settings overall, so no real reason to upgrade that unles u want more eyecandy and/or higher frame rates when the CPU is NOT the bottleneck.

Things you can do in the mean time.
Set GW2.exe priority to High in the task manager, Disable windows Aero, and disable all non critical processes using MSconfig.

I know its the stupid forum filter.

Replace Kitten on the first link with 5. h
And kitten in the last one with s. h

kirito.4138:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus . h t m l

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpukittenml

“s.h” is being replaced by kitten

THIS THIS THIS THIS !!

For the love of everything fix this !!

Nothing more annoying than trying to ‘prove’ something that shouldnt need proving and having ur links ..those specificaly… borked by the filter.

In ‘normal LA’ ..meaning no wintersday or halloween mods. u can get 60fps though u may still see some dips now and then. With wintersday or halloween mods nothing can keep fps at 60.

However..u would need at minimum.
Intel i5 3570k + OC to around 4.5ghz
Nvidia 660ti or AMD 7950. (for high settings)

The OC is the main thing here, since no stock CPU currently available would be able to keep FPS so high. Even with the OC u will find big WvW battles droping close to (but not under) 30fps.

You could also go and get a AMD FX 8350 CPU (AMD’s best offering) and OC that but it wont perform anywhere near as good as a Intel i5 3570k and would likely not give u the performance you want.

Heres a few links for CPU Hierarchy for gaming.
CPU Gaming Hierarchy

SingleThread CPU Chart

And for GPU’s …
GPU Chart

EDIT: -.- the ruddy filter is rly starting to get on my nerves .c.ant even link thanks to it. I’ll PM u the links.

Means u have no issues.

TJ max is the max temp befor auto throttling/shutdown.
Each core is running way below that, take the highest temp out of the cores as ur main temperature. You got nothing to worry about.

Even that wont do.
You’d need a mobile chip equivlanet to a 3570k OC’ed to 4.5ghz.

I would assume the poster has his old HDD’s and optical drives.

But good catch on the Case, another couple fans wouldtn hurt and they r cheap.

A SSD is a luxury but can help reduce stutter..and ofc help loading times…but i do agree if the OP is now tight on cash i would opt out from getting a SSD and instead use the cash to up the PSU,Case Fans, and CPU Cooler.

If ur able to, try find a replacement laptop with one ofthe following CPU’s.

3840QM
3820QM
3740QM
3720QM
3630QM

Anything less wil llikely not have a high enough clock speed to give u good enough FPS.

Just note..no laptop out can keep fps from dropping below 30 in places like LA and WvW.

Vista ?! ‘runs away’

You really really really need to change to Windows 7 64bit.

Anyway 57c is fine dont worry about it, start worrying if it gets over 90c.

CPU temps u can see if u use a monitoring program like AIDA 64 or CoreTemp.

I would recommend changing the CPU cooler to a Coolmaster Evo 212, or going fullhog and getting a Noctua NH-D14, most cooler between or below those two are not really worth it. Specialy most/all downblown CPU coolers., u really want a Tower cooler.

With that 1 change u can then OC that CPU, u will want close to or above 4.5ghz which can be a stretch for the ivybridge processors on mid range air cooling like the Evo212.

Also change the graphics card to a 660Ti, its worth the extra price

Other than that i dont see anythign wrong tbh ..i personaly would go with a 600W PSU just for the extra headroom, but its not necceserily a requirment.

The OC is essential if u want minimum fps figures to not drop below 30 during WvW battles.

If ur talking about ur GPU then u can if u like install a program called EVGA precision, and use its Fan controller to setup a custom fan speed curve, this can be used to tel ur Fan to run a X% speed when temps reach Y.

But as others have stated, the temps u have seen are perfectly within the norm.
My OC’d 560ti gets up to 75c, which for a OC tbh is cool, and thats thanks to my custom fan speed curve, i run my Fan at around 60-80% depending on the temps.

Have u tried Driver version 306.97 ?

TBH i dont think Unreal Engine would work well for GW2, Tera uses it iirc and its performance is great. .untill that is ..u go into a rift event …50people ..slide show. The engine cant handle loads of people..atleats with Tera.

Bit of a last resort kinda thign but have u tried flatening/formating ur HDD and starting over with a fresh Instal of ur OS + Drivers + GW2 ..no other programs. ?

Also ..is ur CPU OC’d ?

….
What PSU have u got ..is it OCZ ..or Corsair ?
Meh never mind ..that just confused me a bit lol.

It sounds to me that if ur getting artifacting ..its a GPU fault. I mean..its obviosly related to graphics ..so its ether drivers ..damaged game..or a borked GPU.

They only have minimum requirments set officaly (no recommended) ..and tbh if ur runing a computer like that u can ‘run’ the game as Anet says ..but ‘play’ it …lol good luck.

So no, they wont garuntee 60 fps even on the lowest settings even with a £2000 rig ..becouse they know full well its not possible, thanks to their game engine.

Hmm ok ..run a GPU monitoring program to see how much utilization ur getting during the fights, if ur GPU is maxing out then ur simply bottlenecked due to ur GPU, it is afterall a media card not a gaming card.
If its not maxing out then its down to ur CPU..same reason ..bottlenecking.

In the end its a hardware issue, ur laptop isnt strong enough to play GW2 at good* framerates.

Sorry for the bad news >.<

*Each persons deffinition of ‘good’ varies (b4 som1 else pipes up and disagres)

You looking at this all wrong tbh. GW2 can run on pritty much max settings with a mid range card, like a 460,560ti,660ti. it doesnt actually take all that much performance form the GPU.

It does however take ALOT of performance from the CPU, and unfortunatly due to Anet mistaken idea to use the orginal GW1 engine (modified), we are stuck with a game engine that takes its performance from single threads..meaning a 8 or even a 12 thread processor will not run any better than a simple 4 thread one. it also means you need one really beafy processor to keep GW2 fps from tanking, one that currently does not exist at stock clocks.
You can however make sure GW2 NEVER drops below 30 fps(and increase overall performance and frame rates) by OC’ing a 2nd or 3rd gen intel i5 or better to 4.5ghz or better. (no current AMD cpu even with OC can keep WvW battles above 30fps unfortunatly)
Even so, nothing available today can keep GW2 at 60 constant specialy in LA and WvW.

For u, if u had a i7 2600K, u could OC and get better performance, but since its a non K u cant really OC so im afraid atm, u getting all u can get.
Though… a few thigns u could try that might help would be to disable core parking, set GW2 priority to high in the task manager, and disable any and all non critical processes using msconfig.

Acutally DX11 would help GW2. Currently GW2 is very cpu bound, DX 11 would ofload a small portion of that load to the GPU. You wouldnt need to utlize the extra eye candy that could then be used, instead u would just use the more efficient DX11 itself.
Unfortunatly older computers, more specificaly the GPU’s that are not DX11 capable, would be screwed unless a DX9 option was also available (yet more work for Anet).

Tessolation as good as it makes games look would be overkill for a MMO. Even a online game as small as Mechwarrior Online , that uses the cryengine 3, wont be using tessolation (which sucks tbh, it would look sooo much better) becouse bassicaly, companies make online games for the money, and tessolation limits the number of people who can play (if its compulsory) due to hardware requirments, and even if it was just an option..the added time and resources taken to add such an option would only be used by a small percentage of users and so isnt financialy viable.

But nayway that isnt going to happen for GW2 becouse that would requir a major major overhaul of the game engine.

Where in game do u get this low fps ?
Does lowering the graphics settings help at all ?

Aye tis a RAm issue. 2gb is not enough.

And once again……..
Minimum requirments means: This setup will ‘run’ the game.

It does NOT mean: This setup will ‘play’ the game.

Whats happening is, ur playing the game fine for a while till the amount of information GW2 commits to RAM reaches ur limit, it then crashes. Every time u try to restart, that same amount of information is trying to be commited to RAM and crahsing again.

Your computer is waaaaay out of date and tbh its rather silly to expect a game of 2012 to play on a computer of 2003

Well no offense but thats down to u shoping around :P
I wouldnt know where to look as i have no clue on ur location. I could say go buy one of Novatech’s prebuilds ..or Overclockers prebuilds ..but they are bassedi n the UK ..and i suspect ur across the pond ?

Only thing i will say is dont get an alienware desktop, u have plenty of other cheaper options when it comes to prebuitl desktops than going for their overpriced rigs.

Ofc the best advice is …build one urself ..it would be cheaper and/or be made of better quality parts. (and it isnt hard ..its like adult lego :P )

If disabling HT and stoping Turbo fixed ur issue it could be temperature issue ..but more likely (as u probably already checked temps) its a PSU issue.

PSU’s degrade over time ..more importantly GW2 is one of those few games that hammers CPU’s hard AND also hammers GPU’s hard ..whilst constantly running stuff from the harddrive ..and using the Internet….i would highly suspect that ur PSU’s could potentialy be being overwhelmed. Specialy if its a prebuilt computer using a cheapo PSU.

Unfrotunatly the only sure fire way of testing if its the PSU is to install a replacment. One that is preferably bigger ..or at the very least the same wattage but newer or of a better make.
There have been a few people on the forums with BSOD/reset issues, and some have been fixed by replacing the PSU even thugh all tests they done (stressing components) didnt show up any faults. GW2 has an uncanny ability to push things harder than some benchmark/stress test programs. Just look at GPU heat, GW2 can make GPU’s run hotter at max usuage than say BF3 at max usuage.

I think it might be ‘old jeans’.
But could also be ‘blue shade’ , or ‘midnight blue’

TBH though there are lots of blue dies and some can be very very close to each other. If i were u i would just go buy all the cheap blue dyes u can find on the TP and experiment, probably wont cost you much more than 30 silver to get a good veriety of the basic blue’s. The more rare blue dye’s will likely start costing a couple silver..but again ..not much.

SolarNova.1052:

Prebuilt computers capable to play GW2 with good FPS would requir a Intel 2nd/3rd Gen i5 or better and a 650ti/550ti or higher GPU. usualy costing around the $1000 mark.

Have you made sure your computer is strong enough to play Gw2 ..more specificaly its WvW ? Sounds to me you like pvp ..in which case ur likely used to smooth framerates. .somthing that is not easy to get in WvW.

As for classes. Well if u like mage classes then Elementalist is the class for u. Its rather weak early on since it takes alot of its strengths from traits which u dont fully get into till ur mid levels. However once ur there and once u masters its Elements/attunments and can switch between them. You can pvp and pve like a champ.

Turn ‘reflections’ to terrian and sky, and ‘shadows’ to high.

If ur i5 is 2nd/3rd gen and a K series then OC’ing it will help ALOT. If u havnt got a good one alreayd ge ta good aftermarket cpu coolerl ike the coolmaster evo 212. attach it and OC ur cpu as close to 4.5ghz as u can ..or higher. With that u shouldnt see fps drop below 30 anywhere.

EDIT: reducing shadows will help reduce load on the CPU. .however if a different GW2 thread is already maxed out due to huge numbers of players .reducing shadows may not do a thing, it will however help when the thread that handles Shadows and other things is nearly maxed out. bassicaly it wont help in all occasions but it will help in some.

Sounds to me lke u may have windows power saving kicking in.. check ur performance profiles. .make sure it isnt getting in the way.

The CPU being a 3210m isnt what i would consider for running GW2 on a laptop since its max turbo frequency is only 3.1ghz ..BUT it hoenstly doesnt sound like a CPU thing. usualy when that happens u just notice low frame rates ..kinda like what u get normaly. .but if ur ok with that then fine

try switching graphics drivers. .try older ones ..or newer ones ..to see if it helps.

Lower graphics settings will likely help make it less noticable but it will probably still be there.

No it wont.

Bottom of the line media card, And a mid range AMD cpu. Both of which will not do u any favors at all with GW2.

Prebuilt computers capable to play GW2 with good FPS would requir a Intel 2nd/3rd Gen i5 or better and a 650ti/550ti or higher GPU. usualy costing around the $1000 mark.

Oh oh ..i want to go to track days in a Bugatti Veyron…oh wait ..i cant afford it.
But thats ok becouse we all know that everyone should be able to do what they enjoy even if they cant afford it…. -.- ..oh wait. .no the world doesnt work like that.

Point taken i hope ?

Those with computers that cant handle it ..cant play it ..simple as that ..
Trying to pander to them and make the game work for them ends up making said people stick with there old slow machine even longer putting the next game they get in the same position. If all gaming companies did was desgin games on the same old machines then there would be no development ..no increase in quality.
Computers need upgrading every handfull of years ..its part of computing and pritty much everything else in the world. Deal with it.

The freezing/crashing is a seperate issue to ur performance i would think.
It could do due to ur GPU. The Asus DCII-TOP series has only 1 flaw ..some of their cards are sent out without being 100% stable on their OC’s. Try downclocking the GPU’s factory OC.

To increase overall performance though u ether want a FX 8350 + OC that will give the best performance a AMD can give but will still fall below 30 fps in LA and WvW and probably large PvE events. (i dont usualy recommend this unless a person is on a very tight budget and already has the motherboard capable of taking said Chip)

To stay above 30 fps in WvW(large battles) LA, and heavy PvE events u would need a Intel i5 2nd/3rd gen OC’d to around 4.5ghz.

GPU isnt the thing in the way of 100 fps barrier ..thats the CPU (special in WvW and LA). And only way to make that better is with a Game Engine overhaul. Dont hold ur breath, i know Anet r working on some Game Engine programming ..but i doubt they will be any significant performance increase.

When u had 90fps i doubt it was in LA. If it was it was likely in a cutdown version ..like u said ..it was Alpha. I wasnt in GW2 at that point tbh.
Even with the rig u see in my sig i can drop down to 30fps in LA, averaging around 45.

Outside LA u should get much better performance. Except in WvW

So long as u DONT use ANY Macro’s ,bots, ..or other 3rd party programs to control the account ..then ur fine.

It has to be all manual. Dual boxing using 3rd party programs is NOT allowed.

If none of that helps then it is HIGHLY likely its just all that ur CPU can handle.
GW2 is heavily CPU bound and the Intel i7 920 has very poor single thread perofmance(GW2 needs VERY strong single thread perfomance)..its actually about the same as a old Core 2 Quad Q 6850 ..which i run on my old computer which also has FPS as bad as ur reporting in LA.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Try running GW2 as administrator ..set its priority to high under task manager.

You sure the global and GW2 settings under Nvida control panel are all ok?

CUDA cores set to all?

Windows power management ..always set to high performance. .and the high performance profile has all power saving features off and things running 100% all the time ?

EDIT: try updating your Adobe Flash support for ur Browser. The GW2 UI uses features from it it seems and can cause weired issues. If it doesnt help try turning off hardware excelleration for Adobe Flash ..and finaly if that fails ..uninstall Adobe Flash alltogether.

Oh and Test ur FPS outside of LA, like when doing normal PvE

Run GPUID and see what PCIE port ur running the 560ti on. It should be a PCIE 3.0/2.0 X16. If it reports X1 ..thats ur problem.

I personaly use Nvidia 306.97 drivers, so try using those if u havnt already.

Set all AA options for GW2 in Nvidia Control panel to application controlled.
Ambient occlusion – off
Antialaizing transparancy – off
Texture filtering -antistrophic sample optimsation – off

Try these ingame settings.

1920x 1080 Vsnc On
All checkboxes ticked
All setings max EXCEPT the following:
Reflections: Set to terrain and sky
Shadows: Set to high
Sampling: Set to native.

You should get good fps with those settings.