Guild Wars 2

Im no expert in reading all that data.. But …the connection info ..to me thats showing alot of packet losses. Possibly a connection issue your having.

you might want to contact your ISP and see what they can detect at their end.

You will have a very hard time running GW2 on that tbh.

2gb RAM is low …even more so when running the RAM hungry OS that is called Vista.

The CPU is old ..its an AMD ..and its under 3ghz…any 1 of them would lower performance significantly .. you have all three.

The GPU is integrated by the looks of it..and they well ..suck ..to be blunt.

It’s bad news but i highly suspect even if you manage to get it to run, ..it wont be playable.

Polarity ..very nice idea. .thought of things simular to that myself… but it will never .i repeat NEVER get implimented.
Game companies want more people buying their games ..if they put that idea into action ..they would get less ..becouse of the vast number of ‘bad’ players that happen to be out there, there would end up being tones of players unable to find groups for dungeons becouse they ..well… ether a) suck ..b) are as*hats.
Its not illegal to be an as*hat ..there are deffinatly enough out there ..but A subscription/purchase from an as*hat and a subscription/purchase from a ‘normal’ person looks identical on a companies bank statement :P

I didnt wanna get into how a CPU manages threads and all but… his cpu has 8 threads that can run ‘at the same time’ . .GW2 if what you say is acurate has a total of about 50 threads that need running.
These 50 threads are then processed at a maximum of 8 per cycle at the same time (in laymens terms). But ofcourse there will be proceses that absolutly NEED to be running all the time, and thats likely those 3 you say. And if one or more of those 3 is maxing out then there you go

Just expanding on what we both said btw ..not arguing

Im no programmer or IT tech but what i supose Anet needs to do is split those 3 or so processes down some more so that they can be spread out over more threads/cycles thus increasing performance.

I now you said you dont like kiting ..but if you spec condition/toughness then a Mesmer can be a really fun close range brawler ..and although its not a full on pet class ..its clones and phantams are key to success.

Try Mesmer.

its very weak at the start . it gains mroe power from a good trait setup ..so it can take a while to get things swinging.

once you got the traits goign though .a.nd are using the right weapon combo’s ..i personaly sue staff and GS.. then you will find its very good. It has nice burst dmg in a shatter build ..relativly good sustaind dmg with a phantasm build (for bosses) ..and its utilities are wicked. Its also realyl good at kiting.

Not to mention the fun factor of playing it ..you gotta be quik with the skills to get things going . bang out 3 clones asap ..shatter then ..bang out another 3 .shatter ..bang out another 1 clone and 2 phantams ..then you have your other skills that can reflect dmg ..put tones of conditions on enimies and boons on yourself. and whilst doign this you have to swtich weapons and dodge and kite.. rly fun.

To be honest GW2 is one of the easier mmo’s to play in terms of mechanics .specialy skills ..you only have 5 main skills ..1 healing skill 3 utility and 1 elite. You gain an extra 5 skills if you use weapon swaping ..and some clases have f1 to f4 skils.
This compared to a ‘normal’ mmorpg like rift or (i hate to bring it up) WoW, they have loads of skills that can all be out on the UI and and rdy to use.

That said ..a ranger is probably the most ‘noob’ friendly as the pet takes aggro whilst you can take you time and work out what to do.

Dodging deffinatly helps ..but if your used to twitch action games. .then its relativly poor implimentation will drive you crazy :P

Enjoy

It isnt GW2’s fault.

All hardware is designed ot run max and not overheat.

The only time this fails is if there is a problem with the cooling solution ..be it the Case or the cooler ..or the thermal paste. Or a faulty chip

Its an ivybridge, so heat is its achilies heal compared to sandybridge.

i would check your voltages ..make sure they aint high ..make sure your not OC’d to high. Check make sure you have applied the right amount of thermal past and have spread it evenly over the cpu ..(not just a blob in the middle)

Then make sure you have a fan speed curve setup ether via the bios ..or more likely via some software than runs through the OS. I beleve you should have Asus AI suit II ..use that.

After you’ve checked all that ..run Prime 95 with RAM set to 2gb below your actual amount (so 6gb for you) and run it for an hour to check temps.

I highly doubt your CPU is maxing out at 100% from GW2 since GW2 doesnt use all 4 cores 8 threads. So if its overheating with GW 2 ..i dread to think what would happen when it really gets taxed. (At this point i highly sugest you keep a close eye on temps when you start up Prime95 ..since that will run it at 100% load all 8 threads.)

35% cpu usuage ..4 cores 8threads ..that works out roughly 2.8threads used.

IIRC GW2 uses 2.5 max .. the other 0.2 is likely other system processes. There for it is concievable that your CPU is concidered to be maxed out. You can check this by trying a higher OC ..problem is your using a ivybridge cpu so chances are you wont get much higher than 4.3ghz on air cooling.

Im not syaing your CPU is the ‘problem’ ..that titles lies with the GW2 game engine ..which is not efficient enough at high loads like WvWvW ..however this can be offset by a powerull CPU ..the faster your cpu the better your fps.

Hmm i beleve you have some kind of compatability issues .. i say this becouse.

My ingame setitngs are 1920×1080 max/ultra settings .sampling on native.
Lion Arch average fps 45
Char areas (40ish)
General PVE 50-60 ..usualy 60

And you can see my rig below.

one bug i know exists is that some char areas with alot of fire around ..like those giant torches, seem to bug out and performance drops like a stone untill you reset the sampling by changing it back and forth ..So for me that native to supersampling ..then back to native.

For your other areas all i can say is that you need to check which of your components is bottlenecking. CPU or GPU. Run a monitoring program to find your GPU and CPU usuage.

Chances are in PVE area’s it should be down to your GPU, in areas like LA and deffinatly WvW it may well be down to your CPU. I personaly find that my GPU is always maxing out (to be expected wiht a 560ti).

If all else fails OC your CPU to 4ghz or above. See if that helps. You cpu doenst have to show 100% usuage to be bottlenecking .. GW2 apprently is limited to 2 to 2.5 cores so you will never see 100% usuage overall.

Do remember forums will always have more people complaining about somthing than praising ..Also there are 2 types of issues. Faults ..and Desgin flaws.

I beleve the RAT9 issue your talking about is a common fault ..which you should asume you wont get ..if you do its a simple case of getitng it replaced by MadCatz.

Same goes for any other product tbh.

The naga series i personal dont like the look or shape of ..that being a design flaw imo. The build quality could also be called into question since its like alot of regualr mouses ..i.e made from plastic with fancy raised designs on it that can ware of over time and look horrible. My logitech G5 mouse has started doing that..ill be buyigna new mouse soon and ill likely get a Rat ..probably the MMO 7 ..possibly the 9 ..though i usualy stick to wired mouses.

Aye it is but usualy people who have a K series i5 or i7 have it OC’d anyway ..or atleast they should ..otherwise its a waste.
Even som1 new to OCing can easyily get a 4ghz OC from sandbridge i5’s and i7’s without much trouble, and with a little research reach 4.5ghz.

point is ..i personaly didnt OC my rig just for GW 2 ..i had this rig before GW2 released ..its just somthing you do :P

i agree though ..this game as optimization issues with heavy load.

I can concur that a 560ti is ‘enough’ for GW2. You can max/ultra the settings at 1080p (aside from super sampling)if you so chose to get a solid 40 to 60 fps in all pve environments.

it will however be running full pelt the entire time at those settings so make sure its a quiet 560ti :P

You other choice is get any 560ti and just go down on the settings.

For Nvidia anything under a X60 is not ‘really’ a gaming gpu. So your options are 460, 560ti, 660ti.

But i beleve the 560ti may be slighly outside your budget .. dont know how much they cost in America. But its deffinatly one of the best bang for buck cards still around.

Yea the RAT 9 is cordless ..i pref wired myself ..and has a few less button on the thumb rest ….compared ot the MMO 7 which is wired and has extra thumb buttons.

The only other difference which im actually not to sure on myself ..is the thumb rest adjustment ..the RAT 9 alows it to rotate outwards away form the mouse ..the RAT 7 MMO also seems ot have this but it doesnt look like it locks in place like the RAT 9 ..you’d have to research this yourself.

Aye it may look odd. But if you read customer reviews on sites like http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ..people have said despite its looks ..its very comfy.

And if you find proper review youtube vids, you can see how much metal is in this mouse. granted metal does not always = quality ..but in a mouse like this ..it has to be quality with all the moving parts.

Also if you use the pinky rest (the large one) ..along wiht the attached stock thumb rest ..it would be next to impossible for it to fly out from you hand .

Its just a bug .. i get this ..to a degree ..aswell.

To stop it i just switch sampling ..from native (which i run at) to supersampling ..then back to native.

I worked out that it has somthing to do with the ‘fires pillars’. Unlike other cities and area’s ..the Char like their big industrial look ..including big pillars with a big dish full of fire ether side of stiarways and halls and the like. These for some reason cause massive performance loss. And every now and then do so more than usual, and requir you to set the sampling mode.

Cyborg RAT 7 MMO
Cyborg RAT 9

They are bad*ss, the most customizable mouse around, and it doesnt have to many buttons. .it has ‘enough’. Very high quality aswell .lots of metal

It is rather .erm ..whats the word ….“pricey” though :P

Its made by a company called MadCatz ..who also do the most bad*ss keyboard you will ever see ..the Cyborge S.T.R.I.K.E 7 gaming keyboard… ..but that costs …brace yoruself .. £250

Erm ..i hate so say this but… Your graphcis card should be able to handle runing at 100% 24/7 if need be. If it is overheating ..which by the looks of those temps ..it is.. Then you need to check a few things.

Reduce the OC if its a custom OC
Case airflow
Dust
GPU cooler (is it working)
Contact between heatsink and gpu (maybe reseat it with new thermal paste)

Seen a few posts now where people have complained about GW2 overheating their graphics cards. Its not GW2’s fault …The GPU should be able to run at max load without overheating ..if it is ..its a hardware issue.

The argument that X and Y game runs the graphics card at max load and it doesnt overheat but GW2 does ..is irrelivant. 2 games can run a card at max and give different temps becouse 1 game may tax different components of the card more than the other. GW2 seems to tax alot more components on a graphics card than say .. BF3.. hence the temperature difference.

My Gigabyte 560ti SuperOC edition is factory OC by gigabyte to 950mhz core and 2290mhz(4580mhz effective) memory.
(stock being 822mhz core and 2004mhz(4008mhz effective) Memory.
And it runs at max load atleast 80% of the time in game ..and it reaches 75c max (using custom fan curve which peaks at 75% speed)
So graphics cards can handle GW2 whislt maxed out for long periods.

@ Ioseridoit
If your running a AMD cpu ..chances are its cpu bottleneck not a RAM one.

GW2 doesnt like AMD cpu’s ..and even Intel ones only run good on a i5 3ghz +. (on average)

The game engine is not efficient enough to enable 60 fps during big WvWvW battles. The highest fps your likely to get there is 30fps.. that thats with a heavty cpu.

60+ FPS is easyily possible in pve however.

The kind of rig you would need is.

I5 or I7 at 4.5ghz+
Single OC’d 680 or equivalent. Or 2x Sli 660ti ..or triple sli 500 series. (this is to get the higher than 60 fps in pve)
RAM ..anything above 6gb will be enough tbh.
A SSD will help remove or reduce any stutter from loading textures and such from the drive.

You ‘shouldnt’ need a rig this powerfull for a MMO ..but GW2’s engine just isnt capable of giving good performance in heavy situations atm ..so a heavy duty rig is required to compensate.

@Alteris:

Long story short, Nvidia renamed their original 660ti to the 680. The actual original 680 hasnt been released and many beleve they will release it ..or modified verison of it . as a 780.
Now Nvidia obviosly wont come out and admit this, but their is evidance that Nvidia had/have the capability to have released much better GPU’s than the 600 series we see atm. Some of this evidance is the release date push backs..which was due to AMD not having any GPU that could challenge Nvidia at the time. So they just released a weaker version of what they could have and sold it at the same price, and anounced there other gpu’s (which had been anouced to be released) would be released later.

Why build and release somthing that will cost more to make ..when you can sell somthing cheaper at the same price becouse there is no competition.

Home Style …you have a 3960X ?? ..r u mad ?! o.0

Lol ..doubt you have but still..probably better to state what cpu you have rather than say you have the best money can buy..becouse in this case that just silly ..since the 3960X is just not worth it. And if it isnt the 3960X ..it isnt the best money can buy :P

Anyway moving that aside ..your total right about the client ..it really needs improving.

Aye GW2 game engine is a heavy modified version of GW1 ..but .its stil lan old GW1 engine.
That said it struggles to be efficent under ehavy loads like WvWvW and other big events..this is why CPu power effects the games performacne in these casses.
‘Should’ GW2 perform like this ..no
‘Does’ it performa liek this ..yes
‘Will’ it change ? ..well if it does its gunan take a while as that would requir a major patch or complete change of game engine.

For now the only option players have is to beaf up their CPU. In your case a i3 is beaten by a i5 easily ..hence your firends better perfomance.

i personaly reccomend getting a i5 K version and OC’ing it to atleast 4ghz (which should be easy) then you should have ‘acceptable’ FPS for GW2 assuming your GPU keeps up.

I personaly cant test how well my CPU will manage in WvWvW becouse my GPU is the major bottleneck ..and i wont upgrade to 600 series GPU now becouse they are ..well Nvidia held back…im waiting on the ‘real’ 600 series to come out in march as the 700 series. Probably a 780.

Just like to point out that EVGA precision wont ALWYAS cause a crash ..not unless somthing else is clashing with it in a major way.

I run EVGA precision ALL the time ..it starts up when my comp starts up. Why? ..for the GPU custom fan speed curve and the onscreen FPS display.

Indeed ..theres no doubt that it is the game engine that hass issue under high load .. However …we as players cant do ANYTHING about that ..what we can od however is beaf up our computers to run the game engine that little bit faster.

If you can afford that then great ..if not ..you will have to play the waiting game ..a game engine upgrade may come along and solve our problems ..it may mot ..thats up to Anet.

In the end all we can do is Upgrade our computers to get better performance ..is it the best solution? ..no …is it the only one we have at out disposal? …yes.

In all fairness . .WIndows 8 is brandnew ..you cant expect games that came out before it to run flawlessly ..
My advice is go back to the perfectly capable Windows7.

W8 has all its gimiky UI desgined for touchscreens and the like and imo looks horrible ..you may disagree which is fine ..but i still say your best bet is to stick with Windows 7 for a couple months to give windows 8 enough time to iron out the inevitable bugs.

it will probably ‘run’ the game ..but i doubt you will enjoy playing it . The FPS will be horribly low.

Indeed .. depending on what parts u salvage fomr that rig .. i.e Hard drives ..optical drives and such. You can put together a good i5 rig for around £550-£650 and that will be Overclockable aswell. You can save a little money ..around £50 of that if you go for a non overclockable cpu and cheap cooler…but i recommend agianst that.

Are you using a VGA or DVI/HDMI lead ?

It just might be that its switching over to the one your not using when entering windows.

Full blown desktop PC’s have a hard time with WvWvW thanks to the GW2 game engine and its efficency. No laptop will be able to match that.

That said, atleats that laptop has a pritty good cpu. So it ‘should’ hold up better than average.

I will say this though .. Alienware = Overpriced. I beleve your spec is somwhere around £1850 ..Your better of looking at other companies to be honest.

http://www.bto.eu/index.htm
They look promising ..though you’ll have to put up with the website being in another language.

otherwise looks at Asus,Acer, MSI and the like.

Unless things have changed recently Alienware have a bad reputation of overpricing their products simply becouse they look good.

Indeed.
AMD + GW2 = bad performance.
Even if you OC it alot, it stil lwont be as good as a good intel chip.
Now intel is betetr than AMD with cpu’s BUT that isnt the reason the performance is so different.. it has somthing to do with GW2 optimisations o AMD cpu’s.

Atm if you want good WvWvW results you need a i5 intel chip OC’d 4ghz or above. AND a good gpu.
My 560ti which is OC to 950mhz core clock and 2270mhz memory gets bogged down in heavy pve ..it would be even worse in WvWvW with 50+ people on the screen all using skills asuming the engine can hanlde the stress and the CPU can keep up.

I think you GPU ‘should’ be enough ..but your CPU wont be.

65c is pritty cool tbh.

I know my cpu is completly different but i’ve got my one set to max out at 75c ..many people OC the 3930k and have their temps set to max out at 80c or even 85c.

My GPU which is a 560ti frequently hits 70 to 75c playing GW2 .a.gain nothing to owrry about.

CPU danger zones are usauly in the region of 90c where they start throttling and 100c where they, if the havnt throttled allready, throttle or shut down. Those being the danger zones its recommended you dont go any higher than 80 or 85c since anything higher ‘could’ potentialy reduce the lifepsan of the cpu.

EDIT: Nevermind ..i checked up on that CPU and it does seem that 62c is the stock top end temperature. AMD really dont have good temperature thresholds do they :P

Aye a SSD is somthing that is nice to have for the load times and the reduction of stuttering due to access times. But when on a budget and for general performance interms of fps..then the usualy suspects should be upgraded first ..for mmo’s and GW2 specificaly ..thats CPU then GPU.

You will want to OC if you have enough money for a top end air cooler ..or mid to high end water cooler.

That said Sandybridge are better at overclocking so i sugest ether a:
2550k: Its100mhz faster than 2500k and doesnt have the inbuilt gpu, this will help when OC’ing, and the 2550k cost the same as a 2500k within £10. Nether has hyper threading.
2600k : This has hyperthreading (4 core 8 threads)
2700k : Same as above just faster base clock.

Anything higher than that and your looking at Sandybridge E (LGA 2011)which leaves you with only 1 real option out of the 3820 3930k and 3960X ,,that being the 3930k ..becouse the 3960X is totaly overpriced ad pritty much identical to the 3930k… and the 3820 isnt really OC’able.

So if your on a budget get the 2550k with a good air cooler and OC it to 4.5ghz.

Ok well i’ve given you my advice so tis down to you now

GL

Apparently GW2 uses the old GW1 game engine ..though heavily modified. And the old engine was never intended to be used with massive player vs player battles.

Now if it was built from scratch and designed iwth these huge battlesi mind ..im sure it coulda been better. But to save time and money they used the old engine.. and that has its drawbacks ..as we now see.

Ah hold up

The char cities have a odd issue with graphics.

Go into the GW2 settings when you have this 100% usuage ..set sampling to somthing different than what your running on ..wait for it to change. .then set it back. i.e native to supersample then back to native.

i have to do this somtimes. Its some weired bug.

You must be having overheating issues if its locking up.

and £300 ?! …my one cost £220 around april this year. For £300 you could get a current gen 600 series.

Anyway money aside. have you tried running the game on your card whislt its NOT OC’d ..it may be a OC’ign issue. it sounds coutner intuative but a OC could run worse on games that push the card harder than even some stress testing software does.

GW2 has proven to overheat some peoples cards becouse is pushes more of the cards components than the most popular stress testing software.

Exactly Gadzooks ..nicely put.

hardware can help overcome engine limitations. Most of the time engine limitations aren ot delt with BUT if they are ..it takes a while.

So your choiceis ..more hardware power ..or put up with it and wait.

Yea same here Ronson.

You gotta remember .. as nice as BF3 looks..a MMO can be just as demanding whilst looking less good.
Just becouse somthing doesnt look as nice doesnt mean its less complicated or easier to render.

Anyway my 560ti is factory OC’d to 950core and 2290mhz memory (4580mhz effective) and it runs at constant high usuage.. So its normal.

Also it dependso n the staritng area. The Sylvari have a REALLY demanding starting area ..closly followed by Asura..then i think it goes Char ..then human ..then Norn.

Tekwiz ..His GPU is maxing out ..meaning in the places he is playing atm (not WvW from what i gather) his CPU is coping. Will it cope when it comes across heavy populated areas ..probably not ..But thats not his question .his question is about his GPU maxing out ..which by definition means his CPU is keeping up…for now.

Aye.. AMD+GW2 = bad performance
CPU under 3ghz = bad performance.
You have both.. im generalizing here but it holds true in your case.

Nothign is wrong.

The 6970 is just under the geforce 560ti in overall benchmarks. In my experiance with GW2 settings at 1920×1080 max/ultra settings except sampling ..which is on native.. i get ‘almost’ always 99% load.

Now if your GPU is noisy when under such load then all that means is that you didnt look into how noisy you card can be when under such high loads. And tbh i didnt ether, thats why i have had to setup a custom fan speed curve so that 1) my gpu stays cool under high load, and 2) so it does that at its lowest possible fan speeds.

i sugest you get a program that works with your card that can create custom fan speed curve.

Have you tried running GW2 + OS from a SSD.

If you have then its likely just stuttering from loading stuff from the Anet servers.

Being a bit to generous there i think masterK.

With top end air cooling a Ivybridge such as he 3570k will OC on ‘average’ to 4.3ghz before heat becomes an issue. A 2500k/2550k should easyily be able to reach 4.5ghz.

When you get into water cooling those change to on ‘average’ 4.6ghz and 5ghz.

if you alreayd have a SB 2500 there is no point what so ever in going to a equivilant IB.

if however you aren ot running a current i5 r above, THEN its worth going IB UNLESS you intend to do some high level OC’ing in which case SB takes the lead again.

Clock for clock IB is slightly better than SB, BUT SB can clock higher than IB.

Another way to prove its the CPU is to OC it.

Now i know its an Ivybridge you have so you cant go crazy with the OC’s unlike a sandybridge ..but you should still be bale to get to 4ghz without much trouble ..and if you have a top end air cooler or mid to top end water cooler, you should be able to get to 4.3ghz.
Then try GW2 WvWvW again ..i promise you will ge better fps.

Now ‘should’ this be needed …no. Is it needed ..yes.
You never know ..people have said in previose revisions of GW2 that hey have got better performance. ..so Anet may well bring out a patch down the line that increases performance

BUT there will always be a limitation to what the game engine can handle. Its not easy to make an engine for a mmo, that can handle over 50 people on the same screen all shooting of special effects and particles, without significant performance loss.

Increasing voltage rarely causes instability unless it overheats.

Secondly OverClocking refers to the Clock rate hence ‘clocking’ ..leaving clocks at stock and fidling with votlages to try and gain stability ..is not OC’ing.

Therefor if someone says they have an unstable system and they have done eveyrthing possible software wise ..and someone sugest voltage tweeks to hardware as a possible fix…it is not a stretch ..nor is it stupid.

OP you answered your own question.

GPU usage less than 99% when fps is lower than your cap ? Then its being slowed down by somthing in your ocmputer ..95% of the time thats your CPU. (ignore cpu utilization ..its >NOT< ALWAYS the way you find out if its bottlenecking)

Additionaly ..the Q9550 is an old cpu..its much slower than modern day cpu’s that are clocked lower. This is due to the archecture of the cpu and how it works.

I honestly cant beleve how many people ‘game’ and dont even have the most basic understanding on PC components and how they work.

Just becouse your CPU utilization is not maxed does not mean it isnt slowing down your computer. You need to udnerstand how they work, in simplest terms.. the old CPU’s process data slower at the same clock speeds as a new cpu. This is becouse of the archeticutre of the cpu. Additionaly GW2 can only use so many cores/threads i beleve its somthign like 2.5. Therefor you will never really see max cpu load anyway unless your on a Dual core, even then its not guarunteed.

therefor you problem OP is that your CPU is not fast enough . OC’ing will help.. but it still wont be as good as a modern cpu.

MMORPG’s are ALWAYS more CPU bound than GPU unless they are heavily coded to do the oposite.

Another way of simply finding out why your running slow is this.
Check your GPU usuage when you have low fps ..if your GPU is NOT on 99% usuage then its being slowed down by another part of your computer which in 95% of casses is your CPU. Irrelivant of CPU usuage.

Its not how much the CPU can take(%utilisation) …its how fast it can take it(Core clock & Architecture)

I pull more of my hair out every time i see someone post that their GPU isnt being fully utilized by GW2 so GW2 must be borked.
Fact is they usaly have an old CPU ..they then ofc say ‘but my cpu isnt reaching 100%’ ..then about 5 people have to convince the person that just becouse it is not reaching 100% does not mean it isnt bottlenecking your computer >.<

Ill generalize here (so those who know better dont jump down my throat) ..but..

If your GPU is on less than 99% usuage when you have FPS less than your screen refresh rate ..then its HIGHLy likely your CPU (not matter its usuage %) is bottlenecking your performance. ..This means you need a new CPU or need to OC your current one alot.

Again this is generalizing ..there could be other issues but just trying to get people away from saying GW2 isnt using their GPU when its obviose to others that said persons CPU is to old and slow.