Guild Wars 2

Data like that (player location, etc) is passed from the server. It used to be good in the BWE’s, but one of those updates shortly after launch ninja-nerfed it, and we haven’t heard a word from ANet since.

http://i.imgur.com/uiBK8.jpg, from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Does-this-make-any-sense-CPU-usage/first#post144758

GW2.exe process: 40% usage.
The rendering/dispatch thread: 23% usage.

If they haven’t found a way to simplify the calculations or move stuff out of the main thread by now, there’s a very good chance this is how it’ll be. Every MMO’s been like this, even WoW at launch.

Thanks for pointing out I looked at the wrong bar on the chart. Desktop GTX560 should be scoring about 2x that amount @ 16000 or so.

5000 vantage score is comparable to a GT630, which is the absolute basement in the budget department. Not mid-range. People need to stop having unrealistic expectations of their hardware.

GT 555m is about equal to a 9600GT, a midrange card from 2008
2820QM is about equal to a Q9400, also released in 2008.
Your system is not considered “new”, nor is it considered “good”. Was there a laptop in 2008 that could play Crysis? What about a laptop in 2004 that could play WoW? Why should there be a laptop in 2012 to play a 2012 game like GW2?

The numbers you get look about right for those specs.

@OP: it’s a laptop, that inherently makes it at least 2-3 generations behind desktops in terms of CPU and GPU power. Most desktop users would call it garbage specwise and not “high end”. No one played Crysis or WoW at launch on a laptop, GW2 is no different.

@Brem: “seriously you think the gt 555m is only as fast as a 9600gt? lol is all I can say to that one.” loollolololololololol. Google shows these scores:
9600GT desktop card: ~4500
GT 555m laptop card: ~4800
GTX 560 desktop card: ~16000

Sorry to say, 8% better than “very bad”, is still “very bad” compared to a 300% increase.

Edit: desktop560 score.

That 560 is slowing it down I think. Can’t expect a budget-midrange card to run new games maxed. Turn off best res/character res, and lower shadows/LOD/reflection down a notch if you have to.

Memory leak in a 32bit app will affect everyone, and this is the first time I’m reading this.
Try disabling the turbo boost on your GTX690.

2500k @ 4.7
16gb 1600/CL9
3x GTX580

5760×1080 everything maxed (except shadow high)

40-60 WvW/LA
60+ all other zones

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Weird-Sound-Glitch-Bug/first#post126283

If lowering sound didn’t work, then there’s nothing else you can do.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1075781-tweak-enable-hpet-in-bios-and-os-for-better-performance-and-fps/

My speculation is thread desynch. While running GW2 in windowed see if your ratio is within 0.001 of 1.0 in WinTimerTester

I think what you failed to get is why that appears to happen.

More cores is like more RAM; lets you run 4 things at 100%, not 1 thing at 400%. Some applications, eg stress testing or encoding, will be using all 4 at 100% since all they do is load as many instances of the same task as you have cores.
Every other application will be split into different tasks (network, graphics, sound, input, physics/animation etc). That doesn’t change the fact each one only has 100% of a single core available to it.

http://i.imgur.com/uiBK8.jpg
GW2 total: 40%
GW2 main/dispatch: 25% (because 100%/4cores = 25%)

Clearly you don’t remember WoW’s launch or Crysis’ launch.

See if lowering sound quality helps.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Does-this-make-any-sense-CPU-usage/first#post144758

Single-threaded performance still matters. #cores not so much.

Lowering sound quality worked for some. ANet said they were aware of it in the similar threads that probably made it to page10ish by now, but haven’t gave a timeframe for a fix.

Mah gawd that is impressive.

Find me one person in that Low FPS thread that has said top-of-the-line hardware with those issues. Preferably one that also has proof.

What VirtualBS said is right, but it can vary a lot based on your specific machine.

I’ve found if I was borderline unstable, IBT/prime95/Linpack give me an 0×124/7E/101/AD eventually while games run no problem.
If the voltage was way too low, I’d get the BSOD during stressing and games.
There was a small area between the two where games would give a hard lock without a BSOD.

I still wonder why people compare AMD to Intel at all.

8core BD: $150
4core Ivy: $220

AMD has better performance/price. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a low-midrange CPU. You get what you pay for.
As for laptops, what AAA game were you able to play at launch that wasn’t a console port? Not Q3, not EQ1, not WoW, not Crysis. GW2 is no different. They are and always will be a generation or two in power behind desktops. Like GOSU said, if developer’s catered to this outdated “middle-of-the-pack”, we’d still be playing WoW on pentium 4’s. 2 year old hardware is plenty good, and hardware in 2 years will be more than enough. Your PC is not a kitchen appliance.

@Idolicious: +1 for being the first person to understand my posts.

The simplest main thread is just a loop that collects data from it’s children threads, does some calculations based on how that data changed from last time, and passes it off to the GPU. The number of times per second it runs = your FPS.

Optimizations will be in 2 flavours.
1) Get the math PHD’s to find easier ways to do those calculations. It’ll give a small boost, but no where close to the 200-400% that some people expect.
2) Move stuff out of the thread. Because disabling sound does seem to affect it, that can be one area for their team to look into.

http://imgur.com/GakRz

Same place (sorta) at night.

Depth blur maybe.

Which is why I made my last point; if every developer cut features to release a game that’s “between” all the rest so people on old rigs can play it perfectly, we would be playing Everquest 1 in 2016.

That’s the kind of stuff you can expect on consoles. It’s a choice between finding that $1k, or finding a different game.

Nothing ambiguous about ‘minimum’.
Google: “The least or smallest amount or quantity possible, attainable, or required.”
Expect lowest settings, lowest resolution, lowest framerate, but it will play. Only it won’t be enjoyable in the slightest.

‘Recommended’, however: “Put forward with approval as being suitable for a particular purpose or role.”
Eg. Battlefield 3 at recommended will get you medium settings [and 720p/30fps, can’t find the source for that one].

The problem is ANet never recommended anything.

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/uiBK8.jpg is your bottleneck. I explain it in more detail here. Hardware from 4years ago is half as powerful as what we have today. Upgrade or enjoy low FPS.

I guess I failed at writing this thread. I’m not saying the FPS I get is bad. I’m saying that there’s way too many people in that “Low FPS” thread with outdated hardware expecting ANet to cater to them. The benchmark numbers I linked are to show just how much tech changes over a span of four years. I still see my FPS in Org drop under 60 at times, and we used to play that on Pentium 4’s.

Laptops are no better because at half the clockspeed you’re a full generation (or two) behind desktops. At launch, were people able to play Q3 on a laptop? Were people able to play WoW on a laptop? Were people able to play Crysis on a laptop? No. Why should GW2 have to be any different? If you don’t want to upgrade, XBox and PS3 say hello.

Without software to push hardware, there’s less incentive to make better hardware. With no better hardware we may as well stick to playing 2D DOS games.

I put this rig together back in january 2011, consisting of:
SB i5-2500k CPU, overclocked to 4.7GHz
GTX 580, stock clocks
8GB 1600/CL9 RAM
eVGA z68 board

It cost me ~$1000 before I added 2 more monitors and 2 more GTX580’s.

While running around Rata Sum for map completion, I had a really hard time getting my FPS to drop under 60, and almost impossible to get it under 50. Then I went through the Lion’s Arch portal, to the Grand Plaza, and went straight to the jewelcrafting station. Quite possibly it dropped into the 35-40 range, but not long enough. All settings maxed except shadows on high. What’s the deal ANet?!!@121!

/rant

4 years ago, we had Core 2 Wolfdales (eg. E8500). Going up against the Q9400 this was, IMO, a midrange CPU at best.
4 years before that we had our Pentium 4E/F Prescott’s. Those single core things that got really hot? These are what we had when WoW was released, and even today’s systems (despite being roughly 6 times better in single-threaded performance on the enthusiast end) can still struggle keeping Orgrimmar at 60fps.
4 years before that, we had the Pentium III’s. Overclocker’s haven. Try running the Quake 3 time demo on your PC now and lemme know if you see anything.

TL;DR: Your PC is not a fridge. If developers catered to the “my ‘decent’ 4 year old rig” crowd, we’d still be playing pong on a black and white screen.

(editted out laptop part, not sarcastic enough)

But more LEDs makes them run faster

Neither was I. If Afterburner/PrecisionX decided to read every GPU register for funsies, it’d either lock your system up completely or give you a BSOD. Windows’ doesn’t prevent any stupid access to hardware-mapped memory.

Most BSOD codes are software, especially kernel filters (drivers, memory scanners such as anti-virus programs etc.)

There’s only a small subset of codes that are related to hardware; 0×124 → general failure, 0×101 → cpu, and on occasion 50/1E/109/0A that, even though are raised by software, could be due to various MB voltages. Most of the people in these threads seem like they fall into this category.

I would stay away from Asus because of the throttling problems on every single gaming notebook they have. MSI and Sager/Clevo are both good choices.

GW2 favours single-threaded performance, which you won’t be finding in a laptop. Don’t expect any high numbers in WvW or hubs.

“Clearly, threads can report for more than 12%, but now I understand that you meant to say this only about single-threaded applications.”
^this

In proper scientific investigation, a thread is not a process. It makes your premise false, and everything you imply from it also false. That’s why I suggested using something more detailed like PE to show you the threads GW2.exe creates; Task Manager only shows GW2.exe as a whole.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Does-this-make-any-sense-CPU-usage/first#post147585

Read my last couple posts. Laptops don’t have the clockspeed to run this game well, i7 or not.

^correct.
A memory leak would slow the game down after hitting the max address for a 32bit application (eg. FPS drops from 40 into the single digits and stays there until you restart GW2).

Gonna be waiting a very, very long time if you expect them to improve performance more than 10-20%. Just look at SWTOR or Rift.

6112 is game data, not login data. And it’s being sent to TX.

Rogers customer in Mississauga here, 25Mbit plan. Haven’t had an issue with GW2 or WoW since being a subscriber.

Only thing I can think of is MTU has to be >1300, but to be on the safe side, manually change it in your router to 1500. I know a month ago or so Roger’s DHCP server had it set to 52 for whatever reason.

After that, run http://www.wireshark.org/download.html in the background (logs all interface traffic) and attaching it. If it’s too big, play around with the filter (eg, use ‘ip.addr == 207.1.1.1’, where 207.1.1.1 is the IP of the GW2 server you’re connected to). I’ll have a look at it when I can.

Starting to feel bad for you guys…
There’s not a single IP range registered to or organization named “NC interactive” in the EU.

Search on ripe.net, see for yourself.

All of those programs that add an in-game overlay are having problems on a few rigs. AB, PX, xfire, Steam, EA’s origin, maybe Fraps, etc.

Seems about right unfortunately. GW2 benefits most from a high clocked CPU, which laptops just don’t have.

Daxus Inferno.9213:

So I have a pretty good laptop

Stopped reading there. No laptop is a good laptop, unless it’s packing a 3.3GHz+ chip and one of the new GTX670m or HD7950’s.

There will be a critical event in Windows’ event viewer with the stop code, or you can disable ‘automatic restart on system failure’ (through "computer -> properties -> advanced settings -> startup/rec -> untick “restart automatically”; or when you start up mash F8 and choose the “Disable restart…” option)

Don’t confuse threads with processes. A process can spawn as many threads as it wants, and the default task manager doesn’t show you how many it has or what they are doing.
http://i.imgur.com/uiBK8.jpg

GW2.exe process: 40% usage.
The rendering/main thread: 23% usage.

Your “total” usage, as reported by task manager, is all over the place because the other threads (sound, network, input) all have different things to do depending on where you are. But for the most part the process will always be (#cores / 100)% + X while the renderer thread will be <(#cores / 100)%, in my case 25.

As for why it doesn’t show a single core being topped at 100%, internal scheduler and power saving. The CPU will switch the thread from one core to another several hundred times a second (at no performance loss) to try and balance the load evenly. Electrical leakage is exponential, so less load = less power consumption = less heat.

Game will only use what’s needed, allocating more memory won’t make it run any faster. A 4850 should be more than capable of low, so maybe some other program is trying to use it at the same time (monitoring, antivirus, etc).

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb (CCC 12.3)
^12.3 is from March. The first beta weekend was in May. Don’t go any lower than 12.5.

If i run gw2 in windowed mode at lowest possible resolution my GPU activity is 99%.
^Have something like GPU-z running in the background (don’t forget to tick off “update in the background”), and make sure your card’s running at the right clocks.

Exiled Dbl.9035:

and this game needs to be optimized why you ask cause ive been at 4.5 and 4.7 with my 3570k oc’ed and i get better frames at stock clocks (3.8) weird…. go figure mind you people did say in beta that theirs a few odd cases out their where some computers will run better and get better fps at stock closkc

No, that means something is not set right in your overclock. Check what it’s running at in-game (my guess is it’s going to be 3.4GHz).

Resolution, game quailty, and expected framerate is what the recommended settings are for. The ones that ANet never gave, and probably for good reason in the game’s current state.

Take DICE and Battlefield 3 for example. They stated that the recommended hardware will play the game at 720p with the medium preset at 30fps. Not once did they say what the minimum would achieve, and a quick glance at it screams “garbage”.

That’s why I added the short and long description

Copy/pasting my suggestion from the end:
“If any of you G73 owners want to try, download MSRTool, in the box next to MSR Number type in “0×1AD” and Read. Paste the number that you get under “EAX” here (will look something like 0×39393939).”

Using that I (or anyone) can come up a different number that’ll underclock your CPU.

Even 1FPS @ lowest on 640×480 is still playing. By definition, minimum makes no promise on framerate, quality, or happiness, it strictly means “it will play”. Whether the bar was set too low for GW2 is a whole other debate.

The few that are above minimum and can’t load or have crashing issues are, from what I see, related to drivers/heat/BIOS/faulty hardware.

@Cheeky: maybe I should report your rig as a bug too while I’m at it.

@Cbuzz: thing is, Rift and SWTOR (and pretty much every game period) had recommended specs listed along with the minimum. The people that were legit above-the-recommended had a reason to complain. ANet and GW2 only have minimum, and people are confusing this for meaning the same as recommended.

Cbuzz.5083:

Pretty sure the 690 is one of those cards with a legit issue. The 590 also has the same issue.

It might. Though I’m not sure about the 590 since I have no problem on tri-580’s. Also, if you’re getting over 30fps 99% of the time, that’s about right for our sandy’s. Gonna have to wait til 7.5GHz to keep 60 everywhere.

Varna.5162:

Post a video of that. I’m sure we would all love to see that.

Anyhow, the only thing I agree with is that game should run better. I don’t know what their recommended specs are, but I’m sure their CPU recommendation is not a i5-2500k @ 4.8GHZ.

Unfortunately ANet’s only announced the minimum. First time I’ve seen a game not have recommended specs post-launch (and first one in a while that loads a single core this much).