Guild Wars 2

people are saying you don’t need a new laptop. Spending like 10 euro on some thermal paste and an hour doing a cleaning and reapplication will get your performance back to what it was before the problems started.

If you really really want a new computer in that price range i would go for a Lenovo Y50

not sure about euro pricing, but a good value in gaming laptops are the Lenovos y50 15". Uses the maxwell GM107 860m and has mobile quad core i7 HQ series cpus, med/high settings should be fine.

this the premise of how china gw2 operates their vip convenience system. With your bank/tp/merchant accessible through the inventory interface window. So the code is already there.

with that partlist you should be playing at 1080p at ultra/high unless in large zergs/world boss in which case only shadows/reflections need to come down and you should still be at 20-30 fps

the only real performance gain from upgrading would be going to an unlocked 4820k and overclocking

that cpu is 6 years old. Behellagh has you on the right track.

For gpus, the 250x can be found for cheap, but decent quality ones (w/2 gb vram) are edging into 260x/750ti terrirory.

At the $100 dollar level, i would definitely spend the 10-20 more for a 260x or 750 ti for significantly better performance. (Personally i would go with 750ti due to the better overclocking the maxwell chip can do)

Also get a decent psu if you are going to oc that pentium K.

Kit.3986:

dodgycookies.4562:

Yes please.

having actually played the gw2 china version their sub system works pretty well without putting free players at at disadvantage. (the game is cheap and ping is actually playable for when i am in asia for business compared to the us servers)

There are some things i would change, but the system would be a nice addition to the western version.

But sadly it will probably not happen as many current gw2 players see the word “subscription” and have a closed minded vitriolic reaction to it no matter how well implemented or optional it maybe.

Game was advertised and marketed as Buy to Play, without a subscription fee. A lot of people purchased the game and play the game on the basis of that statement. If Anet introduced a sub fee out of the blue that granted people who could pay benefits, yeah people will be kittened off because it kinda takes a massive dump on the whole basis of their early marketing and alienates those who bought the game to play it without fees whether due to not having the money, or just personal preference.

But yeah, everyone who disagrees with you is ~“close minded”~ and, you’re the only open minded person here, yadda yadda, so on and so forth.

This is the reaction of some one who has not actually played gw2 china and does not know how the vip system really works. It is sold on the gem store so you can buy it without real spending money. The most significant things it offers over the non sub are:

1) convenience features (bank/tp/mech access straight from your inventory page)
2) revive on a long cd (similar to revive stone)
3) port to a friend
4) gem store discount.
5) Minor non combat boosts like from the achievement system.
6) Title and fancy icon

If people are so upset about something like this then why did they not protest the buyable bank access, tps, Bl merchants, revive stones? These were all in game at launch on the gem store. And what about the introduction of the royal terrace/air ship passes and infinite gathering tools? If you do use those on a regular basis then you would actually spend more money buying the individual items than the china sub.

The package is not perfect and there are some changes i would make for the western version.

Nothing really changes, what it really entails is a convenience package that can be bought individually a la carte, or in monthly access package that is cheaper AND has better implementation. So tell me how this would change the current game in any sense. People who play this game because it has no sub are not affected in any form. And almost all the features that the sub offers were already in the game as a cash shop item.

If you complain about this then you have to complain about the services that are already offered in the gem store. So if you are ok with the current buyable services, then the sub is no different. However, if you already object to the current services then i see why you would be unhappy, but unfortunately these service are probably here to stay.

I fully accept that people do not like subs and have already conceded that any sub will not make it into the game no matter how good it may be. In the end the vip/sub whatever you want to call it, it just a PR problem which will never be over come.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

dodgycookies.4562:

Yes please.

having actually played the gw2 china version their sub system works pretty well without putting free players at at disadvantage. (the game is cheap and ping is actually playable for when i am in asia for business compared to the us servers)

There are some things i would change, but the system would be a nice addition to the western version.

But sadly it will probably not happen as many current gw2 players see the word “subscription” and have a closed minded vitriolic reaction to it no matter how well implemented or optional it maybe.

Totally agree on this ,sub doesnt make p2w but some people are really narrow minded , and maybe it will shock some people but chinesse people have much more items in thier gem store,even more items in game.

It is pay to win. It is just that I don’t really have a problem with p2w if it is done well (ie world of tanks) These days well implemented p2w is generally well received in asia and the west is shifting in that direction (acceptance driven by the model in mobile games) as well but there will always be staunch holdouts. Shrug

Yes please.

having actually played the gw2 china version their sub system works pretty well without putting free players at at disadvantage. (the game is cheap and ping is actually playable for when i am in asia for business compared to the us servers)

There are some things i would change, but the system would be a nice addition to the western version.

But sadly it will probably not happen as many current gw2 players see the word “subscription” and have a closed minded vitriolic reaction to it no matter how well implemented or optional it maybe.

if you assume the utility primers cost the same as the metabolic primers then the total gem cost of the bundle would be 1725 gems individually vs 1650.

Neither primer is a “value” or saves you gold. The price is for the convenience of not having to worry about refreshing food which many people are willing to pay.

As you said, that gold can buy you 78 hours of buffs of consumables, while 5 primers gives you 60. The cost of not having to refresh food is a mere 5 gold. which is a minimal cost.

While the performance per clock of the haswell 2011s are going to be the same as the 1150s but there is a major difference in overclocking as all 2011 socket chips will have (as all e series have) their IHS soldered to the die, which removes the heat problem that ivys and haswells have. In a cpu constrained situation it could make a difference if you decide to overclock.

As for longevity, the x series boards have longer lifecycles. x79 has been around since sandy bridge and supports ivy bridge e cpus that still rival the haswells as the better oc evens out a lot of the architecture improvements. Personally I’m using a 4820k at a very stable 4.8ghz (65C at load to boot!) which is only a bit slower overall than the newest haswell refresh cpus.

X79 is finally being EoLed with the release of x99 haswell e later this year, which is a lot longer than any of the z series boards have lasted. I expect x99 to be viable board at the top end for quite sometime at least until skylake e gets released right before cannonlake (2016-2017ish). And will be "viable"even with cannonlake. Though who knows

But yes it is a bit for expensive especially with ddr4 ram. Though if you only consider cpu/board then compared to top end i7’s like the 4790k and a quality z97 then the prices are similar.

turn off the restart on BSOD to see if its a hardware or software issue. If you get bluescreens then read the code to find the error.

Otherwise i would first look to the voltage regulators or power brick. They do decay with age and grouped rail controller issues could lead to volt/amp drops across the different rails under heavy cross load and cause a shutdown.

The major problem with bitcoin conversion is that it lies in a super grey area of the law as no government has control over the flow of funds, so you can launder illegally gained money or bypass sanctions into countries like russia/iran/syria etc which may lead to legal action (and significant fines) against the firm which accepted payment.

Currently though, for many consumer product firms, the potential revenue and thus risk is pretty minimal and most major companies do it for the publicity. Minor (relatively speaking) amounts usually doesn’t incur the ire of regulators.

The morality issues of any crytocurrency aside, the technicals of accepting any of the major bitcoin processors is fine. Bitcoin is technically a currency but treated like as assets/property. Any of the major bitcoin processors are doing the equivalent of equities/commodities/bonds exchanges. Which is fine to the end merchant as they receive usd/euro in the end. Basically it comes down to do they trust the payment processor with fund transfers, what the transaction costs are, and how the settlement of possible future disputes will be handled.

Do not get the 745

750ti>>>>>745(oem) ddr3. Hugely different chips

The oem 745 is a rebadged oem 640 (oem) with 384 cuda cores on the keplar GK107 chip. Super weak with slow memory.

The 750 ti is the new maxwell GM 107 with 640 cuda cores. The gpu and the memory are much much faster. old gtx 660 equiv

In no situation is the 745 better. More vram will not cancel out the huge discrepncy in the gpus

the 2gb vram will only be an issue if you are gaming on a monitor with resolution higher than 1920×1200p.

Could it be better? Yes. But compared to the competition mmos around at the time, performance was pretty similar

1) Fps games cant be compared for a lot of reasons. The closest comparisons are Aion which used cryengine, Tera with unreal, SWTOR with hero, Warhammer with gamebryo. But have you actually played those games? Culling is very severe, and you still get massive frame drops in large scale combat or in towns because they still are on dx9 despite using “good” engines. This was when dx10 was limited to vista and all gamers refused to use it, so until the wide adoption of win7 in 2010 most games that started their development cycles earlier were done in dx9. The only mmo that i can think of that has updated the engine is WoW and EvE (which still has issues with large scale combat after upgrade)

2)Again i point to the context of the development cycle. I am sure anet would have liked to dev a new engine too, but dev started in 2007 on architecture with graphics starting in mid to late 2008. And guess what happened, global credit freeze/recession. NCsoft and anet did everything to conserve cash and lower their burn rate. Which means use what you have rather than spending money licensing a new engine plus spending all that time on training devs on new engine.

3) the game ran somewhat better at launch in zergs due to the culling that was forced and more severe. But then they disabled it and made it a player option due to outcry.

or run a VM with D3D support

probably crap performance though

as others have said, keep your 2700k. as for gpu the 6950 is a bit old but should handle gw2 ok, if you really want to upgrade r9 270s and 280s are on deep discount atm and are excellent values.

we already have a buyable 5% combat boosters available on the gemstore. Players are not forced to get it, nor are they really using them from what i have seen.

cesmode.4257:

Chase.8415:

They make roughly 4 dollars a month per player in the gemstore.

That’s more profit per year than a single expansion pack.

K.
Stats? Proof?

http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

As a player who buys a lot of gems, getting more stuff would be nice. Though stat bonuses are a bad idea in the current game. If they balanced around the p2w stat boosts for new content, you would get less people doing (or able to do) said content, which would make getting rewards for content even harder for the paying players due to the rng system.

Take for example any of the new stuff in the LS 2. If those reward required the p2w stats to obtain them, they would be super expensive similar to the BL weapons as the only source comes from the gem based BL keys. Yes i know you can farm for keys but my point is that rarity (and thus cost/expense) due to the artificial reduction of the player base is not a good way to go about p2w in a game with rng based reward.

If they do not make new content based on the new stat boosts, then what is the point, as almost all content in the game is already pretty easily beaten with just exotics. I would rather get a legendary/unique skin or even convenience items rather than stat boosts if this was the case.

If they ever do such a thing, the entire rng reward structure would have to be revamped.

actually this sounds like a power supply issue. Gw2 stresses systems differently than other software. Cross loads on a psu with group regulated rails can cause an amp or voltage dip in gpu power rails which would send the gpu into a lower power “safe mode” with a driver restart. The on screen effects are almost identical to what you are describing.

Considering you are using a 260m i assume this is an older laptop. This would make sense as heat and age can degrade the psu and other computer components over time.

I forgot about those athlon phenoms. easy to get confused with the similarly named 940’s which were excellent. Though, even with a k10 athlon quad at 3.2, fps can definitely be higher than described depending on the settings the OP uses, especially since the 550ti is still an acceptable card at med/low settings.

Sounds like a pcie bus issue. Though the cpu is old, the fps should not be that low unless you are doing bosses with lots of people around in which case it is pretty normal.

Get gpuz and check the pcie bus bandwidth, should be 2.0 x16, when the game is running (either on a second monitor when in full screen mode or on top when running windowed)

Screen of your in game settings also helps.

Optetron is a good chip and can be better than their xeon competitors. I did not mean all AMD chips were bad. The FX series was not great, specifically i was speaking about the non existent use of the 8350 in truly multi threaded enterprise applications as people point out the multi thread power of the 8350 which although true doesn’t matter at that price point or offer significant performance increases in current realistic usage scenarios.

When multi thread applications hit the consumer software market, i am sure intel will move to high core count cpus as well, but as the latest steam hardware survey suggests, quad cores not bigger than the dual cores at the moment and dropping due to more purchases of laptops (and 8 cores sitting at 0.28%). Until that happens not many devs will make games that require or can use quad core or higher.

Though some are developing scalable software, it is not quite there yet along with api work as well. by the time this new tech is fully implemented in games, both intel and amd will have whole new lines and architectures so the argument is moot.

I have also tested out the AMD vs Intel for gw2 as well, my super old 8120 @4.4 vs the new g3258 at 4.6 both running titan blacks. The AMD is about 20fps better 140->160 (meaningless) on empty maps with less than 5 npcs and far view distances, the intel is about 10 fps better in heavy triple queued 60 v 60 v 60 wvw zergs or full server world bosses going from a unplayable 8120 @ 12 to a still bad but not slide show g3258 @24.

Though all this is theoretical. In practice the OP was asking about the 4460 vs the 8350, and in gw2 and most other consumer grade applications the intel is a better buy at the same price.

Most of the people here who are recommending intel for gw2 over amd are doing so from personal experience, and most of us have had properly setup and decent rigs running both amd and intel. The current overclocking and setup is about the same for both with intels requiring less cooling due to the more efficient 22nm chips. No one is saying AMD is bad overall, we are saying AMD FX performs the worse or the same as equivalent intel chips, cost the same, and have more drawbacks with legacy games. So the intels are “better” for now.

As a player since launch, the no gear grind marketing attracted a lot of casual players like me. If you play a lot, the game is boring and the content is not “meaningful” (which is a very loaded phrase in rpgs), if you don’t then it is a decent amount of content and paced correctly.

I now play an average 4 hours a week split between WvW, various pve, and some spvp. The next episode of the LS story comes out next week and i have just completed the personal instances and have yet had the opportunity to fully explore dry top (my plan this weekend). If you put in 6 hours in a single evening, i can see where you run out of things to do and see the game as stagnant.

I see myself getting plenty of content for the amount of money i put in. If paying $10 for a skin once a month so that i can look awesome while having fun doing the content then that is a pretty reasonable price for an optional extra.

Considering it is a laptop, it could be power settings or thermal throttling as well. Set power profiles to max performance rather than balanced and clean out your fans with compressed air.

Afya.5842:

Thing is I see very few people turn gem to gold. I know many buy gems for gem store items. But not many turn gem to gold.

Because there hasnt been anything every expensive to buy with gold for quite some time if you have been around awhile. Casual play gold income is usually sufficient for most purposes. I’ve used pretty much the same gear since launch, and only few reasonably priced skins for gold are available on the tp atm. Most of which were available since launch, or cheap when released (back pieces, holiday stuff etc). If you do buy gems with cash, and are not going for a crazy expensive skin atm, there is no real reason to convert gems to gold other than to buy a BL weapon skin (since using gold is cheaper than trying for keys).

Edit also as others have said, purchasing power of converted gold atm is a bit low. In relation to newly released BL skins it is ok, but 800 gems can not buy a set of t3 cultural armor atm.

It could be clogged in within the fins them selves, or the fan could have failed.
or it could be thermal paste gone dry. I would get new thermal paste, remove the cooler for a though cleaning and check the fan to see if it works properly.

pcpartpicker.com is a good resource to explore parts, prices, and throw together lists as it checks for part compatibility.

the MB depends on the cpu really. If you plan on getting the overclocklable pentium g3258 that sirsquishy suggested then go with a low end z97 board that are coming out specifically for that chip. but if you go with a non overclockable i3/i5 then a h series, b series board will be fine. Pcpartpicker will check compatibility for you.

As for cases, that is really up to your budget/personal taste. Most big brand cases are similar in features and really comes down to style and budget. After you pick a cpu/mb combo, Pcpartpicker will be your friend here as it will also check for board/case compatibilities. You can then sort by average rating along with price, color, material, features, etc. My only suggestion would be to get a case with front usb 3 ports.

Edit: also getting a good cpu cooler like a hyper 212 evo is important if you plan on buying the Pentium to overclock.

Problem:
cpu a8 6600k

That is the expect performance for your hardware.

Amd’s APU’s sacrifice a lot of CPU power for more onboard integrated GPU.

Amd’s full cpus (FX line) already do not perform well in this game compared to their intel competitors. The A series APU’s use cut down versions of the FX cpus and add in integrated graphics to fill the rest of the space. Thus putting them even father behind in the necessary power to run this game smoothly.

A a powerful discrete card like r9 270 will not help as you are cpu limited not gpu limited at this point.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01960471.pdf
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01944841.pdf

5 beeps means ram error.

does your old ram work when reinserted into the correct sockets?

If so then either the new ram is non functioning, or has a newer SPD (Serial Presence Detect) version that your older board cannot read. Most boards will accept any memory as long as the 1) SPD version is correct 2) the SPD is readable 3) the board has the relevant profiles stored in relation to the SPD profiles (ie clocks, cl, voltage, etc). This problem usually only arises with very “old” computers such as yours.

Your options are to return your memory for another set to see if they are dead on arrival. If the new sticks are not broken but rather incompatible then you must update your mb bios to accept new SPD versions or choose older memory that uses the older SPD revision 1.0 and also fit the other requirements your older board has.

As for a new MB/cpu, be aware that you are using a prebuilt machine and that a new MB/CPU combo will most likely require a new copy of windows as HP uses non-transferable OEM versions of windows locked to specific motherboards. So you must consider that in your budget as well. Also since your MB is propitiatory, your case is might have proprietary standoffs and holes as well and not accept a standard u/mini/atx board, i would say budget for a new case just in case.

@sirsquishy, the Pentium performing better than the i3 is expected. 4 threads are good, but HT is not magic especially in those large zergs. =P

Along with personal enjoyment a player can generate gold, items, or skills through playtime, which is valued by the market, but not the player at the time of acquisition. The time at which the player decides to trade for other things, he engages in barter trade and thus assesses the value of his own playtime. While usually this falls inline with market values, sometimes it does not, and the player refuses to trade due to a different opinion on valuation. Thus no value is actually assigned and realized through trade, only potential that is unrealized.

Again any time may have value, and that potential value can be generally forecast from the market, but is not realized until a decision is made to engage in trade to pursue it. In an mmo based around rewards, most players engage in trade and assign values to their own playtime and actively compare with the going market rate. Since we are debating very abstract concepts specific language is necessary. Sweeping statements that all player activity intrinsically have (rather than just potentially have) economic value are inaccurate and should be further clarified.

Also I think a key difference in any activity in game compared to the real world is that all content is, on paper, equally accessible for all players at all times. So from a certain perspective, you could make an argument that due to the cash -> gems -> gold exchange (which gives gems/gold no de jure monetary value in the real world, but does in effect infer a de facto currency based market determined value on gold) , any in game activity, even when not engaging in any trade, has a real calculable opportunity cost in relation to the value of a theoretical “maximum gold generation rate” activity.

You two are arguing two points that are not exclusive. The paper that Nerelith cited derives the value of ingame PP (thus time)from the black market trade of items and accounts on sites like ebay. The premise being that real money, which is representative of economic value, was changing hands on a consistent basis, thus giving economic value to the digital goods and their methods of acquisition.

Smooth Penguin is speaking from the perspective of the individual player in which their “time” cannot be distilled down to a simple number and thus labeled as “worthwhile” or not. That “value of time” in terms of satisfaction is completely subjective and can only be determined if the player themselves and not by a market. Only at the point where the player chooses to engage in economic activity does a “value” exist.

As for losing money when using the bathroom, as a individual you are not, but from a company’s perspective you are. The idea is not silly, if you aren’t working you are not producing, which is a waste of man hours. The basics of opportunity cost can be applied to any activity. This is why breaks are highly regulated and legally mandated in certain fields, because if they weren’t employer’s used to not give breaks due to the loss of production. Which is where Nerelith is arguing from.

A macro and averages perspective that in the aggregate gold (and thus time spent farming that gold) has a real life cash value because the gold sellers/gem conversions exist. From this the assumption is that the prices set by those gold sellers (or anet) is determined by what the market in aggregate will bear which is the cash value of gold and thus time in game. However this does not speak to how an individual values their time in terms of satisfaction, only how the average decisions of all the players engaging in economic activity value their time in terms of cash and gold.

You two are speaking from non exclusive points and saying each is right, while both positions are valid.

These are not “gaming laptops” of old which were desktop replacements and were thick and heavy. The ones i posted before are just as thin (~20mm/.7 inches), just as light, and cost the same/less than a similar spec Macbook Pro or a Dell XPS 15 with better performance. You asked about the dell xps15 which is priced at 1600-2500, which is in the same range as these other choices as well as the 15 MBP.

While they are “gaming” oriented, they will perform significantly better in video edit/rendering applications than a dell xps or a mbp due to the more powerful graphics cards and better thermal management.

I understand the allure of buying from a big retail brand, but currently they are lagging behind in the power laptop sector (focusing on ultrabooks/convertibles) atm and better choices are to be found. Gamers on the go no longer have to compromise performance for portability.

Edit: For video/photo editing, panel quality matters a lot. For this reason alone i would go with the Sharp IGZO panel in the razer blade 2014 due to the large color gamut and high accuracy which beat out almost all other laptop panels atm with the xps 15 QHD lcd coming a distant second

For gw2 intel especially the unlocked versions. Where a high clock i3 will probably out do a 8350 at this time.

For everything else it is debatable.

The i5-4460 is intels offering at that price point, which has better or similar performance for most applications, and only loses out by in the few heavy multithreaded application benchmarks. Intel’s stronger cores only start to lose ground when dealing with 6+ threads.

One problem is that the 8350 is pretty “old”. Even in an amd game like bf4, the comparible intel chip in terms of performance (at stock) was the 2500k. Which was 3 gens ago and the current 4460 is faster than the old sandy bridge chip. Only when overclocking does the 8350 begin to offer real tangible benefits over a current gen budget i5.

The major problem with amd’s value proposition is that software is designed around current hardware capabilities. When 2-4 thread pentiums/i3s/i5’s/APUs dominate the market very few applications take the time to write more than 4 threads, as that is extra development time for something only very few hardware setups can take advantage of. And thus the bigger more efficient cores of the intel’s are not in a technical sense better, but rather the right tools for the right job.

And even worse for AMD, the programs that currently can typically show tangible performance gains when utilizing 8 threads are usually pretty expensive enterprise or creation packages that can also use more than 8 threads in which case high core count xeons are the preferred chip. Also with expensive software usually comes a larger hardware budget and those situations the minor value advantage of a oced 8350 no longer applies. Sure the 8350 beats the 4460 in cinebench, but no one who buys Cinema 4D for 3.5k is going to cheap out and buy either cpu. Most will just go with i7 or Xeons on a 2011 platform.

The 3820’s were partially locked thus non k but are still overclock able. Multiplier locked to max 38 of the 36 base but with an adjustable bclk to 125 mhz with a resultant base clock of 4.5 Ghz. This requires a decent board and cooler though as sandy bridge e chips get really hot.

Anyways, has other have said, the 295x is not going to help at all, unless you plan on 4k in which case the 295 is still a bit lackluster. It is better to wait for the next generation of gpus that will actually run single 4k with acceptable framerates without resorting to multi gpu.

If you really need to upgrade now for your brother, r9 280’s are super cheap atm and offer excellent performance at 1080 or 1400p, The 880’s should be coming next year so i would suggest to wait.

well at that price range, the color accuracy and vibrancy is not going to be significant to the budget e-ips panels. The main benefit at the lower end of the ips range is lack of color banding or any color shift due to the larger viewing angle. On a 24" screen it is not that big of a problem but the issues of a tn panel start to manifest themselves at 27" or larger.

At that price range, getting a 1440p TN will probably be better than getting a ips panel with lower 1080p resolution. Though you really will have to see for yourself if the color banding/shifting is bearable. I suggest buying from a retailer that has a good refund policy.

As other have said the dell is nice but is not a machine capable of gaming as the 750m is a very lackluster gpu even if you down the resolution 4:1 to 1600×900. Medium/low settings with 30ish fps.

Gigabyte MSI and Razer have a few slim gaming models with viable gpus. varying costs from 1600 to about 2.2k similar to the dell with options. (prices may vary)

13"
Aorus x3 1440p 870m

14"
Gigabyte p34g v2 (860m Maxwell)
Razer Blade 2014 1800p 860m

15"
Gigabyte p35g v2 860m Maxwell
Gigabyte p35w v2 870m
MSI GS 60 Ghost (comes in 1080p or 1620p display versions)

17"
Aorus X7 860m SLI 1080p
MSI GS 70 Stealth 870m (1080p or 1620p)

Thicker and heavier laptops are much cheaper with similar performance but if form factor is important then these are the pretty much your only chocies on the market atm.

also gift-able account upgrades would give the giver information about the receivers account. Your only solution is to either give them real money (paypal, or buying a gem card for them) or send gold for them to buy gems with the conversion.

vespers.1759:

So after looking all over for a solution I found one that MIGHT work for you. I noticed that in GPU-Z my GPU was running in x2 mode instead of x16 mode. I reseated it and now the game runs fine.

I’m not very computer literate so I have no idea if this is an issue caused by the update (I think it was tbh considering my FPS was fine before the new build) but this may help some of you experiencing unplayable FPS.

Yeah this is a power/performance setting issue where the computer is not recognizing gw2 as something that needs the extra bandwidth and thus keeps the pcie bus/graphics card in power save mode.

I would say that this game was designed for a casual playerbase and attracts those kinds of players. I understand the hardcore lifestyle as I was a world first chasing WoW raider well into Cataclysm. I switched from WoW to GW2 specifically to get away from the “need” to put in massive hours just to keep up. I am very glad that exotics are still very relevant and I am still using the same gear as 2 years ago.

Personally my playtime now amounts to about 4 hours a week, (2 hours weekly wvw reset, 2 hours bi weekly wvw raid on Wednesdays, and 1 hour weekly for guild missions). At my current pace, it will take me just about 2 weeks to finish the LS story instances once, with out replays to do achieves. By that time the next chapter will launch. So you can see at that pace I will never run out of content to finish. Even if i was apure pve player, at 4 hours a week, i would barely finish all the instance and zone achievements in 2 weeks.

3000 hours is a lot of time put in. the game is 677 days old and 3000 hours equates to 4.4 hours every day for the past 2 years. That is serious dedication to a game with out real progression.

Wanze.8410:

dodgycookies.4562:

if they removed the 250 limit on buy orders and had a increasing cost up to a reasonable limit, it would be a decent idea, otherwise there would be some issues with large/many legitimate orders like leveling crafting or siege crafting.

Also k-trains are terrible and shouldn’t be further encouraged.

What 250 limit?

stacks, if you could say buy say 2000 wood with 1 order rather than 8. If you implement tax then legitimate uses such as crafting a full set of ascended or mass siege production by a wvw guild would also be impacted.

if they removed the 250 limit on buy orders and had a increasing cost up to a reasonable limit, it would be a decent idea, otherwise there would be some issues with large/many legitimate orders like leveling crafting or siege crafting.

Also k-trains are terrible and shouldn’t be further encouraged.

Tp flippers exist because despite this thread, gold isn’t important in the large view of things to many players. They are for the most part satisfied with their income by selling to the flippers and satisfied with what that income can buy instantly on the tp, and if they are not there is always gem to gold to supplement the occasional large purchase. As long as this system offers a pretty decent gaming experience, then they are happy regardless of what flippers are doing.

In the end, this is a game played for entertainment and many players don’t want to spend the time nor effort to learn economics research items prices or wait for sell orders just to earn a few more gold. It doesn’t make them stupid for having a different view of things. Flippers thrive on this and though a few more hints/suggestions can help, by in large there will always be someone to “take advantage of”.

For the most part, trading the public stock exchanges IRL doesn’t make “excessive” profits. This is why pensions funds (usually divested into large caps and bonds and managed by large firms) always seem under funded and other publicly held or traded funds do not have significant capital growth in adjusted “real” terms nor do they consistently “beat the market”. Truly large gains usually comes from other sources such as valuation growth in private capital and that is another matter altogether.

The overt wealth of finance industry comes not from a special understanding of the market but from the centralization of capital where even a minuscule slice (as fees or commissions) of a “mediocre” ROI is a huge amount in absolute terms. That is what the gw2 economy is, the flippers are taking minor advantage of a group of players who in the aggregate amount to large sums of gold.

My point is that this game is somewhat PHIW, with gold being the common currency that ties all content together, and the TP being the mechanism which makes rewards available for any player regardless of content. As long as Anet uses that philosophy to design rewards and content, then flippers will exist. You can place restrictions, but too much will be not just a deterrent against flippers but a detriment the majority users as well.

what does your gpu clock speed read as when at 100% load? I had this issue earlier as the drivers sometimes do not recognize gw2 and refused to up the clock speeds up from the power save idle modes.

Yeah the 270 when oced can usually only reach stock 270x speeds. I got my info from:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/03/10/amd_radeon_r9_270x_270_video_card_review/10

Because of the way cards throttle these days you have to take into account the coolers and temp settings as well. The review used a sapphire dual x 270 vs a msi twin frozr 270x both oced as much as possible. And in my experience the twin frozr designs have been slightly more efficient at cooling than their sapphire counterparts. So though the results show a 20% boost in performance i would guess that from the same manufacturer you are looking at 10-15%.

270 vs 270x price to performance is about the same with the 270x being a bit less of a bargain. MSI 270 = 140 MSI 270x = 160. Performance is around 10-15% more for a oced 270x vs a oced 270 which is reflected in the price.

270 vs 270x actual hardware difference is in the power connectors. 270 is for the most part capped at 150w with the pcie +1x6 pin. the 270x has 2×6 pin which has a total of 225 watts available. This power difference is why the 270 is clocked lower and oced lower as well.

AFAIK the asus is the only 270 card that can oc to the same speeds as oc’ed 270x’s due to the usage of a 8 pin connector. However it is one of the most expensive 270s available and more expensive than the MSI 270×.

As for the 280 vs 280x the chips are slightly different with the x version having more transistors/cores/stream processors etc. 7950 vs 7970. This is reflected in the performance and more so in the huge price gap (30%) between a 280 vs 280×.

AMD got huge price drops recently

280’s can be found for sub 200 and 280x’s are under 250
760’s are around 210-230
270 are around 140-150
270x are around 160-180
750ti’s are around 110-120

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#c=164,142,154,147,167,148&sort=a8&m=8,14,18,27,31,41,39

as for value i would say the $190 280 would be top and the $140 270 is a distant second.

Depends on what other games you play and who other programs you want to run on your computer.

The 750ti will do fine at high for gw2, but lacks the muscle to push out 1080p with ultra features like supersample or heavy sweetfx modifications.

Tthe 270 non x is probably the best value overall atm. You lose nvidia features like shadowplay/nv encoder in obs, and cuda accel for adobe products. The 270 uses the same chip as the 270x, but lacks the extra power connector and is thus underclocked and cannot reach the same overclock levels either. Find a version with a 8 pin and that is the best value.

The 270x is pretty expensive as is the 760. Neither of which are good values because of the price dropped 280/x available at the same prices.

it is summer, even with a decreasing population, and increase in aggergate play time generates a lot of gold.

Though they have removed some farms, they have removed repair costs as a sink and have added a huge gold generator: spvp.

Anet is releasing new items, re releasing previously limited time items, and also having sales on upgrades as well. This drives demand for gems up.

Even with a decrease in gold generation, there has been very few new items to buy for gold. I play wvw almost exclusively (guild missions is really the only pve i do) with virtually no farming and i still generate more gold than i spend buying siege/food and thus have amassed a decent and growing stockpile with nothing to really spend it on.

As I buy gems with cash, there is little need for me to convert gems to cash as most new items are in the gem store. (The last time i had to convert gems to gold was for a full set of strength runes after the April patch). Many of my guild mates do not spend cash and the only real use for gold they have had recently is converting to gems to buy the items on sale of that they missed the first time around.

not needed but nice. Mechanical keys are awesome and the better switches on gaming mice are less prone to wear down and not work like many cheaper products.

You mouse and keyboard are used every day and it is worthwhile to buy a quality product for the only parts of the computer you touch.