Guild Wars 2

What laptop do you have? and do you know what Thermal Paste the shop used?

90C for a Laptop is NOT normal under ANY circumstance.

Though, if I were you, I would be taking that laptop back to the shop and demanding them to redo the thermal paste.

SolarNova.1052:

The only time you really should OC RAM for gaming purposes is if ur using a AMD APU based system, where OCing the RAM also OC’s the on board GPU and can result in significant FPS gains.

well thats true. And with the new Line of APU’s and those 8xxx series GPUs in there, OCing the Ram really helps.

But if you have discrete graphics then I still suggest not doing it.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

what about RAm OC? does it help?

No, RAM OC is directly tied to FSB OC. If you do not need to OC your FSB dont OC your ram as the benefits are just not there.

The exception to this rule is Ram that is meant to be OC because they are out of spec (1866OC, 2100OC….ect). In which case, sometimes you must OC the ram to run the chip at the advertised spec.

Example;

My 1866mhz RAM had to be OC’d in my AMD system because it topped at 1600mhz. however, It supported ram up to 2100 via OC.

where as my Intel system natively supports 1866-2100 with out the OC.

sounds like a mix of Heat, CPU throttling and/or GPU Throttling.

Download CPU-Z, GPU-Z, and CoreTemp and run GW2 in a full screen-Windowed mode.

And while you watch your ingame FPS, watch those programs (GPU-Z’s Sensor Tab, CoreTemp’s Mix/Max Temps, and CPU-Z’s Clock/Voltage).

And report what you see.

For this game, you want solid performing Cores. And the Core2 is VERY old when compared to the running lines of the i-Series CPUs from Intel.

I had a C28300 that I used to test GW2 a while back on, and it was NOTHING when compared to a 2nd gen i3.

My recommendation, if you are buying new or used, buy Intel either a i5 or i7(if you need HT) and go from there. If you are on a tight budget, then get the fastest clocked i3 (2nd gen or newer).

If you are using something you already have laying around, then consider the cost to upgrade that with 4GB of ram and a decent GPU (HD7790, R7-260X, Nvidia 750/TI)

now, the above is all from the assumption you are talking a desktop. If you are talking a laptop then its a totally different discussion.

Brother Grimm.5176:

sirsquishy.8531:

Its totally going to depend on the LCD’s resolution. at 720P you shouldn’t have much of an issue and should get between 40-50 fps on medium settings.

If your LCD is 1080P you need to get a i7 (faster clock and 2 more cores) and upgrade the GPU to at least a 750 or 760.

Your advice is to upgrade a laptop? Really?

Resolution would not matter that much and this game does NOT needs an i7…. If the system is running 64 bit OS, consider adding another 4GB of memory.

You should be fine to run that laptop with GW2. You won’t be able to run highest graphics settings without some FPS spikes, but you should be fine at medium settings.

Yes, because the i5 is 2core/4threads, were the i7 is 4cores/8threads.

THAT makes a HUGE difference for this game. If that i5 was 4cores, then an upgrade wouldn’t have been suggested.

abomally.2694:

“FX8350 would cap at 65FPS on lowest settings using a R7-260×”

If that’s true, then something was wrong with your system. My FX-60 (yep – socket 939) and 8800GT can beat that. If you need proof you’ll have to wait until tomorrow so I can grab the screenshots from my other laptop (not hooked up at the moment).

939, AM2+/AM3 (Non FX) were built for per core performance. That was the era those chips were designed in. The fact remains that the FX (Bulldozer+ based chips) have a weaker per core performance then their predecessors.

And there is nothing wrong with my FX8350 system, its now my media center system (upgraded from a 635 x4), and it plays all my other titles on high at 1080p with 90-120FPS with out a hitch. Except GW2. But I dont play that on my 65" TV.

weedaw.5730:

Then it only matters to find a good bargain for i7 now

Cheers for you guys ! You helped me a lot to make a decision.

I suggest the i7-3630QM, its only 200Mhz slower then your i5, but has 4 cores and 8 threads. Though it will probably clock to about 2.6ghz under full load once your cores settle (after the application is loaded).

You can get one for about 130 on Ebay if you search around.

All the ‘better’ i7’s for that socket are 250+ each, used.

so the i7-3630QM is the best value and the best CPU upgrade you can get for the price.

Avelos.6798:

They are new too so I’d imagine with further driver maturing it will get faster.

I hope so, but for the price they have to compete with AMD’s 7850 and 7870’s (7850 at Frys is 159 on the shelve, the 7870 is 179 on the shelve).

sirsquishy.8531:

Avelos.6798:

sirsquishy.8531:

GPU; HD7790 is the best bang for the buck right now and can be got for 99 bucks still.

I think the GTX 750 just took that spot. It’s extremely power efficient and does not require an external power connection. It can run on low power (300-350) systems.

And I have not seen a 750 for less then 149. 750Ti starts at 179 (Local retail, since im not buying a GPU have not looked online)

http://kotaku.com/battle-of-the-150-video-cards-geforce-gtx-750-ti-vs-1525383934

Also, the 750 and 750Ti are NOT that much faster then the 7790.

7790 still takes it at 99 bucks.

If the 750 and 750TI were priced that low then they would be the obvious contenders, but at 149+, forget it.

Avelos.6798:

Back when I played an MMO called Defiance for a bit I saw better performance on my Phenom II 975BE than FX-8350. Better single thread performance in the Phenom line up I’d say.

I never really tested performance in AMD other then Athlon II vs Phenom II. When I moved to my FX8350, I dumped all my other AM3 CPUs to a buddy of mine (he was building a VMware lab to pass his VCP), but my Llano was faster then my FX8350 in most regards, and that’s based on the Phenom-ii with out the l3 cache.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Yep directX 9 is a crap.
No they should do directX 11.2 or even wait for DirectX 12. But then i5 wont be so great choise why? becuse there wont be so big difference between FX 4300 and i5 4670K

At start GW2 was crap for fx cpu but right now i can say that OC-ed FX (4.5Ghz+) is on lvl of i3 4340 3.5Ghz

I will say this much and then leave this alone.

If GW2 was on DX10 or 11 (not sure about 11.2, dont know much about it really), the performance between AMD and Intel CPUs would be marginal (8-12%) between series (FX4000 = i3, FX6000=i5, FX8000=i7, IMHO). And Intel would win for the BiS (best in Slot) component for pushing the game to extreme resolutions and features (3d and such). But AMD would NOT be having the issues we are seeing today.

But, who knows when (if ever) we will see anet upgrade the horrible API they are using to fix these issues. Time is money, and since there is no Subscription to the game (yet, Rumor has it there will be a sub for Chinese players), we cannot expect much in the way of a core rework of this game.

So, in reality the battle here isnt AMD vs Intel. It’s good design vs bad design(DX9)

Avelos.6798:

sirsquishy.8531:

GPU; HD7790 is the best bang for the buck right now and can be got for 99 bucks still.

I think the GTX 750 just took that spot. It’s extremely power efficient and does not require an external power connection. It can run on low power (300-350) systems.

And I have not seen a 750 for less then 149. 750Ti starts at 179 (Local retail, since im not buying a GPU have not looked online)

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

i have i7 3770K(gave it to my bro) 3.8Ghz and FX 6300 when i OCed it to 4.7Ghz sometimes FX was faster in single thread games (TLII,LoL,…) sometimes i with 5.2 OC couldnt get close to intel at 3.8Ghz

I also benchmarked FX 4300 3.4Ghz vs i7 mimic – i3 3.4Ghz in BF4 MP performance was almost the same…

AZA check it your self – go windowed mode in LA + taskmanager and check CPU usage!

You are comparing CPUs using Multi-threaded properly coded games. where they utilize the GPU correctly.

GW2 is not in that mix. GW2 uses the CPU more then any other game that I can think of in recent history. And its using DX9 in a very over loaded way. The more visual crap they add to the game, the worse their interface with DX9 gets.

If they keep on going down this road with GW2 they will be forced to upgrade from dx9 to 10 or 11 to fix these issues they are bringing on themselves.

And the discussion with AMD vs Intel, is ONLY for THIS game. I have had NO issues with any of my other games on my AMD system(s) at all.

Thief
LoL
LoTRO
WoW(FreePlay – Not paying for that crap anymore!!)
Dirt3
TitanFall (Retail tomorrow!)
everquest (1999 called, they want me to play some!)
L4FD
L4FD2
Crysis3
BF1942
…long list

None of the above games EVER gave me issues with my AMD systems. It was only ever GW2 and its because they push TOO much data into the DX9 API. So much that they had to split the CPU/GPU load by 60% for the game to ‘run smooth’.

Zeus CM.1692:

Asus X550LB-XO026D

CPU: Intel i5-4200U (1,6Ghz – 2,6Ghz TB)
GPU: nVidia Geforce GT 740M
4GB RAM

What graphic settings I can expect (by playable I consider minimum 25 fps in non-zerg content like dungeons and completing maps)

Thank you for your insight =)

Its totally going to depend on the LCD’s resolution. at 720P you shouldn’t have much of an issue and should get between 40-50 fps on medium settings.

If your LCD is 1080P you need to get a i7 (faster clock and 2 more cores) and upgrade the GPU to at least a 750 or 760.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Yeah for sure keep dreaming.

I don’t need to, as I’m more awake then you appear to be.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

sirsquishy – that not totaly true
Intel is not 150% in single threaded tasks – i mean not in every game.
I will say it like this sometimes it is like 125% sometimes 160% – huge difference

Also GW2 is not single threaded – check your CPU usage. It use 2-3 cores.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8_dh4b0jL8

FX 8320 is great for its price but the best CPu for this game is I5 K

GW2 is single threaded. The MAIN process that controls the CORE component of the game runs on 1 Core. that is the API that ties gw2.exe to your DX9 libraries.

that is what ‘defines’ this game as being single threaded. And what is the TRUE bottle neck of every system suffering from the poor performance around GW2.

And on average Intel is 100% faster then AMD for single threading. But from what I do for a living (VMware Engineering) I can say with a 100% certainty (and facts to back it up if you wish) Intel is about 150% faster then AMD when it comes down to a per thread, Per core performance when compared to Intel at an absolute hardware layer. Games and applications aside.

Or you could run the native GW2 MacOS Client?
Running through Bootcamp will reduce the effectiveness of Windows apps by about 30% on average. its there for a value add to run native windows apps in a windows OS with out virtualization being needed. That comes with a performance cost.

that is why there is a native macOS client. I suggest you try that.

OP – pcpartpicker.com Build starting from an i5-4000 series that is clocked at 3.0Ghz or faster. K series is unlocked for Overclocking and requires a Z series MB to accommodate.

Then build down from there.

GPU; HD7790 is the best bang for the buck right now and can be got for 99 bucks still.
Buy your ram in Pairs, so if you want 8GB buy a 2×4GB Kit

But you ARE looking at a completely new build.

And put aside 650-950 for that build.
Buy your windows OEM from Newegg, you only need home premium (Win7) or Home (Win8.1) and both are about 99-119 bucks.

SorenIX.8692:

I don’t have a PSU powerful enough to do that unfortunately. But I’m gonna try it in my friends PC in a few minutes. Thanks for the info.

Ok, well verify that the card can link at 16x or 8x and go from there. If it cannot then it is damaged and needs to be replaced.

lioka qiao.8734:

I recently switched from an AMD 3ghz 8 core processor to an Intel 3.5GHZ i7 and saw a 2x improvement in performance in GW2. It’s lead me to ask

Is Guildwars 2 compiled on an Intel Compiler with Intel specific optimizations? I wasn’t expecting so strong an improvement between the processor change.

No, its because Intel is 150% better at single threaded tasks above AMD’s fastest chip.

GW2 is DirectX 9, and that API is single threaded for all the rendoring that has to happen.

that is ONLY why Intel beats the PANTS off of AMD for this game. If we were running DX10, or 11 I dont think it would be that bad of a difference between AMD and Intel.

fun fact – my i3-2120 KILLED my FX8350 in Max possible FPS in GW2. FX8350 would cap at 65FPS on lowest settings using a R7-260×. Swapping the CPU and Motherboard over from that FX to my i3 and my max FPS on Lowest settings was 119.

Only difference was the MB and CPU between 2 tests. tested in a low population Forest area (Looking at were you kill Boar, looking into the forest)

SorenIX.8692:

I indeed can’t even see the BIOS with the HD7970. I doubt the card to be bad as it works in the black slot?

How would I disable the iGPU in my CPU and what would that achieve?

The card works in the black slot, means that 4x out of its 16x lanes are working. If it cannot link at 8x then it wont work in the GPU slot.

Put your 7970 in the other system you pulled from and see if you can post to it there. If so, then it might be a perm incompatibility between that 7970 and the Motherboard.

weedaw.5730:

Hi there and greetings to the whole GW community !

I seek your advice. I’ve recently restarted my GW experience installing the game on a new laptop. It is a unit from the MSI range – GE60 0ND i5-3230M/8GB/GTX660M. For the in-game GFX settings I put my trust in autodetect, which basically lowered all sliders to low. The game works like a charm for most of the time, but yesterday I participated in the “great jungle wurm” event… and it was a slide show battle for me. I reckon it could be even worse on WvW later on (haven’t tried WvW yet).

My laptop might require some tune up.

I read on various sites that GW2 is CPU bound. I’ve done some testing and indeed, my i5 CPU is at its full capacity while GFX still has some juice to offer.

I address my questions to all fellow owners of GTX660m and i7 CPU:
1. How does the GW2 perform on your rig? Can you tell what is your frame rate at big events like jungle worm?
2. How about gfx settings (low/medium/high)?

You see, I am trying to explain purchase of a new CPU to myself

Straight forward, Your i5 will hold you back for WvW+Zerg Content (Above 30 viewable players on the screen). You MAY want to invest in a used/2nd hand i7 upgrade for the 2 extra cores and 2 additional threads to really get the best bang out of your laptop.

the 660M will run the game FINE on 1600×900 or LOWER resolutions on high detail. You can run 1080P but you will need to turn your shaders down to medium and such.

I upgraded my Laptop from Llano to an i7-2630QM and got ‘stuck’ with a HD6770. I can run 1080P on Medium settings and remain at a solid 65FPS in all areas by Zergs and the new LA (Zergs drop down to 23FPS, and the new LA drops to 28fps)

my 6770 is weaker then your 660, so I would expect maybe 30% better FPS between the two?

SorenIX.8692:

New development. My motherboard isn’t faulty. My other PC GPU instantly displayed in the blue slot, and I don’t even have the right drivers installed.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!? O_O

hardware conflict usually.

Since you cleared NVram/CMOS, your system reset its system resources (DMA/IRQ assignments).

With your 7900 in the Top slot, can you EVEN get the BIOS to display on that card? It not, what about when you disable the iGPU on your CPU? If you cannot get that far, forget it working in windows.

On my system, i had to disable the iGPU or it would take over the system. While i could get my 7790 to work as a secondary card, nothing would disable on it outside of windows, until I disabled the iGPU in the BIOS. So try that.

Once you get into the Windows boot menu and such ON your AMD GPU, then start working on drivers.

But if you cannot even get the BIOS To post on the card, then you probably have a bad card.

an i7 clocked at 4.6ghz vs a i5 clocked at 4.6 for this game is going to yield minimal differences in results. Mainly because DX9 is single threaded an this game heavily relies on it. While the HT would help with all the tiny worker processes and the background OS processes, you will see maybe 5-7 MORE fps on the i7 vs the i5 for THIS game. IMHO, that is not worth the 80+ investment to get the 4770K over the 4670K.

But other games/applications that run multi-threading the 4770K will out perform the 4670K because of the HT.

Since you are going to investigate OC on your build you NEED to bin your CPU. That means buying 2-3 at a time until you get an above average CPU. This means setting your out of box overclock to 4.6ghz at 1.2v and see if you can boot into windows, then pass a 45mins Prime95 cycle loop. If so, then you have a good CPU and won the silicon lottery and will be able to push the CPU as much as you want. It took me 12 i5-4670K’s to find a chip that did that much. I ordered them in pairs and ran RMA’s against the ones that did not OC well.

The rest goes with out saying, you have a good build on paper. It will do well for GW2 out of the box (no OC) and do really well for games over the next 2 years or so.

But, side note, you should look into a 650w+ PSU since you are going to OC. my 500W was not up to the task to push my 4670K to my OC. I went to a 650 and the issue was resolved, so that is now my min rec for OC based systems. 650W.

Your BIOS has the ability to force PCI-E Generation limitations across its buss. That can force the PCI-E Slot to be 2x, as well.

Also make sure that the GPU is in the FIRST slot closest to the CPU, as there are only 16 total PCI-E lanes, and the First Slot is either 16x, or 8x depending on what else is populated on that PCI-E bridge. Common Configurations are 16x/0x/0x; 8x/8x/0x; and 8x/4x/4×. So that doesnt really explain why your card is only linked at 2×.

The 7000 series AMD GPUs have additional power saving features that will force the card to take a lower PCI-E bus setting to reduce its power consumption. You can check this with MSI afterburner, as it will read what Pstate the GPU is currently in.

And lastly, as it was already stated, make sure your PSU has enough power for your system+GPU.

locx.6412:

In that test they always add another stick tho, so the amount increases as well. I’d like to see how 1×8 vs 2×4 vs 4×2 from the same manufacturer with the same timings would perform.

Buying pairs is of course the safest solutions, but I don’t see too much going wrong if you happen to find an identical stick. Also on my old board I did have one Kingston 2GB and 2×1GB OCZ sticks with different timings and it worked, but hey, miracles do happen!

Your talking Parallel ram using the same memory foot print between them.

But that is really illogical due to how Dual/Tri/Quad channel works

RW requests hit each bank of memory at the same time, in parallel. So even if you have 8GB modules in a 3way setup, your 2-3GB software foot print will be evenly across all Memory Modules.

Its the same way multi-threading applications work, but for memory. You add physical memory hardware to increase the memory bus speed. This can sometimes add latency if your memory timings are not that great though (such as a dual pair of 1333mhz CL11).

So there are a few things to consider for this topic really.

locx.6412:

For a bit of futureproofing I’d go for something like this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

i7 for Hyperthreading, that’s where the future will be.
The video card is somewhat weak but decent enough for GW2. If you play other (more graphically intensive) games you could choose to upgrade that. At this point you might want to learn a bit about G-SYNC and thus an NVIDIA GPU. But that’s up to you.
People say dual channel RAM is better than single module, but 1×8 is usually cheaper than 2×4. Also I don’t know if there will be something using over 10 GB of RAM in the near future but at least there’s now the option to install another 8 gig stick (and get that dual channel running).
SSD is the future and that’s why I chose a 120GB drive there, to give you a piece of future. If you have the time and money you could look into it if you want to get even a little more of it.
I left the chassis, keyboard and monitor out so you can choose what you prefer. There’s plenty of headroom for them if the prices at your country are anywhere near those.

Building a rig yourself is not hard (and actually really fun!), especially with tons of guides around. Just have a look at some and you’re good to go.

The advice is sound, however here is a good review on single, double, Triple and quad channel

http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr3-memory-performance-analysis-on-intel-x79_1779/3

Haswell supports Triple channel, But I always am weary of buying ram NOT in pairs. So I still suggest Double or Quad channel where appropriate.

Overclocking a locked CPU requires a few things.

1. user skill
2. STABLE and STRONG Mofsets on your Motherboard, a really high quality voltage regulator that your Memory and FSB sit on, And a stable BIOS (not all BIOS’s can push a base FSB OC that well)
3. Really stable Ram
4. Good Cooling and a very good PSU (EVERY Component gets OC’d in a Locked CPU OC).

A good example;

My PhenomII 830, stock is 2.8Ghz 4 Cores, 200Mhz FSB, 2000Mhz HT and 2000Mhz NB Stock.

Multiplier is locked at 14.

I can push the NB/HT to 2300, up the FSB to 233 and get a solid 3.2~ Ghz OC out of it with out much work. And Temps werent all that bad.

But, I then decided, what is the max I can get out of this chip (This was shortly before I Dumped AMD and moved to my i5-4670K) and this is what I had to do for a serious stable OC.

Drop the HT and NB down to 1300Mhz
Up the vCore by 1.5v (it was 1.725 at this point, 2.0 is death if you DONT have extremely good Cooling!)
Down clock the ram to 333mhz and reduce their timings to cl8/19t
then Disable 2 Cores
Then push the FSB up to 414mhz to get a 5.8Ghz OC on the chip.

This also pushed my HT and NB to 1800mhz, and my Ram to 1500mhz (Stock the ram is 1600Mhz).

And with that OC I got a 60% performance increase for multi core tasks and an 80% increase with single core tasks. But it was just still not enough for this game. Hey, it was a first gen PhenomII x4!

And Prime95 tests ran for 7days straight on that OC with out a single lock.

However, I got really lucky on the die lottery on that chip. I doubt many, if any others, are able to OC like that. And now that Chip sits in my work PC OC’d with x4 cores enabled at 4.6ghz :-)

Nope,

GW2 is more CPU dependent then GPU. I run a mid range HD7790 and with my i5 I get 100+ FPS in MOST areas of the game, but Dips down to 25 for zerg and averages of 45~ for the new LA content.

That tool is nothing but a sales gimmick for Nvidia to use to sell GPUs to GW2 players that have performance issues.

I run Win7 64bit and never have an issue with the updater. I run a mix of systems with HDDs and SSDs, and Neither have the ‘stalling’ issue reported here.

I would suggest loading up crystaldisk Info and make sure your SMART data is clear. And that your HDD has less then 20K hours of uptime on it.

" Your money is no good here" :-)

Disable firewalls, try disabling your AV program.
If you can access the trading post but not the gem store, kinda makes me think your ISP MIGHT be at fault.

Ew, why would you want video chat? just teamspeak it. No need to see their ugly mugs while you should be focusing on the content in the game :-)

But no, I really dont know what can do a Video chat overlay like that. Maybe skype can?

Um wow.

Your entire system needs to be overhauled.

1. you have 4GB of ram, but only 2.75 usable. That tells me you are on a 32Bit windows version. You really should be on a 64bit Install. Given the age of your CPU/GPU, are you running WindowsXP?

2. Your Q6600, while should be ok for MOST of the game, is going to hold you back with any possible upgrades you can get today (2014).

3. Your GT 210, very low end, budget card. Its probably holding your Q6600 Back, in all honesty. I would say, depending on ingame settings, maybe 45%.

So the above outlines the issues with your system.

First thing, get a win7 Install that is 64bit. This will require a fresh install (you cannot upgrade 32bit to 64bit). this will let you use all 4GB of your system RAM. If you are on WinXP, look into buying Win7. DO NOT even consider going 64Bit on WinXP. It was garbage and has poor driver support.

Second, consider upgrading your GPU to something ‘mid range’ today. Nothing that would cost more then 119bucks, as your CPU will hold that card back. So your Best bet would be an AMD HD7770, HD7790, or R7-260X. Nvidia has a 750 that should be in that price range as well, but I have not looked into it yet. the Nvidia 650 and 550 perform below the AMD’s options I listed, and are more expensive.

If you need to buy a windows license, you can get a OEM/SystemBuilder Home premium from newegg for about 99 bucks, then a GPU for another 99~ bucks, and you are looking at 200bucks over all. Another 400` and you can just build/buy an entire new system that should run this game better.

Also, the crashes you are getting are probably OOM (out of Memory) due to your super small foot print of 2.75Gb of ram. GW2 will sit at or above 1.8GB of ram, leaving about 950Megs of ram for your system to operate. If you run background applications, that is even worse. That is why you first must upgrade to a 64bit OS.

Couldn’t he upgrade to a i7 on the 1156 socket?

I found a few i7-860’s for 130~ on ebay. the i7-880 goes for 225(might as well jump to a 4760K for that price).

But that $130 might be worth the upgrade since thats all he would need to do.

Other then that, unless the i5 can be got for 50-80 bucks it wouldn’t be worth an upgrade IMHO. Esp since its only 50% faster then his i3 and still has 2c/4t.

This IS a hardware issue. And the issue revolves around the fact the game uses DX9 pushed to its limits. DX9 has its rendering done in 1 single thread. That is what pegs your i3 to its max per core performance of other games.

This topic has been beaten to death on these forums, just search around and you will see everything you need to confirm what I am saying now.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Okey, you have your point…
As far as i know i5 should be true quad core

No. Not at all. You cannot lump CPUs in like that. You MUST do research before making statements like that.

That is EXACTLY why I now disregard anything you have to say. You spout BS and rarely have the proper facts to back it up.

Please shut up, or do your research before you try and make a point.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

no it is i3
look at specs
2C/4T – thats i3

i dont know why intel named it i5

Because it is an i5. Not all i5’s are 4core CPUS.

Here is a list, please learn it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i5_microprocessors#Nehalem_microarchitecture

Avelos.6798:

That’s an i5 -_-;;;

and I know the i3 can be overclocked but it’s difficult. I have a guild mate with an ivy i3 at 4.2 GHz with a Radeon HD 6990.

very nice! But thats so hard to do, since you mess with the FSB you need to adjuste your NB, PCI-E, and Memory clocks to. So much easier to just OC with a K/BE CPU. Puts less stress on the rest of the system too!

Nikola.3841:

Since everyone says game is optimized for 2007 CPUs, I guess it works nicely on CPUs from 2007, both AMD and Intel?

game is not optimized period.

It was built using the available API of 2007, then they threw 2012-2103 effects and features on that 2007 API overloading it.

that is why this game fails so hard in the performance category.

For one, the i3 is NOT a quad core CPU, its a dual core with HT enabled.

Another, what resolution are you playing the game at? That will impact the performance more then alot of other things.

with my setup, running at 1600×900, I bottom out at 25FPS when I OC my 4670K to 4.6Ghz. I run the game on moderate light settings for WvW though. All CPU based settings are either Medium, Low, or Off completely.

I would say, start by specing out your hardware to find out where your weakest, then upgrade that component.

CPU-Z, GPU-Z, and CoreTemp will tell you what you need to know in those regards.

On my i3-2120 that has an R7-260X, the low end FPS in WVW is 18-19FPS on the same In game settings I use on my system (in Signature). I know your i3 is 1st gen, but it shouldnt be THAT bad

eindrai.2607:

Okay, before the LA attack patch, I was running on aprox 40 fps on medium settings. After that I ran it on aprox 25-30.
After the last patch yesterday I’m running 19 on lowest settings possible.
My specs are:

Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i3-3240 @ 3.40GHz
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 532MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard
ASRock H61M-VS3 (CPUSocket)
Graphics
BenQ G700 (1280×960@60Hz)
1024MB NVIDIA GeForce GT220 (Undefined)
Hard Drives
932GB TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 ATA Device (SATA)
Now, I have tried plenty of things, tinkering with this and that, nothing helps.
Someone help me, I’m losing my mind.

The Bolded lines is why you are losing FPS in the game. My recommendations is to download GPU-Z, CPU-Z, and CoreTemp and see how your CPU and GPU are being utilized.

Then upgrade your system starting with the weakest component.

Flyingbee – You really need to just stop. Right now, you are just being a fool. And you really don’t have a good clear grasp on what you are talking about anymore. You ARE comparing apples and oranges and using mantle as the differing factor. You just CANNOT do that.

This is why this forum needs a ignore feature, so I can block these idiots like XFlyingBeeX.

again, because you didn’t answer a SINGLE question

Are you overclocking the CPU? Its possible the Overclock went bad, it does happen, to do prolonged heat and stress on the CPU for the past year.

You can verify this some by running Prime95 to verify that your OC is still good.

Other then that, look at heat and look at your PSU as possible culprits.

Both SLI and Crossfire support this game, However this game MIGHT not support either of them. Just like how eyefinity works but isnt officially supported (Last I looked).

BUT OP – you NEED to list your system specs, your OS version, and supply a crash log from the game. Even though it kinda sounds like the Black screen of death that alot of players report. SO you might want to start with SLI disabled on an older Nvidia driver and get the game WORKING, THEN enable SLI and go from there.

Nikola.3841:

Avelos.6798:

I already did by purchasing an i7 4770K. I’m satisfied.

I stopped playing, its not bad solution either

haha, too true.

But if you want to play, and you want decent performance…the only option is a i5/i7 K series pushed to 4.6ghz. Nothing else is comparable.

OP – whats the rest of your PC?

You gave us a budget of 500~; while we can rec a good GPU to meet your needs, its possible you can upgrade other areas with in that budget.

As said, the HD7790 and the R7-260X will fit your needs perfectly($99-$129). To get into a Nvidia that meets those specs you need to look at the 660 or 750TI($129-$179).

With my system specs (HD7790, OC to 1850Core, 2100Mem Currently) I get between 90-165FPS, with Dives down to 25-30 for Zerg Content. In the new LA crap I get 45-75 depending on where I am at. Just to give you a couple examples.

Keep in mind, the lows on this game are all CPU bound.

And I would recommend a CX500 for the PSU if you already dont have a 500W PSU.

Are you overclocking the CPU? Its possible the Overclock went bad, it does happen, to do prolonged heat and stress on the CPU for the past year.

You can verify this some by running Prime95 to verify that your OC is still good.

Other then that, look at heat and look at your PSU as possible culprits.

hellsmachine.4085:

SLI is more hassle than it’s worth. And more of a gimmick to sell more cards. You get about 30%-50% more performance (most games) for 100% more of the cost. If you want good performance with minimum problems, get an OCed version of the card, preferably by gigabyte, MSI or asus.

Sorry that no one here can help you.

Dont be condescending. If we have the info I requested we can probably help him better.

SLI is a ‘gimmick’ in some areas, sure. But you do get performance gains from it, and it DOES work with this game.

system specs? GW2.exe Crash Log?
OS version?