I’ve heard ANet is trying to break into Chinese and other Asian markets as well, where most of the hardware is noticeably older than in EU/US (In China the most used OS is still Win XP I think).
And everything is Made in China, if they had a fake iphone mini available to sell before Apple were able to debunk the claim they were gonna make such a model, do you not think they have ripped off graphics cards as well?…
South Korea is a big gaming market, and guess what, they have the best internet connections in the world! Here in the UK we just got BT to roll out fibre to give up 76mb connections, whilst at the same time Korea had already started giving people 1 gigabit connetions; that’s more than 10 times faster!
Oh yes, but I do not believe a fake GTX Titan brings anywhere near the performance the real one would.
Also while most things are good in South Korea, you have to remember it’s population is 50 million. The population of Asia is over 4 billion, a whopping 80 times more. You can’t really make conclusions of Asian markets based on Koreans’ 10 times faster internet speed. Also UK’s GDP is over 4 times higher per capita than that of China. There are some ridiculously rich people there which tells you about the state of the rest. Sure you break into Korean markets by just translating and possibly new voice acting but that’s not the same as Asian markets.
Yes times infinity. My loading times to LA were similar (especially the first load after launch and during some world event, like Wintersday), I got an SSD a few days ago and now the first load is about 15 seconds.
@NeedCoffee Well I didn’t know about that in turn, guess you learn something new every day. Could be they’ve used some help outside, but AFAIK the complete engine can’t be found elsewhere.
@OP I don’t know what kind of fps you’re used to, but an average gamer doesn’t notice much of a difference between 50 and 60, it takes some skilled eye.
Just to give you an example (and because I’m so excited about this) I formerly had a Q6600 and in LA I typically stayed below 20 fps near Mystic Forge, maybe peaked at 22. I just got my new system set up, it has the same GPU (motherboard has PCIe 3.0 slots now tho instead of 2.0) but CPU is now 4670K and at stock speeds I ran around there with 40-60 fps! Granted it was quite empty at this hour, I have to test again later in the evening.
Ha, now that’s the news bomb! It can’t use more than 3.25 GB or so (don’t know the exact amount) so upgrading your OS could do the trick here. If you buy a new system (or at least upgrade multiple parts at once) it’s gonna be hard to tell what was causing it, but you’ll get it sorted nonetheless
Some people have reported that having frame limiter at 60 actually caps it at 50. I don’t have this issue, but might’ve been your case.
Don’t upgrade your GPU, at least till you have run the GPU-Z monitoring. If you want to upgrade something, get an unlocked version of your CPU, 3770K, or the i5-3570K. Buy an aftermarket cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO at lowest, if you have more money to burn go for liquid cooling solutions) and overclock that bad boy to 4.5 GHz or above.
What if you just delete the whole shortcut and make another one or launch from the main folder, does it do the same thing? The shortcut could be bugged somehow.
Well I can’t really say what has happened, but 20-30 FPS in big zerg fights seems to be the norm even for the best CPUs available. Maybe ANet has done some changes in their code that accidentally made the situation even worse or maybe there’s more players nowadays that pushes the servers more. There’s pretty much nothing you can do to make it better I’m afraid, apart from buying a new overclockable CPU (e.g. 3570K that fits in your motherboard) and OC it with your best ability.
I’m posting a guide soon that may help. Keep an eye out for it.
If you cant wait, or dont want to… do some research on core parking and read over this: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327922
@Omaris: yeah, GW2 is built on a modified version of GW1 engine, which was started to develop over 10 years ago. Bad decision for us indeed, however I’ve heard ANet is trying to break into Chinese and other Asian markets as well, where most of the hardware is noticeably older than in EU/US (In China the most used OS is still Win XP I think), and doing that with a Dx11 game wouldn’t make sense. I don’t know all the facts here, this is just what I’ve heard, but I guess we just have to wait and see if there’s going to be some optimization updates along the way.
hmmm, i had no idea. Though the idea crossed my mind. Any thoughts as to if its Unity based?
I heard it was completely made from the scratch just for Guild Wars. Also, according to Wikipedia, Unity was first released in 2005 for OS X while Guild Wars was started to develop in 2003 so I think it’s unlikely.
The easiest way to test if your CPU is bottlenecking (which it most likely is in this case) is to run the game in windowed fullscreen, open Task Manager and monitor it when you’re in LA. If any of the cores hit near 100% that’s the cause. If they aren’t however, there could be an issue with your GPU, which would do perfectly fine in a normal case. You can download a program called GPU-Z and monitor it’s usage there, if it’s getting near 100% there’s a problem. Let’s talk about how to fix that only if it happens to be the case.
@Omaris: yeah, GW2 is built on a modified version of GW1 engine, which was started to develop over 10 years ago. Bad decision for us indeed, however I’ve heard ANet is trying to break into Chinese and other Asian markets as well, where most of the hardware is noticeably older than in EU/US (In China the most used OS is still Win XP I think), and doing that with a Dx11 game wouldn’t make sense. I don’t know all the facts here, this is just what I’ve heard, but I guess we just have to wait and see if there’s going to be some optimization updates along the way.
Like with the RAM, I believe what he has is good enough, but there might be a problem in that specific card. Might be stuck in x1 link width for example. The fact that lowering the graphics helps makes me wonder, otherwise it should be just fine.
What I mean is, GW2 will use up to around 3.8 GB of RAM. If it runs out of RAM to burn, it crashes. OP says there’s 2.75 GB useful. Therefore in any event with lots happening such as the marionette battle, it’s gonna have a higher chance of crashing. Cleaning the modules and slots might do something but if the crash persists, I’d look into seeing if the board supports more than 4 GB and get a second stick of preferrably the same spec and installing it. (Not having the same spec won’t make too much of a difference. I had 4 sticks of 3 different spec’d RAM and they worked just fine but it was also a crappy computer)
I got the impression that he was left with 2.75 GB after GW2 was counted in. In any case I have not seen my system eating anywhere near 3.8 GB, even in WvW. It’s mostly siting at 2.5 GB and it rises a bit, maybe to 3 gigs when a lot of stuff is happening. Also it has been tested that a system will eat up more RAM when there’s more of it available, i.e. 8 gig system will have more used in a same situation than a 4 gig system, so if you have 8 GB you might be seeing higher reading than him.
@OP: If you’re willing and wanting to buy a new system, it would come in handy. Get an Intel 3rd or 4th gen (2nd will do also if you find it cheaper) unlocked i5 or i7 processor, those are 3570K, 4670K, 3770K and 4770K and an aftermarket cooler. All the mobos for those CPUs use DDR3 memory so you’ll get that sorted out as well if that’s the problem. Overclock your CPU a bit (the better cooler you get the more you’re able to OC) and you’ll theoretically double your framerate in big fights (a 4670K overclocked only to 3.8 GHz will give you double the single threaded performance of your current CPU), plus no need to buy a new old DDR2 stick to see if more of it or different one helps.
Up your RAM count to 8 GB if you’re able to. It should solve your crash problems, and not cost you a fortune and a half.
I wouldn’t do that, especially since it’s older mobo with DDR2 and you can’t use them anymore after a system upgrade. Also like he said, only a little over 1 GB of it is used.
The amount is fine, but what came im mind is what RAM stick(s) do you have and are they in correct sockets? You could pull them out, clean the pins, dust the socket and put them back to their place. If it’s a RAM issue it’s an issue of them not being properly configured or faulty modules, not the amount or technology.
Having DDR2 is not an issue like I said. Currently I have an Intel Q6600 and while it’s an Intel, your AMD is still more powerful than it in every way and I have those 4 gigs of DDR2 as well and I never crash. Actually I think I’ve only crashed twice, those were consecutive times about 2 months ago while I was meddling with my gfx settings. Since then that hasn’t been a problem either.
Since turning graphics down and seeing weird colours I believe it’s a video card issue as well. Make sure your card actually is in the PCIe x16 slot. If it is, pull it out anyway (the power cable as well), blow out some dust, clean the connectors and put it back to it’s place. Download GPU-Z and see what your GPU temps are and where does it’s usage % go to.
Yeah, the other reason why I wanted you to do the test is to see if there actually is something wrong with your specific card and not the whole card batch. There might be a driver issue, a link width issue or something else.
I haven’t heard of nVIDIA being more in favor in this game, which is kind of weird also, since typically Radeons perform better in games than GeForces even if they were on par in some synthetic benchmarks.
Download GPU-Z and run your game in windowed fullscreen and monitor your GPU usage. When you’re in LA I bet it wont go much higher than 70%. I have GTX 660 and I’m at ~50% in LA, even supersampling on. Trust me, it has been discussed countless times that this game requires more CPU power than current market can provide.
FPS issues in LA are CPU based, even an overclocked GTX 780 Ti wouldn’t get acceptable framerate. I’d say the fps you’re having is completely normal (which is not accetable)
Which Phenom II to be precise? Also, GTX 650 I assume?
What matters most for RAM is the amount (up till 4-6 GB for only playing this game). Next comes CAS latency (which is higher in DDR3) or dual channel vs single channel, not really sure which one comes first. Only then comes frequency, which is higher in DDR3. I run with 4 GB DDR2 @ 800MHz right now and it brings no problem.
Your CPU is on the weaker side but it should be enough, if it’s some of the newer ones. Download CoreTemp and see if it’s overheating. If that’s the case there might be problem in it’s installation. Let’s talk about that more when you have the results
Also check CPU-Z and GPU-Z for your link width. If it’s x1 or basically anything less than x16 we have a problem. There have been reports that CPU-Z shows falsely x1 if it’s opened before the game, so make sure you launch GW2 first.
Also try reinstalling/updating your video card drivers, that might solve it too.
I’d still say it’s the CPU, even more so since lowering the work GPU has to do wont help. Have you tried underclocking? If that helps I’d say it’s a case of RMA nonetheless, but at least you know what the cause is and can explain it a bit better.
Also keep in mind that if you have an OEM version of Windows it is tied to your current motherboard, which means new motherboard -> new Windows.
Actually by calling Microsoft support you will get New key, there will be instructions after u type OEM key and it says u cant register it with that key.
“A. Generally, an end user can upgrade or replace all of the hardware components on a computer—except the motherboard—and still retain the license for the original Microsoft OEM operating system software. If the motherboard is upgraded or replaced for reasons other than a defect, then a new computer has been created. Microsoft OEM operating system software cannot be transferred to the new computer, and the license of new operating system software is required. If the motherboard is replaced because it is defective, you do not need to acquire a new operating system license for the PC as long as the replacement motherboard is the same make/model or the same manufacturer’s replacement/equivalent, as defined by the manufacturer’s warranty.”
I have heard of similar things tho, but I wonder why Microsoft is breaking their own rules by it.
Well that’s a shame, too bad you didn’t ask help here before buying those.
i5-4670K is about as high as single core performance goes, and it sells for tad over $200 atm, the cheapest ASUS Z87 board goes for a bit more than $100 so you’re looking at $350ish upgrade depending on which mobo you want to get. If your parts are only a few weeks old you could ask your vendor if you could still return it or exchange them for those parts. there’s only so much you can do to boost your per core performance.
Also keep in mind that if you have an OEM version of Windows it is tied to your current motherboard, which means new motherboard → new Windows.
STAY AWAY form 1366×768. The 768 is NOT tall enough to manipulate Excel Spreadsheets
Getting terribly OT here, but what are you basing this on? I have a tablet/laptop hybrid with 1366×768 resolution and Excel opens up 20×20 grid with toolbar visible. Granted I don’t use Excel too much but what is it lacking in 768 pixels that it gains at 900? Just curious.
@Fermi Xeon is an interesting choice, didn’t really think about it.
The reason I chose Z87-K is because it’s only $9 more expensive than an ASRock H87 board as discussed above. The purpose was exactly to leave room for possible upgrade, even if it never happens, it’s only 9 dollars more.
I couldn’t find which iGPU is in E3-1230, but 4670K has HD4600 and I’m willing to bet it’s lower. HD 7790 seems to be around 5,3 times more powerful than 4600 and I’m not too sure how that performs even on lowest graphics, better ask sirsquishy and then do the math. In any case I still wouldn’t rely on iGPU just to boost up CPU.
Just as a side note, at least I count the players in WvW from their nameplates.
Longer answer: What do you want to do in game? WvW is off limits, I’m suspecting less than 10 fps in like 10 vs 10 battle. With the lowest settings you might be able to play with 20-30 fps in PvE and this excludes world bosses where multiple people are killing it.
To be fair, no matter how powerful laptop you get you won’t get smooth gameplay in WvW zerg vs zerg situations. To be even more fair, even a top-end desktop can’t do that. So you’re kitten ed if you do and kitten ed if you don’t. Just have roll with what we have.
try repairing the game. If it doesn’t help, delete the whole game, defragment your hard drive (unless it’s an SSD) and reinstall the whole thing. See if that would have any magic.
i’m thinking the same, today i found what is the cause of the lag.
It’s the blue portal from where the mob come out and the red portal that you need to take for the platform.
If i look my feet or a wall i have less lag.
Thats visual GPU lag. What are your system specs?
Not always. Yesterday I tested a bit in Fireheart Rise, near the CoF portal while looking at a wall at native rendering I got 110 fps at 66% usage, turning supersampling on yielded me 90 fps at 99% usage. Looking at the horizon brought my fps down to 45 with 50-60% GPU usage, with or without supersampling. CPU was always at 90+%. It could be the same effect magnified because of the other players and stuff happening around.
85c during GW2 is pretty high, that means very very close to thermal limit during a stress test. I’m not familiar with AiO machines but if the warranty is still on you could ask the repair service to have a look at it. For now, what you could do is underclock that CPU a bit to make it run cooler. If that helps we know that’s the problem.
lol… i guess i wasted money on getting that new laptop =(
i guess i have to stick with it then…
well thanks anyways guys i appreciate ur help =D
Not necessarily, no processor currently can handle what GW2 demands. I think this is a problem of the game code rather than the CPUs since some games do run with 100+ players on screen. You couldn’t have spent your money any better if you needed to buy a laptop to begin with.
You can use that pcpartpicker we used, it finds the cheapest vendors for your parts, newegg included. Might save some dollars there. That case is fine, Any one will do the job really, but that one even decent.
you can use sites like PassMarks Video Card Benchmarks or Futuremarks Benchmarks and see how the cards perform. Search for HD 7790 and look for cards around it, don’t go much lower (unless you find a card for like $50), you can always go higher if you have the money.
I would suggest going with Asus Z87-K and i3-4130 because the motherboard is actually cheaper than what you chose, plus that CPU has a little perormance edge over that 3rd gen. If you’re selling your ps4 to get a little extra I would suggest spending it here rather than on a better GPU, as most of the power in GW2 is needed from the CPU.
Having an Intel CPU and AMD GPU doesn’t bring problems. The other option would be nVIDIA, Intel doesn’t make GPU’s on it’s own. It used to be ATI vs nVIDIA for video cards but AMD bought ATI a few years back.
Right. That’s like a combination of those 2. Like I said, I would choose the motherboard in the option #1 regardless (getting the exact same on Sunday, dun dun duuunn), it’s only $9 more. RAM could be dropped down to 4 GB, my 8 might be a little excessive. Single module is usually cheaper than dual for the same amount, but if the performance increase is worth it, it’s again only a few dollars more.
This is with all new parts, very low capacity HDD (320 GB, might be enough for some) what you would be looking at to run GW2 about the best as can be for as low as possible.
This is with a weaker CPU and a motherboard that doesn’t allow overclocking. Even with this CPU I would recommend the board in the first build, it’s less than 10 dollars more and like squish said it opens the possibility of future upgrade.
Now keep in mind both of these are extremely stripped down, there’s even no DVD-drive in either one of them (which bring in some problems with Windows installation from the DVD). As you can see, you really can’t get a gaming rig in the $400-500 span from new parts. This also excludes monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc…
Well, lets start off with can you use anything from your (possible) previous computer? Like case, hard drive, RAM modules…. or do we have to start from a scratch?
I think we did calculations a while back, turned out it takes some $900 to build a decent gaming rig (and I say it again, decent, not even a top-end) so we have to sqeeze out every last penny we can it seems.
Got to remember the computer works as a unit and not as a sum of it’s parts. And it’s true you really can’t talk about ‘performance in zerg with x versus y’ for the reasons you listed, you really can’t simulate the moment afterward. Better just hope the game engine gets a little more optimized or a miracle happens and we get those 12 GHz processors for mainstream use soon
PCi-E 2.0 to 3.0, As you have seen, is about a 10% gain.
Now, that being said, That 10% Gain affects Low end side of the FPS as well. While GW2 is heavily CPU bound, you will get 2-3 MORE FPS with PCI-E3.0 then 2.0 at absolute Lows as well (Where it really makes a difference IMHO). So that Low 8 becomes 11~.
If your GPU and PCI-E Slots Supports 3.0, there is no reason NOT to enable it. It’s a free 10% Gain.
If your GPU is of High quality (anything that can push 80-100FPS right now) and is PCi-E 2.0, there is no reason to upgrade. You would have to consider the MB and the GPU for a 10% gain over your current, Maybe More depending on Options. But you will be looking at Hundreds to upgrade for that 10%.
I fail to understand your math here a bit, at 10 fps 10% increase means only 1 fps right? Only at 20 it becomes 22 and at 30 it becomes 33. Also, as you know, for most people (in GW2) the situation where your FPS is ~10 is when your CPU lacks the power, adding power to GPU shouldn’t help, right?
Is the resolution saved? If you’re at least playing on a windowed fullscreen it should automatically readjust to that monitor’s resolution should you choose to play with the other one later.
so look, I have my PC with a PC-Monitor and TV. now what i do is: say GW2 i like to see you in window, so i can Change it to my TV. now is it smaller than my tv (PC-Monitor resolution: 1680×1050 , TV: 1920×1080 ) so i will pull the Corner to the Corner of the TV. now GW2 says at 1680×1050 i don’t give you more …. so what you say about playing on more then 1680×1050 can’t be true, you can only Play what the game gives you to Play….
Your proplem is your PC monitor with lower resolution and different aspect ratio, disconnect PC monitor when you open gw2 and you should see option for fullhd resolution.
Thank you for the info that you have another monitor. two screens with different resolution and ratio don’t usually go too well together and just like Makke said uplugging the other monitor is probably the best and only option. You could try going into Windows’s Display Setting and change it to primary monitor and see if it works, if not, then unplugging it is.
No it’s not. I’m running it on 1920×1080 and I know some people are on 2560×1440. Also the resolution itself doesn’t have much to do with your monitor scaling. There should be an option on your tv to change it to scaled fullscreen rather than centered pixels (I don’t know the official name for it, but basically where you see the black borders between the image and your monitor bezels).
Try repairing the game
See if there are any Win 8.1 updates available and also just in case try reinstalling your video card drivers.
Download programs called Core Temp or Real Temp, and GPU-Z. Check the temperatures of your CPU and GPU. If they get hot the game could get crashed to stop the system from overheating.
If none of the above helps, try reinstalling the whole game.
I’m not really sure if I understood your problem. Your TV is 1920×1080 while GW2 is 1860×1050, correct? If you choose the graphics menu doesn’t the resolution list give both options?
Well that’s the same Access denied error many people are experiencing. Some people have got it repaires by running as an admin or using the repair function.
Should we make a thread which contains all the tips, tweaking, etc? Would BE alot easier just to give link there than always write same tips? What do you say? I can maintain it IF none else wants.
I was just thinking of this the other day. Even if it’s not stickied nor people wouldn’t read it first we could point them to it. After all 90% of the cause of fps issues are found and fixed by the same old hw monitoring, update installing and component replacing
No, it pretty much isn’t. When 10% is decent amount of frames the fps is high enough already not to make too much of a difference. This could be stacked with other minor tweaks, though, as 20% could have a huge impact on someone.
I was’t accusing you of that, it was more of a general statement. I just didn’t see too much of credit given to Coffee for his nice discovery
So have you tried messing with the in-game gfx settings? e.g lower your resolution, rendering sample, shadows, reflections, antialiasing or postprocessing, preferably one by one. the first two are GPU-heavy settings while the rest are CPU-heavy. While you do that run the game in windowed fullscreen and open up Task Manager and see if any of the cores are hitting the ceiling of their usage. Once you’ve done this come back here to report your results and we’ll continue.
The increase is minimal indeed, but it’s still an increase. I don’t see too many reasons to stay at 2.0 if you can go 3.0, so this is some interesting piece of advice, thanks for that!
I still have an LGA 775 board that only supports 2.0, however I’m finally finishing my upgrade next week so I might give it a go and see how much it helps.
Also I doubt it gives any increase in big zerg fights because of the CPU restrictions, but better to test it than speculate of course!
It takes superhuman care to not have the need to have any hardware repaired in it’s lifespan (unless you buy the newest tech the minute it’s out), even with proper maintenance, so don’t feel too bad.
You can do a quick search on our friend Google on laptop GPU thermal paste removing/reapplying and see some guides on it. if it looks like a mission impossible, it’s probably not worth the benefit. If it looks doable, you might wanna go for it. Repair services are usually pretty expensive and not worth it, for that price you could almost sell your laptop and buy yourself another one, maybe even better one.
