Guild Wars 2

i5 is the best choice for GW 2 IMO. And a decent video card. I am no good at reccomending vid cards below $300, because when I built my new PC, I did not look at those options.

8 GB is all the RAM you should need I think for Win 7 and gaming.

MM, I also tried 6950×2 in xfire with an i7, and I was able to get 60fps in many cases using default video settings (forget what button I clicked to get the default settings.)

20 fps seems low to me based on my own experience. Have you ensured your PC is boosting clock properly? There’s a number of monitoring tools which could show if you are hitting your boosted peak (3.7 Ghz or whatever it is for your CPU.)

I can’t think of anything else obvious. Oh, some people did report seeing evidence their GPUs were not using the bus properly. It seemed like they were not getting x16 speeds. I am a bit fuzzy how to check on that though. GPU-Z?

You can raise the bclock a bit Z. But not much. I ran perfectly stable with a 103 Mhz BCLK for a small bit o’ OC on my locked 3770.

Probably. Maybe one day will will figure out what’s happening when the fps drops in some areas, and it seems like the CPU and GPU load are both not maxed…

I will be curious to see if OC the 3770 helps, and am spending a fair chunk of change to find this out (and have a new toy to play with, to be totally honest

I ordered, at great expense, an unlocked i7 to replace my locked i7. I will be able to test to see if that helps, and will report back.

If as some people speculate, sometimes GPU and CPU don’t seem to be maxed out, the bottleneck “could be” the bus. But I have the Ivy bridge with the Z77, and thought the bus is PCI Express 3.0 – would seem odd if that was the issue.

Could be a hardware issue; pretty odd to BSOD during the install.

Doesn’t see game related based on the limited knowledge I have (but who knows, these things are complex.)

This in regards to fps below 60fps in some areas when much better fps are seen most of the time; and the CPU and GPU loads don’t seem high in these cases.

My latest test -

Pulled my GTX 670 cards, and put my dual 6950 cards in place. Installed 12.8 drivers. No obvious improvement. I understand the GTX 670 is better, just noting that the 6950 was not obvious improvement. If it had always run over 60 fps, that would have been some indication of a GTX 670 specific variable.

For example, both seemed to suffer in one sport in Black Citidel

I have an i7 3770 CPU with dual GTX 670s. I can mostly get over 60fps with a modified best appearance setting at 1080p rez.

I use best appearance, but set reflections to terrain and sky.

I can’t quite maintain 60fps all the time, but for the most part can. Not sure how I run on WvW other than to say it ran ok last time I tried it.

I don’t know that you need dual GTX 670 cards to get 60fps, as I can get much better than that most of the time. When fps goes lower than 60fps could be for some non GPU performance reason.

Oh, and you likely don’t need more than 8 GB of RAM. But a CPU with unlocked multiplier might be helpful to see if you can improve performance that way.

Yeah, the negative comment about the 2500 K makes no sense. If you overclock it to (and beyond) i7 3700 stock, which should be trivial, say to 4.2 Ghz or better, it’s going to run the game about as well as the i7 3770 based on how these things usually seem to work.

Not sure why you think otherwise, unless you have some hard proof; in the absence of hard proof, the normal assumption is i5 and i7 run the same for games, only clock should matter. And the Sandy Bridge CPUs OC very well based on anecdotal evidence.

Hah, not convinced more GPU power is needed that my dual GTX 670s. I say this because I see fps of 120+. I actually saw 187 in one place last night. And the GPU still seems pretty lightly loaded.

As for more CPU power, I have been considering buying an i7 3770 K version. Not exactly an impulse purchase, but I made a mistake buying locked version to begin with, assuming I would never need more than stock clock.

i5 and i7 are often very similar for games, and I have my doubts this game is any exception. Only differences I recall are L2 cache and hyperthreading. Or maybe also a difference in the IGP, but not sure on that.

Some of the i7s clock higher, but it’s usually not by much, and if you are going to OC, the actual speed is going to depend on how much and what kind of cooling you will use, and how good the specific CPU you bought can OC.

And of course, the extreme versions have 6 physical cores (or whatever they call that line,) but I have my doubts the game can really take advantage of more cores.

I get between 60fps and 160fps+ with my GTX 670×2. Maybe the reason we both have low fps is the same, maybe not.

It seems like your situation is worse, Varna, as I almost never get stutter even in WvW.

You don’t think that’s a little over the top?

Also, what we don’t need, usually, is more laws. We have MORE than enough laws, don’t we?

Also, as we have no idea how they determined the minimum reqs. So how can we say if it’s intentionally misleading ( like you imply IMO)

What CPU and OS shastawong?

Always easy to assume, from the outside, they are incompetent idiots. When you work as a software dev, you realize there are hard problems, tight deadlines and many distractions

In my experience, most developers really care that people are having problems and doing their best

I know they are an easy target, and I don’t like to go for the easy target, but sometimes management is responsible for value calls, and the priority calls are being made outside the dev team

My cores were parked too long, and now I have to pay a fine…I should have unparked them before the meter ran out…

lol, they did respond…they are looking into it; see above

If there’s any data I can send on my machine, to support, let me know. In my case, it’s a consistently low fps in only some places.

Why would GW be page faulting when it uses so little RAM? Just curious. I have 16 GB of RAM on my machine, and task manager claims only 2 to 3 Gig is in use. I know windows is a little whacky about how the page file works, but it’s odd if it’s page faulting that often with sufficient physical RAM.

Sounds like the OP has already decided his PC can run the game to his satisfaction.

But it’s confusing to me if the PC was bought in the US, and $2200 was for the PC alone with no other add ons like monitors.

While some posts were a bit unkind, perhaps, and irrelevant of whether you think the PC runs well enough, the PC is still not a good value.

Glad you are happy with it, as that’s only matter of importance.

What I see, on my PC, is that in certain areas, the fps drops from 90+ to 60 fps ( for discussion purposes, the fps is variable like a psycho girlfriend’s mood)

If it’s the GPU, it seems a bit odd due the monitoring tools I use showing 50% load or thereabouts on the GPU.

The CPU, while not fully loaded, is much more loaded, according to my monitoring tools.

That’s all I know. Which means I can only guess that the game is CPU bound [To be very clear, it’s CPU bound at those locations and on my PC.] Also possible is that there’s something odd with certain video cards ( a theory based on some of the posts to this thread)

Of course I asked it. I am an engineer, and the proper reaction to many situations is to confirm the eyes were dotted and the tees were crossed. Many issues have resolved to be simple mistakes in my experience.

The reason people are suggesting Ivy, is that Sandy overclocks better, Virtual. There’s explantions of this online – supposedly the way the silicon is mounted to the package means the heat transfer is inferior to Ivy. I wondered if that was the case as that seemed odd – then I read where someone did some surgery on the CPU to fix this, and got better OCing. This is not for most people, so if you want the best OCer, go with Sandy. If you want the best stock performance, go with Ivy.

Ivy IS faster. But it’s main thing seems to be the integrated graphics, which few of us are ever going to use.

Ivy (in conjunction with newer chipsets) also supports something else, but I am fuzzy on exactly what. PCI 3.0? I can’t say for sure.

Note though, that some people claim the GTX 6xx cards may have more issues with fps. I think the jury is out on that – seems more like a CPU issue.

arjov, did you ensure the settings were identical? Otherwise you are comparing apples to oranges.

That includes resolution and all graphics settings.

In my testing, reflections was the only setting that made a significant difference. But that was in a mostly static area.

Note that when I changed settings, I did it only one “notch.” And I tested only on 1080 rez.

Terrain and Sky only was good for +10 fps over “All”

Very possible in WvW that the situation is different.

Seeing how I get 150 fps in some spots, pretty sure SLI is working for me (dual GTX 670 cards.)

But all my efforts to understand low fps in some areas make me think CPU bottlenecking is a likely answer to low fps. Not only does the GPU show a low load, where one of the CPU cores shows a high load, I also improved fps by 20 fps by fixing an issue today where the cores where not throttling up to 4..2 Ghz on my i7 3770.

I would say the game is GPU limited in some situations, CPU limited in others based on my monitoring tools and observations.

As to why the game seems so CPU limited, I could not say. I work on packet capture software, not 3D games

I did some more playing around tonight with this. It seems sometimes I spend more time trying to improve fps than playing

Due to most of the issues being of my own design, while trying to test a reduced set of processors I won’t go into details.

But I will say that I did see improvements in my fps once I ensured all my cores could run at 4.22 Ghz (boosted and slightly OC’d.) Perhaps the latest patch on LoD helped out. I also set settings to best appearance, but changed reflections to terrain & sky only (this is good for almost +10 fps.)

Standing at edge of bridge in Astorea (looking at village) I was getting about 60fps. I was not getting proper CPU freq boost before, and was getting much worse fps. This shows how helpful it is to have enough CPU cycles, IMO.

I definitely suggest people building a PC for this game get a multiplier unlocked CPU and try some reasonable OCing.

Far better than the 660?

In some games it does look better, like Dirt 3 showdown. In some games it’s worse ( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-ti-benchmark-review,3279-4.html )

As for GW 2, I have no clue which is better.

$2200 US? Seems a bit high for a lower end i5 and what could be a rebranded 6000 series GPU (that model number seems to be for an OEM version of a Radeon GPU, which I don’t know a lot about.)

Be more helpful if I could figure out what GPU that is, in the standard product line.

Hello,

we did not use -log, sorry, but we did use hotspotshield, and that DID work. So the problem may be somewhere in the internet connection from my friend’s PC through the ISP back to the game’s servers.

As said before, she’s in Michigan. Her ISP is Fidelity

Are you overclocking the GPU at all?

If I was them, I would not respond unless I had something positive to report. Either a workaround, or fix.

If you imply you are fixing it, people will demand WHEN. And if you give wrong time estimate, people will post messages about how Arena failed them, and how they are quitting forever and never buying an Arena game again – I am sure you have seen the obligatory drama queen posts.

That being said, some people have seriously nasty fps issues, and I hope their situations get fixed soon, assuming it’s not a fault on their machine/environment.

If you don’t want to overlock EVER, just wanted to mention you might save a few bucks getting the locked versions of the CPU (without the K.) But the difference in price is minimal, and you might change your mind. So I still suggest getting the K version.

As for being worried about overclocking, I can understand. In theory you could damage a CPU doing it. But it’s unlikely these days due to the fact the CPUs will throttle back speed if they get too hot. And if you overclock by only adjusting multiplier, it seems unlikely to do damage. In other words, dont’ mess with stuff like voltage. It’s a simple matter to bump multipler to 4.3 Ghz, and run the game, and if it’s stable, call it a day, otherwise bump down by 1 and try again.

GPU overlocking is also possible, but possibly not too useful (based on my own experience where the GPU does not seem to be the limiting factor)

I had not noticed. It’s possible they did not use much LF in the game. Would be odd if this game and nothing else is missing frequencies on your system. Will try to pay attention if I play tonight.

I also have GTX 670 (2 of them.) I have the 3770 CPU. And I have low fps in some spots. I will be curious if you will be able to OC the CPU and gain performance, as mine is not the K version, so is multiplier locked.

Good luck with your upgrade.

I could also pull my GTX 670 cards, and pop in the 2 6970 cards I have to see what happens with that scenario.

If it’s an Nvidia issue, it’s an interesting one. My fps can go over 120fps in some areas. In many areas I get over 80fps.

But in some areas, independent (so it seems) of other player activity, fps falls below 60fps. GPU load is reported say around 50% when I have looked. CPU load was high.

One way to test if it’s CPU bound, is for me to maybe try underclocking my CPU a bit. Measure fps, then enable my normal OC via BCLK, then test again to see if fps has gone up.

With regards to being CPU bound, I have some evidence that’s true for me based on the GPU and CPU loads I see when the fps drops. I have an i7 3770 CPU.

My friend Steph has this issue with her game. We tried everything she, I and my co-worker Thomas could think of, and we all have extensive experience with solving various computer issues.

We shut down every non essential process, tried running from safe mode with networking, tried running as Admin, reloaded clients, even re-started the download (in no particular order.)

To the best of our collective knowledge, no firewalls or other security programs are running.

She did not seem interested in trying to port forward in the router settings, so that’s one thing that could be tried, but seeing how she’s in Missouri and I have not convinced her to walk through it with me, that’s one thing we have not tried.

I am going to tell her to re-image the Dell PC she’s using (it’s on loan from me.) If that does not work, I am out of ideas (other than the above mentioned port forwarding attempt.)

i5 3570 K seems like the best i5 option if you are going with the latest Ivy Bridge series (3rd gen.) There’s a comparable Sandy Bridge i5 with a K designator (for unlocked multiplier.)

IMO, a lot of the CPUs have similar clock rates. The i5 3570K is what I would choose IF Ivy Bridge is desired ( 3rd gen, Sandy is 2nd gen.) I bought an i7 3770, but it seems a bit of a waste for gaming as having the Hyperthreading does not currently seem to reap benefits. Maybe future games can take more advantage of Hypethreading.

Note that Sandy Bridge overclocks better, supposedly due to a change in how the CPU is designed.

I seem to recall some benefit to using Ivy Bridge processors otherwise, but I forget what it was.

I suggest reading the whole thread, Deadman.

My summary would be that there’s two types of issues here. One issue is really low fps issues with no clear answer. The other is people with good hardware, but low fps in some areas (such as what I see.) The second could be explained as CPU bottlenecking.

IMO, shading takes a lot of power, and turning shading down often improves fps by quite a bit (I have seen a 10fps difference when reducing shading quality.)

Maybe all you need it s better GPU. Hard to say with the detail you provided, and I am not going to click on that link, no offense.

Also not sure why you use term lag. To me lag is different thing, such as when the game can’t load textures fast enough or the network causes lag meaning your graphics are showing you the past, so to speak. You are just seeing lower fps than you want right?

Every game benchtest I have seen shows that if you lower your game graphics settings enough (lower resolution especially) that eventually you become CPU bound.

It’s not that the CPU load goes up, it’s that the GPU stops being the bottleneck and the CPU does.

For gaming, an i5 should have comparable performance to an i7. The only difference when it comes to gaming, is the L2 cache size.

As for processor speed, an unlocked version, which have the K designation, is maybe the best idea. You don’t have to be agressive. With an unlocked multiplier and normal cooling, you can likely get the same performance as a stock i7 3770 for free (no gaurantees of course.)

For processor, the GTX 670 is one of the most popular. The GTX 660 is a cheaper alternative.

Synyst.2163:

The overwhelming level of anecdotal evidence, pointless suggestions, and amateur quick-fixes in this thread makes me weep for the future of humanity.

Are you implying that you have a “professional” fix for people with issues?

I still say I am CPU bound. I don’t assert everyone is. When I hit 40fps in some areas of Sylvari area, GPU util is low, CPU util is high.

After weeks of playing the game, monitoring the game, and reading, I can only come to one conclusion (which I don’t assert is true, I simply can’t come to any other conclusion.)

The game is CPU bound IF your GPU power is sufficient.

On the bright side, my i7 3770 CPU equipped, dual GTX 670 equipped PC handles the game on max settings. Even though frames can drop to 40fps, even worse in WvW, it’s still fully playable ( for me it’s fully playable, I can’t comment on others.)

In fact, it’s more than playable…I saw no stuttering in WvW even when seeing fps plummet. Still seemed pretty smooth.

So there’s hope. And there’s hope that future optimizations could maybe help.

Optimization is not simple. I work in software development. Not only do you have to do analysis, which is not easy, you have to implement optimizations AND not break what already works.

Are you asking WHY it’s CPU bound? Some claimed it’s due to the occlusion culling being done in the middleware called Umbra. I am not claiming this, just passing along the info.

The city could be based on domain info. The game likely has no information where you live.

IPs are typically dynamically assigned, and there’s no geo info attached to them. But a server could see what domain holder holds the block of IP addresses yours belongs to.