Guild Wars 2

GW2 is just very CPU bound and demanding.

even high-end chips can’t maintain stable or high (~60FPS) framerates in certain situations.

maxing out this game is pointless… well, for the 3 in-game graphic options, that i mentioned above at least.

• shadows at ultra causes the camera to stutter when moving around —> set it to “high” or lower.
• reflections at “all” also causes problems, because the the game have reflections that are invisible, so your PC will work for things you can’t even see —> set reflections to “terrain&sky” or lower until it’s fixed.
• rendersampling at “supersample” only serves one purpose: increasing the texturequality on big 1080p screens by dividing every pixel by 4. if you play on a small~medium sized screen, turn it to “native”, or you will make your system work for a quality difference, that you can’t notice. (you will notice a small change, but it neither looks better or worse)

if i would max out all of those above, i would have around 40~50FPS during PvE…on a i7 950 @3,7GHz+GTX 580 rig. :P

let the game decide your optimal settings and if it chooses to max out reflections, lower them and you’re set.

first, if you really maxed out everything except shaders and post processing, turn down shadows, reflections and rendersampling, since they have the most impact on your framerate.

also, tweaking at the nvidia-cp may give you additional FPS:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/FPS-and-Performance-based-issues-1/first#post338300

anyways, GW2 already uses all available cores (it even uses all threads when enabling hyperthreading on i7 CPU’s), but it’s emphasis is on one core only.

on my CPU, GW2 uses 60-70% on core1, while core0, 2 and 3 are at 10-30%.
i even monitored fully load on all cores during WvWvW zergs. (no updater or other other programs were running in the background, except CoreTemp, avast, realtek and nvidia drivers)

bottom line:
GW2 makes the use of all cores, but not efficient.

CryEngine 2 still looks good to me. (graphic’s wise)

i’d rather want to see them having a “skill effect: on/off” feature, because i don’t think reducing texture quality of characters alone will have that much of an impact on the framerate. i mean only if the crowd are starting to cast fire down to the ground, my FPS takes a critical hit. also my CPU catches fire, higher than by a burn-in test.
it seems that elementalists do inflict more damage to my PC, than they do to my ranger.

tho, turning down quality is more like switching the problem.
it might just be a temporary solution, but players, especially the one’s with beast PC’s will start to rage all over the place.

thanks for letting me know that there is more than just a not-so-well optimized game engine.

i still have hopes that some epic update makes WvWvW at least enjoyable.
that’s why i don’t like to dig deeper into such topics. enough hope crushing already goes on by the experience and knowledge of other players and myself. :/

oh and AION graphics looks nice and still pretty good (for a mmorpg) to me. 1000 times better than WoW polygons.
but i guess it’s a matter of taste…

watching the cutscenes in dungeons, when you visit them the first time, often results in a votekick.

the problem is, alot mmorpg player’s priority looks like this:

1.: loot/profit
2.: acknowledgement
3.: addiction (i admit it, i still could farm the same mob over and over again for days in ragnarok online…)
4.: fun

unlike other mmo’s i’ve previously played, GW2 somehow manages (in my case, at least), to be alot of fun without having a motivation or goal in particular.
almost 200 hours of gameplay and i’m still running around with lv60-80 rare gear.
but i have to admit, that i’m kinda dissapointed of the loot i’m getting when killing a world boss.
oh now i’ve mentioned it, if i’m battling a world boss on my own to test my skills, nobody comes to help me. they just walk by…until the boss is low on health…then 10+ players starting to show up instantly.

tho, games always should be balanced between both motivation and fun.
in long terms, motivation alone kills the fun and vice versa.
but don’t mention that you’re having fun at a videogame when dealing with “elitists”.

Jazhara…seems like you would need a vapochill on your head.
don’t get so mad. sure, i, as a customer, am angry too…but i’m still trying to be constructive.

i don’t agree with the “console” port theory.
what i think is, that a-net couldn’t even imagine such a huge number of active players.
but it doesn’t really explain why WvWvW performs so bad even though the number of players who can enter is limited…

WTT: [h] low FPS [w] lags
i never lagged, except during launch and some wintersday minigames.

keep in mind that your performance also depends on the number of players currently located nearby.

@loseridoit:
i don’t get any FPS boost during zerg fights (75+ players) even when turning shadows and reflections completely off.

you obviously took the NASA computer reference too serious. :P

of course there are optimisation problems. (and scaling problems…)
a developer admitted “optimisation problems” on reddit.
tho, i’m glad they fixed alot framerate draining bugs at PvE areas, like the bandithaunt caverns (unlimited bomb spawning). sadly, those fixes have barely gotten any positive feedback or have been even noticed by the players.
and why would you implent such large scaled battles, if even high-end PC’s can’t really handle them? let alone mid-end PC’s or just any system above the minimum specs…
i usually try not to refer to other mmorpg’s…but haven’t you played any other mmorpg with massive battles yet? like AION? runs at 45+FPS (even more when turning down skill effects) on fortress sieges, where about 80+ players (plus the giant general) aren’t uncommon.

2 other common reasons for a driver crash:

1.: GPU temps are too high.
monitor your GPU’s temperature while playing GW2 and manually set a fan speed curve if you think that the temps are too high.
if this solves your problem, remove any dust from your graphic card’s fan with compressed air out of a can. (no rhyme intended)

2: in case, that your graphic’s card is overclocked, reset it’s core/memory clock/s (and voltage, if changed too) to their defaults.

didn’t an ele got that nice “mist form” spell? he also should have a projectile-reflecting ability.

this game’s battle mechanics do rely more on the actual player’s skills rather than raw stats, because it’s more action oriented.
all you need is practice.

you have no other option than getting a newer system.
i didn’t expected that “beast” of a CPU.

tho you might be able to push your FPS up to 30~35 during PvE if overclocking to 2,3GHz, tho, it’s not recommended to OC at all on a laptop, especially an older one.
but if you’re still want to try out overclocking, do not attempt anything without getting basic knowledge and information ,especially about your chip, first.

Khendros.7915:

One thing I noticed, before I get the SSD my fps were about 20 lower than now.

loadtimes do decrease, microstutter (if there were any before) may be gone, but 20FPS more? faster drive-to-ram buffering should have barely or no effect on the overall performance.

ETR.8152:

I get 5 fps in wvw. And max at 20 in pve… I need a New computer…

want anyone to help you out? then post your system specs and in-game settings pls.

@Clexzor:
i know that even high-end-beast-freak-rigs couldn’t achieve higher framerates than about 35 if around 75+ players are slapping each other, but i really want to do some WvWvW and simply can’t…or would anyone say it’s “playable” if you can’t properly avoid or target enemys?
some guy came at me, i wanted to target him. since using the mouse isn’t an option, because the pointer is uncontrollable during such framerates/spikes, so i tabbed. of course the tab button only choosed people as far away as possible. having no target selected and then let autoselect choose a target does the same thing.
i ended up being killed while ton’s of bags spawned around me.
—> ragequitted lol.

but since so many players do actively participate in WvWvW, i only can come up with the conclusion that they got higher framerates thanks to some magic fix.
i highly doubt, that they are that masochistic…

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

[…]we ran around the swamp killing stuff just to pass the time.No lag what so ever.As soon as the event started,Big time lag.Couldn’t that be a server issue ?[…]

it could also be a framerate-drop caused by many players using their spells at the same target at the same time…it’s the same deal at WvWvW:
30+ people heading towards the battlefield, killing stuff at the side of the road, 50-60FPS.
but as soon as a bunch of elementalists are starting to cast their AoE-flames everywhere —> 20FPS.

though, if you experiencing delayed skills, fast-forwarding or just unresponsive controls, then it’s rather a lag.

btw, poeple are always complaining about new patches. even if the patchnotes didn’t say anything related to “insert problem here” in any way. they probably just didn’t noticed “insert problem here” before.

point 1: i’d say elementalist.

point 2: elementalist again.

point 3: definitely mesmer.

point 4: PvE: elementalist, WvWvW: i’d say both equally, sPvP: mesmer.

point 5: both equally.

point 6: about damage: elementalist, about utility: i’d prefer mesmer for his clones and damage avoiding abilitys, about builds: some builds are of course better than others and sometimes situation dependant, but GW2 is designed to let players choose any kind of build and weapon combinations they like, according to their taste.

i hope you guys do realize, that there’s a huge difference between lags and low framerates

fast&easy method to explain this:

lag – nothing to do with your system specs. caused by connectivity issues, such as your ISP trolling you, too much usage of your broadband connection, other programs connecting to the internet, firewall is trolling you, etc.

low FPS – caused by your hardware being too old, bottlenecking computercomponents, bad game engines, your PC is too busy with other/many programs in the background while playing, etc.

delete the “local.dat” file located at “C:\Users\”username"\My Documents\Guild Wars 2\"

since my initial topic for tips on how increase the performance and sharing my experience drifted away into a serious talk, i decided to change the topic into a discussion topic about possible performance fixes you want to see or think will come…or not come.
why making a new topic, if there’s no need if we discuss that sort of stuff already.

constructive feedback about already applied fixes, your performance experiences in all situations and tips and tweaks which may help other people are welcomed as well.

do not troll, flame, whiteknight or post anything which is off topic or simply not constructive. if you have an opinion, good. if you think your opinion is the only one, that is correct and the world is meant for you, bad.
it won’t help anyone.

so…what would YOU do, in case you have the power to change something about the game in order to increase performance, especially during large-scaled events, including WvWvW? please stay realistic.
i admit, i’m clueless…i just could came up with temporary solutions, such as a “disable skill-effects”-option. :/

old topic, in case you like to read alot or having a typo-fetish:

delete the “local.dat” file located at “C:\Users\”username"\My Documents\Guild Wars 2\"
and do a repair.
rightclick on your GW2 shortcut, properties, shortcut, at the “target” box add " -repair" (should look like this: “C:\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe” -repair) and then run the game.

don’t forget to remove “-repair” after you’re done.

kirito.4138:

[…]I suggest trying to reinstall windows[…].

that’s what i’ve tried to avoid here. :P

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Installation-Issue-Stuck-at-Connecting-Download-Failed

try booting from your windows-dvd.
there should be a system restore option which includes command prompt.

run chkdsk from there.

i’ll heading to bed now, hope you’ll figure out your exact problem including a fix.

yes, you can do that in safe mode too…if it’s the system partition, aka C:\, windows will run chkdsk during the next boot.

alternatively, you can run chkdsk in command prompt at the system restore tool. (if you know how to boot in safe mode, you should know how to start the system restore before booting windows)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491051.aspx

forget about your crazy idea that a game which doesn’t even make registry entries, except one for GW2 showing up at your installed programs-list (MUI and icon related entries doesn’t count), could be responsible for your problem.

about your problem number 5: looks like the only registry entry that GW2 made is missing…you can just remove it from the list of installed programs and simply delete the whole GW2 folder —> GW2 uninstalled

it’s either a software or BIOS change you’ve made around the time where you’ve patched GW2 (un/installed vital programs, messed with hardware drivers, overclocking, etc.) or a issue directly related to your hardware.

but i guess it’s hardware related – your HDD to be exactly.
try chkdsk:
http://www.w7forums.com/use-chkdsk-check-disk-t448.html

checkdisk will scan your drive for any errors.

you still could do a system restore anytime if you think it’s software related.

are you located at the Black Citadel?
the same problem happens to me sometimes if i’m there or teleport away from there.

but nevermind, your framerate already drops to the ground at the character selection screen…

try deleting the “local.dat” file located at “C:\Users\”username"\My Documents\Guild Wars 2\" and do a repair:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments

also, more info about your system would be helpful.

GW2.exe just acts like that.

probably just a small forum bug…happens sometimes when i log out.

it sounds more and more like an heat issue.

when turning on “supersampling” ingame, my card goes above 80°C without custom fanspeed and GW2 or the nvidia driver crashes after about 15mins ingame.
turned rendersampling back to “native”: around 66°C – no crashes anymore.

oh and guess what – only happens when playing GW2

removing dust never is a bad idea.
also make sure that the airflow isn’t blocked by anything.

if that doesn’t help, then there just 2 options: either manually set the GPU’s fan speed or decrease graphic-quality settings in-game and/or at the nvidia-cp.

example:
Heroes of Might and Magic VI (released in 2002) won’t properly run on my system but everything else does.
is it the game’s problem? nope.
it’s my OS+memory.

every game acts unique on your system and GW2 just happens to be very sensitive sometimes.

your 0×116 bluescreen is almost everytime a GPU-driver or GPU-heat related problem.

just try decreasing your GPU’s heat and/or try out different drivers (after cleaning out the trash the previous one left behind and of course check if it’s actually a driver made for your card/OS)
it won’t hurt, i promise.

hmm…trying -repair wouldn’t help…you’ve reinstalled the whole game already…

i just googled some stuff and it appears that your card will throttle at 70°C.
mine does that too at over 80°C and that often results in a crash or short freeze followed by a driver restart – it only happens to me when playing GW2.
(GW2 is also a great benchmark tool, huh?)

just to make sure, get “MSI Afterburner” and manually set a fanspeed curve to keep your temps below 70°C. i recommend to get some infos and look at some guides before doing this.

you could also try older driver versions to make sure it’s not a problem with your current driver in combination with your graphic card model.

i know, i know, your problem occured right after a small patch…but that just might be a coincidence.

even if your system handles other games doesn’t mean it will handle GW2…trust me.
GW2 is a special specimen. it is the only game/program which didn’t liked my previous OC settings and always crashed.

you should do the following:
first, undo your registry changes. ignoring a problem doesn’t mean it’s solved.

- check if your laptop runs in power saving mode.
if yes, enable “high performance”.

- reinstall your nvidia driver.
completely remove any data trash left after uninstalling your driver with tools like “driver sweeper” and use “WHQL” ones instead of BETA drivers if you’re using BETA ones.

- in case that you’re using monitoring or screencapturing tools like “MSI Afterburner”, disable them and see if your problem still occurs.
you also can just perform a “clean boot” (google it) if you just wanna know if there’s any background program which may cause your problem.

- in case that you’re OC’ed your graphic card, reset clock speed and voltage to their defaults.

(post dedicated to nvidia users)
have you ever considered that nvidia might be as much in charge as a-net?

“Version: 3.idontcare
GeForce ZOMG 6xx
- up to 20% more performance of a 3 year old game on your latest nvidia high end card so that you can play with 400FPS+”

their priority should be “not-so-well” running games…

buy tons of exotic weapons, throw them into the mystic forge and hope for some money making precursors.

supersampling on without FPS loss? let’s trade our graphic’s card please. :P
i’m loosing 5-15FPS when turning it on. (area depandant)
and i don’t want to OC my geforce just to say “i’m playing with supersample at 60FPS”.

it’s just a feature to brag about unless you play on a really big screen.
on my 24" 1960×1080 screen, the difference between native and supersample is slightly noticeable and neither looks better or worse. except that my graphic’s card sounds like a racing car when turned on.

but now you’ve made me curious on how it may looks like on the TV in my living room…

the game runs flawless…during PvE but then you enter a large scaled DE or WvWvW and you’ll see a slideshow.

wait…massive action goes on = FPS drop? sounds like something never happened before!
oh no…it happens…in every game i’ve ever played.

i dare everyone complaining about the low FPS in WvWvW to open a PC game with a console window.
let’s take skyrim as an example:

spawn 50+ elder dragons at whiterun. (why whiterun? because we all wanted to see it burn deep in our hearts)
then tell me your FPS.
repeat that with other games.
try to complain again and i bet you’ll fail.

my complain is, such thing as massive battles, sieges, etc should never be in a game in the first place, if the technology isn’t ready, which obviously is not the case now.

if anet manages somehow to bring us the holy grail of patches and ensure mid-end or higher PC’s to get 50-60FPS during zergs, they would have done something nobody was able to do yet.
and i do not believe in miracles, so if i ever feel the need to enter WvWvW, i’ll do what i always do when entering zergs in a mmorpg: lowering the graphics.
30+FPS during massive mmo fights on max graphics is something other dev’s and game companies can just dream about.

i used to be a complainer just like you, but then i started to think realistic.
iI’m usually not optimistic…but imagine how much more fun WvWvW is when there actually is optimisation potential left for this game.

-no fanboy

nope, it’s not a default feature.

you might wanna check out if some background program interferes somehow with the GW2 launcher on startup.
to do this, perform a “clean boot”.
here’s how to do this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

then start GW2 again to see if your problem occurs again.

maybe you accidentally messed about at the compatibility tab of the launchers properties.

rightclick on the GW2 icon —→ properties --→ compatibility

if “disable desktop composition” is checked, uncheck it.

“HT on or off” is one of those system dependent questions.

i mainly play games and browse through the internet, also my CPU naturally heats up alot so i turn HT off to lower my temps (saves 11°C O.O ), vcore and add additional OC potential.
though, if i actually edit some videos, it can get annoying without HT. same goes for playing games while having firefox, skype and a media player and several updates open.
switching it to on or off isn’t a big hassle…takes 10sec to switch BIOS profiles.

don’t ask me why i have a CPU with HT technology in the first place if i have HT off mainly…it just happens to be a part of my system.
though, it does come in handy sometimes.

but if you just intend to play videogames and using a messenger and/or media player in the background, turn HT off, if you want additional OC potential.
otherwise, as already mentioned above, usually, there’s no reason not to have HT on…if HT actually affects performance in GW2, then it’s simply not noticeable.

i’m also running a bloomfield (i7-950) and their still pretty good CPU’s except for the hellfire they produce which limits their OC potential.

mine’s at 3,7GHz, PvE: 60FPS, LA: 50~60FPS, zerg: 25~40FPS / high quality settings, reflections: terrain&sky – if i set shadows to medium, i get an overall FPS boost of 5.

same framerates @3,1GHz, 3,5GHz, 3,6GHz, 3,9GHz and 4,1GHz. no changes in performance…in GW2 at least. (i’m not surprised)
yeah…i was bored lol.
so don’t expect any noticeable performance boost when overclocking, since our CPU’s are pretty much the same deal. our overall systems are different, tho…who knows, you might be surprised in case you’re overclocking. (of course, after you’ve installed a better cooling device )

to be somewhat fair, compared to the first 3 weeks after it’s release, GW2 now runs twice as fast.
okay, credits goes to nvidia for their v306.97 driver...but the last time i’ve played i got my desired 60FPS almost everywhere in PvE, because some areas got fixed.

just fix shadows and reflections and implent a "high performance button" for WvWvW, where you can reduce your graphics by just a single click as temporarily solution, since the issues are that deep into the game, that it will most likely take some time until a solution for all kind of systems is found.
i’m glad that i can notice some fixes but also i’m sad that there’s still much more to be fixed.

events are fine, but please without even more performance hits.

i’ve played a mmo with even more lousy FPS...*cough* cry engine 2 *cough*
i’m kinda used to it...like every mmo-player, but it’s no excuse that we are still need to patch something these days in order to actually play it.
as long as players are tolerant against bugs ’n glitches in games, dev’s always will be lazy, because they just could release a patch. :P

ok, the last sentence was a little bit off-track, but you got my point.
most GW2 players simply don’t care if its 15FPS or 60FPS as long as they can play it.
my little brother is such a player...i’m like "dude, how can you play with 9FPS? it stutters horrible!" while he’s just like "stutter? lag? where...it’s perfectly fine. i don’t get it."

many games stop responding when tabbing out while in fullscreen.
try “alt+enter” enter in the future to switch to windowed mode. now you can multitask and tab all day all night long.
if you want to go back to fullscreen, just click on the GW2 window and press “alt+enter” again.

MSI Afterburner’s OSD collides with GW2 somehow.
try changing OSD rendering mode to “Vector 2D”. it seems to fix the porblem.

wauwi.9162:

i’m assuming, that you are using a nvidia card.
disable “ambient occlussion” at the nvidia-cp.

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8994/~/error-codes

took me 3 seconds to find this page…just saying

or simply delete the “local.dat” file located at “C:\Users\yourname\My Documents\Guild Wars 2\”.

this will reset every setting you made ingame, including saved GW2 username and password.

this happens to EVERYONE.

Lion’s Arch is not only populated but also full of the unfamous bugged reflections and shadows.
there is nothing you can do about until it’s patched.

btw…NEVER set shadows to ultra. it causes micro stutters.

unless you do post more details&information, such as crash log, windows log, game log, dx log and more about your exact specs, no one on here can help you much.

GW2 performs way better for me now compared to the time before the nvidia v306.97 driver was released. on both my low-end and “good” system.

around twice as fast now…and a-net recently fixed some framerate-impacting areas like the bandit-cave in queensdale and constantly working of getting an overall better performance.
i’m not saying that i’m fine about this situation, which affects ALL games nowadays…ironic, huh? so much awesome games…but they are all released with major flaws which needs tons of patches to be fixed, but at least i can still hope.

and to get this straight…you’re all suggesting OP, that he should play mmo’s, other than GW2 (at the GW2 forums), instead of helping him to tweak here and there to get the game to run to an playable and enjoyable state?
now i know why a laughed when reading the “GW2 Community” page at the “making of: GW2” book.

anyways, here are some tips:
keep in mind, i don’t know your specs, so these are common tweaks i would apply.

- turn off windows visuals while launching GW2.
- close every unnecessary program before launching GW2. there’s a tool which does both for you, called “GameBooster”. works okay on PC’s with olf components, but it’s not necessary on newer PC’s.
- keep your components drivers/system up-to-date.
- set your graphic options at your graphic card’s control panel to max performance. (i don’t know which GPU you own, so find out yourself how to do it – don’t worry, if you mess something up there, you can set every option back to standart settings easily)
- turn off reflections, lower shaders and shadows. reflections in GW2 are so awesome, even high-end PC’s can’t handle them. also, sh<adows should never be at “ultra”, does not only impacts your framerate, it also causes stuttering on camera movement.
- you should try out to set rendersampling to “subsample”. maybe you are satifsfied with the quality.
- overclock your CPU. there are more than enough tutorials out there for each specific model, however, DO NOT attempt anything regarding overclocking, unless you got enough knowledge and only if you are 100% aware of the risks. every good tutorial should come with in-depht explanations of all the values you are messing with.
- make sure that your system-partition (aka “C:\”) and the system itself is clean. that covers the partition to be below ~70% usage, defragmented, free of malware, free of read/write errors, free of useless programs and free of useless registry entries (if you attempt to clean your registry, do it with a tool which got a backup feature!)
-turn off unnused windows features at “programs&features”. for example: if you’re using chrome or firefox, you can disable IE, or if you don’t own a printer, you can disable all printer features.

well, that’s all common tweaks i know.
i hope you will be able to play GW2 at an enjoyable state soon.
you might consider a new mobo/CPU, tho, unless you’re satisfied with your PC in general.

around 1200 here…playing since launch more or less casually.
i suck. i had fun though.

hmm…looks pretty similiar to the twilight arbor medium armor and even closer to the dryad sylvari cultural one.

check out these articles:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Twilight_Arbor_armor

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sylvari_cultural_armor