Guild Wars 2

I’m not asking for more memory allocation. Nor am I asking for a 64 bit client expecting to fix how inefficiently threaded the game is. I’m asking for one because specifically for AMD and midrange Intel user’s, a 64 bit client in another MMO went a long way towards fixing that games biggest hang ups and lag orgies.

I’m hoping just like you, that any of those fixes “promised” by Arenanet recently will help with the issues a lot of us are experiencing in this games best moments. But you and I know they most likely won’t, so I’m hoping giving us an alternate 64 bit client can pave the way to a more efficiently threaded experience.

I just think it’s ridiculous that quite a few of us are going to have to wait for a better single threaded solution to come along from our manufacturers in the age of multi-core processors to either max out our gfx cards, or get playable frame rates in the best parts of the game. Running 5.0 GHz and not seeing any difference on an FX 8350 is bad enough on the AMD side, but I’m not just thinking of them, i feel just as bad for someone running a massively high IPC single threaded 3770k that they too have to wait to brute force their single threaded performance till Intel releases something better down the road as well.

Whatever the solution is, whatever brings an increase in performance over as many platforms as possible, please optimize your game Arenanet, no matter how much work you have to put in. This problem is a common one and is keeping scores of dedicated gamers from enjoying your game to the fullest extent.

In the end, that’s all that matters.

I get a massive difference between WoW 64 and WoW standard, but part of that might be I’m running an AMD chip.

That being said I do agree with what you said, as the problem is in heavy zergs obviously, and the completely erratic GPU and CPU utilization that plagues other aspects of the game for most users, and therefore better optimization all around would be the ideal route. But the cuda thing is funny to me, because a lot of people have quite a few problems getting any decent GPU utilization in this game ( my GTX 670 included) when running GTX 600 and 700 series cards, though fix for this involves a lot of finger pointing between Arenanet and Nvidia. It could be we need an official optimal profile that Nvidia simply hasn’t gotten to, or it could be poor coding on the Arenanet side of things, or it could of course be both.

Nonetheless there are also a lot of people dealing with memory leaks and the heavy 2.7 GB usage that is found in major zergs, and a 64 bit client would go a long way towards helping those people out.

Basically I’m for anything at this point, 64 bit client not withstanding, that solves the lower fps issues currently plaguing the two best aspects of this game, and I hope we get them.

I am formally requesting Arenanet to release a 64 bit client for Guild Wars 2. Far too many AMD users are getting nigh unplayable frame rates in what is considered the two best aspects and two biggest selling points of this game ( WvW and PvE World events) and as such our experience in playing a game we both love and actively support has been diminished.

Better CPU optimization all around should also be a major concern for you as well, as Intel users are experiencing their fair share of issues as well, but these fixes, whatever they may be, need to start somewhere, and I hope the developers will read these forums so they can read and understand the amount of troubleshooting this amazing community has already done for them, and then get to work on delivering the best gaming experience possible.

If Blizzard can release a 64 bit client for an ancient, unoptimized 2005 game engine, so can you Arenanet.

So please, help us out, and help make GW2 an evenkeeled, and wonderful experience for all users. The investment in time and resources to properly optimize this game for modern CPU’s might seem steep now, but I promise you it will pay off in spades later.

Thank you for your time.

See you all in game.

kailin.4905:

I’ve tried on both AMD and an Intel i7. I was rather disappointed as I thought the i7 would be a huge increase in performance….it wasn’t. Ive accepted the game has serious issues that need to be addressed and have stopped trying to make something work better that never will.

It definitely isn’t our hardware. If you are running an AMD FX 6 core or 8 core series CPU you should be fine. It is 100% lack of optimization.

I previously benched a few titles and posted them above with my rig ( FX 8350 at 4.8 GHz, GTX 670 boost disabled through bios with a forced 1228 MHz oc and +290mhz on the ram, Samsung 256 GB SSD, and 8 gigs of 1866mhz ram) to give measuring stick to what kind of performance high end AMD users should be getting in GW2, and from those benches I can prove AMD hardware for this game is not the issue here, the issue is in lack of proper CPU optimization. So basically the games frame rate drops and general inconsistency is 100 % on Arenanet in this case.

And for additional giggles I picked up FFXIV Friday, and cranked the settings all the way up to see if I could find another CPU bottle necked , inefficiently threaded, MMO with performance issues, and was pleasantly surprised to find how well coded that game is. My FX 8350 loves it, and in six hours and a few heavily populated fate events, the lowest I dropped in frame rate was 55 fps and averaging 110fps.

Like you just found out by making the jump, I cannot stress enough how little switching to an i5 or an i7 will help you in this game ( though it may help you in others so that has to be considered), so don’t waste your money at this point. Instead we should start an organized movement to pester and petition the devs to at least try to optimize this game for multi-threaded processors ( or at the least, a 64 bit client, as I’ve stated before if WoW can release one four years after release, Arenanet has zero excuses to not at least try to do so), and therefore addressing the biggest glaring issue in this otherwise fantastic game.

Pester them. Get on it.

Absolutely correct here.

The processor coding is just a mess in this game overall.

For an unrelated example I tested BioShock Infinite and Crysis 3 with my FX8350 at 5.0Ghz and my GTX 670 locked at 1228mhz. I killed em both. Crysis on high settings avg’d 57fps and BioShock over a hundred. CPU and GPU usage were efficiently spread and GPU usage was at 99%.

“But Yaweha!” You scream incoherently. “This is an MMO, they aren’t the same beast!”

Well I went back to WoW, and reinstalled a 64 bit WoW client to see if my FX 8350 was an issue there, or my GTX 670. In high player zones and raids (stormwind, random 25 man raid) I never dropped below 45fps, and averaged well over 90 with everything turned up at 1080p. Considering this 64 bit client came out years later for an already ancient and very unoptimized game engine, Arenanet has no excuse.

So there goes that theory.

I just hope these “rumoured” ""fixes"" Arenanet says are coming have something to do with correcting this problem because there a lot of people on here running absurdly powerful systems incapable of getting decent frame rates in what are agurably the best parts of this game ( Hell these event’s are easily the game’s biggest selling point), and that is really sad.

I can’t even imagine what the poor slob running this on an A6 or i3 powered laptop is going through right now.

P.S. Crossfire or SLI in a game this CPU unoptimized would be pointless. Hell GPU driver fixes and/or updated profiles will likely have almost zero impact as well. The problem is pretty much 100% CPU bound, and as such, you should not be looking to Nvidia or AMD for the solution here.

Unless you’re trying to run three monitors, in which case my advice is “good luck” and I hope you’re running at least a 3930k considering how single-threaded, brute forced, IPC bound this game is.

If I could ask a dev anything at this point, it would be what optimizations can we expect at all for those of us running any processor at this point.

If WoW 4 years after release in an ancient, inefficiently coded engine, can manage a much better optimized 64 bit client and correct a lot of lower frame rate issues with it in the process, doing so in this game has to be at least in the realm of doable.

It shouldn’t be too much to ask to have a better standard lower frame rate issues for Pilderver and mid range Haswell ( yes it happens to intel users as well) level processors when half the games appeal is participating in these world events.

As an AMD user running their current highest IPC processor at 5.0 GHz or as an Intel user running an i5 at 4.5 GHz we should not be hoping for 20 fps while getting a best of 18fps in these events, on relatively high end systems. The performance on common mid to high end processors is simply not acceptable for a game of this level of success, market penetration, and resources, especially a dynamically expanding MMO with a 5-10 year life span.

No one should have to wait to brute force their frame rate up in single core performance for a higher IPC processor just to get semi-playable lower frame rates.

I sincerely hope one of these revisions is focused on getting the most out of these mainstream and fairly high end chips.

Eh that’s only partially true. The game is just unoptimized for multicore performance plain and simple. The next iteration of AMD’s processor ( Steamroller/ Kaveri) are due out at some point by the end of this year, with a rumoured 25 – 30% increase in single threaded IPC, which unfortunately is the problem with this game, so the solution might lie there.

The truth is we don’t know. All we do know is that AMD has the next gen consoles locked up, so a lot of developers are going to be dragged kicking and screaming into better multi-core support, HSA programming languages, and using low level API’s such as Mantle. That being said unless we get a miraculous 64 bit client with multi-threaded support ( hey it happened to WoW 4 years after the game was released) or Arenanet decides to port the game to one of (if not both) the PS4 or Xbox One, I highly doubt we will see much in the way of an increase when it comes to bottomed out FPS performance.

Trust me, I got a custom looped FX-8350 sitting at 4.7 Ghz to 5.0 Ghz at at any given time and my Gtx 670 will net me at best 82% usage and at worst 52% usage with frames peaking at 110FPS and bottoming out at 12FPS. So I’m in the same boat, and believe me when I say I’ve done all I can on my end to optimize this game. The rest is up to Arena net. So the best bet at this point is to just wait and see and cross your fingers that we don’t have to wait for Kaveri’s substantial single threaded IPC improvements to help us get better frames.

Haven’t even tried my friend. To compare MMO’s I went back and ran a test character on a 64 bit WoW client ( I know they ain’t the same, but it’s the only other MMO I have handy) in a packed Stormwind with everything at max. Never dropped below 43 fps and averaged over a hundred. I was toying with fact it was a bandwidth/ network issue ( I’m on FiOS 25/25), but this packed WoW test pretty much nullifies that idea.

Just did it to confirm my hardware was working right. Also jumped into a high setting version of Crysis 3 and never got lower than 32 fps.

So either I’m missing a step in optimization or toying with profiles ( I’m open to any suggestions on this front, just keep in mind, I’ve set up in Nvidia, power management, and Mobo bios, as well as unparked my cores and set my affinity to high, so by all means suggest away), or the game just hates my setup.

Just be wary of motherboards and gfx cards. As was stated above, no high end system can max this game out in the toughest situations, so the way to do this is future proof.

If your going Intel, make sure you get the most common high end socket for their most modern line. The disadvantage to an intel system is they love to change sockets nearly every revision. The goal here is to have something that won’t be dropped in two years so if you ever get the chance to upgrade you can just drop a new CPU in and go.

Since the rumor is AMD is abandoning normal CPUs in favor of high end APUs, the only way to go if you choose the red team at the moment is with their new high end FM2+ Motherboards, so you can use their Kaveri ( Steamroller) and Excavator APUs when they drop.

GPUs don’t need to be world breakers, but need to be considered carefully simply because you want this fairly future proofed as well. Normally I’d say go Nvidia mid range to high end, but Guild Wars 2 is a curious case. The only MMO I’ve played that seems to favor AMD cards over Nvidia ones. The GTX lines just seem to have massive problems in( especially with boosting) in this game. Keep in mind though that may be fixed with future drivers and game patches so it might wind up as mute concern. If you want the latest and greatest though, AMD is about to roll out their new cards, and all leaks point to Nvidia Titan level performance on the highest end one, for hundreds less.

No matter what you choose though the better news winds up being price cuts for all previous generation cards are likely right around the corner.

Personally I’m curious to see how an HSA enabled APU will perform in this game down the road, so I’d go FM2+ simply because the architecture is so similar to PS4 and Xbox One and all future ports have a really good chance of being properly optimized when coming to the PC.

But whatever you do, future proof as much as you can.

In response to the vdroop question, I am stable at 4.8ghz 1.4685 with my Load Line Calibration set to extreme to avoid any voltage inconsistencey. Temps are not an issue hitting 39 C under load and obviously all power saving features are off.

Had a great example today of what I’m talking about with a shadow behemoth World Event bringing me 6 fps throughout the duration. Card sits at 57% usage with. Massive drops from 110 fps down to 18 fps ( or lower with a WE).

Make no mistake. I’ve fallen in love with this game.

That being said though, it kills me that I finally finished building my poor man’s ( It’s amazing what trading up hardware and waiting for deals can do for you when Macguyvering a system) , decent high end AMD system and constantly suffer from absurd frame rate drops in and out of zergs and general playing.

Specs read as follows.

AMD FX – 8350 at 4.8 GHz ( I’ve played as high as 5ghz to remove doubts, but negligible difference)
2GB GTX 670 FTW bios locked at 1280Mhz to remove the constant boosting problems in this game
8 gigs of 32 nm Samsung Miracle 1866 MHz ram with 9-9-9-24 timings
256 GB Samsung Pro SSD
Windows 8 Home Premium.

Is a 64 bit client or at the least true multi-core support forthcoming, or are we who use AMD stuck with an unoptimized game?

Or at the very least, does the fact that you opened your dev library’s for players mean some genius savant with too much time on his or her hands has a chance of coming up with some fixes?

I just want to get the most out of my hardware with the game I’ve come to love

Mind you the load wouldn’t concern me so much, if my fps didn’t constantly drop to unacceptable levels.

To even it out I’m also running 32 nm Samsung miracle ram at 1866, a 256GB Samsung Pro SSD, and Windows 8 premium

I feel your pain man. I’m running an fx 8350 at the magical 5.1 GHZ mark (custom loop so zero heat issues) and a GTX 670 and the fact that nothing I do can push my lower frame rate in zergs above 12 -18fps is infuriating. The game seems to also have a major problem maxing boost enabled cards, as I have even bios flashed my card to just sit at 1280 MHz and still only get a 67% GPU load.

They need to optimize this game for true multicore support asap.