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Seemingly Low Performance for Hardware for GW2

Last response: in Video Games
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Hello,

I have recently bought an all new computer from Newegg. Here is the list of hardware:

ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
AMD FX-4170 Zambezi 4.2GHz (4.3GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W
XFX Double D FX-797A-TDBC Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Corsair Performance Pro Series CSSD-P256GBP-BK 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
Used Western Digital 7200rpm 256gb Drive
CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified
Win7 64-bit
Other parts like CPU Heatsink, new Full ATX tower, ect.

I mainly bought this computer to play Guild Wars 2 and to future proof myself for any other updates along the way in terms of new hardware and software. Now with Guild Wars 2 being released, the above computer did not perform to my liking. In a setting with a low number of other players but some graphical detailed environment, I was only averaging ~45FPS with these settings:

1440x900 Vsync On @ 75hz (Older flat screen monitor but I am not a big stickler for high resolutions, I just want a consistant high frame rate)
Maximum Textures
Maximum Post-Rendering Effects
No Shadows
No Reflections
Maximum LOD

So I attempted to see what possible hardware issues is holding me back so I immediately started reducing my resolution. Upon doing this, my frame rate did not change at all. Just directly based of this finding, this would suggest that my CPU is the bottleneck within the system. So I immediately went out to remedy the problem with the below hardware:

ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 2011 130W Quad-Core Desktop

After a few hic-ups (apparently a SATA cable unplugging itself, bah!), I immediately reinstalled the ATI drivers (new CPU architecture) and a few other drivers then started Guild Wars 2. I did see a boost in performance with the new hardware. Here are the new settings:

1440x900 Vsync On @ 75hz (Older flat screen monitor but I am not a big stickler for high resolutions, I just want a consistant high frame rate)
Maximum Textures
Maximum Post-Rendering Effects
Medium Shadows
No Reflections
Maximum LOD

With the updated settings and new hardware, I am averaging about ~50FPS but getting several dips into as low as 25FPS.

So, my question, with the new Intel CPU and ASUS mobo along with the other parts of hardware, am I expecting too much? Maybe I should do more testing on other games (which I only play like one other game on the PC right now but who knows what the future holds?) to determine that maybe the above performance is good for a MMO game that is new like GW2?

Either way, I was just asking for any suggestions and comments on the subject. I am just feeling kinda left out of the experience of a high end gaming computer with the games I play. Thanks.

More about : seemingly low performance hardware gw2

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From what I've seen over the last year while reading WoW, Tera, SWTOR, TSW, and GW2 forums, everyone who bought an AMD processor is unhappy with their frame rate in those MMORPGs. An i5 2500k gives much better FPS

What I find odd is that even when you switched to i7-3820 you still dip to 25fps. I bet if you put video settings to lowest, you would still dip to 25 during stuff like WvW...I don't know why the processor can't handle it but I really don't want to buy the most expensive i7 just to enjoy WvW without lagging miserably. :( 

Your hardware should be good enough to run GW2 with shadows and reflections on highest and never drop below 30fps. Hopefully it gets fixed

this is most likely driver (as ATi hasn't released GW2 optimized drivers yet) AND GW2 itself still being optimized by the devs as we speak/type here.

also, as a side note, since you haven't mentioned it, have you checked your temps? utilization? clocks? etc?
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I have tried other games. I also decided to take an objective look at some realistics instead of using the "Options" menu FPS counter and past "feel" while playing GW2.

I downloaded FRAPS and attempted to register the lowest/highest/average FPS while in a DE (Dynamic Event) of medium size (about 20 to 25 other players on the screen in a small area).

While I seemed to have completely failed and attempting to take these numbers down (the default button for capturing statistics was F11, so I hit it then a red box comes up, then the FPS gauge runs from 0 to 75 then returns to my current FPS), I did get to see the current FPS and it seemed, with the current settings mentioned above, I did not drop below 55 FPS, but I could not pay attention to it 100% so I could not be concrete about this. If someone could help me on taking FPS statistics with FRAPS, that would be most appreciated.

I have tried other games but can not be mentioned due to NDA, thus is not a valid test. But sense I really do not care about the performance of this computer on other games currently out, unless it can objectively help in determining if the performance is poor, I do not see the point.

***EDIT: About the checking of utilization, temperatures, and clocks, are there programs for logging this information during play instead of having to open the program and manually check it (zCPU does this but does not log, as far as I can remember)?

hwinfo is a pretty sophisticated monitoring and id program, it's free and has option to log into a file. But only for temps, clocks and utilizations.

As far as fps logging, I know msi afterburner has a graph of fps, but I'm not aware if it can log the said values into a file. you can investigate yourself.

other games, if they have been benchmarked with similar/same hardware can show if your hardware is malperforming. But same can be achieved with synthetic benchmark suites like furmark

I would check your video card drivers, I was having the same issue with the game until I updated to the Beta driver for my video card. Granted this was a 5xx series Nvidia card but same issue. Check the release notes on the current beta driver for your card and see if they mention GW2 at all, wouldnt hurt to try to install the beta driver.

Aye, that was the first immediate thing I did once I noticed poor performance. And I did gain an amount of performance, like 5 to 10 FPS. But still not what I expected.

But as per my last 2 posts, I need to do some intensive benchmarking to determine if my averages/minimum/maximum are indeed what I stated in the original post.
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