GW2 and the radeon 7970 - low fps

[Lukazor]

I've just got myself a Sapphire Radeon 7970 Vapor-x Ghz edition and after lots of research I decided this was the card for me. I loaded it into my rig last night removing the previous GTX 550 Ti's running in SLI, installed the latest drivers (13.1 I believe) and fired up GW2 expecting maximum graphics settings and a blistering fps!

Unfortunately I was left rather disappointed, with the settings as they were previously (everything on high, FXAA off, high res textures etc on at 1080p), in Lions Arch 25-35 fps and out in the world 50 fps but randomly spikes down to 40 every so often... This seems only slightly better than the 550's.

The machine is running an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T @ 3.2Ghz, 8Gb of Corsair vengeance ram @ 1600Mhz and then the radeon (the rest of the specs are in my sig). When the games running the CPU is running at around 50% and GPU activity is sat at 31% - That seems rather low to me. I tried putting the graphics settings up and switching to supersampling to try and entice the GPU but usage stayed at 31% and the fps took a serious hit.

So am I just expecting too much or should the game be performing considerably better? If so, anything I'm doing wrong?

[Shakadam]

Your FPS sounds about right. GW2 is insanely CPU demanding and your Phenom is bottlenecking, simple as that. Try overclocking that CPU further if you can. AMD cpu's aren't generally very good at GW2 because the game engine places a high demand on core by core processing power, something AMD is notoriously bad at these days.

If you want to play GW2 on highest settings you're going to need a Intel Sandybridge/Ivybridge quad-core running at 4.5+Ghz, and even then you'll be seeing drops down to 30-ish fps in crowded WvW situations. GPU is of lesser importance, a GTX 660ti will handle everything on highest settings as long as you have a really good CPU.

OC'ing is a really good method for boosting fps in GW2 though so start by doing that if possible. I have an older Core2Quad (Q9450) that gives me 10-15 fps more when OC'ed to 3,2Ghz compared to stock speed (2,66Ghz). But even then it's bottlenecking my GFX card (GTX 660) hard.

[Deleted]

Yes, the game is extremely cpu depended.

Go look at any benchmark, and you'll see any amd cpu at the very bottom. my best advice is first try to overclock, but ultimately you should just trash the amd cpu and get a i5/i7 k-model (for overclocking)

gw2 uses a single main threat that runs on a single core - that is why you're amd cpu struggle, it got 8 cores as far as i know - but at the same time each core is very weak on its own, that spells utter disaster for running gw2 - and unless they redesign the engine, there is not much you can do about it.

As reference i use a i5 2500k oc at 4.2 ghz and 2 x gtx 570, i run in 1440p and i get stable 60 fps even in zergs with +50 people. and thats is including running with sweetFX as well (for awesome graphics) intel + invida is superior for gw2 - also my rig is over 2 1/2 years old and still runs the game like a boss

[Moonsera]

I took i7-3770K (didn't overclock) and GTX670. FPS is quite good on ultras but in Lion's Arch it's dropping from 60-80 to 20-25 and don't want to go back.

[Lukazor]

Just to update this.

I overclocked the AMD to 4Ghz which has improved performance. I get around 35-40 fps in Lions Arch with everything on high/ultra which is much better than what I was getting previously at least and gpu usage is right up to around 70% (was sat at 31% prior to the overclock). I still seem to get some erratic frame rates out in the world just general playing though so I'm still not 100% happy but happier at least.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure this will help but did you uninstall the Nvidia drivers correctly?

[Mif]

Released today: AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta Driver
"Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, and Guild Wars 2"

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...etaDriver.aspx

[Lukazor]

Released today: AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta Driver
"Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, and Guild Wars 2"

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...etaDriver.aspx

I'll give that driver a go later this evening, thanks!

[Shakadam]

Released today: AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta Driver
"Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, and Guild Wars 2"

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...etaDriver.aspx

Doesn't do anything to improve the FPS though, it's just aimed at reducing the jitter caused by uneven frame rendering times.

[Sojou]

Your FPS sounds about right. GW2 is insanely CPU demanding and your Phenom is bottlenecking, simple as that. Try overclocking that CPU further if you can. AMD cpu's aren't generally very good at GW2 because the game engine places a high demand on core by core processing power, something AMD is notoriously bad at these days.

If you want to play GW2 on highest settings you're going to need a Intel Sandybridge/Ivybridge quad-core running at 4.5+Ghz, and even then you'll be seeing drops down to 30-ish fps in crowded WvW situations. GPU is of lesser importance, a GTX 660ti will handle everything on highest settings as long as you have a really good CPU.

OC'ing is a really good method for boosting fps in GW2 though so start by doing that if possible. I have an older Core2Quad (Q9450) that gives me 10-15 fps more when OC'ed to 3,2Ghz compared to stock speed (2,66Ghz). But even then it's bottlenecking my GFX card (GTX 660) hard.

I've got a Phenom x4 965BE at stock 3.4 speeds and run GW2 at max settings just fine. Outside of WvW I don't see drops below 30fps.

[Shakadam]

I've got a Phenom x4 965BE at stock 3.4 speeds and run GW2 at max settings just fine. Outside of WvW I don't see drops below 30fps.

The phenom x4 is pretty much just as fast as the x6 in gw2 because the extra cores do nothing, the x4 might actually be faster at stock due to higher clock speed. You'll notice OP says he gets ~50fps out in the world which I'm guessing is around what you get with max settings as well.

LA/WvW is noticably more demanding though, I should maybe have clarified my post to point that out. I can run around in the world with 40-50 fps at max settings as well (Q9450 OC'ed + GTX 660), but if I enter WvW with loads of players around me, my fps absolutely tanks down to ~10-20. Thus I have some stuff set at medium, gives me nearly constant 60 fps out in the world and I don't drop below 20fps in WvW unless it's REALLY crowded.

That's what people mean when they say you need 4,5ghz+ and sandy/ivybridge. It's the only way to get respectable FPS in a busy WvW situation. If you don't care at all about WvW you can get by with a lesser processor but you'll still get drops when there's lots of people around you in that case (such as in LA).

Edit: I can also add that I upgraded from a crossfire setup of 2x radeon 4850 to a GTX 660 and it did fuck all in heavy WvW battles (well, I gained maybe 2 fps or so) even though the GTX 660 is vastly more powerful normally. Why? Because my CPU is bottlenecking, not the GPU.

[Deleted]

I've got a Phenom x4 965BE at stock 3.4 speeds and run GW2 at max settings just fine. Outside of WvW I don't see drops below 30fps.

dude, "just fine" and 30 fps does not belong in the same sentence

Anything not running at 60fps (on a 60hz monitor) i would consider low fps. a few times around stonemist keep when all 3 servers meet i've been down to around 30fps and its just horrible lag-cluster.

[Deleted]

I've got a Phenom x4 965BE at stock 3.4 speeds and run GW2 at max settings just fine. Outside of WvW I don't see drops below 30fps.

I can confirm this. Got a Phenom II hexacore here, and running GW2 at max settings as well, with a similar graphics card, and 30 FPS.

---------- Post added 2013-02-02 at 06:29 PM ----------

dude, "just fine" and 30 fps does not belong in the same sentence

Anything not running at 60fps (on a 60hz monitor) i would consider low fps. a few times around stonemist keep when all 3 servers meet i've been down to around 30fps and its just horrible lag-cluster.

How can anything below 60 FPS be "low FPS" when 60 FPS is the maximum a 60 Hz LCD screen shows anyway? Is there one "high FPS" with the rest being "low FPS"? Doesn't sound realistic when someone's using such extremes, does it? Your post has "ricer" written all over it.

Honestly, AMD CPUs are top notch from a price/performance POV.

[Ghostpanther]

dude, "just fine" and 30 fps does not belong in the same sentence

Anything not running at 60fps (on a 60hz monitor) i would consider low fps. a few times around stonemist keep when all 3 servers meet i've been down to around 30fps and its just horrible lag-cluster.

I do not agree that anything below 60 fps is low fps. Most players will never notice any difference between 30 and 60 fps. Unless they keep a eye on the FPS meter all the time and I bet then, the cause is likely in thier imagination. I only notice a slow down in fps when it starts to drop below 30 fps. But then again...I donot run a constant fps display ether. If it is above 30 fps, I could not care less and the game play is not impacted in the least.

To the OP, I think the bottleneck is your CPU. I am running a I7 2600, with a Radeon 6850 and I donot have the same issues as you. The game rarely drops below 40 fps, with high settings in all situations. Usaully is right at the 60 fps because I have vsnyc on and the monitor set at 60hz.