Stuttering Issues

[Naga Coatl]

Premise: I know that there is a Performance Thread, but it seems focused only in asking how GW2 should run on various machines so I want to avoid to derail that topic with a 'Issues' post.

That said...

Hi everyone, I'm here because I have serious problems with GW2 performance, and I hope that someone can help me. Before I start, I must say that I am absolutely not an expert of PCs/software/hardware, and I never overclocked or 'manipulated' anything.

I play GW2 on an Asus G73sw laptop, and its specs are

Windows 7 64
Geforce GTX460M 1.5GB (with the latest beta drivers, checked daily)
8GB RAM
Intel i7 2630QM

I play with everything on medium, and while normally my fps is about 50-60, after a few seconds I log in a strange phenomenon begins: very often, even if I stand still, the fps drops to 15-20 for about two seconds, and then rises to 50-60 again. This event occurs spontaneously, but curiously also every time I open the Black Lion Trading menu, when I change tabs, and even when I look the various Style Tab accessories. These continuous slowdowns are totally destroying the gameplay, because the game shifts from 60 to 20 fps almost cyclically, creating a frustrating stuttering experience.

I read about checking CPU and GPU temps and usages, and I did various tests in game, so here's my observations and notes.

- While the slowdown seems to happen when the game needs to 'load' something (Black Lion tabs for example) and I thought that it might be a Hard Disk problem (like for the infamous Diablo 3 stuttering issues), in GW2 the HDD leds don't blink during the stuttering so it doesn't appear that it's 'working badly'. I tried with an external drive, and it didn't change nothing.
- Modifying graphic settings alters the maximum fps, but it does not stop the problem. Even putting everything to minimum does nothing for that.
- It's obviously not a 'specs' issue because a friend of mine with an inferior laptop plays with less maximum fps, but no stuttering problem, using the same graphic settings.
- I noticed that while I play, the CPU usage is about 25% average, but 'CPU 7' in the monitoring program appears to have a constant 80-90% usage (that becomes 99% when I alt-tab to check). I don't know if it's a meaningful detail.
- CPU temps are about 70 °C.
- GPU usage is constantly 95-97%, and its temperature is about 85-92 °C when I'm playing and not alt-tabbed.

Since I understand almost nothing about Pcs when things become technical, I have no clear idea of what the problem could be. I read somewhere that for a GPU such a high temperature is 'not alarming' and 'normal', but I'm not too convinced about that because others said that it's too high. Before telling me that I should have opened my laptop to clean everything as my first try to solve anything, mind that I can't do that without making the warranty void, so I tried other solutions first. While I still suspect that it may be the cause, can the GPU overheating really be correlated with fps drops during things such exploring the Black Lion Trading menu? Or are these problems 'know issues' or something similar that don't have nothing to do with the heat?


Thanks in advance to everyone that knows something or has ideas about this. And sorry for my ignorance if the solution is stupid. :P

[Deleted]

I don't know if this is the right place for computer related problems since there is a forum for that (even tho it's a problem with GW2) Right anyway. I can say, what i've read, that the GPU is the problem here. If the CPU usage is that low compared to the GPU, which hovers at max usage and those temps, it's most likely a bottleneck issue with the mobile GPU. If there is any way you could somehow lower the overall temperature around the laptop (a powerful fan, something) and check if the temps really are a culprit, you could try that.

Edit: What comes to the UI. Some User Interface tools like Scaleform are GPU bound (most cases) and will tax the GPU.

[Naga Coatl]

I posted here because it's a problem that I only have with this game, but if it's the wrong place then I'm sorry, my fault.

Thanks for the input anyway, I'll try to lower the temperature somehow. Unfortunately I have no idea about how to reduce that GPU bottleneck though...

[theredviola]

I suggest a speech therap-- oh... computer stuttering. Well, then you should visit and post in this thread: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ormance-thread