Guild Wars 2 bad optimization...?

iyzik

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So just installed Guild Wars 2 along with latest CAPs and am getting negative crossfire scaling (what a surprise), seeing kinda the same thing we all had with Skyrim on crossfire when it first came out. Gpu usage is pretty low 40-70 and fps 40-60 (v sync on), dips and stutters badly a lot. Today I disabled crossfire and have been playing that way since, performance is better but still not what I would expect from a 7970. Gpu usage around 60-75 and fps 45-60 but still bad stutter very noticeable and frequent dips. At first I thought it was just crossfire problem until I had the same problem (almost) with single gpu. So is this universal problem with everyone just crappy optimization or no?
System is in sig if needed.
 
Solution
Don't blame devs for not making the games use 4 or more cores. It's pretty much impossible. Doing so would just slow the program down due to memory locking slowness. They can put totally different things on different threads that don't need to share data, but they cannot split rendering into two threads, or anything else that needs to share data. It's impossible: two threads cannot access same memory at the same time.

dst1157

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Having the same problem. My system:

AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz
EVGA GeForce GTX 670
4 GB Corsair DDR3 (1333 for now going to switch to 1600 soon)

Framerates are usually in the 30-40 range, sometimes up to 50 in small rooms, but down to 15-25 in WvW.

Apparently there is some sort of issue with the current release Nvidia driver (I know this doesn't apply to you but there might be something similar for ATI). If you login to GW2 with the current drivers there's a message saying that you need to use the beta drivers. Well, I tried the beta drivers but they didn't help.

But anyway, yes there does seem to be some issue with a lack of optimization either with GW2 itself or with the drivers.
 
Hi,
OP - your problem is most likely the lack of optimized GW2 drivers from AMD

@dst1157 - your problem is most likely the bulldozer. video games don't like the architecture nor do they bother to use all 8 cores. as for nvidia, 306.02 are the GW2 optimized drivers, they aren't perfect, but a number of people reported better fps

Not to sound like a fan boy, but looking at your issues is why amd has been losing stock price. Their hardware is impressive on paper but in real world use they come up short
 

dst1157

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I know I took a risk with the Bulldozer, I was hoping that newer games would take advantage of more cores. It does have 2x the cores of the current Sandy Bridges. So in theory even if games use only 2-4 cores, the operating system and all other tasks like music player and web browser could use the other cores. It looks like GW2 isn't fully utilizing even 2 cores (of the 8 available), so is that really AMD's problem?

Most people have quad-core processors now. When I look at the CPU usage for GW2 only one core is maxed out, and the rest are at about 50%. Game developers can't keep coding like it's the 90's and people only have one processor core, and just hope the clock speed of that one core is high enough to handle everything. So there is some process that is limiting the GPU usage by maxing out one core. This needs to be split into several separate processes. Each core of my CPU is 3.2 GHz which really ought to be enough.

I can run BF3 and Skyrim easily on ultra 1920x1200 at 60+ FPS. With GW2, I never get 60 FPS, even in small rooms with no other players or NPCs. That's Anet's (or Nvidia's) problem. There are people with current i7's that are also having issues. So until I start seeing multiple CPU cores maxed out, instead of just one, I'm going to think this is Anet's problem of not writing properly threaded code.
 

iyzik

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I second this ^^
@AntiZig I don't think it is just AMD slow on their drivers as I have heard this problem just as common with GTX 670 and other NVIDIA cards.

Just very bad game coding I think they need some serious engine updates.
 
from what I've heard/read GW2 is actually coded to make use of 4 cores. I'm not sure how efficient it is at that though. I'm sure there's plenty more optimising and compatibility work Anet has to do, they didn't focus on that process until after all the beta events were over, so they basically got no performance testing until the game was out. So, I'm not surprized they are still working things out and probably still will be by sept 28th, but hopefully a month will get us further along the way
 

casualcolors

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They don't need engine updates. All they did was update the original GW1 engine to begin with. They should have made a new engine optimized for modern hardware.
 
Don't blame devs for not making the games use 4 or more cores. It's pretty much impossible. Doing so would just slow the program down due to memory locking slowness. They can put totally different things on different threads that don't need to share data, but they cannot split rendering into two threads, or anything else that needs to share data. It's impossible: two threads cannot access same memory at the same time.
 
Solution

iyzik

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Agreed but nonetheless most modern games do have the capability to use atleast two threads. Bf3 will use 7-8 if you have HT.
 

casualcolors

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Well, in the interest of transparency, BF3 can use virtual cores but doing so actually diminishes the game's performance. There is more than just the question of whether or can you use more cores. The real question is can you use more cores effectively?
 

iyzik

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I think you will bf3 actually does use more threads effectively (as an example). If HT is turned off I get significantly lower fps and slightly more stuttery. Some people say to turn it off for bf3 some say definitely leave it on, but idk I find it performs much better with HT on.
As for GW2 I can understand them not making it capable of using 4-8 threads but seriously only one.... I mean c'mon GTX 670 dips to 30s, CF 7970s dips to 40s.... GPU usage is never over 70%.... And that is with latest drivers from both AMD and NVIDIA. Sounds like bad game coding to me, they need a couple updates or some optimized drivers or something.
 

casualcolors

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Sounds like placebo effect on your end. Here are some real numbers for you to mull over regarding hyperthreading and BF3 performance.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1151970/my-own-bf3-benchmark-hyperthreading-on-vs-off

This is just for your sake though. In reality BF3 doesn't use enough of any single core for it to matter if you're running on 4 or 6 or 8. The game is significantly GPU bound thankfully.
 

iyzik

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Hmm.. 2fps difference and thats on single player. Multiplayer is where that really needs to be benched HT on vs HT off. Problem is hard to do the same exact thing in mp to get accurate result. Maybe I'll try it out again on my rig later on and see what I come up with.
 

casualcolors

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HT doesn't add anything in multiplayer either. CPU use during the game spikes at 60% across all cores at its highest.