Upgrade for Guild Wars 2

[agio]

Hey all,

I bought this computer a few years ago because my older one couldn't handle the massive fights in Darkfall (few hundred people on screen) and it did the job wonderfully. My love for large scale warfare has me in the exact same situation with GW2. I can play on high settings with playable FPS while leveling solo/small group but when I do large events (30-50 people) it gets pretty sluggish and when I do World v World (80+) it gets pretty bad. I can still kinda function but yuck, on best performance settings.

Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8500
4GB
DX11
Windows 7 ultimate 64
Nvidia Geforce GTX 260
1280x1024 resolution

My budget is as cheap yet effective as possible. My mission is to get acceptable/good frame rates during large scale fights on low settings, I couldn't care less about graphics.

Thanks.

 

[Eroge]

When I was trying to test my computer with Guild Wars 2, the best FPS I got in WvW, on lowest settings, was 13 while in one of those big battles.

I have AMD Athlon II x4 3ghz and GTX 460 SE - I'm interested in seeing some replies to your thread because I'd like to know what kind of set up you need to get 30+ constant FPS while in a 80man battle

 

[iyzik]

Well that CPU you have there is a tad old and slow for WvW on GW2, especially considering the game is only coded to use one core. I still dip to 40s with an i7 3770K OC @ 4.5GHz cuz game only let's you use one core. So I guess your only option would be to get a new mobo with LGA 1155 socket and grab an i3 or preferably i5 and hope they update the game to take advantage of quad core and dual core CPUs.

 

[agio]

I'm not tech savvy at all, please let me know if these would boost my performance considerably and be compatible? Thanks.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128555

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115074

 

[AntiZig]

Well that CPU you have there is a tad old and slow for WvW on GW2, especially considering the game is only coded to use one core. I still dip to 40s with an i7 3770K OC @ 4.5GHz cuz game only let's you use one core. So I guess your only option would be to get a new mobo with LGA 1155 socket and grab an i3 or preferably i5 and hope they update the game to take advantage of quad core and dual core CPUs.

not to start a flame war but your information isn't entirely correct. The game does run better with more cores. It does not "only let's you use one core". That's 2002. What the game is lacking is proper optimization, it uses 4 cores, just not efficiently.

I agree with your advice on getting a newer CPU, C2D is not a bad CPU to sport, but it's rather weak for gaming today.

With regards to dips in large scale battles, decrease your LOD to minimum and decrease animation and shadow detail to minimum as well. The less your CPU have to bother with different things the more it will be able to focus on feeding the GPU at proper rate. If you have reflections all the way up, try turning them off too (i'm fairly sure it's mostly load for GPU but try it out).

@ newegg links,
those look good, but for like $5 more you can get the latest
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116506

 

[agio]

I have all my visual settings to the lowest possible when I experience the lag. With these 2 changes do you think I will have ~30fps in large scale fights? Is my current 4gb ram enough? Video card a necessity to upgrade? Thanks

 

[iyzik]

not to start a flame war but your information isn't entirely correct. The game does run better with more cores. It does not "only let's you use one core". That's 2002. What the game is lacking is proper optimization, it uses 4 cores, just not efficiently.

I agree with your advice on getting a newer CPU, C2D is not a bad CPU to sport, but it's rather weak for gaming today.

With regards to dips in large scale battles, decrease your LOD to minimum and decrease animation and shadow detail to minimum as well. The less your CPU have to bother with different things the more it will be able to focus on feeding the GPU at proper rate. If you have reflections all the way up, try turning them off too (i'm fairly sure it's mostly load for GPU but try it out).

@ newegg links,
those look good, but for like $5 more you can get the latest
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116506

Interesting, thank you for the correction. I must admit I have not personally looked at how many threads were being used in game but from the bad optimization and online forums, I kinda just assumed it was just only coded to use one core.

@agio yes that would help very much. I really don't know a lot about NVIDIA cards pre-400 series so idk how powerful a 260 is but you might want to look a more powerful one? Just to check em out

 

[XXStavrosXX]

I suggest you buy this CPU and mobo:

Core i5-3450 (as already mentioned): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116506

GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128547

Also, even if you don't care about image quality, you will see great benefits if you upgrade your GPU with a new gen one that can utilize DirectX11 better, like this HD 7770 or this HD 7750:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125435
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125417

EDIT: 4GB ram is enough, its mainly the CPU and secondarily the GPU that holds you back.

 

[agio]

Excellent. I will be going ahead and ordering those 3 products this evening unless anyone has any other input/advice. Thanks guys.

 

[AntiZig]

Yeah go for it if you can afford the expense. 200 series were great cards but they are on their way out, even if you're running 285 sli it's getting old. Good luck with the new parts!

 

[agio]

Best answer selected by agio.

 

[XXStavrosXX]

Glad I could help!