Istan - Champion's Dawn is Unplayable!

In short, the area in and around Champion's Dawn in Istan has severe lag/stuttering issues. The rest of the game, and even the zone of Istan, is completely normal. Only going into this area makes the game unplayable.

Anet, please help! I've Googled and only see people with similar issues but no real solutions or official acknowledgement of the problem. I haven't done the new story or really touched the new zone because of this.

I won't act like I know everything about computers, but due to the specific area in the world that the problem is occurring for multiple people across many different machines and ISP's it seems like the problem may be on Anet's side. But if it turns out I can fix it on my computer that would be great too!

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/19792/champions-dawns-lag-is-atrocious-anyone-else

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18286/feedback-terrible-performance-on-istan

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18167/massive-fps-drop-in-west-sw-istan

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18493/new-istan-map-have-insane-lag

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7gmm7r/horrible_fps_drop_near_champions_dawn/

Going to say it has something to do with peoples computers as I've never experienced any issues there, even when events are going on and it's crowded with Awakened...so not sure what the problem is, but maybe it's a just a more memory intensive area and those with lots of RAM don't experience any issues, perhaps.

First of all. I have no doubt the issue is real....for some people. If it would be just a game issue, all would suffer. So it has to do with at least the combination of gameclient and server. I do not think it is a network issue (otherwise it should happen elsewhere).

I personally think it has to do with the computer configuration (not at all saying it is a bad rig), but also certain textures in the new map. It actually see, to happen with high end rigs.

I do advise to not just complain, but also share your computer specs.

You're both right, I know better than to say it has nothing to do with my computer.

However I (and many others in the linked posts) have no problems anywhere else in the game, and this area isn't outwardly some anomaly of crazy effects. It feels very buggy.

There are plenty of specs listed in the posts I looked as well. Happy to add mine this evening.

@Zaklex.6308 said:Going to say it has something to do with peoples computers as I've never experienced any issues there, even when events are going on and it's crowded with Awakened...so not sure what the problem is, but maybe it's a just a more memory intensive area and those with lots of RAM don't experience any issues, perhaps.Haha ram issues, wat. GW2 demands nothing of a modern machine and people probably have 16-32gb ram anyway. When the game drops performance, it will drop it no matter the specs. Its most likely a particle effect thats hogging performance, maybe a dev accidentally spammed ctrl c+v on the spot. The most comparable performance example is garrison on DBL. When stealth fog is up performance take a dosedive compared to no fog.

To me it seems there has been a change to their engine that has not been posted.Ive noticed the same in wvw where my fps in blobvblob is lower than it used to be.After reinstalling windows,putting windows 10 on it and doing everything i could even overclocking my cpu/nb it remains the same while my other games get a massive increase in fps.The gw2 engine is just not that well optimized being dx9 and heavily relying on the cpu while your gpu is half asleep.

I don't disagree that the game is poorly optimized but I think this is less a general engine issue and more an acute bug. Running from the Astralarium to Champions Dawn will put me from completely smooth and normal to less than 1 fps almost instantly. Nothing about this feels like normal blob lag.

I totally agree with the OP about Champion's Dawn.

I have no idea why it's not affecting more people, but when I was in the zone I asked in map chat if others were having the issue, and there were a few more that spoke up and said they're having the same problem.

I don't believe it has anything to do with my computer's hardware b/c 1. This has NEVER happened anywhere in the game before nor is it happening anywhere else now, in all honestly the ONLY comparable time was when I was doing the halloween events, but even then it's different, b/c in those cases it's not nearly as bad as Champion's Dawn, 2. The rest of the zone is fine and there are no players around me nor was I playing during peak hours. I don't have this issue in any other MMO / game I play / movies / media / whatever. The only time this game lags is right when I enter Champion's Dawn. I ran out, fine, ran in, instant lag.

I did experience crashes when I upgraded to windows 10, however, again, I don't have the lag anywhere else and I don't crash in Champ's Dawn I just lag horribly. I did notice my game won't run 32bit, only 64bit so I don't know if there's something to do with that.

It's not just a PC issue, it's an optimization issue for sure. I know someone on a top-of-the-line PC and he literally groans whenever he has to go near Champion's Dawn because his frames drop to almost unplayable levels.

Fine, then I won't suggest what the problem is, all I know is that my Alienware Aurora has no issues with the game slowing to a crawl in Champions Dawn, and I haven't set up anything special other than what I ordered in the system. As for optimization, there's only so much optimization you can do with an engine that is CPU heavy and doesn't utilize GPU's for much.

I can second this and posted in another thread about it. I get 60-100fps is most areas of the game. In the new PoF areas, I still get 50-60s. In Istan in general, about 60-ish. In Champions Dawn, 9-16 fps. It's not specs related. It may be that there are issues with it not playing well with a particular type of hardware, but it would be nice to know that it's at least being looked into.

i7-6700k w/ 16GB RAM on an ASUS Maximus Hero VIII MBMSI R9 390X 8GBSamsung 512SSD (GW2 runs on the SSD)WD 1TB HDD

I think it has something to do with how high you have set your shader setting I just set mine to low and I don't have a problem.

@"Adamantium.3682" said:In short, the area in and around Champion's Dawn in Istan has severe lag/stuttering issues. The rest of the game, and even the zone of Istan, is completely normal. Only going into this area makes the game unplayable.

Anet, please help! I've Googled and only see people with similar issues but no real solutions or official acknowledgement of the problem. I haven't done the new story or really touched the new zone because of this.

I won't act like I know everything about computers, but due to the specific area in the world that the problem is occurring for multiple people across many different machines and ISP's it seems like the problem may be on Anet's side. But if it turns out I can fix it on my computer that would be great too!

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/19792/champions-dawns-lag-is-atrocious-anyone-else

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18286/feedback-terrible-performance-on-istan

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18167/massive-fps-drop-in-west-sw-istan

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18493/new-istan-map-have-insane-lag

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7gmm7r/horrible_fps_drop_near_champions_dawn/

I played this area today.

I am just now getting over the nausea from the stop-motion and jerking screen from the massive lag - two plus hours ago.

This is as bad as any WvW map on reset night that has a queue of 50+.

@"Artim.5139" said:I think it has something to do with how high you have set your shader setting I just set mine to low and I don't have a problem.

Mine isn't on anywhere near 'high" and even if I lower the settings, the same thing occurs.

It's not our computers. It's the network - a very bad network that has some (who knows how many) leased servers from Amazon - without any optimization for gaming.

I set reflections to Off or Terrain/Sky and both make Champion's Dawn play a lot closer to every other area in the game. I think there's something leaking through the water reflections.

I do not get why there always have to be self righteous folks who have to contradict anything that people, with a fair concern, post. That area is very laggy. It is the only area currently in living story creating the issue (as far as I know.) It takes no expert to understand that IF your computer runs all areas well and stutters in that one only, the issue IS ON ANET's side. End of the story. No fake news here, people.