FPS IN GW2 COMPARED TO 2019 GAMES

Why is Gw2 FPS so low for an older game compared to say UT4 which is still Pre Alpha check these screenshots which show gw2 running by itself 1080p with 63 fps at medium settings vs Unreal Tournament 4 Pre Alpha running in 1080p at the same time while Gw2 is running and running with 200.17 fps at epic the highest of settings. Gw2 is much older can someone explain why the fps is so low ?

Looks like your fps are capped. 63 is the maximum you get when capped at 60. You can remove that in the ingame graphic options.

Not the case 63 was what i could get with graphics turned down to medium lowish , if i put them to high i get 40ish

Have you tried turning down your Character Model Limit? That might help.

Ok that got me up to 52 with high settings. Any other tweaks i might be missing to get me up to the playable 60 fps with high settings ?

Well, now you have Supersample on and High Shaders. Try lowering them a bit?Maybe Postprocessing down a tick?

I have no idea where that even is so I cant make a comparison, but 45-50 fps is what I get in a packed LA. Shaders and model limit is pretty much the only thing that change performance and in terms of graphics prowess, I'm on a mediocre 1060 3gb, though an 8700K for that helps. Shaders to low in particular boost by like 50% but I find it dull so I leave it on.

Comparing so different games is pointless.

k thx for the tips i guess this is the expected performance level for gw2

@HandofDemise.7486 said:k thx for the tips i guess this is the expected performance level for gw2

well, when you are dealing with a game thats game engine is from GW1, with some minor upgrades, what do you expect? Ive never really understood why people think that older games should instantly get better FPS, the vast majority of games i have from the early 2000s that i still play barely get 60fps.

@HandofDemise.7486 said:k thx for the tips i guess this is the expected performance level for gw2

Basically... if you want high FPS on GW2 you need a PROCESSOR with very strong single-thread performance. Most Processors, and in fact most modern games as well, focus on evenly distributing the load across multiple processing threads in order to get peak performance. GW2 specifically overloads the main processing thread, and so CPUs that handle well optimized and properly multi-threaded games are not actually very good for playing GW2. ANet is aware of the problem, but it's not really feasible for them to fix it without MAJOR game engine rewrites which may just not be worth it for an Engine that is more than 13 years old (It is the same game engine that the first Guild Wars used, heavily modified of course.)

UT4 is a poor comparison. I mean i've tried it, it's a bit barren, both in terms of players and map decorations. It doesn't really have to work much. Also, the problem with GW2 is not really the environment, it's the players. And UT only has 16 of them at most iirc, while GW2 goes to the hundreds. That's why reducing player models has such a drastic improvement in performance.Also, Supersampling on a 1080p?

@Dante.1763 said:

@"HandofDemise.7486" said:k thx for the tips i guess this is the expected performance level for gw2

That's odd. My problem with most older games is that they don't have limiters, so it's like playing a game on turbo...Also, it really depends on the game... I mean GW2 is still being "supported" so they should be actively working to improve the engine (which they claim they do "under the hood", but with little to no visible improvements, if anything there's whole areas and maps on recent releases that are even worse than anything in the original content), comparing GW2 to older less supported games is a bit unfair to the other games.

GW2 is CPU bound. Just because a game is older it does not mean it will run better on newer CPUs necessarily. CPUs in the last 5-8 years have focused more on increasing core count rather than increasing single core frequency mostly because it is not possible any more besides small improvements. This means that older game engines that where designed for single cores will not improve much with newer hardware since they can still just use a single core mostly. And the GW2 engine was made in 2004.

UE4 is a new engine made with multithreading ( thus using more than one cores) in mind. Thus runs more efficiency in modern CPUs. Also UT4 is more GPU bound since it is not an MMO (most MMOs are CPU bound cause the CPU needs to handle all computations referring to all other players in you map). Accounting for 36 players on a UT4 map is much lighter than accounting for 150 that is a typical Gw2 map.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:UT4 is a poor comparison. I mean i've tried it, it's a bit barren, both in terms of players and map decorations. It doesn't really have to work much. Also, the problem with GW2 is not really the environment, it's the players. And UT only has 16 of them at most iirc, while GW2 goes to the hundreds. That's why reducing player models has such a drastic improvement in performance.Also, Supersampling on a 1080p?

@Dante.1763 said:

@"HandofDemise.7486" said:k thx for the tips i guess this is the expected performance level for gw2

I think it depends on the game of course, FPS and fighting games ive noticed that effect. My strategy games(RTS, turn based or other wise) ive noticed that they dont get very high even if the limiter is shut off(if they have that option at all.). To be honest im kinda hoping the next expansion also includes an engine overhaul or massive update, including multi core support. If a RTS i play made by a much smaller company than ANET, that was released in 2004 can do it i fail to see why GW2 couldnt do it.

You have a crappy CPU. Furthermore 60fps is enough. If you fell for the 144hz meme ... well joke's on you. You just overpaid hundreds of dollars/euros for a shitty TN panel you would have gotten 5 years ago for $90. Hell, possibly for free even because no one wanted TN panels back then until the manufacturers sprinkled a boatload of money over tech youtubers and suddenly 144hz was all the rage. /rant

The engine is very old and poorly optimized for today's standard. That said; why do you need 60 FPS? I have barely 30 FPS in the new areas with my 2012 PC and I don't have any problems to play it. This is not a competitive FPS like Overwatch where FPS is important. Back in 1996 when Quake released I was happy to get 30 FPS to play it 'fuildly'. Yes, that was normal: 30 FPS was just standard and it wasn't considered bad. We are just used to it.

Back in the 90s a framerate at a minimum of the screen refresh rate was still considered optimal, even on the old CRTs. 30 fps in competitive game modes does put you at something of a disadvantage.

As others have said, GW2 is based on a fairly old engine that usually has a CPU bottleneck and doesn't do threading well (when the engine was originally written, multi-core CPUs were in their infancy). Modern game engines are not only written to handle multi-core CPUs better, they're also designed to work on consoles which tend to require more optimization.

@Ben K.6238 said:Back in the 90s a framerate at a minimum of the screen refresh rate was still considered optimal, even on the old CRTs. 30 fps in competitive game modes does put you at something of a disadvantage.

As others have said, GW2 is based on a fairly old engine that usually has a CPU bottleneck and doesn't do threading well (when the engine was originally written, multi-core CPUs were in their infancy). Modern game engines are not only written to handle multi-core CPUs better, they're also designed to work on consoles which tend to require more optimization.

This... If we ever want a amazingly optimized GW2 client, we just have to push for it to be ported for switch, and hope the hire Panic Button for the job. Those guys apparently are wizards at optimization (this coming from the game director for Warframe about Panic Button's work on that game's port for the switch).

Turn supersample to normal. It's a stupid setting that mostly just kills fps.