This game needs to work with computers in 2020

We've all given a passing glance to the lag in towns or maps with too many players, I'm not really going to go in depth about it. In 2020 we're going to see new consoles, new processors and everything else. Right now, this game is built for older computers but even now it can't perform the way every other game can with maxed out systems. If this game is going to survive, Anet needs to bring everything out of the dx9 days. I'm not saying take it out of dx9, I understand development and time, but there's no way this game shouldn't run great on decked out PCs. I don't have a maxed out PC either like many of the folks here, which means we get it even worse. Every map and expansion will only get worse for performance, and I doubt I'm the only person who has stopped playing due to it.

If they'll redo this game with the newer machines in mind, it won't start to run better on older machines - it will run worse on them.

There is no reason why a game using Dx9 does not work on a 2020 PC, absolutely no reason!

On the other hand, having to adapt to profound changes in the OS is something else.

Then you don't recode a game engine like that. A game engine is the most expensive thing created for a studio. And we don't recode that for a game that's not going to bring in much money, after adapting it, I think it's already the case since the beginning, they've adapted the engine well between GW2 and GW2 HoT. And it continues to do what needs to be done in a balance between cost, time and profitability.

@Kalocin.5982 said:. I'm not saying take it out of dx9, I understand development and time, but there's no way this game shouldn't run great on decked out PCs.Isn't this contradictory? To improve the game's performance, it would have to be re-developed.

I still wonder of course they have their proprietary engine, but other companies dish out new support for newer DX versions. And GW2 still sticks to 9.0c, which they even used since GW1! I mean wtf? This DX version is more than 10 years old!

I'm sure Arenanet collects data of which OS their players are using and if they wanted to ditch dx9 they would have by now. Maybe the amount of players still playing this game on potato machines from 20 years ago don't justify the cost of making an engine change.

Sure, and restrict the player base to people living in countries where money exchange rates don't exist or are reasonable enough to allow us to afford a new rig.

imagine you beefed up your PC with AMD Ryzen 9 3950x 16 cores-32 threads and still run @ 10 fps LOL

Really, it's the lack of older machines that can't deal with newer versions than DX9 that justify going DX11+ only where possible. The figure was less than 0.1% of machines on XP or earlier in another game I'm involved with, and I'd be surprised if it's much higher here.

kharmin is right however - to get the most out of modern multi-core CPUs the engine would need code changes at a low level. Might get some performance improvements out of a quick and dirty DX11 wrapper too, but I couldn't speculate on how long it would take to do the job properly.

@ReActif.9251 said:There is no reason why a game using Dx9 does not work on a 2020 PC, absolutely no reason!

On the other hand, having to adapt to profound changes in the OS is something else.

Then you don't recode a game engine like that. A game engine is the most expensive thing created for a studio. And we don't recode that for a game that's not going to bring in much money, after adapting it, I think it's already the case since the beginning, they've adapted the engine well between GW2 and GW2 HoT. And it continues to do what needs to be done in a balance between cost, time and profitability.

Gw2 is the only game that brings money to anet and without any new titles for the forseeable future they need to adapt.

Game needs better optimisation and qol changes or after some point wont bother with it.

Just think of all the money you're saving by not buying a new PC every 6 months!!!

The one I built now is you could say is reverse engineered to be optimized for GW2.

@maddoctor.2738 said:I'm sure Arenanet collects data of which OS their players are using and if they wanted to ditch dx9 they would have by now. Maybe the amount of players still playing this game on potato machines from 20 years ago don't justify the cost of making an engine change.

Im not so sure. Arena net collecting data doesnt mean they act smartly upon them. If they did we wouldnt have the material meme at the start of pof where u couldnt banks mats which caused them to die off on the tp.

Or better off, if they looked at the data there would be an expansion announced and in the works. If they looked at data their guild chats would have interesting contents to show like their old poi who showed raid boss designs and well as the sky scale one a while back that had multiple times the viewer engagement of their normal ones.

I think its far more likely that they dont see (or didnt see) gw2 as their main longterm source of income for long and that they were fine with the state the game and its systems were in. I mean, if they saw gw2 as their main thing they wouldnt be taking more and more devs during se4 to work on the unannounced projects (to the extend that would cause the majority of the episodes to be delayed).

@zealex.9410 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:I'm sure Arenanet collects data of which OS their players are using and if they wanted to ditch dx9 they would have by now. Maybe the amount of players still playing this game on potato machines from 20 years ago don't justify the cost of making an engine change.

I was talking about hardware data, like which OS players use, CPU and GPU. The error reports that the game provides when it crashes includes your system specs so Arenanet must know your system specs, at least the most essential components. They've already updated their system requirements with the release of Path of Fire (minimum specs for POF are different to those from HOT/release) which means they not only have the data, but make adjustments when they see fit.

Any 2020 Windows PC will run DirectX 9.0c games just fine. If MS ever decides to not ship Windows with DX9.0c support, it will most likely be available for installation because there are tons and tons of games that require it. And MS is not going to alienate all of the large (retro) gaming community.

Having said that, A DX11 (Windows 7+8) / DX12 (Windows 10) or Vulcan renderer would be a very welcome addition to the game.

there will be new computers for sure in 2020.

and also there will still be 2012ish++ < 2020 computers in that year.

compare which are more ubiquitous.

Of course all games require optimization.But you react as a player, you're so far from how it works in the real world.And Anet earns so much money that they have laid off a very large part of the employees and that the parent company had to put the studio under supervision in order to avoid bankruptcy.

But apart from that of course it must be optimized but it will have to do with what is achievable with the number of devs available and the knowledge requested because to modify a game engine it is not a developer game that comes into play but a developer game specialist and moreover Anet had posted requests for devs with knowledge in Unity for example, who knows, possibly to use his know-how to improve GW2 Engine.

Afterwards, the game is working very well there and I suppose I can see what you would like to see but know that you will be confronted with a technical reality.You can't keep the game with the cards as large with so many players visible AND make it as effective as a FPS.The technical limitation whatever the engine (not all are able to do multi as GW2 requires) is the processor.

There is currently no processor capable of doing single-core computing (because it is impossible to do it in parallel with path finding or character trajectory calculations) and so it would just require that we all have CPUs at 10 Ghz.

I think a lot of people would like things based on a word that slams 4K, RayTracing but frankly you also have to know how to listen to those who have a minimum of experience in the field and who try to explain the limits and why some things are to be put into perspective.

Besides, the answer made each time "Anet makes money" but where did you see cxela, do you know the financial balance sheet? Are you sure it's not NCSoft making money? And in short, this answer given as if Anet touched as much as Blizzard is just living in a dream.

You don't misunderstand, of course the game requires to be optimized and improved and I think Anet knows it and does it without needing you, the game has gone from a single 32-bit to 64-bit, there have been big changes in the engine and in the shaders. And then to come out of the Dx12 words as if it were magic, it is that instructions and certainly are more powerful but still it is necessary that the engine has something used these techniques, and then the most important thing, is if it decides to keep Dx9 it is also to avoid losing a mass of players who probably have PCs that run under older config and of which they are a not negligible part.

Everything to see only through his i9 32 hearts, 128GB of RAM and his GTX2080Ti is just a desire to feel like an elite but you know it won't make you play better, you know it wouldn't make you play better, you're aware that you'd be just as bad anyway? (I end up on a spade because sometimes seriously crying postures like that to believe that Anet are stupid and don't know what they make me laugh, coming from nobody who sometimes even know not to make a Scandisk)

@"ReActif.9251" said:Of course all games require optimization.But you react as a player, you're so far from how it works in the real world.And Anet earns so much money that they have laid off a very large part of the employees and that the parent company had to put the studio under supervision in order to avoid bankruptcy.

~snip~

Besides, the answer made each time "Anet makes money" but where did you see cxela, do you know the financial balance sheet? Are you sure it's not NCSoft making money? And in short, this answer given as if Anet touched as much as Blizzard is just living in a dream.

~snip~

Neither of those statements is true, and they're almost blatantly false. All you need to look at is the quarterly reports from NCSoft which break out how much revenue each game they distribute quarterly earns. ArenaNet wasn't close to bankruptcy based on those numbers, the problem was with NCSoft West(Austin, TX) and their revenue stream being unsustainable(you need to learn how to read between the lines when it comes to quarterly reports and other financial reports from corporate offices). So in order to improve the revenue of NCSoft West they decided to bring ArenaNet back under their wing, so to speak. Even with 400 employees(prior to layoffs), 5 million dollars a month in revenue is sufficient to keep the company afloat and developing content. ArenaNet is 100% owned by NCSoft, but is still semi-autonomous(otherwise MO wouldn't be in charge). They only laid off 25% of the staff(roughly) and in truth it was less than that because some of the devs opted to leave on their own accord so that others could remain employed(which should tell you something about the company).

Agreed. this game runs too poorly with todays systems. Most of the minimum requirements are barely purchasable unless you dig deep to find. Dx9 is piss poor and actually hurts the game imo. If i was new to this game today and it plays the way it does i wouldnt give it a chance. We want that butter.

While I can hope for a rewrite to better use the many cores of modern cpus, I don't really expect that to happen.So instead, I'd probably just like options to turn down effects. If I'm part of a zerg, I don't need to see everyones attack effects. And I'd like better dynamic settings for quality. If I'm doing PvE by myself, running at near highest settings is fine. In massive boss fight, I'd be fine with near lowest settings (don't care about quality of effects). But going into the settings and constantly changing that is a pain.

@Magnus Godrik.5841 said:Agreed. this game runs too poorly with todays systems. Most of the minimum requirements are barely purchasable unless you dig deep to find. Dx9 is kitten poor and actually hurts the game imo. If i was new to this game today and it plays the way it does i wouldnt give it a chance. We want that butter.

Absolutely agree - there are many video games out there and user experience is at the end the deciding factor if game stays on the HDD/SSD for longer than 1h.. There's no excuse for Anet for not being able to hold steady 60fps on today's hardware.

@"Magnus Godrik.5841" said:Agreed. this game runs too poorly with todays systems. Most of the minimum requirements are barely purchasable unless you dig deep to find. Dx9 is kitten poor and actually hurts the game imo. If i was new to this game today and it plays the way it does i wouldnt give it a chance. We want that butter.

it's called "Bad Interfacing". coz old software are FAST or should be FAST in a new hardware..

unless the new hardware abandons or snips the base legacy APIS support and only just builds up on the newest APIs, which are basically "improved/augmented wrappers" of the base.

and what you get in "Bad Interfacing" is ~ "old is obsolete, new is the shiznit."

@"Zaklex.6308"

When a CEO sends this to these employees, I think it's worth more than a financial report, which is enhanced in many ways just before publication, especially in terms of balance sheet consolidation with NCSoft West just before and other licenses.

Songyee Yoon, the CEO of Korean publisher NCSoft West, which owns ArenaNet, e-mailed employees with the news.“Our live game business revenue is declining as our franchises age, delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects, while our operating costs in the west have increased,” she wrote. “Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success.”

That there is money coming in is one thing, that it is in continuous decline and that it becomes more viable in the long term as it stands, it is something else, at the financial level (investors) do not think in terms of balance sheet in the more or the less, you need a substantial return.

You shouldn't read what I say as a form of absolute or I will announce the death of the studio or that it earns nothing at all.We really have to take this as a connection to the fact that they had income that was so low that it became a danger to investors and that we had to group the balance sheets with those of NCSoft West in order to secure everything.

There is a lot of money coming in, but you can imagine that this is enough, and well no, it is no longer enough, and the more it will be necessary to tighten the budgets to keep up, and it is not for nothing that it is a background wave also in the video game industry where redundancies have taken place everywhere in order to reduce the sail and there will probably be breakage and fortunately that NCSoft has taken the lead in securing this license.

What often amuses me are those who come to talk about balance sheet money, admit that they have never put a dollar into the game or so little and he thinks that "others" do, these famous others who spend thousands a week, always rely on these very large spenders because it is these players who clearly bring it is a big risk especially when their contribution begins to reach or exceed the purchase gains of the game itself.

@Derdzvero.7051 said:Absolutely agree - there are many video games out there and user experience is at the end the deciding factor if game stays on the HDD/SSD for longer than 1h.. There's no excuse for Anet for not being able to hold steady 60fps on today's hardware.

Please enrich our conversation with examples.

@ReActif.9251 said:@"Zaklex.6308"

When a CEO sends this to these employees, I think it's worth more than a financial report, which is enhanced in many ways just before publication, especially in terms of balance sheet consolidation with NCSoft West just before and other licenses.

Songyee Yoon, the CEO of Korean publisher NCSoft West, which owns ArenaNet, e-mailed employees with the news.“Our live game business revenue is declining as our franchises age, delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects, while our operating costs in the west have increased,” she wrote. “Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success.”

That there is money coming in is one thing, that it is in continuous decline and that it becomes more viable in the long term as it stands, it is something else, at the financial level (investors) do not think in terms of balance sheet in the more or the less, you need a substantial return.

You shouldn't read what I say as a form of absolute or I will announce the death of the studio or that it earns nothing at all.We really have to take this as a connection to the fact that they had income that was so low that it became a danger to investors and that we had to group the balance sheets with those of NCSoft West in order to secure everything.

There is a lot of money coming in, but you can imagine that this is enough, and well no, it is no longer enough, and the more it will be necessary to tighten the budgets to keep up, and it is not for nothing that it is a background wave also in the video game industry where redundancies have taken place everywhere in order to reduce the sail and there will probably be breakage and fortunately that NCSoft has taken the lead in securing this license.

What often amuses me are those who come to talk about balance sheet money, admit that they have never put a dollar into the game or so little and he thinks that "others" do, these famous others who spend thousands a week, always rely on these very large spenders because it is these players who clearly bring it is a big risk especially when their contribution begins to reach or exceed the purchase gains of the game itself.

You do realize Songyee was talking about all of the other NCSoft titles that are out there, don't you? If you couldn't figure out that they needed the revenue from GW2 to prop up the revenue from all their other titles available through NCSoft West, it's also the reason they've taken back the publishing of GW2(I think that was also mentioned). Simply put the way I see it is if ArenaNet was not part of NCSoft West then NCSoft West was on unsustainable footing and wouldn't have been around much longer(how long that is we could only speculate on), but ArenaNet itself would have been able to stand alone for the foreseeable future.

Its just that this game isn't really optimized. They need to add more settings like hiding Squad member names and prevent loading different types of items, skins and mounts. Maybe have a setting that disables certain things loading as your fps goes down to compensate.