Returned from a break, experiencing freezing/lag spikes

Before summer of this year I played with the same PC I am currently, with the same internet - nothing has changed. I played mostly WvW but also PvP and PvE. PvP and PvE were always lag free, with slowdowns only in large metas and large blob fights in WvW.

Since I returned, I have faced a new kind of lag which I didn't experience before. The entire game will become extremely slow and freeze up, this lasts for about 2 and a half seconds (I monitor my FPS, ping and relay response time, and when these "spikes" happen, all THREE are showing bad numbers, i.e. my fps will drop to single digits {like 1fps}, my ping will skyrocket into the thousands and my relay response time will be in the red). It's incredibly frustrating because I often die when this happens. This problem seems to occur upon approaching a small to large group of other players who are engaging in combat. This even happens in PvE, and not just in the larger metas.

I heard the game has been even more laggy than usual lately and some friends have told me they have had similar issues of late. This is a huge problem, these issues are making me consider walking away from the game, as at the moment, I can barely play.

It starts lagging due to all the players and effects you PC suddenly has to load.You can do 2 thing in options (i think):

• reduce the Character Model Limit and Character Model Quality (from very high to low is best IMO), this will increase performance quite alot when it comes to "zerg" play.
• check the Effect LOD which reduces alot of skill effects from rendering (afaik). I dont realy like this one, since i want/need to see every area of effect skill.

But yeah, performance overall did drop a bit i think ? Especialy in newer areas. I might be wrong though.

When was the last time you updated your graphics driver? I've had 3 in the last 2 months.

Yeah sorry guys I forgot to say, I have and always have had my models set to lowest, LOD checked, and what's more, I cleaned my PC both physically and digitally a couple of days ago to try fix the problem. I've updated my graphics card drivers. I want to note that whether I have my GFX set to quite high or incredibly low, it doesn't seem to prevent this issue. The game runs at a nice framerate when the freeze spikes aren't happening.

Since nothing at all has changed on my end, I can only suspect that the amazon servers ArenaNet uses are to blame.

That, or the path to those servers. Tier 1 Backbones often experience periods of issues.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:That, or the path to those servers. Tier 1 Backbones often experience periods of issues.

Yeah that's possible too I suppose, I spoke to my ISP and they weren't very helpful.

@"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:Before summer of this year I played with the same PC I am currently, with the same internet - nothing has changed. I played mostly WvW but also PvP and PvE. PvP and PvE were always lag free, with slowdowns only in large metas and large blob fights in WvW.

Since I returned, I have faced a new kind of lag which I didn't experience before. The entire game will become extremely slow and freeze up, this lasts for about 2 and a half seconds (I monitor my FPS, ping and relay response time, and when these "spikes" happen, all THREE are showing bad numbers, i.e. my fps will drop to single digits {like 1fps}, my ping will skyrocket into the thousands and my relay response time will be in the red). It's incredibly frustrating because I often die when this happens. This problem seems to occur upon approaching a small to large group of other players who are engaging in combat. This even happens in PvE, and not just in the larger metas.

I heard the game has been even more laggy than usual lately and some friends have told me they have had similar issues of late. This is a huge problem, these issues are making me consider walking away from the game, as at the moment, I can barely play.

Then you have got the new update to the game lag for any server other than the two Golden Children it has become a very useful tool you start lagging before the outnumbered notification

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:Yeah sorry guys I forgot to say, I have and always have had my models set to lowest, LOD checked, and what's more, I cleaned my PC both physically and digitally a couple of days ago to try fix the problem. I've updated my graphics card drivers. I want to note that whether I have my GFX set to quite high or incredibly low, it doesn't seem to prevent this issue. The game runs at a nice framerate when the freeze spikes aren't happening.

Since nothing at all has changed on my end, I can only suspect that the amazon servers ArenaNet uses are to blame.

Are you on Windows 10? And are you monitoring your temps?

@LowestTruth.2635 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:Yeah sorry guys I forgot to say, I have and always have had my models set to lowest, LOD checked, and what's more, I cleaned my PC both physically and digitally a couple of days ago to try fix the problem. I've updated my graphics card drivers. I want to note that whether I have my GFX set to quite high or incredibly low, it doesn't seem to prevent this issue. The game runs at a nice framerate when the freeze spikes aren't happening.

Since nothing at all has changed on my end, I can only suspect that the amazon servers ArenaNet uses are to blame.

Yeah, it turned out to be a memory leak from windows 10 updates.

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@LowestTruth.2635 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:Yeah sorry guys I forgot to say, I have and always have had my models set to lowest, LOD checked, and what's more, I cleaned my PC both physically and digitally a couple of days ago to try fix the problem. I've updated my graphics card drivers. I want to note that whether I have my GFX set to quite high or incredibly low, it doesn't seem to prevent this issue. The game runs at a nice framerate when the freeze spikes aren't happening.

Since nothing at all has changed on my end, I can only suspect that the amazon servers ArenaNet uses are to blame.

Any idea which one? Just rolled it back?

@LowestTruth.2635 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@LowestTruth.2635 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:Yeah sorry guys I forgot to say, I have and always have had my models set to lowest, LOD checked, and what's more, I cleaned my PC both physically and digitally a couple of days ago to try fix the problem. I've updated my graphics card drivers. I want to note that whether I have my GFX set to quite high or incredibly low, it doesn't seem to prevent this issue. The game runs at a nice framerate when the freeze spikes aren't happening.

Since nothing at all has changed on my end, I can only suspect that the amazon servers ArenaNet uses are to blame.

I posted a topic on reddit half an hour ago outlining the problem and what I did to fix it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/d6dg80/psafix_windows_10_updates_may_be_causing_gw2_to/