Graphical tweaks for better performance

[MEZesUBI.7019]

Hi everyone,I just joined the passionate community of GW2. I have a pretty decent machine to run the game, but I'm quite disappointed with the performance, as I ran much more demanding stuff on my PC with far better results.My machine is an ASUS ROG GL502VS laptop, i7 6700HQ, GTX 1070 8GB, 16GB RAM.Nvidia Experience automatically set the game to ultra preset, but I tried tweaking around.Standing still in Human Starting area I could get an avg ~45 FPS, 1 CPU core jumping 70-100%, the others 30-60%, GPU 30-50%.At this point I'm not sure if I missed some settings or tweaks, or if it's the game's resource management aging badly.Is there a way to squeeze at least a more fluid avg 60 FPS with not much compromises on graphics quality?Many thanks!

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Turn everything down, then turn them up one by one.Shadows, Reflections, Character Model Limit and Character Model Quality are often those that affect FPS the most.

Good luck.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Turn everything down, then turn them up one by one.Shadows, Reflections, Character Model Limit and Character Model Quality are often those that affect FPS the most.

Good luck.

This.

Shadows and reflections are the big ones. One thing to keep in mind is that GW2 is very CPU limited, even though it is not very CPU demanding, if that makes sense. GW2's render thread is single threaded, as such the CPU will often only see 50% or less total loading, but one thread will be maxed. As such, higher CPU clock speeds are about all that matters for higher FPS in GW2 assuming any somewhat modern quad core. This is why you are seeing lower FPS, as you are running a laptop, cooling is much worse on them and because of that can not maintain turbo clock speeds, after being under load they will often clock down a good deal to stop thermal runaway. So make sure the laptop is well cooled, replace thermal paste with something good etc etc. You will not see desktop levels, but you can get improvements out of them.

Keep in mind however, you will never match the FPS you see in triple A title games etc as far more time and money has gone into optimizations and they are often built on top of the line new game engines, not a modded GW1 game engine running on DX9 that was EOL before the game even launched.

[KrHome.1920]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Shadows, Reflections, Character Model Limit and Character Model Quality are often those that affect FPS the most.

Good luck.This!

The game is CPU bound on your laptop. These are the settings that affect CPU performance:

• Shadows (heavy impact almost everywhere)
• Reflections (heavy impact near water)
• Character Model Limit (heavy impact with lots of players on screen)
• Character Model Quality (heavy impact with lots of players on screen)

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@"MEZesUBI.7019" said:Hi everyone,I just joined the passionate community of GW2. I have a pretty decent machine to run the game, but I'm quite disappointed with the performance, as I ran much more demanding stuff on my PC with far better results.My machine is an ASUS ROG GL502VS laptop, i7 6700HQ, GTX 1070 8GB, 16GB RAM.Nvidia Experience automatically set the game to ultra preset, but I tried tweaking around.Standing still in Human Starting area I could get an avg ~45 FPS, 1 CPU core jumping 70-100%, the others 30-60%, GPU 30-50%.At this point I'm not sure if I missed some settings or tweaks, or if it's the game's resource management aging badly.Is there a way to squeeze at least a more fluid avg 60 FPS with not much compromises on graphics quality?Many thanks!

Start with look in Option for name plates. Turn off player name place as those can have a major impact on performance depending on the number of players around (and you can use e key bind in Option>Controls to see player when you need it). There are also settings to disable to show name tag on items, NPC and enemy names. When you hold down "Lock Autotarget" you will also see all elements that have been hidden incl those items, NPC, enemy and other player names. Also hidden elements from UI will show when hold down this key, like minimap, info about events etc.

The other setting that have an impact is the distance you will be able to see character models. Adjust this to something that make you see things in distance (rendering of objects to be shown when you are in range will have an impact on your performance). Don't turn down everything to minimum as then you move your workload over to CPU.

As for you laptop, make sure it isn't have any performance settings turned down to save power (can be in MS Windows or form the computer manufacture who have installed performance enhancing technology - aka running at low power mode even laptop is connected to power grid). Make also sure that cooling (air to fans and taht fans are running at speed that is good enough for cooling vs noise level) is set to avoid throttling both from GPU and CPU as too much heat might make both try to run at a lower performance state.

I don't know if you will have access to BIOS/UEFI on your laptop, some restrict it and other have almost same access as on a desktop mainboard. After looking up your laptops manual it looks like there is no option to control your CPU, as from what you see when there is one core that work harder on GW2 it might be that Intel is using their boost technology which make one core run faster then the rest, but those other cores will then also get a lower clockspeed (to fit within the Thermal restrictions - TDP)

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html

https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ROG-GL502VS/HelpDesk_Manual/

Unlocking from BIOS/UEFI all cores to work (which is over clocking in the sense Intel restrict this usage of all core at the same time when under max load) will show you that GW2 isn't as restricted to a single core performance as some people my think. Some things can not be divided into several threads (SMP) and is by its nature setting back performance in some games like MMO and GW2.

If you have around 30 FPS in the worse case of fights like a large meta with a full squad (max 50 people) and no delay in reaction from skills or movement of camera, then I would say you don't have any problems. It is in those cases you really want a flow in what is going on and not necessary high number in FPS.

(A) reduce elements that must be rendered above in game surface like name tags on NPC, objects or players(B) make sure that your hardware have no limitation set from drivers (nvidia, intel and ms windows)

Hope this helps! Good luck!