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GW2 for upcoming ARM based laptops


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I was watching a video on the migration of Apple and MS products to ARM based systems over the next few years. Many of the things in the video I already knew about but it's a good video on the subject with some historical context. It got me wondering how this is going to impact GW2 when Macs and Windows based laptops start moving to advanced ARM chips. Is ANet looking at compiling GW2 to support ARM based Macs and Windows laptops?

Here's the video I was watching on ARM.

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Great video. I dont think it will affect gw2 since most people play on x86 windows systems. If apple starts using arm chips with OSx then I believe would be great for the end user.Also I think that gw2 would probably be end of life by the time arm is running a native microsoft OS.It got me very interested in learning more about arm systems for high end power gaming in the near future !!

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@Stormcrow.7513 said:Great video. I dont think it will affect gw2 since most people play on x86 windows systems. If apple starts using arm chips with OSx then I believe would be great for the end user.Also I think that gw2 would probably be end of life by the time arm is running a native microsoft OS.It got me very interested in learning more about arm systems for high end power gaming in the near future !!

The more advanced Qualcomm ARM processor is coming out next year and we could start seeing laptops at any time past that. GW1 has lasted and I expect GW2 to be around for some time. The changes are likely to come sooner than later. Yes, AMD/Intel chips will still be there but their market share will decrease over time as will that of any software companies still stuck on x86. If anything were to kill GW2 over the next 5 to 10 years it would be the x86 platform vanishing taking the potential future player base with it.

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@Hesacon.8735 said:For all the ARM hype, if it's going to take over, it's not going to overnight or even super quickly for the same reasons some computers still run windows XP.

Even though software companies have to keep up unless they want to get left behind. I'm just curious if ANet has looked at ARM support yet or if its even on their radar so to speak. Big software changes like revamping for a new processor class takes awhile. By the time they finish porting it, ARM based laptops might be mainstream and x86 might in it's long decline.

It wouldn't be the best marketing situation if two years from now quite a few people buy new laptops and try to run the free to play GW2 only to find it to slow because it's running under x86 emulation so they decide not to buy the full game and expansions.

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Revamping to take advantage of new hardware is an even bigger change than moving from DX9 to a newer version (and we all know the progress there). I think we'll see GW3 before we see GW2 re-written for ARM. I'll guessing that if your vision of an ARM future comes true, it's emulator time for GW2.

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@Tekoneiric.6817 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:For all the ARM hype, if it's going to take over, it's not going to overnight or even super quickly for the same reasons some computers still run windows XP.

Even though software companies have to keep up unless they want to get left behind. I'm just curious if ANet has looked at ARM support yet or if its even on their radar so to speak. Big software changes like revamping for a new processor class takes awhile. By the time they finish porting it, ARM based laptops might be mainstream and x86 might in it's long decline.

It wouldn't be the best marketing situation if two years from now quite a few people buy new laptops and try to run the free to play GW2 only to find it to slow because it's running under x86 emulation so they decide not to buy the full game and expansions.

While true, it's also true of most desktop applications. The question of whether or not anet wants to get ahead of it is worth answering, but it's a question for everything written for x86, which represents most games.

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@Hesacon.8735 said:

While true, it's also true of most desktop applications. The question of whether or not anet wants to get ahead of it is worth answering, but it's a question for everything written for x86, which represents most games.

Answering doesn't matter as long as it gets noticed and they start thinking about the possibility of a major processor shift that would affect future potential player base.

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@dynomite.5834 said:Revamping to take advantage of new hardware is an even bigger change than moving from DX9 to a newer version (and we all know the progress there). I think we'll see GW3 before we see GW2 re-written for ARM. I'll guessing that if your vision of an ARM future comes true, it's emulator time for GW2.

It's not my vision but rather where the market is heading. Apple has already stated they are moving away from Intel to their own processor. That processor is likely to use ARM based cores. As far as Windows I'm sure x86 will continue for awhile but the coming proliferation of ARM based laptops could be an issue for ANet with GW2's future players. I can only imagine how badly GW2 would perform under emulation since it's so processor intensive.

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The question I'd ask would be, Is ANet willing to spend thousands to port the engine to a different architecture? Personally I don't think so, especially since the game is still not on consoles, and these are x86 too, might I add that consoles also support KB+Mouse which would make a far better marketing choice than some newly released low powered laptops. It isn't economically viable to spend so much for a new architecture that only the minority of GW2 players would use, I'd rather see a Metal version for the macOS port which is something that the game truly needs on that platform.

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Overall, I do not think GW2 really has to worry about anything. My prediction is that ArenaNet likely does very little low level work themselves and largely has built the entire game based off the tools provided by Epic Games and Microsoft such as what libraries are offers in Microsoft Visual Studio and the Unreal Engine. Which really means its on Microsoft and Epic Games to bridge the gap between low level hardware and supported software functions.

Which as a whole I bet Unreal Engine likely largely depends upon what Microsoft provides to them along with other operating systems for them to adapt the unreal engine to support various features. Therefore, if the Window 10 operating system can do a pretty good job of providing the same software interfaces for higher level applications like unreal engine and subsequently GW2 to run on then the change in low level technology will likely not affect the high level applications too much.

One thing I do know is that if you look at the microsoft's site you'll find that the Window 10 IoT Enterprise which is the same as Windows 10 Enterprise you see that it does not support ARM based processors. Microsoft's creation of GUIs can be done in a few ways such as WinForms and Windows Presentation Foundation which are only supported on that version of Windows 10.

Windows 10 IoT Core is the only Windows 10 OS variant that is available for Arm processors and it cannot support these older forms of gui applications. Now, I do not know if Unreal Engine's greation of GUIs or possibly even ArenaNet's GUIs are done in WinForm or WPF, but its an example of where the full Windows OS experience is still not really ready for ARM processors quite yet. Though I expect it might be in future and if that is the case and you can run these older software interfaces on ARM processors then there is really little I think ArenaNet has to do.

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There is no serious likelihood of the PC segment moving away from x86 in the foreseeable future. How GW2 might handle a theoretical market migration to a new CPU architecture is tangential at best to the factual reality of the game and this is what would be considered off-topic in most forums.

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perfomance wise ARM is still very mich behind the actual x86-64 processors. Arm is about power efficency and not pure perfomance.

Don't get fooled by this sensationalist youtube clickbait, you only have to see there is no game with mobile and pc version which are the same (if first was designed for PC).Take into comparison BDO mobile versus PC version.

I wouldn't worry about this arm competition, i simply don't think ARM will ever be at the same level as actual Intel-Ryzen.

Just as a quick note all this videos and rumors are coming out as backlash for the increased prices of the components as a clickbait easy views. check how the title refference to intel exclusively although that change would affect AMD in the same way . This is just designed to focus the unhappiness from costumers for the price increase from intel. Exactly as the same as the rumours about the next ryzen generation...

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@"ArmoredVehicle.2849" said:There is a simple way to make the game run on these processors, and the best thing is that ANet doesn't have to do much of anything. It's called game streaming such as the currently in beta GeForce Now. Link: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/geforce-now/

I've heard lackluster reviews on streaming services where the game runs on a remote server due to lag. Given that the big ISPs and cell carriers have been lobbying against net neutrality I can't see streaming going over well due to caps and throttling.

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