Mesmer clones briefly appearing as ugly placeholder models

[Mahe.7321]

Whenever my Mesmer's clones spawn or phantasms turn into clones, the clones are displayed as ugly placeholder models for a short moment initially (these hooded mannequins like when other player's characters aren't loaded yet). After this short moment (usually less than 1 second), they take the correct shape i.e. identical to my own character.

Here is a screenshot of two clones spawning on the left, taken immediately after casting the utility skill "Mirror Images": https://imgur.com/a/Lxw8dKz

I looked through Reddit and this forum but haven't found anyone mentioning this yet.
Do other Mesmer players simply not notice (or bother) or is it specific to my setup? Is there anything that can be done about it?

My graphics settings are pretty much maxed except for "Shadows" and "Character Model Limit" which are both on medium, "Character Model Quality" is maxed though.

I remember already having this issue years ago when I last tried Mesmer and it was kinda off-putting visually, since all the other Mesmer stuff has pretty awesome effects and looks really gorgeous.
I can understand this happening for other player's characters and their clones but I see no reason for this to be a thing for my own clones/phantasms at all, given that everything (textures, model etc.) of my own character is already on-screen and doesn't need to be loaded in.

[mungozen.2379]

Does this still happen if you turn character models down to low?  Or if you are alone against one NPC?  With less models to render it should speed up the clone load times.
 

However, this may also be a limitation of the quality or usage of your PC hardware.   If you have older hardware, or are running a bunch of stuff in the background behind GW2 then it may also affect how the game loads models.  
 

I’ve had this happen myself when running other applications in the background or on a second monitor. If the PC is chugging, GW2 will have a hard time running smoothly. 

[Mahe.7321]

Thanks for your reply!

20 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Does this still happen if you turn character models down to low?  Or if you are alone against one NPC?  With less models to render it should speed up the clone load times.

Yes. Even if I turn the model quality and limit down and fight the training golem in the special forces training area of Lion's Arch's raid lobby alone without other players, I can still observe this - albeit the timeframe of the placeholder model being visible is quite short in this case.

If I run Prime95 (a CPU stress testing tool) in the background additionally, the duration of the placeholder models being displayed when clones spawn is noticeably longer. This seems to confirm your theory about background load delaying GW2's model processing.

I still think that a loading placeholder should technically not be necessary for my own character at all since its model is already loaded all the time. But maybe it's a weird engine limitation they couldn't circumvent.
At least they could use some more subtle and visually appealing placeholders - like a translucent body akin to Ley-Line Anomalies in the Mesmer's pink/purple skill effect colors for example.

 

On another note, sometimes when I attempt to shatter my clones they don't visually shatter and disperse with the usual animation but instead get stuck in this pose: https://imgur.com/a/p42rCWm
... and will simply vanish without any animation or transition after a few seconds.

Is this just another visual imperfection/bug or did the shattering actually get interrupted (is that possible?) and the damage and/or condition not get applied to the enemies?

Edited June 7, 2022 by Mahe.7321

[HowlKamui.5120]

Yes the shaterred clones stuck in a michael jackson “AAAAHHHHH” pose is cpu related visual bug. They did their effects. 

[draxynnic.3719]

I've seen the placeholder model effect you speak of. I just assumed it was slow processing the exact model to use, and the placeholder is always available. That was with an older computer, though, so that was a natural conclusion.