AMD Issues - Shader Caching?

[Poobah.6254]

I was strongly considering buying a RX 7800 XT for my new build but I've read a few reports of serious stuttering in GW2 with this card, which after googling around seems to be a shader caching issue? I was wondering if I'm correct that that is the case, if the issue has been fixed/mitigated and to what degree it's still affecting people and the playability of the game? I'd rather not spend hundreds on a brand new GPU only to find that it's made my experience in one of the games I put the most hours in to significantly worse as I currently have zero issues with my old 1070.

Thanks!

[CETheLucid.3964]

It's more of a FreeSync issue not playing nice with the 15-18 year old engine's frame pacing. Something along those lines. If you go into your AMD Adrenalin settings, you can turn off FreeSync for GW2 only and use the in-game Vsync to cap your frames to your monitors refresh rate. Might still get stutters like that or maybe not. Probably a lot less.

Another method is to keep FreeSync on but use AntiLag or RadeonChill to cap your max FPS within a few points of your monitors max refresh rate. Or maybe ~10-30 FPS above 60 if you want to save power/reduce heat. The engine was made with that max in mind (60FPS) well before anyone dreamed of 200MHz 4K gaming monitors. You'll never hit those numbers in any meaningful way in WvW or major world events anyway.

You'd probably save a lot of head scratching and tinkering just going with another nvidia card but the 7800XT would be a night and day upgrade from the 1070. Price is probably the deciding factor and I'm certain nvidias prices are still in the exosphere somewhere. A 4070 would be the rough equivalent to a 7800XT. A 3080 Ti if you can find one decently priced/used would do just as well, maybe even a bit better.

Though do be careful going the used route. Lots of former miners getting rid of abused cards at your expense. Good luck.

[Nitro.4732]

Been playing gw2 since 2020 on a AMD 6900XT without issues.