Playing Guild Wars 2 on Linux - Performance optimizations and more.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@"grandmasterethel.8967" said:Hey, ArmoredVehicle. Thanks for all your work on this script - it has allowed me to kick windows for good!

You might be interested to know that work on d9vk seems to be progressing veeeeeery quickly. Flickering issue and other missing sprites and animations were fixed in the wip-shader builds, and then merged back into master. The only issue I have with it now is pink blobs instead of foliage on the ground.

I've been testing D9VK for the past few hours, the performance compared to OpenGL is amazing and the latest builds seems to have fixed the pink blob issue already. I'm currently laying the groundwork for an updated package which will include D9VK as soon as the issues are dealt with. Thanks for the heads up, I'm really looking forward to this project :)

[grandmasterethel.8967]

So, apparently the pink grass was fixed with an update to Nvidia driver 430.

Yeah, performance is miles ahead of the OpenGL implementation. My frame rates are roughly on par with my windows install.

Now the only thing left really is the cursor being ever-present after zoning. Not sure what the cause of this is though. Apparently there might be some API that's not been implemented yet in d9vk.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@"grandmasterethel.8967" said:That's fantastic news!Yeah, performance is miles ahead of the OpenGL implementation. My frame rates are roughly on par with my windows install.Now the only thing left really is the cursor being ever-present. Not sure what the cause of this is though.

I did some more testing, my findings so far:Antialiasing - Doesn't seem to work very well, might as well keep it off.Renderer Sampling - "Native" is very blurry and looks worse than OpenGL, use "Supersampling" to get a crisp image.Shadows - Only "Low" works for now, setting any higher is broken and consumes more CPU.The sun is a square shaped (reminds me of Minecraft).

And lastly a Wine Regression - Using Wine 4.7 and eSync crashes the Coherent_UI program (Trade Post) - using Wine 4.6 works fine (and I'll probably use it as a base in my package).

Update:

Been playing the game with D9VK since yesterday, most of the game renders properly except for some transparency issues in jungle areas, most notable in Caledon Forest and HoT maps and the lack of realtime shadows (medium setting and higher). The performance however is a different beast, with Vulkan it's very smooth even in WvW, in some moderate size fights it was still pushing an average of 40fps with almost everything set to high.

Secondly, I have reworked my package to use D9VK, most of the work is complete and the Nvidia version is working very well. This week I'll test the Intel/AMD package and if all checks out I will upload it soon after :)

Exciting times ahead.

Update 2:

The dev of D9VK implemented some more functions which fix the Renderer Sampling in GW2. The only outstanding issues left I see now are:

Shadows - Any higher than "Low" doesn't work.Transparency issues in some foliage (Visible in Caledon Forest).The Cursor visible when rotating the camera.

[dusanyu.4057]

This thread needs a sticky!

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

I'm happy to report that the game also works very well with D9VK under Intel HD (5th Gen or later) and it can be played decently on a low end laptop such as with the Intel i3-5005U

Pics below showing the game running on Xubuntu 19.04, Laptop has been upgraded to 16GB Ram from its' original 4GB:

Download links coming soon!

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

tried your latest package, amd ryzen, rx gpu.

The fps look fine standing still, but moving around is very jerky/stutters a lot. Ping is also pretty high. At the moment wine4.6+esync+gallium9 standalone gives pretty much the same framerate, better ping and all that with higher settings and everything smooth.

But I will come back in the future.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

I have uploaded the Vulkan (D9VK) based packages on the first page (links at the bottom of original post). Installation procedure is the same as the OpenGL one and you can even move your current GW2 data files into it. This is also portable so no need to remove the OpenGL version.

Happy gaming!

[dodgerrule.8739]

Try downloading the guild wars 2 setup file 64 bit and just run it with wine. ThatWill be what you’ll click every time to launch the game. Since I’ve figured that out the games been perfect.

You’ll get the gw2 folder you’d normally get in program files where you open the setup file from.

It sounds too simple but it works. The game will tend to go unstable if you change allot of quality settings, so I tend to only stick with the display resolution.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

@ArmoredVehicle.2849 said:I have uploaded the Vulkan (D9VK) based packages on the first page (links at the bottom of original post). Installation procedure is the same as the OpenGL one and you can even move your current GW2 data files into it. This is also portable so no need to remove the OpenGL version.

Happy gaming!

d9vk was enabled, it is just not as good as gallium d3d9 at the moment. At least for me.

[dusanyu.4057]

tried the new d9vk version i noticed a majot performance gain (three FPS less than windows in the same hardware and settings))

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@dusanyu.4057 said:tried the new d9vk version i noticed a majot performance gain (three FPS less than windows in the same hardware and settings))

Very nice to hear it runs almost as good as native.

Apparently the dev of D9VK is working on shadows now, can't wait to test it :)

[Kanok.3027]

I am dying to try out your D9VK AMD version and I think I will. Currently running a Ryzen 5 2600U/Vega 8 APU and would love to see how well it runs it. Will report back with the results!

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

I have re-uploaded the package with an updated version of D9VK, Shadows are now fully working. :)

[Kanok.3027]

Well, this APU is not beefy by any stretch of the imagination, but it ran a bit smoother, which was nice, using the latest Vulkan build released today. Only issue is still trying to change the fullscreen resolution and causing the game to freeze and completely take over the screen. Still, if you play at native, not bad. I wanted to reduce the screen size to see if that affected FPS, but I'm pretty sure it won't work out well without me actually changing the screen size in KDE's settings, and I would rather not make that permanent. lol

Still, I am loving it and I'm sure it would run just as well on my PC once converted to Linux as it does in Windows. I'll have to check out Fractals and Dungeons to see how everything fairs. I'll get back to you on that when I can.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

downloaded the beta package just now.

Idle: 10fps less than gallium d3d9. with short spikes past gallium nine, before it drops backwhenever moving/turning, fps drops down to 1.1-14fps

So d3d9: 40-60 fps, no matter whatd9vk: 1-50fps, stuttering, 30ms more ping. when idle short spikes past 60.

edit:

it gets a bit better, when I stop every few steps and turn around a couple of times. But still, the stuttering is very bad and the constant drops to 10fps... not great.

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X at 4.1Ghz, performance governorGPU: AMD RX 58032gb ram.2560x1440resolution

that was in Amnoon and surrounding areain Elon gallium pushes me to 100fps... without stuttering.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:downloaded the beta package just now.

Idle: 10fps less than gallium d3d9. with short spikes past gallium nine, before it drops backwhenever moving/turning, fps drops down to 1.1-14fps

So d3d9: 40-60 fps, no matter whatd9vk: 1-50fps, stuttering, 30ms more ping. when idle short spikes past 60.

edit:

it gets a bit better, when I stop every few steps and turn around a couple of times. But still, the stuttering is very bad and the constant drops to 10fps... not great.

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X at 4.1Ghz, performance governorGPU: AMD RX 58032gb ram.2560x1440resolution

that was in Amnoon and surrounding areain Elon gallium pushes me to 100fps... without stuttering.

The stutter with d9vk is due to shader cache buildup, it becomes much smoother once it builds the library-sort of speaking, so far I have 91mb of cache built up and the stutter is greatly reduced as I visit the same area again. I occasionally still lose a few frames from time to time but never down to 10fps.

As for gallium9 I think it might always be a step ahead since it's much closer to native, technically speaking it can even surpass Windows in some cases as it doesn't have all the bloat the OS carries.

[EagleDelta.4726]

@ArmoredVehicle.2849 - After you add d9vk support, could you keep the non-d9vk support around until Nvidia stable drivers catch up to the beta ones?

Some distros (namely Pop!_OS from OEM System76) have some QoL and performance improvements that they install for Nvidia Optimus that, but they only support stable drivers, they do not include beta drivers in their repo. Installing with the Graphics Drivers PPA will uninstall their system power and Optimus tools as they conflict with what the nvidia-prime package tries to do.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@EagleDelta.4726 said:@ArmoredVehicle.2849 - After you add d9vk support, could you keep the non-d9vk support around until Nvidia stable drivers catch up to the beta ones?

Some distros (namely Pop!_OS from OEM System76) have some QoL and performance improvements that they install for Nvidia Optimus that, but they only support stable drivers, they do not include beta drivers in their repo. Installing with the Graphics Drivers PPA will uninstall their system power and Optimus tools as they conflict with what the nvidia-prime package tries to do.

I'll be keeping both of them available for download even when D9VK is in better shape :)

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

@ArmoredVehicle.2849 said:

The stutter with d9vk is due to shader cache buildup, it becomes much smoother once it builds the library-sort of speaking, so far I have 91mb of cache built up and the stutter is greatly reduced as I visit the same area again. I occasionally still lose a few frames from time to time but never down to 10fps.

good point, I will run around a bit and see how it goes.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

ok, another thing I noticed with d9vk:

fullscreen: can't alt-tab outwindowed fullscreen: can alt-tab out

d3d9: doesn't matter, alt-tab works.

[Scande.5908]

Sorry for interrupting your discussion but I have several problems with the instruction and how the game runs with the provided tools.

First of all. My desktop PC runs Ubuntu 18.04 LTS that had been upgraded from 16.04 LTS. It has an i5-6500 CPU, a NVidia GTX1060 3GB and 8GB ram. Furthermore I ran GW2 for over a year now with a "custom" setup for which I can't remember all the settings.This setup works rather good except for one glaring and annoying problem; memory leak causing heavy stutter after the system decided that the 8GB physical ram is full and starts writing into my virtual ram. This "only" happens when playing for around 2 hours non stop although events with huge player participation does decrease the time limit significantly.My hope was that @"ArmoredVehicle.2849" setup has no memory leak and thus significantly increases the playability of GW2.

Now to my problems specifically with the instructions on the first page. The contents of my "limits.conf" are different and I worry about editing the wrong things.

Also I already tested playing the game without increasing the limit. Once it crashed while loading into a zone, another time it was a black screen with only some buttons and other player characters visible. This probably had to do with me not having increased the limit yet, what worried me however were load times. It took 3+minutes to load into a zone. Is this going to change with increased limit or is this to be expected with your "Nvidia Package"?

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@"Scande.5908" said:Sorry for interrupting your discussion but I have several problems with the instruction and how the game runs with the provided tools.

First of all. My desktop PC runs Ubuntu 18.04 LTS that had been upgraded from 16.04 LTS. It has an i5-6500 CPU, a NVidia GTX1060 3GB and 8GB ram. Furthermore I ran GW2 for over a year now with a "custom" setup for which I can't remember all the settings.This setup works rather good except for one glaring and annoying problem; memory leak causing heavy stutter after the system decided that the 8GB physical ram is full and starts writing into my virtual ram. This "only" happens when playing for around 2 hours non stop although events with huge player participation does decrease the time limit significantly.My hope was that @"ArmoredVehicle.2849" setup has no memory leak and thus significantly increases the playability of GW2.

Now to my problems specifically with the instructions on the first page. The contents of my "limits.conf" are different and I worry about editing the wrong things.

Also I already tested playing the game without increasing the limit. Once it crashed while loading into a zone, another time it was a black screen with only some buttons and other player characters visible. This probably had to do with me not having increased the limit yet, what worried me however were load times. It took 3+minutes to load into a zone. Is this going to change with increased limit or is this to be expected with your "Nvidia Package"?

Hi, to address your question about the limits.conf file you have to add 2 lines below the "#@student etc":The asterisk at the beginning of each line is very important.

1) soft nofile 10485672) hard nofile 1048567

Save the file and restart.

As for the memory issue you're having, I haven't encountered it, ram usage has been similar to OpenGL and I played WvW for hours yesterday. I have a test system with 8GB which I can test on and will get back to you :)

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

ehm, in my experience it is less of a memory leak and more of a problem of cached content.... did you try decreasing model count and high quality model count to lowest?

also your limits.conf is just the example. nothing set their. I suspect ubuntu uses a different file/files for that.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:also your limits.conf is just the example. nothing set their. I suspect ubuntu uses a different file/files for that.

That file works fine, it's just the entries are not present at all and have to be added manually, I did the same steps just yesterday for one of my systems.

[Scande.5908]

I thought that I may have to add the lines, was just a bit unsure, because the pre-written lines were in such a neat table format. Am I right to think that this is just done by spamming the appropriate amounts of space bar to help readability while programs just ignore the added characters?

As for the game, so far it runs better than what I used previously and I haven't encountered the "memory leak" issue that I had with my former setup either. Max and medium shaders settings are a bit wonky in that it causes the grass sprites to move as if there was a constant wind storm, but I haven't encountered any other abnormalities. Load times are good again and I also love the little status window it shows while loading.

Many thanks @ArmoredVehicle.2849 !

PS: I sent you a carrion pidgeon ingame.