Help I have a Headache

[Ashantara.8731]

@Ray Koopa.2354 said:You should've quoted the link you mentioned though

I posted only one link in this thread, in my first response. ;)

@Ray Koopa.2354 said:You suggest to simply select the number of virtual cores the user has (including HT cores)

I do not suggest to use hyper-threading, I only explain which number of cores to select in which case (i.e., with or without hyper-threading activated in BIOS).

@Ray Koopa.2354 said:which is the default if you don't check that option.

No, it isn't with all motherboards and/or operating systems. I had to explicitly select the number of "cores" (a.k.a. threads) in msconfig when I had hyper-threading active.

Also, no, not all cores are unparked by default. The tool I linked to does it for you, unless you want to manually edit the respective registry entries.

[Ray Koopa.2354]

@"Ashantara.8731" Interesting, thanks for clearing that up. I never experienced "undetected" cores in the systems I worked with. It's definitely worth checking then if some firmware/OS detects it wrong.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Ray Koopa.2354 said:@"Ashantara.8731" Interesting, thanks for clearing that up. I never experienced "undetected" cores in the systems I worked with. It's definitely worth checking then if some firmware/OS detects it wrong.

That'd be because this isn't a real thing.

[Ashantara.8731]

I have a feeling @"Ray Koopa.2354" didn't bother to read through the links, because I feel there are misunderstandings. ;) I never said anything about "undetected cores", there is no such thing. :s "Parked" does not mean "deactivated", and the msconfig setting is merely for doubling the number of threads when you use hyper-threading (you don't have to put in the number of actual cores when hyper-threading is deactivated, the system should be able to detect those).

[Jasonbdj.4021]

I don't believe the issue is linked to your CPU otherwise you'll be having issues using Windows 10 itself.

Try to completely remove the video driver including all the game profiles and reinstall it with the latest one (not from device manager).

I've had performance issue before on AMD for no reason, on r290x in a area where the game supposed to be 60 but locked down to 15 fps. I've completely remove all video driver and clean reinstall it cured it.

Video drivers/software data do get corrupted from the updates which is best to always do a clean install on video drivers updates.

[Ray Koopa.2354]

@Ashantara.8731 said:I have a feeling @"Ray Koopa.2354" didn't bother to read through the links, because I feel there are misunderstandings. ;) I never said anything about "undetected cores", there is no such thing. :s "Parked" does not mean "deactivated", and the msconfig setting is merely for doubling the number of threads when you use hyper-threading (you don't have to put in the number of actual cores when hyper-threading is deactivated, the system should be able to detect those).

Then you need to explain better what you mean. Especially because we're trying to help someone here with less experience than you. Now it sounds exactly like what I originally said. If you didn't understand that, sorry for the confusion and sorry for confusing me.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Ray Koopa.2354 said:Then you need to explain better what you mean.

I think I did explain quite precisely for anyone not lazy but willing to check out the linked post and the links included in that post, and then check the respective settings in BIOS, msconfig etc. It really isn't that hard.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"Ray Koopa.2354" said:Then you need to explain better what you mean.

I think I did explain quite precisely for anyone not lazy but willing to check out the linked post and the links included in that post

Then you did not explain it. You provided links to things that explained it, which makes the complaint quite reasonable.

To anyone reading along, of course, this is still a placebo. If the CPU is actually able to do work, it won't sit in deep energy saving states, so all you end up doing is increasing power consumption and heat generation, without actually changing anything. Though, like any placebo, you may subjectively experience improvements afterwards, even though nothing has really changed.

It is like the "leatrix latency fix" that disabled the Nagle algorithm for TCP which, for many years, was touted as the best and most valuable thing you could do to improve latency in WoW. Which it would have ... if Blizzard was incompetent, and didn't disable Nagle on their socket when they established it, meaning that this would do literally nothing.

That didn't stop people suggesting it, and reporting huge changes -- ten or fifteen percent improvements -- in frame rates, or 100ms drops in latency, when they used it. None of which would be possible even if it actually did what it said on the tin.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@"Deathanizer.3716" said:A not ideal cpu is not causing 5 fps you guys.

This is not a CPU heavy game OP something else is causing the lag.

LOL! I genuinely laughed out loud... GW2 (and most MMORPGs) are the definition of a CPU heavy game...

Anyway, OP, the problem might be whatever overlays you're apparently using (that yellow text on the left of your screenshot isn't native to GW2). So try disabling all your extra stuff, and see how GW2 runs by itself.

After that, if you're in a laptop, check your energy settings (do the same in a Desktop, idk wtf you're doing with your PC), get something like CPUID HWMonitor and check your temperatures and system. Make sure your fans are turning (HWMonitor tells you the fan speed), keep going till you isolate your problem.

Your system should output far better than 5fps.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:If the CPU is actually able to do work, it won't sit in deep energy saving states

"The trouble with some video games is that interlocking threads of differing priorities combined with poor application-level tuning can confuse the operating system into thinking that it's making intelligent power management decisions when it really isn't. It may think that it's servicing threads fast enough because it has no insight otherwise; or it may take the time to unpark a core only to park it again shortly. This is a tuning issue that's hard to nail down perfectly.

All that these 'core unparkers' do is tweak a few power management settings so that the operating system (usually Windows) will never park cores. It will continue to step them up and down, but since speed stepping is much more responsive than parking, it tends to result in a net increase in system responsiveness at the expense of power consumption."

Source: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3078898/unparking-cores.html

Yes, it results in a higher overall power consumption, but it does increase the processig speed a bit, as constantly parking/unparking takes longer. According to many, the speed increase is barely noticeable, though, so you may be right that it's not worth it.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:LOL! I genuinely laughed out loud... GW2 (and most MMORPGs) are the definition of a CPU heavy game...

This. :+1:

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:If the CPU is actually able to do work, it won't sit in deep energy saving states

Source:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3078898/unparking-cores.html

That source is just another random user, posting on a random forum, no more convincingly official than you or I.

In the real world, back in 2014 which is the most recent research confirmation I can find on the subject, the wakeup latency is on the order of <= 60us for Intel. If the CPU load in GW2 suddenly changes, that is a substantial penalty time in which one frame is going to be slowed down, but subsequent frames -- thanks to busy cores, and the preference to keep threads where they are -- won't feel any of that.

Given that GW2 mostly benefits from 4 cores at this point in time, anything with more than 4 is going to have several sitting down in C6 because they have very little to do; the slack time on the three less busy cores GW2 also uses can comfortably cover the rest of the non-idle time there.

Yes, it results in a higher overall power consumption, but it does increase the processig speed a bit, as constantly parking/unparking takes longer. According to many, the speed increase is barely noticeable, though, so you may be right that it's not worth it.

I'd certainly strongly suggest that it is worth measuring, especially because the relationship between active core count, heat generation, and turbo-boost style clock speed increases mean that by preventing extra cores going into a reduced power (and thus heat generation) state may prevent the CPU spending as long at the higher four core boost speed.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:LOL! I genuinely laughed out loud... GW2 (and most MMORPGs) are the

definition

of a CPU heavy game...

This. :+1:

This, though, yeah. It absolutely is CPU heavy. Plus, once you get the absolutely fastest everything possible for it, you will bottleneck on ... single threaded performance of the CPU. :)

[Ashantara.8731]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:If the CPU is actually able to do work, it won't sit in deep energy saving states

Source:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3078898/unparking-cores.html

That source is just another random user, posting on a random forum, no more convincingly official than you or I.

Uhm, that "source" actually supported exactly the stance that you were trying to express on here. ;)

I'd certainly strongly suggest that it is worth measuring, especially because the relationship between active core count, heat generation, and turbo-boost style clock speed increases mean that by preventing extra cores going into a reduced power (and thus heat generation) state may prevent the CPU spending as long at the higher four core boost speed.

Yes, I agree after the research I did yesterday.

This, though, yeah. It absolutely is CPU heavy. Plus, once you get the absolutely fastest everything possible for it, you will bottleneck on ... single threaded performance of the CPU. :)

It's a real bummer this hasn't been optimized in six years.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:If the CPU is actually able to do work, it won't sit in deep energy saving states

Source:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3078898/unparking-cores.html

That source is just another random user, posting on a random forum, no more convincingly official than you or I.

Uhm, that "source" actually supported exactly the stance that you were trying to express on here. ;)

Oh. I misread what you were trying to say. Sorry about that, and thank you for agreeing. (Though the same statement applies: we should have the same rules for "officialness" even if we agree, haha)7solutely fastest everything possible for it, you will bottleneck on ... single threaded performance of the CPU. :)

It's a real bummer this hasn't been optimized in six years.

It absolutely has been: years back it was two cores, now it is four running at 70-80 percent. Improvement absolutely has happened, it just happens in small steps, and concurrently with other changes that tend to hide some of the advances (eg: larger rendering targets due to monitor size growth, additional effects implemented as the average system gains power, etc.)

The same is true over in WoW: people complaining that the engine hasn't been optimized, and needs to be replaced, but the truth is that it is, to steal the joke, "still your granddaddies axe: sure, you replaced the handle three times, and the head twice, but it is still the same axe..."

[Ashantara.8731]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:It's a real bummer this hasn't been optimized in six years.It absolutely has been

But not to an extent where multicore rendering works 100% smoothly, yes?

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:It's a real bummer this hasn't been optimized in six years.It absolutely has been

But not to an extent where multicore rendering works 100% smoothly, yes?

It is up to four cores well used, from two a few years back. It isn't perfect -- the "main" thread is still the performance bottleneck due to model (especially character model) placement.

I've also seen repeated assertions that the number of draw calls via the DX9 API, also from that thread, are a performance bottleneck, but I have seen no evidence to support that claim, and have not bothered to measure it myself. It is certainly theoretically possible this is significant, though I'd honestly be surprised if it was the root cause of many performance issues. (Also, if it was, NVIDIA should show a significant FPS improvement over equivalent AMD hardware, a difference that doesn't seem to be present, due to internal optimizations done in the driver stacks to handle the many-draw-call DX9 situation.)

Ultimately, something is going to be the bottleneck, and that is almost always CPU for MMOs. GW2 is improving. It isn't perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, and I expect to see continued small improvements over time as the developers work to improve this further.

I don't expect to see a "big bang" replacement of the engine, though I wouldn't completely rule it out, depending how the internals of the new macOS client were implemented; if they have substantially improved on the current structure, that may eventually result in a big bang improvement on Windows. I don't anticipate it, though, as that would be tackling some of the hardest possible problems in the engine improvement area.

[Reincarnated.1754]

@"Ashantara.8731" said:That "guy" is a woman, namely me. ;) And yes, Intel, but I am certain there are similiar settings options for AMD, no?Sorry I didn't know this was you: http://coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility

To all.Sorry for not coming back sooner.I have been doing some testing.I tried my old drive that had an early instalment of my computer on, to compare things.(I nearly lost my documents folder doing this, but got them back, that's why I haven't been back till now {sweat and perspirations gone})

btw, my motherboard is ASUS M4A67TD EVO

With the old drive there was some improvement, but not as good as I remember it when the drive was In use.Obviously when I booted from this drive it updated windows and GW2. (so there is, in my opinion, something in the changes between then and now, that has made playing GW2 worse)

As there was some improvement and I have not been using this old drive for anything else yet, I decided to do a test.I reinstalled fresh install of windows on the drive, let windows update all drivers.Then installed GW2.In graphics settings hit the auto detect.Changed reflections to Terrain & Sky(Changed shaders to high after screenshot was taken verry slight change)https://img.techpowerup.org/180618/capture006.jpgScreenshot is with no other player near me.In combat with others my new FPS is 15 to 30.

I know in computer terms, my system is old, but with the system I have, I would expect better with just GW2 installed.

My Conclusions:It's a CPU thing.Anet don't care.More people are now getting animated Armor. (Legendary) (there is a reason pets are removed when numbers are high) this increases the CPU load. (the good thing about early versions of GW2, was it had few types of skins it had to load)

I am going to do a fresh install on my main drive when I have a few days free, when I feel up to it.15 to 30 FPS I can cope with, after all 25 FPS was the frame rate when I used to go to the cinema :)