Guild Wars 2 nVIDIA Driver Performance still bad as of 310

[EL1TE]

Hello, currently i can't seem to find any stable driver for GW2, some cause stutter some don't, however those which reduce stutter also reduce FPS.

My FPS goes from 20 to 10 in WvWvW, cities goes to 20.

I had the 310.54 and another person of my Guild told me he also has the same card, the 570 and has no problems and he was using 310.33

Okay, so i've tried those, with a clean install. Now it's worst, sometimes i get 35FPS outside fighting monsters.



I know the game isn't nearly optimized as it should, however i also know nVIDIA can do a LOT better, like they did with Skyrim, for example.

Either way can someone recommend me a driver that is at least decent for GW2?

Also if anyone knows why i'm getting this performance would be great (can be related to other system components, which doesn't make sense considering i can run any other MMO just fine, BF3, Skyrim, etc)

Specs:
Q9550 @3.8Ghz
4GB RAM 1066Mhz
GF 570
PSU 700W
SSD 120GB

All temperatures are always stable.

[mitzi76]

296.10 was always a good driver for me if all else failed.

i rem having lowish fps in wvwvw, i think everyone does to some extent. always had good fps outside though.

[EL1TE]

Thanks will try, i've noticed that if i set the AA in the nVIDIA CP to Off for this game it helps with the FPS, i use SweeFX and the in-game FXAA (even when it's recommended not to use both at the same time), considering the game uses FXAA as AA i don't know how this helped, but it did a little.

Things that i notice that greatly impact the performance are the reflections and render sampling, both greatly reduce the inconsistent FPS problems. I was using Supersample and tried Native, got 10+ FPS outside and much more stable 60FPS.

However it looks a bit weird on Native, FXAA helps a bit tho.

Again i'll try those Drivers, however i don't think it will really help considering they came out way before the game, still doesn't hurt to try, cheers.

[Mineria]

Running with 310.33 and got no real issues as long as AO is disabled.

[EL1TE]

Originally Posted by Mineria

Running with 310.33 and got no real issues as long as AO is disabled.

Well your card is more powerful, i think this has a lot to do with my CPU and RAM, even the CPU is still decent (with Overclock) it's bottlenecking the GPU and the RAM doesn't help.

I didn't pay much attention for the past 3 years to Hardware, that's why i didn't upgrade the PC at all, just bought the 570 which is a great card, but i know this MoBo, CPU and RAM are not helping at all, my SSD is running on SATA2 since the MoBo doesn't support 3, the RAM is only 4GB and i can't have Firefox open at the same time as the game or the system starts to crawl if i alt+tab

Still i have played TERA which has better graphics, more animations, bigger played models and it's perfectly stable, Battlefield 3 is also very demanding and i play it maxed (except textures medium, due to RAM limit and the AA (x2))

This game could be a lot better in terms of optimization, it's been months and ANet didn't do anything noticeable, or anything at all.

Damn i write too much.

TL;DR CPU and RAM are bottlenecking the GPU but the game isn't optimized anyway.

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by EL1TE

Well your card is more powerful, i think this has a lot to do with my CPU and RAM, even the CPU is still decent (with Overclock) it's bottlenecking the GPU and the RAM doesn't help.

I didn't pay much attention for the past 3 years to Hardware, that's why i didn't upgrade the PC at all, just bought the 570 which is a great card, but i know this MoBo, CPU and RAM are not helping at all, my SSD is running on SATA2 since the MoBo doesn't support 3, the RAM is only 4GB and i can't have Firefox open at the same time as the game or the system starts to crawl if i alt+tab

Still i have played TERA which has better graphics, more animations, bigger played models and it's perfectly stable, Battlefield 3 is also very demanding and i play it maxed (except textures medium, due to RAM limit and the AA (x2))

This game could be a lot better in terms of optimization, it's been months and ANet didn't do anything noticeable, or anything at all.

Damn i write too much.

TL;DR CPU and RAM are bottlenecking the GPU but the game isn't optimized anyway.

How Tera looks better or not is a matter of taste...
I have seen GW2 run well even on older cards, like the GTX260.
Did you try to disable AO completely with NvInspector?
Also, how are your ingame settings?

[Iruwen]

GW2 is heavily CPU limited, also the engine currently has some problems ANet is working on (the ones you're experiencing especially in cities and WvW), there has been an official comment on that. They're changing core parts of the engine to improve culling and performance, so it'll take a while. There's not much NV could do about that.

[Deathchild]

It's not about drivers, my game was working fine on GTX 260, it was actually really smooth and playable, almost didn't need an upgrade. Everything on high, native, FXAA, reflections on all, shadows on high.

With the exception of wvws and a million people of course (e8400@4.0).

Maybe try a fresh install, see what happens?

PS. drivers that I really liked were 301.42s when I was still using the GTX 260, you could try them out.

[Vbs]

Try the 307.45, they are silky smooth in GW2 for me (560Ti).

[Black_ice_Spain]

only highly (4ghz+ i think) clocked i5/i7s can get a DECENT FPS in MvM (mostly 30-35+), and even those, sometimes it dips to 20-30fps.

[EL1TE]

Originally Posted by Mineria

How Tera looks better or not is a matter of taste...

True, however you should always expect people expressing their own opinion everytime they write a comment on the Internet.

Originally Posted by Mineria

I have seen GW2 run well even on older cards, like the GTX260.
Did you try to disable AO completely with NvInspector?
Also, how are your ingame settings?

Yes i disabled AO and it's not even noticeable ingame.

Settings are mixed, mostly at max, but it barely changes even on minimum.

Originally Posted by Deathchild

It's not about drivers

It is and it is not. Look at the improvements nVIDIA made to Skyrim, obviously Bethesda also worked on it, still nVIDIA did a great job on their part.

Originally Posted by Deathchild

Maybe try a fresh install, see what happens?

Fresh installs only seem to solve the problem if the OS is bloated, since this only happens with this game and i'm using an SSD just for games, i don't think it will help.

Originally Posted by Vbs

Try the 307.45, they are silky smooth in GW2 for me (560Ti).

Thanks, will try those.

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by EL1TE

Yes i disabled AO and it's not even noticeable ingame.

Settings are mixed, mostly at max, but it barely changes even on minimum.

It's not noticeable except for the fps impact that it adds, kinda that what I meant, and you can only fully disable it with NvInspector.
Just fire up Fraps and see the difference, specially in WvW.

I got everything maxed with a few exceptions.
Reflections is only on terrain and sky.
Render Sampling at native, since supersampling is a downsampling method that requires a lot of gpu power which is to much even for high end graphic cards, I wonder if they optimized that for quadro cards xD
Shadows at medium, I think high and ultra over the top, but thats more personal preference I guess.
Best texture filtering off and AF forced via nvidia's cpl, does a much better job.
Depth blur off.
Vsync off, since I use a 120Hz.
I use something called Process Lasso in addition, so I don't have full spikes on a single core while running the game, that also smoothens it out a lot.
Hopefully a light will go up for all game developers, which means that they start to use proper threading methods.

Oh, and I don't use ingame FXAA neither MSAA, using the fxaa and a few other shaders provided via my tool.

[Iruwen]

Originally Posted by Mineria

Render Sampling at native, since supersampling is a downsampling method that requires a lot of gpu power which is to much even for high end graphic cards

Not exactly true, here I'm running the game downsampled at 2880x1800 and with internal supersampling enabled with everything else maxed (except FXAA which doesn't cost performance anyway, I'm using the SMAA injector) and I still get 51 FPS with just one GTX 670. I only switched back because the UI gets too small at that resolution, even with the UI scaling option set to biggest.

PS: fyi, the FPS hardly changed as I changed any of these options. They also didn't go up dramatically as I just looked at the ground or down when more water was in sight. But in WvW, they sometimes get insanely low with no matter what settings, although my CPU (Quad Core i7-920@3,5GHz) isn't completely loaded. This is clearly something ANet has to fix (and as I said, they're working on it).

PPS: Today's an AMA event at reddit where this will probably one of the questions asked: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...side_ama_here/

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by Iruwen

Not exactly true, here I'm running the game downsampled at 2880x1800 and with internal supersampling enabled with everything else maxed (except FXAA which doesn't cost performance anyway, I'm using the SMAA injector) and I still get 51 FPS with just one GTX 670. I only switched back because the UI gets too small at that resolution, even with the UI scaling option set to biggest.

PS: fyi, the FPS hardly changed as I changed any of these options. They also didn't go up dramatically as I just looked at the ground or down when more water was in sight. But in WvW, they sometimes get insanely low with no matter what settings, although my CPU (Quad Core i7-920@3,5GHz) isn't completely loaded. This is clearly something ANet has to fix (and as I said, they're working on it).

PPS: Today's an AMA event at reddit where this will probably one of the questions asked: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...side_ama_here/

Supersampling renders at a higher resolution as your native set resolution, so ofc. does it have some performance impact compared to running pure native.
I get from 45 - 90 fps while using native, as soon as I use Supersampling the max drops by loads, still playable thou but not as fluid as with higher fps, unless I use 3DVision, where Supersampling is a no go.

[HonoredShadow]

Originally Posted by Mineria

I use something called Process Lasso in addition, so I don't have full spikes on a single core while running the game, that also smoothens it out a lot.

What do you do with it exactly to help out. Please elaborate
The reason I ask is because if I turn on shadows to Ultra then I get occasional stutter from 60fps. I'm hoping this might fix that.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Mineria

Best texture filtering off and AF forced via nvidia's cpl, does a much better job.
Depth blur off.

I have tried this and it does seem to working well! fps might be a little higher. Will keep checking. Surely if your forcing 16 x AF you don't need to turn off the in game texture filtering?

The only reason I ask is because before now I have forced 16 x AF and left this option ticked and I have a negative effect and loosing roughly 20fps. But now (with the 310.61 driver) I get better results so far!

Also which would look the best. In game option or forced 16 x AF or would it actually look the same.

Thanks for any feedback.

[Iruwen]

Originally Posted by Mineria

Supersampling renders at a higher resolution as your native set resolution, so ofc. does it have some performance impact compared to running pure native.
I get from 45 - 90 fps while using native, as soon as I use Supersampling the max drops by loads, still playable thou but not as fluid as with higher fps, unless I use 3DVision, where Supersampling is a no go.

Of course it does, but it's not anywhere as heavy as you expect. I was just saying that even with the double-supersampling I'm doing I'm getting pretty good FPS in most situations (except broken WvW) with a single normal GTX 670. The fact that my changes don't change the FPS as much as one would expect just means that something limits within the engine, and it doesn't only seem to be the CPU. My system is well balanced and maintained, it's a pure clean gaming rig, tried all NV beta drivers since 301.42 and it just boils down to: ANet has to fix the engine.

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by HonoredShadow

What do you do with it exactly to help out. Please elaborate
The reason I ask is because if I turn on shadows to Ultra then I get occasional stutter from 60fps. I'm hoping this might fix that.

EDIT:



I have tried this and it does seem to working well! fps might be a little higher. Will keep checking. Surely if your forcing 16 x AF you don't need to turn off the in game texture filtering?

The only reason I ask is because before now I have forced 16 x AF and left this option ticked and I have a negative effect and loosing roughly 20fps. But now (with the 310.61 driver) I get better results so far!

Also which would look the best. In game option or forced 16 x AF or would it actually look the same.

Thanks for any feedback.

ProcessLasso does balance the games threads over all my cores instead of having one constant spike on a one core all the time.
As for the ingame option, you either use that or force it AF via Nvidia's cpl, does about the same thing, just that the drivers AF looks and works much better.
Even AF x8 is better.

[HonoredShadow]

Thanks. How would I get that program to do that please? I have never used it. Is it an automatic thing or do you have to set something for the game?
I have just installed it though

Would doing that only affect this game or everything?

Sorry for all the questions. Just unsure!

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by Iruwen

Of course it does, but it's not anywhere as heavy as you expect. I was just saying that even with the double-supersampling I'm doing I'm getting pretty good FPS in most situations (except broken WvW) with a single normal GTX 670. The fact that my changes don't change the FPS as much as one would expect just means that something limits within the engine, and it doesn't only seem to be the CPU. My system is well balanced and maintained, it's a pure clean gaming rig, tried all NV beta drivers since 301.42 and it just boils down to: ANet has to fix the engine.

Yes, a lot has to be done on the threading, cause it mainly boils down to bad cpu core utilization, some could probably also be pushed to the GPU instead, it's not like the GPU works overtime with exception when we force higher levels of AA on the game.

[Varna]

Originally Posted by Iruwen

GW2 is heavily CPU limited, also the engine currently has some problems ANet is working on (the ones you're experiencing especially in cities and WvW), there has been an official comment on that. They're changing core parts of the engine to improve culling and performance, so it'll take a while. There's not much NV could do about that.

Source on this?

690GTX and a 4.8GHZ 2500k here and performance is still pretty terrible. I'm not expecting much in massive zerg fest (I do get 25~40 which i hear is pretty good) but I should get a pretty stable 60 in most PVE content... which I don't. Cities constantly drop frames and dungeon run like **** (sub 30).

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by HonoredShadow

Thanks. How would I get that program to do that please? I have never used it. Is it an automatic thing or do you have to set something for the game?
I have just installed it though

Would doing that only affect this game or everything?

Sorry for all the questions. Just unsure!

Add the games exe as a gaming process aka game mode.
I will post my ProcessLasso config when I get home later today.

[HonoredShadow]

Thank you! Bit of a noob at this

I don't seem to see a game mode.

[Iruwen]

Originally Posted by Varna

Source on this?

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...rst#post758110

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...rst#post480648

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by HonoredShadow

Thank you! Bit of a noob at this

I don't seem to see a game mode.

As promised. my prolasso.ini, it's under: options > advanced tools > manually edit the current INI configuration file...

Adding games via the menu is done under: options > categorization

Not sure if you got pro balance and some of the other things in the free version, but you won't miss out much either by not having those.

[Administration]
ConfigPasswordMD5=
[OutOfControlProcessRestraint]
OocOn=True
DisableProBalanceWhenSysIdle=False
OocDisableCoreParkingWhileIn=False
DisableProBalanceIfSysIdleThisManyMS=30000
TotalProcessorUsageBeforeRestraint=11
PerProcessUsageBeforeRestraint=8
TimeOverQuotaBeforeRestraint=1100
PerProcessUsageForRestore=4
PlayOnRestraint=
PlayOnRestore=
MinimumTimeOfRestraint=4200
MaximumTimeOfRestraint=0
TameOnlyNormal=True
LowerToIdleInsteadOfBelowNormal=False
ExcludeServices=True
PlaySoundOnRestraint=False
PlaySoundOnRestore=False
RestrainByAffinity=False
RestraintAffinity=
ExcludeForegroundProcesses=True
DoNotLowerPriorityClass=False
LowerIOPriorityDuringRestraint=False
OocExclusions=
OocHardCodedExclusionOverrides=
[GUI]
HideProcessShellIcons_6=True
ClearLogAtExit=True
ShowMemoryLoadGraph=True
ShowPerCoreUtilGraph=True
ShowPerCoreFreqGraph=True
ShowGraphLegend=True
ShowGraphCPU=True
ShowGraphResponsiveness=True
ShowGraphMemoryLoad=True
ShowGraphProBalanceEvents=True
ShowGraphSelectedProcessesCPUHistory=True
ShowThreadsAndModulesView=False
ShowGridLines=False
[Advanced]
PipeDisabled=False
AutomaticUpdate=True
[Performance]
DelayStartMins=0
UpdateCheckTime=0
DefaultsLevel=327942
UpdateSpeed=1000
ManageOnlyCurrentUser=False
ExitOnCloseWindow=False
DowngradeSelfPriority=True
SoundsOff=True
AggressivelyTrimProcessLassoWorkingSet=True
CloseApplicationTimeoutSeconds=0
ForcedMode=False
[ForegroundBoosting]
BoostForegroundThread=False
BoostForegroundProcess=False
ForegroundBoostExclusions=
[SystemTrayIcon]
UseStaticIcon=False
ShowResponsivnessInTrayInsteadOfProcessorUsage=True
[Logging]
LogDisable=False
LogProBalanceParkingChanges=False
LogAllProcessesExecuted=False
LogProcessesDisallowed=True
LogDefaultPriorityAdjustments=True
LogDefaultAffinityAdjustments=True
LogOutOfControlProcessesRestrained=True
LogOutOfControlProcessesRestored=True
LogInstanceLimitTerminations=True
MaximumLogEntries=100
[MemoryManagement]
TrimAllProcessesAtThisIntervalInMs=0
CacheClearEveryIntervalInMins=0
[SysTrayBalloons]
EnableSystemTrayNotification=False
BalloonTipDuration=10000
ShowBalloonsForOocPriorityRestoration=False
[ProcessAllowances]
ApplyInstanceCountLimitsToAllUsers=False
SendTerminationNotificationMessage=False
AllowedProcesses=
DisallowedProcesses=
InstanceLimitedProcesses=
ProcessThrottles=
OneTimeProcessThrottles=
[ProcessDefaults]
DefaultPriorities=gw2.exe,high
DefaultIOPriorities=gw2.exe,3
DisableThreadPriorityBoost=
DefaultAffinities=
KeepRunningProcesses=
MatchWildcardsToPathnames=False
[AdvancedRules]
DivideCPUPercentThresholdsBySystemCPUCount=False
WatchdogRules=
[GamingMode]
GamingModeEnabled=False
[Classifications]
AutomaticGamingModeProcessPaths=e:\diablo iii\diablo iii.exe,e:\f1 2010\f1_2010.exe,e:\guild wars\gw.exe,e:\guildwars2\gw2.exe,e:\maniaplanet\maniaplanet.exe,e:\rallisport challenge\rallisportchallenge.exe,e:\starwars\swtor\retailclient\swtor.exe,e:\the lord of the rings online\lotroclient.exe,e:\the secret world\thesecretworld.exe,e:\the secret world\thesecretworlddx11.exe,e:\tmnationsforever\tmforever.exe,e:\tmunitedforever\tmforever.exe,e:\wot\worldoftanks.exe
[PowerManagement]
Display=
PC=
AllowDisplaysPreventPC=
[ProcessDefaults]
DefaultPowerSchemes=swtor.exe;gaming mode power plan,gw.exe;gaming mode power plan,diablo iii.exe;gaming mode power plan,f1_2010.exe;gaming mode power plan,nfs11.exe;gaming mode power plan,rallisportchallenge.exe;gaming mode power plan,lotroclient.exe;gaming mode power plan,tmforever.exe;gaming mode power plan,worldoftanks.exe;gaming mode power plan,woh.exe;gaming mode power plan,gw2.exe;gaming mode power plan,tera.exe;gaming mode power plan
[PowerSaver]
PowerSaver_IdleTime=0
EnergySaverEnabled=False
EnergySaverEvents=False
DisableEnergySaverWhenMultimediaRunning=True
DisableEnergySaverWhenGameRunning=True
PowerSaver_Exclusions=

[HonoredShadow]

Thanks!

I have added GW2.exe to the game mode. Why do I need to manually change the ini? Surely I just need to tell the program that I want the game to use all cores or something.