Low FPS Problem - Running Radeon X1650

I've tried to troubleshoot everything so far. Installed the Catalyst drivers for the video card (the newest ones), defrag'd the hard drive and the gw.dat file (903 fragments to 1), adjusted the video settings to the bare minimum. Turned off the Catalyst A.I., turned on the -heapsize switch to 300000 and ran the game in -dx8 mode. Cleaned out and fixed the drives. Checked to see if my RAM is still good and it is. I've tried every possible thing to get the frame rates up but Guild Wars still runs at a sluggish 7 to 8 frames per second. D:

I don't know what to do besides get another video card, but I'd already spent a couple hundred on this one. All of my other games (WoW, Counter Strike, Oblivion) run just fine at 30+ fps in very graphcs engine heavy areas like towns and explosions. Yet when I run GW the frames lag to as low as 1.

I've tried everything guys, I need some help! Specs are listed below.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+
1.5 GB RAM
ATI Radeon X1650 AGP - 512 MB
Realtek AC97 Audio

Don't get a new video card. This one is more than good enough already. I can't say what you should do though.

Do you have EAX turned on in the sound option? If so, turn it off. Even though your onboard sound probably supports EAX it will cause a massive FPS drop.

I would recommend trying the -nosound switch. See if that improves the FPS.

Probably sound as the above posters mentioned.

If your hardware is fine, and GW has fps problems, it usually is the sound.

Thanks a ton guys! Adding the -nosound switch and disabling the EAX helped a LOT. Fps is back up to high 50's again.

Again, thanks for all the help; didn't think the sound would affect the gameplay that severely.

Try it with just the EAX turned off. That's what causes the major slowdown as it eats up all the cycles just to run. That way you will still have sound, just not the EAX enhanced sound.

If the sound is worth it to you it would also probably help to get a real sound card with a dedicated DSP. One problem with onboard sound on a gaming PC is that it's usually just a CODEC (some VERY basic circuitry for generating sound) and most of the audio processing is done by the CPU. When you have complex features like EAX turned on it's giving your CPU a lot more to do. Get yourself a nice Audigy 2 or X-Fi (depending on how much you want to spend) and the DSP on the card will do the work instead of your CPU.

Very true, you can pick up a fully EAX compliant card for £15 these days. Whilst not being the best cards around, they will take the strain off the CPU and free it up for the more important matter of running the game.

One comment regarding this: If you're buying an X-Fi card, don't get the Xtreme Audio (the cheapest one), since that one does not have a DSP on the card. Get the Xtreme Gamer or Xtreme Music instead.

or u can just buy vista hahah cause there is no EAX there ;]

Hehe. I'm sure OpenAL isn't much more processor efficient. Besides, game performance suffers under Vista anyway, so split the difference...

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2850&p=3

What is this EAX, and how do you turn it off? Maybe it will work for me.

Try to close all other programs and see if anything could possibly be stealing focus or rendering on top of the Guild Wars window. For example, my GW runs fine in Windowed mode but if I hover over something like a tooltip or an alert bubble appears in my system tray, my FPS drops massively.

First, try running the game with wait for vertical sync disabled via the graphics tab, F11. You should gain a significant FPS increase.

However, if you experience video tearing, etc. you may want to try a different tact:

Enable wait for vertical sync again and force triple buffering. You will need a utility like ATI Tray Tools to do this change. ATI Tray Tools is a free utility but there are others out there as well. You need to set up a 3D profile for guild, but it's very easy and creates a short-cut for you to use. Here's the info on triple buffering:

Source
I have a Radeon X1300 256MB AGP and my FPS was in the toilet, when I disable VSNC I got FPS improvement but also a lot of tearing when I did the "spin" test.

Since, forcing triple buffering with vsync enabled, I have smooth video. It seems to be a very good balance of performance and quality.

Your mileage may vary.

I am having some issues with this as well as my FPS go down to 1 and my ping goes up.What is EAX sound and how would I turn it off?I have just had my system in the shop for a tune up as i was having internet problems.Thanks

My system:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Processor and ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (NForce2 Motherboard)
2 GB RAM
ATI Radeon X1300 AGP - 256 MB
Realtek AC97 Audio with EAX enabled

Well, something is wrong, because my system specs are much lower than the OP's and I'm not seeing the FPS issue.

In crowded outposts my FPS ranges from 20-30 FPS.

Additionally, I have my system underclocked due to RAM timing issues on the A7N8X, it's running at 89%, or so.

So, when did EAX turn into such a problem especially with a modern AGP video card with 512 memory?

It's completely unacceptable to have to play with sound disabled, that is not a fix.

I would suggest you use ATI Tools and some recommended tweaks, or Omega Drivers, or take a look at your BIOS setting. Also look into what programs are running in the background.

I mean, come on, running the game at 800x600 resolution will increase your FPS as well, but that doesn't prove anything. Turning off EAX and playing with no sound are not solutions.

Your system should be running circles around mine.

EAX is just an option you select in the Options panel (F11) in GW. You'll see a box marked "hardware acceleration". If this is checked AND your card supports EAX, then you have the option of selecting EAX playback.

Note that GW defaults to DirectSound software mixing by default (meaning the hardware box is NOT checked), which is slower but more stable. If you actually have a decent sound card, both hardware acceleration and EAX are performed entirely on the audio card's DSP, and take zero CPU time. But if you have a cheapo card (like on-board), than turning on hardware and EAX may actually chew up a lot of CPU time.