Terrible FPS with Vista+DualCore+GeForce8800 - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

06 Apr 2008 at 22:00 - 1

I already posted this in a few other communities to no avail, first of all my configuration:

Intel Duo 2 E6600 (2x2,4Ghz)
XFX GeForce GTS8800 640MB
2GB RAM
Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit
Newest Drivers for Mainboard + Graphics Card
All Vista Updates, Hotfixes, Service Pack etc..

This respectable system runs Crysis, Gears of War and all the other nifty DX10 games at high quality settings with excellent FPS, so I assume(d) everything is worked fine.

Then, I installed and tried playing good old Guild Wars, since above games are .. arguably .. pretty shallow in comparision

And I was in a for a shock!

On average, no matter which area, 15FPS! Changing the graphics settings - and this is important - made no difference at all. I had the exact same FPS with 800x600 lowest settings as I had with 1600x1200 highest settings, 4xFSAA etc..

However, I realized the fps drop is proportional to the view distance. When looking directly at a wall or at the ground, I get (still ridiculous) ~40-50fps. Once I look into the beautiful mountains they drop to 10 or lower.

On top of that, as soon as my FPS drop (e.g. as soon as I stop looking at a wall or ground) i get horrible interface lag. Keystrokes and Mouseclicks are registered with like 1 second delay. Not sure if that is normal in GuildWars or just me ...

Any ideas? Simple solutions probably won't help since I tried and asked ALOT already

natural_Causes

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2008

Hall of Monuments

N/

06 Apr 2008 at 22:14 - 2

From what I've heard, GW doesn't run well on dual core CPU's. I don't know this personaly, but I've read it on forums. I would recommed setting the affinity of GW to run on one core only. After a quick search on Google, I found this --->
http://www.overclock.net/faqs/92457-...core-cpus.html.
Hope it helps.

quest3d

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2006

06 Apr 2008 at 22:21 - 3

does this happen in both fullscreen and windowed mode?
does this happen with any other games? (dx9 problem?)

silly thought I know but might be worth trying with low sound settings

Enko

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jun 2006

VA

Mo/

06 Apr 2008 at 22:28 - 4

i have the same problem with my quad core and vista 32 bit. already tried changing the affinity (tried it with 1, 2, 3, and 4 cores).

i have a dual core on my xp machine with zero problems.

Aera

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2005

Galactic President Superstar Mc [awsm]

E/

06 Apr 2008 at 22:31 - 5

Your problem could be your DirectX. I'd say give it a try with DX9.0c, GW doesn't use anything from DX10 anyway.

Carboplatin

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2005

[PIG]

W/A

06 Apr 2008 at 22:47 - 6

I have a quad core q6600 vista home/3gb ram/geforce 8500gt and had the same problem. I was able to fix it by doing this

assuming you are on a wireless internet connection

open command prompt as administrator after you have connected to your wireless internet.

1. enter this: netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="wireless network connection"

2. hit enter. you should get a confirmation it has been disabled.

3. start gw and you should be good to go.

4. next time u restart your computer, it won't recognize the wireless connection, so go into command prompt and enter this:

netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=yes interface="wireless network connection"

it should find your internet then. rinse and repeat and it should work.

goodluck. if you have question whisper me.

ign: R Langdon

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

06 Apr 2008 at 23:32 - 7

Thanks for your input so far!

@natural_Causes: tried that, makes no difference

@quest_3: happens regardless of any graphics settings, whether that be resolution, windowed mode or detail settings. This also happens with other DX9 games yes, namely Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and World of Warcraft

@Aera: I will try that, but its not a solution since that disables every other game I play which are all DX10

@R.Langdon: Nope, I don't have wireless LAN, I got a "normal" netgear router which never caused any problems before. I also don't see how that would affect my framerate?

Brianna

Insane & Inhumane

Join Date: Feb 2006

06 Apr 2008 at 23:42 - 8

Maybe a Driver issue? I've been hearing Nvidia has been putting out some crap drivers lately, if so, then go try to dig up an older version of your card's drivers and see if that helps, who knows.

gone

Guest

Join Date: Jan 2007

06 Apr 2008 at 23:58 - 9

are you starving it for power?

how many other apps are you running while gaming?

are you/did you mess with the clock speeds?

what version driver are you using? (there is a new beta driver out now[174.74], i've yet to run into any probs with it)

are you using ntune? (curious)

Blackhearted

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2007

Ohio, usa

none

Mo/

07 Apr 2008 at 00:00 - 10

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

@quest_3: happens regardless of any graphics settings, whether that be resolution, windowed mode or detail settings. This also happens with other DX9 games yes, namely Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and World of Warcraft

Isn't ET:QW on the doom3 engine? The doom 3 engine is opengl if i remember correctly and thus that game probably is too.

Bront

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2008

Honored Order of Light

W/Me

07 Apr 2008 at 00:16 - 11

Quote:

Originally Posted by natural_Causes

From what I've heard, GW doesn't run well on dual core CPU's. I don't know this personaly, but I've read it on forums. I would recommed setting the affinity of GW to run on one core only. After a quick search on Google, I found this --->
http://www.overclock.net/faqs/92457-...core-cpus.html.
Hope it helps.

That's only the case on machines with other issues. It can still potentialy be an issue, but I experimented with it for a while, and while I had initially thought it had helped, it turned out to be a non-issue.

Try Disabling SLA and use only one GPU. You don't need all that power.

Turn on Frame rate limits at 60, that shouldn't make a difference, but it can't hurt.

Try running gw -image first and then run the game. perhaps background network traffic could be causing an issue.

Run it in windows mode and see if any other apps spike in CPU usage using Task Manager. Perhaps you have a software conflict.

Kyrein

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2008

Island of Undisclosed Location

07 Apr 2008 at 01:22 - 12

my 4800 runs it at 60 no problem

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

07 Apr 2008 at 02:01 - 13

@flubber

- I run zero other apps while gaming, and I just fired up 3 messengers, IRC, bittorrent and launched warcraft 3 in the background just to test it -> no effect AT ALL on my framerate whether those programs run or not

- no I didnt mess with anything, I "plug&play" usually.

- I tried every single driver NVIDIA spat out in the last year

- what's ntune?

@Bront

- what is "SLA" and how do I disable it? Using only one of my CPU's (via task manager) made no difference

- I always monitor my traffic, cpu usage etc - nothing is runnign in the background, the cpu is at 20% tops while running GW, yet still it lags like no tomorrow as soon as I stop looking at a wall :-/ As I said, there is no trivial solution

Bront

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2008

Honored Order of Light

W/Me

07 Apr 2008 at 03:06 - 14

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

@Bront

- what is "SLA" and how do I disable it? Using only one of my CPU's (via task manager) made no difference

- I always monitor my traffic, cpu usage etc - nothing is runnign in the background, the cpu is at 20% tops while running GW, yet still it lags like no tomorrow as soon as I stop looking at a wall :-/ As I said, there is no trivial solution

My bad. I ment SLI, and you're only using 1 GPU. I need more caffeine.

gone

Guest

Join Date: Jan 2007

07 Apr 2008 at 05:28 - 15

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

- I tried every single driver NVIDIA spat out in the last year

and when you were trying out said drivers, were each removed properly before the installation of the next? I like to use this program (add/remove works fine too)
http://guru3d.com/index.php?page=driversweeper

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

- what's ntune?

to put it simply, it's a control panel for your FX card. some people like rivatuner better, but ntune is much more user friendly.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html

for tweekers: (advanced users)
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

/edit
I'm running almost the same setup but with another e6850...and of course it crushes GW in the FPS depo. (it's not to demanding. if you know what I mean)

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

07 Apr 2008 at 09:26 - 16

yea, I use DriverCleaner which probably does the same. So far I just used that NVidia Control Panel (and to be honest I didn't do much with it, left everything at default settings except for disabling vsync since I heard many people solving their FPS problems that way - made no difference for me though)

I'll download that RivaTuner and fiddle around a bit with it, thanks again for your input!

Quote:

I'm running almost the same setup but with another e6850...and of course it crushes GW in the FPS depo. (it's not to demanding. if you know what I mean)

I don't really get that part? e6850? why does it crush GW?

gone

Guest

Join Date: Jan 2007

07 Apr 2008 at 09:33 - 17

same setup, different processor(and i'm running ultimate).

"it" is referring to the system as a whole. meaning there is something terribly wrong if you can only pull those numbers.

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

07 Apr 2008 at 12:15 - 18

so just for comparision, can you set everything to highest (in case you havent), enter "The North Wall" mission, get a view that captures as much distant landscape as possible, and tell me your FPS? Just for comparision, I get around 15FPS now when I do that. When I look a the ground, around 150FPS.

I also overclocked my 8800GTS by 50Mhz now using the RivaTuner, and there is a noticeably increase in FPS, so that kind of helped!

gone

Guest

Join Date: Jan 2007

07 Apr 2008 at 12:41 - 19

windowed 200 fps+
1280 x 1024 300fps+

all the candy but Vsync enabled.

with vsync 75 fps.

Bront

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2008

Honored Order of Light

W/Me

07 Apr 2008 at 23:51 - 20

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

so just for comparision, can you set everything to highest (in case you havent), enter "The North Wall" mission, get a view that captures as much distant landscape as possible, and tell me your FPS? Just for comparision, I get around 15FPS now when I do that. When I look a the ground, around 150FPS.

I also overclocked my 8800GTS by 50Mhz now using the RivaTuner, and there is a noticeably increase in FPS, so that kind of helped!

my Hardware is no where near as nice as yours, and I rarely drop below 60.

Are you running any mods? (I would guess no, but I'd rather ask). Are you patched to SP1? Was this a clean Vista install or an upgrade?

quest3d

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: May 2006

07 Apr 2008 at 23:58 - 21

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

- I always monitor my traffic, cpu usage etc

Do you monitor your RAM usage to? That can always become a bottle neck.

As I mentioned before sound can be a cause to if its not using the CPU properly. Especially if the game's using DirectSound under Vista.

If you're using a Creative sound card they have a program called ALchemy which intercepts calls to DirectSound and translates them into OpenAL

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

08 Apr 2008 at 18:07 - 22

@last two replies:

game runs the same with -mute, my Vista is cleanly installed with all updates and SP1, and my RAM is not even half full.

I dunno if I mentioned it before, but I have this problem for all games that do not support DX10 (like Quake Wars, World of Warcraft, etc..)

Admael

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2005

California

Xen of Heroes

08 Apr 2008 at 19:59 - 23

If you're troubleshooting the sound, try -nosound instead of -mute.

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

08 Apr 2008 at 20:28 - 24

As I said it is not a sound problem. And of course I tried GW with every possible command line setting by now, I work on this problem for a week now ...

EternalTempest

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

United States

Dark Side Ofthe Moon [DSM]

E/

08 Apr 2008 at 20:33 - 25

Try install most current DirectX from Microsoft, it does update several DX9 stuff in Vista.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Also VSynch will cap your fps to be the max refresh rate of your lcd/monitor.

Advanced trick

Download and install - http://www.asio4all.com/
This will give you an ASIO compatible sound driver on any sound card.

Then use switch off the exe -sndasio this will run GW using ASIO sound.

Admael

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2005

California

Xen of Heroes

09 Apr 2008 at 02:21 - 26

Well, if its lagging only for Guild Wars, it has to be Guild Wars!

I propose a re-installation! It's obvious that the drive is having a hard time decompressing whatever's packed into gw.dat resulting in poor frames.

So, if all fails, delete gw.dat, create a new shortcut and give it the command line -image and let it run!

Bront

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Feb 2008

Honored Order of Light

W/Me

09 Apr 2008 at 02:50 - 27

Quote:

Originally Posted by xhan

@last two replies:

game runs the same with -mute, my Vista is cleanly installed with all updates and SP1, and my RAM is not even half full.

I dunno if I mentioned it before, but I have this problem for all games that do not support DX10 (like Quake Wars, World of Warcraft, etc..)

Sounds like you should look into reinstalling DX10 or looking for an update.

Admael

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2005

California

Xen of Heroes

09 Apr 2008 at 11:35 - 28

Oh... it lags for more than just Guild Wars...

Lawl maybe I should read before I comment

It sounds like you need DX9 files (common problem for Vista users thinking by installing DX10 they not need DX9 files).

Here is the web installer, I've mirrored it just incase you "don't" want to go through that whole verification of genuine blah blah blah.
Official: link
Mirror: link

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

09 Apr 2008 at 20:24 - 29

I have both the newest DX10 and DX9.0c installed.

Shitty thing is, I don't even know which part of hardware to replace if I want to try that approach. No idea if another graphics card or a different OS would behave differently, and I just don't have the time do try out every single possibility. Sometimes I love my little PS2 for not being concerned with all that crap ...

Quick_Prodigy

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2007

In a water bottle

R/Rt

09 Apr 2008 at 22:09 - 30

might be something to do with the vista sp1 updates that we just got, I used to get 70+ fps but now I'm at a nice low 25fps

doesn't matter to me because it's still smooth as ever just wanted to share my 2 cents.

my pc specs:
Mainboard : Asus M2N32-SLI DELUXE
Chipset : nVidia nForce 590 SLI
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ @ 3000 MHz
Physical Memory : 2048 MB (2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 8800 GTX
Operating System : Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium Home Edition 6.00.6001 Service Pack 1
DirectX : Version 10.00

xhan

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2008

09 Apr 2008 at 23:07 - 31

no this problem existed way before that - guess my next step will be a full reinstall. Tried to avoid it, but only then I can start replacing hardware to try and find the error.

Ec]-[oMaN

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2005

Toronto, Ont.

[DT][pT][jT][Grim][Nion]

W/

10 Apr 2008 at 02:20 - 32

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/