Low FPS despite fine specs and ping

Hi there,

I bought guild wars the other day but it lags really badly. My ping averages out at around 200ms and usually gets the little green dot. My FPS however rarely raises above 10.

I have tried disabling all graphics, lowest resolution, no AA etc.
I have tried disabling all services and exiting all running programs.
I have tried using the "-image" parameter.
I have tried allocating more Virtual memory on the hard drive.
I have tried defragging and cleaning my system.
I have tried using the "-noshaders" and "-dx8" parameters.

I have no idea why this happens. Its really bugging me.

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A03
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 2038MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS - 512mb


This is really bugging me as I can run COD4 online on extra graphics and have no issues.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Let me know if you want any more specs

TB12

For the ping, you are not going to get much lower than 200 while in an outpost, while in an instance(outside of outpost), however you can get it lower than 200. FPS and Ping are most of the time are going to be better when you are not in an outpost, unless then outpost is pretty much empty.

But my ping is fine. Its just the FPS that is the problem, and it is the same everywhere.

Do you have really outdated drivers?

No, I spoke to the support team and that was one of the things that they told me to do. I have the latest drivers for my video card.

Also just tried port fowarding with no results.

You just said that your ping is fine even though in your topic you say its not. Which is it.

Where in my topic did I say its not.

I put that its 200ms and the little green dot which is good.

Are you playing in windowed mode? Sometimes windows gives guild wars low processor priority when ran in windowed mode, causing low fps.

Firstly, your system may not be a dinosaur, but it's close. You can't expect a whole lot of performance from a P4 with an 8400GS.

That said, it wouldn't take a whole lot to make it even worse. So, here's a few things that come to mind:

1. Clean the dust out of the machine. It may be simply overheating and throttling back.
2. While you have it opened (to clean it), make sure that all fans - particularly the CPU and GPU (video card) - are operating correctly.
3. Make sure that the OS is properly recognizing the CPU. As the computer starts up, check that the screen actually says "Pentium 4 3.00 Ghz". Sometimes, noise spikes on the power line (from lightning etc.) or rogue apps, can screw up the BIOS settings.
4. Reset the BIOS/Setup. Check the manual for the computer or motherboard to see where the BIOS/setup jumper is and follow the procedure. Or, remove the small "coin" battery from the motherboard for a few minutes (to allow the circuits to discharge) and then re-install it.

Of course, you didn't say that the machine ever played GW at better than 10fps, so maybe it's just that your machine can't play GW any better than that. In spite of how it may appear, GW is apt to require more CPU/GPU power than CoD. A better video card would certainly help.

Everything Quaker said... also what resolution are you playing Guild Wars at?

To my knowledge (which isn't extensive) ping is your connection and your computer specs are irrelevant to it. You could be running on a 50mb fibre optic connection and have 5 ping with an outdated computer and still lag.

Although your computer specs aren't up to a whole lot, they should be capable of running GW with a much higher FPS than your getting.

Not sure what else to suggest that you either haven't already tried or hasn't already suggested other than what I would consider to probably be the problem. Scan for spyware ASAP

Hmm, have you tried using the image command to make sure you've entirely downloaded all the data files locally. I found I was lagging horribly for absolute ages every time I installed GW on a new PC, until I did that.

I am not playing in windowed mode.

I have reduced the resolution to 800x600 and its the same.

The first post says that I have alreaqdy used the image command.

Tried cleaning out my computer resetting bios etc. No luck.

I just don't get it. My specs are better than the reccommended on the box.

Post your system temperatures, while idle, while playing GW, while playing some other graphics intensive game. It could be overheating.

is 800x600 the optimal resolution? i know lower resolutions are meant to make things faster, but i've always thought the optimal resolution, was y'know optimal for the system.
(sorry about the problem btw, even my old 256mb ram pc could get up to 20fps sometimes)

you checked for any common problems with your most recent drivers for your graphics card? not very likely but still hear some horror stories about certain graphics cards screwing up D:

Everything Q said here plus one more thing: If it is indeed your system a
nd not your connection, you can try downloading 3D-Analyze which may help with older computers to run games. Of course I am not sure if this will work for you or not. To learn to use it, search for tutorial vids on it in youtube.

Correct. FPS and ping have nothing to do with each other.

Do you have VSync on? If you disable it you can get higher framerates but you may get some tearing.

Problem could actually be a sound card driver issue and/or certain graphic related settings, either in the BIOS and/or graphic driver.

Over the years I have upgraded my main rig and have experienced multiple of issues in getting GW to run (All the while most of my other games would work fine, e.g. half-Life 2), such things as incompatible motherboard chipset w/sound card or video card, wrong HT settings in the BIOS, IRQ sharing between sound card and USB device, etc.

However, in this case your problem sounds similar to one what I had about two years ago. Try running the game with the -nosound command line switch and see if FPS improves greatly. If so then your problem is likely related to your sound card hardware and/or drivers. In my case, I had to disable all hardware sound acceleration options (in the game) and use software only.

Another shot in the dark here - i know ms have stopped support for xp and it may be possible that other graffix card makers have also stopped actual xp support and releasing vista/win 7 drivers only.So what may be "up to date " drivers for xp are not actually current drivers but older - if you follow.
I was using xp upto 2 months ago where i switched to vista and i used a nvidea 8500gt with no probs at all and even now in win7 it works fine - along with vista/win7 current drivers.

XP SP3 has extended support until April 2014 and a simple search on nVidia shows that they still release drivers for their latest graphics cards for windows XP. I would be pretty stupid to stop support for XP when it still dominates the market.

Optimal resolution would be the resolution that matches your monitor's 'native' resolution (LCD). Sometimes you can play at a lower rez than the native rez, but it can end up being stretched or squashed, or glitchy, and won't look as pretty.

Not entirely correct. A high ping can mean that a game has to wait for update info, and therefore, affect the 'game' fps, resulting in choppy game play.
In GW, for example, the fps shown by the little green/yellow/red dot can be affected by bad ping. The 'game' fps is related to, but not the same as, the video card/monitor refresh rate.

One effect of Vsync is to limit the max fps to the refresh rate of the monitor (nominally 60Hz/fps). Unless his monitor has a 10Hz refresh rate, Vsync won't matter.

@OP - one thing you might consider, since Windows can get clogged with all sorts of junk over time, would be to back up anything you want to keep and then start over with a reformat and a clean install.

VSync still affects framerate. When I was playing on an old computer with VSync on I could barely squeeze out 30 FPS, although I wasn't using triple buffering, but when I turned it off the framerate went up to ~60.

Taken from TweakGuides:

Your FPS is still going to be fine. The game doesn't stop rendering frames just because it has no updates and is just redrawing the same basic frame (+ environmental stuff like clouds moving and leaves blowing and so on). Now, really bad data throughput can leave you with horrible choppy gameplay with things teleporting around and not being where they appear to be. But you are still viewing this unplayable mess at 60FPS or whatever.

More fundamental is the point that FPS problems and lag problems almost always spring from different causes. FPS problems result from a video card that is insufficient, or a bad video driver, crapware monitor software like EZTune trying to "re-drive" the video, or, rarely, a lack of system resources that's bottlenecking things before they even hit the video card. Ping problems are almost always connectivity issues on the other side of the network cable, and, on rare occasions, an issue on the local machine like a bad network driver or virus/malware/crapware that's competing for bandwidth. There's almost no overlap in the sets of potential causes between the two problems, and what overlap there is ought to arise from insufficient hardware and not be the sort of sudden-onset thing that threads are made about. So, for non-technical audiences, like OP and most other guruers, stick to the simple (perhaps oversimplified) point: ping is not relevant to FPS and vice versa. That way people stop giving you irrelevant information and focus on things that might enable you to figure out what's causing their problem.

I may have a solution for you because I had the same problem the other day. I actually was checking this thread to see if there was a solution.

I ran GW the other day and noticed the application was really slow... I mean, 10 FPS slow. My usual FPS is 60. My ping was normal. The first thing I check was, of course, if there was any other application running. I eventually ruled that out. I restarted my machine and started GW again. This time, it was at 60 FPS. However, it was slowly decreasing to 10. Puzzled, I decided to open my computer and noticed the video card fan was not turning !!!

After confirming that it was a temperature related issue, I decided to take the whole machine down to the store room. I plugged the leaf blower in the socket and blow the mother out of the pc. It's really amazing how much dust builds up in there. After convinced it was nice and clean (and looked brand new too!), I plugged it back in and ran GW. Worked fine ^.^

I spent about 2.5 hours trying to figure out what was wrong, and testing if my hypothesis was correct, and finally fixing it. However, I ended up playing for only 10 minutes that night before hitting the sack :P

And that's the difference between "game fps" and "video card/monitor" fps. If you lose your internet connection while playing GW, your game essentially freezes. Your video card is still sending 60fps to the monitor, but the game has essentially zero fps. You are still rendering frames of local animations, sounds, etc. at whatever fps, but the overall "game" effect is 0 fps.
Conversely, if you turn off Vsync, your game can run at higher fps, for example, 150 fps, but your video card will still send only 60fps (or 75, or 120) to the monitor because that's the monitor's refresh rate (60, 75, 120, or w/e Hz). (Which is why there's no point in turning vsync off.)

It does have use if your video card is just bad to begin with and can't hit 60 FPS even without VSync on. In that case you're increasing you framerate, low as it may be, and not really going to suffer that much for it.