Curse

Cherrie · Oct 31, 2006, 03:48 PM // 15:48

My machine ain't a demon of speed by no means, but so far I played through Prophecies and Factions at 1280x1024 res, max textures, shadows, terrain ect etc with satysfying (for me, at leat) range of fps above 20 (a little below in big fights). After release of Nightfall, my performence dropped down in a way I could have never imagined - I was aware of the fact that it might run a bit less smoothly after looking at the box, but I thought getting all details to min would me max to expect. Currently Im running GW not only at min details, but with dx8 on, shaders off, 1024x780 res and it has..... 7 fps in fights.
By the look of it, its a sign to buy completly new machine, I know... but whats puzzling me is that what I have is generally above minimal req, and very close to reccomended.

moriz · Oct 31, 2006, 03:52 PM // 15:52

post your computer's specs, so we can better judge what's going on.

anyway, there seems to be some problems with the way NF's graphics are made. alot of people with good computers are getting performance drops. strangely enough, my messed up computer with geforce fx5500 pci is doing just fine.

Mushroom · Oct 31, 2006, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Performance is down quite a bit. This is most likely because of the increased use at the moment. A lot more people are starting to play the game, as th ename is becomming more well known. And because of Nightfall, a lot of people have returned that stopped playing after finishing the first 2 games.

Add to this, the increased playing because of Halloween. A lot of people have been playing, in order to get the special items available only during this week. This will likely start to die off in the upcomming weeks as people finish this game, then move on to others (or back to Factions or Prophecies).

But expect another increase in users and decrease in performance come December, when the Christmas season starts (and the new players join who got the game as a present).

EternalTempest · Oct 31, 2006, 05:52 PM // 17:52

I would also run defrag on your computer in case the updates caused the gw.dat file to become fragmented.

moriz · Oct 31, 2006, 06:06 PM // 18:06

hmm, i never knew that a laggy server could result in lower fps. that should be mostly client-side, i believe.

Cyber Penguin · Oct 31, 2006, 06:16 PM // 18:16

it could be that the graphics card is overheating a little, that was my problem with the frame rate dropping below normal.

Cherrie · Oct 31, 2006, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Celeron 1.8G
GF 6600
1gb ram

My gw.dat is in 2 parts which contig refuses to merge. I defrag my disks at least once a week and keep my system clean. When gw is working, i have like 400 mb of ram left unused. as for overheating, im l-ing a program to test both GC and CPU just as I type.
And as i said, i was perfectly happy with the performance so far, and now its down like 2/3...

moriz, GW uses tcp/ip which does not tolerate any lose of information between client and server. Thus, if traffic is low and some packages are lost, server asks client to send them again and vice versa, client asks server to sent lost/corrupted information again. This is an extra work for CPU which has to count it, organise randomly recived info etc. I knew that can affect performance, but for Gods' sake, not to this rate!

moriz · Oct 31, 2006, 06:38 PM // 18:38

ouch. that sucks. perhaps the servers are overloaded then.

anyways, i've figured out why my gw is not having problems: i rarely break 30 fps in an empty room, so the mass slowdown... really can't slow it down any further!

Spike · Oct 31, 2006, 11:53 PM // 23:53

how many memory on your gfx card cherrie. You cpu is rather slow though. But memory is fine.

ForgeWhelp · Nov 01, 2006, 03:42 PM // 15:42

I'm running:
AMD 64 3000+
6600GT 128MB
1 gig RAM

I've been playing at max settings without complaints. And since late last week my performance has gone to garbage as well. And my vid card has started overheating all of a sudden. I wonder if new graphical elements were introduced putting a higher strain on ones system...?.

kelicula · Nov 01, 2006, 04:01 PM // 16:01

I too have had horrible lag after nightfall and halloween. I've defragged gw.dat, my computer even increased the ram used for the game. I might try to remove and then reload the client, but i'm at my wits end. My video card is fine, but this is getting depressing. Any ideas?

T1Cybernetic · Nov 01, 2006, 04:49 PM // 16:49

My performance has gone down the drain a bit too and a couple of guild and family who play
have also said that since they started playing nightfall it's the same for them, you are not alone

It's worse in towns and outposts so i just put it down to all the people online at the same time
because if you go outside of town or go and find a "empty" district its pretty much perfectly fine...

Cherrie · Nov 01, 2006, 07:16 PM // 19:16

256 ram on my gf 6600 My MB has 8 AGP so it doesnt matter much if its 128 or 256 really :/ But as I said, I didnt have ANY complains before nightfall... Yesterday, I tried a mission with a friend and Ive basicly done it blindfolded... with 5 fps at 900x600 and min details!!!!!!! When I saw that, I was like... W.T.F ??
Anyhow... both fans (on my cpu and gpu) are working, plus my gpu has a HUGE radiator covering memory also. Ive toutched it and it was not much warmer than my body temp, same with radiator over cpu so Im guessing they are not overheating.

But

Im afraid its not only Nightfall for me. Desperate, Ive installed HoMM V to check performence and... its down too... I used to play it at 1280x1024 High details no anti aliasing and it was fine (not great, but fine) or 1024x780 and it was even smoother. Now, it's choppy even at 900x600 (or whatever the min is there) and min textures... AA of course is off... I have no idea whats wrong... Im afraid it must be some nasty hardware failure, but where? Im guessing its connected to GPU since I havent noticed any reduction in other performance.
Any ideas?

moriz · Nov 01, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

try another graphics intensive game that you own. if they run as before, then it's gw's fault. if not, then start checking hardware. unfortunately, that's pretty much outside of my expertise.

kelicula · Nov 02, 2006, 08:03 AM // 08:03

I simply lowered my resolution (1024 by 780) and that ended all my nightfall lag yesterday. I'm running on 40g hardrive, 758 ram, geforce 5200 graphics. I also downloaded the free trial version of diskeeper which will defrag the gw.dat file. Now, that's down to one. The forum for resolving lag is amazing so I would recommend reading through that, it helps.

Cherrie · Nov 02, 2006, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Kelicula, I lowered my res as well... from 1280x1024 I used to play to 1024x780, as well as textures quality - it didnt help much (got 2-3 more fps... on the other hand thats like 10% :/). I get 5 fps during fight at 900x600 so smthng IS wrong... Im reinstalling my system on saturday, gonna see if that helps, and buying new mb + cpu.

ForgeWhelp · Nov 02, 2006, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Well I seemed to resolve my lag issues, I deleted the .dat file, re-DLed it and then -image it, then defragged the drive and then defragged the file. Maybe a couple more steps than needed but it worked.

But I'm still haveing video issues. I play HL2 at max settings no issues. But if I play GW at max settings it appears that my card overheats and my video freeze/hangs. I can play at lower settings while I wait for a new cooler for the card.

Nov 02, 2006, 11:34 PM // 23:34

im getting town lag ever since nightfall.

only when im near more then 10 people i lag like hell =-\

dell 9300 laptop
2.2 mobile
2 gig 533 ddr2 memory
7800gtx 256 meg video

before nf, i ran game at max settings 1920x1200 with a constant 80+fps

now i go to a town and its like 10-15 =-(

i play oblivion the same resolution and max settings and 0 lag what so ever.

moriz · Nov 03, 2006, 02:52 PM // 14:52

try adding a -mute to your GW command line. i wonder if it's actually something to do with the sound.

Retz · Nov 03, 2006, 05:18 PM // 17:18

I was experiencing similar trouble to this earlier, the game was simply unplayable. I fixed it using the -image flag, 30,000 files were decompressed and the game now runs flawlessly.

I suggest you at least try this. Start > Run... > "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\Gw.exe" -image