Guild Wars 2 Forum

Hey, all,

I'm starting this thread to try and gather information about framerates. Can you post your hardware and your experiences here?

In particular, I'm on an ATI Mac and using with the 'FixedVShaderLimit' hack described elsewhere (anyone unfamiliar with that, let me know and I will post instructions right here). My mileage has varied a lot from one stress test to the next. I get perfect graphics (no glitches) with the FixedVShaderLimit set to 262 or higher. Today, setting it to 262 gives acceptable performance. Last stress test, 262 was too slow to be playable. I'm passing '-dx9single' to the launcher.

Others experiences? With the launcher and chat bugs largely resolved (patching still crashes periodically, but re-starts can happen OK), the graphics badness and framerates are some of the last big blockers (at least at the moment, until something changes). (I know there are other bugs, but those are big ones).

Cheers!

Previously even with all the tips and configurations, I found the game barely playable. Today, however, with FixedVShaderLimit at 262, I was shocked at how well it was performing. I'm barely getting any weird blue on my screen, on the character selection screen my character's head is displayed correctly, and in game I no longer get a headache. The only weird thing is I keep seeming to get a Golden Moa bird's textured rendered on top of mine There's still a fair amount of weird graphics, but nowhere near as much. As for FPS, I've been getting on average between 12 and 18. I've seen it jump to 27 at times and go down to 1 at others. I have the in-game graphics set lower than I normally would as well.

As for my Mac itself, I'm running Mountain Lion, I have an i7 processor, 8 GB memory, and have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M.

iMAC 2011, i5 3.1Ghz, 8G RAM, ATI Radeon HD 6970M 1024 MB

Camera rotation doesn't work ;(

started with -dx9single
FixedVShaderLimit 262
VideoMemorySize 1024

Hey, mine are bad, but I was wondering about this fixedVShaderLimit? where do I input it. Oh and the stretching is back! :(

Hey there, I'd also be interested in how to do this hack. I installed DirectX 9 via crosstie and looked for Direct3D in the registry; but there was none under "Wine" (as described in that other thread), so I created one and put the string in there but it doesn't seem to change anything (as many of those blue triangles as before in today's stress test — which was my first one so I'm not sure if that would have been the same in other tests...) so I wonder if that Direct3D key should have been there already after installing DirectX 9 or something else went wrong...?

Thanks so much for all you efforts! Cheers, Tina
(sitting on a 2.2ghz i7 Core, 4GB ram, AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB, running mountain lion... if that helps :) )

Tina wrote:

Hey there, I'd also be interested in how to do this hack. I
installed DirectX 9 via crosstie and looked for Direct3D in the
registry; but there was none under "Wine" (as described in that
other thread), so I created one and put the string in there but it
doesn't seem to change anything (as many of those blue triangles as
before in today's stress test — which was my first one so I'm not
sure if that would have been the same in other tests...) so I wonder
if that Direct3D key should have been there already after installing
DirectX 9 or something else went wrong...?

Thanks so much for all you efforts! Cheers, Tina
(sitting on a 2.2ghz i7 Core, 4GB ram, AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB,
running mountain lion... if that helps :) )

Have you also installed Direct X Modern runtine (or something like that) through Crossovers menu?
Make sure you've added the Direct 3D registry edits in the correct place.

Hey
I recorded my framerate between 15 and 25 while playing on that stress test. I however have no idea what this FixedVShaderLimit is so any info on where to put it would be cool. I was also experiencing really bad graphics including the solved bugs (Direct 3D) which seems to have stopped working! also the blue hue was back, and swimming underwater was fine!
I didn't get any screenies sorry!

2010 Macbook pro 13" OS X 10.6.8 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce 320M

Thanks for making this possible! Still had a great time ignoring any graphical glitches! :)

The Fixed VShader Limit is a Registry Key...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D/FixedVShaderLimit

Josh Dubois describe this in the Thread: Test Builds for today's stress-test (August 9)

And i understand that he just set a more or less random number to avoid Bugs and optimize the fps. I could test this cause with my nvidia card i have nearly no issues, just some parts of my armour are invisible.

Check out the original Thread for more Information.

My framerate experience

Still used the stresstest build because of the rawinput-mouse-fix. And my framerate is at 11 to 12 frames. And my GPU still idle with 324 Clock and 324 Memory Clock setting.

Nothing change this low framerate just some ultra high settings break my framerate down to 1-8 fps. In Some areas i could play with 12 to 25 fps. I can't explain this behaviour.

Because of the Bug No 9568, i set
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D/UseGLSL to "enabled"

The Fog is gone, but could this break my FPS?

Nvidia-Drivers: 304.22

I forgot to refer the usage of the -dx9single switch.

Thanks Philip, I didn't have the DirectX modern runtime :) Lets see if that'll do.

Thank for pointing this out! I must have overlooked it! will give it ago on this next stress test.

Chris2009 wrote:

The Fixed VShader Limit is a Registry Key...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D/FixedVShaderLimit

Josh Dubois describe this in the Thread: Test Builds for today's
stress-test (August 9)

And i understand that he just set a more or less random number to
avoid Bugs and optimize the fps. I could test this cause with my
nvidia card i have nearly no issues, just some parts of my armour
are invisible.

Check out the original Thread for more Information.

My framerate experience

Still used the stresstest build because of the rawinput-mouse-fix.
And my framerate is at 11 to 12 frames. And my GPU still idle with
324 Clock and 324 Memory Clock setting.

Nothing change this low framerate just some ultra high settings
break my framerate down to 1-8 fps. In Some areas i could play with
12 to 25 fps. I can't explain this behaviour.

Because of the Bug No 9568, i set
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D/UseGLSL to "enabled"

The Fog is gone, but could this break my FPS?

Nvidia-Drivers: 304.22

I forgot to refer the usage of the -dx9single switch.

Hey. I have the ShaderLimit set to 275, thats what I have to set it to in order to get rid of texture stretching, there is still occasional blue grass, but that is the only graphical issue really.
The framerate goes between around 13 and 5 depending on how many people are around me/how far off in the distance I look. Thats with all settings pushed to max, although pushing them to min actually doesn't seem to make any difference in terms of performance, it just makes everything look dreadful.

Downloaded the special CrossOver 11.2.0 client and am running with "-dx9single". I tried FixedVShaderLimit value of 262, but still had lots of texture issues. Increased the value to 275 as per Phillip James' message and, like him, it fixes the texture problems.

I've been playing with in-games graphics options. Started with "Best Performance" and tried increasing various values. The one that seems to make the biggest difference for me is "Render Sampling". Using "Subsample" gives better framerate around 15fps at full res, but textures are a bit blurry. Using "Native" gives lower framerate of 5-10 fps, but the game looks better. Switching between Window and Full Screen modes doesn't seem to make much difference, but using a smaller Window size or playing at lower rez in full screen does help to boost framerate (no surprise there). Not as nice as full-res, but smoother.

I'm on a Macbook Pro with i7 CPU running OS X 10.7.4 (Lion), 8GB RAM, and AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics card (1024 MB).

Steve Jakob wrote:

Downloaded the special CrossOver 11.2.0 client and am running with
"-dx9single". I tried FixedVShaderLimit value of 262, but still had
lots of texture issues. Increased the value to 275 as per Phillip
James' message and, like him, it fixes the texture problems.

I've been playing with in-games graphics options. Started with "Best
Performance" and tried increasing various values. The one that seems
to make the biggest difference for me is "Render Sampling". Using
"Subsample" gives better framerate around 15fps at full res, but
textures are a bit blurry. Using "Native" gives lower framerate of
5-10 fps, but the game looks better. Switching between Window and
Full Screen modes doesn't seem to make much difference, but using a
smaller Window size or playing at lower rez in full screen does help
to boost framerate (no surprise there). Not as nice as full-res, but
smoother.

I'm on a Macbook Pro with i7 CPU running OS X 10.7.4 (Lion), 8GB
RAM, and AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics card (1024 MB).

I actually left the Sampling on Native but I put Shader at none (it actually looks better this way in my opinion), Reflections on Terrain and Sky (I also think this looks better), and I might have Shadows on none or low as well. With those settings (everything else is on max) the game looks gorgeous and I get around 15fps at full res, having a ton of other people on screen casting spells doesn't dip the framerate, the only times when it struggles a bit is in the major cities like THe Grove where it is a litttle bit choppy but not annoyingly so. Hopefully these settings help for you guys?
I would hate to play with subsampling xD, makes it look a little shocking.

Philip James wrote:

I would hate to play with subsampling xD, makes it look a little
shocking.

Agreed. I found I'd rather play at lower res than subsampled. I'm also getting about 15fps, game's looking great and quite playable.

I found that fixedvshaderlimit had no effect on graphics at all. I ended up using glsl which did solve the graphic problem however I think it may have slowed down fps in exchange. I get 10-15 fps.

anthony wrote:

I found that fixedvshaderlimit had no effect on graphics at all. I
ended up using glsl which did solve the graphic problem however I
think it may have slowed down fps in exchange. I get 10-15 fps.

Fixedvshaderlimit only works on one of the new test builds that was posted here in the forums I believe. You also have to figure out what number works best for your computer, try ramping it up to 280, the game will be unplayably slow, but at least you'll know you have the registry edit in right. 262-275 seem to the ideal.

The FixedVShaderLimit doesn't seem to change anything for me either. I'm using the special Crossover build, installed directx9 and the modern runtime, installed gw2 via crosstie and set glsl to enabled... Nothing changes at all (I tried setting the shader limit to 500 and it didn't even slow down the game so I'm pretty sure it's not applied at all, but I'm very sure I put it in the right place... also tried putting it directly onto the gw2.exe like that other registry key from the early beta; no changes) :(
I also tried creating a new bottle with the special build and win xp instead of visa, no changes either... I'm doing something wrong somewhere, right?

I've been playing for hours anyway; the bug gets worse (until pretty much unplayable) the more people are in an area; which makes sense because the stretching mostly occurs from players chars...

Tina wrote:

The FixedVShaderLimit doesn't seem to change anything for me either.
I'm using the special Crossover build, installed directx9 and the
modern runtime, installed gw2 via crosstie and set glsl to
enabled... Nothing changes at all (I tried setting the shader limit
to 500 and it didn't even slow down the game so I'm pretty sure it's
not applied at all, but I'm very sure I put it in the right place...
also tried putting it directly onto the gw2.exe like that other
registry key from the early beta; no changes) :(
I also tried creating a new bottle with the special build and win xp
instead of visa, no changes either... I'm doing something wrong
somewhere, right?

I've been playing for hours anyway; the bug gets worse (until pretty
much unplayable) the more people are in an area; which makes sense
because the stretching mostly occurs from players chars...

Make sure that when you run Regedit that you are running it in your GW2 bottle.

The Path is HKEY_CURRENT_USER>>Software>>WIne>>Direct3D
Inside Direct3D you right click and go "New String Value" Set the name as FixedVShaderLimit and the Value as 262 or 275ish.
Also, I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but in the same Direct3D folder I have VideoMemorySize (which has the value set to my video memories) and SafeVsConsts which is set to enable

Let me know if that helps or makes any difference or if thats what you already had.

Have you tried both with and without the glsl?

Philip James wrote:

Tina wrote:

The FixedVShaderLimit doesn't seem to change anything
for me either. I'm using the special Crossover build, installed
directx9 and the modern runtime, installed gw2 via crosstie and
set
glsl to enabled... Nothing changes at all (I tried setting the
shader limit to 500 and it didn't even slow down the game so I'm
pretty sure it's not applied at all, but I'm very sure I put it in
the right place... also tried putting it directly onto the gw2.exe
like that other registry key from the early beta; no changes) :(
I also tried creating a new bottle with the special build and win
xp
instead of visa, no changes either... I'm doing something wrong
somewhere, right?

I've been playing for hours anyway; the bug gets worse (until
pretty
much unplayable) the more people are in an area; which makes sense
because the stretching mostly occurs from players chars...

Make sure that when you run Regedit that you are running it in your
GW2 bottle.

The Path is HKEY_CURRENT_USER>>Software>>WIne>>Direct3D
Inside Direct3D you right click and go "New String Value" Set the
name as FixedVShaderLimit and the Value as 262 or 275ish.
Also, I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but in the same
Direct3D folder I have VideoMemorySize (which has the value set to
my video memories) and SafeVsConsts which is set to enable

Let me know if that helps or makes any difference or if thats what
you already had.

Have you tried both with and without the glsl?

Yes I have the same problem as Tina. Tried everything suggested on here. Played around with values as well. I posted a more detailed post on another thread (test build thread). Someone please help with the graphics stretching! Thanks!

Yeah I've tried installing DirectX 9 and modern and Direct3d does not exist as a folder with either. I read on another thread that I should manually write in a folder Direct3D. Is that right?

Adam Morgan wrote:

Yeah I've tried installing DirectX 9 and modern and Direct3d does
not exist as a folder with either. I read on another thread that I
should manually write in a folder Direct3D. Is that right?

Yes, you have to create the registry directory manually, there isn't one by default.

It works for me now! :) I just did the whole thing again from scratch, starting from downloading the special build and the gw2.dat again (because over at WineHQ someone said they had a corrupted gw2.dat but originally I didn't really want to download the whole thing again). Had to set the shaderlimit to 275 as well which makes it slow but pretty playable with lower settings (native sampling, low shaders and lower resolution had the biggest effects on speed for me).
With some settings/combinations I get other pretty random bugs, like blue outlines on textures or the thing where parts of textures get replaced with blue (see screenshot... the longer I look at it the more I think it's probably the same?). Doesn't really bother me since I found settings that work but if anyone needs some info on that.

Thanks a ton!!

Tina wrote:

It works for me now! :) I just did the whole thing again from
scratch, starting from downloading the special build and the gw2.dat
again (because over at WineHQ someone said they had a corrupted
gw2.dat but originally I didn't really want to download the whole
thing again). Had to set the shaderlimit to 275 as well which makes
it slow but pretty playable with lower settings (native sampling,
low shaders and lower resolution had the biggest effects on speed
for me).
With some settings/combinations I get other pretty random bugs, like
blue outlines on textures or the thing where parts of textures get
replaced with blue (see screenshot... the longer I look at it the
more I think it's probably the same?). Doesn't really bother me
since I found settings that work but if anyone needs some info on
that.

Thanks a ton!!

Yeah, you shouldn't be getting those issues with the fixedvshaderlimit :/
Are you still starting the game with -dx9single ?

Yup, and it doesn't make a notable difference (apart from the black login screen) if I don't. These things come up when I set the shader (ingame) to "high", but since this slows the game down to unplayable I've set that to low anyway so it doesn't bother me at all atm :)