Any known plans for future performance optimization?

[Floppy.4936]

I know this has been mentioned before but have never seen it addressed by Anet or any hints that this will ever happen.

Newer maps especially when more populated can have terrible performance at times on some high end systems. WvW also suffers from this.

The game is running on an old version of DirectX and not at all optimized for multi core CPU's meaning performance can be bad even on high end AMD processors. As a result of this GW2 will only ever utilize about 30% of my CPU which is very frustrating when getting fps drops and most of my CPU is sitting idle. Would be great to see Anet spend a little time optimizing the game for newer hardware and updating to DirectX 12.

With the amount of new things added to the game and no optimization since release the performance keeps getting worse. With more content to come including another expansion it's time to work on performance.

[TPMN.1483]

Many people are using a third party add on called dx9todx12 proxy which is often boosting fps:

https://github.com/megai2/d912pxy/releases - this once configured for your system will utilise more of your hardware and provide you a bit of a boost.

 

I would recommend looking at this old post on why multi-threading programming is hard esp for MMOs:

- a ANET dev is commenting on how it works.

 

I would recommend looking at the following for maximising performance for your setup:

 

Shifting to a native DX12 may also help:

 

There is a known performance boost, if done correctly - and has been proved in WoW and some other games as it can help lower the cpu cycles needed on the main thread.

I have a 4 core hyperthreaded i7 @ 4.6Ghz (OC'd) [so it appears as 8 cpus in task manager] - and GW2 regularly takes 40-60% of my CPU cycles across all cores. A single core is about 12.5%. It may not be maxing out all cores, but its certainly giving it a decent running as true paralism and balance across cores is very difficult to program.

 

Reference for testing for WoW DX12 performance:

 

 

-- There is no real gain from DX9-> DX11 as most of the CPU optimizations can be found in the DX12 once fully utilized.

[Floppy.4936]

Thanks for this response, I have been considering trying out dx9todx12 however it has not been approved by Anet and I have seen people discussing uncertainty of whether it is allowed or not.

[TPMN.1483]

It’s not against the TOS - ANET do not approve any third party applications.

 

The developer has also released the source code and a few people have checked it and found nothing bad in it to date. Given it’s been heavily used for the last year by a good % of the player base and does not provide any advantage over any other player it’s highly unlikely ANET will ban anyone using it now.

 

Many people also use GW2TACO an overlay for GW2 for numerous years which also does not have a specific approval from ANET.

[Zephire.8049]

I don't know where or when it was said, but at least one Anet dev did go on record to say that they looked into upgrading from dx9 but they found it didn't improve performance as much as players think it would (they'd have to hardcode it and whatnot in a way the mod doesn't have to, similar to how Anet couldn't just copy build and gear templates as those needed to be integrated into the rest of the game's code) and it would be extremely costly in time or money to implement so they chose to stick with dx9.

 

The engine in general needs an overhaul, though. It's over 15 years old and while their method of patching is fantastic, the performance side of things is definitely running into the limits from the GW1 engine. Anet doesn't like tipping their hand on what they plan to do (although they are getting somewhat better now) but I wouldn't be surprised if the third expansion comes with a complete engine overhaul. I think that's more likely than it happening (if at all) without anything else going on, but it's just speculation on my part.

[lokh.2695]

How should we know?

[TPMN.1483]

> @"Zephire.8049" said:

> I don't know where or when it was said, but at least one Anet dev did go on record to say that they looked into upgrading from dx9 but they found it didn't improve performance as much as players think it would (they'd have to hardcode it and whatnot in a way the mod doesn't have to, similar to how Anet couldn't just copy build and gear templates as those needed to be integrated into the rest of the game's code) and it would be extremely costly in time or money to implement so they chose to stick with dx9.

>

> The engine in general needs an overhaul, though. It's over 15 years old and while their method of patching is fantastic, the performance side of things is definitely running into the limits from the GW1 engine. Anet doesn't like tipping their hand on what they plan to do (although they are getting somewhat better now) but I wouldn't be surprised if the third expansion comes with a complete engine overhaul. I think that's more likely than it happening (if at all) without anything else going on, but it's just speculation on my part.

It’s in my first post :

 

What has changed though is some specific things in DX12 which should improve things if implemented. ANETs comment refers to a pure DX9->DX11 upgrade. DX12 can lower cpu cycles and provides much better multi-core optimisation than DX11 and DX9.

 

[Stormcrow.7513]

Not only does P912PXY help with performance but I wont even attempt to play the game without reshade.

[Floppy.4936]

> Many people also use GW2TACO an overlay for GW2 for numerous years which also does not have a specific approval from ANET.

 

Well there are posts regarding tools like TACO and arcdps have has staff responses stating that they are allowed, dx9todx12 has not that I am aware of. That is all i mean.

[TPMN.1483]

> @"Floppy.4936" said:

> > Many people also use GW2TACO an overlay for GW2 for numerous years which also does not have a specific approval from ANET.

>

> Well there are posts regarding tools like TACO and arcdps have has staff responses stating that they are allowed, dx9todx12 has not that I am aware of. That is all i mean.

 

The person who used to verify this has left ANET back in December. The full TOS can be found here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

 

There is nothing here which conflicts with using dx9todx12 proxy.

 

ArcDPS however does read game memory but has specifically been approved for one version of the tool - there has been many more releases which were not approved.