23 replies to this topic

[Kuldebar]

Anisotropic Filtering is usually a fairly low intensive setting and one I seldom think twice about maxing out.

From what I can tell though, in GW2, whether I use the in-game setting (Best Texture Filtering) or the Catalyst Control Panel, I lose nearly 20 FPS with it engaged.

So, I run without it now and enjoy higher FPS without giving up too much in the image quality department.

Don't know if anyone can confirm this on their machine.

My specs for the record:

I5-3570k CPU
AMD 6850
8 GB DDR3

I am running SweetFX Shader Suite as well.

Game graphic settings are maxed except Shadows on Medium, Post Processing on Low and FXAA off.

Edited by Kuldebar, 27 September 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[Juminator]

hum interesting, have to try that one to, although im Nvidia

On a similar note, what really nukes my FPS is reflections, try that out, i dunno why exacly but it seems the reflection code is process by the CPU and not the gpu i noticed that near water or very reflective surfaces my gpu activity would drop to very low levels and the game would drop to 10 FPS or so, clearly an indication the cpu is getting chocked and is creating a botleneck for the rest of the system.

I totally disabled reflections, and you know what i dont noticed that much diference in graphics, the water is still shinny, everything looks good, and the tradoff is not worth it for a drop in almost 20fps im some situations, why would anyone trade a crap ton of FPS by using a clearly very inficient code just to see its ugly face on the water .

Edited by Juminator, 27 September 2012 - 08:37 AM.

[Ezendor]

Yes, it is using more GPU resources than it usually does on other games.  I had quite a drop in FPS as well when turning it on.  Since I wouldn't be able to see the difference in image quality in WvW battles anyway, I disabled it.

[Arrisa Tyronee]

Goodness, you're right! 10FPS right off the bat. Doesn't really solve my problem, but at least I feel a little better now.

[Kuldebar]

Arrisa Tyronee, on 27 September 2012 - 01:53 PM, said:

Goodness, you're right! 10FPS right off the bat. Doesn't really solve my problem, but at least I feel a little better now.

Thanks for checking that out, I was pretty sure everyone might see some gain, but between driver packages and difference in machines you never know, plus the SweetFX usage, etc.

[brocksley]

I have a 6850 as well and I was testing this same thing last night. It was an average of 10 fps difference switching it on and off in various areas.

[Arrisa Tyronee]

Ok, that's three of us on AMD/ATi Radeons. Can some kind soul on a nVidia GeForce test it out and see how that works out?

For reference, I'm on an i7 920 and a 7950 with 12.8 drivers.

[typographie]

I'm running a GTX 460 with the latest drivers.

I went to a spot in Snowden Drifts where I could see a long expanse of terrain at a low angle, where anisotrophic filtering should be very obvious. I turned off Vsync and checked my FPS with and without Best Texture Filtering. Very little if any difference on my system, single digits at most.

Edit:
Just took a few screenshots which kinda underscore how awful GW2's AF implementation is, side-by-side with Nvidia's 16x anisotrophic forced on in my driver. As with GW2's AF, I didn't see any noticeable FPS difference. In particular, note the smoothness of the ground and the difference in the grassy area.



So maybe if you AMD guys are having trouble, try just turning off Best Texture Filtering and using your driver's.

Edited by typographie, 27 September 2012 - 07:26 PM.

[Juminator]

Ok Nvidia guy here

Diference between No filtering and  Anisotropic Filtering x16 by Nvidia Profile is 5 fps.

Thats like NO fps diference at all for such a massive filtering mode, going from zero to x16 Filtering.

System is a Asus G74SX Laptop
CPU: Intel I7 - 2670QM @ 2.2GHz (runing on turbo mode 3GHz)
GPU:GTX560M ( 306.23 Driver Version)
Ram:16GB DDR3

Game
Resolution 1920*1080
animation High
AA off
Enviroment High
Lod Medium
Reflections none
Textures High
REnder Native
Shadows Medium
Shaders HIgh
PostProcessing High
Best TExture (using Nvidia forced options now, AnyFilteringx16)
Depth Blur off (just preference look)
High Res Chars on
Vsynch Off

Mods
Combat Mod, with crosshair
SweetFx (SMAA , BLoom, Digital Vibrance)

Edited by Juminator, 27 September 2012 - 07:52 PM.

[Kuldebar]

Well, looks an AMD issue...lol.

I will take my 10-20 additional FPS and not use any anisotropic filtering. Sounds like this is a fixable issue perhaps at some point.

[SuperNova]

Lion's Arch is the best place to try it out -

AF "Off"


AF "Best"


There is a difference in quality that is obvious here especially on the wooden parts and the ground around the mystic forge, but the fps hit is quite high.  I tested all levels of AF (2x-16x forced through CCC) and the results were -

Off - 58 fps
2x - 53 fps
4x - 47 fps
8x - 43 fps
16x - 42fps
Best - 42fps

Best and 16x are identical in quality and framerate so it appears to simply be using the max of 16x in the AMD driver.  It's actually quite a difficult choice but I've been using Best quality with few issues (42fps in Lions Arch is pretty good at high-max settings anyway) so I'll probably stick with it.

Edited by SuperNova, 27 September 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[typographie]

Actually, after a little more investigation, I'm pretty sure GW2's "Best Texture Filtering" option isn't even working for me. I went to precisely the same place Supernova was and set my video settings to his (save for resolution). I can see a clear difference in his screenshots, and absolutely zero difference in mine. Check it out:

(This is with a GTX 460 and driver 306.23)

Without Best Texture Filtering (Nvidia 16x off):


With Best Texture Filtering (Nvidia 16x off):


For reference, with 16x AF in the driver (a lot more cobblestones visible around the Forge):

Edited by typographie, 28 September 2012 - 05:44 AM.

[SuperNova]

You're also getting much higher fps as well which seems odd.

edit - I guess it must have something to do with how many players are around and in the bank behind.  Are you on a lower population server?  I also tried removing some catalyst AI features and that got me to 62-64 fps but that's still 15% slower with a 15% smaller screen.  Graphics card is pegged at 99% so it's not that.

Edited by SuperNova, 28 September 2012 - 10:03 AM.

[typographie]

I'm on Yak's Bend, I think its a pretty high population server. I actually dropped my settings down slightly to match yours so I was comparing apples-to-apples, I normally run with High shadows, Ultra LOD and Depth Blur enabled. I've always had excellent performance at 1080p and high/ultra settings (better than I thought I was due, anyway), even back into the BWE's. Bear in mind I have the original GTX 460, with a beefier memory bus than the one currently on sale—probably the reason I'm able to handle 1080p as I do. Its also overclocked considerably:

Full specs:
Core i5-750 @ 3.66 GHz (175 MHz x 21)/1.200 V
8 GB DDR3 @ 1400 MHz
MSI Cyclone GTX 460 1 GB @ 850 MHz/2000 MHz (v306.23 drivers)
Windows 7 64-bit and GW2 installed on a Crucial M4 128 GB

Its not just there in Lion's Arch, I hit 50-60 FPS most everywhere. And it remains pretty smooth (30's at least) in heavy dynamic event combat with lots of players.

Edited by typographie, 28 September 2012 - 08:21 PM.

[SuperNova]

I hardly see any difference in framerate with blur but I dislike the effect so don't use it.  Actually on testing in Lion's Arch I lose about 1 frame with high shadows, ultra LOD and DOF enabled.  Most of the time I'm happy at 50-60 as well but I always notice that Lion's Arch caused a pretty obvious drop in framerate.

I'm also running an overclock but only 15%.  It may well be that there is something in LA that is causing slowdown's on Radeon cards (or at least last gen's) but there's no doubt your 460 is performing way above what my 6850 is there.

Edited by SuperNova, 28 September 2012 - 10:04 PM.

[Kuldebar]

I ended up setting AF to 2x in my CC panel with seemingly no FPS loss. (I am loving SweetFX Injector, btw)

Also, Post Processing none, low or high doesn't seem to change my FPS, so I just set it to high.

I run with VSYNC and Triple Buffering, this gets me to 47-50 FPS in Lion's Arch and around the same in open world.

Edited by Kuldebar, 29 September 2012 - 12:42 AM.

[typographie]

SuperNova, on 28 September 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

I hardly see any difference in framerate with blur but I dislike the effect so don't use it.

I know, it usually looks like pixelated garbage. But it does seem to make aliasing less obvious sometimes, and at least for the moment I consider that the greater evil right now in GW2's graphics. I may try an AA injector if we get some definite word on whether or not Anet is okay with them.

[Arrisa Tyronee]

I've been doing some testing, and it more or less replicates what the AMD users have found out: That is, 16x in Catalyst and "Best Texture Filtering" are for all purposes identical, and that the hit in frame rate can be huge.

I'm not too happy about this, because this answers half the question of why the frame rate is so bad.

I'm half-tempted to put the GTX 560 Ti back, but the 7950 has been phenomenal in other games (not to mention that it is actually a lot cooler for some reason). It's just that I foresee spending a lot of time in GW2, so I do feel like I wasted some money. *sighs*

SuperNova, on 28 September 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

It may well be that there is something in LA that is causing slowdown's on Radeon cards (or at least last gen's) but there's no doubt your 460 is performing way above what my 6850 is there.

For now, it seems the nVidia cards have an advantage. This sort of rubbish needs to be sorted out soon - If you told me last week that a mid-range card could beat or equal something from the same range or higher from the next generation, I'd have said you were full of shit. Well, now I'm certainly a lot less willing to dismiss such claims.

[Jobuu]

i got the 7970 and i can't wait to try this when i get home from work. I'm always for more FPS over graphics. But yea, we need to get better performance. I see AMD has a beta driver in the works. I'll let the brave people see if there's anything good there.

[typographie]

Arrisa Tyronee, on 01 October 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

For now, it seems the nVidia cards have an advantage.

Well, as I tried to point out, GW2's "Best Texture Filtering" doesn't even seem to be working on my GTX 460 at all, so naturally there's no framerate hit from it. When I turn on Nvidia's 16x AF, I get a similar 10 FPS hit to the AMD folks.

I wish someone else with a Nvidia card would post some clear screenshots with Best Texture Filtering on and off, so we can see if its just me.

[Fluent Fox]

Best Texture Filtering makes a very noticeable difference for me:

Best FIltering Off



Best Filtering On



GTX 670
Lowered my settings to match yours, typo.

[SuperNova]

Some weird stuff going on here for sure.  Fox's fps seems reasonably in-line with mine but Typo's is way ahead of both.  I guess it's possible that Fox is cpu limited somehow...that still doesn't explain why the best filtering option is working though.

[Yawg]

Pretty huge FPS you got there!

When I stand in LA looking at the Mystic Forge exactly from the point on the screenshots here I only got 22 FPS (Best Appearance settings).

Turning off the Best Texture Filtering results in a very noticeable drop in quality, but NO gains in FPS at all. I play on maxed settings as dropping them gives me very little FPS gains compared to the loss of quality:

Best Performance 31 FPS
Auto-Detect 27 FPS
Best Appearance 22 FPS

in all cases switching Best Texture Filtering on/off results in no change in FPS.

CPU: i5-760
GPU: AMD 5850
8 GB DDR3

What may be the problem here?

[SuperNova]

If you are turning on/off graphics options and not seeing any fps drop it probably means your cpu is holding you back.