EDIT (8/20/2012): I will update, as often as I remember, key information we know about the performance of this game at the top of this post so that new people coming in don't need to go through all the posts.
- To the point: Yes, it can run Guild Wars 2 with most settings maxed.
- The GT 650M in the rMBP is overclocked so much by Apple that it is faster than the GTX 660M. The core runs at 900MHz!
- At 1920x1200 (!) with all settings maxed and enabled (except shadows at medium, reflections at "Terrain & Sky", native sampling), the frame rate is usually above 30 for me. 50+fps in some areas, but that is not the norm. In WvW, with many people and effects on screen, it's usually in the low 20s; if you lower shadows or shaders you can probably bring it back up to the 30s--I haven't tried. This is all on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
- One person reports significant improvement in performance with the latest 306.02 drivers--getting steady 40-60 fps and never dropping below 30fps in WvW with 100+ people. Two have seen no difference with these drivers--I am one of them.
- Arena Net is not done optimizing the game.
- There was talk at the Guild Wars 2 Guru forum of a dev. driver in the works at Nvidia that will bring further performance improvements specific to Guild Wars 2.
--
Hey everyone,
Concerning Guild Wars 2 in Bootcamp:
1) Does anyone know if the Retina Macbook Pro (whichever i7 CPU you choose) will be able to play Guild Wars 2 with settings fully maxed/enabled at 30+fps in even the most hectic scenarios (i.e., World PvP with 50+ people on screen), at any of it's available resolutions?
This (Guild Wars 2 on Macbook Pro Retina - YouTube) is the only video I've seen showing Guild Wars 2 on the rMBP. However, FRAPS isn't on (though the poster says it runs 40-60fps at 1920x1200, with only some settings on high, some medium, one ultra), and most importantly, none of the footage is in big scale combat.
2) In the absence of definitive videos or forum posts (here and elsewhere) on this matter, I've also just looked at the performance of the GT 650m card in other games, with settings maxed. I found this site's data possibly quite helpful/predictive: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
I don't follow gaming much anymore, but from the list of games on that site's list, I'm guessing Skyrim and Battlefield 3 would be the most, or amongst the most, demanding. It shows that with the 650m--with settings maxed and resolution unspecified--that Skyrim and Battlefield are not very playable and not at all playable, respectively. If Guild Wars is close to Skyrim/Battlefield, then perhaps the Retina MBP won't fare so well with settings maxed. But if it's graphical demand and consequent performance is closer to other 2012 games on that list, like Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Mass Effect 3, then perhaps all will be well.
So where does Guild Wars 2 stand graphically compared to the games on that list?
3) I presume the difference between the i7 2.3GHz, 2.6GHz and 2.7GHz isn't anything meaningful to game performance? At most a few frames per second difference?
4) Can Guild Wars 2 be played at an effective 1400x900 resolution (like the 1400x900 on every other non-HDPI screen, not the quadrupled pixel version of 1400x900 on the Retina) even though it's not one of the available scaled resolutions in OSX?
Welcome your thoughts, predictions on this.
- To the point: Yes, it can run Guild Wars 2 with most settings maxed.
- The GT 650M in the rMBP is overclocked so much by Apple that it is faster than the GTX 660M. The core runs at 900MHz!
- At 1920x1200 (!) with all settings maxed and enabled (except shadows at medium, reflections at "Terrain & Sky", native sampling), the frame rate is usually above 30 for me. 50+fps in some areas, but that is not the norm. In WvW, with many people and effects on screen, it's usually in the low 20s; if you lower shadows or shaders you can probably bring it back up to the 30s--I haven't tried. This is all on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
- One person reports significant improvement in performance with the latest 306.02 drivers--getting steady 40-60 fps and never dropping below 30fps in WvW with 100+ people. Two have seen no difference with these drivers--I am one of them.
- Arena Net is not done optimizing the game.
- There was talk at the Guild Wars 2 Guru forum of a dev. driver in the works at Nvidia that will bring further performance improvements specific to Guild Wars 2.
--
Hey everyone,
Concerning Guild Wars 2 in Bootcamp:
1) Does anyone know if the Retina Macbook Pro (whichever i7 CPU you choose) will be able to play Guild Wars 2 with settings fully maxed/enabled at 30+fps in even the most hectic scenarios (i.e., World PvP with 50+ people on screen), at any of it's available resolutions?
This (Guild Wars 2 on Macbook Pro Retina - YouTube) is the only video I've seen showing Guild Wars 2 on the rMBP. However, FRAPS isn't on (though the poster says it runs 40-60fps at 1920x1200, with only some settings on high, some medium, one ultra), and most importantly, none of the footage is in big scale combat.
2) In the absence of definitive videos or forum posts (here and elsewhere) on this matter, I've also just looked at the performance of the GT 650m card in other games, with settings maxed. I found this site's data possibly quite helpful/predictive: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
I don't follow gaming much anymore, but from the list of games on that site's list, I'm guessing Skyrim and Battlefield 3 would be the most, or amongst the most, demanding. It shows that with the 650m--with settings maxed and resolution unspecified--that Skyrim and Battlefield are not very playable and not at all playable, respectively. If Guild Wars is close to Skyrim/Battlefield, then perhaps the Retina MBP won't fare so well with settings maxed. But if it's graphical demand and consequent performance is closer to other 2012 games on that list, like Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Mass Effect 3, then perhaps all will be well.
So where does Guild Wars 2 stand graphically compared to the games on that list?
3) I presume the difference between the i7 2.3GHz, 2.6GHz and 2.7GHz isn't anything meaningful to game performance? At most a few frames per second difference?
4) Can Guild Wars 2 be played at an effective 1400x900 resolution (like the 1400x900 on every other non-HDPI screen, not the quadrupled pixel version of 1400x900 on the Retina) even though it's not one of the available scaled resolutions in OSX?
Welcome your thoughts, predictions on this.
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