Resolved Retina Macbook Pro: Is it yet known if it can run Guild Wars 2 with settings maxed?

unwinded · Jul 29, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
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?

EDIT:
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.

I don't know about Guild Wars 2 or Battlefield 3, but Skyrim is playable on ultra. And by playable I mean it averages beyond 30fps. 45fps on average @1920x1200. Even more frames @1440x900. It runs in the teens to 20s at native 2880x1900 and looks beautiful. Almost worth playing just because it looks so great at that res. I can mess with the shadow settings in the ini and leave everything else maxed and get 60fps @1440x900.

I'm coming from a gaming laptop only a generation and a half behind and it kills it. Yes desktop GPUs are a lot better, but this is a laptop. The gpu is comparable to single gpu gaming laptops even in 17" ones by Asus in the same or nearly the same price bracket. Those who say otherwise are probably thinking of desktops.

Libertine Lush · Jul 29, 2012

unwinded said:
I don't know about Guild Wars 2 or Battlefield 3, but Skyrim is playable on ultra. And by playable I mean it averages beyond 30fps. 45fps on average @1920x1200.

Wow, that's very reassuring to read. The 3 650M models that NotebookCheck show in their data are all the regular version of the GPU, so not surprisingly, the rMBP's overclocked version performs better. Just didn't expect it to be that much better. In fact, based on your 45fps average, it performs better than NotebookCheck's GTX 660M average of 29fps at Ultra--and that's presumably at 1920x1080 or lower, since most Windows laptops are 16:9.

So as mentioned earlier in the thread, this OC'ed GT 650M does seem to be outperforming the GTX 660M. Thanks for sharing.

By the way, are you using Bootcamp's drivers or did you update the Nvidia driver to the newly released beta one or the beta+modded INF mentioned earlier (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15348780/)?

mattdo93 · Jul 30, 2012

PunktPunktPunkt said:
Thanks for that link! Yesterday I decided to try if those drivers do make a difference for me and since testing it on Guild Wars 2 is unfortunately not possible, I fired up Diablo 3 again.

I do remember that "your driver is outdated" message it posted when I started it for the first time - at that point I just decided to ignore that though and it ran beautifully still.

To compare the old- with the beta driver I made a new character, set all graphics options to max and the resolution to 2880x1800. I got 23-25fps.

After the installation of the beta driver, using the modded inf as described on their website and rebooting I visited the same area again and got 23-29fps with the same settings. So there clearly wasn't a big performance gain for me there and I am still convinced, that for Guild Wars 2 to run smoothly (again), it is a question of optimization done by ArenaNet until Release. And I am sure they'll figure that out.

I wouldn't worry about that. After all the minimum requirement for running GW2 is having a Intel Graphics HD 3000 - your Mac Book Pro is blessed with the considerably more powerful successor Intel HD 4000. And on top of that you have got the NVIDIA GT 650M, which again is way more powerful than the Intel HD 4000. Combined with a low resolution such as 1440x900 you will probably be running GW2 at High-Ultra settings.

Thanks for the info! Can't wait til GW2 releases next month! =)

PunktPunktPunkt · Jul 30, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
Darn! Well, hopefully the beta drivers will behave differently in GW2.

How did you figure out which INF to choose for the 650M (presumably for Win 7 64bit)? The INF and driver links that someone in that thread provides (https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15337412/) are for, going by the file name in the links, for Win 8 64 bit.

And in one of the LaptopVideo2Go's FAQ instructing how to find the INF for your GPU (http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/9243-forceware-updaters-quickstart-guide/), I don't see our GeForce GT 650M listed. Only a "NVIDIA GeForce 7190M / nForce 650M" under the "Laptop-based GO cards" scrollable list and under...

In general which series you should use with your card is;
GeForce 8xxx cards - 160 and up.
GeForce 7xxx cards - 80 and up.
GeForce 6xxx cards - 70 and up.
GeForce FX (5xxx) cards - 70 and up.
GeForce 4xxx cards - 60 and up.
GeForce 3 cards - 60 and up.
GeForce 2 cards - 60 and up.
Quadro cards - 80 and up.

...Our Geforce 6xx series isn't listed.

I went to their homepage and clicked on "Drivers" at the top.
Now you see a long list of different versions of NVIDIA drivers, the first one being 304.79 - the one we want. I choose Windows 8 64bit (since that is just short for Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, all sharing the same architecture), download the driver installation file and the modded .inf.
After extracting (I just went with the suggested path) I browse for the folder, in my case being C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\304.79\Win8_64\International\Display.Driver where I copy and replace the nvwi.inf file.
After that I followed the guide, posted here (http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/11997-have-disk-method-for-windows-7-vista/) to install.

Since I mentioned last time that I didn't feel like the new drivers offered me any improved performance, I decided to start a more scientific approach to proving that.

I ran 7 tests with different monitors and resolutions and went for a 60sec average each time.
I learned several things:

At 1920x1080 my external display (with a native resolution of 1920x1080) performed better than the Retina display at the same resolution.
At 1680x1050 however, the Retina Display offered better performance.
Differences in performance between the displays were negligibly small
The old driver that came with Bootcamp (version 296,49) achieved an average of 1fps better perfomance than the newer 304.79beta.

Therefore I decided to stay with the older driver and wait until 304.79 is a full release. Here are the more detailed results:

304.79beta

Retina display
1080p: 21-42fps, 27.6fps average
1050p: 26-50, 33,0

External display
1080p: 20-42, 28.8
1050p: 24-51, 32.2

296.49

Retina display
1080p: 22-43, 27.9
1050p: 25-54, 35.6

External display
1080p: 22-43, 29.9
1050p: 24-51, 31.6

Libertine Lush · Aug 1, 2012

PunktPunktPunkt said:
I went to their homepage and clicked on "Drivers" at the top.

LaptopVideo2Go's 304.79 driver will be the same as the one from Nvidia.com right (they just included it on their site out of convinience presumably)?

I choose Windows 8 64bit (since that is just short for Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, all sharing the same architecture)

Ah! I didn't realize that.

After that I followed the guide, posted here (http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/11997-have-disk-method-for-windows-7-vista/) to install.

Since you had to use that "Have Disk" method, that means the 304.79 driver does not have any setup program to install itself automatically? I thought, perhaps I recall wrongly, I had read in another thread there would be a "clean install" option for this driver.

Thank you for the very thorough run through of the installation.

Therefore I decided to stay with the older driver and wait until 304.79 is a full release.

Huh! Your testing data this time was also on Diablo 3?

Anyone know how long it usually takes Nvidia to progress a driver from Beta to full release, and if that progression usually results in performance increases?

When you went back to the older driver, you just did this? (from LaptopVideo2Go): "If you want to roll back to your previous driver, go to Device Manager -> Display Adapters -> "Your Card" , double click to open its properties and click 'Roll Back Driver' button."

Thanks for all the great info in your post.

PunktPunktPunkt · Aug 1, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
LaptopVideo2Go's 304.79 driver will be the same as the one from Nvidia.com right (they just included it on their site out of convinience presumably)?

Yes, they're identical. You would actually only need the INF file, which you can download separately.

Libertine Lush said:
Since you had to use that "Have Disk" method, that means the 304.79 driver does not have any setup program to install itself automatically? I thought, perhaps I recall wrongly, I had read in another thread there would be a "clean install" option for this driver.

It normally does. If you own, say, an Acer notebook that runs the GT 650M as well, but is officially supported, you would just run the setup.exe included in the driver from nvidia.com and never worry about it. But since that setup will not recognize the 650M in the rMBP you can't use it.
The "Have Disk" method on the other hand just pulls the driver files themselves out of the directory and thereby bypasses that hardware check.

Libertine Lush said:
Huh! Your testing data this time was also on Diablo 3?

No. I tried it with Diablo 3 first but for some reason my fps would top out at 30fps, no matter the settings (there is an option to limit fps to a certain value, but for me that was set to 150). I couldn't figure out what was causing that issue and didn't bother trying to fix it, since I only cared about making some general testing regarding the drivers, not the game.
I ended up testing it with Crysis (1).

But I'd love to see some performance data from someone else with a rMBP. Maybe there is just some problem with my system, that caused the dip in Guild Wars 2 performance. For example, I could never run Skyrim at Ultra smoothly, like "unwinded" reported.

Libertine Lush said:
When you went back to the older driver, you just did this? (from LaptopVideo2Go): "If you want to roll back to your previous driver, go to Device Manager -> Display Adapters -> "Your Card" , double click to open its properties and click 'Roll Back Driver' button."

Thanks for all the great info in your post.

Yes exactly. Very straightforward.

Anician · Aug 1, 2012

Just FYI, there's a stress test tomorrow at 12pm PST!

Libertine Lush · Aug 2, 2012

PunktPunktPunkt said:
It normally does. If you own, say, an Acer notebook that runs the GT 650M as well, but is officially supported, you would just run the setup.exe included in the driver from nvidia.com and never worry about it. But since that setup will not recognize the 650M in the rMBP you can't use it.

Got it. Thank you.

Anician said:
Just FYI, there's a stress test tomorrow at 12pm PST!

!!

Anician · Aug 8, 2012

Another stress test tomorrow, GOGOGO!

Libertine Lush · Aug 10, 2012

Anyone happen to have any updates from the recent stress tests?

PunktPunktPunkt · Aug 11, 2012

Actually yes, very much so.

I have been participating in the stress tests on 02/08 and 09/08 (couldn't join the one yesterday because it ran from 1am to 5am here in Europe and I had to get up early) and did some more thorough testing this time.

I was meaning to post the results I got for one week now but somehow lost the sheet were I noted the fps for the different graphics settings.
However I do remember most of it:
I ran the test facing the farm in the human starting area because it was constantly filled with ~20 players.

On the lowest settings I managed to get 45fps, which dropped to high 20s and low 30s for the medium setting and ended up below 20 (around 18) for Ultra (without Supersampling though, which was unusable at every setting). Add ~10fps for areas with low population. I ended up playing PvE with a tweaked Medium Setting and switching to the lowest setting for sPvP to get smooth panning and action.

While that result was perfectly in line with my experience in BWE3, it was nowhere near the performance I had in the stress test before BWE3.

The 09/08 stress test then brought with it a dramatic increase in performance to match or even surpass the beforeBWE3 stress test.
Not only did the game run way smoother, it did even seem to look better with the same settings as before.

On the lowest setting I now got 100-120fps(!!), Medium got me 50-60. I settled for the highest available settings, with only Shadows set to high (instead of Ultra) and Anti-Aliasing turned off to net around 30-35fps, making it perfectly playable. In PvP I still switched to Medium, just for the smoother feeling but it was more a question of preference instead of playability now.

So, I guess we can now answer you initial question: Yes, the rMBP can run Guild Wars to with settings maxed!

Anician · Aug 11, 2012

PunktPunktPunkt said:
Actually yes, very much so.

I have been participating in the stress tests on 02/08 and 09/08 (couldn't join the one yesterday because it ran from 1am to 5am here in Europe and I had to get up early) and did some more thorough testing this time.

I was meaning to post the results I got for one week now but somehow lost the sheet were I noted the fps for the different graphics settings.
However I do remember most of it:
I ran the test facing the farm in the human starting area because it was constantly filled with ~20 players.

On the lowest settings I managed to get 45fps, which dropped to high 20s and low 30s for the medium setting and ended up below 20 (around 18) for Ultra (without Supersampling though, which was unusable at every setting). Add ~10fps for areas with low population. I ended up playing PvE with a tweaked Medium Setting and switching to the lowest setting for sPvP to get smooth panning and action.

While that result was perfectly in line with my experience in BWE3, it was nowhere near the performance I had in the stress test before BWE3.

The 09/08 stress test then brought with it a dramatic increase in performance to match or even surpass the beforeBWE3 stress test.
Not only did the game run way smoother, it did even seem to look better with the same settings as before.

On the lowest setting I now got 100-120fps(!!), Medium got me 50-60. I settled for the highest available settings, with only Shadows set to high (instead of Ultra) and Anti-Aliasing turned off to net around 30-35fps, making it perfectly playable. In PvP I still switched to Medium, just for the smoother feeling but it was more a question of preference instead of playability now.

So, I guess we can now answer you initial question: Yes, the rMBP can run Guild Wars to with settings maxed!

That sounds great, thanks for the info. Hopefully they'll keep working with the optimization!

Libertine Lush · Aug 11, 2012

PunktPunktPunkt said:
On the lowest setting I now got 100-120fps(!!), Medium got me 50-60. I settled for the highest available settings, with only Shadows set to high (instead of Ultra) and Anti-Aliasing turned off to net around 30-35fps, making it perfectly playable.

The first half of your post sank my heart, but the second half is the best news I'm come across yet on this game's performance on the rMBP! Was this latest data on your external 1920x1080 monitor or the rMBP's 1920x1200?

Thanks for taking the time to share these regular updates.

So, I guess we can now answer you initial question: Yes, the rMBP can run Guild Wars to with settings maxed!

Oh yea!!!

Anician said:
That sounds great, thanks for the info. Hopefully they'll keep working with the optimization!

To those more familiar than me with the nature of PC gaming and ArenaNet, at what point does optimization usually end?

And maybe we'll get yet more performance boost when the 304.79 beta driver is out of beta. Similar to the above question: when do updates (ie, improvements) to graphics drivers usually end?

Anician · Aug 12, 2012

Not sure if anyone managed to play the 1-hour stress test that just finished but people over at the GW2 subreddit are reporting increased FPS since the last stress test as well as significantly less lag.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/

Libertine Lush said:
To those more familiar than me with the nature of PC gaming and ArenaNet, at what point does optimization usually end?

And maybe we'll get yet more performance boost when the 304.79 beta driver is out of beta. Similar to the above question: when do updates (ie, improvements) to graphics drivers usually end?

I'm not entirely familiar with game development either, but from what I've read, optimization is always done last, before launch. As for when it ends, I don't know if anyone can say for sure. I think with Guild Wars 1 they kept optimizing the game after launch for quite a period of time.

Libertine Lush · Aug 12, 2012

Anician said:
I think with Guild Wars 1 they kept optimizing the game after launch for quite a period of time.

That's great to hear.

PunktPunktPunkt · Aug 13, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
The first half of your post sank my heart, but the second half is the best news I'm come across yet on this game's performance on the rMBP! Was this latest data on your external 1920x1080 monitor or the rMBP's 1920x1200?

Thanks for taking the time to share these regular updates.

I was playing on my external monitor again, but since my test on Crysis showed no difference in performance between internal and external monitor (at the same resolution), I'm sure it's going to run just as well. But if there should be another stress test, I'll be sure to give it a try and do some comparing.

Libertine Lush said:
To those more familiar than me with the nature of PC gaming and ArenaNet, at what point does optimization usually end?

And maybe we'll get yet more performance boost when the 304.79 beta driver is out of beta. Similar to the above question: when do updates (ie, improvements) to graphics drivers usually end?

The developers said themselves that they are still in the process of optimizing the game, certain features like the Umbra occlusion don't yet work as intended.
However, I wouldn't get my hopes up too high concerning further fps improvements. Seeing as it runs beautifully already though, I don't mind that at all.

I don't have the slightest clue about update cycles for graphic card drivers (nor do I think, these are scheduled regularly), but I do know that manufacturers like to work together closely with game developers on high-profile titles. I actually found someone claiming to have insider information (and being right in the past) that we can expect a new driver (version number 305.58) on the 15th or 21st of this month.
Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/48375-best-nvidia-geforce-driver-for-gw2/

Libertine Lush · Aug 13, 2012

PunktPunktPunkt said:
But if there should be another stress test, I'll be sure to give it a try and do some comparing.

Awesome.

However, I wouldn't get my hopes up too high concerning further fps improvements. Seeing as it runs beautifully already though, I don't mind that at all.

Yea, I've got fairly moderated expectations. That you've made it clear now that we'll be able to play at 1920x1200 at mostly Ultra settings is already well above what I was expecting. So I'm overjoyed. I was initially hoping for 1680x1050 and willing to settle for 1440x900 when this thread first started.

PunktPunktPunkt said:
I actually found someone claiming to have insider information (and being right in the past) that we can expect a new driver (version number 305.58) on the 15th or 21st of this month.
Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/48375-best-nvidia-geforce-driver-for-gw2/

From your link:

Wait for the new driver due to release very soon. It fixes GW2 issues specifically.

You Kepler users are looking at a more sizable 20-70% performance boost, but that boost will generally be in the area of minimum fps, not maximum, so your averages should improve well.

All I can say is, most of those are focused on optimizing and tweaking internal features to match up with GW2's engine features, which will smooth out performance even more, especially with more options enabled (super-sampling, FXAA, shadow settings, etc)

One specific fix that I can mention is nVidia implementing an override to use their own FXAA3 technology instead of the built in engine's, which is superior not just in image quality, but in performance and is better optimized for nVidia's architecture.

Click to expand...

PunktPunktPunkt, you bring such joy to this thread.

luffytubby · Aug 23, 2012

So the game gets released in less than 2 days.

I just played the latest beta on my PC, and while the performance has improved (for me!) I think Guild Wars 2 shows a very unique problem with regards to performance in pc games.

Guild Wars 2 scales. The game itself, depending on the amount of players will spawn tons of enemies if a lot of players are gathered. This increases the load on the computer much more than normal games. 20 players on one spot all firing spells takes your down almost halfway. It gets worse with 100s or more players. And in WvW with several hundreds it can get even worse.

Conclusion;

Your average fps when running around alone in the world needs to be in the 80s or 90s, for it not to dip below 25-30 fps when things gets really actiony.

this is because the game simply throws so much at you. its what makes the game amazing but it also means that realistically you need a very high fps to make it not laggy doing the big action bits and they happen often.

its frustrating that these new drivers are not out yet. the latest blog post on the site shows that the game currently favors certain ATI cards;

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/bill-freist-talks-optimization-and-performance/

could things improve? certainly, but I am not sure were the Retina MBP stands in all this. Maybe it's the machines quadcore that does a lot of the horse work for it?

Libertine Lush · Aug 27, 2012

New drivers are out! New drivers are out!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-306.02-beta-driver.html

luffytubby · Aug 27, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
New drivers are out! New drivers are out!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-306.02-beta-driver.html

no improvements for gw2 as far as I can see?

Libertine Lush · Aug 27, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
New drivers are out! New drivers are out!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-306.02-beta-driver.html

Wait a sec. I got prematurely excited. So the new drivers that should improve performance are out, but as Apple users, we still need to wait for the INF file to show up at LaptopVideo2Go, right?

I was just about to install those drivers, until that occurred to me. So where will the INF be located at LaptopVideo2Go? I just tried to look for the INF for the previous beta drivers, 304.79, and I can't find them.

thomaskc · Aug 27, 2012

Libertine Lush said:
Wait a sec. I got prematurely excited. So the new drivers that should improve performance are out, but as Apple users, we still need to wait for the INF file to show up at LaptopVideo2Go, right?

I was just about to install those drivers, until that occurred to me. So where will the INF be located at LaptopVideo2Go? I just tried to look for the INF for the previous beta drivers, 304.79, and I can't find them.

Yes, but that is VERY common from all laptop brands, sony etc does the same.

However you can create the inf yourself, and if you don't know how this tool will help you:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/nvmodtool.php

follow the site guide and you should be okay.

Json81 · Aug 28, 2012

I had headstart so I've been playing all weekend.

I don't have the MBPr, but late 2011 with 2.4GHz i7 and 6770m 1GB.

There is no way that it is playable in WvWvW with maxed settings (even at 1440x900) on MBPr.
I run the game at 1440x900 with most settings to high, some medium.
This goes really well while questing (~40fps), in cities (~30fps) with most events similiar fps to cities.

But in WvWvW with a lot of action it drops to 12-13 fps.
The 650m is quite a bit faster than my 6770m, but people with high end desktop cards even have low fps under those circumstances.

Libertine Lush · Aug 28, 2012

Json81 said:
There is no way that it is playable in WvWvW with maxed settings (even at 1440x900) on MBPr.

The 650m is quite a bit faster than my 6770m, but people with high end desktop cards even have low fps under those circumstances.

That is wrong. As made abundantly clear in the many posts in this thread, in the form of an actual video (in which the player isn't even using 64bit Windows and is playing the game in beta when the game was still CPU-dependent and not optimized) and actual benchmarks by at least one rMBP owner, it gets 30+fps at maxed settings (with shadows at medium and no AA) at 1920x1200. That's not to even mention the other rMBP owners chiming in their similar experience in the Guild Wars 2 Guru forum (I believe also linked by myself in this thread). And my experience. Not even using the latest drivers, I've been achieving the similar results since the Head Start.

As to the high end desktop cards struggling, it is an optimization issue. Nvidia and Arena Net are still working on this (again this discussion also linked elsewhere in this thread). I've read many threads of people with the latest desktop GPUs and in SLI configurations struggling. It's not that two Nvidia GTX 690s in unison can't max the game. It's a software issue at the moment.

Libertine Lush · Aug 28, 2012

thomaskc said:
Yes, but that is VERY common from all laptop brands, sony etc does the same.

However you can create the inf yourself, and if you don't know how this tool will help you:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/nvmodtool.php

follow the site guide and you should be okay.

How interesting! So that should work just as reliably as modded INFs from LaptopVideo2Go? Are there any caveats I should know about before using it?

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