iMac 680MX and Guild Wars 2

[Coola]

Hello all,

I'm interested in purchasing the iMac 27 with the 680MX for everyday work and playing Guild Wars 2 on the side. So for any iMac 27 owners with (or without) the 680MX, that play Guild Wars 2 - how does it hold up and what settings are you able to play the game on?

Also - I am curious as to what resolution is best for the game.

Thanks for your help!

[Serban]

The native resolution will be the best..so if you buy the 27" you will play the game at 2440

[Rockondevil]

I can actually answer a question :P

I have Guild Wars 2 and the 680MX and the game runs perfect for me at the native resolution. I am yet to have any issues with it so yeah I hope that helps

Not sure what else I can say haha.

[leman]

Is it under OS X or Windows? Or both?

[Coola]

Originally Posted by Rockondevil

I can actually answer a question :P

I have Guild Wars 2 and the 680MX and the game runs perfect for me at the native resolution. I am yet to have any issues with it so yeah I hope that helps

Not sure what else I can say haha.

Could you tell me what settings you play on and at what resolution, what your fps is? Really curious to see if Guild Wars 2 needs to run on the 1920 x 1080 or does it just run natively. Also - as leman asked, are you running the Mac client or bootcamp?

Really appreciate it, thanks!

[Serban]

guild wars 2 run max out on both machines native resolution. I mean on 21.5" imac with 650M at 1920*1080 and native on 27" on 680mx

[Garemz]

Is guild wars a monthly payment game or one time purchase?

How does the mac client run?

[Gavzooka]

Originally Posted by Garemz

Is guild wars a monthly payment game or one time purchase?

How does the mac client run?

It's one time purchase. Extras can be brought in game but not needed. Runs fine on my iMac although it does slow in busier areas (drops to about 30FPS though...not below).

[leman]

Originally Posted by Garemz

Is guild wars a monthly payment game or one time purchase?

How does the mac client run?

Its one time purchase with micro-transaction for cosmetic stuff. The Mac client performance is at around 70% of the Windows client.

[Bolteh]

Originally Posted by leman

The Mac client performance is at around 70% of the Windows client.

I actually found the opposite to be true on my old late 2009 iMac (with the Radeon HD 4850). The Mac client ran slightly better (roughly + 5fps) than Windows on the exact same settings.

Though I didn't play at native resolution (used 1920*1080 instead of 2560*1440) on either OS, so that might be the reason.

[leman]

Originally Posted by Bolteh

I actually found the opposite to be true on my old late 2009 iMac (with the Radeon HD 4850). The Mac client ran slightly better (roughly + 5fps) than Windows on the exact same settings.

Though I didn't play at native resolution (used 1920*1080 instead of 2560*1440) on either OS, so that might be the reason.

True, I forgot about it - Radeon users consistently report similar (or higher) performance on OS X. Then again, Radeon users on Windows often complain of low performance I was referring to the current gen with Nvidia GPUs, which seem to lose lots of performance with OS X drivers...

[Rockondevil]

This is the settings I use whilst playing. Keep in mind the FPS can go down to 25-30 depending on what is happening on screen.



Also I realise it was answered above but Guild Wars is a one time purchase game and if you choose to you can purchase other extra stuff in-game but it isn't necessary. This alone makes it better than anything with a subscription for me.

[Coola]

Originally Posted by Rockondevil

This is the settings I use whilst playing. Keep in mind the FPS can go down to 25-30 depending on what is happening on screen.

Also I realise it was answered above but Guild Wars is a one time purchase game and if you choose to you can purchase other extra stuff in-game but it isn't necessary. This alone makes it better than anything with a subscription for me.

Hey thanks for the response! Are those settings set to Auto-Detect or did you choose them yourself? And have you tried the 1920 x 1080 resolution, if so is it any better?

Really appreciate the info, thanks!

[leman]

Why only medium on textures? Going max setting there should not affect the performance.

BTW, is it the OS X client? I see that high-res textures are greyed out...

[Rockondevil]

Originally Posted by Coola

Hey thanks for the response! Are those settings set to Auto-Detect or did you choose them yourself? And have you tried the 1920 x 1080 resolution, if so is it any better?

Really appreciate the info, thanks!

I chose those myself and just turned down a few I didn't find as necessary to slightly improve my FPS.
As for using different resolutions I haven't actually played using any others however I did just turn all the other options on whilst standing still and my FPS did not change at all, at least nothing worth noting (maybe 1 or 2 difference).

Originally Posted by leman

Why only medium on textures? Going max setting there should not affect the performance.

BTW, is it the OS X client? I see that high-res textures are greyed out...

It won't give me the option for High res textures, in the drop down menu it only has Low and Medium (possibly a Mac client thing?).

Also yes that character high-res box is greyed out also which I am also guessing is a Mac thing...

Pretty positive the Mac client is still classed as a Beta version and is still a W.I.P.

[turtlez]

I tried out Guild Wars 2 just to test my 680mx and it ran great on high settings with native resolution.

[nosnhojm]

I am running the Guild Wars 2 mac beta client on my 27", 675mx at native resolution with everything turned to to high. I'm getting ~45 fps, and the game runs great.

[rigid]

This may be a stupid question but at 1440p can you even see jagged edges to warrant enabling FXAA? I feel like disabling that would be a huge performance gain and unnoticeable.

[WilliamG]

Originally Posted by rigid

This may be a stupid question but at 1440p can you even see jagged edges to warrant enabling FXAA? I feel like disabling that would be a huge performance gain and unnoticeable.

I was going to say the same thing. I usually turn off any AA when games don't run at 60fps. And shadows, too, can go down to medium/low depending on the game/frame-rate.

And vsync = ON, or I won't even play the game. Unless screen tearing is your idea of a fun time.

It's clear people have different tolerances for these things, but 25-30fps is not acceptable to me "at times." It needs to be a pretty darn consistent frame-rate for me to play a game.

[rigid]

Originally Posted by WilliamG

I was going to say the same thing. I usually turn off any AA when games don't run at 60fps. And shadows, too, can go down to medium/low depending on the game/frame-rate.

And vsync = ON, or I won't even play the game. Unless screen tearing is your idea of a fun time.

It's clear people have different tolerances for these things, but 25-30fps is not acceptable to me "at times." It needs to be a pretty darn consistent frame-rate for me to play a game.

Vsync is also good because it will force your computer to not draw more than 60 fps...if you have that problem where your computer draws 100+ fps for no reason lol.

[WilliamG]

Originally Posted by rigid

Vsync is also good because it will force your computer to not draw more than 60 fps...if you have that problem where your computer draws 100+ fps for no reason lol.

Right. Why let your GPU heat up for no reason? NEVER understood that. The iMac has a 60hz display, people! It can't display over 60fps!

*sigh*

Whatever. It's their iMac.

[Rockondevil]

When I turn AA off it doesn't seem to change FPS nor the quality of the graphics so it's a meh to me.

As for Vertical Sync it drops my FPS down to 30 - 40...

Originally Posted by WilliamG

I was going to say the same thing. I usually turn off any AA when games don't run at 60fps. And shadows, too, can go down to medium/low depending on the game/frame-rate.

And vsync = ON, or I won't even play the game. Unless screen tearing is your idea of a fun time.

It's clear people have different tolerances for these things, but 25-30fps is not acceptable to me "at times." It needs to be a pretty darn consistent frame-rate for me to play a game.

For the 25 - 30 FPS comment I find it OK for the FPS to drop to that in MMO games purely because of the world size and how much is happening. Other games I wouldn't be as happy with.

[WilliamG]

Try shadows.