Getting a little "hitching" in WoW on my new 5870

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Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
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I made a thread last week about my brand new XFX Radeon HD 5870 and how much I loved it and it ran so smooth in my game. My system is in the sig, it is not top of the line, but still pretty dang fast I think ?

Anyways I play WoW the most, and love it with all eye candy turned on to Ultra settings, and surprisingly it can still be a demanding game, especially in Northrend, with the high res textures and shadows, etc...

I play at 2560x1600res on my 30" Display, Ultra settings maxed out. I used to have a GTX-280, and played at those same settings, and it played ok, sometimes got choppy, but overall not too bad. So when I picked up the new AMD 5870, I set it to 8xMultisample, which the GTX-280 could never play smooth on, the 280 could only handle 4xMulitsample.

The first night playing WoW at 8xMultisample on the 5870 was smooth as butter, it was awesome, and the game looked sharper and more vibrant, but I had a character in Outlands that night. Then I played my other character in Northrend, and I get this "hitching" or little chop like once every 5 seconds or so ? Mainly on the mounts, I will be riding or flying and like every 5 seconds or so, just a very slight hiccup or brief pause for only like 1/10th of a second, but it is still slightly noticeable. Feels more like a frame rate issue or even a network lag ? But I do no recall having that on my GTX-280.

I lowered the settings back down to 4xMultisample, and it is still there ? WTF ? :(
 
Forgot to add my driver settings, maybe I have it set too demanding or something wrong ?

SMOOTHVISION HD-Anti-Aliasing = checked the box Use App settings
Anisotropic Filtering = checked use app settings
Catalyst A.I. bar is to the left for "Standard"
Mipmap Detail Level = furthest to the right "High Quality"
Wait for vertical refresh = Off, unless app specifies
Anti-Aliasing Mode = middle bar "Adaptive Multi-sample-AA"


Does that look correct ? I am looking for the best quality image, and WoW does some of that in-game settings in regards to AA+AF.

Thank you
 
Ah I had this at one point I forgot what it was, annoying as hell. I would try disabling Catalyst AI and see if that helps. I remember some people having issues with it.
 
WoW is a POS -- this is not news. It never actually runs well, it's just a question of the degree of shit you have to put up with.
 
My GTX-280 ran WoW pretty damn smooth at my extreme res, but it was still choppy in areas mainly in Northrend zones, but I never got this "hitching" or mini pauses like I do with this 5870, the pauses are very brief, barely noticeable, like once every 5seocnds, but just blink of eye quick, and only when moving fast, like riding my horse or flying.

The first night with the 5870 and WoW it was awesome smooth, even at 8X Multisample it ran fast, never got the "hitching". Only change from that night to the others was installing the add on Quest Helper, that seems to have given me this issue, but I had Quest Helper with the GTX-280 too though.

I will try disable Catalyst A.I. see if that helps ? Will disabling that hurt the image quality ?
 
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I wonder if 1gb memory is not enough on the VideoCard for extreme resolutions like 2560x1600 + extreme Antialiasing of 8x ?

I recall last year when building my Brother a new system, he bought the 4870X2 with 2gb memory, I tested it out for fun, first on my rig :).

At the time we were big into WarHammer Online, and the Human zones with all the trees and big forests brought my GTX-280 to a crawl, the forest areas were almost unplayable for my 280 in that game, but other zones with no trees the GTX-280 was perfect smooth. But the 4870X2 ran through the forests with zero issues, it just played smooth as butter, still same extreme settings I had the 280 set to. Was that the 2gb video memory helping it out, or just totally different card that did it ?
 
I have a 5870, but I'm getting no hitching in wow, everything maxed out. However, I am only running at 19x12.
 
silent-circuit said:
WoW is a POS -- this is not news. It never actually runs well, it's just a question of the degree of shit you have to put up with.
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Yes, but there's stuff we can do to cut down of the shit you have to put up with. ;)

Also try doing the standard step blizzard usually gives you for any problem. Delete the Interface,WTF, config folders. Then turn up the settings you had the first night with Catalyst AI disabled. Also people stated that performance monitor addons can cause weird things. I haven't really found a definite solution, or what causes it , but it can be fixed(hopefully :eek:).
 
Zorachus said:
I wonder if 1gb memory is not enough on the VideoCard for extreme resolutions like 2560x1600 + extreme Antialiasing of 8x ?

I recall last year when building my Brother a new system, he bought the 4870X2 with 2gb memory, I tested it out for fun, first on my rig :).

At the time we were big into WarHammer Online, and the Human zones with all the trees and big forests brought my GTX-280 to a crawl, the forest areas were almost unplayable for my 280 in that game, but other zones with no trees the GTX-280 was perfect smooth. But the 4870X2 ran through the forests with zero issues, it just played smooth as butter, still same extreme settings I had the 280 set to. Was that the 2gb video memory helping it out, or just totally different card that did it ?
Click to expand...

the 2gb comes out to only 1gb per card. video card memory isn't additive on sli/crossfire cards.
 
Zorachus said:
I wonder if 1gb memory is not enough on the
I recall last year when building my Brother a new system, he bought the 4870X2 with 2gb memory, I tested it out for fun, first on my rig :).
Click to expand...

I think only 1gb is addressable. So it shouldn't have an advantage of having more memory available to use than a GTX-280.

EDIT: someone beat me to it
 
I'm sorry to hear you're having problems. I don't have WoW myself although I did read topics in the past with people experiencing similar issues regardless if they had a Nvidia or AMD card.


I know it should not be necessary for a powerful card like you have, but have you tried turning down for example "Shadow" quality a bit? Or other settings? If you go back to Outlands, is it smooth again? If changing settings (slightly) helps, it may be the videocard or a driver issue.


Does the WoW forums have any helpful topics about this? Maybe more people are experiencing the same thing you have. Disabling Catalyst A.I. could be worth a try too.
 
Just tried WoW on my work computer, I can play games for a little bit on lunch time no problem. ATI X1800XT video card, 4gb DDR2, 2.66ghz dual core CPU, old Samsung 24" LCD.

Playing the game at 1920x1200res all maxed out, but just 2x Multisample, the game is choppy as hell in Northrend, that's for sure, it is just low frame rates due to old VideoCard, but I get ZERO "hitching" or mini pauses, while riding around, just chop form slow computer which is a different feel.

Could it be my home network connection giving me that ? More of a lag feel ? But then my GTX-280 didn't have that issue.
 
its probably the server you play on... wow servers do not really handle alot of people too well.
 
Zorachus said:
Then I played my other character in Northrend, and I get this "hitching" or little chop like once every 5 seconds or so ? Mainly on the mounts, I will be riding or flying and like every 5 seconds or so, just a very slight hiccup or brief pause for only like 1/10th of a second, but it is still slightly noticeable.
Click to expand...

I suspect an addons issue. Try disabling your addons and see if it still happens.

Hope this helps
 
dnottis said:
Why would you need 8x AA @ 2560x1600??
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Because resolution does not matter when it comes to AA.....the pitch between pixels is what matters. He is on a 30" display and not a 24".

2560 into 30" is 85 pixels per inch
1920 into 24" is 80 pixels per inch

The 30" display isn't providing that much more benefit (nearly negligible) thus the AA is still incredibly important.

------------------

As to the question..try dropping shadows "1 tick". Shadows seem to be the "super bitch" in Northrend.
 
I had the same problem with a 4870. Some sort of stutter, really noticeable while mounted running. However, I turned shadows to off and everything else maxed, and it went away.

Then I suspended my account and deleted WoW from my hard drive forever, so I shouldn't experience that problem again. :D
 
Better yet. Go play Age of Conan. Great framerates on the 5870, and no stuttering (and more realistic graphics...)
 
Don't think its a performance or networking issue if its a consistent hiccup every 3-5 seconds. Also people with GTX-280s have reported similar problems. Just looking through threads, its a wide variety of setups with this. Not really gonna recommend any of the set affinity stuff since your setup was fine before.

First since it helped kata, see what it does with no shadows. (Mine acted normal after I changed some settings while still having shadows enabled.) Also could see if different Vsync settings do anything(Game settings on-off, Force on-off) If that doesn't effect anything, Set it to the max settings you had at the very beginning and start these steps. Could turn off smooth vision and adaptive AA then if it stops hiccuping between any of the steps below, enable them again and see what it does.

1. Disable Catalyst AI, restart wow, check for hiccups.

Still doing it, do step 2

2. Disable all addons, restart wow, check for hiccups.

Still doing it, do step 3

3. Delete WTF, Cache, Interface folders, restart wow, change settings to max, will probably have to restart, then check for hiccups.

Hopefully it works by now :eek: If not, others have said the windows 7 update task can effect it. Not sure about that since I haven't had that problem with RC1. Other options would probably run the repair utility or do a fresh WoW install. I think you said you recently got a X25-M. Not sure if some files got a lil messed up if you moved your wow directory over the drives. That's if you did this, you might have done a new install and this wouldn't be a factor, just trying to list a few extra things. Also could reinstall cat drivers before the steps if you wanted, since reinstalling drivers doesn't take very long and you can go through the top steps in less than 5min. Repairing/Reinstalling the game is the long part >.> . If nothing works, mail me the 5870 and I shall punish it for you ;) . (Even though I bet you wow is the only game being a bitch and anything else would run perfect)
 
Tbird87 said:
Don't think its a performance or networking issue if its a consistent hiccup every 3-5 seconds. Also people with GTX-280s have reported similar problems. Just looking through threads, its a wide variety of setups with this. Not really gonna recommend any of the set affinity stuff since your setup was fine before.

First since it helped kata, see what it does with no shadows. (Mine acted normal after I changed some settings while still having shadows enabled.) Also could see if different Vsync settings do anything(Game settings on-off, Force on-off) If that doesn't effect anything, Set it to the max settings you had at the very beginning and start these steps. Could turn off smooth vision and adaptive AA then if it stops hiccuping between any of the steps below, enable them again and see what it does.

1. Disable Catalyst AI, restart wow, check for hiccups.

Still doing it, do step 2

2. Disable all addons, restart wow, check for hiccups.

Still doing it, do step 3

3. Delete WTF, Cache, Interface folders, restart wow, change settings to max, will probably have to restart, then check for hiccups.

Hopefully it works by now :eek: If not, others have said the windows 7 update task can effect it. Not sure about that since I haven't had that problem with RC1. Other options would probably run the repair utility or do a fresh WoW install. I think you said you recently got a X25-M. Not sure if some files got a lil messed up if you moved your wow directory over the drives. That's if you did this, you might have done a new install and this wouldn't be a factor, just trying to list a few extra things. Also could reinstall cat drivers before the steps if you wanted, since reinstalling drivers doesn't take very long and you can go through the top steps in less than 5min. Repairing/Reinstalling the game is the long part >.> . If nothing works, mail me the 5870 and I shall punish it for you ;) . (Even though I bet you wow is the only game being a bitch and anything else would run perfect)
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Thank you very much for your advice, will try these tonight. I did install a fresh WoW, when I installed Win 7Pro brand new on my new Intel SSD.

Could be some Win 7 update program running in the back ground ? It feels more like a lag hiccup, than an actual framn rate slow down if that makes sense ? My GTX-280 was running WoW on my old Raptor drive with Vista64
 
I've seen this a lot. Its caused by you not running vert sync and triple buffering.
Your screen can only refresh so many times per second. Usually it runs between 60 and 75. Because your new card will be running the game faster than 60fps, you will see a little stutter or at times miss an entire frame.

Imagine a girl dancing in a pitch black room to a fastly pulsing strobe light. No matter how fast the girl is dancing, you will only see her once per pulse. If she dances at a certain rate, you will actually "miss" an entire frame at a regular interval.
 
lloose said:
I've seen this a lot. Its caused by you not running vert sync and triple buffering.
Your screen can only refresh so many times per second. Usually it runs between 60 and 75. Because your new card will be running the game faster than 60fps, you will see a little stutter or at times miss an entire frame.

Imagine a girl dancing in a pitch black room to a fastly pulsing strobe light. No matter how fast the girl is dancing, you will only see her once per pulse. If she dances at a certain rate, you will actually "miss" an entire frame at a regular interval.
Click to expand...


Very good observation, so in my ATI drivers
where is notes "Wait for vertical refresh" and options Always off...Off unless app specifies...On unless app specifies...Always on

Which should I set the drivers too ? And then in WoW set it or check the box for Vertical sync ? What about triple buffering box below that in WoW ?

Thank you
 
Zorachus said:
Very good observation, so in my ATI drivers
where is notes "Wait for vertical refresh" and options Always off...Off unless app specifies...On unless app specifies...Always on

Which should I set the drivers too ? And then in WoW set it or check the box for Vertical sync ? What about triple buffering box below that in WoW ?

Thank you
Click to expand...

Honestly, CCC doesn't play nicely with wow. I would disable it and do all your options in game. Luckily Blizzard added a lot of good options and you should be able to tweak your settings in game enough to make it look great.
 
lloose said:
Honestly, CCC doesn't play nicely with wow. I would disable it and do all your options in game. Luckily Blizzard added a lot of good options and you should be able to tweak your settings in game enough to make it look great.
Click to expand...

So your saying Disable Catalyst A.I. ?
Have all settings "use application" ?
What about vertical sync ? Force it on ?
 
I know this might sounds weird but I had this same issue with Grand Theft Auto IV.

First thing you have to do is turn you graphics down to something very low. If you still experience the hiccups then you know it is not the vid card. If lowering your graphics fixes the problem then it is a driver issue or just a performance issue.

If it is anything like mine, that did matter if I changed my graphics to 800x600, it could be something different like my issue with GTA.

I had Windows 7 beta though at the time..I assume you have retail Windows 7. What I had to do was turn off Windows Event Log. You can go to Start>Run and type in msconfig. In that menu you should have a tab for services. In that menu, uncheck windows event log and reboot. It seemed to be more of an issue when I hit keys on the keyboard I would get a VERY brief pause.
 
Zorachus said:
So your saying Disable Catalyst A.I. ?
Have all settings "use application" ?
What about vertical sync ? Force it on ?
Click to expand...

I would disable it for Wow. If you search the tech support forums, there are a lot of FPS issues that get tied back to Catalyst AI. If nothing else, make a profile in AI that keeps it at "use application" when you run wow.

You can enable vertical sync in game.
 
HeXeD said:
I had Windows 7 beta though at the time..I assume you have retail Windows 7. What I had to do was turn off Windows Event Log. You can go to Start>Run and type in msconfig. In that menu you should have a tab for services. In that menu, uncheck windows event log and reboot. It seemed to be more of an issue when I hit keys on the keyboard I would get a VERY brief pause.
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By turning off Win 7 Event Log, does that harm my computer somehow ? Or is that like the User Control for Vista ?
 
This slight "hiccup" I feel while gaming does not feel like a performance slow down, feels more like a consistent lag spike or something ? Because in heavy battles with tons of graphics and spells, it plays smooth as butter, zero slowdowns. But once I ride my mount and move along fast it does this little jump every few seconds.

I think it could be Windows 7 feature or some User Control thing or maybe that "Event Log" ? I forgot to mention my Wife's system has Windows 7 too, also installed on a good Solid State Drive, but that computer just uses a 8800GTX, playing on an old Samsung 24" monitor of 1920x1200res. Ever since I installed Win 7 on that computer and play WoW, I would always wonder why the game felt extra choppy all of a sudden, like it felt laggy for some reason, compared to when I played it on the same system with WinXP Pro, where it played pretty well.
 
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It does not hurt your computer, but you will not be able to see the events in your event viewer if you ever use it to troubleshoot anything. It definitely doesn't hurt if you try it once and see if that is the issue. It most likely will not be but it would be a good idea to try. Hope it works out for you.
 
I have this EXACT same problem with my 4870. I've never been able to figure out whats causing it...
 
I just got my 5870 today, it's installed in the system in my sig - the specs are pretty similar to yours. Also running Windows 7. So far in WoW, no performance issues at all. It's perfectly silky smooth. I ran around a bit in Dalaran and then dual boxed (2 instances of WoW on the one machine, one instance on each head) dailies. The only time it's a bit jerky is when it seems to be loading data, mainly when you come across a bunch of people for the first time, or you're flying up really high and whip the camera around quickly for the first time.

I didn't change any driver settings yet other than dragging the "Standard Settings" slider all the way to the right for Quality. In game, everything is max except for shadows at the first "tick". 2560x1600, 4x multisampling, VSync is off, and running windowed. I upgraded from a GTX280 so this is the first time I've had ATI drivers on this box.
 
lloose said:
I've seen this a lot. Its caused by you not running vert sync and triple buffering.
Your screen can only refresh so many times per second. Usually it runs between 60 and 75. Because your new card will be running the game faster than 60fps, you will see a little stutter or at times miss an entire frame.

Imagine a girl dancing in a pitch black room to a fastly pulsing strobe light. No matter how fast the girl is dancing, you will only see her once per pulse. If she dances at a certain rate, you will actually "miss" an entire frame at a regular interval.
Click to expand...

I've never had stuttering/hiccups because of running a game over 60fps. What you're describing is just tearing, which most people who are used to running with vsync off, really don't notice it too much. OP probably has enough horse power to run with vsync on if he wanted the smoothest looking gameplay experience. The mount thing is annoying, I'm not sure how I fixed mine exactly which is why I just put every step I did to get rid of it. I think i listed everything, haven't played the game in a while. I also doubt its the windows 7 update, I just threw it in there because someone mentioned it in a wow forums thread. I also used driver cleaner in safe mode, but I heard its not necessary with windows 7. (I do it anyways just to make myself feel good ^_^)
 
Well i tried a few things...And no hiccups anymore, and can play at 2560x1600res Ultra settings 8xMultisample smooth as butter :cool:

Turned off the Windows 7 Event Log, and deleted my WTF folder and Interface folder in WoW directory.

But now I will install the Add/On "QuestHelper" again, and I am afraid that is the culprit, if so that sucks because it is very useful in the game
 
Zorachus said:
But now I will install the Add/On "QuestHelper" again, and I am afraid that is the culprit, if so that sucks because it is very useful in the game
Click to expand...

It has some options in it to tune it to use less CPU. Try /qh for a list of all the options. The author also frequently makes updates so if you had an older one, alot of the recent versions are supposed to be more efficient.
 
Zorachus said:
Well i tried a few things...And no hiccups anymore, and can play at 2560x1600res Ultra settings 8xMultisample smooth as butter :cool:

Turned off the Windows 7 Event Log, and deleted my WTF folder and Interface folder in WoW directory.

But now I will install the Add/On "QuestHelper" again, and I am afraid that is the culprit, if so that sucks because it is very useful in the game
Click to expand...

Good to hear you didn't have to do much to get it back to normal. Now it's pretty much ez mode on narrowing the cause. How many addons did you have before. Quest Helper usually keeps updated, but some not so popular ones don't. I guess WoW automatically allocates a certain ammount of memory to use for addons instead of being able to set it manually. Not sure if that would even be a factor with older addons compatiblity, but hopefully the newest quest helper will work because it is nice to have ^_^.
 
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Pfft, you don't need QuestHelper. Helpful maybe, but completely unnecessary.

I also found Adaptive AA to be a huge performance drain in WoW. After I turned that off, my fps in WoW skyrocketted.
 
OP, have you tried disabling any WOW UI mods such as Questhelper, Fubar and particularly XPERL unit frames ? Some of these mods can significantly impact GPU/CPU. I found with my old system that having XPERL installed with "3d frames" cost me between 2-7 FPS in many cases. These days I run a i7 860 and a 5870 and can now have XPERL on without any FPS impact (I think it's more CPU instensive than anything else).

Try disabling all your mods, testing and enabling them one by one.

1000
 
Zorachus said:
Well i tried a few things...And no hiccups anymore, and can play at 2560x1600res Ultra settings 8xMultisample smooth as butter :cool:

Turned off the Windows 7 Event Log, and deleted my WTF folder and Interface folder in WoW directory.

But now I will install the Add/On "QuestHelper" again, and I am afraid that is the culprit, if so that sucks because it is very useful in the game
Click to expand...

I had the similar issue in a different game entirely. EVE online, it was so annoying. The game would freeze for a split second every 10 seconds. It turned out my logging to hard drive was turned way up (verbose). I disabled it and never had any issues.

What I am getting at is that it could have to do with a WOW mod you're using that writes to disk.

Deleting your WTF folder is probably what did the trick. WoW just like EVE is not well threaded and sometimes stupid things can cause hiccups.

Your game play is much smoother on your new 5870 probably and combined that with the fact that it's a new purchase means you're probably noticing more things about how your computer runs.
 
I just deleted the WTF folder as well and it seems to have fixed the stutter. I'll try reinstalling quest helper.
 
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