How do new video cards play wow?

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ellover009

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 17, 2005
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I have been looking at getting an open box 4870x2 and have been exited about getting a new video card. Someone recently brought to my attention that WoW is not fond of multi gpu video cards and that a lotta people are having difficulty getting good FPS with this card. I also hear it doesn't like the 295gtx.
Any experience with wow and more current video cards, I have an 8800gtx and i7 920 and 6gb ram, would like to run more current games a little faster.
I definitely liked the idea of a 4870x2 but if it will make wow barely playable I am not even gonna bother with it and maybe go Nvidia. What do you guys think.
 
From most of the feedback here, it's pretty well known that WoW is a CPU dependent game, like most mmo's. There was a post a few months ago where a guy did a significant GPU upgrade and it didn't impact his WoW performance. Plus a lot of WoW performance can be gained by simply disabling Shadows, which is CPU bound.

Inherently, MMO's are designed to fit the hardware of most people, and casual gamers are generally going to have a better performing cpu than gpu, so the games are designed that way.
 
To put it in perspective ellover009, my old ATI Radeon X700 Pro ran WoW on almost all high settings (shadows weren't available when I had the card) at 40-60fps. I upgraded to a 3870 and gained the muscle to apply plenty of AA and maintain 60fps indefinitely. As bigdogchris said, WoW is a CPU dependant game for the most part. Your 8800GT combined with your i7 should be all the power you need to max WoW at 60fps.

In all honesty, WoW is not a very demanding game. If you're interested in new GPU demanding games (like FPS games), go pick up the modern card of your choosing. Personally I think the X2 or Xfire/SLI solutions aren't as cost effective or reliable as a single card/gpu option. If you've got the money for a 4870X2 I'd say put it towards a 4890 or a 285 instead.
 
bigdogchris said:
From most of the feedback here, it's pretty well known that WoW is a CPU dependent game, like most mmo's. There was a post a few months ago where a guy did a significant GPU upgrade and it didn't impact his WoW performance. Plus a lot of WoW performance can be gained by simply disabling Shadows, which is CPU bound.

Inherently, MMO's are designed to fit the hardware of most people, and casual gamers are generally going to have a better performing cpu than gpu, so the games are designed that way.
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Actually, I'm sorry but you're out of the loop here.

WoW *used* to be completely CPU-bound, but since they released Wrath of the Lich King, they added dynamic shadows which cause the game to be 100% GPU-bound (at any reasonable resolution).
 
BlueStorm said:
Actually, I'm sorry but you're out of the loop here.

WoW *used* to be completely CPU-bound, but since they released Wrath of the Lich King, they added dynamic shadows which cause the game to be 100% GPU-bound (at any reasonable resolution).
Click to expand...

Only problem is WoW doesn't take advantage of CrossFire / SLI.

They did just add in support for up to 3 cores though, which is nice.
 
TotalLamer said:
Only problem is WoW doesn't take advantage of CrossFire / SLI.

They did just add in support for up to 3 cores though, which is nice.
Click to expand...


There was technically "support" for 3 and even 4 cores before. They just made it able to use the 3rd core more than it did before. (affinity setting in config.wtf).

I only play at 1280x1024 and have everything all the way up with 4xAA and can even turn shadows all the way up and my system doesn't hardly ever break 35% CPU usage.. usually 15-25% unless in a largely populated area. This is while maintaining a steady 60fps almost all the time. Be sure to use vsync and triple buffering. It lowers CPU usage a lot.
 
BlueStorm said:
Actually, I'm sorry but you're out of the loop here.

WoW *used* to be completely CPU-bound, but since they released Wrath of the Lich King, they added dynamic shadows which cause the game to be 100% GPU-bound (at any reasonable resolution).
Click to expand...

Dynamic shadows and increased view distance have caused the game to be even more CPU bound than it was. I've read "blue" posts confirming this in their forums. That's why people see little if any improvement upgrading their GPUs (if they already had a mid range one) and are constantly posting in the WoW tech support forum to complain about it. Its almost impossible to lift the CPU bottleneck off a place like Dalaran at crowded prime time with shadow quality and draw distance on full.
 
I tried playing WoW about a month ago after a 1.5 year hiatus.
I had zero problems running max resolution of 1920x1200 with all video options enabled and set to max resolution with 60+ FPS.
No noticeable slow down with multiple npc's / pc's on screen etc...
 
You will see a boost in performance with a new card. I went from ab 8800gts 320mb to the card in my sig and I was able to max out and still maintain over 40fps.

I DID knock down the shadows to half and the clutter dens/radius to about half to keep a steady 60+. WIth 3.1, I turned up the character resolution to full and the other new option and kept my 60+.

I currently run my cpu at 2.8ghz. I got about a 5-10fps increase from the flightpath benchmark from overclocking from the stock 2.3ghz. I didn't benchmark the differences between the 2 videocards but it was the difference between 20fps in Dalaran and 30-40. I was also able to turn up the settings as I mentioned above.
 
I noticed less CPU bound, as my cores on my 3800 x2 never really max, and my 4850 never really heats up either... in wow.

The biggest slowdown is drive thrashing as it pulls textures for areas such as dalaran.
 
can't follow the considerations. WoW runs on a pocket calculator. 4870x2? overkill?
 
On my current box I get 60 FPS everywhere except Dalaran, and even there it only drops if it is really crowded. Your machine looks pretty similar. Know that even in the worst case you can disable half of your new card and get great frame rates in WoW.
 
With my Sig below. I run WOW, with everything turned up, 8xAA on in game, and 16x AF forced through ATI drivers I get around 40-60fps in Dalaran.

X2 would make the game run a perfect 60fps in dalaran with 8X on easily.
 
Yeah whats the deal with WoW and 2xGTX260? I built a system for someone who says he gets BSODs saying his drivers/graphics are outdated after installing WoW...
 
BlueStorm said:
Actually, I'm sorry but you're out of the loop here.

WoW *used* to be completely CPU-bound, but since they released Wrath of the Lich King, they added dynamic shadows which cause the game to be 100% GPU-bound (at any reasonable resolution).
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:

Jeffredo said:
Dynamic shadows and increased view distance have caused the game to be even more CPU bound than it was. I've read "blue" posts confirming this in their forums. That's why people see little if any improvement upgrading their GPUs (if they already had a mid range one) and are constantly posting in the WoW tech support forum to complain about it. Its almost impossible to lift the CPU bottleneck off a place like Dalaran at crowded prime time with shadow quality and draw distance on full.
Click to expand...
:cool:
 
BlueStorm said:
Actually, I'm sorry but you're out of the loop here.

WoW *used* to be completely CPU-bound, but since they released Wrath of the Lich King, they added dynamic shadows which cause the game to be 100% GPU-bound (at any reasonable resolution).
Click to expand...

I can understand what your saying, and where thats coming from, but this is fundimentally code written in 2003.

My friends 8800GS (aka 9600GSO) and AX2 5000+ wipes the floor with WOW:BC, I havn't asked him about WOTLK.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
I can understand what your saying, and where thats coming from, but this is fundimentally code written in 2003.

My friends 8800GS (aka 9600GSO) and AX2 5000+ wipes the floor with WOW:BC, I havn't asked him about WOTLK.
Click to expand...

BC can't be compared to WOTLK. There is a huge difference in performance on the same hardware.
 
O yea running at 1920X1200.

And playing wow Solo play any video can really do it. The good test is a 25 man raid with everything turned up. Then you can see how good your system can handle things. A faster CPU will help QUITE a bit. With a 6400+ [email protected] i had to lower setting to be able to raid and run around in dalran with respectable frames (like 20+) now with a p2 [email protected] I have no issues whatsoever in Dalaran or in Naxx/maly/ulduar.

But that is my experience, different strokes for different folks I guess, but I LIKE a good frame rate, anything below 30fps is a no go for me.
 
Dark_Eternal said:
BC can't be compared to WOTLK. There is a huge difference in performance on the same hardware.
Click to expand...

Yea ill have to agree. Even the new 3.1 patch that was released on the 14th, brought even better shadows and textures to characters. BOY it made a huge difference in the over feel and look of the game, and it really does tax a system.

But yea wotlk is way more demanding then BC
 
60FPS+ in Dalaran with max settings is like saying My 12gauge sure can blow the shit outa this squirrel. Total overkill for the game....

If you can get ~30FPS in Dalaran Maxed out then you have no problem keeping 60FPS+ everywhere else.
 
Omegas said:
60FPS+ in Dalaran with max settings is like saying My 12gauge sure can blow the shit outa this squirrel. Total overkill for the game....

If you can get ~30FPS in Dalaran Maxed out then you have no problem keeping 60FPS+ everywhere else.
Click to expand...

with 8xAA (edge detect) 16X af @ 1920X1200, I highly doubt a 8800gt or 8800gs could do that.
 
kioras said:
The biggest slowdown is drive thrashing as it pulls textures for areas such as dalaran.
Click to expand...

I can't say for sure it's the biggest slowdown, but WoW does read a lot of data off the hard drive, which is the slowest part in any modern system due to being a mechanical part that has to physically move around. I was recently playing WoW while watching my disk stats in PerfMon, and disk speed is definitely a factor (this was on my 7200.10 500GB - not the fastest drive, but not an antique either). Since the WoW patcher inserts data into the existing files, it also leads to lots of fragmentation, which means your disk is jumping around even more.

If you want to dive into it, you can use JkDefrag to rearrange the files on your disk (in addition to just defragmenting them). By default, it will move old and big files to the end in a separate section. Since WoW uses huge data files, this means that they will be grouped into a different section of the drive from the rest of the smaller game files (once again, more jumping back and forth for your disk). You can use JkDefrag.exe -a 7 -u "DisableDefaults" C: to sort everything by name (which will group all the C:\World of Warcraft\* stuff together) and disable the "spacehog" sorting which puts the big files at the end of the drive. The only problem is, you're then also not moving the true spacehogs out to the end of the disk.

I was thinking of trying a multi-step procedure to get around that. First use -a 6 to move everything to the end of the disk (just to clear up the beginning of the drive). Then use -a 7 -u "DisableDefaults" on just the directories you want "short-stroked". Then do -a 7 -e "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\*" C: to sort and defrag the whole disk as normal, excluding the WoW files you just pushed to the front of the drive.

A similar option that requires less manual work is to put WoW on a drive or partition where you don't have any true spacehogs to worry about. Defrag C: as you normally would, then use -a 7 -u "DisableDefaults" D: to do your spacehog-less volume. Note that using a separate partition on the same drive may force those files toward the end of the drive, which is inherently slower (the opposite of short-stroking).

Defraggler can be used to defrag individual files, but it just sticks the completed file where it has room. You might end up with a lot of nice single-unit files, but scattered all over your disk.
 
If you don't want to buy a SSD for WoW get a decent but cheap 7200RPM drive (the 640's work well), short stroke it, and put wow on it only. Friend did this and got a sizable boost (10-20FPS depending upon area). Remember that WoW can be run from any location and does not really need to be "installed". In terms of boost, it is a nice benefit for maybe $50.
 
Ive found that RAM / CPU has biggest effect on WoW.

Going from athlonx xp to athlon x2 my fps trippled, same video card.

Recently my brother went from athlon64 3200 to q9550 intel and his fps went up 10x maybe lol. same video card. 5600fx

I went from a 7800gt to a 8800gts512 fps didnt go up.

In Dalaran on my x2 4400 i get 12fps at primetime. 20fps in the morning. My guess is when i get my i7 functioning it'll be 25fps minimum.


EDIT: Trepidati0n: What does "short stroke it" mean.
 
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GTX260 216 @ 700/1490/2500 > 1920x1200 maxed in windowed mode (Dual monitors for web surfing) = 40 fps and 25ish fps in dalaran with people.

Same card with shadows at 1/2 bars = 60 fps and around 35 fps in dalaran with people.

I don't know how your brother is playing on a 5600fx......I switched in my 6600GT and with a 3.6 e8400.......it ran at 10-15 fps..........though at 1920x1200 on medium.
 
Trepidati0n said:
If you don't want to buy a SSD for WoW get a decent but cheap 7200RPM drive (the 640's work well), short stroke it, and put wow on it only. Friend did this and got a sizable boost (10-20FPS depending upon area). Remember that WoW can be run from any location and does not really need to be "installed". In terms of boost, it is a nice benefit for maybe $50.
Click to expand...

That's basically what I did. I was able to get WoW pushed toward the beginning of the drive and still have it fit well within my desired partitioning scheme. I haven't actually played it off the new drive yet, but I'm sure the 30MB/s increase in average transfer rate plus moving it up on the drive will help a ton.

Also note that you should put only WoW on the short-stroked partition, but you can use the rest of the drive as well. Just don't put anything there that will be accessed while playing WoW.

Inu said:
What does "short stroke it" mean.
Click to expand...

It's partitioning your drive to force certain files to the beginning of the drive, which is faster than the end of the drive. Rather than allowing your files to end up anywhere on the drive, you're forcing them to stay in a certain area known to be faster.
 
TotalLamer said:
Only problem is WoW doesn't take advantage of CrossFire / SLI.
Click to expand...

Wish people would stop spreading misinformation. I can't speak for SLI, but WoW definitely works with and takes advantage of Crossfire.

The only exception is that you have to run the game in fullscreen mode. Many people, especially those with multiple monitors, run in Windowed Maximized mode; this looks the same as fullscreen but you can move your mouse right off the screen onto another monitor without having to alt-tab, etc. If you run WoW in ANY form of windowed mode, it will only use one GPU.

Open up two copies of GPU-Z on a 2nd monitor while you play and observe the GPU usage for yourself. The improvement is very noticeable, at least with 4850 crossfire.
 
As people have made it clear in here, WoW is CPU limited. Getting a very highend GPU really won't give many gains here.

WoW being CPU limited is something i was able to put to the test just a few days ago. My computer and a housemates sit next to each other. The GPUs are largely the same. I have a G80 based 8800GTX and he has a G92 based 8800GTS 512. We both have 24inch screens and both run WoW at 1920*1200 with 8x CSAA with all settings on highest expect for shadows which are 1 setting below the maximum possible in patch 3.1.0.

In Dalaran at medium load times our frame rates are as follows

Mine: 17-20 FPS
His: 25-30 FPS

The difference? I have an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ @ 2.3GHz. He has a Q6600 @ 3.0GHz.

I'd laugh at anyone claiming WoW is GPU limited at all.
 
mope54 said:
If you go this route, use MyDefrag. It's the updated version of JkDefrag that does a lot of what you suggested by default.
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Just from reading the site, it sounds like it does exactly the same thing as JkDefrag. All of the usage descriptions are almost word for word matches of the Jk page. It sounds like it might be a little more polished (but there are no screenshots on the site, so I'm not sure) and the scripting engine would allow you to do stuff like I suggested above as one item, rather than having to manually run it three times. The default options sound exactly the same as Jk's different parameters.

Other than the scripting engine and not being GPLed, MyDefrag sounds exactly the same as JkDefrag just based on its site. I'm still going to check it out, but I'm pretty sure it won't do any of the more complex stuff in my other post by default.
 
I'm about to get back into WoW. How would two 9500GT's in SLI (or not in SLI) do?
I plan on gaming at 1280x960 and 1440x900.

Btw, my 9500GT's are the gimped version, w/ GDDR2 running at 12.8GB/s.


EDIT: Oh, my 80GB drive is an antique, but I will be upgrading to a 128MB hardware raid card and will be running 2 WD 36GB Raptors in RAID-0 which I know will help.
 
I know for a fact that in full screen mode (non window) it takes advantage of crossfire and there are pretty big gains to be seen, except in dalaran because loading dalaran sucks big time. With maxed viewing distance thats a ton of characters to draw, even when flying into dalaran I see huge dips in performance. All this one 4870 512's in crossfire, 9450, 4gig DDR2 800.

Window mode, performance takes a dive when ever I fly into a new map range and shadows are originally being drawn.
 
WoW runs incredibly fast for me when it comes to loading. Graphics still seem slow for what I have(4870), but there's also a huge thread on the WoW forums about poor performance with the 4870 series.
 
InvisiBill said:
Other than the scripting engine and not being GPLed, MyDefrag sounds exactly the same as JkDefrag just based on its site.
Click to expand...
I posted that it's the updated version of JkDefrag. What did you expect from it other than a more advanced scripting engine? I'm pretty sure it's GPL'ed as well. I don't think he can un-GPL his code, but ask Jeroen on the forum if it's a concern.
 
mope54 said:
I posted that it's the updated version of JkDefrag. What did you expect from it other than a more advanced scripting engine? I'm pretty sure it's GPL'ed as well. I don't think he can un-GPL his code, but ask Jeroen on the forum if it's a concern.
Click to expand...

I was focusing on the last part of what you said.
mope54 said:
If you go this route, use MyDefrag. It's the updated version of JkDefrag that does a lot of what you suggested by default.
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything that I suggested by default, any more than Jk does. It appears to do everything I suggested exactly the same as Jk, other than the scripting engine allowing it to run all three operations as one item rather than three individual runs.

I'm not trying to say that being the same as JkDefrag is a bad thing, or that there's a ton of room for improvement. I'm just saying that I don't think it would make any difference in usability for the end user to use MyDefrag over JkDefrag to optimize a disk for WoW, especially when I listed all the necessary commands.



  • You may not modify MyDefrag v4 in any way, for example you may not remove any proprietary notices on any of the MyDefrag elements.
  • Title, ownership rights, and intellectual property rights in and to MyDefrag v4 and all component works within it shall remain in J.C. Kessels.
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As long as he's the original author of MyDefrag, he holds the rights to it and can license it however he chooses. I think (I'm not a lawyer) he could probably even choose to discontinue the GPL licensing on JkDefrag, though I'm not sure if he could rescind the GPL licensing on existing copies of it. Likewise, he could offer multiple licensing options - if you don't mind the "keep it free" restrictions of the GPL you could get it for free, or if you want to keep all your modifications closed, you could choose to buy a license for $1,000,000. It's his, so he can pretty much do whatever he wants with it.

However, if he happened to incorporate others' improvements to the code via GPL, then that code is not his own. He therefore cannot license it as he pleases, as it's now someone else's code that was licensed to him under the GPL, and he therefore must abide by the GPL's restrictions.
 
I also noticed a good sized performance increase in Wow going from 2gb to 4gb ram. It does not use any more ram, because it is sadly a 32bit program, however it let me multi-task much easier and have far fewer slow downs.

And who doesn't play a MMO without atleast another window open? (or a dedicated browsing puter)
 
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