Low WoW Framerates?

K

kidstechno

Gawd
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
580
I just recently upgraded my Processor and GPU and seems World of Warcraft chugs along when it should wizz. Specs below:

C2Duo E8400 @ stock (3.0) w/ Zalman CNPS9500
Asus P5W DH Mobo
HiS Radeon HD4890 1GB (stock) 1680x1080 resolution
4 GB (2x 2GB) G. Skill 800mhz RAM 4-4-4-12
Kingwin 600MA1 600W PSU
Windows 7 RC1 64bit

I'm noticing severe drops in performance in some areas, and sub 30 fps in raids. Is anyone else having similar problems? I know WoW doesn't "support" Win7 or fully utilize the 4890 but it seems I should be getting >60fps gameplay or maybe I'm just wishful thinking. I have all in-game settings set to high along with the in-game 8x multisampling rate (which doesn't change my FPS lowering it). I lowered Shadows bar and seems I got about 10-15 fps but still getting low in just regular instances. I would OC the CPU but it seems I have an earlier version of the P5W and cannot change the vcore lower than 1.4 (when I do set it at 1.4, temps skyrocket). Running 38c idle and about 50-51c load.

dubya tea ef mate.
 
Have you tried just altering the BCLK to see what kind of clock you can get on the E8400? Also you might want to run some tests, seems like something might not be right between your 4890 and win7.
 
Do you use V-Sync? Do you have Triple-buffering enabled? Not using VSync at all would give you the best FPS, but VSync will give you the best image quality. Using VSync without triple-buffering drops your DPS down considerably so make sure that is enabled if you use VSync at all.

Also have you checked your settings in Catalyst Control Center? WoW seems to work best when you have AA and AF set to "use application settings", Catalyst AI on Advanced, and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing disabled.

Beyond that I'd say that 8x AA is a bit high.

kidstechno said:
I would OC the CPU but it seems I have an earlier version of the P5W and cannot change the vcore lower than 1.4 (when I do set it at 1.4, temps skyrocket). Running 38c idle and about 50-51c load.
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What are your temps when they "skyrocket"? As long as you aren't getting closer than about 15C to TjMax under load it shouldn't be a problem. My Quad at 1.5v idles at 50C+ and I have load temps as high as 80C; I've been running it like that for years now.
 
Benjus said:
Have you tried just altering the BCLK to see what kind of clock you can get on the E8400? Also you might want to run some tests, seems like something might not be right between your 4890 and win7.
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Nope, and everything looks good on my 4890. Did a GPU-Z and it's running full 16x. I'm getting smooth gameplay in Fallout 3 with everything maxed, so could be something with WoW.

Do you use V-Sync? Do you have Triple-buffering enabled? Not using VSync at all would give you the best FPS, but VSync will give you the best image quality. Using VSync without triple-buffering drops your DPS down considerably so make sure that is enabled if you use VSync at all.

Also have you checked your settings in Catalyst Control Center? WoW seems to work best when you have AA and AF set to "use application settings", Catalyst AI on Advanced, and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing disabled.

Beyond that I'd say that 8x AA is a bit high.
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Nope VSync is disabled (I always disable it, so Triple Buffering disabled as well). I had the settings in CCC to Optimal Quality but changed back to Application Settings with disabling Adaptive AA and AI and still no change. And like I said, even if I decrease the Multisampling in the game options, it has almost little effect.

What are your temps when they "skyrocket"? As long as you aren't getting closer than about 15C to TjMax under load it shouldn't be a problem. My Quad at 1.5v idles at 50C+ and I have load temps as high as 80C; I've been running it like that for years now.
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Was getting 50-60c idle and like 70-80c load, I think. I don't feel comfortable at those temps, besides the P5W DH is way outdated for the new 45nm processors, and seems to be RNG for whether you can get it at a decent overclock or not on the board. Even at 1.4 vcore Prime 95 borked in < 2 seconds, with loosened timings on my memory and everything.
 
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Hmmm... Turning down shadows to lowest for me did more than just increase FPS by 10-15 i got maybe a 100 more :p (and i think lowest even makes the shadows look better)

All i can do for WoW players is tell them to get a quad core :(
 
One final question: Did this occur only after you had 3.2? Or was it an issue before the patch?
 
Nah it was the same before the patch but I didn't really get a good test of things due to me getting the items pretty much a day before the patch.

Could connection be a limiting factor? I'm on about 200kbs DSL. Also, the reason I grabbed a dual core was people were saying WoW didn't use quad cores and DC was better than QC overall for gaming.

I also play TF2 and I get 80-100+ fps no problems.

This is just really interesting. Could it be something like sound drivers? Should I just switch back to Vista?
 
check your cooler, sounds like its overheating and the cpu is throttling to prevent it from killing itself.
 
I have been playin WoW since launch and all these years later with newer and faster upgrades to me WoW never played smooth in-game set to 8x Multisample for some reason that has always been chuggy in that game. 4x looks great and plays smooth for me at 2560x1600
 
In dalaran you're probably going to hover around 25-30fps max so don't expect great fps in that area. The shadows will make a huge difference (both in quality and performance). Supposedly they optimized the shader code in 3.2 but I haven't had a chance to test that yet. The game stresses the CPU a lot more than the GPU so I'd bet your problem lies there.

One note on the CCC settings, I've generally had much better results in games setting everything to "use application settings" or disabled (this includes catalyst ai). I don't really notice a quality difference and everything performs much better.
 
Yea, wow performance scales with newer hardware is terrible. Blizzard needs to update their engine.
 
Vegtro said:
Yea, wow performance scales with newer hardware is terrible. Blizzard needs to update their engine.
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Unfortunately that's probably not going to happen, for a multitude of reasons, foremost the fact their base doesn't use enthusiast class hardware.
 
Zorachus said:
I have been playin WoW since launch and all these years later with newer and faster upgrades to me WoW never played smooth in-game set to 8x Multisample for some reason that has always been chuggy in that game. 4x looks great and plays smooth for me at 2560x1600
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Agreed. I'm with an QX6700 and an 8800GTX card. I get bare minimum of 30 fps in Dalaran on Ultra Settings with these nice extra console settings.

Just ordered a 4890 2GB Can't wait to crank up the 30" with a 2560 res.
 
I do know that some recent model ATI cards have been mistaking WoW for a 2d app and running it at 2d clock speeds, severely hurting performance. The workaround is to create a profile for wow that forces your card's 3d performance clock speeds, it may be worth looking into.
 
ZDPhoenix said:
Agreed. I'm with an QX6700 and an 8800GTX card. I get bare minimum of 30 fps in Dalaran on Ultra Settings with these nice extra console settings.

Just ordered a 4890 2GB Can't wait to crank up the 30" with a 2560 res.
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Don't be too upset if it doesn't improve much. Your almost three year old CPU design is going to see to that. WoW really doesn't care too much if you have an 8800 GTX or the HD 4890 - either one of those can play their part in the game fine.
 
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Jeffredo said:
Don't be too upset if it doesn't improve much. You're almost three year old CPU design is going to see to that. WoW really doesn't care too much if you have an 8800 GTX or the HD 4890 - either one of those can play their part in the game fine.
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Dude, the guy is running a Core2Quad and the fact that he bothered with an extreme edition almost definitely means he is overclocking. In no way, shape, or form would that hold him back in WoW. :rolleyes:
 
I've found dropping shadows to one notch below max will double my FPS. I go from 25-30 to 60 solid everywhere but dalaran, and hover 30-40 in Dalaran. The last patch that "improved shadow rendering performance greatly" added *maybe* 5fps when its maxed. Ffft. Doesnt make much of a difference to the look of the game, especially since I'm used to the good 'ol blob shadows :p
 
GotNoRice said:
Dude, the guy is running a Core2Quad and the fact that he bothered with an extreme edition almost definitely means he is overclocking. In no way, shape, or form would that hold him back in WoW. :rolleyes:
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QX6700 = Dual core.

Q6700 = Quad core

E6700 = Dual core.

look it up.
 
I run WoW on the system in my sig.. The processor is not fast enough to get 60fps in Dalaran all the time at only 1280x1024 with 4xAA and the shadows turned down 2 notches from the highest. Also note that I have edge detect turned on in the Catalyst Control Center which improves AA a lot but stresses the video card more. Edit: Since the 3.2 patch I now get 50-60fps in Dalaran.. before the 3.2 patch I was getting mid 40's - mid 50's. /edit

In Dalaran, the GPU usage is only at about 40% while the CPU is running at about 70-80% on one core and two of the other cores see max 20-25% usage and the 4th core only sees about 10-15% usage.

The problem is that the threading needs to be reworked in WoW to even out the load in between the cores better.

Get an i7-920 setup and overclock it if you want a fast enough processor for WoW - (my CPU benches at just a little under stock i7-920 speeds).
 
Yeah I'm still getting pretty low scores. Been checking out console GPU commands to tweak it a bit. Shadows definitely grants a car of FPS but not a truck so far for me.

I'm considering selling the junk I replaced and buying a new motherboard that will let me set Vcore below 1.4 and actually OC properly :rolleyes:

I think I won't have the money for an i7 until I get a decent paying job (graduated 3 months ago and still no big job, gogo IT) so a ~$100 motherboard should get me decent mileage. Or maybe I'll just keep everything and wait it out, haven't decided. The i5s should be around the corner so should be interesting to see the prices for mobo/cpus.

Just stinks you get all this "bling bling" and your frames are still jacked. Well playing TF2 with all eyecandy on is still worth it, and other titles I have.
 
kidstechno said:
Yeah I'm still getting pretty low scores. Been checking out console GPU commands to tweak it a bit. Shadows definitely grants a car of FPS but not a truck so far for me.

I'm considering selling the junk I replaced and buying a new motherboard that will let me set Vcore below 1.4 and actually OC properly :rolleyes:

I think I won't have the money for an i7 until I get a decent paying job (graduated 3 months ago and still no big job, gogo IT) so a ~$100 motherboard should get me decent mileage. Or maybe I'll just keep everything and wait it out, haven't decided. The i5s should be around the corner so should be interesting to see the prices for mobo/cpus.

Just stinks you get all this "bling bling" and your frames are still jacked. Well playing TF2 with all eyecandy on is still worth it, and other titles I have.
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Your system is freaking bad ass. It is not your setup, a QuadCore Intel processor is still plenty awesome for todays games, let alone a 5 year old design like WoW.

And your only playing on a small monitor ? a 20" of 1680x1050 res ? That should be running crazy fast and smooth with any game maxed out with your hardware. Trust me it is WoW and the 3.2 patch making you bog down, and the capital cities have always been a b!tch, major lag. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if WoW feels so laggy because of your DSL connection ?
 
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Zorachus said:
Your system is freaking bad ass. It is not your setup, a QuadCore C2D Intel processor is still plenty awesome for todays games, let alone a 5 year old design like WoW.

And your only playing on a small monitor ? a 20" of 1680x1050 res ? That should be running crazy fast and smooth with any game maxed out with your hardware. Trust me it is WoW and the 3.2 patch making you bog down, and the capital cities have always been a b!tch, major lag. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if WoW feels so laggy because of your DSL connection ?
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There is no such thing as a QuadCore C2D.... A Dual core is a C2D (Core2 Duo) and a Quad Core is a C2Q (Core2 Quad).
 
Running around Dalaran at 60 fps with low shadows, everything else maxed with a 4850 and i7 920. Perhaps you should look in to a new CPU.
 
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i get about 20-30 fps in dalaran, 60fps everywhere else with rig in sig def a cpu dependent game
 
risqu3 said:
weird, when I was buying my Q6600, the QX6700 I was about to buy was labelled as a dual core :S
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I too ran into some similar issues where websites were showing that exact model number as both dual and quad core. i personally like to think its a quad because of the Q.
 
I was getting steady 60 fps before the 3.2 patch and now I'm getting 30 fps in some parts. I run everything as high as it can go except for the shadows and my resolution is 1680 x 1050.
 
Ever since 3.2, my framerates have been all-around lower, but especially in Dalaran. Performance in Dal was bad before, but it's just unbearable now.
 
Crispy002 said:
In dalaran you're probably going to hover around 25-30fps max so don't expect great fps in that area. The shadows will make a huge difference (both in quality and performance). Supposedly they optimized the shader code in 3.2 but I haven't had a chance to test that yet. The game stresses the CPU a lot more than the GPU so I'd bet your problem lies there.
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I upgraded my system to a i7 920 and running around Dalaran on 2.4 Ghz I was getting around 20 fps. I overclocked it to 4 Ghz and jumped to 30 fps. Finally I enabled multiple core usage in the config file and I now get around 60 fps.

I was able to find a thread in the WOW forums about altering the config file to make use of more than one core and that made the biggest difference on my system. In the regular world now it's not a rare occurrence for me to be at 180fps. The rest of my rig is an 280 GTX, 6 gigs of cas 7 ram, and I play on a 30" monitor.
 
Bomber18 said:
I upgraded my system to a i7 920 and running around Dalaran on 2.4 Ghz I was getting around 20 fps. I overclocked it to 4 Ghz and jumped to 30 fps. Finally I enabled multiple core usage in the config file and I now get around 60 fps.

I was able to find a thread in the WOW forums about altering the config file to make use of more than one core and that made the biggest difference on my system. In the regular world now it's not a rare occurrence for me to be at 180fps. The rest of my rig is an 280 GTX, 6 gigs of cas 7 ram, and I play on a 30" monitor.
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I need to find that post with the way to change the core usage for WoW. I've seen it, but at the time I had a dual core and it didn't matter. Two weeks ago I built an X4 955 rig with a GTX 260, so it would be worthwhile I'd imagine.
 
Bomber18 said:
I was able to find a thread in the WOW forums about altering the config file to make use of more than one core and that made the biggest difference on my system. In the regular world now it's not a rare occurrence for me to be at 180fps. The rest of my rig is an 280 GTX, 6 gigs of cas 7 ram, and I play on a 30" monitor.
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That may have been the case at one point but WoW in it's current state takes advantage of multiple cores by default. My CPU usage for WoW is usually 35-40% on my Quad.

Edit: This is probably the setting you were referring to: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311&sid=1&pageNo=1 But wow still only uses 2 cores regardless.
 
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In my experience the general settings for WoW cause little slow down, the new shadows take a big frame rate hit, but also the other thing is the amount of foliage, even with a Q9450@3.6Ghz and 4870 SLI at 2560x1600 I have to ease up on both the foliage distance and density, with both a high density and high distance the amount of foliage increases a LOT and tanks the frame rate.

Bare in mind this is probably a slider for distance and the area/volume of spheres/circles/arcs dont scale up linearly with their radius, so 2x the slider distance for foliage is a crap load more foliage rather than just 2x more.

Anyway on my rig WoW is nice and playable with everything high 4xAA and 16xAF with foliage distance/density about 1/2 and shadows on high (i think) but thats only in the starting areas/cities, might choke more in higher areas with more people.
 
GotNoRice said:
That may have been the case at one point but WoW in it's current state takes advantage of multiple cores by default. My CPU usage for WoW is usually 35-40% on my Quad.

Edit: This is probably the setting you were referring to: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311&sid=1&pageNo=1 But wow still only uses 2 cores regardless.
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That is the the thread I was referring to. I also read that it should default to multiple core usage but before I made the change to the config I had 100% of one core showing in the CPU Usage History graph. After I specified the cores/virtual cores I wanted used I saw around 60% usage over two so it's definitely worth checking out even if it's supposed to default to two core usage.
 
WoW is just a beast. You could have the PC in the world and blizzard will still find a way to drop your frames :p
 
GotNoRice said:
That may have been the case at one point but WoW in it's current state takes advantage of multiple cores by default. My CPU usage for WoW is usually 35-40% on my Quad.

Edit: This is probably the setting you were referring to: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311&sid=1&pageNo=1 But wow still only uses 2 cores regardless.
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Actually.. WoW officially supports 3 cores if you edit the config file... BUT.. it will make use of a 4th core if you set the affinity properly in config.wtf.

15 is for Quads and 255 is for i7s.
 
have you disabled all your mods and maybe delete your WTF file? After the 3.2 patch most mods took a while to update. I run a PII X4 810 with a GTX260 core 216 and with all visuals maxed it's smooth as silk even in 25 mans. WoW is way more CPU dependant than GPU so you should be fine. It sounds to me like a WoW issue not hardware.
 
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