HELP my FPS sucks

[yh125d]

It's running slow because your settings are too high for your hardware. Your CPU is quite weak (WoW can only use two threads, the affinity mask is only for processors with HT, the affinity hack is to make sure it runs on two physical cores instead of a physical core and a HT core), your GPU is decent enough but not great.

WoW is -not- a 5 year old game, assuming you are playing WotLK it is a 1 year old game. Even at a lower res like 1280x1024 you should be at lower-mid settings at most to be getting decent FPS in 25 mans, with shadows all the way down and particles near to down with low view distance

 

[CurseTheSky]

Wow is horribly optimized, so that's part of the problem. With an E8400 @ 3.0GHz, 4GB DDR2, GTX 285 and other goodies, I would still pull ~20-25 FPS in Dalaran if enough people were around. On the other hand, I'd pull ~100 FPS or better in L4D (if I remember correctly).

On the other hand, if you're only getting ~1-5 FPS in raids, something is seriously, majorly wrong. I'd try completely uninstalling all of your add-ons first and see if it improves. If not, perhaps something is wrong with your WoW or even OS install (graphics drivers?).

Slightly older hardware or not, there's no reason his FPS should be dipping that low. Do all games exhibit this behavior or is it just WoW?

 

[Absolution75]

You may not believe, but the MCP is the bottleneck. You can't change MCP, but you can reduce its load.
a) Buy a SSD and put WoW on it.
b) PCI-E NIC, Killer Xeno Pro.

I don't own Killer Xeno Pro, but i do believe it helps. As for SSD, it is night and day difference.

I don't believe.

First, an SSD would put more load on the MCP, as its in the way of the SATA controller. Not that it makes a difference.

FPS only drop in wow significantly when you're out of RAM and using the swapfile to load new content. WoW is RAM hungry. More ram would cure that problem and is 1/4th of the cost. Just by logic, how many people run WoW great and DON'T have SSD's. (99%?)

Second. Do NOT get a killer NIC. They are a waste of money. More than likely, he's using a realtek nick anyway. Network doesn't put any real load on any parts of the system when you're just playing a game. You'll be limited by either your internet connection (waaaaaaaay below 100mbit let alone 1000mbit), or the server you're playing on.


The problem is just that you have generally mid-low end hardware.

Things that will improve your FPS:
1) New CPU. Phenom I's are pretty slow, though you should try to do what other people have suggested with CPU affinity + C&Q.
2) More ram will help keep your FPS stable. If you're seeing a lot of stuttering, you could just get a modern hard drive (don't bother with an SSD, you have better places to spend an extra $100).
3) New video card. Yours is just pretty blah. An AMD 4850 or higher (4870/4890/5850 etc) or Geforce 260 or higher (260, or 260 216) would help your fps out a bit. Though WoW is primarily a CPU limited game, a new video card may not help out that much.