Inconsistent FPS in WOW with an 8800GT

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Hello everyone. I obviously play WOW, and I have noticed that I sometimes encounter some very inconsistent FPS problems. My computer far exceeds even the recommended specs, and I don't play at super high resolutions or with a lot of AA (2x only), so I don't really understand why I am having these FPS issues. Usually, it runs fine at 60 FPS, but when I get to a town or something with a lot of "stuff", my FPS will flutter wildly between 40-60 FPS. I play at 1680x1050 resolution, with all effects at max effect for Terrain Distance (which is half) and Spell Detail (again, also half). Like I stated earlier, I only run at 2x AA.

Here are my system specs in a nutshell:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6750 (2.67 Ghz)
4 GB of RAM
BFG NVIDIA 8800 GT with 512 MB of VRAM
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition
All of the latest drivers and updates for everything
Etc., etc.

Could anyone give me some tips or solutions for why 4-year old WOW is stuttering on my system which blows it out of the water? I have tried tweaking numerous settings in WOW and with my video drivers, and nothing seems to work. I've also disabled all of my mods to try it out, and that didn't solve the issue either. It truly is baffling.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Anubis]

its pretty simple, when you enter a town your card has to draw a TON OF PEOPLE doing any number of totally random things, the sheer number of calcs/renders it has to do is why it slows down. + the new shadows are poorly coded and hurt preformance


we also have a big wow thread

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Anubis
its pretty simple, when you enter a town your card has to draw a TON OF PEOPLE doing any number of totally random things, the sheer number of calcs/renders it has to do is why it slows down. + the new shadows are poorly coded and hurt preformance


we also have a big wow thread

I understand all of this, but I have a computer and GPU that should be able to handle whatever WOW can throw it at. It handles Gears and BioShock just fine with all the settings at max. I see no reason why 4-year old WOW should be an exception.

In reference to the WOW thread, I thought about putting it in there, but this is just asking a specific question about performance in WOW, not posting about what I'm raiding or what server I am playing on. I'd prefer to just discuss this issue instead of getting it mixed in with what everyone else is discussing related to WOW.

 

[Anubis]

have you tried turning the shadow detail down?

 

[Qbah]

Also, what HDD do you have? Slow drives tend to kill performance in those situations too as the game needs to load textures from it.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Anubis
have you tried turning the shadow detail down?

I believe so, but I will try it again and relog to see if it makes any difference. It seems that if you change a graphic setting and don't let it redraw, it doesn't boost performance right away. Maybe that's just my perception though.

Of course, all of this will have to wait until I get home this evening.

 

[Anubis]

you have to reboot wow for alot of the changes

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Qbah
Also, what HDD do you have? Slow drives tend to kill performance in those situations too as the game needs to load textures from it.

I believe I have a Maxtor 7200 RPM 350 GB HDD. It might be Western Digital, but I am pretty sure it was Maxtor. I know that it is 7200 RPMs though.

I have noticed my HDD light blinking in those situations, but I am unsure how to optimize the HDD in that regard. Vista doesn't really have a defrag (it does it "automatically"), and it's not like my drive is loaded (maybe 50% full).

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Anubis
you have to reboot wow for alot of the changes

Yes, but Shadow Details isn't one that WOW prompts you to relog for it to take effect. I will still do it though to just to make sure it takes.

 

[Xavier434]

I actually experience what Ryan is speaking about very often and my system is almost identical to his. I actually only pull in about 20 FPS in Dalaran and around 25-30 in Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord. However, in Borean I get between 45-60 at any given time.

As far as my in game settings are concerned, I have everything maxed except the following:

Terrain Distance which I keep at about 30%-40%
Ground Clutter which I keep at only 20% or so.
Shadow Detail which I have turned off completely

I am also only running the game at 1280x1024. Can someone explain what is wrong here?

 

[eddiebravo]

turn shadows all the way down. i can play with everything maxed if i keep shadows as low as possible. the second i turn them up everything turns into a slideshow

 

[msi1337]

all the more reason to switch to 4850 crossfire

 

[Fingolfin269]

About the only weird thing I find in the xpac is when I hearth to Dalaran. It takes forever to load. Never had this issue pre-xpac.

 

[lupi]

do a defrag. my secondary system is near identical and runs fine with everything at max.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: lupi
do a defrag. my secondary system is near identical and runs fine with everything at max.

I did already. No change. Also, I very recently reformatted in order to upgrade from Vista 32 to 64 so I am running a clean system now that takes full advantage of my 4GB of memory. This is all so very confusing.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I actually experience what Ryan is speaking about very often and my system is almost identical to his. I actually only pull in about 20 FPS in Dalaran and around 25-30 in Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord. However, in Borean I get between 45-60 at any given time.

As far as my in game settings are concerned, I have everything maxed except the following:

Terrain Distance which I keep at about 30%-40%
Ground Clutter which I keep at only 20% or so.
Shadow Detail which I have turned off completely

I am also only running the game at 1280x1024. Can someone explain what is wrong here?

Well, it is good to know that it isn't just me experiencing this problem!

I've seen numerous folks mention try turning the shadows down. I will try that this evening. Though it still is mind-boggling that my computer can play an intense game like Gears of War PC at all settings max with no issues, yet an ancient game like WOW has a choppy framerate.

Something smells fishy with WOW's coding...but hopefully there is a temporary solution until the problem is solved, whatever it is!

 

[lupi]

like I said, I put a e6600 with 4gig ram on vista 64 with a 8800gt pushing a 22" panel at 1680 as a new build and have everything at max. When zoning into Dal I may get a momentary slowdown at first, but it easily keeps at 40fps+ at all times.

 

[Dravic]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
I actually experience what Ryan is speaking about very often and my system is almost identical to his. I actually only pull in about 20 FPS in Dalaran and around 25-30 in Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord. However, in Borean I get between 45-60 at any given time.

As far as my in game settings are concerned, I have everything maxed except the following:

Terrain Distance which I keep at about 30%-40%
Ground Clutter which I keep at only 20% or so.
Shadow Detail which I have turned off completely

I am also only running the game at 1280x1024. Can someone explain what is wrong here?

The graphic engine was tweaked with wotlk, and the settings were increased. If you had everything maxed before in BC that is equal to about 50% on the sliders now in wotlk. The shadow detail, draw distance and ground clutter being the biggest perfomance hits now.

YOU WILL HAVE TO REDUCE THEM. Spell detail is a little obnoxious now (esp DK spell animations), i recommend turning that down now also.

Your game will look like BC again, and perform as well. We will have to just wait for Blizzard to optimize the new tweaks... lol yeah right

Dalaran is just hot mess...

With these new setting i'm hitting 45-75 while questing/instancing, 10-20's in Dalaran.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: lupi
like I said, I put a e6600 with 4gig ram on vista 64 with a 8800gt pushing a 22" panel at 1680 as a new build and have everything at max. When zoning into Dal I may get a momentary slowdown at first, but it easily keeps at 40fps+ at all times.

I am thinking the problem might be my mobo/CPU combo at this point. I am currently using an ASUS M2N32 SLI Deluxe w/Nforce 590 chipset along with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600.

 

[Xavier434]

Just thought of another question too. Why is it that my FPS never exceeds 60 even when I am just pointing the camera at the ground or somerhing? I know a decent amount about this sort of thing, but I am not the kind of expert that some of you here are. Does it have to do with my refresh rate or something?

 

[lupi]

Its a max setting of the program.

 

[Tremulant]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Just thought of another question too. Why is it that my FPS never exceeds 60 even when I am just pointing the camera at the ground or somerhing? I know a decent amount about this sort of thing, but I am not the kind of expert that some of you here are. Does it have to do with my refresh rate or something?

You probably have V-Sync turned on, which caps the FPS at your monitor's refresh rate. (Most likely 60 if you have an LCD)

This can be turned off in the Video Options in the game.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Tremulant

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Just thought of another question too. Why is it that my FPS never exceeds 60 even when I am just pointing the camera at the ground or somerhing? I know a decent amount about this sort of thing, but I am not the kind of expert that some of you here are. Does it have to do with my refresh rate or something?

You probably have V-Sync turned on, which caps the FPS at your monitor's refresh rate. (Most likely 60 if you have an LCD)

This can be turned off in the Video Options in the game.

Originally posted by: lupi
Its a max setting of the program.

Ok...which is it guys? If 60 is a max setting of the program then why do I hear about people getting more than 60 FPS? I will double check my V-Sync settings and see what happens anyways.

 

[Anubis]

60 is the max any game will run at with vsync turned on, turn it off you get more

 

[Xavier434]

Why do people have vsync turned on? I read why once but I forgot.