Is my 1080 Ti enough to meet my expectations in WoW

[Muhammed]

The problem in WoW is that heavy raids and maximum draw distance are very CPU intensive, that even when having the fastest single threaded CPU available today, it still isn't enough to allow for 60fps even at a GPU limited 4K resolution.

We've seen this behavior in several titles already, including STALKER Lost Alpha, ARMA 3, ARK Survival, PUBG, Company Of Heroes (down to earth view), and even Flight X Simulator. You can to that list several RTS games where the number units become too large. A common problem in these titles is either large number of units/objects on screen, or huge draw distances.

 

[wilds]

That is why I play all single-threaded limited games at 4k, which is the highest affordable resolution available. I count myself lucky to get 60 fps in these CPU intensive games.

Fast and tight RAM can really help these games as well.

 

[Gryz]

Blah blah blah.

OP, if you want to know how WoW performes, just try it.

All you need is an account. You don't need a subscription. On an old in-active account, you can log in. And you can play characters that are under level-20. So just down-load the game installer from the Blizzard website. And start downloading the game. After a few hundred megabytes, the game will be able to launch. And you can login with your in-active account. You can play sub-20 characters, or create new level-1 characters. Do that. Play for a bit. Walk around Orgrimmar or Stormwind, and see how the game behaves. You can't do raids sub-20, to check out how performance during raids is. But a crowded Orgrimmar or Stormwind should already give you an idea what happens when you have dozens or more characters on your screen.

Let us know your results. We're curious.

 

[Tweak155]

Blah blah blah.

OP, if you want to know how WoW performes, just try it.

All you need is an account. You don't need a subscription. On an old in-active account, you can log in. And you can play characters that are under level-20. So just down-load the game installer from the Blizzard website. And start downloading the game. After a few hundred megabytes, the game will be able to launch. And you can login with your in-active account. You can play sub-20 characters, or create new level-1 characters. Do that. Play for a bit. Walk around Orgrimmar or Stormwind, and see how the game behaves. You can't do raids sub-20, to check out how performance during raids is. But a crowded Orgrimmar or Stormwind should already give you an idea what happens when you have dozens or more characters on your screen.

Let us know your results. We're curious.

Talk about blah blah blah...

You can always log in with a sub level 20 character and try it out before subscribing.

It won't let you know raiding performance, but running through Stormwind might at least give you an idea (assuming it's still somewhat populated).

 

[Roger Wilco]

I just played WoW free for a little bit the other day (first time in over a decade). I created a Troll character and, holy crap, the visuals were absolutely horrible in the starting zone. Everything looked like pixelated cardboard.

I realize this game is very old, but I was under the impression that Blizzard had been improving the graphics somewhat over time. Are most of these improvements only in the expansion areas? Maybe things like textures were still downloading in the background?

 

[bystander36]

I just played WoW free for a little bit the other day (first time in over a decade). I created a Troll character and, holy crap, the visuals were absolutely horrible in the starting zone. Everything looked like pixelated cardboard.

I realize this game is very old, but I was under the impression that Blizzard had been improving the graphics somewhat over time. Are most of these improvements only in the expansion areas? Maybe things like textures were still downloading in the background?

I'd be curious to know. I remember one of the expansions of EQ2 only gave you the new engine with the expansion, those with the original game got the old visuals. They basically had two game engines and assets running at the same time.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I just played WoW free for a little bit the other day (first time in over a decade). I created a Troll character and, holy crap, the visuals were absolutely horrible in the starting zone. Everything looked like pixelated cardboard.

I realize this game is very old, but I was under the impression that Blizzard had been improving the graphics somewhat over time. Are most of these improvements only in the expansion areas? Maybe things like textures were still downloading in the background?

Bear in mind that the vast majority of texture updates have happened through the years for *new* content, not old. So old crusty leather armors still look like crap from 2004, whereas new gear/weapon textures, new land textures, plants, and particle effects, stuff like that, are updated over time. This is why your performance can vary vastly depending on if you're flying around in Mulgore (original zone) or like, one of the stupid over-complex Pandaria zones, or something.

Most of the really noticeable changes are with character models, and animation quality pretty much across the board (PC's and NPC's).

Zone quality is fairly dramatic as well:

vs

... It's still 'wow' in the sense that it's not intensely realistic of course, but the quality has been cranked through the roof over the years. I wish they'd remake WC3 with the existing WoW engine (or something of similar quality).