WoW - Quite intensive these days - CPU wise at least

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: taltamir
1920x1200 = 2304000
1680x1050 = 1764000
((2304000-1764000)/2304000)*100% = 23.4375% decrease in pixel amount from 1920x1200 to 1680x1050.
((2304000-1764000)/1764000)*100% = 30.61% increase in pixel amount from 1680x1050 to 1920x1200.

Did you see that kind of difference in FPS? if not that your GPU is not what is holding you back. Your GPU is not being fully utilized because something else is holding you back.

That is not actually true. Your math is right, but your conclusion is not. Long are the days when fill rate has been the issue. Fill rate alone isn't what determines FPS, so you won't see a linear increase like the percentages you provided when dropping the resolution down.

Just compare 1920x1200 benchmarks to 2560x1600. If it were based on fill rate alone, then 1920x1200 should have 78% better performance in FPS over 2560x1600. However, you will not find that is true when reviewing benchmarks. A good example would be Anand's here The nice thing about that graph and test is that you can clearly tell that the CPU is not the bottleneck as can clearly be seen by taking the numbers from one of the last gen cards (3870 or 8800GT for example).

Anyway, not to detract from the thread here as WoW is CPU hungry, but I just wanted to point out that FPS does not increase proportionally with resolution. You get some performance, but nowhere near a 1:1 ratio.

thank you, that has been very informative. (note: I am not being sarcastic)

 

[mbesto]

Now that we are on the topic..I have been wanting to upgrade my rig to get a little better performance (specifically for WoW).

Here is my RIG:
http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.aspx?rigid=30920

I basically play WoW at 1280x1024 at all LOW settings. It runs at about 85% CPU and 500MB RAM. Not sure about my FPS specifically but I already get some screen tearing and A LOT of choppiness when my character turns. I would imagine i get like 5fps in Naxx as its noticeably choppy.

Ideas:
1. I never overclocked my CPU...could be an option to get a decent fan and try it out...or buy a new CPU (+OC)
2. Buy a new GPU...it seems to be my most limiting factor..any suggestions? (would be willing to spend $100~$200)

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Warren21]

On my older rig I had an E6600 and dual HD 2900 XTs. I recently gave that rig to my brother for xmas and popped in an E5200 in my current rig as a temp.

I certainly wasn't expecting a performance drop, but on the newer hardware my framerate wasn't rock solid like it used to be anymore -- it jumped down in the 40's and 30's a lot from the 60 frame limiter.

I ended up OC'ing my E5200 from 2.5 / 800 to 3.33 / 1333 and I saw a very healthy improvement in minimum framerate... Before I had trouble running shadows without getting my FPS too close to that 30 FPS line, now it is much smoother than before.

 

[taltamir]

ocing is a good way to get more for your money, make sure you spend 30 minutes reading the guide posted here in anandtech in the CPU forum (its stickied)

 

[Seggybop]

Here's my anecdotal report:

I have an i7 920 running at normal speed and 4gb of memory. I was using my friend's 8800GTS (G92) for video.
WoW settings are everything at max / 2X AA.
A few days ago I got an 8600GTS (yes, 8600) for free and switched it in.

Performance difference in WoW? None at all.

 

[themisfit610]

Interesting...

Well, an i7 would be the be-all end-all answer to CPU-bound stuff like WoW.

If they could multithread the engine a bit more, we might even see effective quad-core utilization.

~MiSfit

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: mbesto
Now that we are on the topic..I have been wanting to upgrade my rig to get a little better performance (specifically for WoW).

Here is my RIG:
http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.aspx?rigid=30920

I basically play WoW at 1280x1024 at all LOW settings. It runs at about 85% CPU and 500MB RAM. Not sure about my FPS specifically but I already get some screen tearing and A LOT of choppiness when my character turns. I would imagine i get like 5fps in Naxx as its noticeably choppy.

Ideas:
1. I never overclocked my CPU...could be an option to get a decent fan and try it out...or buy a new CPU (+OC)
2. Buy a new GPU...it seems to be my most limiting factor..any suggestions? (would be willing to spend $100~$200)

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

1) As noted in the OP, WoW makes use of dual-core and is reasonably easy to create a CPU-bound situation.

2) your graphics card is old enough that it's not great, but should be able to provide 'okay' performance. With my 7800GT on Wrath (coupled with an overclocked e7200 which was getting 60 FPS with a better GPU) I would get 20 FPSish most of the time (everything max except dynamic shadows)

I think your best avenue is CPU upgrade. However, your platform is old enough that you also need a motherboard and RAM upgrade to facilitate that. You can do that for around $200 if you go with an AMD AM2+ CPU & something like a 780G based board. Maybe slightly more for an e5200 & P43 based mobo Intel combo (which should OC to the 3.0GHz range with stock fan). Best would be an e7300 & P43 combo and OC it a bit (again ~3.0GHz with stock fan), but it starts looking like more in the $250 range for CPU / mobo / RAM with an e7300.

You will eventually need a video card upgrade on top of that, but that's actually much cheaper and easier once you make a platform move. A pretty decent video card is only $100-150 these days (HD4830 / 9800GT ish performance is enough for pretty good WoW performance). I think the CPU / platform upgrade would solve the majority of your problem, then the graphics sliders could be tuned for the frame rate you needed.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I basically play WoW at 1280x1024 at all LOW settings. It runs at about 85% CPU and 500MB RAM. Not sure about my FPS specifically but I already get some screen tearing and A LOT of choppiness when my character turns. I would imagine i get like 5fps in Naxx as its noticeably choppy.

Mobo- $60, processor for $70, RAM for $45, vid card, $76 AR. $251 total shipped and it would improve your WoW performance tremendously.

Part of your problem is you have a fairly balanced system, not a bad thing but you are at the point where pretty much everything in your system needs to be replaced- your mobo doesn't support newer processors, new mobo requires new RAM, your CPU and vid card are both very much less then ideal for WoW now(256MB isn't enough for raiding in WoW anymore).

 

[themisfit610]

You can do a lot better with $100 than a paltry 9600gt!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102803
4830 anyone?

 

[soccerballtux]

Bump-- My friend just told me last night that with Windows 7, in places where he usually would get slowdown equivalent to being in Dalaran, he is now getting 60fps. He hasn't been to Dalaran yet but I'll post back when he tells me.

I don't understand how or why this could be, his 2.4Ghz Core 2 (3MB cache) laptop with an 8700M could be getting better FPS than me, in XP. Even if I turn down the resolution, it's still slow.

 

[taltamir]

windows 7 beats both XP and vista in every single test I have seen so far. so maybe it is that.

 

[soccerballtux]

Yeah but I don't understand how that could be.

Do you have any benchmarks you're pulling from? I haven't seen any. I haven't googled though.

 

[BenSkywalker]

You can do a lot better with $100 than a paltry 9600gt!

Of course, but what about $76? Also, for the very particular case of WoW I would take a 9600GT over a 4870x2 without hesitation. WoW isn't very GPU dependant, and nV's vastly superior AF and level of driver support for that particular game is significantly better then ATi's. I went through the extreme pita of ATi's drivers running WoW for over a year, never had a single driver that could render everything in game properly, and the impact of AF on overall IQ in that game is huge. This is not saying the 9600GT is a better overall part in any way whatsoever, just for this particular game I would without question, even if the 4830 were quite a bit less expensive.

 

[themisfit610]

$76 after rebate, which I wouldn't trust at all.

Interesting comments about ATi and drivers with WoW. I recently switched from an 8800gt to a 4830 (migrated the 8800gt down to the new secondary WoW box), and have noticed if anything an improvement in performance. I see lots of wierd bugs with the new shadows, but saw those with the 8800gt as well, and think it's mostly an engine issue. Other than that, I don't see any graphical glitches. 2xAA and 16xAF looks great too, though I haven't actually compared both nVidia / ATi AA side by side recently, and never with WoW.

For reference, I'm running Catalyst 8.12 on Vista x64

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

You can do a lot better with $100 than a paltry 9600gt!

Of course, but what about $76? Also, for the very particular case of WoW I would take a 9600GT over a 4870x2 without hesitation. WoW isn't very GPU dependant, and nV's vastly superior AF and level of driver support for that particular game is significantly better then ATi's. I went through the extreme pita of ATi's drivers running WoW for over a year, never had a single driver that could render everything in game properly, and the impact of AF on overall IQ in that game is huge. This is not saying the 9600GT is a better overall part in any way whatsoever, just for this particular game I would without question, even if the 4830 were quite a bit less expensive.

Uh yeah I completely disagree. I bought this card when I thought I had given up wow, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it. Nvidia does some disgusting performance optimization for WoW. I've tried all different driver versions. Color profiles. Disabling digital vibrance. Everything. Yet it still looks like crap, like this: http://img228.imageshack.us/im...hot011608002612gf4.jpg
I must be doing something wrong because it was like this with my 6800GT too; I thought it was the GPU, but now I think it's the drivers.

edit: after googling the thread I made on Blizzard's forum came up first: http://forums.worldofwarcraft....picId=4028093705&sid=1

Look at the blue response heh-- "have you tried turning up your monitor brightness".
That other forum, was this one btw

The last post in particular is interesting, made 15 days ago, guy found this year old thread and bumped it saying he had the same problem with his ATI AIW 7x00 or whatever. I don't play it anymore but it would still be nice to know why it did this.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
$76 after rebate, which I wouldn't trust at all.

Interesting comments about ATi and drivers with WoW. I recently switched from an 8800gt to a 4830 (migrated the 8800gt down to the new secondary WoW box), and have noticed if anything an improvement in performance. I see lots of wierd bugs with the new shadows, but saw those with the 8800gt as well, and think it's mostly an engine issue. Other than that, I don't see any graphical glitches. 2xAA and 16xAF looks great too, though I haven't actually compared both nVidia / ATi AA side by side recently, and never with WoW.

For reference, I'm running Catalyst 8.12 on Vista x64

And FWIW, ATI has always been the one that has generally been regarded among the community as having better image quality, colors, everything.

 

[Mr. Lennon]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: themisfit610
$76 after rebate, which I wouldn't trust at all.

Interesting comments about ATi and drivers with WoW. I recently switched from an 8800gt to a 4830 (migrated the 8800gt down to the new secondary WoW box), and have noticed if anything an improvement in performance. I see lots of wierd bugs with the new shadows, but saw those with the 8800gt as well, and think it's mostly an engine issue. Other than that, I don't see any graphical glitches. 2xAA and 16xAF looks great too, though I haven't actually compared both nVidia / ATi AA side by side recently, and never with WoW.

For reference, I'm running Catalyst 8.12 on Vista x64

And FWIW, ATI has always been the one that has generally been regarded among the community as having better image quality, colors, everything.

Ever heard of a placebo effect?

I have had cards from both brands....no difference in anything you mentioned above.

Digital Vibrance from nVidia cards seem to bring out some nice colors in games though.

 

[taltamir]

The only differences in image quality have to do with the occasional bug, and differences in the level of anistrophic filtering offered in the past (not anymore).
The only difference between ATI and nVidia color quality is the fact that nvidia and ATI have different DEFAULTS for color BOOSTING, Saturation, etc. if you go into the drive and set both to 0 boost they look the same (or you can turn up the boost to something specific)! And this HAS been tested by reviewer sites.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Yet it still looks like crap, like this: http://img228.imageshack.us/im...hot011608002612gf4.jpg
I must be doing something wrong because it was like this with my 6800GT too; I thought it was the GPU, but now I think it's the drivers.

Hmm, I see you heading into AB at night, looks like your draw distance is turned down fairly low- other then that- what exactly is the issue? Unless you are in AB in the day and it's that dark, I'm not seeing it. Of course- if your system is very dark displaying a screenshot won't do much as it's a FB dump so anyone's system who isn't overly dark won't see a problem. For reference- I've had ATi drivers that rendered almost everything in game properly, then wiped the raid on Kael because the orbs weren't displaying at all no matter what settings I used. One thing to be a minor visual annoyance, holding up 24 other people because a board can't render a very simple effect is far more bothersome(had to revert to another driver build which had glitches with Outlands but could render most of TK properly, although it wouldn't handle Alar's flamestrike, ended up just standing on top of another caster and running when they did for that fight). Hmm, looking a bit beyond the brightness issue, it does look like something is messed up with your filtering in that screenshot, you using optimized filtering? Seeing some noticeable issues with off angle filtering.

Look at the blue response heh-- "have you tried turning up your monitor brightness".

He was probably asking you that as absolutely nothing looks wrong with it, unless, as I mentioned, it was taken during the day.

And FWIW, ATI has always been the one that has generally been regarded among the community as having better image quality, colors, everything.

Yeah, like Anand who used to point out the superiority of AF quality by simply checking LOD settings Don't know if you an still find it, but there was a very simple application to run where you could see exactly what ATi was doing when you enable AF, it allowed you to see the enormous angle dependancy and that really shows up huge in WoW(in corridor shooters it was a non factor).

and differences in the level of anistrophic filtering offered in the past (not anymore).

This changed in the last couple of weeks? I haven't checked the 8.12s but it was certainly still very obvious with the 8.11 drivers. AFAIK this is entirely due to the way their hardware operates, the only way to fix it would be brute force AF which would show up measurably in performance. Don't look for it in corridor shooters, check something like WoW with a ton of different angles in close proximity all over the place, it is rather obvious.

 

[taltamir]

what i meant is that the filtering changed from generation to generation with the advantage going back and forth between nvidia and ati, but that it is not really an issue anymore with modern hardware (aka, not something people are going to notice - aka, it is "good enough"), and that is the only thing that actually differs.
Can you post a link to the anandtech article describing what you said?

 

[BenSkywalker]

AF observed by AT. All they are looking at there is LOD, they even miss the fact that the R9700's performance mode is only using bilinear filtering(which is slap in the face obvious if you actually use the card). In order to check AF you need to see how it handles angles- looking at LOD to check AF would be akin to staring at a wall with no edges to check AA

what i meant is that the filtering changed from generation to generation with the advantage going back and forth between nvidia and ati

No, it never really did. nV at its' worse was slightly better then ATi in terms of filtering. AA quality is another matter entirely, but nV has always been better then ATi in terms of base filtering quality.

aka, not something people are going to notice - aka, it is "good enough"

I suppose the typical user probably won't notice, although I will say it is FAR more obvious then moving from 4x AA to 8x on any hardware we have seen to date

 

[taltamir]

yes, but thats the radeon 9700 vs the geforce 4 (and dated from 2002)... as i said, it long sense stopped being relevant. Turn on AF 16x on either card and you will have proper anisotropic filtering showing you far away textures (like it should)

nowadays its just a matter of the difference in oversaturating colors that each company does. Which you can turn off.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Turn on AF 16x on either card and you will have proper anisotropic filtering showing you far away textures (like it should)

For ATi cards, only on certain angles, and that is the issue. For corridor shooters it isn't that much of a concern, but WoW is absolutely loaded with off angle textures which gives a rather disjointed looking filtering pattern. You will have some crisp, clear textures directly next to some very blurry textures due to planes at differing angles in close proximity. This does not show itself frequently, if at all, in your typical PC game- WoW it is evident all over however. You get used to the filtering on the ATi parts, when you see it filtered properly it is an eye opener, and when you have to look back it being rendered with sort of AF it looks rather horrid in comparison.

yes, but thats the radeon 9700 vs the geforce 4

As I said-

Yeah, like Anand who used to point out the superiority of AF quality by simply checking LOD settings

I don't think I've ever seen them do a proper AF comparison. B3D and a couple of other sites used to do it regularly, until it became apparent that ATi had no desire at all to change their optimizations and nV got to the point where they did *almost* perfectly correct AF using an optimized method(NV2X parts are the last to offer completely accurate AF, although the performance hit they took doing it was MUCH larger then anything we have seen since then).