Poor FPS on WOW with EN8800GT

[Sherlock]

Hey

not sure if many of you play wow, but I'll give it a shot

I've been running wow on a 24" monitor now for a few months, and have an ASUS EN8800GT 512MB as graphics card.

Now I was never able to play the game at max settings (did get 50-60 FPS all the time), but ever since the new patch (3.02) it's gotten rediculous... with average settings I get 9(!!!) FPS in instances, 30-40 when outside, and again 15-20 in the cities...

I read the new patch made small i:provements to the graphics engine, but still...

When i set my video settings to minimum, I get 40 FPS in raids, and 50-60 when just running around

Is this caused by my GPU not being able to support 1920x1200 res or could it be something else? Other guild member seem less affected by the new graphics.

It's extremely annoying, and makes playing almost impossible...

Hope you can help me :confused:

[JonSimonzi]

What are you shadows set too? With 3.02, they added a new shadow engine which causes alot of strain on cards like that.

[don'tknow]

WoW also benefits a lot from CPU speed, so if you're running stock that's part of your problem there.

[Sherlock]

o rly? Idid notice wow only does really use one core...
I'll try a minor oc and see if that chanegs anything (need a new fan befor I oc bigger)
So 2.4GHz is simple not enough for wow? That would mean wow got more cpu intensive then since the last patch?


will also try the shadow setinngs now and let you know how that went

[Sherlock]

I've set my clock sopeed to 2.7 GHz, and i do notice a small increase in performance (might be just a thought tho...)

I still notice the core that runs wow spiking up to 98%

I also treid changing the core affinity to all cores, and to one core

one core seems to work better for some reason I don't understand

[repilce]

It seems this patch has brought all kinds of problems.. over in the ATI section a guy with 2 4850's in CF is dipping down below 40fps with wow... this is weird though.. my rig n sig is clocked at 3.2 on cpu , 1600 FSB and RAM at 1066 , and my BFG clocks 780 linked.. and i RARLEY drop below 60fps even since patch.. They had some new shadow engine in this new patch.. i did notice when i had a 8800GT (XFX variety) it didnt handle smoke n such real well.. would dip down low in games like grid with a lot of burnout smoke.

[ratbuddy]

WoW is starting to chug for me as well. Prepatch everything was maxed at 1680x1050 with 24/24/8xAA or whatever and constant 60 FPS. With the limiter off it would bounce between 150 and 200 or so. After patching, I checked if they added any new options, and saw some sliders not maxed. Cranked em all up, and was dismayed to see only ~40-55 fps in Shattrath. The shadow slider did seem to have a pretty big impact on frames while the AA settings didn't make much difference at all. Oh well.

[kellygtp]

i would overclock the cpu some and see what happens...

disable v-sync

overclock gpu a little bit

try turning your resolution one step down and see what you get...

like mentioned above WoW is very cpu dependent....mine runs both of my cores...so if yours is only on one then try and set the affinity for all 4 and see what happens.

[don'tknow]

As I mentioned in the ATI section on a similar issue, this patch is a beta test. Before Burning Crusade expansion there was a big 2.0 patch with the new talents/class changes/lots of other stuff, one of them including a new sound engine to 'make it more compatible with Vista'... which basically disabled hardware sound and forced you to play in ugly software sound and lower fps. Some weeks later they released a patch which added a "Use Hardware Sound" checkbox.

This is probably a similar thing, making people beta test their graphics engine with the new shadows added and it's killing fps likely because the WoW engine wasn't initially designed to handle them. So they really need to tweak the way those shadows are rendered/possibly other tweaks in the game engine itself to handle them better. It might be fixed some weeks or months later, I would guess.

[e6600]

i think the problem is drivers, and poor management on blizzard's side in support for specific cards
i was playing wow earlier on a 2.5ghz P4, and a x800 pro. highest settings 1680 res, only af on, and i never go below 20 even in huge towns

[TehVine]

Here's a monkey wrench to throw into things:
My main desktop is a Q9300 @ 3.5, 6GB DDR3 1600, GTX 260 clocked up a little, fresh vista install. I get about 35-60 depending what town I am in, outside I tend to get 70 - 110. 1920x1080

On the other hand, my laptop is a Centrino2 2.26ghz, 4gb DDR3, 9800M GTS 512 and I get 45+ in towns and between 150 - 200 outside WITH shadows. 1920x1200

The odd part is, the desktop gets the same FPS at no matter what settings it is and the laptop gets those massive FPS ratings at max settings. I am lost as to why that is happening. I am beginning to wonder if the GTX 260 is just not a good card for WoW.

[Satsumomo]

Guys, I know your advice is well intended, but if his system used to run it perfectly at 60fps, his rig isn't at fault, it's the new patch. And also, I don't think any kind of OC to his CPU will give him a 50fps boost!! :p

[Hardin]

Yeah the patch really killed my framerates as well. I have the exact same story but with an 8800 gts. I had it maxed out with 60 fps all the time and now I have to lower it from max to "good" and I still don't get 60 fps consistently. It's definitely not his computer. Everyone else I know who plays wow has been complaining about the same thing.

[e6600]

i think the problem is drivers, and poor management on blizzard's side in support for specific cards
i was playing wow earlier on a 2.5ghz P4, and a x800 pro. highest settings 1680 res, only af on, and i never go below 20 even in huge towns

omg that noob computer :eek:
its 100% blizz's fault here. they always have had weird support and new patches since 2.0 and pre-tbc have killed performance with no one to blame but blizz

[ratbuddy]

As long as we're resurrecting this thread, I'll mention one other thing. I had a stutter I just couldn't figure out after reinstalling Windows, as well as worse frame rates than before. Installing Vista SP1 made it all get better. System in sig, 1680x1050, maxed with 4xAA and shadows on full, I stay at 60fps (limiter on) except in Dalaran, where it goes down to 30 or so.