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what do i need to run WoW at full settings

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onekwickss

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Sep 9, 2006
Hopefully this isnt too off topic for this section of the forum, i just see a lot of people talking about WoW and i know thats the best people to ask expierence wise.

I am trying to figure out what I need to run WoW at full settings. Currently I can run at full settings…until I get in a 25 man raid and then I pretty much need to turn EVERYTHING to low.

My current setup is as follows…

Windows 7 Premium 64bit

MSI P35 Platinum MoBo (couple years old, yea I know, probably my bottleneck)
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1212

E8400 CPU @ stock 3.0 clock

Nvidia 8800GT (the 512Mb one)

4GB of ram (also the ram is only DDR2 800 when I could be using 1066)

Fatality 550W PSU

I also run dual monitors, one is a 21” at 1440x900 which is my secondary for web browsing while playing and whatnot. The primary is a 23” at 1920x1080 which is the one I game on. I understand that running both off one card will obviously tax the VGU. Also, I run in windowed mode so I can just go back and forth between both monitors easily…although I have tried running in non windowed mode with no FPS difference.


What I am looking at doing is upgrading to a GTX 460 (1GB version) and 8GB of DDR2 1066 ram. Will that alone be enough to run it sufficiently better? Will I need a bigger PSU? Also, would it be possible to use the old 8800gt for my second monitor and the 460 for the primary (I know I’d definitely need a bigger PSU for that)? The second PCI slot is only a 4x, but I would assume that would be fine since the 2nd monitor is only used for web browsing. Lastly, what will cataclysm require with its new engine to run at full settings?

Thanks for any help.
 
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Going from 4GB to 8GB of ram wont change anything I can tell you that. Buying a new videocard first would be a better idea. a 460 is overkill for a game like WoW but I don't know if you want it for any other games that require more. A lot of people are using dual cores so thats fine. You might not need a new PSU depending if the Fatality 550W is silver or gold rated.

Cataclysm at best just has slightly higher resolution meshes and textures, a 460 would devastate anything Blizzard is producing. They make it for the every man , or whatever you can buy out of a bestbuy, futureshop lookalikes.
 
well my thing is i think the fact im running two monitors is hurting the 8800gt. So you say that the 460 will kill anything Blizzard makes, im assuming you also mean while running dual monitors?

also, how much of a difference is there between the DDR2 800 and DDR2 1066 ram?
 
madhatter256 said:
A 460 will handle the game at dual monitors. It's not overkill.
Click to expand...

Not true; GTX480 gets just over 60FPS on average in WOTLK from most review sites Ive seen. More ram will help, as will going to a quad core CPU and overclocking it.

The bottom line is to achieve what you are looking for will eventually require a new PC; the videocard would help but not to the degree I beleive you are expecting.
 
Throwing more and more CPU power at WoW is what helps get more FPS. A new vidcard will help a bit, but nothing on the level that an i7 or something will.
 
DUDE! OC that e8400! That Wolfie is a great OCer. (used to own one LOVED IT) On stock volts you can reach 3.8ghz!
If you are playing @ 1080p you may want purchase a GPU with a lil more horse power than that 8800GT. The GTX 460 mentioned above would be a great card for a decent price. These two adjustments should help with your framerates.

You could throw in some 1066 sticks in as well (DDR2 is cheap) that will help a little but I would first try OCing that CPU then update GPU if that doesn't help enough.

edit: are you running a stock cooler on the CPU?
 
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Ive never played any other MMO but i like how people generalize how an MMO like WoW should run on a 10 year old computer. They must have never played WoW. Sure, it SHOULDNT take so much, but you seem to need a damn nice computer to be able to run WoW smoothly at max settings in a 25 man raid.

My cooler isnt stock, but it is nothing crazy. Its a big heatsink with a single fan and some heat pipes. I also have a lot of case fans. I use to be watercooled but it got to be too much to deal with and i realized i was keeping it more because it "looked cool" than it was practical.

building an all new comp was initially what i wanted to do, but i havnt built a pc in a couple years so i have no idea whats good and whats not. How much would it cost to build something to run WoW, max settings, smoothly in a raid?
 
instead of your hardware... look at your ISP. Your PC can only render as fast as information is fed to it... and 25 man's are known to require a beefy connection to get all the information there and back smoothly...
 
Tollhouse you are correct, I sometimes forget that my 25mb upload and 25mb download fiber connection isn't the norm in the US. Internet speed has some to do with it, but any decent 2mb + high speed connection should do the trick. I used to run WoW on Comcast 8mb with a somewhat similar setup as Onewickss (E8400 OC @ 3.8ghz, evga 780i, 4gigs DDR2 1066, and GTX 8800 x2 in SLI) I never had an FPS issue in WoW. (sometimes in 25mans and major cities it would drop to 40-50fps) I did have a more graphics muscle.

Your computer is not 10 years old those Wolfdales were released in January of 2008 and they kick serious butt for gaming. (there are better now but it is still a very fast Core 2)

What is your ISP and connection speed?
Would you consider OCing?
What is your budget if you want to build a new system?

Also turning the shadows down in the game really helps fps.

What I suggested early was to OC your CPU and if that doesn't help then buy a 460 and see if that helps if isn't enough to satisfy your FPS needs, you can take the 460 and put it into a new build :) I was assuming you have a decent broadband coneection.
 
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I've never seen WoW exceed 400kbit/s, so speed is definitely not an issue. Quality, on the other hand, is extremely important. If you have high ping times, it isn't going to hurt your frames per second, but it will hurt your ability to play your role properly. Make sure that no one is downloading or torrenting on your network while you play. You should also run this to make your computer respond faster to network requests. I went from ~230ms to 90ms on most servers.

Regarding two monitors, there is almost no impact compared to one. I've tested this in the past and there was literally no difference with the second enabled or disabled. The only time two monitors will be more load on the video card is if you were spanning the game across both monitors (loved doing that...). Since you aren't doing this, you won't see a difference.

Regarding speed, there are a few things that I notice that could help you a bit. The upgrades that you want to do (video card and RAM) are not going to help you much, if at all. Here are a few things that can help you. I've highlighted the important ones in red.

1) Make sure no other programs are running the in background, specifically any the would take the processor. Anti-virus, or other security programs, are a large use of the processor. Make sure these are disabled when you are doing 25 man content.

2) Disable any un-needed addons. This is usually the biggest culprit when it comes to a slow WoW. Recount, and a few others, are a huge source of CPU usage and you will see a large performance increase by completely disabling or removing them. Only have addons that you absolutely need to have (Grid/Clique for healers, for example). Turn off any vanity addons (Auctioneer, Gearscore, etc) that you will not use or could do without while raiding.

3) In the effects section of the Video configuration, lower shadow quality all the way down and lower particle density to about half (or lower). I saw a 10-20 fps increase with just these two options turned down. Other options don't seem to make much difference.

4) Give WoW "Realtime" priority through the task manager.

5) Overclock the processor! You have a lot of wasted potential running that processor at stock. WoW is a very processor intensive game, so any increase you can get here will help a ton while raiding.

I wrote a small guide on my website, found here.

Thideras.com said:
I’ve had quite a few people come to me for FPS issues. In general, FPS issues are very difficult to troubleshoot, much like headaches to doctors; many things can cause them. Below I have compiled a walkthrough/list of things to check or change to increase your FPS. This list will be expanded upon in the future, so be sure to check back. If you found a fix that works for you, message me in game and I’ll add it to the list. I do not offer any warranty or guarantee (implied or otherwise) if any of these steps renders your computer unable to boot, starts it on fire or if it explodes. If you delete your system32 folder at the request of someone else, please return your computer to where you bought it.

General:
World of Warcraft is a very processor intensive game, meaning that it requires more processing power than graphics card power. This allows people to play it on older/slower machines but can cause some issues for people that run faster systems. Since it is so processor intensive, you need to make sure to close anything that could use it (Anti-virus, etc). If you are looking at building a new computer, check out a higher speed dual core, as they are cheaper than their quad core counterparts at the same speed. You could also look at overclocking, but I will not discuss this here, you will need to research that on your own.

Addons:
Addons make WoW a much more fun/easier game to play. The only problem is when you either have too many addons or have a rogue addon that is using too much processor time. To see if it is an addon issue, go to the character screen, hit Addons in the bottom left corner and click “Disable All”. Log in and see if you notice a large increase, if so, you either have too many addons or one/a few that is causing you issues. To figure out which is slowing you down, enable one addon at a time until you find which is the culprit. I’d suggest removing any addons that you do not need or just disable them before the raid (such as Carbonite).

Programs:
As said above, any program running in the background can slow you down. Specifically anti-virus software as they will try to scan the game files as they are saved and loaded. I would suggest putting those programs in a “sleep” state (read: disable) so they won’t interfere. Another option is to disable any programs from launching at startup. This frees up memory once the computer is loaded, lowers loading times if you restart and possibly lowers processor usage. Either press Win + R or go to Start and click Run. Type in “msconfig” (no quotes) and press enter. Go to the Startup tab. Click the Disable All button then recheck anything that you want to run at startup (Messengers, Anti-virus, etc). If you are unsure what one does, either ask me or type the “Startup Item” into Google to find out what it is. After you are done, hit Ok and then Restart. The computer will restart and any programs that are unchecked will not launch when you login. NOTE: This does NOT stop programs from running, it just doesn’t start them when you login. If you disable a program, you can still run it from the Start menu.

Config.wtf tweaks:
I would suggest adding these options to your Config.wtf file (Located in C:/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WTF) if they are not listed already. If you already see them in your list, just modify them to match what is listed. As always, make a backup of the file before you edit it so you can revert back if anything goes wrong or if it doesn’t help.
SET gxWindow “0″
SET gxFixLag “0″
SET shadowLevel “0″
SET processAffinityMask “15″
SET gxVSync “0″
That will run it maximized which will increase performance, disabled the “Reduce input lag” option in the game (which reduces performance), lowers shadow quality, allows multi core systems to offload extra parts of WoW (sound, etc) to other cores and disables vsync.

External links:
Here is a compilation of links that I’ve found and not tested, try them at your own risk.
Macro(s) for huge fps jump in WoW

Conclusion:
If the above changes don’t really help and you have all the graphical settings as low as you can set them; then there is a high chance that you just have a hardware limitation. Basically, there is nothing I can do to help you besides assist you in picking out or building a new computer.
Click to expand...
 
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Over the years, I've played WoW on a very large variety of machines (change hardware roughly eveyr 6 months). Going from P4 530 and a ATi 9700 PRO at the start, moving (that was the longest I've ever used hardware) through a E6750 and a nVidia 8600GT, E8500 and a 8800GTS G92, Q9650 and a 9800GX2, E8600 and a GTX260 Core 216, i7 920 and an ATi 4890, to finally an i7 860 and an ATi 5870 where I am right now. Thankfully I've stopped throwing money into my computer, for now. Anyway, the point is, once I hit the E8500\8800GTS level, the performance really hasn't gone up a noticeable amount, and I play with everything cranked up as high as it can go, except for shadows, which are down one notch. I've always used dual monitors, the main one first was a 20.1" 1680x1050, but a few years ago it got upgraded to a 24" 1920x1200.

The biggest upgrade you will see, is if you overclock your CPU. That thing should eat 4.0ghz no problem, and that will give you a noticeable difference. You're card is getting up there in age, but it's still a good card. If you had the spare cash, it'd definitely be worth it to upgrade, but don't expect night and day differences in WoW.
 
Sentential said:
Not true; GTX480 gets just over 60FPS on average in WOTLK from most review sites Ive seen. More ram will help, as will going to a quad core CPU and overclocking it.

The bottom line is to achieve what you are looking for will eventually require a new PC; the videocard would help but not to the degree I beleive you are expecting.
Click to expand...

Personally i havent seen the game go past 60-62 FPS ever....even on crap settings in an unpopulated area on my GTX 470..the game might not even support faster than 60 FPS rates, not to mention the human eye cant see the difference between 60 FPS and 90 FPS.
 
decoste007xt said:
a 460 is overkill for a game like WoW
Click to expand...

This is flat-out incorrect. Running WoW at 1080p with full settings takes some serious horsepower, especially in 25 mans. My GTX 280 couldn't handle it, especially with shadows on full. A GTX 460 1GB would be a good starting point.
 
ratbuddy said:
This is flat-out incorrect. Running WoW at 1080p with full settings takes some serious horsepower, especially in 25 mans. My GTX 280 couldn't handle it, especially with shadows on full. A GTX 460 1GB would be a good starting point.
Click to expand...

I'd love to test that theory... Alas...
 
pish...all these talks about 25 mans makes me feel old....try 40 man raids...Old Skool naxx or AQ 40. But then again, raids were run differently now than back then. You actually CCd trash pulls instead of having everyone AoE dps them down.
 
i haven't touched the game in nearly a year... but all i did was PVP hardcore.... was so fun roflstomping the horde....

then it overnight got boring.... so i quit.... i haven't touched an MMO since last November.... and heck... rarely touch my desktop or xbox 360 anymore
 
Lot of good info all ty! Yea i had actually picked up the new cpu late last year and that made a huge diff from the 2.3 i had.

I think my isp is my culprit after reading this. I use the verizon usb modems because thats all i can get where i live and i hate it lol. I get about 1 meg down average. My ping while raiding is about 400-450ms

Ill try messin with some overclocking but i really havnt tried since i got rid of my watercooling.
 
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