View Full Version : How demanding on Graphics Card is WoW?
Melhisedek
10-12-05, 06:51 AM
I have A64 3200+ @ 2.5 GHz
6800GT @ Ultra
1Gig Ram
Thing is my game can get incredibly choppy like 20+ FPS in some places (Not Ironforge I can understand that one) but like in Brill!!! At most like 10 guys running around and FPS drops to 20+
As soon as I turn my head in other direction they jump to 60+
I game at 1280x1024 4xAA+8AF and with Quality setting (all max in game Video Options)
So I wonder what drivers and what settings are people here using with 6800 line of cards...
Also is there a review where they use WoW when testing cards? So if this GT isn't cutting it I know what will be my next card :P
Thank you for your time!
Ninja Prime
10-12-05, 06:57 AM
I have a similar setup and I don't see that choppyness at all, the only time I get a little chop is coming in to Grom'Gol on the zepplin. I'm using old drivers, 67 if I remember right, only major differences are I have 2gigs of RAM and I have a 3500+.
I used to run 1280x1024 with 4xaa and 8xaf but AA seems to be borked this patch, so no AA at the moment. I didn't see much of a noticeable difference when AA was on compared to off.
Melhisedek
10-12-05, 07:10 AM
I somehow suspect that I might have driver related problem... I'm using latest betas 81.84
Or perhaps UI mods can affect performance this badly... But only in some spots... One other is when I go by that big Undead fellow near Brill (the one that tries to pick up flowers)
My system before 1.8 and with my 3500 @ 2.4 would get real choppy and down in the 20s in places. Getting off the Orgrimmar - Grom'gol zeppelin and standing on the tower it would hit in the low 20s looking around. That was with a 77 driver too. Now with the 3800 @ 2.4, 1.8 patch (I dunno if it changed anything), and the 81.84 drivers I get down in the mid 30s there in the same spot.
Melhisedek
10-12-05, 10:17 AM
Sadly I can't get ingame right now so I can't try anything yet :(
Ninja Prime
10-12-05, 04:46 PM
Getting off the Orgrimmar - Grom'gol zeppelin and standing on the tower it would hit in the low 20s looking around.
Yeah, everybody I know gets chop there, its because you can see the whole village and the forest and a bunch of raptors all on screen at once from the tower, very poly and texture heavy there.
WarGhSt
10-12-05, 04:55 PM
Might not be your problem but there are addons that will decrease your performance.
I know Auctioneer was *could be still* broken a week or so ago and it was causing people to lose up to 15-20 fps.
I run dualview so I can do things on my 2nd monitor while playing WoW. I have noticed that Firefox being open (doesnt have to have focus) can slow WoW down. I think its pages that are flash heavy to be the culprit. Ive loaded the same page in IE while playing WoW and had practically no slowdown. (This all was before my x2.)
Yeah, everybody I know gets chop there, its because you can see the whole village and the forest and a bunch of raptors all on screen at once from the tower, very poly and texture heavy there.
I think it must be very CPU heavy there. I get better performance now with the x2 and 81.84s.
I noticed issues with WoW on the release notes, anybody had problems yet? Im running Molten Core tonight and havent had a chance to thoroughly test the new drivers.
Melhisedek
10-13-05, 05:56 AM
I run dualview so I can do things on my 2nd monitor while playing WoW. I have noticed that Firefox being open (doesnt have to have focus) can slow WoW down. I think its pages that are flash heavy to be the culprit. Ive loaded the same page in IE while playing WoW and had practically no slowdown. (This all was before my x2.)
Damn... I almost always have FF open in background (no dual monitor setup here) for thottbot and such...
I need to try this right away!
FF cauld be a problem, i notice sometimes it gives me a headache on somesites where i switch to IE, but i doudt it will be the answer to ure problem, and i usually have it running alot along with winamp/azureus and i sit at a 50-99 at 1280x960@85hz 4xaa / 8xaf
I am thinking its either vsync or some other application.
Dont c the point in getting a GT or a GTX for just WoW...runs fine imo on a 6800GT+.
And i have spend alot of time in AV / AB grinding towards rank 14.
I cant tell much now since my account is closed, but only time i had fps issues was in AV when the full 40vs40 standing right infront fighitng it out...or near those GY Zergs (Pre 1.8)
Dr.Nick
10-13-05, 10:41 AM
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2381
From what I have noticed the game is very cpu/ram hungry. I get almost the same fps at 1280 or 1920 rez...
Its not graphics intensive at all, just look at it. Its a great game and all, but the graphics are nothing to write home about. The poly count and text res are pretty low, no pixel shading, no bumpmapping, just a little bit of specular mapping on the ground and water. It also lacks other common non-graphics features e.g. there is no collision detection on the NPCs or player characters, and theres almost no physics in the game. All this is good for WoW since one of the reasons the game is so popular is that you don't need an expensive ninja PC to run it.
Its just that in some places the game engine seems really inefficient. Especially with lots of player characters or NPCs around. It can't be the increased poly count because the poly count on the chars is so low anyway. Its almost like its tied to the amount of traffic you are getting from the server, which is odd since network traffic and latency should not affect your visual framerate any. The game does work on a PC and a Mac, so maybe its just coded in a highly abstract manner, without any lower level optimizations.
Ninjaman09
10-13-05, 11:07 AM
If you have 8xAF turned on, the game will chug in areas with a lot of masked textures (i.e., tree leaves). It doesn't seem to mind having a lot of creatures on screen, as I get great framerates even in Zul'farrak during the 200-troll attack quest. Turning AF lower helps my framerates tremendously.
Hmm, maybe masked textures does have something to do with it. WoW uses a LOT of them. It would be ironic since they probably use them to save on polys for performance reasons.
Hmm, maybe masked textures does have something to do with it. WoW uses a LOT of them. It would be ironic since they probably use them to save on polys for performance reasons.
I think you would find it alot heavier if they used real polygonal leaves instead of alphablended textures.. hehe..
Anyhow, I think WOW is one of the best examples of that you dont need cutting edge graphics to get a really good feeling in the enviroments..
I think it "looked" great when playing the Beta, and the enviroments are really great (graphics, sound and great design coming together).
But looking at screenshots, or just at the bare graphics, its not that great at all..
|MaguS|
10-14-05, 08:51 AM
I think the game just needs better shadows, I hate the stupid blob shadows for the characters...
Ninjaman09
10-14-05, 10:32 AM
Who cares about shadows in an MMORPG? ;)
|MaguS|
10-14-05, 10:53 AM
I do, Shadows add alot to the feeling of the world. I loved EQ2s shadows, they added so much. It's not like current hardware cant handle it, especially in WoW. I run the game at 1600x1200 with 8xS just fine...
Vagrant Zero
10-14-05, 09:55 PM
I do, Shadows add alot to the feeling of the world. I loved EQ2s shadows, they added so much. It's not like current hardware cant handle it, especially in WoW. I run the game at 1600x1200 with 8xS just fine...
Not anymore you don't. Blizzard borked AA with the last patch. Now it scrambles the text in tooltips. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
I have the same setup almost and i get 40 fps w/ 8xss on
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