Crap FPS in WoW only

[Sithra]

Today I received a new ATI x1950XT and was rather upset to see that WoW still runs at 20fps.

I can play GTA:San Andreas at 1440x900 with max everything and get 45fps, C&C3 won't go over the in game limiter and sits at 30.

So why is wow running like a dead dog?

The rest of my PC is just an AMD 64 3000 and 1gig PC4200 RAM.

[Kalos]

Your ram is pitifully slow. Athlon processors are heavily influenced by the ram they are paired with, try some PC2-6400 (800 Mhz effective speed) instead of the lowest grade 533 Mhz stuff that DDRII was introduced upon. Kingston have some good 800 Mhz DDR2 at 3-3-3 timings, can't be beaten.

Just to clarify your figures, by an AMD 64 do you mean an Athlon 64? AMD have a wide range of 64 bit processors, technically there's no such thing as the processor you listed, no product with that name.

The processor should be replaced too. The Athlon 64 3000+ has been around for four years, it's not a high end part. It's got to be bottlenecking your graphic card. Get a cheap X2 4600/5000 A cheap example would be: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103749 Generally you know where your processor sits on the big table of performance by the current pricing, right now your processor costs less than some Celerons, which gives you some idea of how weak it is compared with the newer models. Use CPUs that cost less than a day's work, expect equally sparce and basic performance.

Very good deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220144 Two gig of ram at $90 after rebate, absolute bargin.

[Sithra]

Your ram is pitifully slow. Athlon processors are heavily influenced by the ram they are paired with, try some PC2-6400 (800 Mhz effective speed) instead of the lowest grade 533 Mhz stuff that DDRII was introduced upon. Kingston have some good 800 Mhz DDR2 at 3-3-3 timings, can't be beaten.

Just to clarify your figures, by an AMD 64 do you mean an Athlon 64? AMD have a wide range of 64 bit processors, technically there's no such thing as the processor you listed, no product with that name.

The processor should be replaced too. The Athlon 64 3000+ has been around for four years, it's not a high end part. It's got to be bottlenecking your graphic card. Get a cheap X2 4600/5000 A cheap example would be: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103749 Generally you know where your processor sits on the big table of performance by the current pricing, right now your processor costs less than some Celerons, which gives you some idea of how weak it is compared with the newer models. Use CPUs that cost less than a day's work, expect equally sparce and basic performance.

Very good deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220144 Two gig of ram at $90 after rebate, absolute bargin.

Yes, sorry, it's an Athlon 64 3000+.
That's all well and good, but it doesn't explain why everything runs like a dream except WoW, I just reinstalled Doom 3 and that happily chugs along at 60fps at max res and 2xAA.

I haven't upgraded my PC for a long time, will that new RAM work with my old Motherboard?

Edit: Slight confusion, I meant PC3200 RAM :cry:

[Kalos]

Because the high end graphics card is waiting on the critical processing data coming from the CPU and the RAM. WoW isn't Doom 3, different engine, different purpose, different functionality; and it has different demands. Just because something works for one game doesn't mean it shall work at all for another, not every programs the same way. Doom 3 loves the graphics, that's not to say all games do so. Doom 3 has most of it's load on the GPU, WoW doesn't. Therefore a superGPU won't really do much, if that isn't what it needs to get it up a gear. Here's a silly example: A road. You're travelling on this raod at 20 MPH, really slowly. The council sees this and decided to raise the speed limit from 60 to 80 MPH. You don't travel any faster. Because there was a great lorry stuck in your way travelling at 20 MPH, meaning you had to travel at the same speed and be stuck behind it. Logically, raising the speed limit should increase the speed cars move along the road. If it doesn't fit the situation however, it won't help one bit. It's the same with your graphics card, loads of power. But WoW's stuck dealing with a $30 CPU smack bang infront, holding up the traffic. The GPU is able to go faster, but the CPU moves at the same speed it always did, meaning: no performance increase if you had a game that was waiting on the CPU, or any other component but the GPU. Better GPU makes stuff that primarily rely on a GPU go faster, nothing else.

Unfortunantly as you're using DDR1, you can't use DDR2, which is almost double the clock frequency, and thanks to advances no longer has the rubbish latencies early DDR2 did in comparison to it's DDR1 betherin. It's basically completely outstripped DDR1 in nearly every way, it's even cheaper to make and lower priced at the retailers. The only disadvantage is, you need a DDR2 compliant motherboard, and those don't run DDR1. There are a few freak ones that can, but they cost more than two motherboards combined anyway, defeating the point. As a general rule, what runs DDR2 can't do 1, and 1 can't do 2.

The only way to make WoW faster it to give it what it wants. That is, serious CPU and Ram power. But that would be hard with your setup, because your upgrades are limited by your current machine, can't take DDR2 or DDR3 in it, and it can't take a high end Athlon 64 or Core 2 Duo processor. It's a dead end on those fronts, which stops WoW from getting what actually does it good.

[Sithra]

Yeah, I thought that might be the case, time to shell out for a new PC entirely I think. This one truly is... plop.

My last throw of the dice is to reinstall WoW from scratch and just try it with a clean installation, I know people who have worse PC's than me and play just fine, I'm sure when I started playing nearly 2 years ago I didn't have any problems! :ponder:

[Kalos]

Apart from when you have that FPS counter up, do you honestly notice any slow down? My popular example of television screens, they only show 24 frames a second, the human eye just doesn't notice any gap then. Unless there actually is a problem, or you just harbor a high FPS fetish, there's nothing to worry about from what you've discribed, apart from feelings of disappointment at the lack of improvement in a ill targeted upgrade.

So, what exactly is the problem?

I'd just like to add, WoW isn't a shooter, it's not famed for high FPS rates even on a good day. It's just not a useful or reliable statistic, for some games the rates would be pathetic, but with WoW they never get high and they don't need to. It's not heavily reliant on this figure and shouldn't be judged by it.

[Sithra]

It does get a little choppy a times, interestingly, it's smooth as a babies bum in Azeroth, outland just makes in chug.

Anyway you're right, it's no massive deal, thanks for the help!

[Seeo]

I had somewhat of the same problem as you did Sithra, ended up being my processor that was bottlenecking my VC (same VC as you).

Did a minor overclock, nothing fancy, and got about 5 - 15 FPS improvement across the board.

I'm thinking of buying a couple more fans, and overclocking that puppy just a LITTLE more... nothing over 3.5 tho. I want it to last a while. My 805 D can apperantly go up to 4.0 with no major heat issues... but I'm REALLY iffy about it's life expectancy.

[ExculMazhul]

20 FPS is pretty bad, I think I'm sitting at around 35... IMO Pretty low, but meh. I believe trying Seeo's idea is good though.

[Seeo]

Just remember, the D 805 is not exactly an overclockers wet dream, but it's up there somewhere tho, from what I've heard. Very good Processor to overclock, I'm sure not all are the same tho.

[Beruen]

Another thing to try is to run it without anything running in the background, if you normally do have anything in the background. WoW seems unusually sensitive to that.

Some addons also bog down FPS on some computers, if you're using any addons.

[tWoWG]

loool
i had exactly the same prob and i have 3200 DDR400 RAM 1.5
i wouldnt have thought that would slow it so much down.
Well my Infineon is on the way now lol

[Kalos]

loool
i had exactly the same prob and i have 3200 DDR400 RAM 1.5
i wouldnt have thought that would slow it so much down.
Well my Infineon is on the way now lol
Infineon aren't a very good manufacturer. I'm willing to chalk them down for the common hoousehold or office PC, but they aren't making quality products by any stretch of the imagination.

[Sithra]

Turns out turning the draw distance down solved the problem, I can have everything on max and as long as the draw distance is low then I get at least 30fps.

Happy now ;)