Inconsistent FPS

[vinmisc]

How much of an impact do addons have on game lag. My addons take up an average of 35-38mb of memory during gameplay. Is that normal or is that a lot?
Reason I am asking is coz, sometimes i get constant 45-50ish fps sometimes, other times its all over the place. Even dropping video settings doesnt help.
I play 1280*1024 , at 60Hz refresh rate.

System spec - A64 3200+, 2GB DDR 400, 8600GT 256mb.

Cheers
V

[Tunga]

Addons shouldn't be causing any noticable slowdown but then it depends what they are. Very poorly written addons can affect performance. Your system specs are pretty decent so it should be fine but it's important to realise that the amount of memory they use up is not the relevant measurement of how much they are hurting performance. Addons that sit in RAM and do nothing don't slow things down - ones that constantly work the CPU do.

Of course the easy way to tell is just to disable your addons and see if there's any change.

[Ephydias]

How much of an impact do addons have on game lag. My addons take up an average of 35-38mb of memory during gameplay. Is that normal or is that a lot?
Reason I am asking is coz, sometimes i get constant 45-50ish fps sometimes, other times its all over the place. Even dropping video settings doesnt help.
I play 1280*1024 , at 60Hz refresh rate.

System spec - A64 3200+, 2GB DDR 400, 8600GT 256mb.

Cheers
V

35-38 mb is low-med on memory. If you have a Damage Meter is more comprehensible.

If not, I suggest you look at wich one is consuming that much memory.

Addons often eat your loading time alot. I suggest you try to unload addons and log in to see the difference.

From what I know the most consuming addons are:
Fubar / Topbar / (anything that add a bar at top and bottom)
Quest Help / Any quest marker (Quest Helper actualy have a bug when you die and eat 20 fps each time you die)
Auctioneer (Even if it's a great addon, turn it off unless your doing your auction)

Big help it's to have 2 toons. One to quest/lvl with and another one has a bank with addons loaded on him.

Addons are very useful, but keep in mind that they use a lot of resource!
_____________________________________________

That can seems funny or maybe stupid, but my firend got FPS drop a few weeks ago. As an IT tech I went to his place and tried to clean up his computer. Even formating Windows didn't work (well it helped a big time but not as much as I could expect).

Finally, I decided to clean "inside" the case. ... Never thought it would help THAT much he went from 20FPS to 50FPS... Dirty fans! ^.^

[elsegundo]

my xperl lags me for a few seconds every time i join a new party. but that's the program doing its thing to load up information related to the party members. doesnt slow me down too much any other time. also my questhelper slows me down with several of their features, especially when they start to recalculate things like routes and even lags when i loot. turn off the info sharing and i think that fixed it. there are a lot of features that you sometimes do not need. not only should you do as suggested above, but also when you do find the addon that's bogging down your system, you should change some options around to see what feature it is that's actually slowing you down.

and yes, every time i see a fps drop, i go for the can of compressed air.

[vinmisc]

Thanks for the advice, gang :)