Framerate issues

[Tikki]

A little over two weeks ago, I noticed a significant drop in my framerates. Up until then (for about 2 years) I could play WoW with all my settings maxed out, and still have an excellent framerate 50fps - 35 fps in cities and raids. Before two weeks ago, I would say I never saw it drop past 35fps, even with everything maxed.

Oddly, two weeks ago, during normal gameplay (i.e. questing alone in Dragonblight), I was getting 1fps. I restarted WoW, my computer, shut background programs off (even though it's a WoW only computer), and STILL was getting 1-2 fps. I then turned all of my WoW settings down to low, and was able to fix that. Now I maintain a 20 -30 fps.

Anyone know why this might be? Up until now I've been able to run my graphics on high...my addons didn't seem to change my fps (turned them on and off both at high and low graphic settings). I can't think of anything I did (I haven't downloaded anything or used any programs than I normally do), to have made this happen.

Any suggestions? I like to see spell effects, what can I say!!!

[Erinion]

Open the PC up and give it a good clean, make sure all your fans are spinning, update drivers, uninstall any programs you dont need, clear up the hard drive.

Come back when you've done all that :)

[rgirty]

Tikki, I had much the same problem. Amazingly enough what I discovered was that for some reason my machine was swapping to the page file.

I had two hard drives in my pc, I copied the wow folder to the other drive and this increased my frame rate.

I have a slower pc, with only 1gb of ram so I only get about 25-30fps even with all the settings low during raids.

Most people who have an fps problem can directly relate it to the "shadow" effect that was enabled by blizz in the 3.0? patch or shortly prior to that. A lot of people went from very decent frames to very slow ones at that time.

[Tikki]

Thank you both!

Erinion, I appreciate how compentent you think I am with computers :D "Open the PC up" if i were to do that, I assure you, nothing would work again! I will give it a good outter cleaning (if that'll do anything) and uninstall a lot of the programs I don't use (there's a few)

rigrty: This is going to sound horrible- but I'm glad you had the same problem. I was very worried that it might have been something wrong with how my machine was working (once again, I'll admit, I know very little about computers). I'm going to try what you mention, since this may be the case (since I played very little prior to two weeks ago, and perhaps didn't notice the fps problem prior to it).

Additionally, I was concerned that it might be a virus...I have spybot on my computer, and sometimes when I boot it up, it'll constantly pop-up (every second), with a "denied access to ______ program". I don't know what the program is, or how to stop spybot from doing it, but my fps problem began when this started happening.

I've run spybot and norton and nothings come up...which, I'm not surprised because I haven't downloaded anything onto the computer in ages and I hadn't surfed the internet in months on it...

As of now, i'm hoping the fps problem is due to what you mention rgirty *crosses fingers* !!!

[surodat]

Tikki, even if you can't (are scared to) open the computer up, you can still grab a can of compressed air that you can use to "dust" out the computer.

[Tikki]

thanks surodat! I didn't know I could do that! That seems like something I should be doing on a regular schedule! Hopefully it'll help!

[Kalos]

I'd say that infection is too much of a coincidence, you should hit your PC with a suite of software anti-virus/anti-malware/cleaning tools to hopefully track down the infection and kill it, likely it is dragging your performance down.

[clevins]

/second Kalos.

Additionally, I was concerned that it might be a virus...I have spybot on my computer, and sometimes when I boot it up, it'll constantly pop-up (every second), with a "denied access to ______ program". I don't know what the program is, or how to stop spybot from doing it, but my fps problem began when this started happening.

WAY too much of a coincidence. The entire point of things like spybot isn't to ignore their warnings but to do something about what they've found. Been awhile since I used Windows, but there should be a remove or quarantine option. Google the name of the malware and see what is known to remove it.

[Tikki]

mmmmmmmm.....I've ran norton and spyboy several times, and it comes up clean.

Me thinks i'll have to run something else, does AVG still do a good job?

[Erinion]

Is the popup message you're getting actually from Spybot? I assume it's the Spybot "teatimer" thats giving you the message - that part of Spybot warns you of any potentially harmful system changes. I've had teatimer pop up about things in the past which have actually been perfectly fine background processes. I don't actually use it anymore as I found it more annoying than helpful (especially when I have Comodo firewall doing almost exactly the same thing).

You could google the message (or at least the program it mentions) and see if anything indicates it's dodgy.

Remember if you're going to run another anti virus program (which I do recommend - I personally hate Norton with a passion) you need to COMPLETELY uninstall Norton. This involves downloading the correct Norton removal tool from the symantec site.

DO NOT attampt to uninstall it through add/remove programs.... it leaves pieces of itself all over your system. A friend tried it and although it appear Norton was gone, his new anti-virus program clashed with the bit left over and niether worked, leaving him with no AV.

I used Norton for approx 3 days (it came free with a PC about 3 years ago). After 3 days of incredibly long startup times and frustration at watching the resources it was eating, I switched to AVG. It does a good job, but have since moved onto Avast! (yep...the "!" is part of it's name). I've since enjoyed quick boot times, faster framerates all round and absolutely no infections (and of course...no cost as it's free). I also use Comodo firewall for these reasons.... it's free, quick and does a better job than any Window built-in firewall.

Make sure spybot is up to date. You could also try adware (they work fine together and both have picked up things that the other hasn't on many PC's I've "repaired" for friends).

The very final option is to back-up everything (drivers, your entire Warcraft folder, all docs, videos, music, pictures etc) and do a full install of Windows again. If you still have the problem after that you can pretty much guarantee it's a hardware fault.

[Tikki]

alright, thank you!

I'm going to Avast! and Comodo

As for my spybot, it's just the thing that pops up and asks if you want this process to be ran...I'm not computer savy ... so as always (and I was told), if I don't know the program, I click deny...and then the little box that says "always deny program" ... that's what I did, and it just kept popping up. I restrated my computer, and it did it again, restarted it again, and it was fine. Since then, occasionally when I boot my computer up, it'll do that. If I turn it off and reboot it's fine...although i'm still having consisten fps and lag issues.

I've had to reformat my computer 2-3 times since purchasing it 3 years ago....it's never been because of programs or viruses, just basic functioning (i.e., uber slow response rates) ...although, I'm saying it's not because of programs and viruses, but someone with technical knowledge may tell you otherwise!

lets just blame vista!

[clevins]

You should not need to reformat your PC every year or so because it's slowing down. You need to take the time to figure out what's just a valid, safe program that's asking permission to run and what's malware. Well, you don't NEED to but..

once you have programs setup, set them to scan EVERY NIGHT and leave the PC on so that they can. Look at the results. Many malware programs will flag cookies from advertisers as malware which is silly and counterproductive. But Google the name of stuff it catches so you can see if you have a real problem.

But please don't do the "oh, I'm not technical, (giggle)... " thing. This stuff isn't that hard to learn, you're plenty bright enough to do it and it's 2009 - things are going to get more technical, not less.

And yes, I'm on a bit of a crusade on this - I get asked this stuff a lot by bright people and, while I'm happy to help, people need to start using Google and doing some of the basics themselves vs just throwing up their hands and saying "I don't get computers."

[Erinion]

I agree... reformatting a PC is always the last resort and can take ages to do (except I have an incredibly easy system for doing it that only takes an hour or so and involves a brand spanking new clean xp install on a sacred spare hard drive and a copy of "Acronis Easy Migrate").

Google is probably the most underated tech help tool ever. If you watch most I.T. professionals fix a PC, they either know exactly what the problem is or head straight for google. If you have a PC problem, you can be sure that you're not the first person to have the problem and someone will have posted a solution somewhere.

Feel free to ask for advice here... we will give if we can but use your initiative and try search around yourself :)

[Tikki]

Hey! Thank you for your advice and help.

Clevins, I take it that you feel very comfortable with computers and know a lot about them...which is why you can say it's not hard to learn. But honestly, I'm a smart girl, I know how to work a computer decently, but I know my limitations.

My frustrations are that, I do everything I've been told

(a) shut off any unneeded applications that run in the back ground
(b) run norton every week
(c) always have spybot running
(d) always fix/clean anything that comes up on these programs
...yet I'm still having problems.

The issue with my spybot, is that I don't know how to stop it from denying the program. I've been through the program, and couldn't figure out how. If (and when), it happens again, I'll me more googlicious with it.

I'm fairly good with googling, but, and I'll admit I'm naive, when i google and read forums, they're often suggesting to download freeware, and I'm hesitant since to me, this is the perfect way to get a virus. Moreover, they also suggest to purchase other programs, and I don't have the cash...I've already dished out to buy norton.

For people who don't know computers, and are not confident that they won't break it, or download something horrible on to it, it can get very overwhelming and frustrating, and is just easier to hand it over to someone else (i.e., the boyfriend with a programming degree).

Also, it's even more frustrating that it's not a consistent problem. It's not something that I know will happen, when it will happen, and how it will happen. Therefore, it (excuse my language) pisses me off when I do everything I've been told, it works, then do what I always do on my computer, and then 5 days later it's back again.

I guess I need to decide if i should completely uninstall norton, and install avast! and run that...will that go through all my files and clean anything out?

[Erinion]

If you think Spybot may have caused the problem... remove it. I only use Spybot in it's most basic form - as a scanner when I want it to... I find the protection side of it too intrusive.

You can always reinstall it if the problem doesn't go away :)

And yes... let avast! run a full scan of your PC. Make sure it's all updated and let it run overnight with it's most thorough scan of all drives.

Good luck :)

[Tikki]

Thanks! I've downloaded it, as well as comodo!

I'll be scanning it tonight! Woo!

I've also downloaded all unneeded programs from my computer (i.e. msn, etc.) do you think this might help things along?

[Erinion]

You got rid of Norton with the Norton removal tool first yeah?

You can set avast! as your screensaver... after a set amount of time where the PC is idle it'll kick in and start virus scanning - very handy and makes good use of those times when you leave the PC for 10-20 minutes.

Comodo can be confusing at first. It'll will ask for permissions for every single program. Be patient with it and after a week or 2 it settles down. You can put it into a sort of installation setting when you know you're installing something. You'll figure it out the first time you install a new program :)

Removing unwanted programs is always a good idea.

I know some people say it doesn't make any difference.. but defragging your hard drive wouldnt be a bad idea. It basically collects all the data thats spread across your hard drive and puts it back together neatly. I use a free program called "Defraggler" for this.

Again...run it overnight (on a different night to your virus scan).

Hope all this works :)

[clevins]

Tikki - If you find something on your PC that you think might be spyware etc and don't find an obvious result in Google (OMG that's a virus!!! RUN!!!!) - post it here. I and others will be more than happy to help you figure it out.

For example, you use Norton. Uninstall it. It's a pile of steaming excrement. Avast should be fine (I've not used it but heard good things). If it has an option to do a full scan on a schedule set that up as well as having it run in the background - just don't schedule a scan during a time when you're on the computer.

Spybot will continually trip over advertising cookies etc. I don't remember how to set up ignores in Spybot but I'll fire up the Windows machine and look at it.

Is there any chance this is related to something they BF is doing on the network occasionally i.e. downloading music, etc?

[Tikki]

thank you again for everything!! I appreciate the help!

I uninstalled norton last night, and installed Avasti! and comodo. For some reason, this caused me to lose my internet connection...i managed to check the ether cable as well as the router, and it still didn’t work. Not to mention, whatever I did, may a mess on another PC on our house…I’m not sure how, or it could have been a coincidence.
For my own sake, I’ll give you a time line of when things started to go wrong

About a month ago we downloaded a movie that required us to download a audio codec. We have one computer in our house that’s strictly for media. We’ve hooked it up to our TV, and play all of our movies and music on it. Additionally, we save all of our movies and music on a media server, which all of our computers are hooked up to. .. so my BF figured that he would download it, even though he figured it was sketchy. It did turn out to be a virus, and he got rid of it immediately. Regardless of what he said though, I still held the belief that if there was a virus on that computer that it could somehow get on our other PCs since they’re all connected to the media server. He says that couldn’t happen, but…I don’t know, it seems logical to me.
Right after that happened, my computer seem to be acting weird. Like I said, the spybot thing happened, and I was getting horribly low frame rates. Whenever I run Norton, nothing comes up, same with spybot. But I don’t see how this could be possible.
Additionally, I would accept the difference in performance if it came after a patch, but it didn’t. My BF, suggested that when I bought my computer 3 years ago, it ran the original wow awesome, then with BC it ran it pretty well, but now with the new expansion, my computer is just having difficulties running it. I’m not willing to accept this, since I was able to run it perfectly well prior to this, and was able to do several lower level northrend instances with my settings all the way up, and had no FPS problems. So, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s not a hardware problem, but something else, such as a virus.
As it stands now, I reinstalled Norton, and am connected to the internet. I’m not sure if it was comodo that was giving me the internet connection problems, or Avasti … either way neither seem to work.
I’m thinking that it may be an issue with my spybot…so perhaps I’ll get rid of that, and download a freeware program that does the same thing. I did manage to run avasti once (the un-updated version because it couldn’t connect to the internet), and it said my computer was clean…so, maybe it is!
I’m going to go home tonight and try running wow with all the settings up again. Hopefully it’ll work, but you never know. Perhaps I will need to take it apart and clean it. If I’m careful and gentle, I shouldn’t do any harm, right? It’s not something that I could easily break? I’m certainly willing to give that a try, I’m just concerned that I might break something and end up in a worse position than I’m in now.

Thank you again for all your help! I do appreciate it…I’m at my wits end trying to figure this out, and my BF and I never seem to see eye to eye with what should be done. So, thank you again for helping such a misdirected computer noob!!
:) :) :)

[Erinion]

Correct me if I'm wrong... but is your boyfriend the one with the degree in programming? If he is then give the PC to him to fix... he should be well equipped with better knowledge then probably any of us to sort it out.

[clevins]

Tikki,

Sigh. I'm hoping your BF isn't the person who both has the degree in computing and said a virus can't spread from computer to computer on the same network - that's a classic way they DO spread.

If you're going to download stuff 'illegally' (i.e. not from a screened source like iTunes) you HAVE TO have top notch security stuff. HAVE TO - for just the reason you ran into - most will be fine, but that's a primary way to introduce and spread malware. You need to make sure ALL of your computers in the house are clean since if they're not guess what will happen when you clean yours? Right... it will get infected again from the computer you didn't clean.

I'd still uninstall Norton, but it seems to leave you in a state where the net's not accessible. That could be due to a number of things, mostly firewall related. The fact that uninstalling Norton and installing other stuff on your PC affected others bothers me. I guess, being the security minded sort, what I'd do is take a day or two and do this:

Shut every computer down but one. Uninstall Norton, install Avast, Comodo, etc. Update them and run a scan. Make SURE that computer is clean and protected. I might even start by reinstalling this one. Once you're done and have installed Avast, etc and updated virus definitions AND rescanned... unplug it from the net (or disable wireless). Boot another computer. Do the same thing. Rinse and repeat with ONLY the computer you're securing on and connected to the net while you're working on it.

Every single computer in your house needs to be running AV software and spyware scanners and needs to be set up to automatically update its definitions and scan nightly. No exceptions, no excuses.

It's not a hardware issue if your computer ran Wrath fine, then saw performance dive.

[Tikki]

unfortunately I know very little about his computer degree. It was a one year course he took to hold him over until university. I think it has to do with java and sql...eeer...it's also horribly out of date.

thank you both for the help. it's good to know I wasn't off the mark completely on the whole "media server spreading the virus" thing. For some reason my BF has it in his mind that it can't do that. He's a very smart computer savvy guy, so I don't know what would lead him to think that...but to me, if our household computers are set up on a in house media server, it's seem perfectly logical that a virus could move about comptuers from that.

I have a feeling he's believing it can't, since all of our pc's are not being affected by something.

Fortunately, I'm leaving town for several days. Our plan now is for him to wipe my computer completely, install wow, spybot and either norton or a norton like program. That computer will be only for my wow'age!

I'll suggest he does this with his other computers too...although, my technology suggestions often go in one ear and out the other.

Thank you again! I hope it gets cleared up....it's not really about playing wow at optimal conditions, it's that I know something is wrong with my computer and I want to fix it!

Thank you again! I can't say that enough! You've helped me a lot, and...you've also let me know that some of the ideas I had about what were wrong with it, could be right! At least I know that sometimes, I'm not completely out in left field :)