Jasum

A bit offtopic, but i think not common knowledge:

After 3.01 was released i had a lot of critical and "MapMem.cpp" errors runing Vista 64bit.
Virtual address space usage in Windows Vista game development complety fixed those.
It should be included with Vista SP1, but it seems some early online installations didn't have it.

 

Jrieper

Thanks I'll try this later... I just found out I don't have SP1 and I'm installing that now... Its so weird how it runs over 100fps for 5sec / 20- fps for 5sec ... very strange

 

Kaiyoko

I've run into the same problem as well. Coming back to WoW after a few month hiatus to play WAR, I was shocked to see I was getting very low frame rates during 25-mans; I'm talking 18-25 FPS during certain fights, 25+ average. I thought I had it bad: I talk to some guild mates and they're seeing maybe 5-10 FPS or in dire cases, 2-5 FPS and they have significantly weaker systems. Back in Hyjal and BT, these same people (and myself) were pulling much more FPS than this. I've recommended some basic hardware upgrades, like more RAM or perhaps a new video card, but something isn't adding up when I compare it with my system; didn't Blizzard design this game to be nice with low-end hardware still?

Yes I know I am complaining about 18-25FPS, but to see my guild mates suffering even worse is quite angering. I do refuse the fact that this game runs more intensively than Crysis/L4D/TF2. I'm also suspecting that between TBC to WoTLK with the new graphics upgrade, something went really wrong. I know there is a blue post out there about it, but with no other set of details.

Another interesting fact: When we did OS drake attempts, I also noticed that during even 1 drake up, it was really damn hard to see that shadow vortex thing (with spell detail at max) and that puzzled me. During a few Grobbulus kills, in both 10 and 25-man, I've seen the poison clouds just stop rendering all together and that scared me for a bit.

Comp stats: Q6600 @ stock 2.4ghz, 4GB ram (3.5 due to Vista 32bit), 8800GT OC, Vista Home Premium SP1
Mods: Bartender, Pitbull, Sexymap, Prat, Quartz, Fubar with performanceFu and clock.
In-Game settings: mostly 50% settings including viewing distance, 4X AA, full texture settings, 60% spell details, 100% weather effects, no ground clutter, no shadows on, no full-screen glow effects. Playing at 1680x1050, windowed+maximized
nVidia Control panel: standard settings, no modifications.

I have a couple of ideas I want to test to see if it makes a effect. I'll be testing in 25-man Malygos and Naxx tonight the following:

-Rolling back to nVidia 180.42 drivers (181.20 breaks a few games)
-Updating my DirectX
-A quick defrag
-Turning off weather effects (there's weather effects in Naxx?)
-Setting CPU affinity to "CPU2 and CPU3" (Set to CPU0/1 at this time; CPU2/3 are not going to use right now, so why not set WoW to use idle cores?)(Problem is, I got to set this every time I close WoW soo)

I'm tempted to turn off Superfetch, but I'm skeptical it'll do anything. I'll post back with my results.

 

Tymir

WoW will just use the first two out of however many cores you have enabled, even if you try and force this through CPU affinity, nothing will happen.

 

Vaxum

You can make this change permanent by editing your Config.wtf file, find the line that says processAffinityMask "3" and change the 3 to a 12. This tells WoW that it should prefer processors 3 & 4 rather than processors 1 & 2 (which Windows and most apps default to using).

See this forum post for more details.

 

Stopokingme

I really recommend turning this off entirely, was a very noticeable fps increase for me. The visual impact is close to zero anyway.

 

Faldrath

About Sartharion, we usually recommend everyone to turn spell effects off for that fight - that's the best way to make fissures more visible (which tends to be a serious problem especially for melee). Regarding the other things, I have the exact same system specs as you do (except I don't OC my video card, and I use different mods) and don't really experience video problems in raids, even with shadows turned on (just one tick, though - not max) - perhaps because I run WoW in full screen mode instead of windowed? The only fight that my system seems to dislike is Sapphiron, for some reason.

 

Jrieper

Well I installed SP1 and that helped quite a bit from what I can tell..

 

Mikari

Reducing AA will only really gain you a performance boost if you have a fairly old card and run at a high res. I'm not sure how you can say the visual impact is close to zero though, it's very noticeable to me, the jagged edges without AA are horrible.

 

fredshino

You wouldn't believe how long it took me to figure out how to fix these MapMem.cpp errors!

I found at least a dozen blue posts with the usual delete wdb/wtf/interface BS but luckily I found one blue post talking about the Vista memory management and telling the guy to install the SP1 to fix it.

It indeed fixed those errors for good.

I disabled SuperFetch too and definitely noticed a speed increase. With SuperFetch on, WoW would initially load quicker, but my memory was always full (I have 4Gb) and it seemed that if SuperFetch didn't correctly guess where you're going next, it took longer to deallocate what it had previously allocated and then allocate the right stuff.

 

Kaiyoko

So after last night's raids into 25-man naxx and malygos, I noticed something interesting. While I was in Malygos, I didn't really notice any lag, even with the new DK effects, while in Naxx, I did see performance drops in certain areas, but the Naxx portion was not a full clear due to time issues.

However, due to real life, I didn't get a chance to roll back drivers (more like uninstall and go back to to 180.42), but I noticed I didn't need to install a new version of DirectX. Setting the CPU affinity to different cores for WoW did do something, but I need more testing. My frame rates did seem more stablized, as I never dropped below 23FPS.

I see it somewhat when I zoom in. As for performance impact, I jumped around between 0 and 8x, and then inside the nVidia panel and didn't see a difference, with one expection - between 8x and 4x during windowed. An 8800GT is not a slouch of a card, it can handle most games with at least 2xAA in most cases.

Hmm, spell detail to off? Well, I'll give it a shot, but as a assistant to the raid leader to spot anything wrong, I hope it doesn't back fire.

I guess I'll test next week with full screen mode, but as a avid alt-tabber it'll be a *censor* of a habit to deal with. My video card was factory-OCed, as it was part of a series - BFG nVidia Geforce 8800GT OC2 edition.

 

swf

Just a tangential FYI; if this list is accurate, the Cenarius server cluster is physically located near Seattle, rather than LA:
US realm list by datacenter - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

 

◊ EllTrain

I thought I might be the only one with this issue, and was contemplating formatting due to it. If you are talking on vent and start loading WoW, does your push to talk button not depress until the load is done?

 

Hellfury

Thanks a lot for the link to that thread.

I think that setting the processAffinityMask to "10" is the way to go for people that like me who has a Core2Quad, since this type of processor is 2x Dual Cores tapped together, the "10" mask would make WOW run on Core 1 and 3, leaving 0 and 2 free. This is good for 2 reasons, since as I said Core2Quad is 2 dual cores tapped together that would make WOW run on each "physical" processor if I can say that way, leaving the Core 0 free, wich is used alot by windows and other programs running in the background.

This wont have any impact on AMD Phenom and Core i7, since this processors are native Quad Cores, infact for Core i7 I would recommend a mask of "5", since this type of processor have 8 logical processors cause it has HyperThreading technology making that 1 physical processor, seems like 2 for Windows. A mask of "5" would make it run on Phisical Core 0 and 2, the 1 in this case would be a Hyperthread one and we dont want that.

 

cgrimster

Not sure if it will help anyone else, but I find that turning on hardware sound causes serious frame rate issues for me in instances. I'm running a PCI Express ASUS Xonar DX on 32-bit Windows XP SP3 with a 3 Ghz Core2 Duo, 4 gb RAM, 8800 GTS 512. I have all the sound options maxed.

Previously when I had a Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS, hardware sound didn't cause slowdowns, though it seemed to cause...hitching is the best word I can think of (tiny, frequency and regular pauses most noticeable while running around).

 

Solux

I haven't seen anyone say this, but check your monitor's settings and run in native resolution for your monitor, it can make a big difference. In my case, yes I know, Data set of 1, it runs at higher FPS than setting the resolution to 640x480. Your manufaturer should have the native resolution for your monitor on their website. Frequently for LCD monitors, native is also the highest resolution it can display.

Understanding LCD Monitors has a list of common details about LCD monitors including this:

Here are some of the common native resolutions found in LCD monitors:

* 14-15": 1024x768 (XGA)
* 17-19": 1280x1024 (SXGA)
* 20"+: 1600x1200 (UXGA)
* 17" (Widescreen): 1280x800 (WXGA)
* 19" (Widescreen): 1440x900 (WXGA+)
* 22" (Widescreen): 1680x1050 (WSXGA+)
* 23" (Widescreen): 2048x1152 (QWXGA)
* 24" (Widescreen): 1920x1200 (WUXGA)
* 30" (Widescreen): 2560x1600

This is about the most I can easily find with weak google-fu. My monitor fits the 17-19" profile and this is its correct native resolution. Hopefully, this gives other people the roughly correct resolution to try for their monitor without the hassle of badly written manufacturer support pages.

 

Mikari

All the monitors native resolution is, is the resolution the monitor was designed to display without scaling, if anything depending on what video card a person has and the size of their monitor, running at the native resolution will lower FPS more than anything. e.g. running a 24" screen with an underpowered video card.

 

Fugazor

I have same soundcard and believe me - stay in software. Hardware mode did some strange things like huge fps drops in example Hellfire Ramparts, overall short slowdowns, broken sounds etc. This is most likely Asus fault as it seems their drivers are even worse than Creative.

 

ZeroWashu

I have an iMac (C2D 7600GT 256mb) with a 24" screen running at 1920x1200. The HDD speed is 7200rpm which most Macbooks won't have.

Under X I can average over 35 FPS in Dalaran and have no noticeable issues with performance in Naxx or any five man instance. However if I turn on Shadows (slider anywhere but far left) I have the equivalent of MS Paint. Window mode has no noticeable effect, meaning I can play that way all day.

Under the XP client performance is generally worse; subjective I know but it feels jerky when lots of spell casting is going on; but at least I can use shadows without cratering performance though I still take a hit. I would say the average FPS is about 5 to 8 less than under X but isn't truly noticeable in overall play.

My choice is to always play under X. The primary reasons are smooth transition to and from windowed play and if for some reason I lock up I can ALWAYS kill the client and be back in under 15 or so seconds which is important when your relied up. I have had a few odd conflicts with some plug ins and that is the reason I have both clients on the iMac and the problem exists under both so their handling of LUA appears identical.

 

Trouble

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 (64 bit) has been a decent FPS increase for me. Switching to a 64 bit OS also gives me the ability to use more than 3 gigs of RAM, which I am quickly taking advantage of by upgrading to 8 gigs. The amount of RAM that WoW takes up at this point is insane (mine usually hovers a bit over a gig). The tradeoff for me from switching to Windows 7 has been higher performance at the cost of the OS taking up more RAM for itself. That's a good tradeoff for me considering how cheap memory is.

 

Hauraki

Could you be more specific on the FPS gain from switching to Windows 7? Is WOW using 1 gig when you have 8 gig in total, or is WOW using 1 gig before you upgrade OS?

I'm using Windows XP with 2GB RAM, WOW is already using upto 1GB, and I have 700~800 MB free physical memory available and I think that's more than adequate. I thought CPU (and multi-core CPU utilization) is the major bottole neck for WOW, followed by GPU, for many current desktops, and performance gain from switching to 64bit OS and using more than 3GB ram is marginal at best.

 

sag_ich_nicht

This is unnecessary. WMP improves your FPS because it changes the system wide CPU timing method.

The same effect can be achieved by adding the following line to your Config.wtf file:

Furthermore, if you happen to run ANY nVidia videocard, set this:

alternatively, just disable the "reduce interface lag" option inside of WoW. The description of this setting is utterly inaccurate, and actually affects GPU synchronization. GPU synchronization is handled on the driver level with nVidia GPUs, and doing it on the application level can cause framerate reduction. See the nVidia forceware documentation for details. This option should probably be enabled for ATI graphic cards.

There is also the following option:

I am quoting blizzard staff here:
Changing this setting MAY improve your performance or fix crashes to desktop that you are experiencing, especially on alt+tab.


If you happen to run an nForce motherboard, be sure to update your motherboard drivers.
nVidia released the first new drivers since years for nforce 4 and upwards chipsets at the end of last year.
This has fixed a large amount of issues for many people, including most Alt+tab related crashes. Get them here.

Edited for more tweaks:

The following are advanced tweaks and CAN tremendously impact system performance when performed incorrectly:

If you happen to run an AMD CPU with a nVidia video card change the following registry setting:

This is a bug with AMD CPUs, the windows memory manager and nVidia video cards and is documented in Microsoft KB270715

The KB states that this only affects AGP videocards. This information is incorrect, details can be found in the nVidia driver documentation. By default this change should already be applied by the forceware installation software, but is in many cases not applied.


If you are experiencing crashes, hangs of sound loops/freezes, your system may be out of paged pool memory. This is a known problem with graphic cards that have huge amounts of video memory. Please see this article on steam support for more information:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...5034-EIPV-6426

While this is addressed to Valve customers specifically, this issue also affects most games, including World of Warcraft.

 

Lofarl

I just noticed with the new launcher we can change the game to render in open gl mode. Im gonna give this a try and see if it improves my framerates at busy times

 

Mikari

It's always been possible to run WoW in Open GL, though it was a shortcut/config.wtf tweak previously. Open GL isn't optimised on the Windows client though so you'll probably see worse performance.

 

Manniefresh

Thank you, that saved me a lot of time.