Ok, I know this type of post probably doesn't belong here, but I'm at my wit's end, not sure where else to go. I'll understand if a mod moves this to the heap.

Anyway, anyone else since about patch 1.9 been getting shitting performance in densely populated areas(IF, raids, and now Light's Hope Chapel)? Let me give my computer specs and settings:

Window XP x64
AMD Ahtlon X2 3800+
nForce 6800
2GB DDR 400 RAM
250GB SATA2 HD

Video settings:

1280 x 960, 1x multisample
All sliders except terrain and environment set to lowest setting, those other two to the middle.
Trilinear and all pixel shaders off
Vertex shaders on

Now, to give more examples and quantify it. The suppresion room is absolute horror, it's basically 20 non-stop minutes of 15 fps. Vael, I'm siting at 35 fps before the fight, instantly right after the pull turns into stutterville, even if I look at the floor. In MC, I can look at the core hound packs while their being AEed or else my machine visibly sutters. Makes it really hard to tank them.

I've tried turning everything off/down, which improved my fps a tiny bit, but I still get stutters. But that shouldn't be the point, with a machine like this, I should be able to run with settings on max, or just about. I've tried switching back to regular XP, but that hasn't helped. The only thing I haven't tried is turning off my mods. But I don't think it's that because my CPU usage stays around 50% during the stuttering.

Anyone else experienced this? It almost seems like my old video card(5900xt) performed better.

Thanks

EDIT: one more thing, why my max fps 64 when my monitor refresh rate is 80?

Somewhat on topic, but somewhat off topic;

While I don't really get any problems in the suppresion room, myself and a few select guildies get horrible fps problems in Visc's room. Anyone else expierence that? (I use a Radeon 9800).

Your FPS is capped at 64 in WoW due to a bug WoW has with the X2 processors I believe.

15 fps is about normal for me in populated areas like orgrimmar, raid zones, etc. It seems fine to me.
8 fps is a bit low in nax, but it's totally playable. Maybe my standards are just too low.

It will be a mod, I had similar problems about the same time and went through my mods.
For me it turned out to be Defend Yourself, I also read about some problems with mods doing extra stuff to your toolbars, range colouring etc...
Just get the latest version of everything you can and run as few mods as you can stand, if you still have FPS problems start disabling mods to work out which one it is.

In case anyone can answer this question as well: What are the names of mods, other than SpellAlert, that previously retargeted following a fear? I'm constantly losing my target, and losing CP while I'm at it, on Nef, Mag, Yauj, and all those other guys.

Any ideas on what it might be? (I really don't have any exotic mods, it would probably be something common).

You're sure it would be a mod? Wouldn't I see that though in the CPU usage? It would spike whenever I stutter.

By range coloring, do you mean coloring buttons when you're out of range to use them? That would make discord a big target.

I've concluded that blizzard and nvidia don't mix. Every person who's had problems similar to mine runs an nvidia video card. Meanwhile, I've got people telling me they get ok FPS in the suppression room with radeon 9800's!! That's fucked up.

I get fantastic frame rates with my NVIDIA card.

Hmmm, I guess that theory doesn't work. What video card and cpu do you have, Kaubel?

Max FPS 64 is a X2 processor issue, I experience it too.

I have a pretty similar system, and I do better, so.... yeah.

I rarely drop under 60 fps with settings maxed with a GeForce 6800 Go, althoug I have some significant heat issues. It's definatly not a "nVidia cards get shitty performance in WoW" thing.

XFX Geforce 7800 GTX (256), Athlon 64 4000+

Hmmm, even in the suppression room? If you don't mind, could you list the rest of your computer spec and the mods you use?

Which model of 6800? 6800s range pretty widely, from a lackluster 6800 SE to a 6800 ultra. I have almost an identicle system(A64 single core at 2.8 ghz, 1 gig ram, 6800 ultra (OCed a tad)) and I run at 1280x1024, 4xx AA and maxed out aniso-filtering. With those settings it does indeed drop to about 20 in the supression room, however with minimum settings like you listed you should be getting considerably higher fps. If I drop quality settings I get a comfortable 25-35 in the same area.

I'd get a mod called warmup, it displays your other mods, how long they take to load, and how much memory theyare sucking up. This might provide some hints as to which mods you should try disabling to find out which one is the culprit. Also, make sure you always have the latest official drivers.

Also, it is a shot in the dark but I know sometimes integrated devices can cause issues i.e. sound card, ethernet. Try disabling these devices in your bios and use non-integrated PCI cards instead. They relieve some strain from your CPU (as they do not operate in "software" mode). Beyond this, perform a memtest86, defrag, and check for viruses/spyware/bloatware.

reformat
reinstall
get latest drivers
use fewer(better) mods

you may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but are you running in windowed mode, or fullscreen? windowed mode can seriously cut down performance. Also, if the card just says 6800, then its probably the plain vanilla 6800. It isnt going to perform nearly as well as a 6800GT, or Ultra, since it is running slower, and with fewer rendering pipelines. Back when they came out i remmeber hearing about some plain vanilla 6800s that were capable of being soft-modded in to a 6800 GT/ultra, but it was so long ago that i dont remember any specifics. One easy thing to do is get the coolbits tweak from the web, then see how high your card can overclock. The 6800 series in general had a pretty good OC track record, almost no one bought 6800 ultras since you were almost guarantted that a 6800 GT could be clocked to ultra speeds, or even faster.

Another question, is what type of monitor do you have? you mentioned a refresh rate, but that resolution looks like some widescreen CD res.. it could even be that running in an odd resolution is doing something wierd, although that's addmittedly a long shot.

whateveryour problem is, there has got to be something.. because there is no way that one of the PoS 5xxx series cards should ever be running faser thanthe much improved 6xxx series.

Yeah, it's the vanilla one now that you mention it. I had bought it on a recommendation from a friend to unlock the extra pipelines. We didn't know that they had put a separate core on the PCI-E version that physically limited the pipelines to 12. Oh well, only a $100.

I am playing in windowed mode, makes it easier to switch between game and browser. I have an old 17" viewsonic, I thought 1280x960 was a normal rez. I'll try the maximized button, see if it helps.

As for the warmup mod, it reports that CTRA take the longest to load up, with Discord Group Buttons, Unit Frames, and Action Bars close behind. Not sure I even need Group Buttons, wasn't using it before this patch. I know there's alternatives to CTRA, will they work though if eveyrone else is using CTRA?

2 Ghz Pentium 4 M, 2 Gigs of ram. Suppression room is 0-30 depending on what I look at. I quicly got into the habit of staring at the walls, although that may not be an option for non-healers.

Windowed mode is probably your problem. I was running maximized windowed mode for a while, and getting 10-15 fps with all settings except resolution at the minimum. Windowed mode is a huge hit on performance.

Like someone said - it might be Carnival PvP/PvE Enemy Cast Bars that does it, that's what our rogues are saying. Not sure if you can update to the latest or if it's just screwed across the board.

In regards to machine specs and performance, WoW seems to be completely fubar.

My desktop is an XP 2500+ (1.8 GHz) with a GeForce 6800GT and 1.5GB Ram. I get 15 to 25 fps mostly in raid settings.

My laptop is a Centrino 1.7 GHz, Radeon Mobility X300? and 1 GB Ram. It owns my desktop, suppression + Vael at 25 to 30 FPS solid.

If its a normal montior (not widescreen) then it should be either 1024x768, 1152x856, 1280x1024, or 1600x1200. anything else would probably look sorta odd, and might be doing something wierd to your FPS. I would put good money on the windowed mode as to what is causing most of your problems. Try it fullscreen, and see what happens.

For alt-tabbing (It annoys me too, especially when I have to take tells for items and alt tab to check points and enter them to the DB) try setting your game to the same resolution that you use on your desktop. If your desktop is running at 1024x768 then set the game to that res. This will result in faster alt-tabs, although it wont be *quite* as fast as windowed mode.