# Low FPS in WoW?



## rak526 (Mar 11, 2009)

I play World of Warcraft on my desktop (check the specs on the left) and I get pretty low fps... usually around 40, seen it drop in the 20's, and pretty steady in the 50's while indoors. That's on one GTX 280. 

I put in a second GTX 280 yesterday, running in SLI, and it gives no boost. I read on the WoW forums that it doesn't do well with SLI, so I've set WoW to just run with one gpu, but I still feel I should be able to max out the settings and get steady at 60 and above.

I've also ran Vantage, on one gpu i get P11,000, and on two its over 20,000. It also boost my fps on Lost Planet from 50 to 75 and it runs CoD: WaW on full settings, no problem. So, it seems to be just WoW.

Anyone have any ideas?


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## CheetoLover (Mar 11, 2009)

ok, first, WoW is like many internet games, your ping can effect your fps, WoW is a weird beast, sometimes the smallist things can make it run poorly.

try dissabling shadows in game, see if that gives you a boost, just try diffrent setting combos, really, as i found with WoW the only way to get it to run really well on some rigs is to tinker till its happy, it will run great on "crappy" hardware for somepeople and poorly  on extreamly high end hardware for others :/

some people have found forcing WoW to use only one cpu core to help its performance, you can try that with task manager.

good luck with that.

Oh grab nHancer(google it) use that to change thedriver profile for wow to suit your needs.


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## kyle2020 (Mar 11, 2009)

rak526 said:


> I play World of Warcraft on my desktop (check the specs on the left) and I get pretty low fps... usually around 40, seen it drop in the 20's, and pretty steady in the 50's while indoors. That's on one GTX 280.
> 
> I put in a second GTX 280 yesterday, running in SLI, and it gives no boost. I read on the WoW forums that it doesn't do well with SLI, so I've set WoW to just run with one gpu, but I still feel I should be able to max out the settings and get steady at 60 and above.
> 
> ...



World of warcraft may be a game that cannot utilize more than one GPU. Its quite old (the original, anywho) so it may not have that utilization installed.


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## Papahyooie (Mar 11, 2009)

*something wrong*

I know i'm new FIRST POST but i know what im talking about I hope. 

Theres def something wrong. I get better than that on my slowish rig. (its on the left too). I get around 50 pretty much everywhere exept dalaran where it drops to mid 20's. So your rig is way better than mine so theres def something wrong. Check your temps? Also defrag and clean registry and all that general stuff. Try maybe reinstalling wow too because you should be getting waaay over what you have. Hope that helps!


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## kyle2020 (Mar 11, 2009)

Could be a driver issue to - have you installed the latest drivers for your 280(s) off the nvidia site? If you have only installed the generic ones off the driver CD, that may be the problem.


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## CheetoLover (Mar 11, 2009)

even with the current updates(made it look alot better) its engines still OLD, and blizzard dosnt give a crap about multi gpu, the majority of their players have CRAP systems and run at crap res with crap settings, i know a guy who plays thats got a guild buddy who has 256mb ram win2k and some horrible s3 video card HAHA


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## rak526 (Mar 11, 2009)

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll give them a try after work. That nHancer program looks really good. Thanks again.

Edit: I do have the latest drivers... 182.08. I even reinstalled them after I put in the second card.


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## CheetoLover (Mar 11, 2009)

i have the 185.20 drivers


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## rak526 (Mar 11, 2009)

285.20? Beta drivers?

Even so, I still think an old game like WoW should work on drivers that are less that a month old.


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## kyle2020 (Mar 11, 2009)

rak526 said:


> Thanks for the tips guys, I'll give them a try after work. That nHancer program looks really good. Thanks again.
> 
> Edit: I do have the latest drivers... 182.08. I even reinstalled them after I put in the second card.



maybe try using the ones on the disc then? A bit of reverse psychology? haha


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## Ripper3 (Mar 11, 2009)

Over time, I accumulated a lot of upgrades, going from a low-end A64 3000+ with a GF6600, to what I have now. I must say WoW seemed to run best for me when I was on XP x64, with the X1950GT, and an A64 4200+, and just 1GB of RAM.
I have no understanding as to why, but that was how I found it. I ran better on my older system than it did on my C2D.
I tried anything and everything; trying to reduce latency, lowering the graphics, UPPING the graphics (sometimes you could just have a bottleneck at lower settings, so I figured I'd give it a try), new drivers, old drivers, ATi, Nvidia, AMD, Intel (for both chipset and graphics, and combinations of those). I tried it under XP SP1, SP2, Vista with and without SP1, Ubuntu with Wine, and even (though it ran absolutely horrendously) on my PowerMac G4 (just because it has two processors doesn't mean it runs any better), and still, it would run horribly.
I did notice one thing though, my old laptop with crappy X3100 graphics could actually run it pretty decently, even though it had a slow processor, 1GB of RAM, and was running Vista, and it had very low settings.

WoW really is a game that you just won't get running perfectly. Everything affects it. If you switch between WiFi and ethernet, your ping will increase slightly, usually enough to tip it over the edge. If you're in a busy city, even with a high-end card, you could sometimes see your fps dropping to near unplayable levels. If you happened to forget about a virus scanner in the background, even with a dual-core system, you'd get massive slowdowns (sort of an obvious one though, since it might be scanning the WoW directory, but either way, scanning any part of the hard drive that WoW resides on would slow it down also).

I think that if you're finding the fps playable, even if it might be borderline (the worst problem is when the animations stop, you get lag, and low fps kicking in both at once, and then all of a sudden you're darting forward, and being attacked. As long as that isn't the case, then I'd be less worried about it), I would just not mess with the settings much, it might make things far worse.


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## Pete1burn (Mar 11, 2009)

Same thing happened to me.  I started getting very low frame rates and stuttering.  A good defrag and general cleaning of the machine fixed it up.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 11, 2009)

The game runs like crap with my 4870x2, I got better FPS on my single Asus 4850 TOP. Just not a dual GPU game.


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## Evo85 (Mar 11, 2009)

For some reason (Blizz has never given a str8 answer) WoW doesnt do well with newer Video cards. I have seen many posts on the Tech forums about this. 

 I can tell you on my HD3850 I get 75+fps anywhere but Dalaran. But I am also only using a 19" WS LCD.


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## 3870x2 (Mar 11, 2009)

Ill agree that WoW is a weird beast, I get anywhere from 50 to 800 FPS on my 9800GX2.  Just keep tweaking with the settings til it suits you.  Also what res are you playing at?

Also, ping can affect your performance.

Looks like you have a Q9300.  Return the second GTX280 and get yourself a Q9650 or e8600.  The Q9300 will bottleneck your GTX280s real bad.  In fact, im willing to say that is probably your problem.
Depending on what game you are playing, the q9300 can have as little gaming power as a celeron e1200 or e2180/2200.

Hit me up when you figure this out, I am very interested in the fix.

the Q9300 has half the cache and clocks lower by far, and is usually not a good gaming performer.  If you cant get the 9650 atleast get the 9550 or e8600.  On non multithreaded games/apps your e8500/8600 will be your best bet, but a quad core is much more future proof.


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## Hybrid_theory (Mar 11, 2009)

When I'm just flying somewhere I get 100 fps. But in some combat ill be at 50. With a lot of people in dalaran ill hit 25.


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## The Haunted (Mar 11, 2009)

Back in the days i was playing wow, my s939 box with a x1900xt had no trouble maxing the game in 1680x1050 with aa on... Something is wrong...


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 11, 2009)

The Haunted said:


> Back in the days i was playing wow, my s939 box with a x1900xt had no trouble maxing the game in 1680x1050 with aa on... Something is wrong...



The game has gona through many improvements in just Burning Crusade alone. Then add WotLK where they increased the view distance massively and added in shadows and more tweaking.

Back when the game came out I had a friend who played the game *fantastically* on a I believe 1ghz PIII, Geforce 2 MX200, and like 512mb ram. You try that now and you will get utterly destroyed.

They haven't done massive steps to the graphics, but the minor things, spell detail, more foilage, realtime shadows. If you want to see how you current system does vs the old 939 and xtx1900 you had, go back to an Azeroth zone. Turn view distance to half, spell detail way down, and turn off shadows. Watch your FPS go up like crazy.


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## The Haunted (Mar 11, 2009)

The x1900xt was crusing smoothly in wow:bc if i remember well. i stopped playing after that.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 11, 2009)

BC didn't have realtime shadows and veiw distances was something tiny like 777y compared to now I think it's over 2000y.

If you want to make a good comparison you really have to go back to the old zones and run your old settings (they arent max settings anymore). Even go back to the BC zones, turn off shadows, cut view distance to under half. And see what your results are.


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## department76 (Mar 11, 2009)

like others said, wow is very sensitive to lag.  it is also very CPU dependant, but with your q9300, i'm guessing that's not the problem.  i'm think your problem is interent related, and/or you have a bogged-down wow server/realm.

on my server, with my rig, i get 40-60fps depending on location.  in dalaran, as low as the 20s.  i play at max settings and AF, 1680x1050, v-sync, and 4x AA.

then when i run instances (which run off of dedicated servers btw, not your regular realm server) i get 60fps constant with some slumps into the 50s.

try creating a dummy character on a low-population realm with the best connection you can find and see if the game runs better.


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## Hayder_Master (Mar 12, 2009)

gtx 280 eat WOW , what about WOW benchmark what you see in it , mmmm WOW use physics so try old nvidia drivers with ageia physics


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## rak526 (Mar 12, 2009)

3870x2 said:


> Ill agree that WoW is a weird beast, I get anywhere from 50 to 800 FPS on my 9800GX2.  Just keep tweaking with the settings til it suits you.  Also what res are you playing at?
> 
> Also, ping can affect your performance.
> 
> ...



The Q9300 can have that much effect on my GTX 280s? What if it's overclocked... mines at 3.3GHz 24/7 stable. I play a lot of newer games, and do a lot of video decoding and stuff, so I really would like to stick with a quad. I'll look into the 9650, but I don't think I'm gonna sell my other 280 just to get WoW running good. They just kill too much with every other game.



hayder.master said:


> gtx 280 eat WOW , what about WOW benchmark what you see in it , mmmm WOW use physics so try old nvidia drivers with ageia physics



WoW benchmark? Never knew there was one... I'll check it out.



Pete1burn said:


> Same thing happened to me.  I started getting very low frame rates and stuttering.  A good defrag and general cleaning of the machine fixed it up.



Defrags at least once a week, and I clean regularly using CC Cleaner.


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## jagass (Mar 12, 2009)

Maybe you can configure it...Or just don't play WoW in your desktop...lol


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## AlienIsGOD (Mar 12, 2009)

When I play on my 4850 all the settings are full or near full and i only pull 60frames.  mind u its a constant 60 fps tho.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 12, 2009)

Just pull out 1 of your 280's and run the game with 1 card. I bet you 5 cookies the game will run a ton better.


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## AlienIsGOD (Mar 12, 2009)

1Kurgan1....I noticed that after i took xfire off on my system (endede up selling other card) and it is defintely better.  i noticed stuttering and flashing when i had the 2 cards but after going down to 1 it is Very Playable at max settings


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## farid (Mar 12, 2009)

Hey I had the same "issue"on WoW, then I started to read up, just check if u have Enabled the Vertical Sync, once u Disable the V-Sync u will get more than 60FPS because when V-Sync is Enabled your FPS will be the same as your screen Refreshment Rate, at least it worked for me, I normally hit 50-60 FPS in Dalaran (take a look at my system spec), and when im on instances I get 90-120 FPS. Just try the disabling the V-Sync and see if it fixes your problem.

Good luck .


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 12, 2009)

AlienIsGOD said:


> 1Kurgan1....I noticed that after i took xfire off on my system (endede up selling other card) and it is defintely better.  i noticed stuttering and flashing when i had the 2 cards but after going down to 1 it is Very Playable at max settings



Yeah, like I said man I had much better performance just using a Asus TOP 4850 compared to my 4870. Which makes me sad a card with slower GPU, Slower Mem, and 1 less card and it performed better. Blizz ftl


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## ShogoXT (Mar 12, 2009)

Ive seen this alot actually. I didnt read everyones posts, but whats causing it is Wow's CPU usage. Wow doesnt care if you have a quad core. It wants a high clocked dual core ideally. If you OC that thing to over 3.5ghz, you will notice a MASSIVE FPS increase. 

This is most noticable in high population places. Sit around in dalaron with a old CPU and your comp will have a seizure. You will cruise if your a OC king at 3.8ghz.

Also off topic... DING 500 posts!


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 12, 2009)

ShogoXT said:


> Ive seen this alot actually. I didnt read everyones posts, but whats causing it is Wow's CPU usage. Wow doesnt care if you have a quad core. It wants a high clocked dual core ideally. If you OC that thing to over 3.5ghz, you will notice a MASSIVE FPS increase.
> 
> This is most noticable in high population places. Sit around in dalaron with a old CPU and your comp will have a seizure. You will cruise if your a OC king at 3.8ghz.
> 
> Also off topic... DING 500 posts!



Thats not the issue here though. I've ran this same CPU with my 4850 and played the game awesome, then my 4870 is on crutches. And others in this thread have played fine with one 280GTX and horrible with 2. 

It shouldn't play worse with 2, but the game doesn't use the 2nd one so it causes issues. OC'ing will help some, but it's just easier to not use the 2nd card.


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## CheetoLover (Mar 12, 2009)

shouldnt have to remove the 2nd card to get wow to play, just set the games profile to not use SLI.......


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## rak526 (Mar 12, 2009)

I've tried setting it not to use SLI, still the same fps. And my 9300 is clocked to 3.3GHz stable, would need to go to water cooling to get anything higher. Guess I'll just turn the settings down for now and pray Blizzard or nVidia do something to utilize the higher end GPU's.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 12, 2009)

Yeah that would work too, didn't even think about that so use to my 4870x2 and not having that option.


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## v12dock (Mar 12, 2009)

WoW is very picky when it comes to drives, my 9800gt runs as fast a GTX260. There is a registry hack out there, has to do with priory of the processor, that will increase your fps 10+


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## Melvis (Mar 12, 2009)

Something in WoW isnt agreeing with ya system thats for sure, my Brothers work computer has a 3600 X2 with a 7600GT running Ubuntu and he can run WoW MAXed out and get good enough FPS or as good as what you are getting now, was over a yr ago so just be memory. You should get FPS over 200 with your system, so something is clashing or making it run like a dog.


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## spearman914 (Mar 12, 2009)

GTX280 with 50fps in wow!?!?!? I can get 40 fps with IGP. Somethings definitely wrong. It's either the game or the drivers.


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## v12dock (Mar 13, 2009)

Side note huge FPS gains and load time gains in patch 3.1


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 13, 2009)

spearman914 said:


> GTX280 with 50fps in wow!?!?!? I can get 40 fps with IGP. Somethings definitely wrong. It's either the game or the drivers.



Thats 40 fps not in dalaran and with everything turned to min settings with probably a decent processor. My friend plays on a AMD 2500+ 512mb of ram and an IGP, in BC he was ok as long as it wasn't a capital or a raid, but he could make it by. WotLK he pretty much lags everywhere.


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## Papahyooie (Mar 13, 2009)

@alienisGOD: up your monitors refresh rate or turn off vertical sync and it can go above 60 fps.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 13, 2009)

He's running an LCD monitor, don't want to go over 60 fps with those.


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## Evo85 (Mar 13, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> He's running an LCD monitor, don't want to go over 60 fps with those.



Im curious Kurgan. Why do you say that? I mean other then screen tearing (The obvious) does it do any harm? Not contradicting you, I am just genuinely curious.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 13, 2009)

Yeah just the tearing, I have ran my 22" without vsync just testing and I never had any issues. But better to be safe. Plus 60fps is fantastic, you won't be able to tell anymore than that. Heck even running capped my 4870x2 (that doesn't use the 2nd GPU in WoW) when I'm running around by myself completely maxed out settings at 1680x1050 with vsync on it will be sitting at like 63 fps 

Oh and by the way anyone else see the new high res models in 3.1?







The biggest difference is in the leggings, WoW's always been pixelated there. Nice to see more detail for those of us that can push it.


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## CheetoLover (Mar 13, 2009)

now if they would only make the models higher poly so they didnt look flat/squared off


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## 1Kurgan1 (Mar 13, 2009)

Yeah, thats always got me a bit. Like look at the shoulder edge on the BE when she is sideways. Pointy shoulders?


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