Legion performance at 4K is... bad?

[Tommi]

You bcan't run render scales abouve 100% with AA. If you change render scale abouve 100%, then AA is disabled. I'm running 200% render scale on a 2560x1440 monitor and I see NO jaggies at all on anything, and still get abouve 60FPS. Infact, i've locked my FPS to 65 via console and it very rarely dips. i7-4790K@4.4Ghz, gtx 1080@2Ghz

[coprax]

Indeed, but 7 out of 10 looks worse than live and gets about the same performance. The distance textures are especially blurry at 7 out of 10, compared to Ultra settings on live. Setting it to 8 out of 10 and performance starts to dip below live's FPS.

have you tried 16x AF?
Demanding settings at 8 and above are mostly the ultra shadows and the greater object/foliage draw distance. Also HBAO+ has a huge performance impact, at least on my old card.

[Tickrate]

Damn, I hope I can still run over 60fps without the need to change too much of my settings in legion. I have a 4k monitor, but still run two 680's. Currently i'm at 80~ fps average with low 60's in big cities or raids. I prioritise view distance and texture quality over shadows and AO. OP just play with some of the settings, often having highest settings in a game are often not worth it, especially when some changes that impact your fps significantly don't result in a noticeable change in graphic fidelity.

[Tommi]

have you tried 16x AF?
Demanding settings at 8 and above are mostly the ultra shadows and the greater object/foliage draw distance. Also HBAO+ has a huge performance impact, at least on my old card.

Even on a 1080, HBAO has a hugh performance impact.

[Deleted]

Titan X wasn't really built for high end 4K graphics.

I have 1080 sli and I only have fps issues in zones that are still not properly optimized, ie the tree in shalanar.

[coprax]

You bcan't run render scales abouve 100% with AA. If you change render scale abouve 100%, then AA is disabled. I'm running 200% render scale on a 2560x1440 monitor and I see NO jaggies at all on anything, and still get abouve 60FPS. Infact, i've locked my FPS to 65 via console and it very rarely dips. i7-4790K@4.4Ghz, gtx 1080@2Ghz

why locked at 65 and not 60?

[Turaska]

GPU is largely irrelevant when it comes to WoW, WoW chews through CPU power like Google Chrome chews through ram however.

[Ghâzh]

Just tried again, 0x AA versus 4x MSAA results in *maybe* a 1FPS difference sitting in my garrison on the PTR. 45FPS vs 46FPS on "10" preset.

Are you sure you aren't forcing AA from Nvidia control panel?

[Deleted]

GPU is largely irrelevant when it comes to WoW, WoW chews through CPU power like Google Chrome chews through ram however.

[Nevcairiel]

Turn off Ultra Water (Liquid Detail), it eats performance like candy in water-heavy areas. "Good" Water practically looks the same except some reflection of landscapes, but in Val'sharah it can literally give me 30 fps or so (incidentally, its also set to Ultra on 8-10)

Otherwise, you get what you sow by gaming in 4K in 2016, its just not there yet, sorry!

--
What the others have said does apply however. WoW still uses much more CPU then it uses GPU, or more specifically, its bad at multi-threading. You can of course pick an area thats more GPU heavy (ie. empty of players) to do a GPU benchmark, but thats only part of the picture.

[Turaska]

Those results aren't relevant without the CPU that was used in the test. Trust me, WoW is more dependant on a good CPU than a top end GFX card.

[tyrindor]

Titan X wasn't really built for high end 4K graphics.

I have 1080 sli and I only have fps issues in zones that are still not properly optimized, ie the tree in shalanar.

Yeah I had this card well before I got 4K, I will be getting 1080Ti (or two) when they release but going from Titan X to 1080 doesn't seem worth it.

Are you sure you aren't forcing AA from Nvidia control panel?

Yes, even did a clean driver install.

[coprax]

but the lowest-fps threshold is mostly cpu bound, what does it matter if you have 100 or 150 fps on average but fall below 30 in a raid environment?

[Grimbolt]

Using anything higher than 2xMSAA is a waste. Heck, most people and their current gen 4k monitors wont need any form of AA at all.

[coprax]

Using anything higher than 2xMSAA is a waste. Heck, most people and their current gen 4k monitors wont need any form of AA at all.

I recommed CMAA, gives me 20% more fps than 2xMSAA and looks the same.

[tyrindor]

Using anything higher than 2xMSAA is a waste. Heck, most people and their current gen 4k monitors wont need any form of AA at all.

I just flew around and tried more areas, I can easily tell the difference between 2x MSAA and 4x MSAA even at 4K on distance objects - so I still disagree. If you have the power it is very worth it.

I also saw in some areas of the game (areas with lots of grass mainly) any form of AA does tank the performance. Nagrand for example the difference is almost 20FPS, while in my garrison it's only 1FPS. FXAA high/low doesn't seem to do anything but slightly blur textures. CMAA looks alright, but has almost the exact same performance hit as 4x MSAA (strange, far as I know it shouldn't). 2x MSAA looks worse than CMAA (also strange).

but the lowest-fps threshold is mostly cpu bound, what does it matter if you have 100 or 150 fps on average but fall below 30 in a raid environment?

Your lowest FPS will not be in raids using the default legion presets. It will be traveling around the world with the 3x increased draw distance and massively increased ground clutter density. These are handled by the GPU, not the CPU.

[Fenryn]

but the lowest-fps threshold is mostly cpu bound, what does it matter if you have 100 or 150 fps on average but fall below 30 in a raid environment?

The point is that stronger graphics cards still add alot of fps, hence the game is not bottlenecked by the CPU but by the GPU, if it was bottlenecked by the CPU you wouldn't gain more fps with a stronger GPU.

[Tommi]

why locked at 65 and not 60?

Locking at 60 seems to want to stay between 55fps and 58fps. It's weird as hell coz locking to 65 gives a solid 65fps.

[Dukenukem]

The point is that stronger graphics cards still add alot of fps, hence the game is not bottlenecked by the CPU but by the GPU, if it was bottlenecked by the CPU you wouldn't gain more fps with a stronger GPU.

this suffers as WoW gets more demanding on CPU when in raid than standing in city.
The relevant results would have to be in Mythic raid on pull.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Just tried again, 0x AA versus 4x MSAA results in *maybe* a 1FPS difference sitting in my garrison on the PTR. 45FPS vs 46FPS on "10" preset.

It's really strange... You would think there'd be a huge hit but there's not.

Our experinces are very different then. I am running WoW beta at 4k with a 980ti (not all that different than the TitanX) and I get a good 8-10 difference between the settings. Also when just sitting in my garrison I peak up around 60-80 (flux's around that depending on lighting effects etc on screen when moving around). In cities and certain encounters it kind drops to the 40-50 range. A few times in really crowded situations I am dipping to mid/upper 30's.

I have a few thoughts. Not garantees but worth looking into.

Drivers might just not be jiving right now. A reinstall might help.

then my second thought..

Maybe your nvidia panel is set up nicely for standard WoW (the outside of the game thing) but is totally stock setup for WoW beta (two different things in there from what I can see in there, for me at least).

My setting were the same. But it might not be the case for you. If that isn't it than I am not totally sure after that. I know the view distance thing will and most certainly should drop the rate. It only makes sense right.