Choppy FPS with new upgrade GPU

[Lathais]

You are doing it wrong sir. Whoever told you to use fixed volts/disable speedstep is stuck in the 2000's.

Disabling Speed Step is still a good idea. It really depends on the motherboard, but in some motherboards(mine included) it can make you OC unstable. On mine it made OCing past about 4.2 unstable. With it disabled, I was able to get up to 4.6 and still be stable.

[Deng]

This is almost entirely wrong. The only part that is correct is the overclocking the CPU will help. WoW is not single threaded. It runs two large threads, a smaller third thread, and many other micro-threads.

Yes, it's not single threaded, yes it runs many micro-threads, no, it doesn't run two large threads, at least not on the modern overclocked CPU's, the second thread is 2/3 of the main thread at most.
Look at the clocks in the following chart. WoW runs on Core4, with the 2nd biggest thread on Core5 and some supporting stuff on Core3.
GPU was bored to death at that time.
I can disable SpeedStep completely and run all cores always at 4,5GHz but it doesn't change a thing - only one core is used at 100% with some stuff going on other cores but to a much lesser extent.
Also - HFC is not a problem, Suramar is. That single core performance of Core4 in my case is the biggest gain of fps everywhere.

[Fascinate]

Disabling Speed Step is still a good idea. It really depends on the motherboard, but in some motherboards(mine included) it can make you OC unstable. On mine it made OCing past about 4.2 unstable. With it disabled, I was able to get up to 4.6 and still be stable.

Nah speedstep wont do that, you had other issues likely not running adaptive voltage. This is how these CPU's are designed to OC, with volts and clocks ramping up and down together.

[Cilraaz]

Yes, it's not single threaded, yes it runs many micro-threads, no, it doesn't run two large threads, at least not on the modern overclocked CPU's, the second thread is 2/3 of the main thread at most.
Look at the clocks in the following chart. WoW runs on Core4, with the 2nd biggest thread on Core5 and some supporting stuff on Core3.
GPU was bored to death at that time.
I can disable SpeedStep completely and run all cores always at 4,5GHz but it doesn't change a thing - only one core is used at 100% with some stuff going on other cores but to a much lesser extent.
Also - HFC is not a problem, Suramar is. That single core performance of Core4 in my case is the biggest gain of fps everywhere.

So you say no, then agree with me? A main process thread and a second that is approximately 2/3 its size (2 large threads), a thread about 1/16th to 1/8th the main process thread's size dedicated to sound (a smaller thread), and many micro threads. That's exactly what I said. You're conflating core usage with thread size, also. Changing core speed also doesn't change core utilization unless the lower core is completely maxed (and sometimes not even then).

Raids are more of a problem for the CPU than an open zone like Suramar. The drops in Suramar (and less notably in Val'sharah) are poor optimization of specific world areas, not a choke point of any piece of hardware.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing.

[Deleted]

View distance, knock it down to 7, and knock down the SSAO to a setting below, this gpu should be able to handle the AA at 2xMSAA, also the OP is noticing choppyness outside raiding so the situation is largely GPU bound, also as no one has pointed it out, you are running on windowed mode/borderless windowed.

Run the game at fullscreen for full performance, windowed mode doesn't provide a smooth experience since it has to run windows at full tilt and not focusing the full resources of your hardware into the game.

[Deng]

So you say no, then agree with me? A main process thread and a second that is approximately 2/3 its size (2 large threads)

It's 2/3 of the main thread at best
I perfectly understand that changing speed doesn't change utilisation.
I'm just saying and you seem to agree that:
- when the one core is maxed out the logical progression path is to increase its speed
- the engine is poorly optimised and most likely nothing can be done about it due to complexity of it and its age (but still they managed to use more than one core)
- there's no cpu on the market that will provide stable 60 fps with all settings maxed out, whether we are arguing about raids or Suramar it doesn't really matter

we only disagree that the cpu is not the chokepoint because from my point of view looking at this old engine - it is (single core performance).

[Cilraaz]

It's 2/3 of the main thread at best
I perfectly understand that changing speed doesn't change utilisation.
I'm just saying and you seem to agree that:
- when the one core is maxed out the logical progression path is to increase its speed
- the engine is poorly optimised and most likely nothing can be done about it due to complexity of it and its age (but still they managed to use more than one core)
- there's no cpu on the market that will provide stable 60 fps with all settings maxed out, whether we are arguing about raids or Suramar it doesn't really matter

we only disagree that the cpu is not the chokepoint because from my point of view looking at this old engine - it is (single core performance).

- I agree with your first point.
- For your second point, the engine isn't poorly optimized. It's as optimized as it can be. There are very specific areas that are not properly optimized and cause frame rate drops. That's not an engine optimization issue.
- For your third point, I partly agree. It really boils down to what's being argued. 100% frame rate of 60+ isn't reasonable to expect. It's fairly easy to maintain 60+ at 1440p or lower 95% of the time, though.

The engine is also highly rewritten with each expansion. It's nowhere near the same engine released in 2004.

[Lathais]

Nah speedstep wont do that, you had other issues likely not running adaptive voltage. This is how these CPU's are designed to OC, with volts and clocks ramping up and down together.

Yes speedstep does that. I can do it right now with my 4.4 OC. If I turn speed step on, it becomes unstable. I turn it back off, just fine. I change nothing else at all, I am running adaptive voltage.

[Fascinate]

Yes speedstep does that. I can do it right now with my 4.4 OC. If I turn speed step on, it becomes unstable. I turn it back off, just fine. I change nothing else at all, I am running adaptive voltage.

Its not speedstep causing that for you. My guess is you set the offset too low so it wasnt getting enough volts when idling, common issue new overclockers run into.

[Deleted]

It probably shouldn't be... since it's almost entirely incorrect.

its not incorrect. for playing wow you Need a dual core cpu with a high core Speed. so dualcore with high core Speed > 4,6,8 core cpu with lower core Speed.

dont see why this is incorrect?! but teach me, my mind is open for new informations.

[Cronik]

Can we at least rule out the following?

Driver uninstaller the previous driver? (DDU on google?)
Did the user of the GTX 980 set it to perform performance?
Did the user ensure that he selects single or multi display?
Did the user ensure that he seats the graphics card correctly, and all power pins are hooked up?

this performance sounds poor just in general.

I run a GTX 970 with 10 with everything up besides SSAA. Hell, my 2nd machine with a 2500k and a R9 270X runs at 7 and does okay

[Deleted]

Nothing is wrong, there's no CPU that can run WoW at 60 fps with all the sliders turned to 10.
This is an old patched engine that runs mainly on only one CPU core, GPU is secondary. Your best way to improve your performance is to overclock as much as you can because of single core performance.

Actually I run wow at setting 10 at 60-90 FPS but I do drop to like 35 FPS ina couple of zones, especially val'sharah. Because of that I much prefer setting 7 and FPS range 90-144 (on a 144Hz display). Using overclocked i5-6600K and GTX1080 G1 Gaming from GigaByte with small OC.

But yeah, this is mostly CPU side when there are many people on a screen.

[HuxNeva]

I run on a very old laptop at very low settings. Until last week, I had no 'chopping'. Then it started. Every few seconds, the game would hiccup for about half to a full second. What changed? Was it the 11 October patch? It seemed to start right around then. Was it updates to Windows, or updates to some addons which I always keep up-to-date with Curse? No time to do a root cause analysis, but disabling a few addons and completely reinstalling the video driver made it go away.

[Cilraaz]

its not incorrect. for playing wow you Need a dual core cpu with a high core Speed. so dualcore with high core Speed > 4,6,8 core cpu with lower core Speed.

dont see why this is incorrect?! but teach me, my mind is open for new informations.

What you originally quoted stated single core, not dual. The thinking that core speed, particularly strong IPC, is more important than the number of cores is correct, however dual core should be a minimum. The idea that the game runs "mainly on one CPU core" is just false. You can see earlier posts regarding the games threading for my stance on that. Also, the logic of "no CPU can do 60fps" is dated. Yes, there will be momentary drops under 60, regardless of hardware, but maintaining 60+ during an overwhelming majority of the time is easily doable with today's hardware and a good overclock.

[Denpepe]

What you originally quoted stated single core, not dual. The thinking that core speed, particularly strong IPC, is more important than the number of cores is correct, however dual core should be a minimum. The idea that the game runs "mainly on one CPU core" is just false. You can see earlier posts regarding the games threading for my stance on that. Also, the logic of "no CPU can do 60fps" is dated. Yes, there will be momentary drops under 60, regardless of hardware, but maintaining 60+ during an overwhelming majority of the time is easily doable with today's hardware and a good overclock.

While I agree with you, there will still be people on this forum that say that if you play for 100 hours and dip for 0.5 sec below 60fps during that time that you can't sustain 60 fps all the time and that your claim is false (not too mention the settings used).

[Deleted]

Mate remove ssao, nothing eats fps like that shit and it looks the same.

[TheDeeGee]

Set View Distance and Environment Detail at 7 the rest at Max.

Also you want that 4670K at atleast 4,2 GHz to rule out any bottlenecking.

Happy 60 FPS!

If you want to be even more Solid you could drop Liquid Detail from Ultra to Good, which disables the World Reflection on the Water.

Mate remove ssao, nothing eats fps like that shit and it looks the same.

Naah, SSAO in WoW doesn't do anything to FPS. Tested it On and Off and the FPS remains the same.

It's View Distance, Environment Detail and Liquid Detail that are the FPS hits.

[Deleted]

Dont you have 144hz screen? I cant have my fps below 144 to get the full use of mine.

[Toffie]

I had some problem with fps drops and weird choppiness in open world, with my machine that can tackle every game at highest detail no problem - that didn't seem quite right.

Problem was fixed as soon as i put view distance down to 6-7. Maybe try that?

[Vazza]

This is almost entirely wrong. The only part that is correct is the overclocking the CPU will help. WoW is not single threaded. It runs two large threads, a smaller third thread, and many other micro-threads. In addition, my i5 2500k has been able to maintain 60fps the vast majority of the time (when parsed post-7.0 in HFC, I was over 60 96.7% of the time with a minimum of 48fps). My settings are preset of 10, 140% render scale (base resolution of 1080p), 8xMSAA, and forced MFAA.



It probably shouldn't be... since it's almost entirely incorrect.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but since it aligns with a question of mine, I felt no need to create one anew.
After the latest nvidia driver, my FPS in wow dipped noticeably in certain situations, and I couldn't figure out what was the cause. DDU'ed this driver, installed the previous one, but the dip persisted. I finally noticed geforce experience had scrambled ("optimized") the game settings after the driver update, and discovered - after scouring this thread - my render scale was up to 180%, instead of the above poster's suggestion for 1080p, the resolution which I play in. Toned render scale down to 140% and, guess what, my FPS seem back to normal. What's the deal about render scale? I hadn't noticed this option in all these years of playing wow, to be fair.