Originally Posted by
Cilraaz
Pulling two side-by-side packs has been a staple of WotLK. There's no outside influence here, like in your AV example. If your computer's framerate drops at this spot, then this spot is where your minimum framerate is incurred. What next? Should we discount Marrowgar's Bone Storm, since the fluff on the floor causes framerate to drop? If we discount those two spots, my minimum framerate jumps to about 30 with my settings at ultra minus half shadows. I guess I could lie to myself to make myself feel better about my system.
The one setting that can be lowered that actually lowers stress on the CPU is view distance. Lowering view distance doesn't really do much inside an instance, since you've already got a limited view distance just by virtue of the instance being closed. Perhaps in RS it may help alleviate a small amount of CPU stress, but even there it would be minimal at best. For a better example of lowering view distance helping alleviate CPU stress, you'd have to go back at least an expansion to Zul'Aman. Then again, this was before the engine changes that put the extra stress on the CPU in the first place.