WoW's CPU usage.

[Malcor]

Those are my PC specs.

I have noticed that WoW tends to hover around anywhere between 7-23% depending on where I am.

Sometimes when I am in the shrine per say, I am at between 13-19% CPU and it makes my fans spin a little faster. If I am in a Scenario or LFR it tends to go higher. Maybe 24% at max.

Is there any reason why my WoW is so CPU intensive? Or is that just the way it is? I mean my computer is about 2 1/2, maybe 3 years old at this point but I don't think WoW has caught up with it JUST yet, I hope anyway.

I do also usually have twitch.tv in the backround or youtube. Which usually adds like.....1% more CPU. But it's mostly all WoW.

At times it sounds like my computer is going to launch into space. And that's annoying lol.

[Soisoisoi]

WoW isn't that CPU intensive, but AFAIK it only runs on two cores (though I think there is a way to change it).

[Yohassakura]

http://i.imgur.com/m0zUqGG.png

Those are my PC specs.

I have noticed that WoW tends to hover around anywhere between 7-23% depending on where I am.

Sometimes when I am in the shrine per say, I am at between 13-19% CPU and it makes my fans spin a little faster. If I am in a Scenario or LFR it tends to go higher. Maybe 24% at max.

Is there any reason why my WoW is so CPU intensive? Or is that just the way it is? I mean my computer is about 2 1/2, maybe 3 years old at this point but I don't think WoW has caught up with it JUST yet, I hope anyway.

I do also usually have twitch.tv in the backround or youtube. Which usually adds like.....1% more CPU. But it's mostly all WoW.

At times it sounds like my computer is going to launch into space. And that's annoying lol.

1.) No graphics card listed...
2.) 5-30% is nowhere near CPU intensive.
3.) It's more likely to be your GPU fans which causes the noise, rather than your CPU fan/cooler. - You could try getting a better heatsink (I assume you have the baseline Intel one) which shouldn't really make any noise, unless it's super dusty so it's over heating.

[chazus]

1) Wow is -very- CPU intensive, or rather, CPU bound. What that means is you get the most performance out of a better CPU. A mid grade $180 GPU will pretty much get all the performance out of WoW that it can. That really doesn't answer your question, though.
2) Even though WoW is CPU bound, it won't always push it to the max. That's... not how software works. My 4.5ghz 3570K, on 'ultra' in LFR, will probably only hit about 30-40%.
3) If it sounds like your computer is going to "launch into space", I would check your temperatures with HWMonitor or COreTemp. It may just be a crappy fan, the fact that it's a dell, or there is an actual heat problem unrelated to the game. The Dell XPS Desktop line is notorious for having poorly attached or assembled CPU fans.

[Killora]

2) Even though WoW is CPU bound, it won't always push it to the max. That's... not how software works. My 4.5ghz 3570K, on 'ultra' in LFR, will probably only hit about 30-40%.
.

Has nothing to do with software. It has to do with how much memory needs to be accessed in order to do calculations. The more memory needs to be accessed (frequently or in large quantities) the less the CPU can work because RAM is far slower than the CPU.

Pure math based calculations work the CPU to it's limit because it doesn't require large amounts of RAM fetches. A good example of this is Simcraft. Theres two reasons WoW doesn't use a significant portion of the CPU. 1.) Frequent ram fetches and 2.) One thread is heavily loaded down and thus one core has to do the majority of the work. You may look at your CPU usage and notice it's spread reasonably even, but that's because the task is being switched around constantly. X core is doing Z calculation and then X core yields to Y core and Y core resumes Z calculation. It's supposed to keep heat down.

[chazus]

Has nothing to do with software. It has to do with how much memory needs to be accessed in order to do calculations.

I meant more that... Just because something might be "hard" doesn't mean it will necessarily use up 100% cpu if your cpu isn't strong enough.

[kidsafe]

Please note that if Windows is reporting Wow using 23% CPU on an i7-930 w/HT, it is probably pegging one of your cores. This is the biggest source of FPS drops in a raid setting, and why even my 4.8GHz i7-2600K + 1100MHz HD 7970 drops below 40fps at times.

[Deleted]

is there a multi core usage fix for wow?

[BicycleMafioso]

is there a multi core usage fix for wow?

Not that isn't already built-in.

The engine uses 2 cores heavily and a few threads otherwise sporadically. 23-25% ~= 2 cores (/threads) at 100% out of 8 on an i7 seems more than reasonable

[kidsafe]

is there a multi core usage fix for wow?

For very minor FPS increases on HyperThreading enabled processors, you can still set a core affinity in the config.wtf file.

2 physical, 2 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "5"
4 physical, 4 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "85"
6 physical, 6 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "1365"
8 physical, 8 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "21845"

Some would argue that you should leave the first physical core for system resources on >2-core processors. in which case you would use decimal values of 84, 1364 or 21844 instead.

[Thes]

For very minor FPS increases on HyperThreading enabled processors, you can still set a core affinity in the config.wtf file.

2 physical, 2 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "5"
4 physical, 4 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "85"
6 physical, 6 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "1365"
8 physical, 8 virtual cores - SET processAffinityMask "21845"

Some would argue that you should leave the first physical core for system resources on >2-core processors. in which case you would use decimal values of 84, 1364 or 21844 instead.

What about 6 physical, 0 virtual? :P

[kidsafe]

What about 6 physical, 0 virtual? :P

Then you have no need to mess with core affinity masks at all. If you want to force WoW not to use "core 0," then you would use a value of 62.

[vesseblah]

24% in a 8 core (4+HT) processor means 1/4 or two real cores are maxed out and the rest unused which is totally normal.

Very few games use more than two cores effectively because it's not really possible without having heavy AI or physics (for example) running on the other cores. The main part of any computer games (figure out what keys/mouse commands user put in, refresh the game world accordingly and then tell graphics card to draw the screen) can not be splitted into multiple cores no matter what. Second core in WoW and most other games can be used to run things like networking and sound engine that can be done "on the side" without causing any input lag locally.

What about 6 physical, 0 virtual? :P

Don't touch the affinity setting then, because anything you change can only make things worse.