High-end system not able to cope with WoW

[Deleted]

Hello,

Last week I made a topic about my GTX 980 not performing as it should. Given the answers by others and viewing the benchmark I concluded that it had to be the game engine that wasn't able to cooperate with my system. Sadly tho, I cannot even participate in the Ashran PVP battle because my fps sinks to ~20 whenever I look towards the fight.

The topic that I made last week can be found here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...g-as-it-should. It contains some common answers and benchmark results.

System specifications:

Case Fans: 3x Corsair Air Series SP120
Processor: Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz (should be overclocked at 4.2GHz)
Processor cooling: Corsair H100i Watercooler + 2x Corsair SP120 Fans
Motherboard: ASUS X99 Rampage V Extreme
RAM: 16GB Corsair DDR4 2800MHz
Storage 1: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
Storage 2 (WOW Location): Seagate 1TB HDD 7200RPM
GFX Card 1: Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 by manufacturer Inno3D - (I believe its overclocked, not sure)
Power supply: Corsair 1000RM Watt
Monitor: 2x IIYAMA ProLite GB2488HSU (144MHz, 2ms, 1920x1080px resolution)

WoW is set to Ultra (everything is highest). No v-sync.

I did some more digging this afternoon in Ashran, and found out my FPS was 60 (also very low) when I was looking away from the battle (obviously less stressful). When I was looking away my GPU load was around 45 to aroound 65%.

However, the moment I looked towards the fight (which should be more stressful), the load went down to around 30% and the fps obviously went down with it to 20 to 30 fps, with occasional drops and spikes, anywhere in the range of 4 fps to 56 fps while the GPU load maintained around 30%).

A screencapture of GPU-Z and Windows Resourcemonitor can be foundright here.

Now, the specs of the system shouldn't be any problem, it is all brand new which is why I figured it must be WoW the last time I made a topic. Benchmark tests score well above 'high-end' and therefore it must be some kind of setting, power-related issue (??) or anything else. It doesn't look like it's faulty hardware to me, but a confirmation on this would be nice.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone has any thoughts on how to improve this. The system should be able to run WoW on ultra while rendering video's and even then still laugh about it. At this moment I feel like it's crying under the load of a 10 year old MMO-engine.

If there are any other tests, specs or details required I'd be happy to provide them, aslong as I get above the damn 60 fps while I'm in combat.

Edit: I am now 'Limited by GPU Utilization', according to GPU-Z whilst having 17 FPS...

Thanks in advance.

- Wiztik

[ComputerNerd]

The idea of a constant 60fps in wow on ultra settings is a myth.
As soon as any moderate number of players are involved, then even high-end hardware can struggle.
I unfortunately cannot speak from experience of anything remotely close to that hardware, but you should really try compromising on some of the graphics settings.
Shadows are one of the first you should try lowering.

[Arbiter]

Track your loads on each CPU core while playing WoW during those intense situations. Chances are you're going to find one core maxed out and another somewhere around 50-100% load IIRC.

Honestly I don't know how crowded that zone is for you, but if it's pretty crowded then it's normal. You're GPU isn't going to be fully utilized in any area where there is a CPU bottleneck. I recommend recording some footage of our FPS and the situations you're in. The reason it's scoring just fine on benchmarks because nothing is wrong with the system. An expensive 6 core processor isn't going to make a difference compared to a cheap dual core processor at the same clock speed when the game will never come close to utilizing those cores.

The biggest problem is people think that in WoW, better GPU means more FPS and it's simple just not the case. After something like a 750 ti anything better is just going to get bottle necked from the CPU in intense situations, and the only thing that can help that is overclocking the CPU is high as you can get it.

Hows the system holding up in other games? I'm really hoping you didn't actually believe that spending that much money on a system was going to give you +60 fps in raids/bgs/etc.

- - - Updated - - -

Have you done a clean install on the game since WoD was released? Could help as some people had issues with the file system being changed and all.

Also, is this just areas like Ashran or is this in closed instanced raids and such as well? It kind of matters considering 25 people using abilities in a closed instanced raid puts a toll on a high end PC so I'd imagine 50-300 people duking it out in a single area would do much worse if that's what Ashran is looking like.

[potis]

People always tend to forget that WoW is a 90% CPU based game on an engine that is almost 14 years old now since 2015 is approaching.

It doesnt matter what hardware you have, the engine is old it CANNOT utilize the new CPU's as effectively as it should and therefor there are bottlenecks.

If you dont wanna lag in intense situations aka Ashran the solution is simple:

Turn View Distance down (In large PvP areas like Ashran this is important)

Turn Shadows Low.

You already tested your PC with 3D mark there isnt much more you can do apart from the things i mentioned above.


Also, having that CPU and that Cooler and only 4.2Ghz is an insult to everyone

[Wries]

Ashran battles can get pretty big, can't they?

To determine CPU-bottleneck, look at GPU load during low-fps sessions, if it's up at 100% (=GPU neck) or not (CPU neck). Not CPU-load. No core may show as 100% utilised and it may still be a CPU-bottleneck.

[Deleted]

I haven't bought the system just to play WoW stable on Ultra. But seeing the specs, it should be able to cope with it. The zone i mentioned was Ashran, full. So about 100 players seems right.

At this stage I'm suffering the same issues at the lowest graphics. On the picture I linked of the graphs (http://i.imgur.com/DaQYwb0.png) you can see 'Processor 7' is struggling the most, but it was never maxxed. All the processors under it (8 to 12) were parked or at 30% load max.

The system has not been used before 6.0 came out, therefore I installed with the 6.0 files from launcher.

In my own garrison I've about 70 to 80 fps while my GF has around 110-120 fps in the exact same spot, while her system (see my earlier topic at http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-as-it-should) should be slightly less powerful.

Any other thoughts/comments? I'll go and install Call of Duty or something to check fps in those games, although I will not play the game

Edit:

Also, having that CPU and that Cooler and only 4.2Ghz is an insult to everyone

So, what do you recommend? :P


Edit 2:

To determine CPU-bottleneck, look at GPU load during low-fps sessions, if it's up at 100% (=GPU neck) or not (CPU neck). Not CPU-load. No core may show as 100% utilised and it may still be a CPU-bottleneck.

My GPU load is never even near the 60% :|

Edit 3:
After I returned from typing this I sat in my garrison at a staggering 203 fps :|

[potis]

I haven't bought the system just to play WoW stable on Ultra. But seeing the specs, it should be able to cope with it. The zone i mentioned was Ashran, full. So about 100 players seems right.

At this stage I'm suffering the same issues at the lowest graphics. On the picture I linked of the graphs (http://i.imgur.com/DaQYwb0.png) you can see 'Processor 7' is struggling the most, but it was never maxxed. All the processors under it (8 to 12) were parked or at 30% load max.

The system has not been used before 6.0 came out, therefore I installed with the 6.0 files from launcher.

In my own garrison I've about 70 to 80 fps while my GF has around 110-120 fps in the exact same spot, while her system (see my earlier topic at http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-as-it-should) should be slightly less powerful.

Any other thoughts/comments? I'll go and install Call of Duty or something to check fps in those games, although I will not play the game

Arent you running two screens compared to her?

If you arent, have you set the nvidia 3d settings to focus on single screen during games?

Also, just because you have a "better" CPU, doesnt mean its better for games.

4690K is better for games than 5960X as example and should be equal to yours since they are both pretty much the same Hz.

Just check the heavy games.

Download Ryse, Download Shadows of Mordor, download whatever heavy game of the last generation to check like BF4/Crysis 3 etc.

Whining about WoW performance is pointless.

Also, put your games in the SSD..

Your scores from the previous posts, indicates that everything is running fine and you need to just run heavier proper games to realize it runs fine.

[Replica]

Backroll your 980 driver - the newer ones had some problems with Bnet games.
Also if you have a backup GPU around - try loading that and see if anything changes, your card be shittered.

[Voley]

I'm facing the same issues with 980.

My config is 4690k, Gigabyte 980 gtx, 16 gb RAM and game on SSD.

My settings are Ultra, CMAA.

In garrison and outside I usually see 90-100 fps, same in 5 mans.

In Ashran this drops to 40.

In molten core I had around 50.

In 25 man raid yesterday I had as low as 20 sometimes, on mushroom boss.

This is pissing me off, since I got high end system and can't even run 10 year old game on ultra. I see that people say that the game is CPU limited, should I overclock mine to see better FPS?

What else can I do? Disable shadows?

[Deleted]

Disable shadows is a good start, but if you're not OC'ing your CPU, then you're losing out on some performance there.

In addition, I'd check your drivers and your startup.ini configuration for WoW.

[Voley]

What exactly do I need to check? Drivers are latest.

[kingpinuk880]

this is wow, in heavy action areas you never get good fps. i have i5 3570k and a gtx 970, while questing away on my own i can get 200 fps, while raiding / ashran is sinks to 25-35fps. its the way it is, no amount of hardware can keep it up.

[Wries]

Getting a bit nervous if something may be wrong with Maxwell-GPUs vs Warlords. Seen plenty of threads about it, now.

My 980 arrives today, will do some rigourous testing tonight and see if it's really all "regular CPU bottlenecking" or if something is wonky compared to my previous card.

What exactly do I need to check? Drivers are latest.

I've heard elsewhere that old driver version 344.65 works best. Worth testing.

[Deleted]

I think something is off with Warlords performance. GTX 970 and i5 3570k (4.4ghz), I get some small drops even in my garrison (2-10 below 60). It's nothing major but quite annoying. Fullscreen mode is unplayable for me with all the stutters (tried with fps cap only, vsync only, vsync and triple buffering on etc.) whereas Windowed Fullscreen is a much smoother experience. GPU utilization never passes 75% from my testing.

[Deleted]

People always tend to forget that WoW is a 90% CPU based game on an engine that is almost 14 years old now since 2015 is approaching.

It doesnt matter what hardware you have, the engine is old it CANNOT utilize the new CPU's as effectively as it should and therefor there are bottlenecks.

If you dont wanna lag in intense situations aka Ashran the solution is simple:

Turn View Distance down (In large PvP areas like Ashran this is important)

Turn Shadows Low.

You already tested your PC with 3D mark there isnt much more you can do apart from the things i mentioned above.


Also, having that CPU and that Cooler and only 4.2Ghz is an insult to everyone

It DOES matter what hardware you have, provided that hardware that matters can run old instruction set really really fast on single thread, so 5930k is pretty much useless for this.

[Jimson]

Also, having that CPU and that Cooler and only 4.2Ghz is an insult to everyone

So, what do you recommend? :P

You've spent a lot of money for a late-model processor and liquid cooling, then let Cyberpower (or whoever you bought it from) apply a flat 20% increase to the multiplier. With liquid/air cooling you should be able to move past that with almost literally no effort. I can't speak to your CPU, but from forums and testing a 4690k can handle ~25% increase on air alone.

[fixx]

People always tend to forget that WoW is a 90% CPU based game on an engine that is almost 14 years old now since 2015 is approaching.

Why do people continue with this myth? Every line of the code that affects performance has been rewritten hundred times during that 14 years, and all MMORPGs suffer from the same problem of CPU bottleneck in crowded areas, not just WoW.

[Arbiter]

Why do people continue with this myth? Every line of the code that affects performance has been rewritten hundred times during that 14 years, and all MMORPGs suffer from the same problem of CPU bottleneck in crowded areas, not just WoW.

Should probably be mentioned that while you are right the age of the engine is partially the reason why the game only takes advantage of 2 cores. A lot of MMOs that are being played today still use old engines. SWTOR uses the HeroEngine which was several (and I do mean SEVERAL) years old even then. If the engines were updated or if the games just plain used newer engines to where we had support for 4+ cores, our performance would be substantially increased. Can Blizzard update the engine to support the extra cores? Yea...they just don't seem to feel the effort is worth it. Kind of like how we couldn't fly in Azeroth for the longest time because they didn't have the time or care to remodel Azeroth's environment to allow for flying without clipping into blackness.

I'd for one be happy to see an MMO that takes advantages of all cores.

[TaurenNinja]

WoW is actually quite hardware demanding when you play things like 20+ man raids or battlegrounds/World PvP. I also have a fairly recent system and while I thought I could reach constant 60 fps I can't as well. It's good that base hardware requirements are low, because otherwise everyone would have performance issues in raids or in capital cities.

I would start by disabling anti-aliasing, maybe my eyes are too used to aliasing but I pretty much see no difference in-game, and it's one of the most performance intensive graphical features. Also: shadows, vision distance, SSAO and other things can impact performance heavily.

Also, capping fps at 60 ensures a smoother gameplay (no abrupt jumps between like 25 fps and 100 fps) and also reduces stress/load/heat on your GPU.

[Ganador]

DISABLE SHADOWS


This will greatly increase your framerate.