Low Framerate - Help!

[Cilraaz]

What makes them better? Core speed?, memory speed? arc?

Core and memory speeds are down on the list of important features for video cards at this point. More important are the number of stream processors, the kind of memory (GDDR3 vs GDDR5, etc), the memory interface (64-bit, 128-bit, 256-bit), etc.

Thoes programs dont support my processor, I did find one, fanspeed or something, that does. So I will get some numbers and get back to you guys. How can I use the program tho if I dont want it in the foreground? Just run laps of dala for awhile then tab to check?

Speedfan has an option for charting. Simply go to the Chart tab and check the box for your CPU temperature. Play for a while and then check the chart to see what temp you've spiked up to.

Is my chip "modern"?

To quote yourself, "I mean these chips are 7 years old now, when they came out gaming was great on them.".

I don't know if your chip has SpeedStep or any type of thermal protection. I don't know if the old Xeons have MMX, SSE, or any other kind of on-chip multimedia instruction. If not, that would explain poor performance.

I'm researching Xeon chips a bit more. It looks like the oldest Xeon dual core (at least that I could find) is from 2005. It was the Paxville core (7000 series Xeon). They had no L3 cache and were an LGA771/Socket 604 chip. The 7100 series added an L3 cache and were Socket 604 chips. They came out in 2006. The 5000 series also came out in 2006, but had no L3 cache. All of the above chips had a 667MHz FSB (top end 7000 chips were 800MHz).

After that were the 3000 series (Conroe), 3100 series (Wolfdale), 5100 series (Woodcrest), 5300 series (Clovertown)... and it keeps going. Basically, it'd help to know what series chip you have to get an idea of its capabilities.

[luck2828]

I am pretty sure its 2mb, and 800mhz. I ran CPUz and it said the same thing

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/6780/cpuinfo.png

I cleaned my computer. There was quite a bit of dust but no one area was too bad...except the video card. The intake heatsink was covered with a layer of dust. I cleaned all that out. I move the computer back to the floor.


I am going to get some raid 25/dala info when I can for temps, its too calm now to do testing and I have other work to attend too.

EDIT:

Due to a lack of success with Intel's Itanium and Itanium 2 processors, AMD was able to introduce x86-64, a 64-bit extension to the x86 architecture. Intel followed suit by including Intel 64 (formerly EM64T; it is almost identical to AMD64) in the 90 nm version of the Pentium 4 ("Prescott"), and a Xeon version codenamed "Nocona" with 1 MB L2 cache was released in 2004. Released with it were the E7525 (workstation), E7520 and E7320 (both server) chipsets, which added support for PCI Express, DDR-II and Serial ATA. The Xeon was noticeably slower than AMD's Opteron, although it could be faster in situations where Hyper-Threading came into play.

A slightly updated core called "Irwindale" was released in early 2005, with 2 MB L2 cache and the ability to have its clock speed reduced during low processor demand. Although it was a bit more competitive than the Nocona had been, independent tests showed that AMD's Opteron still outperformed Irwindale. Both of these Prescott-derived Xeons have the product code 80546

so how do I know if this function is on or off?

[Cilraaz]

Looks like yours is an Irwindale core...

A slightly updated core called "Irwindale" was released in early 2005, with 2 MB L2 cache and the ability to have its clock speed reduced during low processor demand. Although it was a bit more competitive than the Nocona had been, independent tests showed that AMD's Opteron still outperformed Irwindale. Both of these Prescott-derived Xeons have the product code 80546.

So, basically, you're sitting on a 5 year old CPU that was outperformed by an Opteron 5 years ago. I looked up a benchmark of your CPU. It's not looking good. It was slightly outperformed by a 2.13GHz Celeron. I'm thinking the Xeons are your bottleneck.

[luck2828]

So I have to get a new CPU. Can I replace the current one with a newer Xeon? I am pretty much stuck with the Xeon because of the 604 mPGA socket I have.

Do you think the 3.6GHz Xeon would hold me over for awhile?
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_look...l+Xeon+3.60GHz

A) I dont really have the cash right now...but replace the CPU or just go for a whole new computer? Do you think its worth it to keep this system going or at this points its too old to try to keep alive?

B) Hope blizzard fixes whatever they did when uldar came out, they kinda started to do with procs--->auras.

[Cilraaz]

I think it really depends on how much that new Xeon would cost, but, frankly, I don't think it would do much good.

As a comparison, my old system (well, 2 systems ago) was a Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz) and was barely passable (to me, at least) in WoW. It scored a 733 on PassMark's scoring system. That Xeon 3.6GHz scored a 621.

I don't think Blizzard can "fix" what they changed with Ulduar. They made systematic changes to update the graphics engine of the game. I'm pretty sure the changes were intended.

[luck2828]

I just think going from 50-->3 fps in one patch signals something isnt right. But it is just a dream, I know they wont fix it .

I'm kinda wondering if I should just use my laptop. Vista with only 2gbs on a laptop makes me cringe, but the video card is Quadro FX 570M with a 2.2Ghz Core2 duo T7500
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_look...00+%40+2.20GHz

Problem is it DOES overhead and just turn off.

Well thanks for the help guys. I might have some more info later, and if anyone else has comments please post.

Thanks

[Cilraaz]

Sorry that I couldn't be more helpful. The laptop may get you better performance, though. I'd try it out. The worst that would happen is you lose the time it took to install.

Also, you might look into a laptop cooling pad. You can usually pick a cheap one up at the local computer parts store for $20. Some more advances ones (that would contain fans, etc) can run quite a bit more.

[vesseblah]

Many laptop cooling pads are a scam and very noisy. Those will drop temperatures maybe 5c at best making it more or less useless in serious overheating problems. It's recommended to be really careful when picking one if the primary use is cooling and not just having a nice stable place to keep it on your lap.

[kumduh]

I've had a ~$25 Antec cooling pad for about a year and a half now and I've noticed it's not performing nearly as well as it used to, so I definitely agree.

[None]

Many laptop cooling pads are a scam and will drop temperatures maybe 5c at best making it more or less useless in serious overheating problems. It's recommended to be really careful when picking one if the primary use is cooling and not just having a nice stable place to keep it on your lap.

You obviously don't understand the use of a laptop cooling pad.

What a decent laptop cooling pad does is push more air through the laptop externally so the hot air isn't being kept on top of the CPU/GPU. What this does is keep a cool airflow going through the laptop, the ambient temperature in the case of the laptop should lower significantly at higher usage. Overall the CPU temperature over a long period of gaming should be significantly lower (5 - 15 degrees Celsius lower).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834997340
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834998686
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834994097
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834997410

These are four of the stronger coolers with very strong fans.

[luck2828]

Sorry that I couldn't be more helpful.

Dont say that you were very helpful, thank you very much for the input. I am sad my computer is "dead" after only 5 years, but at least weve hit a brink wall or two in computer parts; prices arent as terrible as they use to be. If and when I plan the building of a new wow pc I will be back for help .

I will play around with my laptop, ive used it a couple times but never really looked two hard at it.

And thanks for the suggestions, but I have a cooling pad, I put the laptop on 4 cold coke cans . Thats whats worked best, but if I have an external monitor I just prop the laptop up on the four corners and its worked so far. But if I put it on a table or flat surface it crashes within 30mns, be it wow or L4dead or any other CPU intensive thing.

My real concern is that the laptop only has 2GB of ram, maybe look into ram prices for laptops.

[vesseblah]

You obviously don't understand the use of a laptop cooling pad.

What a decent laptop cooling pad does is push more air through the laptop externally so the hot air isn't being kept on top of the CPU/GPU. What this does is keep a cool airflow going through the laptop, the ambient temperature in the case of the laptop should lower significantly at higher usage. Overall the CPU temperature over a long period of gaming should be significantly lower (5 - 15 degrees Celsius lower).

Yeah, thanks for explaining that moving air lowers temperature. I wouldn't have known that otherwise :P

Point was, and still is that the laptop pads are not a long term solution for serious overheating problems that makes laptop crash constantly during normal use. That much overheat sounds more like mechanical or design failure in the device itself if it's used in approved environment. Most likely source is too much dust clogging the fans and heat sinks inside the laptop itself, and for that any external pads are just a band-aid to mask the real problem.

Few real uses to get one of those pads include:
-better typing position
-insulate the hot laptop from skin
-stable place to keep the laptop while typing
-extras, such as speakers, usb hubs and some additional cooling

If you're using a laptop 'cooling pad' for overclocking or something silly like that, you're doing it all wrong.

[vesseblah]

My real concern is that the laptop only has 2GB of ram, maybe look into ram prices for laptops.

2 gigs is fine for WoW. Give it a shot and see how it compares to the old desktop. You have got nothing to lose. And remember you don't need to actually re-install WoW, you can even start it straight out of 16 gig USB stick or any other external writable drive.

[Slothanator]

It doesn't have to be your system if you search blizzards forums there are plenty of people who have went from great or decent fps in 25 mans to total shit since the release of 3.3

[Cilraaz]

It doesn't have to be your system if you search blizzards forums there are plenty of people who have went from great or decent fps in 25 mans to total shit since the release of 3.3

Those are from people who don't understand that ICC features some of the most complicated (from the back-end) fights that Blizz has released yet. That means more number crunching, which means more CPU/GPU stress. People who were already on the low end of the CPU/GPU spectrum are feeling that now.

[vesseblah]

Those are from people who don't understand that ICC features some of the most complicated (from the back-end) fights that Blizz has released yet. That means more number crunching, which means more CPU/GPU stress. People who were already on the low end of the CPU/GPU spectrum are feeling that now.

There are few stress tests in WoW to see how your PC can deal with things for some quick & dirty benchmarking.

#1 - 25-man Onyxia... If you can keep FPS playable when whelps spawn, you're fine. This is one of the best ways to detect missing CPU power, because that's what's needed there. GFX card plays very small part. If you can stay online and at playable FPS with "many whelps" achievement, you don't need faster CPU for WoW.

#2 - 25-man Twin Val'kyrs in ToC... The floating balls as well as Light/Dark vortex will push both CPU and GPU to as high as it goes in raiding at the moment. I also had an incompatibility issue which caused game always crash like a clockwork there (reported few times, but no official confirmation from blizz).

[luck2828]

2 gigs is fine for WoW. Give it a shot and see how it compares to the old desktop. You have got nothing to lose. And remember you don't need to actually re-install WoW, you can even start it straight out of 16 gig USB stick or any other external writable drive.

See thats the thing, every other game runs better on my desktop, which is why I have always used it for gaming. Tropico3(RTS) and L4D2(single player) seem to run worse. Tropico a lot worse. Wow is unique in it needing so much CPU power.

And I have to kinda agree with Slothanator; I think what blizzard did in the middle of an expac is extremely irresponsible especially when your marketing to a crowd that you know has bad computers. WotLK is the first time I have ever had guildmates tell me they couldnt switch toons because they logged out in dala and now that it was prime time their toons were unreachable.

Dala is really the perfect example: They made a tiny city so people could see eachother, instead of a spreadout city with less lag. I mean the difference between the lag on dala, and in the sewers is a huge difference. Imagine how much better it would be if people could fly, and the city was more spread out.

2 - 25-man Twin Val'kyrs in ToC... The floating balls as well as Light/Dark vortex will push both CPU and GPU to as high as it goes in raiding at the moment. I also had an incompatibility issue which caused game always crash like a clockwork there (reported few times, but no official confirmation from blizz).

Are you sure? ToC is the one 25man that is actually playable on my computer, ~15-25fps for most of it. All the fights in ToC about the same on this computer.

I am with you on Ony, I usually DC unless I do not look at the drakes being aoed, even then its a prayer.

[Cilraaz]

See thats the thing, every other game runs better on my desktop, which is why I have always used it for gaming. Tropico3(RTS) and L4D2(single player) seem to run worse. Tropico a lot worse. Wow is unique in it needing so much CPU power.

Actually, L4D2 has benchmarked as very CPU reliant, as well. I'm not sure about Tropico3 though.

[luck2828]

Actually, L4D2 has benchmarked as very CPU reliant, as well. I'm not sure about Tropico3 though.

I think its a ram issue. Desktop has 3.5GB with vcard, laptop only has 2gb total and it has to deal with vista.

But it has to be less reliant than wow at least because I dont have problems with it.

[vesseblah]

Dala is really the perfect example: They made a tiny city so people could see eachother, instead of a spreadout city with less lag. I mean the difference between the lag on dala, and in the sewers is a huge difference. Imagine how much better it would be if people could fly, and the city was more spread out.

That's why I keep hearthstone in the sewers inn always. Game loads much faster.

Also bank & mailbox are closer to HS spot than on the official alliance/horde inns.
And you can get faster to ICC via the sewer exit than the regular flight point in Dalaran.