Cataclysm System Expectations

[vesseblah]

I run wow @ 1440x900. So far anyhing i do i still have a nice playable framrate. Im just worried that, with the new effects, on top of a 25m raid will slow wow down to where it becomes less enjoyable.

Right now in Cata as well as current live you would be limited by CPU before graphics card in raid. Adding second graphics card wont help at all since you have such a low resolution.

[Prognxt]

Right now in Cata as well as current live you would be limited by CPU before graphics card in raid. Adding second graphics card wont help at all since you have such a low resolution.

Oh good, my I7 950 handles wow perfectly, i also plan on upgrading my ram or adding more. I currently have a corsair dominator 1333mhz 6gb ddr3 (3sticks @ 2gb.) The reason i want to upgrade js because i was playing crysis, and i noticed i was using 5.90 gb of ram. So with ddr3, and without lowering overall ram performance, how would I add more memory?

[llDemonll]

buy larger sticks?

also to the person who posted, theres 0 point in upgrading 1 notch for a video card (let alone getting another to run together. wait until ati releases their next generation of cards, you're already on the second-to-top tier for this generation, no point in wasting money.

[Dethh]

and i noticed i was using 5.90 gb of ram.

What?

[Prognxt]

I was using 99% of my 6gb of ram

[vesseblah]

I was using 99% of my 6gb of ram

Common mistake that people do not understand with Windows Vista and 7. It uses all available RAM always for disc caching. Most shitty resource monitors show misleading or wrong numbers. If you start Windows Task Manager, you see four numbers under Physical Memory: Total, Cached, Available and Free. Total means how much you have installed, mine for example says 4063 (4GB). Cached 1286 is how much is used for disc cache. Available 1466 tells how much is free if any programs ask for it. And finally Free shows just puny 218.

Your resource monitor shows that "free" number which is wrong. "Available" is how much RAM you actually have free if Windows drops the disc caches, and it will drop the cache immediately if some program needs more memory.

[Grawlix]

System tab
Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC
Processor: AMD Turion(tm) X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-75 (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Display tab
Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
Driver Version: 8.762.0.0
Driver Date: 8/18/2009 3:15:58 AM
Driver DDI Version: 10
DirectDraw Acceleration: Enabled
Direct3D Acceleration: Enabled
AGP Texture Acceleration: Enabled

I'm not great with hardware, lol. Do you think I could run Cata on this setup with at least low-medium graphics?

[vesseblah]

Low yes, medium probably not. It has weak CPU and integrated graphics.

Also your video drivers are year old. Fix it.

[Grawlix]

Low yes, medium probably not. It has weak CPU and integrated graphics.

Also your video drivers are year old. Fix it.

Thanks, and the driver date was a typo on my part, it's actually from 8/3/10. Ty

[Deleted]

He just choses parts that are an overkill for WoW (HD 5850) and hopes that they will work.
As for the beta... Well, it's not very reliable source of information about system performance right now.

I dont see any links to any1 beeing on Beta, and your sig tells me you are not on beta either.So where do you get the information that this is the setup that people will need?

Various guild members are in the beta actually, and im going off what they have shown me. Also, i dont think your being fair, your arguements are based on wow in its entirity on the LIVE servers, theres alot of new stuff coming in Cataclysm, and some decent hardware is required.

[llDemonll]

yes, and its namely all processor unless blizzard changes some core way in which the game runs

[Cilraaz]

yes, and its namely all processor unless blizzard changes some core way in which the game runs

Actually, a fair bit of the new stuff appears GPU-bound, like the new water. I have no way to test this to be absolutely certain, though. My wife and I are both in beta, so I could try to come up with some kind of test, but we have too many loose variables. Our CPUs are different architecture (i5 vs C2D), our GPUs have different DX capabilities (Radeon 5770 vs GeForce 8800GTS G92)... I'm not certain I could come up with anything definitive either way.

[Daeveren]

But anyway wow doesn't have a synthetic fps benchmark in game which is why it is never used as a benchmark.

If blizzard does put a benchmark in game I can promise that the popularity of wow will make it a regular benchmark.

WoW does have an ingame benchmark, just different of the classic benchmarks we got used to. When going in the "benchmark mode", the wow engine disables all the NPCs, mobs and players that would have been in your viewing range. Yes, this is by far the "ideal benchmark", but neither you could properly benchmark something if one time when you ran the benchmark there were 5 mobs alive and 10 players on your screen and the 2nd time you run the benchmark there were 0 mobs and 0 players on your screen. The thing that makes WoW a very different benchmark is not that feature described previously, though. It's the fact that you can use the benchmark quite everywhere in the game world.

@Moobious - the ingame WoW benchmark is exactly what you've said - a synthetic fps benchmark. It's not a "real raiding gameplay conditions" benchmark, just a synthetic one.

This is how you enable the benchmark mode:
- type /timetest in the chat window
- take a flight from a fligh master to another flight point
- take a flight back to the original flight master (to have an "even" benchmarking
- analyze the data report that's being posted in your chat window once you land

Basically the benchmark will calculate, for whole flight duration the minimum, maximum and average fps for that flight. It's also recommended to run the same flight "backwards" and also note that once you fly from point A to point B, when you fly from point B to point A you won't get the same fps - depending on the location where you chose to run the benchmark, it might happen that from A to B you see the sea and less land, while flying from B to A it might happen that you see less sea and more land/trees/objects on your screen.

A fast benchmark can be ran in Howling Fjord, between Westguard Keep and Kamagua.

Do note that since the benchmark disables any player/mobs models of being displayed on your screen, its results are in no way accurate to what's happening in a 25 man raid during a bossfight. Though, the benchmark actually lets you test how various settings in the video options affect your fps and why not, it lets you compare the results between multiple PC configurations, providing they all use the same flight points to benchmark.

If you're running on a PC where you have fps problems and don't just want to disable all the settings in the video optins, this ingame benchmark will greatly help you to find a balance between disabled settings and a decent fps - it's up to you to test and see for yourself how the settings affect your fps.

[mistake]

Oh, my goodness, I feel very sorry for anyone who stumbled upon this thread in the process of upgrading their system with holiday cash, or adding parts to their wish-list.

World of Warcraft does not require a thousand dollar (or pound if you're a redcoat) computer to play on ultra. Not even close.

A mainstream graphics card, and a mainstream/enthusiast processor (quad core) is plenty enough to run this game on ultra without any Multisampling. The 6850/6870 (AMD Radeon) and above, and Nvidia's GTX 460 (1 GB DDR5) and above is plenty, if not overkill for this title. Now, whether you want to play with 8x Anti-aliasing and 16x Anisotropic filtering and Ultra shadows is up to you. As far as "Ultra" quality, the components the OP suggested is far too overkill. A mid-range quad core and an enthusiast level i7 system has very little effect on video game/application performance.

My recommendations (I am a software engineer by day, and even bigger geek by night):

Processor,
Intel Core i5-750 or higher
AMD Phenom II X4 955 or higher

Graphics Card,
AMD HD Radeon 6850 or higher
Nvidia GTX 460 (1GB DDR5 model) or higher

A decent aftermarket CPU heatsink for overclocking, at least 2 GB system memory for 32-bit Operating Systems, and 4 GB system memory for 64-bit Operating Systems. If you are playing on a monitor with resolutions beyond 1920x1080 and 1920x1080, then you probably don't need to read this forum to solve your performance issues.

High-end storage has very little performance gain on WoW, with the exception of instance loading times. Even the fastest solid-state drive technology out there will NOT improve your frame-rates.

To the original poster, do your homework before telling someone to spend 1500 dollars for a game mostly based on directx 9 texture rendering.

[Zoroash]

Just like'd to say I already run at Ultra no problem @ 60 FPS with an i5 760 and a GTX 260.

[OneQuickSS]

Alot of this all depends on what you're willing to live with. I get anywhere from 25(dalaran)-60(questing/instancing) fps with a dual core cpu and an 8600GT vid card. I keep most settings on good and shadows, water and sunshafts turned down and spell detail on ultra and I'm very happy with the performance. Although I do plan on upgrading my system at the beginning of the year sometime, after all I am a man and you can never have too much power

[spandex]

To be fair Daeveren, world of warcraft IS particularly cpu intensive compared to other games, but you are right.. don't need an i7 to play wow

OneQuickSS above me is a great example, we have the same GPU but my CPU is a single core athlon 3500+, and I can't even come CLOSE to the settings/performance he described. I have nearly everything on minimum and in a place like dalaran I am lucky to break double digits.

[Pdiamond]

Honestly, I don't see why you would have the i5 760 in the "Medium/High" build. I have mine overclocked to 4ghz with a 1gb GTX 460 using 4gb of 1600mhz ram and it has taken every game I have thrown at it on max settings while recording with Fraps. Is there really a need to get an i7 if the i5 760 can easily be overclocked to 4ghz?

[Xuvial]

What's that cooling fan in Ultra? I haven't even heard of Xilence cooling, zero reviews and I can't find it on newegg - stay away from coolers which nobody seems to have bought/tested.

Current great choices for CPU air coolers include (from most expensive to least):
Noctua D14
Zalman CNPS10X
Noctua U12 or Noctua U12 SE2
Zalman CNPS9900 LED or Zalman CNPS9900 NT
CoolerMaster Hyper212
etc etc

IMO the sweet spot is Noctua U12 or Zalman's CNPS9900 LED/NT, both are capable of keeping your CPU chilly at ~20-30% overclocks.

Also, OCZ GameXStream 850W doesn't seem to have the best feedback. Stick to Corsair, Silverstone (specific brands), Thermaltake (TOUGHPOWER ONLY), etc. You reeeealy do not need anything more than a good-quality 750w PSU, even with everything overclocked to the max, unless you plan on running Crossfire/SLI with two very high-end cards (pointless for WoW).


HD5850 is also not a very good buy right now, either buy HD57xx (for the best bang for your buck) or jump straight to HD68xx (6850 is IDEAL).

[Dethh]

Oh, my goodness, I feel very sorry for anyone who stumbled upon this thread in the process of upgrading their system with holiday cash, or adding parts to their wish-list.

World of Warcraft does not require a thousand dollar (or pound if you're a redcoat) computer to play on ultra. Not even close.

A mainstream graphics card, and a mainstream/enthusiast processor (quad core) is plenty enough to run this game on ultra without any Multisampling. The 6850/6870 (AMD Radeon) and above, and Nvidia's GTX 460 (1 GB DDR5) and above is plenty, if not overkill for this title. Now, whether you want to play with 8x Anti-aliasing and 16x Anisotropic filtering and Ultra shadows is up to you. As far as "Ultra" quality, the components the OP suggested is far too overkill. A mid-range quad core and an enthusiast level i7 system has very little effect on video game/application performance.

My recommendations (I am a software engineer by day, and even bigger geek by night):

Processor,
Intel Core i5-750 or higher
AMD Phenom II X4 955 or higher

Graphics Card,
AMD HD Radeon 6850 or higher
Nvidia GTX 460 (1GB DDR5 model) or higher

A decent aftermarket CPU heatsink for overclocking, at least 2 GB system memory for 32-bit Operating Systems, and 4 GB system memory for 64-bit Operating Systems. If you are playing on a monitor with resolutions beyond 1920x1080 and 1920x1080, then you probably don't need to read this forum to solve your performance issues.

High-end storage has very little performance gain on WoW, with the exception of instance loading times. Even the fastest solid-state drive technology out there will NOT improve your frame-rates.

To the original poster, do your homework before telling someone to spend 1500 dollars for a game mostly based on directx 9 texture rendering.

So you made this account to bump a 2 month old thread?