2 gb ram ?

[Airlick]

1) You would need a better Processor to achieve a higher frame rate in World of Warcraft, Dual, Quad, Hexa they're all good.
2) 2GB of ram is essentially the minimum needed to use Windows 7
3) Your 9600 GT is decent enough to play World of Warcraft at 1440 x 900 with medium settings, however your processor is going to limit the View Distance drastically.

Basically I'd start by buying a 2GB kit or 4GB Kit of memory (Kit's are generally better since they're the same manufacturer and memory batch) and then throwing something like an Intel E5400 into your motherboard assuming you're on the 775 platform. However if your processor is even older then the 775 series or you're on an AMD 1.8GHz or below my best piece of advice is telling you to go either to Core i3 or Corei5 and upgrade to DDR3 with a new video card doing this will result in a better gaming experience for at least another two years.

I have Gforce 9600 GT, 2.7 ghz dual core processor, 2 GB ram, and I am playing on highest possible details without any problems, keep your PC clean, don't use many addons and you are good to go. Maybe that's because I am using Windows XP. I have yet to see raids in Cata though, they might make me lower my settings a bit.

[pateuvasiliu]

a single core and a old gpu...i guess you dont expect to raid or do pretty much anything lol, like everyone else says you need a new cpu and might as well get a new vidcard while your at it, the ram wont help much. it seems like you havnt upgraded in 10 years and boxing day around teh corner, just invest in a new computer.

fixed,not even my first PC which i got in 2000 was so weak

You need a better PC if you wanna do BGs,raids and the new Wintergrasp(i forgot the name)

[skyclops]

If you cannot afford a upgrade there is still ways of speeding up your pc
delete all old games remove any old crap you dont use
defrag
then over clock-please research this before hand but it can add some more bang for buck in your pc

[wyldeice]

Why do poeple have to be so elitist about video cards? I play on a 9600GT with 512MB video memory and the game plays fine on high settings, yes even in 25 man raids. Sure it is nice to have a $400 video card, but for some that is not an option.

On topic, another GB of ram will help your performance, depending on what OS you are on it might help more than you think, Vista and 7 both throttle themselves down with low amounts of ram.

I say go for it, if it doesnt help much you are only out what? $20 for the extra stick of ram if that.

[taran111]

Single core processor is gonna hold back most gains you make. However, ugrading your graphics card will make the most noticeable difference. I spent the first 2 years of WoW playing on a 512MB ram dinosaur.

[Niter]

2 GB should help quite a bit. Not only because of the game itself but because of the ease on your operating system. Windows eats memory like a child eats candy, so having more of it means that your Windows will work better.

One of the machines I have at home has a Geforce 8800GT, 2 GB RAM and the processor is an Athlon 64 X2 (real clock should be around 3000).

The games runs smoothly, in WotLK I was able to raid with most things in Ultra settings except for Shadows (Medium). I get 65 to 75 FPS in 90% of the areas and when it drops a bit it never goes below 40 FPS. WoW is not a very demanding game at all and I can play the game while my other PC is rendering the stuff I work with.

From what I have seen Cataclysm demands a bit more, but the only place that actually dropped my FPS was Ashenvale Forest while flying. Trees there seem to be a problem. Even then my lowest FPS there was 34. Not a problem at all.

WoW is definitely memory and GPU hungry mostly, but even with many visual improvements it still is lightweight.

Another thing to keep in mind is that running into crowded areas will almost always slow down your FPS quite a bit regardless of your computer. It is not just your computer working there. You connection plays a part, client-server communication plays a huge part. You can play something very old like Ultima Online, Ragnarok Online, even WoW with the lowest possible settings and you will still have severe slow-downs when an area is overcrowded. My other computer is a lot better than the one I mentioned and in peak hours I was happy to get 30-40 FPS in a crowded Dalaran.

[Ulfhedinn]

Upgrading your current situation is pointless. You are better off building/buying a new PC.

My guess is this is the best answer. Your processor looks like its old, just guessing though since you didn't give numbers. If it is you probably also had DDR, which is expensive compared to DDR2 and DDR3.

Can't be sure but with the parts you have but you should be able to build a new computer for around $300(maybe even less) if you reuse your HDD, OS, Case, Video card and CD/DVD that will run wow much better than what you have. Or you could spend 30-80 on memory upgrades that wont do much at all.

If it is only high population areas like Dalaran and Org that are causing problems I would just save my money and build a nice computer. Those areas have a lot of people moving around, casting spells, etc., they are hard on your computer.

TL;DR: If you have DDR do not upgrade, it costs to much. Only upgrade if you have DDR2 or DDR3 and even if you do you wont see much of a difference.

[taran111]

By the way, I'm fairly certain that if you even get within 10 miles of Vasj'shir your computer will explode. Just a warning!

[ragingsoul]

go read this
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/world-...iew-32061.html
at least you'll have an idea.

and btw, who said it's graphic card dependent.. it's not at high settings.


you clearly see the bottle-neck those cards have, and that's with an Intel Core i7-980X o/c @ 3,73 GHz ..

Everything depends on your resolution and what settings you want to play with (medium, high, ultra).

also, there is a lot of difference at the moment between intel's cpu and AMD. This also can affect you if you have an amd




You can clearly see that your single core CPU is limiting your system, even more if you have an AMD, through I guess it's gonna be fixed with new drivers.

[Icpie]

If you cannot afford a upgrade there is still ways of speeding up your pc
delete all old games remove any old crap you dont use
defrag
then over clock-please research this before hand but it can add some more bang for buck in your pc

Overclocking an old P4(or w/e CPU he's using) wouldn't be a huge performance boost especially with a stock cooler which would limit him to around 3.6 ghz max.

Oh, to the person recommending Windows 7, you'll only be able to run the 32-bit version if you're going to get 2gb of RAM. Just a heads up to the OP if you're planning on upgrading. Speaking on upgrading. If you want to upgrade an old computer, just buy the main components for a new rig. It'll turn out much better for a fairly low price depending on where you buy. (CPU, RAM, MOBO and possibly a power supply and/or a hard drive)

[gingerlemon]

WoW uses rather out of date programming techniques - that is, it pushes 90% of the work to the CPU, and even worse, only one core!

A single core P4@4Ghz will give you better performance than a 2.2Ghz Dual Core, or a 3.0Ghz Quad Core etc etc.

This is done so the game can be played by the lowest common denominator, that is pc's running on integrated GPUs.

Over the years they have made some improvements such as letting the second core do some work - namely addons, and pushing some effects to the GPU (water effects etc)

But yeah, upgrading your ram isnt going to make much difference.

It's all about that CPUs clock speed and FSB.

[Deleted]

A 2nd gig would help a lot, my girlfriends old rig sounds a similar spec to that, and she manages to get pretty decent fps.
All her lag issues went after i put windows 7 on for her from vista.

[jgrooms272]

1) You would need a better Processor to achieve a higher frame rate in World of Warcraft, Dual, Quad, Hexa they're all good.
2) 2GB of ram is essentially the minimum needed to use Windows 7
3) Your 9600 GT is decent enough to play World of Warcraft at 1440 x 900 with medium settings, however your processor is going to limit the View Distance drastically.

Basically I'd start by buying a 2GB kit or 4GB Kit of memory (Kit's are generally better since they're the same manufacturer and memory batch) and then throwing something like an Intel E5400 into your motherboard assuming you're on the 775 platform. However if your processor is even older then the 775 series or you're on an AMD 1.8GHz or below my best piece of advice is telling you to go either to Core i3 or Corei5 and upgrade to DDR3 with a new video card doing this will result in a better gaming experience for at least another two years.

Now onto the next part.



Horrible idea, most 2 x 1GB Kits or (2GB Memory Bundles) are Dual-Channel using a third stick of memory is going to disable your dual-channel feature and that will result in a loss of performance in most situations. In addition 10 FPS in 25 mans is common, it's why 10m is still popular. If you want a decent FPS in 25m's you're either going to need a somewhat powerful Dual-Core or a decent Quad-Core with World of Warcraft running on the fourth core's affinity.

The point was to get a configuration of 2x1GB if he was going to do the upgrade. I wouldn't recommend that he use 3 sticks either.

25m Minimum System (This is based on my opinion)
Core i3 540 - 3.06GHz - 4MB of L3 Cache
3GB of DDR3 1333MHz Memory (Corsair, Mushkin, Some Patriot sets are decent choices)
GTX 460 - 768mb model

My brother plays on a far lesser system with no issues in raids. Old Athlon 64 X 2. 2GB DDR2 RAM . 8800GT 512MB. With everything on ultra with the exception of water which I don't believe will let you go beyond high or good with DX9. The actual game world tends to be more demanding than any raid I've ever been in.

World of Warcraft isn't a graphically demanding game until you get 25 people involved.




1) Your phenom is bottle necking your GTX 460 - Decent processor, but the GTX 460 Architecture would take better advantage of Core i3, Core i5 or the new Six Core AMD Processors.
2) Your RAM is bottle necking your GTX 460 - Upgrade to at least 2GB, Recommended 4GB to stop the Bottleneck between the CPU and the Memory interfaces.

I run 2x4GB (8GB) of DDR3 1333 of system ram. The 1GB refers to the version of GTX460 as there are 768mb and 1gb versions. The six core AMD wouldn't increase performance much as they are basically the same architecture with additional cores and the turbo boost which increases the clock speed a few hundred Mhz. I'm not seeing a bottleneck from my existing CPU...if the GPU was requesting info from the processor faster than it could supply it, it would be doing more than lolligaging around 35% and that's why I do see an increase in CPU usage on more demanding games.

[Deleted]

You can clearly see that your single core CPU is limiting your system

Thats some pretty horrible interpretation of those graphs.

[Ulfhedinn]

By the way, I'm fairly certain that if you even get within 10 miles of Vasj'shir your computer will explode. Just a warning!

My laptop could handle 25 mans with low graphics. When I tried to fly over Uldum my laptop started to cry. The new areas are not old crappy computer friendly, my laptop is proof of that.

[ragingsoul]

Thats some pretty horrible interpretation of those graphs.

did you read the article?

Because we're already working with significantly lower average frame rates (compared to the Intel processors), we don't need to test as many CPUs here. Overclocked to 3.7 GHz, our mystery Phenom II X6 isn't able to add any additional performance, suggesting that clock rate isn't our bottleneck here. In fact, it's the lack of cores and cache that seems to hurt the two Athlon II chips most.

Although every single benchmark result on this page is generated with the help of a GeForce GTX 480, frame rates drop under 40 FPS on the Athlon II X2 system. There's simply not enough processing horsepower in the Athlon II or Phenom II lineups to let our graphics card stretch its legs.

Could it be a problem with Nvidia's GPU? We dropped a Radeon HD 5870 in with our Phenom II flagship to check and came up with 59.19 FPS in the same test (a mere 1.31 FPS difference). Clearly, AMD's CPUs are holding back performance in Cataclysm compared to Intel's processors.

unless new drivers come out and fix this, this is one of the problem right now.

[taran111]

I wasnt even aware that they made three or five core processors. I am a sorry excuse for a nerd.

[Deleted]

did you read the article?

Yes I did. I'm saying you're not understanding them.

To clarify - you say that the "Single Core" is holding the system back. Technically - those graphs have nothing to do with that - as those graphs STRICTLY REPRESENTS THE SCALING CAPABILITY of WoW when used with a system capable of working multiple threads at the same time (whether this is via SMT, multiple physical cores, multiple processors - or a combination of).

Yes his processor is holding him back because its weak; but technically its not holding him back because its single core.

[Hanto]

I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB of ram back in the vanilla days thinking it was going to be some huge awesome difference. I saw very little change but it was, at the least, noticeable. I forgot what kind of CPU I had back then (this is back like 7yrs ago) but I read then that CPU performance was more desirable than ram. Now I'm sitting at a 2.3ghz quad with 8GB of ram and a 9800GT. The card is outdated but I still run fine on high because the CPU is pretty decent. I upgraded from Windows 7 32-bit to 64-bit recently because I had the 8GB sitting in there with half of it being untouched due to the version difference. I have to say that even with the extra 4GB, the difference is hardly noticeable (though it just may be me, I don't play with many addons). I can, however, have a TON of things running at once, which is nice when I need it, I suppose.

Like everyone has said though, it's better that you invest your money in one of a few things:
1) A new PC (probably the best option)
or
2) A new GPU + CPU, or if you can only do one, the CPU.

[ragingsoul]

Yes I did. I'm saying you're not understanding them.

To clarifly - you say that the "Single Core" is holding the system back. Technically - those graphs have nothing to do with that - as those graphs STRICTLY REPRESENTS THE SCALING CAPABILITY of WoW when used with a CPU capable of handling multiple simultaneous threads (whether this is via SMT or multiple physical cores).

Yes his processor is holding him back because its weak; but technically its not holding him back because its single core.

yes, I agree those graphs don't mean it's cpu related, but as you can't pass 30 fps no matter the graphic card on a single core, the first bottle neck is the CPU, not the ram or gfx.

As he didn't say if he had an AMD or intel single core, I linked those graphs to show the difference, but it's true, it doesn't necessary means it's the cpu.