Can I upgrade my old computer to work sufficiently for cata?

[Deleted]

Hey.

My computer is 3-4 years old now. I never had any problems in 25 mans in WoLK though, and never had any problems in cata 10 man raids either.

I just joined a 25 man guld however and I'm lagging a lot and have less than 10 fps, which is very annoying and not enhancing gameplay at all.

The system:
Asus P5Q SE
Core2Duo E6600 @2400 MHz
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS

So with my current hardware should I be lagging, and can I do anything to upgrade and get better performance?

Thx in advance,
jimme

[bergmann620]

You might not be clocking 100fps, but my laptop pulls 40 w/ a 2.13 ghz and an ATI 4650 Mobility.

It sounds like you need to flush the OS and re-install- with Win7 if you don't have it already.

[necromus]

Here's what I was doing to play on a 8 year old computer until recently: Turn all graphics down to the lowest setting, except turn "Projected Textures" on. This will help you avoid much lag but make stuff on the ground a bit hard to see, so download the "GTFO" addon (Note: That is what the addon is really called) and it will buzz when you are standing in something you should not be so there will be no missing the buzz even if it is hard to see.

Also if you are using anything like Omen or Recount or any addon that tracks combat data then make sure you upgrade to the latest versions, the older versions will really lag you in Patch 4.1+.

[vesseblah]

So with my current hardware should I be lagging, and can I do anything to upgrade and get better performance?

Yes, 25-man raids will be slow on your computer unless you pull settings at middle or below. No chance in hell to put even one slider close to ultra unless you have old 1280x1024 monitor too to go with the other 3-4 year old parts.

Stickies are your friend, especially this one -> http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...FPS-Check-Here!

Upgrades are possible for your computer, but not really recommended since anything you do with it can be considered to be life support. Even if one part is brand new the rest is still years behind. How much you're willing to put on the new parts? Got any details on the power supply? And what resolution monitor you're using?

[Deleted]

Yes, 25-man raids will be slow on your computer unless you pull settings at middle or below. No chance in hell to put even one slider close to ultra unless you have old 1280x1024 monitor too to go with the other 3-4 year old parts.

Stickies are your friend, especially this one -> http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...FPS-Check-Here!

Upgrades are possible for your computer, but not really recommended since anything you do with it can be considered to be life support. Even if one part is brand new the rest is still years behind. How much you're willing to put on the new parts? Got any details on the power supply? And what resolution monitor you're using?

Thanks for the link.

I had actuelly been running a combatlog dump, which apparentæly can decrease framerate a bit. Also I was running in windowed mode. In windowed mode I had 27 FPS in orgrimmar, after changeing to fullscreen that number jumped to 60 FPs. If that translates in any way to actual 25 man raids will be interesting to see.

I can get my hands on a Core 2 Du0 E8400 for 65 euros, but I'm not sure how much of an upgrade that will be. I don't wanna be spending much more than that though.

[Wries]

Thanks for the link.

I had actuelly been running a combatlog dump, which apparentæly can decrease framerate a bit. Also I was running in windowed mode. In windowed mode I had 27 FPS in orgrimmar, after changeing to fullscreen that number jumped to 60 FPs. If that translates in any way to actual 25 man raids will be interesting to see.

I can get my hands on a Core 2 Du0 E8400 for 65 euros, but I'm not sure how much of an upgrade that will be. I don't wanna be spending much more than that though.

When it makes such a big dif to go fullscreen mode, you'd think that something is wrong. Are you running the latest display drivers?

WoW LOVES higher clockspeed, and an E8400 will probably make a noticable difference. Any chance you could overclock it a little aswell?

[Deleted]

When it makes such a big dif to go fullscreen mode, you'd think that something is wrong. Are you running the latest display drivers?

WoW LOVES higher clockspeed, and an E8400 will probably make a noticable difference. Any chance you could overclock it a little aswell?

Probably could. Got a pretty powerful fan and heatsink on the CPU.

Looking at:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Core2 Duo E6600 scores 1.5
Core2 Duo E8400 scores 2.3
Core2 Quad Q8300 scores 3.5

Quite a noticable difference with a 50% increase each time. However I don't know if the quad processor will in fact put out that much more in wow as I read that WOW isn't that great with multiple cores.

[haxartus]

Q8300 is the better choice if you can find a cheap one. Or even Q6600. Otherwise get E8400.
If you want to get the maximum performance you need to overclock them. And make sure your PSU can support this. The rest of your configuration is fine for WoW.

[vesseblah]

Q8300 best choice for WoW in price/performance for the old socket 775 motherboard. Can also be overclocked for some extra.

[Wries]

I'd say an E8400 > Q8300 given that you will be able to take the E8400 to higher clockspeeds and that WoW doesn't scale very well past 2 cores. It has threads it can put onto the other cores but not very much will be done on them. Also you said you could get one for 65 Eur (which is very fair), how much for the Q8300?

[Deleted]

I'd say an E8400 > Q8300 given that you will be able to take the E8400 to higher clockspeeds and that WoW doesn't scale very well past 2 cores. It has threads it can put onto the other cores but not very much will be done on them. Also you said you could get one for 65 Eur (which is very fair), how much for the Q8300?

Yeah I'm working on it now. Just found out last night that my computer had these FPS issues in 25-man. Have some feelers out, and will see what they cost.

Thanks for the replies so far.

[vesseblah]

I'd say an E8400 > Q8300 given that you will be able to take the E8400 to higher clockspeeds and that WoW doesn't scale very well past 2 cores. It has threads it can put onto the other cores but not very much will be done on them. Also you said you could get one for 65 Eur (which is very fair), how much for the Q8300?

WoW uses about two and half cores happily, therefore having more than two is ideal, especially if you want to do something like video capture. But it really depends on price.

I still wouldn't get either, but instead pay few hundred more, ditch the old junk completely and get modern i3/i5 -2xxx + mobo+ram instead if possible.

[Deleted]

I can get a q9300 for like 80 euros and a q9500 for 105 euros.
It is quite a bit of money for a stopgap soultion, but if the rest of my system is fine for WOW it might be worth doing it. I don't rally play any other games.

[Wries]

WoW uses about two and half cores happily, therefore having more than two is ideal, especially if you want to do something like video capture. But it really depends on price.

I still wouldn't get either, but instead pay few hundred more, ditch the old junk completely and get modern i3/i5 -2xxx + mobo+ram instead if possible.

It's not necessarily ideal if the core clock speed will be lower. An E8400 can OC pretty well compared to a Q8300 which has high FSB freq. at stock and a low (and ofc locked) multiplier. You'll need fast RAM and a strong motherboard to get it up past 3.2. An E8400 can reach 3.6 quite easily however. Frapsing is another deal but since no fraps was mentioned I'm standing firm with my opinion that purely for WoW, the E8400 will be better.

[oddmole]

I had a very similar setup prior to my upgrade for cata. I noticed the same lags in 25 mans, not a lot but enough to be irritating. I upgraded the entire system, but feel the cpu (E9600 > i7xx) made the largest difference. I had an 8800gt aftermarket cooled and for a brief time ran it with the new cpu and mobo and saw much more of an increase from the cpu increase compared to an aftermarket cooled 470