What is the difference between BigWigs and DBM?

[Sonnillon]

What is the difference BW and DBM nowadays? As I've read some older posts and those well, do not give that up-to-date info.

Which one is more clearer or more informative to a raid leader? And above all do the warning or which not what BigWigs reports to the raid will be visible by the people using DBM?

[Rinoa]

Having used both for an extended amount of time I can't say I have noticed any major differences. I chose BigWigs in the end based on the silly fact that it suits my UI more.

[EruptorNZ]

From my experience with DBM, and with what I hear from other raid members. Is that the BigWigs developers put a lot more early effort into their addon compared with DBM.

A few examples:
During the first few weeks of heroic imperial vizier progression, BigWigs had put in the 2 different spell id's for attenuation which allowed for bigwigs users to know if it was the left or right pattern - I didn't see this in DBM for weeks.
Tortos - DBM didn't even put in the timer for the next spawn of vampiric bats, whereas BigWigs did.

Like i'm probably going to make the change to BigWigs soon as DBM just isn't reliable for early heroic progression mechanics - the only reason I haven't so far is that I liked the DBM bars moreso than the BigWig Bars

[FuxieDK]

During the first few weeks of heroic imperial vizier progression, BigWigs had put in the 2 different spell id's for attenuation which allowed for bigwigs users to know if it was the left or right pattern - I didn't see this in DBM for weeks.

That's a fat lie, and you know it.. My DBM showed a correct arrow from day one! It was even in LFR from the beginning.
Look at the changelog, and you'll see MANY updates every single day.

Having used both for an extended amount of time I can't say I have noticed any major differences. I chose BigWigs in the end based on the silly fact that it suits my UI more.

QFT, except I use DBM for the same reason.

That being said, both BigWigs and DBM benefits from more people in the raid using the same boss mod, so if you raid with the same people (e.g. your guild) you should agree on using the same addon (regardless of which one you choose)..

[tordenflesk]

DBM's simply too noisy, and doesn't provide enough customizability(aka, turn the spam off etc.) for me.

[funkydude]

What is the difference BW and DBM nowadays? As I've read some older posts and those well, do not give that up-to-date info.

Which one is more clearer or more informative to a raid leader? And above all do the warning or which not what BigWigs reports to the raid will be visible by the people using DBM?

Speaking from a timer perspective there shouldn't be much of a large difference because both mods have authors in end-game raiding guilds, BW has a slight edge for heroic content purely due to guild progression.

However speaking from an addon author perspective, if you care about your raid performance and framerate, BW is a hell of a lot more efficient. This much is obvious simply by glancing at the code for a few minutes.

There's also the age old issue of innovation theft, not like we can stop this. This has happened since the late days of Vanilla (around CThun) and whilst it happens far less often now, it's still an issue that makes us BW authors hate it in its entirety. When it comes to features, things like "radar" proximity and "voice countdown" get ripped without shame. Even tiny things like coloured messages, icons in messages, etc, were all BW firsts. While I admit that DBM does infact have 1 or 2 nifty features that BW does not, it doesn't overcome the years of stealing.

That's a fat lie, and you know it.. My DBM showed a correct arrow from day one! It was even in LFR from the beginning.
Look at the changelog, and you'll see MANY updates every single day.
QFT, except I use DBM for the same reason.

Actually he's right, you can look at the changelog dates to verify this. FYI, BW also has alpha builds (they are even more frequent than DBM). This feature was implemented before DBM in alpha and pushed to a new release before them too.

[FuxieDK]

I'm not commenting on who had the arrow first.. I'm commenting on DBM didn't have it for weeks, which isn't true. It was there from day one, which means it was probably added sometime during beta..
Radar proximity REQUEST was placed before BW had it implemented, but wasn't implemented for some time. Who got the idea first I can't say, but it's not stealing, when the request is there before "the competition" have it.

That being said, both addons are good, and (for 99,9% of all players) suit the needs. I have no strong feelings towards one or the other, but currently, DBM is more to my liking.
I did, however, use BW all through TBC up to mid-WotLK, where my guild changed to DBM.

[Sonnillon]

But basically there is no point in me switching to BW if test my raid uses DBM? But TYWM for the discussion so far

[elderamy]

But basically there is no point in me switching to BW if test my raid uses DBM? But TYWM for the discussion so far

I have both yay! they work well together without interfering. I've always used dbm and like it since all the raid also uses it, but got BW for the emphasize feature where u get and audio 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 warning... it really helps my raid leader tasks...

[funkydude]

Radar proximity REQUEST was placed before BW had it implemented, but wasn't implemented for some time. Who got the idea first I can't say, but it's not stealing, when the request is there before "the competition" have it.

Even if we did brush that to the side, what about everything else? Should we just dismiss that also?

DBM is more to my liking.

Do you mind if I ask why?

But basically there is no point in me switching to BW if test my raid uses DBM? But TYWM for the discussion so far

I personally don't see why that should affect your choice of addon.

[Myrwyss]

"What is the difference between android and ios?" - you could compare this discussions realy,its all down to which one you personaly like more.Been using BW since tbc,switched to dbm for short time during wotlk,dont even remember why,was some problems with BW or so,but came back to it quite fast and now i use it for few years without a change.Had some performance problems while using dbm,bigwigs seems to eat less memory (or so i think at least:P) so thats the addon of my choice.

[Sir Nikotin]

I love how I can customize any boss ability in Big Wigs to be VERY noticeable if needed. But in the end, they doesn't differ much.

[Rotted]

DBM's simply too noisy, and doesn't provide enough customizability(aka, turn the spam off etc.) for me.

Ah ha I never play with sound!

I use DBM, back in TBC in my first raid guild I used big wigs, when we merged with another guild, they said try DBM because I was having problems configuring it (I was young QQ) put dbm on, and managed to get everything I wanted done straight away, since then Ive just stuck with it

[Kuniku]

I always used to use BigWigs and loved the final fantasy winning music when you downed a boss (that was that mod right?) but ever since I joined a top end guild a few years ago (which I'm no longer in) they said I had to use DBM so i've used that since...

[Vargur]

I always used to use BigWigs and loved the final fantasy winning music when you downed a boss (that was that mod right?) but ever since I joined a top end guild a few years ago (which I'm no longer in) they said I had to use DBM so i've used that since...

You can have BigWigs fake DBM.

[funkydude]

Whilst I appreciate that some people with high end systems don't care about performance, it's important to note that the majority of players do not have top notch systems. I brought up performance earlier but it doesn't seem to have been touched at all. So I decided to install DBM and go for a run in an LFR. The only addons that were enabled were BW and DBM to get an accurate assessment of CPU usage. I did this in the first Throne of Thunder LFR wing.

The following is the memory and performance situation after logging on in a city, and idling for 5 minutes. Boss mods should NOT be using resources while idling.


The following was captured during the "Council of Elders" encounter. This fight is substantially heavy for boss mods and a good example to use to see the average combat CPU usage.

If we combine the addons together, it adds to a total of (lower is better)

• DBM: 21.2 CPU/sec
• BW: 3.7 CPU/sec

So, what are the results after the entire LFR was over? Lets add up the addons again (lower is better)

• DBM: 26763 (27k)
• BW: 6212 (6k)

Also worth noting is that BW goes back into an idle state when the boss encounter is over.
I didn't really touch on memory. Sure it was lower whilst idle but during an encounter it's about the same. However, memory use is not really a good measure of performance and was reasonable for both addons.

So it really comes down to how much you care about your CPU usage in raids, because DBM will gobble it up for dinner.

Please note: For this test to be performed accurately it was done with ONLY BW & DBM enabled. BW must have all its libraries embedded inside it also, they were not removed.

[Puerto]

Whilst I appreciate that some people with high end systems don't care about performance, it's important to note that the majority of players do not have top notch systems. I brought up performance earlier but it doesn't seem to have been touched at all. So I decided to install DBM and go for a run in an LFR. The only addons that were enabled were BW and DBM to get an accurate assessment of CPU usage. I did this in the first Throne of Thunder LFR wing.

The following is the memory and performance situation after logging on in a city, and idling for 5 minutes. Boss mods should NOT be using resources while idling.


The following was captured during the "Council of Elders" encounter. This fight is substantially heavy for boss mods and a good example to use to see the average combat CPU usage.

If we combine the addons together, it adds to a total of (lower is better)

• DBM: 21.2 CPU/sec
• BW: 3.7 CPU/sec

So, what are the results after the entire LFR was over? Lets add up the addons again (lower is better)

• DBM: 26763 (27k)
• BW: 6212 (6k)

Also worth noting is that BW goes back into an idle state when the boss encounter is over.
I didn't really touch on memory. Sure it was lower whilst idle but during an encounter it's about the same. However, memory use is not really a good measure of performance and was reasonable for both addons.

So it really comes down to how much you care about your CPU usage in raids, because DBM will gobble it up for dinner.

Please note: For this test to be performed accurately it was done with ONLY BW & DBM enabled. BW must have all its libraries embedded inside it also, they were not removed.

Whats the addon you are using to show CPU usage?

[Deleted]

I prefere BW for the fact that it's updated constantly, and easy to customize, and like mentioned earlier, the Vizier attenuation spell actually showing direction way before DBM, and the victory sounds just makes it feel awesome killing a boss (lol), it has all the features i need, and not wasting CPU on anything.
Most of my raid team uses DBM though, but with BW's ability to copy DBM's custom bars, i have no need to change.

[Sonnillon]

Most of my raid team uses DBM though, but with BW's ability to copy DBM's custom bars, i have no need to change.

Will I be able to see DBM's pull timers and other timers made by player in BW?

[Deleted]

Will I be able to see DBM's pull timers and other timers made by player in BW?

Yes, bars like Pull or break or anything else made by a DBM user, will be copied by BW and created as a bar too
And also pull timers etc. created by you, will be sent out to DBM users