Core i7 System, Poor Performance?

[zanthor]

So I'm afraid I'm doing something wrong... not sure what...

I've built a monster system for a friend, it's a core i7 that I've got clocked at 4ghz with 12gb ram and a 295gtx nvidia card... it's c: drive is running on two solid state intel x25-m drives striped...

The system 3dmarks really well, however WoW performance is just subpar... 30fps in Dalaran with "Ultra" settings which I expected to be higher.... (during prime time). So this morning I dropped everything down to match my normal settings where I get ~30fps in prime time on my box and the monster is getting 60fps @ 7:30am... same as my Phenom 3.3ghz with an 8800gt....

I've set affinity, but the CPU isn't even beginning to stress under wow... I'm thinking it may be a limitation of Dalaran but I hear ancedotal stories about ungodly framerates in Dalaran and figured if any machine could get there, it would be this one...

[Whowantstoknow]

Sounds like vsync is enabled so he will be reporting multiples of 60fps (I assume you know this but I will include it for everyone else)

1/5 12fps
1/4 15fps
1/3 20fps
1/2 30fps
1 60fps
2 120fps
3 180fps
4 240fps
5 300fps

ie if he is running at 55fps he will drop to 30fps likewise at 100fps he will drop to 60fps

if so there probably is not much to worry about 30-60fps in dalaran with everything on sounds decent especially if there are a lot of people around. The first thing I would disable is shadows

[Otlecs]

ie if he is running at 55fps he will drop to 30fps likewise at 100fps he will drop to 60fps

Are you sure that's right? I have vsync enabled, and certainly get "odd" FPS values.

I thought vsync was effectively a "peg" to stop the game bothering to render frames that wouldn't be drawn. (with apologies to those who know what they're talking about for the potential abuse of the words "render" and "draw"!).

That's certainly been my observation.

[Whowantstoknow]

Well it is starting to get technical now and I dont want to go down that road. What I described was vsync and double buffering. If you enable triple buffering (sounds likely that you do) you will likely see different fps drops. With triple buffering some frames are drawn in the back buffer waiting for refresh. This does come at some perfomance cost as your frames are stored in VRAM.

[zanthor]

Vsync is off. Very familiar with how it artificially lowers framerates.

[nissen]

framerates are affected by latency , so i would check that first.( people with way lesser computers can get better fps in crowded areas etc. )

[zanthor]

framerates are affected by latency , so i would check that first.( people with way lesser computers can get better fps in crowded areas etc. )

if Framerates are effected by latency why can I unplug my NIC and wow still renders until it figures out that the network connections gone?

That aside, the latency is sitting around the 50-80ms mark. Not going to see much better without physically moving closer to the datacenter.

[Sajuuk]

How many clients, and have you tried splitting up the alts (if more than one character) between the different GPUS on that 295?

Also, which drive is housing the wow directory?

[alcattle]

is the GPU using SLI/Xfire? That will cause a problem

[zanthor]

How many clients, and have you tried splitting up the alts (if more than one character) between the different GPUS on that 295?

Also, which drive is housing the wow directory?

1 client. The guys not a multiboxer, just know a lot of hardware guru's here.

WoW is running off the SSD raid.


is the GPU using SLI/Xfire? That will cause a problem

I've tried both SLI Enabled and Disabled, no change.

I'm honestly thinking it's just a limitation of WoW - can anyone confirm that they are getting > 30fps on "ULTRA" settings in Dalaran during prime time on a high pop server?

[Whowantstoknow]

I do but only with shadows disabled - that is the real gfx killer

[-silencer-]

1 client. The guys not a multiboxer, just know a lot of hardware guru's here.

WoW is running off the SSD raid.



I've tried both SLI Enabled and Disabled, no change.

I'm honestly thinking it's just a limitation of WoW - can anyone confirm that they are getting > 30fps on "ULTRA" settings in Dalaran during prime time on a high pop server?

i7-965EE mildly oc'd to 3.8GHz.
12GB DDR3-1600 memory.
2x 24" 1920x1200 Dell Ultrasharps (main WoW at 1680x1050 window on LCD1, 4x alts in 960x600 maximized windows on LCD2)
8800GTX
Vista 64 Ultimate
2x 300GB Velociraptors in RAID0 (OS, games, apps)
64GB OCZ Core SSD (host WoW/Data)

I can tell you a few things..
Without *any* players running around, Dalaran is an elaborate area in terms of polygons & textures. Compared to Org, IF, or SW, it's very detailed, and a part of the problem is the design of the city - Bliz should have done a better job at "compartmentalizing" it to reduce the number of visual "leaf" nodes. Think of SW - it has the districts with constrictive corridors - those were designed for a reason: To block off each visual leaf node so less has to be rendered. If you're in the Mage district, you can't see the canals or any other district.. this design was intentional and is frequently done in FPS to keep frame rates high.

Now, add in a constant stream of players entering and leaving the area, all with polygons and textures to fetch and render...

Okay, enough about that. The problem is that we're severely limited by disk accesses for random reads. Yes, SSDs make a huge difference here, but they're not perfect and video processing is still going to come into play. I don't believe *anyone* who says they 5-instance with a constant 60fps in heavy traffic Dalaran on high/ultra visual settings with large monitors.

- Running 5-instances of WoW in Dalaran on my i7-965EE, I'm not even CLOSE to maxing out my CPU. In fact, it's usually less than half CPU usage at the busiest of times, and I've always got Vent, about a dozen Firefox tabs open, and WinAmp going on in the background at a minimum.

- Yes, my 8800GTX is very dated.. but it's playable everywhere and only lags in Dal/Shatt. Still awaiting the 5870-2GB card that looks like it won't come out this year.. so I might as well wait for GT300 and compare then. The 8800GTX is perfectly playable everywhere that matters for now, including WG.

- Vista 64 was a HUGE improvement in frames/playability over XP 64. This likely has to do with how Vista handles rendering 3D on multiple monitors. I was very skeptical abou this initially, but there's no way I'd bother with XP now. (Yes, I'd try Win7 if I didn't just buy Vista 9 months ago. Vista isn't a problem at all on i7 & 12GB memory.)

- The cheap MLC 64GB SSD is still my best bang/buck upgrade for WoW.

Honestly, Bliz should really consider the layout of the future cities when designing them or we're going to get stuck with more horrible performing areas - there's a point where performance can be vastly improved by software/data design over hardware upgrades. This is where artists & engineers have the hardest battles with each other - usually what looks "best" to the artist is the most difficult to perform well for the engineer.

Now I know you're talking about 1 client, which I don't think I've ever configured on this machine. Next time I'm home on my machine I'll turn off my 2nd monitor and configure the desktop for 1x 24" 1920x1200 display, crank up visual settings to max, and give Dalaran a run.. unfortunately I'm out of town until the week after Thanksgiving so it may be awhile..

[Sam DeathWalker]

Now the GTX 295 is a bit of a weird combo. See, it has the memory volume and frequency of two GTX 260 cards yet the raw shader processor horsepower of two GeForce GTX 280 cards.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132



GeForce GTX 285 *** ^
648 MHz / 1,476 MHz
2.48 GHz
512-bit
159 GB/s
240
10
GeForce GTX 295 ** *** ^
576 MHz / 1,242 MHz
2 GHz
448-bit
112 GB/s
240
10



The 295 spec is just for ONE of the gpus.


There is some question in my mind if WoW is using the 2nd gpu with a single client. If not then its possible 1/2 of the memory is not being used, but thats just a wild guess.

Your MB supports the same pci spec as the video card correct?


Im just thinking that for wow a 285 might be better then the 295 ......



All the problems are a result of moving textures from the drive to the video card. With 12G of ram I would assume that all of darlen and every character in the game can be put in ram. Sadly who knows if that is what is done.


I would turn off shadows and see if you get what you want if so then you are gpu limited.

If you are gpu limited then you have to wait for a faster gpu (or try a 285 but ... lol)


If turning off shadows dosnt help then you are texture limited.

If you are texture limited you need a faster pci buss (lol), or more video card ram (maybe possible), or more of wow in ram instead of on the drives. The SSD are fast but nothing compared to even the worst of ram. You need to check with blizzard if there is a way to utlilize all that 12G ram on a single client.


As soon as we are able to get i7's with 24G ram lag will be a thing of the past as we can put the whole wow folder in the system ram (ram drive) and we will see no texture lag at all. And with 4G chips becoming more common and cleaper (Iv even seen single 8G chips lol) its just a matter of 1/2 a year or so I think before MB manufactures make 4G X 6 boards stable.

[Sajuuk]

You need to check with blizzard if there is a way to utlilize all that 12G ram on a single client.


You do know that wow crashes if it uses more than 2GB ram, yes? Also, I don't think speed on the graphics card is an issue, as the game runs fine on lesser cards (vanilla 260, 9800 series, heck the 8800 series/ati 4xxx series).

[BobGnarly]

I have a similar system, and I don't get much better in Dalaran. I hear these stories myself, and I've tried to pin down why some people get 60fps at max settings and I don't. My gut feeling is that they don't, or they are forgetting some setting that isn't maxed.

One thing that strongly leads me to believe that it's not something with my system is that I can walk around certain parts at (capped) 60fps, then I can look at the area just to the right of the horde bank and watch my fps drop in 1/2. I've done some graphics programming, and this reminds me quite a bit of a poorly optimized area, or just a general limitation of the graphics engine itself.

All pure speculation, but that's my guess.


As soon as we are able to get i7's with 24G ram lag will be a thing of the past as we can put the whole wow folder in the system ram (ram drive) and we will see no texture lag at all. And with 4G chips becoming more common and cleaper (Iv even seen single 8G chips lol) its just a matter of 1/2 a year or so I think before MB manufactures make 4G X 6 boards stable.I don't expect 24G will help these problems. Your solution assumes the problem here is getting textures from store to ram. I don't believe that is the problem, and the reason is because if it were we'd see 100% utilized RAM. We don't. This means the problem isn't paging. In case you aren't aware, Vista and Windows 7 both cache used data in RAM. This means if you ever bring a texture (or anything else) into memory, it will stay until the OS needs ram for other new information. If the OS needs more RAM and none is free, it will page out some of this cache to make room. IOW, if we were thrashing the HD you might be right, but the fact that we can box 5 clients without even using all of 6G of ram leads me to believe that paging in textures is not our problem.

Now wow might be doing some restrictive thing that is causing the problem, but if so, more RAM still isn't going to help.

The only thing I expect having wow in a ramdrive to help would be a) loading up the program faster, and b) reducing the stuttering you notice when first zoning into a crowded or complex area (this is texture load stalling).

[TheFallenOne]

The only potential issue I can think of is that your video card is hitting the limit of it's onboard memory. The GTX 295 only has 896MB of RAM per GPU, which should theoretically be enough, but it's possible WoW's shadows are a larger memory hog than I thought they were. With hundreds of players in Dalaran, I can see it potentially being a problem.

If you hit the limit on your vid card's RAM, despite the fact that you have 12GB of RAM in the system, it'll have to start paging textures in and out and doing an awful lot of work to keep everything in one piece.

Try dropping shadows ONE tick. See if that helps at all. :)

[Noids]

I run exactly the same system, 2 x intel ssds, GTX 295 slightly overclocked, 4GHz i7 920 12GB ram. As an aside, did you find it difficult pushing it to 4GHz with full memory banks? Took a fair bit of playing before mine ran stable with this using 7,7,7,20 1600MHz Patriot RAM.

The only difference is that I run all of my clients with ISboxer on a 30" dell.

At 2560 x 1600 on ultra in Dal I can't crack 30fps when running a single client. When I am running all 5 I keep Ultra settings on my main and turn shadows to simple. With this my main goes between 15 and 30fps generally. I find the draw distance makes a big difference in that if I am inside my fps will go to 45-60fps whereas if I am in the open it tends to drop fairly sharply.

So I am assuming it is the graphics limitations that cause the probs, rendering all of the frames. In highly populated AVs, I do not have this problem so it is obviously the polygon complexity in Dal as opposed to the older graphics zones. I am actually wondering if getting another GTX295 (or god forbid, 2 x 5970s) is worthwhile and using Innerspace to set "affinities" would improve frame rates.

Cheers

[Rhod]

I've built a system for my father in law very similar to the one you describe, except without the SDD's. It was an I7950, GTX 295, 12GB DDR3 (PC3 16000) RAM, with 4 7200 RPM HDD's. Same result in Dalaran, about 30 FPS. But very very smooth with no stuttering, lag, or any performance issues what so ever. Even plugging the computer into my 42" 1080P Plasma made the game look perfectly beautiful and play without any performance issues at all.

[Fizzler]

I recently built an i7 920 system and have been very pleased with it.

I limited my main to 45fps at all times I am not sure why I would need more at this point.

With 5 clients running the Main on High with the exception of Shadow which is set to LOW I max out 45fps even during peak hours. I am sure I can get more out of it as it remains fairly stable at 45fps most of the times. It drops down to 30fps when I first enter a high traffic area or if there are a lot of graphical elements like portals...

I took this screen shot today while not peak hour it will give you a good idea of what I am getting.

http://www.majolese.com/uploaded_images/WoWScrnShot_112409_122745.jpg

Each slave is set to low on most settings. All toons are running Carbonite, the main is running Lightheaded, atlas loot, and a few other memory heavy addons.

i7 920 OC to a safe 3.8 GHz (Air cooled idle temp 47C)
12GB of Triple Channel RAM
ATI 4890 1G
Motherboard ASUS P6T

[zanthor]

I run exactly the same system, 2 x intel ssds, GTX 295 slightly overclocked, 4GHz i7 920 12GB ram. As an aside, did you find it difficult pushing it to 4GHz with full memory banks? Took a fair bit of playing before mine ran stable with this using 7,7,7,20 1600MHz Patriot RAM.
Cheers

No problems getting 4ghz at all. I adjusted the jumpers on the mainboard to change the bus from 133 to 200 and adjusted the multiplier to hit 4ghz... I had it at 4.4ghz but it BSOD'd on me once, I dropped it to 4.2ghz and WoW crashed once... it's been rock solid at 4ghz. (note: Building this for a guy who wants zero problems, so while I could probably go higher and have good reliability he would rather go lower and h ave rock solid reliability.)


I've built a system for my father in law very similar to the one you describe, except without the SDD's. It was an I7950, GTX 295, 12GB DDR3 (PC3 16000) RAM, with 4 7200 RPM HDD's. Same result in Dalaran, about 30 FPS. But very very smooth with no stuttering, lag, or any performance issues what so ever. Even plugging the computer into my 42" 1080P Plasma made the game look perfectly beautiful and play without any performance issues at all.

Yea, it's ~25-30fps but obviously not struggling to do so... the mouse is smooth, everything runs fine, just not the e-peen number you would hear about...

That said, its reassuring to hear that not a single person here says they can crack insane FPS in Dalaran @ ultra without changing a setting (thus, not ultra).

[Multibocks]

you know what area gives my system fits? Stupid Calling of Stratholme area right before you zone in. That damn place can drop my system to its knees. Don't really know why, I imagine it's poor programming.

[Fizzler]

you know what area gives my system fits? Stupid Calling of Stratholme area right before you zone in. That damn place can drop my system to its knees. Don't really know why, I imagine it's poor programming.

I have the same issue I will go from 45fps to under 10 for no apparent reason.

[Fizzler]

Here is another shot. I set the shadow to High, Full Ultra.

Again not peak hours but very respectable at 30+ fps. I walked around all of Dalaran and never stuttered once. In the Horde area I was at 45fps on my main.

http://www.majolese.com/uploaded_images/WoWScrnShot_112409_145353.jpg

[offive]

Doesn't sound like any issue on your side. That system sounds like it should run it's part of the WoW application just fine. There are many parts to WoW's perceived performance of frame rate and "lag".

[Sam DeathWalker]

I don't expect 24G will help these problems. Your solution assumes the problem here is getting textures from store to ram. I don't believe that is the problem, and the reason is because if it were we'd see 100% utilized RAM. We don't. This means the problem isn't paging. In case you aren't aware, Vista and Windows 7 both cache used data in RAM. This means if you ever bring a texture (or anything else) into memory, it will stay until the OS needs ram for other new information. If the OS needs more RAM and none is free, it will page out some of this cache to make room. IOW, if we were thrashing the HD you might be right, but the fact that we can box 5 clients without even using all of 6G of ram leads me to believe that paging in textures is not our problem.

Now wow might be doing some restrictive thing that is causing the problem, but if so, more RAM still isn't going to help.

The only thing I expect having wow in a ramdrive to help would be a) loading up the program faster, and b) reducing the stuttering you notice when first zoning into a crowded or complex area (this is texture load stalling).


Well there are only two possibilities; either the GPU is to slow or the data the GPU needs is not available ......


Well if the textures are being cached then over time you will get slightly higher frame rates as when you first see a character it comes from the drive but then if you see that same person again it will come from cach. Do you first see a low frame rate and then slightly better over time?

Well I gues another test would be to see what frame rates are at different resolutions. I would guess that the same amount of textures needs to be loaded regardless of resolution but that higher resolutions require more GPU speed for the same frame rate.

Of course shadows is clearly going to be only stressing the GPU, I can't see any reason to load more textures in no matter what the shadows setting is.

Ya distance of view is a big hit on the gpu but that might also require more textures so its not a good test.


So when your framerates drop you do not get any Hard Drive Thrashing? I find that hard to belive, but ....


Well if wow crashes at more then 2G thats the 32Bit OS limitation per client, guess they havnt done any coding to upgrade to 64 bit os .... Still seems very little trouble to move all the textures into a cach (or as much as possible) ram area if you have the ram avaialble .... but the other poster is saying that such is done by the OS (win7 or vista), lets hope that is the case.


Are there not gpu's that are way better then the 285 or whatever, has anyone run the game on them?


http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ati-firepro-studiogpu-cad,8352.html

[Noids]

That's not a gaming card. The GTX 285 up until the recent release of the ATI 5870 was the best single GPU gaming card available. I think the fact that being in a similarly populated area in AV (less detailed graphics) does not tax my system anywhwere near as much as being in Dal indicates that it is more likely a GPU limitation.

[Sam DeathWalker]

AV has 80 people sure but they dont change. Once you load those 80 textures thats it for the next 30 mintues or whatever. In Dal you get 80 people then maybe 40 new people every so often. Can't compare a bg to dal.