Does WoW need to be installed in Vista, or can it be just moved from an xp system?

[DrZ]

Just a quick question if anyone has any tips.

I recently bought a low grade machine for the Mrs. so she can play WoW on her account while I multibox. I assumed that the following setup was good enough to run 1 instance of WoW at around 30fps at least

Dual Pentium 1.6ghz
vista home premium 32 bit
2 gb of ram
intigrated video card (I believe 64mb of ram, could be 128)
72000 RPM 320gb sata drive


It usually maxes at 15-20 fps, dropping to 7ish in major cities. This is with everything reduced to the lowest visual settings and running just the system essentials. I was wondering if this is because I simply moved over the game from my old XP home system and didn't do a proper install, or if I should be looking elseware to improve framerates.

[Anozireth]

Wow doesn't install any registry keys or anything like that (at least not that are important for it to run), so just copying it is not a problem. My guess is that your problem lies in the integrated video card and perhaps the processor.

[Kaynin]

It's definatly the integrated videocard.

It's highly likely it uses swap files as memory as well. Next to that they usually have shitty core speeds and just overall awful awful performance. (There -are- decent integrated videocards out there, but many are purely for 'desktop' usage really. :P )

Getting a cheap 128mb standalone agp card (or pci-e, depends what slot you have), some... geforce 6kish or something, should be cheap as heck. But should do the trick.. for one isntance you won't need GTX or GTS versions or the likes, the standard cheap model versions should be plenty to run wow at 30+ with 2gb of ram already present.

Ram+cpu seems more then fine. even if it's a dual cpu system (instead of dual-core), 1.6Ghz is plenty to run wow from.

(Shouldn't have to be more expensive then 40ish USD)

[DrZ]

i'll have to pop it open and take a look to see if i even have a slot for agp or pci-e. I know I got an older geforce agp card and a radion pcie card just in case

[odon]

geforce agp card and a radion pcie card just in case

Those would be definitely better.

[wowphreak]

The problem is vista it need 2 gigs of memory to run without dropping anything to cache (harddrive)
if yeh switch it to Xp it'll run fine.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Heh, this is a funny thread. I'll really muddy up the waters here.

1) I have a vista laptop at work with 1GB of RAM, core2duo mobile 1.8Ghz CPU and a Radeon X1300 GPU. I've run WoW in both xp and vista on that machine and I'll be damned if I can tell any difference. It runs at 60FPS in both. RAM in vista will help but it isn't the long pole in that tent.

2) I also have a laptop I played WoW on while I was moving houses a couple years ago. It's an Intel 845 integrated chipset on a P4 2.2GHz CPU with 1GB of RAM and I averaged 25FPS on that machine.

My point is that nobody can make an authoritative statement about where the problem lies because the provided system information is unclear.

MrZ, try the following:
1) Start-->Run--> type in MSINFO32 and hit enter
2) Post screenies of the main page (System Summary) and your video card (Components-->Display).

That oughta help us understand what you're running. ;)

[Kaynin]

Ehh, yeah, I made the posts in this thread entirely on the assumption of onboard graphic cards being utterly and completely shit -most- of the time. :P

It could also be a driver problem. >.> Anyhow, if the pc has an agp/pci-e slot and you have two standalone's lying around. It's pretty certain that's the best shot anyways.

[Kaynin]

The problem is vista it need 2 gigs of memory to run without dropping anything to cache (harddrive)
if yeh switch it to Xp it'll run fine.

If you had vista taking up 2gb, something was terribly wrong. :p I am at 1gb top in vista while multitasking my ass off. Unless I run specific programs that just take up a lot of ram anyways. Vista itself however won't every ever exceed 1gb ram no matter what you do. And 512ish if you're paying attention at not opening too much stuff. If your pc is using up 2gb ram, chances were you had yourself a virus abusing your memory. :P

[DrZ]

alright, here are the pics

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/5909/displayrj1.th.jpg ('http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=displayrj1.jpg')

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/1366/generalmk5.th.jpg ('http://img407.imageshack.us/my.php?image=generalmk5.jpg')

[Coltimar]

Everybody seems to knock Vista hard core, but I run 5 copies of WoW, Keyclone and iTunes slick as a ribbon. Vista x64, 4 GB RAM, 2.5 quad core and ati hd 3850 doesn't hurt I'm sure, but Vista, trimmed down, is doing just fine for me.

[Coltimar]

First gen Duo, Integrated Video (that 320MB RAM is coming from your system), those are your problems. Honestly a video card upgrade would make a big difference.

[DrZ]

Like I mentioned, this system isn't fancy by any means, just a conventional $400 pc I picked up at frys for my wife. I thought "hey, since wow is about 4 years old, and it ran so smoothly on my machines back then (which were a lot less powerfull than this one), WoW on this pc should be running smooth!"

[DrZ]

opps, diddn't see your reply.

i'll see if it has the appropriate slots and see what i can do in a little while

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Man, I'm looking at that and don't see anything that would be obviously sucking for one copy of WoW. The integrated graphics is the latest gen from Intel. You have low RAM but not so little that it would do what you're talking about that I can tell. The CPU might be the problem but it shows as being faster than an Athlon X2 4000+ so I'm thinking that's probably not the bottleneck either.

Have you tried tweaking down the graphics options in WoW on that machine? Also might try running it at 1024x768 instead of 1280x1024 if that's what you're currently running. Also, how much memory are your addons taking up?

[DrZ]

No addons, lowest graphical settings, and I get about 17FPS max in most low pop areas. I have tried multiple resolutions (from 800X600 and up) and I didnt' get any noticible difference between any of them (1-3 FPS difference). Granted, when I increase the graphics settings, everything crawls down to mid single digits.

With the ram I typicly see the system usually floating around 600mb loaded in task manager, but againt 300+ is fromt he video card so it's not that bad. I had vista stripped down to the basics and removed the majority of bloatware that came with HP but still no difference

Again, I have not put in the card yet as I haven't had the time to open the case up and take a look yet.

[DrZ]

looks like problem solved. Popping in a spare radion x800 did the trick. maxed out settings amd I rarely dip below 30FPS in shattarath

thanks for the assistance guys