A commentary on Memory, CPU Speed and Performance
Ok, over the years of just playing WoW and multiboxing combined I have often found myself upgrading something to make the game run smoother, faster, more the way I want it.
Generally I run all low settings with two exceptions, I must have my viewing distance set to at least 75% of max, I'd really prefer 100% max so I can see things coming. I also run with high spell details due to the fact that so many spell effects are avoidable IF you see them (on the ground) and avoid them.
That said, I've been disappointed with my performance overall for quite some time, I was running a beefy, but not bleeding edge system:
- AMD Phenom 9600 (2.3ghz quad core)
- 4gb DDR2 ram
- SATA Drives
- XFX 8800GT
- Windows Vista 32 Bit
This system would run 1 or 5 about the same, it really wasn't a huge performer, but all would run smoothly out in the world withl ivable latency in Shatt/Org/Etc.
As time went on, I decided to take a shot at the 64 bit OS, since I was only using 3.2gb of ram from Vista 32 and would sometimes page to disk.... I jumped on Vista 64 and everything got better. Things were smooth, but I found I was still using about 80-90% of the ram in most cases. I still ran smooth except in Shatt/Org/Etc.
With Lich King I found myself frequently paging, flights between locations were horrible, and I'd often lose follow when approaching heavily populated areas.
So, I bit the bullet and bought 8GB of ram. I also bit the bullet on the install and instead of leaving everything at "Auto" (Which apparently means the worst possible settings where the cheapest ram in the planet will work) and set my ram at 5-4-4-18 with a CAS of 5... voltage at 2.1v, all according to the manufacturers guidelines...
Fired up wow... flew out of Dalaran which normally is a huge slideshow... 28fps all the way. (console maxfps=28)
So I hearth... /console maxfps=40
Flew out of Dalaran and again, I'm sitting at 35-40fps most of the way.
I'm stunned. I'm honestly not sure if this is the timing settings or the extra ram, I can tell you that I normally sit at 5-7gb used memory now and never page. I'd still like to bump the performance up a bit, and I'll probably do so when the 3.0ghz quad core phenoms hit the shelves... but I no longer feel that I *NEED* the extra performance, it's now a would be nice.
