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?