Problems with HD 4870 in World of Warcraft low FPS

[nosnah2010]

Hi Guys,

I'm having fps issues in World of Warcraft with my HD 4870. I'm trying to figure out if my cpu is bottlenecking, or if ATI just hasn't fixed their drivers yet. All of my drivers are up to date including my graphics, bios and sound. These problems occur with all graphical setting set to low @1440x900 resolution, and are much worse in Dalaran and 25 man raids with the framerate dropping down to 10-20 sometimes. My psu is CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified. I play other more demanding games such as Crysis, Mass Effect 2, CoD MW2 and others on Max settings with no problems. My hard drive is somewhat old but is still 7200 rpm and seems to be working fine, could this be a cause of low fps?

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System Information
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Time of this report: 2/6/2010, 16:22:59

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3, v.5857 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090804-1435)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: GA-MA790GP-DS4H
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9850 Quad-Core Processor, MMX, 3DNow (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 3326MB RAM
Page File: 1014MB used, 4194MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.3264 32bit Unicode

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Display Devices
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Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x9440)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9440&SUBSYS_20071787&REV_00
Display Memory: 512.0 MB
Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: HP w1907 Wide LCD Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1440,900
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7039 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 12/11/2009 15:25:22, 300544 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
Mini VDD Date: 12/11/2009 16:02:42, 4525056 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-D700-11CF-486F-0D00A1C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x9440
SubSys ID: 0x20071787
Revision ID: 0x0000
Revision ID: 0x0000
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
D3D7 Test Result: Not run
D3D8 Test Result: Not run

 

[bystander]

Dalaran and some 25 man raids will do that to you.

Even with two 5870's in CF and an i7 920 @ 3.5. I will get a few dips into the 30's at times when in Dalaran.

 

[nosnah2010]

The thing that has me wondering is I've seen forum posts from people with the same graphics card/cpu setup that I have, he said he downgraded to a 9800gt and saw 60-100fps increase. It seems to me that the new ATI cards are conflicting with WoW, maybe the ddr5 memory or half ass drivers? I may try buying a new graphics card and or processor but it makes me angry that I dropped $200 on a 4870 for it to not be able to play WoW smoothly on lowest possible graphics settings.

 

[swifts206]

I myself play wow just about maxed out with a 9800gt, but of course when you enter places like dalaran and 25mans your fps will drop, in 25mans i run about 30-35 as to a full 60 when im solo or just instances

 

[bystander]

Everyone I talk to in my guild get poor FPS in Dalaran, especially if you have shadows on and MSAA.

Different times of the day it's better than others, but you aren't unique. I find it curious as to why Blizzard decided to up the graphical hit in this last expansion, when they are known for always having low require specs to perform well.

 

[nosnah2010]

I myself play wow just about maxed out with a 9800gt, but of course when you enter places like dalaran and 25mans your fps will drop, in 25mans i run about 30-35 as to a full 60 when im solo or just instances

I'm lucky if I get 20fps in 25 mans with everything on lowest settings, I have my particle density at like 1/4 that is the only thing I have enabled at all.

 

[bystander]

I myself play wow just about maxed out with a 9800gt, but of course when you enter places like dalaran and 25mans your fps will drop, in 25mans i run about 30-35 as to a full 60 when im solo or just instances

I'm lucky if I get 20fps in 25 mans with everything on lowest settings, I have my particle density at like 1/4 that is the only thing I have enabled at all.

Have you experimented with upping the graphics quality? When talking to guildies, they tell me the game is more CPU bound than GPU bound. If you up some of the settings (minus shadows) and still have similar FPS, you know it's your CPU holding you back.

 

[bystander]

I did a little search, and did find a benchmark for WotLK: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,689378/WoW-Wrath-of-the-Lich-King-Benchmarks-with-Ati-and-Nvidia-graphics-cards/Practice/?page=2

It actually seems that ATI does better by this. Although it's not showing the 5000 series.

 

[nosnah2010]

I just upped all of the slider settings to max, turned the mutisampling to 8x and set the view distance to 50%. I'm not in a raid right now so I don't know what frame rate I'll get in 25 mans but sitting outside of Icecrown Citadel my fps dropped a little bit. I also enabled windowed mode and ctrl/alt/del and brought up the cpu usage and its not going above 50% when flying or killing mobs, I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

[bystander]

That makes it sound like your CPU is holding you back. Perhaps you could overclock your CPU if you feel comfortable with that.

 

[nosnah2010]

That makes it sound like your CPU is holding you back. Perhaps you could overclock your CPU if you feel comfortable with that.

I have two things that show my cpu usage isn't going above 40%, the default performance tool in the task manager, and Uniblue
Speed Up My PC that has cpu/memory meters and graphs which both show my processor is running stable below 30-40% usage if that makes sense.

 

[bystander]

I'm not sure how to take some of the meters when playing WoW. I was watching my meters with a single 5870, and it mostly read 0% and up to 40% max. I crossfired the cards, and saw the same percentage of usage, but FPS went up 50%.