World of Warcraft AMD 7970

[jkhoward]

Hello,

I have purchased a 7970 for my system along with a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. Basically, I built a whole new system. When playing World of Warcraft on Ultra setting 1920 x 1080 resolution with AA x8 and AMD CC settings to default I experience horrible frames per second. When lowing the AA to x1 or x2 the frames per second are around 60 - 100 depending on the environment. My system specs are at the link below. Any idea of what the issue may be?

http://12tronics.com/index.php?/topic/507-phantom-of-the-opera/

Thanks,
Joel Howard

 

[yamahahornist]

When I had my 7870 WoW ran at 20~40 fps on HIGH O_O (ended up RMAing the card, for another reason) Got a Msi 660ti and now on ULTRA AAx16 it runs at 100-130 fps! I don't get it, but its probably the AMD drivers. Try downloading the new 12.11 beta drivers, they fix a lot of issues!

 

[ikaz]

Actually for WoW nvidia cards seem to run better so if your only concern is for WOW then it actually maybe better to get a 670 (though a 680 is closer to 7970 but in my opinon not worth the extra cost). Also note a 660ti is actually on the same tier as a 7950 that being said again nvidia runs wow better.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200-9.html (note 12.11 may improve things in wow don't for to install cap 2 drivers too)

 

[iceclock]

7970 is faster than all of the above,

 

[yamahahornist]

The 7970 is faster, but Amd drivers suck 🙁

 

[iceclock]

theyre alright, ever since ati got bought by amd, quality has slump in hardware and software.

 

[jkhoward]

I understand that Nvidia may offer better performance for same games just like AMD does as well. But that doesn't answer question! haha, Should my system be able to play World of Warcraft with AA x8 without an issue?

Thanks!

EDIT: I have already purchased the card and play other games that do benefit from the AMD architecture.

 

[iceclock]

yes, easily, 7970 is faster than the gtx 680, world of warcraft can be run with a lesser card with those settings, ur card is fast

 

[redeemer]

The 7970 is faster, but Amd drivers suck 🙁

lol are you kidding they have been putting out better drivers than Nvidia as of late!!

 

[hapkido]

I understand that Nvidia may offer better performance for same games just like AMD does as well. But that doesn't answer question! haha, Should my system be able to play World of Warcraft with AA x8 without an issue?

Thanks!

EDIT: I have already purchased the card and play other games that do benefit from the AMD architecture.

I don't play WoW, but I've read it favors Nvidia's architecture (or maybe Nvidia optimizes for it). I'm surprised you're having any issues at all, though. I've played The Old Republic on max settings at 1920x1200 using only one of my 5850s for +40fps... and it's a little bit nicer-looking game. I can't speak specifically about WoW and a 7970, but it does seem strange to me you're having fps issues.

If you are having issues, maybe try turning down the AA a bit. I have a fairly large monitor for its resolution (27.5"), and even then moving from x4 AA to x8 is the point where I don't notice improvement in jaggies.

 

[jkhoward]

I don't play WoW, but I've read it favors Nvidia's architecture (or maybe Nvidia optimizes for it). I'm surprised you're having any issues at all, though. I've played The Old Republic on max settings at 1920x1200 using only one of my 5850s for +40fps... and it's a little bit nicer-looking game. I can't speak specifically about WoW and a 7970, but it does seem strange to me you're having fps issues.

If you are having issues, maybe try turning down the AA a bit. I have a fairly large monitor for its resolution (27.5"), and even then moving from x4 AA to x8 is the point where I don't notice improvement in jaggies.

Thanks for the reply. I just realized that the AA is not the problem. The multisampling is the issue. I cant set the multisampling to x1 and x2 but x4 and x8 make the the system unplayable. Would that make more sense?

 

[iceclock]

u card is strong enought to play in highest of settings, the issue must be somewhere else, unless ur cards highly overheating, do u know what temps ur cards at when gaming?

 

[jkhoward]

u card is strong enought to play in highest of settings, the issue must be somewhere else, unless ur cards highly overheating, do u know what temps ur cards at when gaming?

That is exactly what I was thinking. My card does not reach 75C with a full load. I do have the graphics card overclocked but once again it does not go over 75C and I have ran multiple stress test on the card for more than an hour. I was doing some testing with the in-game graphics and Catalyst Control Center settings and was not able to increase the FPS. I found a sweet spot in WoW where the game looks good to me at least and I get a solid 60 FPS with VSYNC enabled but on ultra settings with x4 and x8 multi sampling the game is unplayable. I also have my CPU overclocked to 3.6GHz with my Asrock motherboard, also stable for multiple hours.

 

[iceclock]

may i suggest uninstalling the drivers, using driver sweeper, than doing a clean install of the latest drivers, also run a scandisk check to correct any hard-drive errors, and defragment ur hard-drive, possibly a clean install of wow could fix problems if theres corrupted files,

also whats the temperatures of the rest of ur pc? thanks

 

[Sunius]

Are you running any addons? In what zones do you get horrific performance?

 

[jkhoward]

may i suggest uninstalling the drivers, using driver sweeper, than doing a clean install of the latest drivers, also run a scandisk check to correct any hard-drive errors, and defragment ur hard-drive, possibly a clean install of wow could fix problems if theres corrupted files,

also whats the temperatures of the rest of ur pc? thanks

I run WoW off of an SSD. My other system hardware do not go higher then 55C full load for more than an hour. I just re installed WoW about 2 weeks ago with the latest patches and files.

I do not run any addons. The new MoP areas are the worst. With x8 in or x4 in those areas my system gets 5 - 10 FPS where it gets 60FPS stable with x2 or x1.

EDIT: I can try re installing the drivers again but I have already done this about a month ago when trying out the 12.11 beta drivers and found myself crashing on multiple games left and right.

 

[Scotty99]

Honestly man, get your hands on a nvidia card just to try it. Go to best buy and return it if you have too, im betting it solves your issues. WoW loves nvidia cards.

 

[Sunius]

I do not run any addons. The new MoP areas are the worst. With x8 in or x4 in those areas my system gets 5 - 10 FPS where it gets 60FPS stable with x2 or x1.

Did you modify any settings in Catalyst Control Center? Is this new installation of the game? What is your GPU usage during lag?

 

[jkhoward]

I have the CCC settings set to high quality other than the AA settings which causes the game to appear blurry and is a known issue with CCC settings. I did test on all of the other settings one at a time and they did not affect the FPS, they just made it look slightly better.

I did not check the GPU usage at that time. I can sometime tonight and get back to you. But I did check the usage during normal game play and it was around 88% usage.

I do not really want to drop money on another card nor do I have the money to do that at the moment.

 

[ibjeepr]

That is exactly what I was thinking. My card does not reach 75C with a full load. I do have the graphics card overclocked but once again it does not go over 75C and I have ran multiple stress test on the card for more than an hour. I was doing some testing with the in-game graphics and Catalyst Control Center settings and was not able to increase the FPS. I found a sweet spot in WoW where the game looks good to me at least and I get a solid 60 FPS with VSYNC enabled but on ultra settings with x4 and x8 multi sampling the game is unplayable. I also have my CPU overclocked to 3.6GHz with my Asrock motherboard, also stable for multiple hours.

Out of curiousity, how does WOW run without the graphics card OC'd? Pushing the OC too high can result in slower performance without crashing (kind of a fine line). GDDR5 ram can put up with some data corruption without crashing but it will hurt your FPS. Passing a stress test doesn't mean WOW is going react the same.

 

[jkhoward]

Out of curiousity, how does WOW run without the graphics card OC'd? Pushing the OC too high can result in slower performance without crashing (kind of a fine line). GDDR5 ram can put up with some data corruption without crashing but it will hurt your FPS. Passing a stress test doesn't mean WOW is going react the same.

I have not tried to run World of Warcraft without the card not overclocked. I did raise the OC 25MHZ higher last nigtht to see how it affect performance and I did get a 2 FPS increase. I have seen that happen before though. I will add that to the list of things to try.

 

[drinkingcola86]

It isn't a problem with your card.

The game is highly optimized towards nvidia. This has been shown in a ton of bench marks. Not much you can do but drop the Multi-Sampling to get the fps your looking for.

I run the game with a 7950 and usually have the view distance turned down just a bit with only 1x multi-sampling and its playable for me.

I would be worried if it was affected in other games than just wow but seems like it's only wow for you.

Once again and I had the same thought, I bought this bran new card and WoW isn't working so great with it but seeing as I didn't want to spend the money on another new card or go through and RMA my card back, I was fine with dropping the setting on this game and running all the others in full.

 

[ibjeepr]

I have not tried to run World of Warcraft without the card not overclocked. I did raise the OC 25MHZ higher last nigtht to see how it affect performance and I did get a 2 FPS increase. I have seen that happen before though. I will add that to the list of things to try.

Ok ya, give that a shot then. I had a 560 Ti I overclocked and was getting 60 FPS ave. pretty steady on Ultra. I've also noticed that on some OC's I can run Heaven with full tesselation with no issue but WOW just says no after a few minutes. Your 7970 stock should beat an OC'd 560 Ti at 960 mhz core. (can't remember what I had the ram up to.)

 

[ibjeepr]

It isn't a problem with your card.

The game is highly optimized towards nvidia. This has been shown in a ton of bench marks. Not much you can do but drop the Multi-Sampling to get the fps your looking for.

I run the game with a 7950 and usually have the view distance turned down just a bit with only 1x multi-sampling and its playable for me.

I would be worried if it was affected in other games than just wow but seems like it's only wow for you.

Once again and I had the same thought, I bought this bran new card and WoW isn't working so great with it but seeing as I didn't want to spend the money on another new card or go through and RMA my card back, I was fine with dropping the setting on this game and running all the others in full.

I'm getting better FPS with my current sapphire HD 5870 Vapor X OC edition than he is with his 7970 OC'd so I doubt it's an optimization issue. And I had to down clock my mem a hair from the factory OC to make the card stable.

Edit: I will admit that my 560 TI did much better though.

 

[jkhoward]

I'm getting better FPS with my current sapphire HD 5870 Vapor X OC edition than he is with his 7970 OC'd so I doubt it's an optimization issue. And I had to down clock my mem a hair from the factory OC to make the card stable.

Edit: I will admit that my 560 TI did much better though.

So what are you recommending? What is the difference between AA Filtering Bi linear, x2 x16... and Multi sampling? These damn articles are very confusing.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104-11.html

The card has a"boost" option that is enabled and I am overclocking on that setting. Should I overclock on the normal setting?