World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm--Tom's Performance Guide

[geekguy]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Well the article was about wow more than the hardware part.[/citation]
Last time i checked this site is called Tom's Hardware.

[citation] It wasn't intended as a test of sli scalability or something, but merely of performance in this specific title. You can't do a wow test without using wow.[/citation]
No argue with you here friend. I only pointed out that it was this mmorpg choice for benchmarking the cards, which in my opinion was not a good one.
Not to mention it is kinda lame, since hardware and not software is the scope here (or at least I think it is). But, let's render onto Caesar... I guess there must have been an article regarding the Cataclism launch since it is the most played mmo. I just pointed out it isn't the 'best' benchmarking mmo tool for the cards in the linup.
Furthermore, what i would love to see, regardless of mmo choice, is when the network connection becomes a problem in these type of games and how modifying settings improve the experience.
That would be something to look at, but i guess that isn't an article that makes the scope of Tom's hardware. It is mainly how developers handle this issue. Wouldn't everybody loved an mmo that knows the latency with the server and adjusts settings accordingly ? That would be a sight

 

[neiroatopelcc]

You seem to think this was a test of cards still. Unless I'm wrong (possible, but unlikely), this isn't the case. This was a test of the game title using different hardware, to test the title's demands. Much like Cleeves Burnout Paradise test, and whatever else has been tested recently.
It's more a review of the games from a hardware standpoint, than it is a review of hardware applied to games.
That's probably also why there's no test of a phenom x3, e7300 or low end/old midrange graphics)

 

[Guest]

My machine:
Core 2 Duo E8200, 2.66 GHz, 6Mb L2 Cache
2 Gb DDR2 800 Mhz Corsair (TWIN2X2048-6400C4DHX, 4-4-4-12)
Leadtek WinFast 8800 GTS 512MB DDR3, 256Bit, PCI-E
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit

Nothing is overclocked.

With all settings maxed out, fps is visibly low only in highly populated areas. Lowest I've seen was 5 fps in Orgrimmar looking at Maztha, the flying trainer, who was literally wrapped in players (and impossible to click on) during the Cataclysm launch in Europe.

So it's possible to enjoy this game at max with 2-3 year old mid-end machines.

 

[mihaitzateo]

@Neutrinus:
At what resolution you were playing?

 

[Marcus52]

Outstanding Chris! I'm very grateful personally and will link this article on the WoW forums (if it hasn't been done), as it will greatly potentially millions of gamers.

It is awesome to see such a thorough article from a respected source stating what I've said on a number of occasions, that the high-end cards of today are far from wasted in power; WoW itself, as you said, can bring the top processors and video cards to their knees when running high end systems. While the mainstream is not challenging the top end cards in their systems, many of us are - and the world of monitors isn't capped yet, not by a long shot!

 

[eodeo]

loved the article. i was amazed at how poorly the amd cpus perform.

 

[Marcus52]

[citation][nom]p4l1ndr0m3[/nom]Honestly, the graphical improvements are minimal to the non-WoW players out there. Nothing like when Sony gave the original Everquest that big graphics patch before they added the Froglok race (if I remember correctly). Though this is a big deal for WoW players who play a lot, the average casual gamer won't notice a difference between this and the original WoW without a side by side comparison.Nice to see DX11 performance boosts though. That part people will notice.[/citation]

Honestly, you clearly don't play the game and don't have a clue. If you did play the game, and couldn't tell the difference between the original WoW and the current iteration, you must either be near blind or running the worst monitor and support hardware imaginable.

There have been many improvements to the visual quality of WoW over the years, so even the WoW before the 4.0.1 patch was obviously better looking than the original. I could see a difference immediately when I logged in after that patch. Is WoW now up with EQII? It is better than EQII in many ways that when that game was released, but I'm going to assume SOE hasn't stood still with it so I'm going to say "no". Is it as good as Age of Conan? Decidedly not.

The fact is, there were recent changes made in how WoW runs on hardware that makes an article like this is very timely and enlightening for millions of people. Such an article written at the time EQII was released would have been equally as important (though for fewer players), because of the evolution in MMO graphics it brought to the table at the time, but that isn't happening now.

 

[dcarpenter85]

Deepholm, 1600x900, Ultra, 8xAA

DX9 - 50 FPS
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/6/wowscrnshot120910011908.jpg

DX11: - 40.6 FPS
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/67/wowscrnshot120910011728.jpg

Performance loss of 20%.

I have been trying to get a GM response on this since 4.0.1 launched with the D3D11 path but they refuse to reply to my threads on the official forums.

 

[netkcid]

Update your crossfire profiles, and you'll see a huge jump in performance for the Radeon 5970 in both dx9 and dx11...

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

 

[Guest]

Could anyone explain this result:

"Nvidia's GeForce GTX 460 remains a solid choice here, as it puts down benchmark results that are even faster than AMD's Radeon HD 5870."

Any Google search brings up loads of forum posts claiming that even the 5850 should give significant gains over the GTX 460 in any environment. Would we expect the result to hold even for raids / cities / higher demand situations?

 

[svensen085]

Hello,

Can someone please help me? (I dont know much about this stuff) I had a mid range geforce but it crashed so I had to get a new one, since i was downtown and was impatient I ended up with a low-range Radeon card (cant remember which one exactly), the problem however is that I have to run WOW (and other games) at really low settings in order to maintain playable FPS.

Now I want to upgrade to the best I can have, the problem however is that many of the new and good screencards doesnt fit in my pc. Mainly the big ones. The slot thing itself fits but there is no room for the big screen card (like the rally big ones with big fans etc) only a thin 1 slot card fits in there due to how the cords and all other stuff are placed.

So I'm wondering for wow, what is the best I can get? are any of the above the smaller version?

thanks so much

 

[underseb]

Hello,
i'm surprised by the low result you got with the gtx 295.
I got a sli of gtx 260 sp16 which is close to the 295, and I would like to bench as well to compare my result with yours. Unfortunately, i'm playing on the alliance side.
Any way you could run your test on alliance flight so i can compare ?
By the way, i noticed a huge fps drop by activating the option "reduce latency" in advanced video settings. So maybe there's something to check around here ?

 

[Guest]

Great article... However, I feel that there is an extremely important thing missing: Windowed mode benchmarks. WoW performance drops A LOT in windowed mode, and despite this fact, people play that way.

 

[Guest]

@underseb: Reduce UI latency is only for people that has REAL lag and responsiveness issues with the UI. Ignore it.

 

[underseb]

It's an option i checked years ago without knowing about it. When I unchecked it, my fps goes from 20 to 90 fps in the same location, with the same graphics etc (center of dalaran for those who know what it is). It's not that spectacular everywhere, but still.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]svensen085[/nom]Hello,Can someone please help me? (I dont know much about this stuff) I had a mid range geforce but it crashed so I had to get a new one, since i was downtown and was impatient I ended up with a low-range Radeon card (cant remember which one exactly), the problem however is that I have to run WOW (and other games) at really low settings in order to maintain playable FPS.Now I want to upgrade to the best I can have, the problem however is that many of the new and good screencards doesnt fit in my pc. Mainly the big ones. The slot thing itself fits but there is no room for the big screen card (like the rally big ones with big fans etc) only a thin 1 slot card fits in there due to how the cords and all other stuff are placed.So I'm wondering for wow, what is the best I can get? are any of the above the smaller version?thanks so much[/citation]

All of the cards mentioned in the article are big dual slot ones.

In my opinion your best bet is a single slot radeon hd4850. Remember it requires one pcie 6 pin connector to work. It's a fairly old card by now, but it's one of the most powerful singleslot cards around, and you should be able to pick one up used somewhere for next to nothing.

 

[ecirontog]

The official word from AMD is that CrossFire works fine (it clearly doesn't).

I'm very curious as to what apparently went wrong with your setup during the benchmarking. Crossfire does indeed work, quite well actually.

Consider these benchmarks from another website. They are only 1 month old and were done with the post 4.0 patch meaning it's basically cataclysm:

"We tested in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Ultra"."
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580/20.html

Notice the 5970 easily dominate every other card including the GTX580 at higher resolutions. Given that the 5970 uses cores that are clocked lower than a 5870, the 5970 would not even surpass the performance of a single 5870 if crossfire was not working properly, but it does easily.

I use 2x 4870x2 in quad crossfire in my main computer and Crossfire not only works properly, it works with all 4 GPUs! That's more than I can say about some other games... I monitor GPU usage at all times via MSI Afterburner displaying GPU usage on my Logitech G15 screen and I've actually seen wow push all 4 GPUs past 90%.

Prior to that I used 2x 4850 in crossfire and Crossfire worked fine with that configuration as well.

Certainly, using crossfire is more prone to issues and I've experiences various hiccups over the years, generally solved by a driver or crossfire application profile update, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

 

[nokz]

Right now, I'm using:

CPU: Intel Core i3 530
MOBO: Intel DH55HC
MEMORY: 8GB of Crucial DDR3
HARD DRIVE: Intel 120GB SSD (OS + WoW)
HARD DRIVE: (3x) Seagate 1TB SATA HDs
VIDEO: EVGA GTX460 OC 1GB

Prior to the GTX460, I was using the Radeon HD 4650. That card would lag like crazy if the settings weren't custom tuned in game. Turning shadows down, draw distance, etc. Just by upgrading to the GTX460, I saw an IMMENSE amount of improvement.

There's nothing this computer can't handle when it comes to WoW. I literally have the GTX460 on Ultra settings in game and it looks amazing. The spell effects don't lag, the massive amount of people don't lag and it loads everything beautifully. Zones load faster, NPCs, pets, players, etc. all load with ease. Aside from the SSD, it was the best upgrade I made for my system. My next upgrade will be obviously a new CPU. Most likely an i5, but not until after Christmas.

So, what I'm trying to say is that the GTX460 is amazing in WoW, I love it and it makes the game environment look great. I highly recommend the card for WoW.

 

[Guest]

I have an i7 860 processor and a HD 5850. I use to play at 1920x1080 with max level and I only get 25 fps in some areas (Dalaran and worgen new zones for example). This is pissing me off. I don't expect 80 fps but this is unplayable sometimes. How could I improve the performance? I really need help. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Very complete review!

Would have loved even more to see SLI configs (especially the cost-benefit SLI GTX 260) to check if they're working and LGA1366 i7 processors (900 series) to compare them with 800 the series tests you made.

 

[underseb]

I've done some test with a SLI of GeForce GTX 260 SP216 with a i7 920 @ 3.8 Ghz.
I ran my tests at 1920*1200 with ultra settings, and used fraps to record fps. In order to tests, i take the flight from one point to another in the same area that you did in the test.
Average FPS with one GTX 260 : 67.820 FPS
Average FPS with SLI GTX 260 : 101.807 FPS.

Something seems to goes wrong with the gtx 295 in the test.

 

[pyroghozt]

May I just say that as someone who specifically asked for this earlier this year, Thank You very much for the time and effort and detail put into the article. I Will be giving it a thorough read through.

 

[tharn]

Great article. I realize that it is kind of difficult to make the benchmark of this game.

For example on my system, I used to be capped at 60fps or near to that in outdoor areas, 17 fps (which jumped to 41 after upgrade from GF8600 to Radeon 5770) in Dalaran at busy hours and it went down to 25 during raid encounters (and strangely, the gfx upgrade didn't help at all here). And 4.0.1 patch improved my raid fps to 41 (with some optimizations on the settings sliders).

However, I found that my fps when looking to busy town area (now e.g. Orgrimmar) the framerates are rather consistent regardless of day, just business of time matters. Just stand somewhere, where many players are and watch the figure. That should provide you with not precise, but okayish figures to make decisions on (upgrade gfx or cpu?).

Where the computers are most stretched are 25-man raids and there I agree it is probably nigh impossible to do anything, unless you make hardware test run with 25 people and different computers (at least for ranged) or you run the same raid with different configs several times.

What was probably the most helpful section were the various settings. I would like to point out though, that in my experience, Particle Density has pretty significant impact on fps in raids. Projected textures are HUGE, but then again, needed at times . And I don't know, but the low-res blurred textures look better to me.

Btw one more bit: I tried the game on N450-based netbook with all lowest and I had 8-12 fps in starting zones. Strangely, my biggest issue while playing was not the fps (the small screen makes it less of an issue), but the small keyboard as I was constantly looking for correct keys.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]pyroghozt[/nom]May I just say that as someone who specifically asked for this earlier this year, Thank You very much for the time and effort and detail put into the article. I Will be giving it a thorough read through.[/citation]

Very welcome =)
Chris

 

[Ikshaar]

Thanks for the review - even if Tom called my GTX260 a budget card Other websites only review fps games that I never play. And indeed the game might be 6 years old, flying in Ashenvale on Ultra still bring my video card to its knees...

One thing I think is worth mentioning the new FPS cap setting is great to IMPROVE performance. I am not sure how that is possible but by setting my cap to 75FPS, I get much smoother gameplay (aka less dip below 40FPS). I can only assume the game was choking on trying to do much more all the time.

Would be very nice (but lot of work) to see how GPU load behaves on those tests.