What is bottle necking my performance in WoW/TF2?

[publicenemy219]

In dal I get around 20-30 FPS with one client, when two are open, drops in the single digit range. In TF2 my FPS is really shaky, I get anywhere 30-40 FPS in actual combat, which is annoying. Im looking to get into the 70FPS or higher range for flawless gaming. Both of these games from what I have heard are CPU dependent. I have a Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz OCed to 3.5 and do not see a difference whatsoever, with 4gigs of ram and a Nividia geforce 9800 GT 1 Gig DDR2. Any ideas?

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System Information
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Time of this report: 6/1/2010, 18:34:23
Machine name: POOPFART
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100226-1909)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4094MB RAM
Page File: 4325MB used, 3861MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7600.16385 64bit Unicode


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Display Devices
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Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 9800 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
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Dedicated Memory: 1005 MB
Shared Memory: 1791 MB
Current Mode: 1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (59Hz)
Monitor Name: ViewSonic VX1962wm Series
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Monitor Id: VSCD920
Native Mode: 1680 x 1050(p) (59.954Hz)
Output Type: DVI
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Driver Version: 8.17.11.9745
DDI Version: 10
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 4/3/2010 18:55:31, 11906664 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp:
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[OllieUK]

what is your monitor resolution and what level of settings do you play TF2 at? Do you have AA on? I have a Q6600 @ 3.0 GHz and an ATI 4850 which is broadly equivalent to your setup but I think I get better FPS than you. I'll check tonight but IIRC I'm up at ~80 fps but I haven't played for 6months or so so an't quite recall.

 

[publicenemy219]

Thanks alot for the help, Im playing at 1680x1050 I believe. I'm about to switch the Core 2 quad with a Core 2 Duo E7400 to see if I get a decrease or increase (probably a decrease). In WoW with the Processor OCed to 3.5 I get around 30 FPS in crowded areas, Im aiming for at least 60FPS. So if anyone has any suggestions it would be much appreciated.

 

[OllieUK]

OK so running at 1920x1080 high settings but no AA I get min/max/avg of 41/241/90 fps.

 

[mi1ez]

Another Q6600 here at 3.2 but with a 4870. never had frames drop noticably. Will have a quick game now and see what i can report.

 

[mi1ez]

didn't see it drop below 59. don't think it'll be your CPU.

 

[publicenemy219]

Ok thanks alot! Guess ill buy another GT and see how well SLI is.

 

[publicenemy219]

I currently Have the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130440&cm_re=Geforce_9800_Gt-_-14-130-440-_-Product

Could I SLI it with another brand like http://www.macmall.com/p/5873543?dpno=7956860&source=mwbfroogle

The EVAG one I bought was a little costly, Id like the buy from another Reliable brand with a cheaper cost and get the same performance. Any ideas?

 

[daship]

Im pretty sure SLI isnt supported in WoW. I could be wrong. By all means you should do better in WoW. Try turning shadows down while leaving the rest on high.

Hardware wise you should get 40-60 in Dal.

I have a core i3 4.2 with a 4870 and avg 60 in Dal, and 120 outside on epic flyer.

Since its way worse with 2 clients, Id say the issue lies with slow hard drive or slow internet.

 

[publicenemy219]

Well I have a barracuda 500gb 7200 RPM 16MB Cache HD. I'm not sure if thats fast or not, correct me if im wrong.

 

[publicenemy219]

Would I be able to make use of RAID? I have 3 HDs 2 of which are the same (the 500GB model) and A RAID compatible Mobo. I don't really know what RAID does, but I have heard it does increase performance.

 

[Vampyrbyte]

I wouldnt take much notice of performance inside Dalaran on WoW. Dropping a few frames here isnt a big deal for you. Where you need to be concentrating on is what ever you play.
I have a fairly similar setup, I have an E7200 Dual Core with a 9800GT and 4Gigs of RAM. I run WoW at "Ultra" settings with No Anti-Aliasing. 1680x1050 Windowed but Maximised and with another 1400x900 monitor. I don't have any major issues with WoW, Dalaran as always is crap. However in WoW it is often the network that can hold the game back and cause a drop in FPS. If your struggling in 25 mans with FPS or Network latency this could be a sign you are running too many communicative addons. For whatever reason Addons can and frequently will nuke you off the game.
If you could post your addon list for WoW I may be able to help identify and potetntial issues with them. Also, make sure you are running up to date versions, consider getting the Curse Client which will make it much easier to keep addons up to date.
On that note, make all your drivers and DirectX are up to date too.

As for RAID. It has many uses, Mostly designed around protecting Data from hardware failures but it can be used to increase performance too. It basically involves splitting the data across multiple drives in order to increase read and write performance by, basically doing it simultaniously. The Wikipedia article on RAID is excellect. "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID"
Its unlikely that your HDD is bottlenecking your peroformance in games however, Upgrading it will likely just make load times shorter as you have a decent ammount of RAM.

I've not played Team Fortress 2 in ages, Shame really because that was a good game back when I did. Custom maps can sometimes be poorely designed and give you poor performance. Try playing with the graphics settings, maybe finding some tweaks online (Tweakguides did a TF2 guide I think), in order to get the performance your looking for.

 

[publicenemy219]

Thanks for the response, I currently tried with no addons but no FPS increase. I get pretty poor FPS in other areas too, such as the outlands, Terrokar, Nagrand (some areas), and alot of areas in Northrend. Sometimes the FPS is good sometimes its bad, its very inconsistent, sometimes ill get 100FPS facing the left side of the map, and 40FPS facing the opposite side, not moving at all. I'm going to raid my HDDs and see how that works, probably won't increase much but will help single out the issue.

 

[Vampyrbyte]

Strange how WoW wasnt performing well with no addons. I would consider your computer more than adequate for 25 man raiding. Let alone being in places like Outland which are largely empty.
Make sure your not forcing any Anti-Aliasing in the drivers for your Nvidia card. Combine AA with those shadows that WoW does and your FPS will take one for the team.

 

[publicenemy219]

Yeah I checked that, it has been off. I do have a Core 2 DUO 7400 2.8GHz CPU, would that work better for gaming opposed to the Q6600? I was going to check it out to see if I get any performance boost.

 

[OllieUK]

No, the Q6600 is a great gaming chip IMHO, especially if you have it clocked at 3.5 and I wouldn't really advise changing that just yet - just look at the CPU hierarchy charts that Toms has hidden away somewhere

I'm not sure RAIDing your drives will help any but will probably give you better load times and will also be an interesting learning/academic exercide in system buid and config.

The 9800 GT is getting older by current standards but is no slouch by any means. Are you using anti-aliasing in TF2 if so try with it off?

TF2 frame rate does seem to fluctuate quite a lot from min to max. Personally I'm happy with the 90 avg and 40 min that I get. IMHO (again) as long as your min doesn't fall below 25 and your average sits at 60+ then you're good. Maybe try turning down the settings and see where you get that level of performance.

Can't help much with WoW as I've never played it, but it sounds like you're getting less performance than expected. Maybe try the usual things like check you have latest drivers for everything, defragged hard disks. You gould try something like Game Booster (a free download - just google it) which disables services not needed for gaming to get you some more free system resources?

 

[Zakkas]

What about temps on your video card? Have you tried checking this with EVGA precision application and doing some monitoring while you are playing? I had an older 9800GT 512MB low profile card from EVGA in my fiances PC that didn't perform all that well at the same resolution. I had to run her draw distance and ground clutter/shadows on low to receive better FPS even in zones outside of Dalaran.

I have a Core2Duo E6850 and a 8800GTS 640 and play at the same resolution as you. Depending on the zone and what my level of distance is will cause my FPS to vary a lot. Dalaran I range from 22fps to 30fps.

 

[publicenemy219]

Thanks for the help, the temps are idle at 45C and while playing gets to 65 or so. I just installed the RAID array and ive noticed that I have been having some latency issues. Not sure if it network related but it started to occur as soon as I installed it. my ping in various games fluctuates from anywhere to 100Ms to 900Ms. Its really annoying and hard to play like that. just want to know if that could be related to the RAID

 

[Cl4d]

I believe ping is not related to your hard drives, but to your provider/router.

 

[shiftstealth]

9800GT isnt going to shade TF2 fast enough at that resolution.

Wow isn't just CPU based but CLOCK based. A P4 @ 4.0ghz will do better than an i7 @ 3.0ghz.

 

[Zakkas]

To be honest though your FPS in WoW seems pretty decent. You are running High settings on everything with 1680x1050 with no anti-aliasing right? As already said by someone else Dalaran will never be great in terms of FPS. 10 man or 25 raids should be ok though.

In any zone/raid/or city has your FPS ever been below 10 or 15 fps? Reading some posts after the latest patch some have stated it introduced some memory leak...but that hasn't been proven yet.

Temps are good. I would suggest moving your WTF and cache folders in the World Of Warcraft directory to your desktop for the moment and also move your addons folder there as well. When you reopen the game it will generate new WTF/cache folders. Open and test with different ground clutter/distance settings for video. **If you have anti-virus set application settings to exclude any gaming directorys from scanning.

I haven't played TF2 lately but as I remember my FPS was never so bad that I could not play. I would guess between 30 - 60fps. I'll have to check my settings.

Also as Cl4d has stated. Your latency may be spiking. If your provider is anything like Time Warner Cable they may have over sold the node your connection hangs off of and you are probably receiving packet loss and high pings due to that. That is something to contact your ISP about though. You can test by pinging to something on the Internet from a command prompt - (ping -t 4.2.2.2) and let it run see if you have spikey ping times or any time outs for that matter.

 

[publicenemy219]

I fixed the issue with the RAID just had to install drivers and other stuff. I just SLIed my GPU with 2 geforce 9800GTs and didnt get any FPS boost in tf2 ,and actually, my WoW FPS dropped.

I'm running out of ideas why I would be lagging. The only thing I havent tested out is my CPU and from what I'm told, it is more than enough for wow. I'm starting to think it might be the Mobo or the operating system. Any thoughts?

I have a ASUS P5n-D btw

 

[Zakkas]

I doubt it is your CPU giving you problems. A Q6600 is plenty for WoW. Have you tried any of the suggestions from my post pertaining to WoW?

 

[publicenemy219]

Yeah I have, but WoW isnt the only game Im getting bad FPS in. I also average around30FPS in AoC in medium GFX and around 45FPS with TF2. Although these arent bad frame rates, Im seeing no increase from SLI and an actual decrease from a couple months back.

With the Q6600, I ran a 3dmark test, and when it got to the CPU portion, the FPS literally was 1, while the GPU tests all averaged around 30. will test e7400 soon

I just swapped my Q6600 with the E7400 Core 2 Duo, and I saw a significant decrease in FPS for TF2, around 20 or so, and a lot of stutters. Didn't see an FPS decrease or increase in AoC.

Also CPU usage is around 30Average with only Chrome browser open.

I'd also like to note that my GPU are idleing at 70 and 60 Idle with 30% fan speed. They average at 50 when they aren't in SLI.

Running out of ideas, only things I haven't test are the PSU(650 Watt), the Crucial Ram(4g), and the MOBO

 

[publicenemy219]

Actually no noticeable decrease in TF2 concerning FPS, just alot of stuttering. Also 0-1 FPS on the E7400 during the CPU test in 3dmark06