How can I get better Performance?

[Mills]

I use my PC for gaming. I just got my new monitor last night, and my FPS is terrible (under 10 fps) when I have a lot of people on my screen. (I play world of warcraft and at times you have 40 people in 1 spot).

I'm guessing its because of my resolution, seeing as with my other monitor my FPS was fine. Also, I tried turning my settings down to the lowest and I still had the FPS issue.

What i'm looking for is possible tweaks that I can perform without having to buy any more hardware. I'll leave that as a last resort. If it is a hardware issue though, what should I upgrade? GPU? RAM?

19" Viewsonic Widescreen (1400x900 resolution) VA1912wb
939 Socket MSI K8N Neo4-F Motherboard (1000 fsb, pcie)
MSI Geforce 6600LE 256MB (passive cooled, huge heatsink)
AMD 64 3700+ San Diego
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM HDD
1x1GB Crucial DDR400

Any suggestions? I'm guessing most are going to suggest a GPU upgrade, but im hoping that I can tweak it a bit so I don't have to spend any more money

 

[Finneus]

Does the monitor require a driver to be installed to work properly?. you may want to check that out

 

[slayer0715]

Man I hate to say it but you bought a really fast computer and hurt your self by not getting a good videocard. Not saying that is the reason for the slowness but it isn't helping.

As far as helping you all I can say is try your video card drivers and make sure they are up to date. Check your bios and make sure that the PCIx is running at full 16x.

Is every thing else running fine as far as other games and programs or are they slow also. If so you may want to run a HD or RAM check and make sure nothing is wrong with it.

Last thing to do is send your video card back and spend an extra $50 and get the GT6600 PCIX16. It is only 128MB ram but this card rocks for the cost. I have one that is an AGP edition and I get 30+ frames a sec in WOW with all my setting all the way up. In Lagforge I get about 10-15 when I first walk in.

My setup is
AMD xp 2700+
1GB dual channel
60GB boot HD
2x 80GB WD SATA (raid-0)
MSI GT6600 AGP edition

Hope this helps you some how. Oh one more thing. Make sure your mother board driver are up to date also. Good Luck, and if you are ever on Hyjal give me a shout......

Dehalzen- 56 Pali

 

[Rugger]

I'd say there are a few possible issues:
1. Internet connection - if you're not on broadband, then that is the problem. If you're on broadband, then that is not the issue...
2. WoW is a memory hog. Make sure that you have the most recent patches installed - they have corrected some of the memory leak issues with patches. You've already taken a performance hit by not running your memory in dual channel. This could be resolved by putting in another 1GB stick of RAM. You're issues with decreased performance with large numbers of players indicates that it is likely a memory issue.
2. VIDEO CARD: That LE is a dog of a card. If memory doesn't fix the issue, then that is the culprit. That being said, if it performs ok when you're not in a heavy player area, then memory appears to be the issue...

 

[fishmahn]

Tweak your video card - replace it with one that does NOT have LE on it...

Mike.

 

[Mills]

Seriously, is LE that bad?

I did a lot of research before I built this box and I read good things about the LE card.

Also, how much of a possibility is the RAM?

 

[fishmahn]

Not a bad card, but it's a low-end version of a low-mid range card, and its a generation old...

For 'good', lets define what good is... My little Nissan 240sx is a 'Good' car, but I certainly wouldn't take clients out to dinner with it. I'd feel better taking them out in an old Ford Fairmont (and that was considered a cruddy car) because at least it has room...

I was playing EQ on a system with a GF2 on it - worked fine as long as there weren't a lot of people around (i.e., no raids...). I upgraded to a 9600XT and not only could I run at higher resolution, I could turn up the eye candy and still get little to no lag in raids (this was a couple yrs ago of course). WoW needs a lot more GPU than EQ did, so the 6600 would be the minimum card I'd recommend - and I'd worry about exactly what you're seeing.

A lower end card is going to have trouble running those resolutions in today's games.

I doubt more RAM will help - that lag sounds like its a rendering problem - definitly GPU.

Mike.

 

[kittle]

in my experiance WoW runs fine with 1gig of ram. -- more wont hurt, but 512mb will cause problems.

Not sure about your card, but with an OLD GF Ti4600 card things ran fine -- even with lots of people on the screen.

Also look at what resolution your running at - bump it down to 1024x768 if you havent already.

 

[Mills]

Yeah, I was going to try that when I get home tonite. The PITA though is that it looks so fantastic at that resolution ><

 

[Mills]

Any other suggestions before I go purchasing a new video card tomorrow morning?

If not, what card should I look into? I'm leaning towards the Geforce 7800GT... what brands are good? I've always gone with MSI but they are more expensive than eVGA.

 

[ProdigyMS]

You definately need a better video card. Im not really a Nvidia fan, but from what I hear, BFG, and eVGA are really good.

 

[Rugger]

eVGA makes good cards - you'd be safe with them.

 

[pat]

I use my PC for gaming. I just got my new monitor last night, and my FPS is terrible (under 10 fps) when I have a lot of people on my screen. (I play world of warcraft and at times you have 40 people in 1 spot).

Great.. you got a LCD monitor with fixed resolution.. So if you try to play at this resolution, which is non standard and rather wide... Then don't expect anything going fast.

Try to set lower resolution with your monitor, if it accept it.