Finding Out What Is Causing Performance Issues

[dragoniak]

Hello,

I dont know if I am posting in the right forum, but I am having performance issues playing my game.
I play wow and I get really low FPS (4-7) in certain circumstances. Its never really high and gets worse when theres alot of stuff going on around.

I am trying to figure out what exactly is cause the issue.

Is there a benchmark software or other that would tell me like the memory is too slow or not enough or my video card is too slow or running too hot or what ever?

I try this game at work and in windowed mode with 2 graphics software running, im running at 60 FPS in the worst places.

Here is my system

Thanks

I have changed the Tower for a Nine Hundred or something with a bigger Power Supply

Acer Aspire Prestige M5100
AMD Phenom® Quad-Core 9500
(4 x 512KB L2 cache, 2.2GHz)

2 x 1GB (2GB) DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz
2 x 1GB (2GB) DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz

500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
250GB Western Digital SATA 7200ROM Hard Drive

(Disabled) Integrated ATI Radeon® X1250 Graphics

Nvidia Geforce® 8800 GTS 320MB

Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170S

Realtek High Definition Audio

Integrated Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabyte

Acer Enhanced 101 Key PS/2 Keyboard

Logitech MX510 Optical USB Mouse

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
Your sys looks fine for playing WOW,do you have problems in other games too ? also make sure you have the latest Nvidia drivers installed

 

[dragoniak]

Hello and welcome to the forums
Your sys looks fine for playing WOW,do you have problems in other games too ? also make sure you have the latest Nvidia drivers installed

thanks

I just play Wow. And it seems like it happen in high population and high graphics areas like in 25 man raids on boss fights when there spells and fire all over.
Could it be temperatures?
Here is a screenshot of SpeedFan at idle.

 

[skolpo]

If SpeedFan is correct, your GPU and cores are idling way too high. The CPU isn't too bad, but people get cautious even if their GPU gets past 65 under load. I would imagine your card gets well past 85 degrees under load. That could definitely be a reason for the card to spaz out in intensive situations in WoW. Try cleaning out your system and your video card. Make sure no large dust particles are gathering inside the card and the fan. Update your drivers if you haven't done so already.

 

[dragoniak]

Oh didnt think of that.

I think i have a air can somewhere. I try that out tonight.

Thanks alot

 

[rawsteel]

Its your CPU

2.2GHz is TOO LITTLE for WoW as it can be extremely CPU intensive and it doesnt take advantage of the 4 cores. you got the worst processor for WoW. Upgrade to either Phenom II x2 3.1GHz or something similar

 

[Maziar]

The CPU is enough for playing WOW but i think the OP runs it at high settings and i think that's the reason the FPS drops in highly populated areas
To OP,At what settings(High-med-low)and what resolution do you play at ? also is the FPS OK,in other less-populated areas ?

 

[dragoniak]

All my video settings are at the lowest except for distance which is at half (which shouldnt affect my FPS in raid Instances) and there is only one check mark that I had to get so i can see spells that are made on the ground like fires, etc...
Ive brought up the FPS window so I can see when it gets low. Its mostly in 5-10-25 man instances that its low.. It can go down to like 5fps in 25 man raids..
When im just flying around it can go up to 100FPS. In high population areas it goes around 20 FPS and also in areas where people are fighting with spells and fires etc.. it goes down to about 15FPS.

If this helps, my computer at work can run Wow on windowed mode and run at 60FPS right in high populated areas.

At work I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz
2x 2Gig PC2-6400 (400MHz) SDRAM (only using 3 due to Windows XP restrictions)
An ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series 512MB

Im using CPU-Z and in one tab it says 512MB and in the other it says 1Gig for the video card. Im pretty sure its a 1Gig.

So im wondering if I should upgrade my video card or my cpu first.

 

[Maziar]

No your system should handle wow with no problems,both of your VGA and CPU are fine for it,if you could test other games and check if this FPS drop happens,it would be good