Low FPS during games.

[Maddison]

Hello everyone!

I have an iMAC G5 1.8ghz, the 17' version with 2gb of ram. I recently purchased the highly addictive game world of warcraft. After learning about the game through friends and looking at the box i read the system specification and my system is more than qualified to handle the job... So i thought.

Well anyways when i play the game i get some really low fps, people tell me that it's some ram issue. I have 2gb of ram and my buddy runs the game some what smooth with 1gb on his powerbook G4. Is there some way that i can optimize the performance? like some program or some thing i can download to make the video card work better? I already set my system speed to "highest" and i even set the graphic settings on the lowest settings and yet i still get low FPS...

help!

- thanks

[Eidorian]

What resolution are you running it at?

[Maddison]

i'm running the game at 1440 x 900. the highest setting.
Any lower the game looks really distorted and it doesn't really increase FPS.

[Eidorian]

I've find that turning off anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering have given me the biggest performance boosts. Resolution doesn't seem to effect the performance on my iMac G5 either.

[Maddison]

you mean by turning off those video settings via the video game itself?
cause i did set everything on low and it still didn't do anything.

or did you mean turning off anti ailising / antristopic through some program or video setting on OSX?

[Shamus]

you could also try turning the music off....that can be rather performance intesive at times

[Maddison]

i too tried that as well, turning off the music. still no improvement in fps

I know this sounds crazy but, what would happen if i put like 2700 Speed ram in my imac. I currently have 3200 in it.

[Eidorian]

you mean by turning off those video settings via the video game itself?
cause i did set everything on low and it still didn't do anything.

or did you mean turning off anti ailising / antristopic through some program or video setting on OSX?In the game itself. I played America's Army and turned off anisotropic filtering. I got many more frames. Have you applied the latest update for it? I've heard it really increases performance.

i too tried that as well, turning off the music. still no improvement in fps

I know this sounds crazy but, what would happen if i put like 2700 Speed ram in my imac. I currently have 3200 in it.It won't work at all. You've already maxed it out at 2 GB too.

[CubeHacker]

Can you give us an example of the "low FPS" that you mention, and where its specifically low? Towns, dungeons, outdoors, everywhere?

The biggest framerate killers in WoW are the following:
Terrain draw distance - this should be set to half or lower.
Full screen glow - turn off
Anti aliasing and AF - turn off
Vertex Shaders - TURN ON

Everything else can be turned on or set to max as they barely affect performance. Also make sure that if you're running Tiger to set Spotlight to not scan the WoW folder (this used to be a bug, not sure if it still exists or not).

If all else fails, delete the WTF folder and reconfigure the game from scratch. Occasionally that helps.

[yellow]

Which video card do you have?

[Eidorian]

Which video card do you have?It's either the FX5200 or the Radeon 9600.

[yellow]

It could also be a GeForce 4 MX (32MB).. which would explain why it looks shittay. And frankly WoW looks shittay (and runs slowly) on my 15" PB with a 64MB video card. I have to minimize all the graphics to make it smooth. It's especially irksome in comparison to my other 2 Macs I play it on with a 128MB video card and a 256 video card.

[Eidorian]

It could also be a GeForce 4 MX (32MB).. which would explain why it looks shittay. And frankly WoW looks shittay (and runs slowly) on my 15" PB with a 64MB video card. I have to minimize all the graphics to make it smooth. It's especially irksome in comparison to my other 2 Macs I play it on with a 128MB video card and a 256 video card.I doubt it's the educational model.

[yellow]

I doubt it's the educational model.

Why? What are you basing that on? :)

[Eidorian]

Why? What are you basing that on? :)It's 1.8 GHz and not 1.6.

[gekko513]

You never said how many FPS you actually get? At least I can't find it.

[yellow]

OOooooh.. I see. The 1.6GHz came with the crappiest video card. Well, I'll guess and say the OP has the FX 5200 Ultra.

[Maddison]

You never said how many FPS you actually get? At least I can't find it.

Oh with everything turned on LOW = average 10-15 "daytime" 15-20 at night.

This is the funny part.

Everything on high [full screen glow, terrain highlights etc.] = average 10-13 "daytime" 13-17 "night"

[yellow]

And which video card please?

[Eidorian]

And which video card please?Yeah, that'd help more than anything else. What version of OS X are you running too. 10.4.3 and later have better ATI/Nvidia drivers.

[yellow]

What version of OS X are you running too.

Good call.

[Josh]

Im considering building a $400 pc just for playing WoW and other games.

My system: Dual-core 2ghz PowerMac, 2gb ram, Geforce 600 LE (128mb) video. (latest Tiger release)
WoW setting: Everything on medium or lower. Ant-aliasing off, etc.
FPS: 17-26 while *outside*

My bro's inexpensive system: Single-core AMD 3500, 1gb of ram, onboard video. (WinXP)
WoW settings: Everything on high, Ant-aliasing on, etc.
FPS: 30-40 while oustide.

The low performance of my system on WoW makes me sick.

[BlizzardBomb]

Im considering building a $400 pc just for playing WoW and other games.

My system: Dual-core 2ghz PowerMac, 2gb ram, Geforce 600 LE (128mb) video. (latest Tiger release)
WoW setting: Everything on medium or lower. Ant-aliasing off, etc.
FPS: 17-26 while *outside*

My bro's inexpensive system: Single-core AMD 3500, 1gb of ram, onboard video. (WinXP)
WoW settings: Everything on high, Ant-aliasing on, etc.
FPS: 30-40 while oustide.

The low performance of my system on WoW makes me sick.

What resolution?

[Josh]

^^ 1024x768 on both.

[BlizzardBomb]

That's odd. WoW up to date? Have you got any background programs running (or lots of widgets)?

[velocityg4]

Im considering building a $400 pc just for playing WoW and other games.

My system: Dual-core 2ghz PowerMac, 2gb ram, Geforce 600 LE (128mb) video. (latest Tiger release)
WoW setting: Everything on medium or lower. Ant-aliasing off, etc.
FPS: 17-26 while *outside*

My bro's inexpensive system: Single-core AMD 3500, 1gb of ram, onboard video. (WinXP)
WoW settings: Everything on high, Ant-aliasing on, etc.
FPS: 30-40 while oustide.

The low performance of my system on WoW makes me sick.

Josh,
If you build an el cheapo PC. You would be much better off with an AMD 3000 and El Cheapo video card like Radeon 9600 Pro/XT 256mb than AMD 3500 and integrated video. Or if you drop a little extra get a refurbished X800 Pro 256mb off newegg. I have never had any problems using refurbished video cards I bought off newegg. I don't know what my framerates would be in WOW since I don't like MMORPG's but I get great performance in DOOM 3 on my Athlon system in my sig (cost about $550 on newegg). 60 FPS at 1024x768 2x AA everything turned on.

[Josh]

That's odd. WoW up to date? Have you got any background programs running (or lots of widgets)?

WoW's up to date (wouldn't be able to play if it wasn't :p )

No background apps, and I never have any widgets open.

There was just the most tiniest difference between going from 512mb to 2gb of ram. I was able to move the terrain distance up from the lowest setting, and some others up a little...but I expected a lot more.

I might take the advice above and build a cheap PC; besides, I'd like to run linux for some programming practice (I'd rather not put linux on the Mac).