Weird WOW Performance

[Gasu E.]

I am seeing very weird performance for WOW on ONE of my characters. The FPS reading cycles over several minute intervals from 25-35 FPS to less than 1 FPS. The <1 FPS lasts for several secs in which, of course, I can do virtually nothing. When this phenomenum started happening (about a week ago) the <1 FPS period could last quite long (20-30 sec) however I have taken all of the usual steps to optimize performance and have reduced the <1 FPS period significantly. Don't jump to conclusions as to the cause until you read the rest.

I have another character on the same "realm" server (and same add-ons, same video settings) which also sees fluctating performance, however, the rates are 7-10 FPS higher. A few seconds on 8-10 FPS is quite playable given that mostly this one runs at 25-40 FPS.

Before you condemn my internet connections, I have other characters on other realms that are running 50-60 FPS with the same video settings and same add-ons. Blizz has suggested that the realms are in different geographic locations and the difference may just be due to internet traffic profiles.

I have a 1.8 GHz G5 dual. When I run the activity profiler I notice that when I am running in the "good part" of the performance cycle the CPU level used by WOW task is 70-75% of max but during the "bad part" the activity is 95% of max. So it's clear that something is happening inside WOW.

BTW, here are steps I've taken to max performance:

- all video settings are at min and I've adjusted all options to maximize performance over appearance as recommended

- trashed the cache file

- moved WOW to my second drive

- added memory (to 2 GB)

- tested my add-ons one at a time and cut back to the bare minimum

[harveypooka]

Someone told me to remove my WDB and WTF (keep them just in case) in a previous thread and run WoW again - worked wonders for me. Boosted the FPS.

[Gasu E.]

Someone told me to remove my WDB and WTF (keep them just in case) in a previous thread and run WoW again - worked wonders for me. Boosted the FPS.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that. One of those (the one with cache, I forget which is which) I removed. The other I tried to remove (twice) but the WOW application crashed both times on start-up, so I put it back. Perhaps that is a related problem.

[Abulia]

Blowing away the WTF folder shouldn't hurt, the game re-creates the contents on startup. It contains all the personal settings (chat box location, etc) for your characters.

In the past I've been recommended by Blizzard to nuke that folder.

I'd also disable (remove) all UI addons as well.

As a final reminder, turn off Spotlight indexing the WoW application folder.

[Barham]

Yeah, you're going to want to move all of your addons out of the WoW folder as a test. Just disabling them doesn't cut it. You don't have to delete them, but get them out so that WoW doesn't even know they exist.

Also, the spotlight thing can cause major problems. It's an easy fix that only takes a second.

You say that you have a 1.8ghz dual. A dual what? There are big differences that can effect how you adjust your settings (I.E. setting terrain distance, or texture to "lowest" might not be helping you at all). What video card do you have?

Also, where in game are these problems occurring? Is this a raid/IF problem, or general questing?

[Gasu E.]

Yeah, you're going to want to move all of your addons out of the WoW folder as a test. Just disabling them doesn't cut it. You don't have to delete them, but get them out so that WoW doesn't even know they exist.

Also, the spotlight thing can cause major problems. It's an easy fix that only takes a second.

You say that you have a 1.8ghz dual. A dual what? There are big differences that can effect how you adjust your settings (I.E. setting terrain distance, or texture to "lowest" might not be helping you at all). What video card do you have?

Also, where in game are these problems occurring? Is this a raid/IF problem, or general questing?

Happens everywhere--raids, IF, general terrain, even empty houses. Yes, I did disable spotlight for my entire WOW folder as well. When I read about the Spotlight fix, I was very optimistic-- it seemed like a logical cause of the cycling. But designated WOW as "private" for sptlight didnt fix it.

Video card is the stock 9600 that Apple sold as a system options. It's a dual G5. I agree that setting this to low may not be helping, but it's probably not hurting either.

I only have a few common add-ins in my folder now-- Auctioneer, Atlas, CT_Raid, Decursive, Damage Meters, GEM. The only ones enabled right now are Auctioneer, CT_Raid and GEM (I can't play without the latter two and Auctioneer is near essential). I'll try removing them to see what happens.

[Barham]

Wow, this is a strange case for sure. Those mods shouldn't be hurting you. Your machine can definitely handle higher then "lowest" settings. The only other thing that I can suggest is deleting the entire WoW directory and reinstalling. This helps some people. I've done it a couple times and it has boosted me a few frames. But, the nature of your problem leads me to believe that this issue could be resolved with a reinstall. Other than that, I don't know what else you can do.

Good luck.

[Gasu E.]

Well, I did successfully regenerate both WDB and WTF, and that did help just enough to make the game at least playable. I still get the weird cycling but the "bottom" is now 3-5 FPS rather than .2 FPS. I did have to be very careful crossing a bridge in UBRS last night, but in general I was able to work around the performance lapses.

I'll try the complete reinstall at some point when I have a couple of hours to kill. Thanks for the help everybody!

[harveypooka]

Well, I did successfully regenerate both WDB and WTF, and that did help just enough to make the game at least playable. I still get the weird cycling but the "bottom" is now 3-5 FPS rather than .2 FPS. I did have to be very careful crossing a bridge in UBRS last night, but in general I was able to work around the performance lapses.

I'll try the complete reinstall at some point when I have a couple of hours to kill. Thanks for the help everybody!

That is super weird. Maybe contact Blizzard - see if they have any thoughts?

[Josh396]

Sorry to butt in the thread but I was curious if someone could explain WDB and WTF to me. I've been experiencing slight problems lately in WoW and while I can deal with them, it would be nice to see them go away if possible. Thanks.

[harveypooka]

Sorry to but in the thread but I was curious if someone could explain WDB and WTF to me. I've been experiencing slight problems lately in WoW and while I can deal with them, it would be nice to see them go away if possible. Thanks.

I guess they are user preferences and cache files, when you move them out - WoW will rebuild them. I guess it's similar to emptying the cache on Safari to make it faster?
They are located in the folder of WoW in your applications folder.

[Josh396]

Thanks a lot. Should I remove the whole folder or just what's inside them?

[harveypooka]

Thanks a lot. Should I remove the whole folder or just what's inside them?

Remove both folders and place them on your desktop, don't trash them though. I can't remember exactly but you'll have to set up some of your settings again (graphics etc), if you've changed them from the default.
See if it improves your performance. If it doesn't or something goes wrong, just drag them back to your folder and replace the newly created ones. :)

[Josh396]

Remove both folders and place them on your desktop, don't trash them though. I can't remember exactly but you'll have to set up some of your settings again (graphics etc), if you've changed them from the default.
See if it improves your performance. If it doesn't or something goes wrong, just drag them back to your folder and replace the newly created ones. :)
Well I'll have to wait until the servers are back up but thanks a lot for the help.

[harveypooka]

Are all servers down? Might be a new patch...

[Demon Hunter]

Are all servers down? Might be a new patch...

It's Tuesday, weekly maintenance.

[Gasu E.]

That is super weird. Maybe contact Blizzard - see if they have any thoughts?

Yah, that was the first thing I did. Their form makes you fill out your system configuration; their response was something like:

"It sounds like an Internet problem; not necessarily with your connection. We want you to run tracrout. To execute tracrout, go to your Start menu and select Run..."

Needless to say this did not give me a lot of confidence that they had fully read my complaint. I did end up running traceroute and sending them the report... there were no funnies there...

[harveypooka]

It's Tuesday, weekly maintenance.

Just extended maintenance? It's usually till 11AM.

[Abulia]

Just extended maintenance? It's usually till 11AM.
There was extended maintenance scheduled for today.

[madog]

Guaranteed method to increase WoW performance:

Stop playing!

:) :D

[harveypooka]

Guaranteed method to increase WoW performance:

Stop playing!

:) :D

NEEEVVVERRRRRR!

[kidzdoc]

Sorry, Mac newbie here. How do I turn off Spotlight indexing for WOW?

Thanks.

[Littleodie914]

Sorry, Mac newbie here. How do I turn off Spotlight indexing for WOW?

Thanks.Find the Spotlight preference pane in your System Prefs. and simply drag your WOW folder to the list of places you don't want it to search. :)

[Gasu E.]

BTW, closure. My main character performance is way up now, 20-40 or more normally, even 12-20 in the worst places (typically for me, a full MC raid). I did all the things suggested here and they all did improve my performance a bit, enough to take the game from unplayable to barely-playable. However, the weird fluctuation seems to have suddenly gone away the past few days. Perhaps it was network-related as Blizz said.