Low framerate on WoW with Mac Pro and ATI 2600

[Ack]

I just started playing the 10 day trial of WoW. And I'm a little disappointed with the framerates I'm getting.

I'm using the following system:

2008 Mac Pro 8-core 3.0 GHz
16 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 2600

I'm running the game at 1920x1200 - full screen.
I'm getting around 30 fps using "ultra" quality, no glow, 1x multisampling.
I'm getting around 35 fps using "high" quality, no glow, 1x multisampling.

I really thought my system would get better framerates than this, even at higher settings. Is this the standard performance for the Radeon 2600, or is there something I can do to get the framerates higher at at high quality settings using this hardware?

[skunkworker]

I just started playing the 10 day trial of WoW. And I'm a little disappointed with the framerates I'm getting.

I'm using the following system:

2008 Mac Pro 8-core 3.0 GHz
16 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 2600

I'm running the game at 1920x1200 - full screen.
I'm getting around 30 fps using "ultra" quality, no glow, 1x multisampling.
I'm getting around 35 fps using "high" quality, no glow, 1x multisampling.

I really thought my system would get better framerates than this, even at higher settings. Is this the standard performance for the Radeon 2600, or is there something I can do to get the framerates higher at at high quality settings using this hardware?

I would think its your graphics card, the 2600 isnt meant for that high end graphics, a ATi 3840 or 4870? series would do a lot better.

[Zortrium]

I think your framerates look pretty reasonable given your resolution and GPU, which is woefully underpowered compared to the rest of your machine.

[Ack]

Thanks everyone. I assumed that if there was a bottleneck the video card must be it. I wanted to double check that these were expected numbers before upgrading.

[Maclarny]

Video card is definitely what is holding you up - I am actually quite surprised you are even getting getting 30 fps at 1920x1080.

[Cabbit]

Video card is definitely what is holding you up - I am actually quite surprised you are even getting getting 30 fps at 1920x1080.

Resolution has rarely caused much of a difference on wow in my experience.

[Ack]

Thanks for the info everyone. I'm ordering a new 4870, but I also wanted to update this thread with some settings that really helped get my 2600 running well.

I now have all settings maxed out except that screen glow is off and "ground clutter density" is turned down to 25% or so. Using these settings I get around 50-60 FPS with 1x multisampling or 40-50 FPS with 2x multisampling.

Reducing the "ground cover density" setting made a huge difference and I actually prefer the game with less ground cover (grass, bushes, etc.) anyway. With higher densities it often blocked my view of the action. Hopefully this will help someone with a 2600 card out. The graphics look so much better at higher quality settings!

[Plutonius]

I just started playing the 10 day trial of WoW. And I'm a little disappointed with the framerates I'm getting.

I'm using the following system:

2008 Mac Pro 8-core 3.0 GHz
16 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 2600

I'm running the game at 1920x1200 - full screen.
I'm getting around 30 fps using "ultra" quality, no glow, 1x multisampling.
I'm getting around 35 fps using "high" quality, no glow, 1x multisampling.

I really thought my system would get better framerates than this, even at higher settings. Is this the standard performance for the Radeon 2600, or is there something I can do to get the framerates higher at at high quality settings using this hardware?

Sounds about right with that graphics card.

[Consultant]

Checkout benchmarks from barefeats.com

2600 is the entry level card.

[topgunn]

Turn shadow detail down and you should be able to leave everything else at or near max.

[QuantumLo0p]

If you want to get by with your 2600, I would go into the WoW graphic settings and set everything back to defaults. Then go through each setting, mousing over each setting will tell you if it affects performance greatly or a just a little. Try to back down the critical settings a little bit at a time then see how it affects performance.

You should be able to get better performance than you are but maybe not in some areas of WoW such as Dalaran, which you can't go to with the trial anyway. (For that you need the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions.) I have an old Powermac dual 2.7 G5 with 4GB ram and a 6800 which lags momentarily entering Stormwind but out questing I get 35-50 fps with my settings. In Dalaran I get only a pitiful 10 fps but I plan to build a gaming rig soon anyway. I may build a Hackintosh and dual boot between X and Windows but nothing for sure. To keep things simple I may just build a cheap Windows gaming rig for about $600 and keep using my old Powermac for everything else.

Hope this helps! Have fun.
:)

[Sambo110]

Full screen glow apparently has a big performance on FPS on Mac's. But even with an awesome system you won't get amazing FPS in WOW.

[cluthz]

Full screen glow apparently has a big performance on FPS on Mac's. But even with an awesome system you won't get amazing FPS in WOW.

Full screen glow kills macs, atleast mine and several others report the same problem.

Your machine has extremely good CPU perforance, but the 2600 is rubbish, get a new gfx card and get four times the performance!
Pix stolen from : http://barefeats.com/nehal11.html
http://barefeats.com/images09/neh11_wow.gif
The 2600 is slower than the 120 card btw..
Tested in a Nehalem Mac Pro 8-core running at 2.93GHz (12G of RAM).