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MASSIVE slowdown on new MacBook Pro when playing WoW

Y

Yixian

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 2, 2007
1,483
135
Europe
This is driving me UP THE WALL, I have ab brand new MacBook Pro 9600M GT 256mb and yet in World of Warcraft on Mac OS X I am getting FIFTEEN FPS. Lowering video settings has almost no affect on the fps at all, and everyone else with this laptop seems to be getting about 100 fps.

Please please please help me out, what on earth is going on...
 
WoW works just as well in OS X as in windows. The problem is unique to his system not OS X in general.

First step is find out if there are any background processes running when you play. Use Activity Monitor in /Applications/Utilities. Find any programs that are using a lot of CPU.

If it isn't that, create a new user profile, and play the game from there. See if that helps.

I play on my X1600 MBP at 1680x1050 with most settings at max. Works like a charm.
 
Ok I did what you said, no major background processes and I deleted all addons and profile data. Now my fps is a steady 30 only with all details max except for environmental detail which is about 65%.

Any ideas? Everyone else is getting like 100000fps on their MBPs..
 
What's you average fps though? Say in, Zangarmarsh or something. I'm stuck at 30 with frequent drops to 20 or 15 still. SURELY the 9600M GT is capable of more than this...
 
Reduce shadow detail to the minimum. That particular setting crushes the MBP and most people with desktops that I know cannot max that one out.
 
There are only 2 settings for shadows on WoW and it's basically off or on, and there's no dynamic shadowing or self-shadowing like high end games. This is a 4 year old game, and yet my brand new $2k MacBook Pro is getting 10-20 fps...
 
Yeah the only think i could recommend is turning shadow off.

The other thing is to monitor your heat, download istat or something like that. If you 9600 or CPU are overheating then you maybe suffering from throttling. If you have heat issues you may want to set your fans manually to max.

With the release of WOTLK i would be surprised if people with older MBP can get 100 FPS with everything set on max.

The MBP should be performing better than this, though i can see blizzard releasing a patch to address these issues, does not sounds like they did a good job with the new graphics especially shadows which kills alot of systems.

On my 2.53 I usually sit on 30 FPS. Which is disappointing.
 
I'm on Burning Crusade, I dont even have the new shadows.

I ran a custom config turning off vsync and setting max fps at 45, this improved performance for about 5 minutes, now I am flipping between 30fps and 10 fps every few seconds..

What kind of performance should I be expecting on this machine?
 
Yixian said:
I'm on Burning Crusade, I dont even have the new shadows.

I ran a custom config turning off vsync and setting max fps at 45, this improved performance for about 5 minutes, now I am flipping between 30fps and 10 fps every few seconds..

What kind of performance should I be expecting on this machine?
Click to expand...

Alot more then 45.

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp05.html

Though it does not matter is you do not have the latest expansion. 3.0 or 3.02 released new graphics into wow, so it effects all versions. Go into your settings and have a look for shadows (if i had my MBP here i would tell u where to go).
 
Yixian said:
I'm on Burning Crusade, I dont even have the new shadows.

I ran a custom config turning off vsync and setting max fps at 45, this improved performance for about 5 minutes, now I am flipping between 30fps and 10 fps every few seconds..

What kind of performance should I be expecting on this machine?
Click to expand...

Also can u tell us what temps you are getting? Have you ever had a black screen of death? just trying to eliminate heat and throttling as an issue.
 
Yixian said:
GPU temp 60-68, never had black screen of death, turned down shadows and got about 3 fps out of it :(



Ah I see, I am getting 10% of the fps I should be getting :) Nice :D I love Apple/Blizz :)
Click to expand...

What is the temp of the CPU?
 
Yixian said:
Between 60-69
Click to expand...

You running the laptop plugged in and at higher performance right?

Your CPU and GPU are just cruising. My CPU hits about 90 +

So when you are playing the CPU stays around 70?
 
MH01 said:
You running the laptop plugged in and at higher performance right?

Your CPU and GPU are just cruising. My CPU hits about 90 +

So when you are playing the CPU stays around 70?
Click to expand...

Yes to all! Plugged in an those are the CPU temps.
 
OP: Surely you went in to your Energy Saver settings and set it to high performance then log off/on? Otherwise you're still running on the lowly 9400! lol
 
sporei said:
OP: Surely you went in to your Energy Saver settings and set it to high performance then log off/on? Otherwise you're still running on the lowly 9400! lol
Click to expand...

And that may explain why his CPU/GPU was just crusing.. lol

Hope you that's the problem so that you can get back to enjoy your MBP.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-aA1LM1mB4

That's a quick minute of me wandering around IF using my MBP (although the 512mb/4gb version) and its running in the high 60's to 80's in IF.

I'll get a screenshot of my settings and you can see if it makes a difference to mimick it.

While you don't have WOTLK I do believe you still have a lot of the newer engine features (shadows, lighting, etc) as I "believe" it was pushed with the 3.0.2 patch. While it's mostly noticeable in WOTLK the engine changes still run in WoW vanilla or BC.
 
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