M17xR3 WoW Cata 4.0.6 patch - frame rate issues 460M

Tonight I installed the latest patch for World of Warcraft, 4.0.6 and got in game. Immediately I noticed that my frame rates were tanking—15-25fps max in SW, when before I had gotten 30-60 and beyond in 4.0.3 with my 460M and 60Hz display.

At first I figured it had to be the game, but now I'm not so sure. I tested on my desktop system with an AMD Radeon HD5850 and saw the same thing. But then on the WoW forums a blue poster suggested backing up the and Interface directories, deleting the Cache directory completely, turn off any auto-addon apps (like Curse) and going with the defaults and then resetting the graphics to where they were previously once getting in game.

I tried this on the desktop and it seemed to work. But doing it on my R3 made no difference. Even setting graphics to Low made almost zero difference in frame rates. I tried BatBoy's modded INF for the 266.58 reference drivers for Nvidia, and while the install went smoothly after following his instructions, there was little difference in frame rates.

So maybe it is the game, but I wished to ask if anyone else is having similar issues or if we need to look to Nvidia (or Dell) for a fix here.

 

Try this:
right click desktop
nvidia control panel
settings
manage 3d settings
(global settings tab)
Preferred graphics processor: "High-performance NVIDIA processor"
Power management mode: "Prefer maximum performance"
apply, ok
(Program Settings tab)
1. select a program to customize: (pick WoW)
2. select preferred gpu: (make sure it's not set to "integrated graphics")
apply, ok (if needed)



restart computer and see if it helped



PS: everyone's having this (and many other) issues. Seems like the last few optimus releases have been garbage.

 

Thanks, kunekaden, but I had already re-set those options after installing 266.58 with BatBoy's INF.

WoW was working great with 266.08 (latest official Dell) until the patch to 4.0.6.

With this problem as well as the one where water won't show up properly in WoW on Optimus systems (at least I think that's why) unless you crank it down to the "Fair" setting, are putting me in a mind to return this unit. I had hoped for better from Nvidia.

Not sure if I'll reorder either, as the R3 isn't available and I have not the money to kick things up to the R2.

 

I'm also considering returning my r3 because of how terrible optimus is.

 

Guys, in regards to the modded INF, have you gone back and re-tried the dell driver? From some of the earlier posts it appeared that a few were not installing the Intel driver before installing the NV. Intel HD has to be installed before NV on an Optimus system.

 

I have, and also tried a quadro driver (which was epic bad).

uninstall nvidia, uninstall intel, restart
boot safe, clean, clean, restart
install intel, restart
install nvidia, restart

 

Always.

I mentioned in one of those threads that I had done that instinctively. I also followed your instructions completely, even using CCleaner in Safe Mode to hose out the registry.

Your modded INF with 266.66 wasn't an issue at all in other games: Second Life had even better framerates than with 266.08.

The problem appears to be WoW patch 4.0.6 and how it works with Nvidia cards and Intel HD combos. Lots of complaints on the WoW forums. I'm going to wait a few days to see if they acknowledge the problem, but I need to return this laptop within the window if I go that route.

That one of the two games I play daily is not working right on this machine is unacceptable, no matter where the fault lies. I have a working desktop, so returning the laptop doesn't leave me in any kind of lurch.

 

I went back to the 266.08 Dell drivers. I noticed that the modded INF 266.58 drivers were causing artifacts that I can only describe as making the screen look like it was shaking. I suspect that 266.58 is intended for 3D Vision systems.

Anyhow, things were better again back on 266.08. Frame rates are what they had been previous to the 4.0.6 patch. I tracked down part of the of the problem to an add-on, but I had disabled that add-on in earlier testing and it had not made a difference. Perhaps Blizzard made changes on their end too.

Much happier with the R3 again. Also, the add-on got an update and now doesn't cause the issue.

I still don't know what the root cause was of all this, but glad to see it's gone. I've logged into WoW several times and not seen anything unusual.

 

Great. Good to hear you are seeing better performance!

 

Im having the same issues on my desktop, i dont think its the R3 at all. I was playing maxed out with 60fps until patch now in any big city it lags so bad its almost impossible to play without chunking out.

FYI
i7 940
260 gtx
4 gb ddr3

 

I think I will finally chime in and add my experience with M17xr3, WoW,
460m, and 60hz screen.


I have tried the 266.08, and a mix of other drivers on my laptop with the same results... missing water, and the game would hang. It wouldn't crash, but if i did a ctrl-alt-del, and then hit escape, it was as if the game never stopped working.

Then I downloaded the 270.51 drivers, and still no dice with the water, but these drivers sounded amazing (though it could have been the fact i turned off hardware accellerated sound in game, but I am too afraid to do anything after I fixed my issues with the game hanging...read farther!)

So I grabbed teh 267.76 display drivers, and put them into the 270.51 beta ones, and man does this thing sound and run well!

I then added DX11 support to the commandline for the game with..."c:\games\Wow.exe" -d3d11 (this fixed the water issue and freezing)

And wouldn't you know it...water is back, better frame rates, and I didnt have a single freeze after a full day of playing!

 

I take it this is a shortcut that bypasses the Launcher and goes directly into the game? I like to use the Launcher as I like to see what's new. But if I can get water back, I can forgo it and just run the Launcher on occasion to check for updates.

Did you by any chance test to see if that command line switch works for the 266.08 drivers?

 

Yes, Launcher runs that popup window that forces a click on "PLAY" to launch the game. Wow.exe is in the same folder. If the game isn't up to date, you just won't get in.

I did not check if it works on 266.08. It just tells wow to run in directx 11 mode. I am sure it will run fine with 266.08 as water issues applied to the 267.76 drivers before adding it to the command line. I dont want to touch it for awhile to verify that this is my fix.

 

btw, 270.51 also reduced my framerates to about half of what they normally were. So as i stated in my first post, i added teh 267.76 display drivers to the 270.51 beta ones (left the nview, sound, and others as they were) and made sure I checked "clean install" and my FPS came back.

 

So... this only effects your FPS with the Nvidia...right?

Not the 6970M?

 

I would assume any dx11 card would get the improved performance of the d3d11 switch.

Though that switch is "beta" supposedly since november, but it fixed my problems!

 

It appears to have fixed my water problem in WoW as well. Thanks for the heads-up.

I did notice that my frame rates degraded with the higher water quality settings, so I'll play around with it a bit. Not sure if I want to keep it at Ultra or Good.