SLI & World Of Warcraft

yo guys recently I was planning to buy an M17x to play WOW mainly and I noticed many of ppl says that SLI is not good for WOW while in the same time while I'm searching I've found out the new XPS WOW edition,
what actually suprised me that I found that this laptop got Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT–SLI Enabled!!!!!!!!

that doznt make sense

 

The WOW edition is merely a marketing gimmick.

 

Yeah, it was a short run, limited edition case and swag deal from Dell. Basically a regular M1730 with a customized chassis, backpack, and freebies galore for the true WoWer.

I love WoW as much as the next dude, but there's taking it WAY too far.

But look on the bright side, you could be playing Lineage 2 and pointing and clicking.....(heh)

<---- Victim of the Teon server.

 

dont get the m17x because the dell XPS M1730 has the same config and allows warranty overclocking for much less.

also the felling of being able to have an alienware goes away very quick once you get one

 

Just to let you know WOW was never an SLI game and they have stated it repeatedly on their site. Dell was selling that XPS in SLI config knowing that people would not even know that WOW shut off SLI and that in order to get it back you had to manually do it. Dell isnt the greatest for informing or educating their customers, some research but a majority just take their word for it as if being the biggest means you know what you are doing.

Buying the M17X just to play WOW is a waste. You would be disappointed that you wasted all that money on "old technology" when you could get the M17 instead which is a better deal all around.

The M17 has ATI Xfire and although I havent been up on WOW lately I have heard that Xfire is supported. Dont quote me go to the WOW forums and see for yourself. Dont rely on a computer company to tell you if it works or not on all apps, they would sell you an mitsubishi on blocks if they could.

 

I know wut u mean m8, gonna try wow forums too, thx

 

Sigh this topic again Fine fine..

SLI AND Crossfire setups ARE NOT supported by WoW BUT that doesnt mean the game itself doesnt benefit from it. For eg WoW on crossfire gives 60% boost in performance. Not sure how's SLI's performance since i never owned an SLI laptop.

 

SLI in some cases can actually make ur FPS worse ...

 

um, seeing how WoW is quite old, i feel any newer card with a large supply of VRAM can run WoW fairly well. that style of game isn't meant for 60 FPS. in fact, most games don't require extremely high frame rates unless they're "twitching" styled games like first person shooters.

i think a solid 30 fps in WoW should suffice you for the type of game it is, and that shouldn't be hard on modern day graphics cards.

 

I dont think you need ether laptop because WoW does not require a laptop that powerful.

I think there is a new m1730 for sale on the forum for $2000 decked out.

 

Devianne here...and over 5 yrs running....ugh....were does the time go...lol

 

if your talking about hulsays m1730 then his is SLI 8800gtx in SLI way more powerful then the "decked out" 8700 gt's...

sooooooooo? WOW will run on a nvidia 6200 or a ATI x1800 fine low settings though. You dont need much for WoW.BTW that WOW dell is not worth it at all its old and outdated unless you have lots of money ... but it wont play games very well cept like WoW and AOE 2

 

Crank WoW up to max settings across the board at 1920x1200 or greater, go work it out in Northrend and watch your fps hit some rough spots real quick (Ctrl-R for fps).

And twitchy game or not (former Quake lover here....I remember when I got to run Vquake then sold my graphics card and got a 4mb 3Dfx card and ran GLQuake), but WoW still can suffer from that "ughs" when you move around and poor fps is absolutely death in Raids.

 

i know what you mean ... i just ment for regular WoW use im not a crazy super raider ..... i only get like 80-120 all maxed out on 1440.

 

from my expirience with the m17 and m1730 the xfire makes fps go down and sli improves it. WoW does now support SLI

 

Can you please link us an official post that WoW supports SLI. Cause in my knowledge GM's have been spamming for a few years now that WoW doesnt support multi GPU systems.

As for the crossfire/m17, i get at least 60% boost in dps by having Crossfire enabled. Can easily tell the difference by switching Catalyst A.I to Off from standard/advanced.

 

my Fps do not just go up and down ...... they stay high

 

In Northrend at 1440x900 resolution, all settings completely jacked up, no vsync, I get around 30fps.

I'm set on performance for Windows, and my ATI control center has everything set to high performance as well.

Needless to say, I'm baffled at your 80-120 fps.

 

You dont need SLI to play world of warcraft. Hell get a 8400m gs i can play maxxed out minus shadows just fine.

 

Thats your problem. Shadows have a HUUUGE impact on fps in WoW. Moving it to a bit more than the minimum will cause at least -20 fps in many cases. In my opinion they just did a terrible job with the shadows and has nothing to do with performance.

 

Poor coding or not, it isn't just shadows. 60+ fps at all times consistent or it isn't optimal performance.

On my desktop Apple 30" (2560x1600), all settings maxed, with an OC'd Quad @ 3.4ghz and an OC'd GTX 280 it still has spots of being boggy.

The game is 4.5yrs old, but like EQ II, pump the settings up and resolution, and you can still choke a modern GPU at certain points.

If you can pump up all settings, 1920x1200, everything to max and get 60fps+ *everywhere* then come tell me.

 

Its funny how people say "the game is X years old"

Its not like they never changed anything. It might not seem like a demanding game but it really is. And again, with max shadows you will probably have like 30 fps in orgrimmar (not mentioning raid environments). If someone said he can max all the options (including shadows) and still get 60+ fps in raids then apparently hes not playing the same game

Im like 40-50fps in 25mans in combat with shadows completely off...

 

lol.. Off topic-kinda- Microsoft Flight Sim X is pretty demanding all maxed out as well. It brought my OCZ back to reality.

 

yea when i go into org my fps drops to like 40-50 and while im in northrend they drop to like 35-50 ...... i just ment running around barrens and outland etc... sorry for the confusion and for those that dont know i run at 1440 lol

 

do you need 30 fps in WoW? do you need anything above 20 for that matter? increased FPS won't change the game. skipping a frame isn't costly

 

nope i was just stateing since last page i confused them ....

 

Depends why do you play the game. Missing an interrupt in arena or get kited in arena due to poor fps basically makes the difference between winning or losing.

And as for PvE, playing something like an affliction lock, fps AND latency make a huge difference in your rotation and therefore your dps.

Again, depends why you play this game and how good at it you want to me

 

They did change the game and they did improve the graphics. 40-50fps is not peak fps. The game is still demanding, that's my argument.

For those who think since it is 4.5yrs old and any modern gpu can run it no problem, it won't if you run it at a modern resolution (1920x1080+) and turn all details to max WITH shadows off.

I dip to under 30fps in many spots @ 2560x1600 on a OC'd GTX 280 desktop and a 12mb Q9550 Quad Core @ 3.5ghz with AA/AS to minimum.

Of course if you run it at 1440x900 or lower and start to turn down setting, your fps will be great, lol, but that's not optimal.

Crank that puppy up to max visual candy (AA/AS to max too) and run it at 1920x1080 or higher, Shadows to low/off and watch those fps fall......fast


As for Arena, WoW PvP is a farce. Until they have real collision detection and no auto target, and no macros, no thanks.

 

Yea AA pretty much kills your fps in high resolutions too. I still feel theres something wrong with the ATI drivers though. (WoW addicts language incoming). In instances like UP (the 3rd boss) when it does that flame (?) wave my fps drop to like 10 There are a few more fights with some spells that cause an insane fps drop which i dont recall having them with my 7950gtx (and i was using the same resolution).

As for pvp ive used the following steps and it worked really good. Stop pvping with the lock, basically im using him as a pve character. Level a DK to 80. Faceroll clock wise = profit.

A nice example of DK skills. 1 macro with random sequence

edit: I still cant get one thing. How can people use frap to record arena fights etc with really good quality on high resolutions and probably high AA since spells look exactly like mine when i have it set at AA x8 ? I mean, as soon as i press record on fraps i drop to 20fps instantly (from 100+) without been in a fight...

 

You wouldn't belife what "hell gaming mashiens" the pvp "freaks" (positive^^) have ...
The top arena teams have more than top pcs ... I was shocked (BC times) when I heard of the fps one of "them" had during our Illidan firskill ... and he was playing maxedout on 1280x1024 (yes no 16:9 screen ) and recorded with fraps without going under 40 fps ... (my pc suffered some times without recording ... )

Greetings
Julian

 

i pull a constant 60fps no matter where i am in WoW. with all settings maxed at 1920x1200

 

To be honest its probably easier to record when using a 1280x1024 resolution than the 1920x1200 (although i use the half-size option for recordings).

But it looks like their interface has a lot of space so im guessing most of the videos ive seen were recorded under high resolutions too.

I think its an issue with the hard drives since we are talking about huge files (4gb for 3-4mins video, "write speed"). So i guess the system might be bottlenecked by the hdd's. Would be nice if someone with an SSD or a raid setup could verify this for me

You are not talking about while recording are you ?

 

I thought the writing speed of SSDs are lower than the writingspeeds of HDDs? (for the M17 at least)

Greetings
Julian

PS: 1280x1024 and recording full resolution, but sure:
bigger resolution => bigger problem

 

Most SSD's ive seen in the market can write for over 90 MB/s which is a big difference from normal hdds.

 

Most of the lag at a old game is not the computer it the connection and Servers the game uses over time. Plus people who connect to the game.

 

Turn everything to max (everything!)....
1920x1080+
Shadows to Low/Off
Hit Ctrl-R to monitor your FPS
Go have at it in Northrend, especially some of the big, open, detailed outdoor places

Let me know if you consistently stay over 60fps+

 

Grizzly hills <3