World of Warcraft Issue

Hi there.

I recently received my Dell Vostro 1500, with a 1440x990 glossy screen and a GeForce 8600M GT and 2GB of RAM.

However WoW is only running at 40 ish FPS, sometimes lower and it "stalls" for split seconds when i turn around real fast or something like that.

I'm just wondering if this is normal or not, because I must admit I was expecting alot more from the laptop and I'm afraid that my settings are wrong through Vista or that theres something reducing it, help?

 

well... try downloading paches??... and get the newest drivers for the 8600 GT......

 

If someone could link the latest 8600M GT drivers id really appreciate it because I think im downloading the wrong ones :X

 

40 FPS in WOW with your card (all settings maxed) doesn't sound too bad to me.

That jumpiness you see when you turn around really fast is called "hitching." It occurs when your video card needs to load new textures or data to video memory that it doesn't already have. When you turn around, you are probably seeing things that your video card hadn't loaded yet, causing it to pause while it loads that graphical data to memory.

Anyway, if the hitching is constant, which it shouldn't be, you might want to try new drivers. If you are using Windows Vista 32-bit, I'd recommend using the 163.44 drivers. Go to laptopvideo2go.com

I'll run you through the process.

Go HERE
Download the "driver" and "modded inf"
Follow THESEinstructions to the letter.

That might help a bit. I really like those drivers, I'm using them.

If the new drivers don't work, try defragmenting your hard drive. World of Warcraft has serious fragmentation issues because its data files are freaking beasts. They really MUST be defragmented or you are going to have slowdowns. So defragment the drive WOW is on.

 

Thanks alot StormEffect for your help I'll go and try that out now and let you know how it goes, if I go defragmenting I might need more help Sorry :>>

 

Defragmenting is safe and easy.


Turn off as many programs as you can. Make sure your system tray (the thing in the bottom right corner) isn't full of programs active that you are not using.


Click on the start button and type Defrag
Open up the program at the top that comes up called Disk Defragmenter
Allow it to open by pressing yes or ok or whatnot
Click Defragment Now.

If you have multiple hard drives, choose the drive with WOW on it and then click defragment now.

Now you have to wait. It really COULD just take 30 minutes, but it COULD also take 2-3 hours if your drive is really fragmented.

 

Thanks so much I appreciate it more than i can say.

Il do that and check back in to let u know how it goes.

 

Just going to say...

Most people here think WoW can run on any machine, heck even two pieces of toast can run it is what I've been hearing..

Goes to show the mentallity of some on this message board, IMO.

WoW requires at least a medium/high graphics card to play the game with high settings and a good framerate.

This example goes to show you that this is fact, so before you go out and purcahse WoW and expect it to run smoothly on anything, think again because it will not.

My setup below it runs at around 37fps with V-Sync off and around 30 with V-sync on.

I'd also say that the "hitching" is normal, it always seems to occur after getting off a flight and entering a new enviroment say like Thunder Bluff, it does it on mine and it does it on my gf's dv6500t with the 8400 Nvidia card as well, seems like the card needs a sec to adjust or load the new enviroment.

Later.

 

Wow will run on two pieces of toast - I saw it played acceptably (~20 FPS) on an Averatec 3250 with 32MB S3 Unichrome integrated graphics, which is arguably worse than two pieces of toast. But that was at 640x480, minimum detail. Running it at high resolutions with high detail requires a quite a beastly card indeed. That's the kind of versatility that I wish were more common.

For the record, my T61 runs it at 1440x900, high details, no AA/half AF, at 35-45 FPS.

 

Allright Mr. Technical, I said "smoothly" at high detail and high framerate!

Geez...

 

40ish is alright for your notebook. The problem would be if you had vsync off and the top fps you could get was 40. However, depending on the zone, 40-60 fps is about normal when I am in a city/BG on my m1710 while 20-30ish is about right for my XPS Gen. 2.

If there are a ton of people in the zone (like a major city) then the fps will drop. Also, if there are a bunch of people casting spells (think BG or raid,) expect a sharp drop. Most of the performance issues have to do with the game and the rest can be explained away by using a notebook and not a top of the line desktop.

 

Lies i tell you!!! my to****ba tecra M2 will disconnect in EVERY major city (SW, IF, shat) during normal playing hours. and when i play i around 11pm-2am, i do not disconnect, but my frame rate will be from 1-7. and all this is at the bare minimum, lowest of everything.

 

Definitely follow all the trouble shooting steps blizzard gives you before thinking it's your laptop. Defrag is absolutely necessary after installing the game and all the patches. I use Auslogics defrag, as I find it way better than Vista's.
And as said before , you have to update the drivers. I use the 163.11's and I am satisfied with those for now. The 163.44 seem to get really fine results, too. I average 58-60 fps on Wow. No stuttering or glitches of any kind.
best to you, Robin

 

So you are saying if I run a defrag I can see a boost in FPS on my machine?

 

I have the Vostro 1500 as well, and trust me, WOW should be playing absolutely perfectly with everything maxed on this machine...

I've played WOW on much lesser machines and had great frame rates...

 

The thing about WoW is that it scales beautifully. You can lower all the settings and run it on your cell phone, or push all the settings to max and run it on your 8 series card.

I prefer to have the settings maxxed. I CAN play it on my crappy old laptop, but why would I want to when i can put it on my new one and see things for miles with a beautifully clear resolution.