2 x 5870 CF only 29fps in WoW

[Dahmer]

It's the game.

[ryan92084]

its the game,they've admitted it a couple of times on the tech support boards.

[sniper_sung]

Reduce input lag is disabled (and i don't see any inference from this)

Buying a pair of GTX 480 seems not practical for me, because I have chosen a cr@p motherboard Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7, where the 2 PCIE x16 slots are too close to each other. You know what, one of my Sapphire Vapor-X 5870 (the non-primary card) can reach 90C under Furmark, just because its fan is blocked airflow by the other card! (This is not the case for WoW, since the temperature under WoW never exceeds 60C for either card.) I still haven't figured out how to force the fan to run at 100% for the non-primary card, which will definitely limit the peak temperature at around 80C.

If a single GTX 480 can go above 90C given that the driver can cheat on Furmark, it is really scary to put such a pair into my rig. I don't want to trigger the fire alarm someday.

Jared your a just a nvidia fan boy and anytime you can defame ati you will lol.

Sung, go to CCC (catalyst control center) and change all settings to performance, See if that increases fps, I mean every setting should be on performance, if you dont know what that setting is for, google it and find out what setting is for performance, I bet this would fix your problem. And use AA and AF settings through game options, see if that helps.

Is it lame to set performance settings here? (cuz I think it reduces the visual effects in game actually)

Anyway i'll give it a try and post another screenshot at peak time today.

ROFL, buying Fermi to play WoW is an overkill, though!

At least it is still hard for many 5870 users to kill WoW. (if you google "5870 dalaran fps")

Unless I can see someone around me who can get more than 30 fps on my server, I wouldn't believe any card can overkill WoW. It looks like I have found the causality of low fps. It's probably because under max shadow settings the game attempts to render the shadow for each player. Not sure whether Dalaran has got multiple light source or not though. I have also noticed that if it's not peak time I can easily get more than 40+ fps.

Use GPU-Z and monitor the load on the cards when playing wow. My 5870 sits at 30% load showing 40ish FPS in Dalaran. So I concluded it's not the GPU per say, it must be drivers or the game itself.

ccc shows the load on primary card is around 65% or so, and the load on non-primary card is always 0% (ofc CF does not work here, and disabling CF doesn't help either).

The point is I just want to figure out why I can't get 50+ fps like the others. Because I knew, before I made the rig for my girlfriend, that an i5 660@3.3GHz + 5850 would be more than sufficient for WoW. Now I have proved that an i7 960@4GHz + 2 x 5870 gets the same fps on the same server.

[mbreslin]

I just have to comment on that nvidia thing, (quick note I think defending some company that surely doesn't care about anyone but their shareholders is retarded). 5870 is 400$ retail, gtx480$ is 500$ retail. 100$ gets you not even a 1fps increase in bfbc2.

I just spent an insane amount of money on a pc and even I wouldn't pay 100$ extra for ~1 fps increase. I waited a long time for fermi and finally got tired of waiting, it finally ships and you get 5-10% in some tesselation benchmark and ~1 fps more in the latest fps. What a let down.

[Ashraf]

sniper_sung, I kindly ask you to please not make multiple posts. Use the edit button instead.

[Chickenfeed]

Please know that WoWs graphics engine is still very cpu dependent. The dynamic shadow system doesn't benifit greatly from faster gpus. That said I highly recommend against running dynamic shadows at higher settings than character only shadows. The performance penalty isn't worth it. I don't play anymore but my friend plays on my previous system and nothing has improved in the 6 months hes had it ( in regards to driver improvements, engine improvements, if anything its gotten worse... )

My advice is to not play the game at a high view distance (2/3 max ; do note that with the release of the lich king, the games max view distance was increased 33% over the burning crussades... )

Appart from a lower resolution, lowering the shadow and view distance settings will provide the largest performance boosts. There is also the fact that your server seems to be fairly busy as well so obviously that is a factor. The game does scale with multiple gpus but its very inconsistent ( ie you'll get a 75% boost in an area which already ran at 100+fps plus yet in a more computationally intense area you'll see no gains whatsoever... )

Setting Catalyst AI to advanced will help a bit ( it enables some further optimizations, they are rarely noticeable visually I find ) Also DO NOT use trasnparency AA in WoW. It nukes performance so bad its not even funny ( I tested my system with 2 4870x2s and there were places were I'd get under 30fps in the orginal game in places devoid of other players, ie forests ect )

As a side note, 90C on a 5870 in Furmark isn't abnormal...

[jaredpace]

Come on now Jared...

alright alright, sheesh. I just realized i am in the ati subforum recommending the guy to get a gtx480, but , that PCGH bench shows fermi with a good lead.... not saying the 5870 isn't awesome also. And to the fella who said I am an Nvidia fanboy, just look in my sig I also made a huge thread about 5870 OC'ing in this very forum, and about 2 or 3 big threads regarding HD5870 launch/speculation. I LOVE ATI. Now, continuing on...

It also appears the op doesn't have CF enabled and running properly when he states the "main gpu runs at 66% in dalaran and the second gpu stays at 0%". Maybe the crossfire mode/profile forcer will help you out. It gives you the option to force 4 different modes of multi-gpu rendering that you could test until you find the fastest one. Instead of decreasing all your rendering quality options to the "performance" mode. You might consider just lowering shadow detail for when you're raiding and 1000 characters are on screen.

[sniper_sung]

sniper_sung, I kindly ask you to please not make multiple posts. Use the edit button instead.

Thx for editing for me Didn't notice the function "multi-quote" lol

Please know that WoWs graphics engine is still very cpu dependent. There is also the fact that your server seems to be fairly busy as well so obviously that is a factor. The game does scale with multiple gpus but its very inconsistent ( ie you'll get a 75% boost in an area which already ran at 100+fps plus yet in a more computationally intense area you'll see no gains whatsoever... )

As a side note, 90C on a 5870 in Furmark isn't abnormal...

If i7 960@4GHz can't do it, do I have to get 980X instead? In my experiments even an i5 660@3.3GHz can overkill WoW (since there is no improvement by replacing it with this 960). I'll try to figure out CF.

I think 90C is too hot for the blocked card. The non-blocked card (i.e. the airflow of the fan is not blocked by the other card) never exceeds like 80C in Furmark. Anyway, I'm satisfied with the Vapor-X cooler Just don't like the design of the mobo to make 2 cards so close to each other

It also appears the op doesn't have CF enabled and running properly when he states the "main gpu runs at 66% in dalaran and the second gpu stays at 0%". Maybe the crossfire mode/profile forcer will help you out. It gives you the option to force 4 different modes of multi-gpu rendering that you could test until you find the fastest one. Instead of decreasing all your rendering quality options to the "performance" mode. You might consider just lowering shadow detail for when you're raiding and 1000 characters are on screen.

In 25-player raid fights I usually get 150+ fps, and in most zones without players I usually get like 250 fps. However the only problem is Dalaran peak time.

I'll try to figure out how to force CF, if it's possible.

L.E.1:

Just did some search on google and noticed that Crossfire will only be enabled in full screen mode for WoW. Does this apply to all other applications? As of now Dalaran is empty, it makes no difference between full scree mode and window mode: both sticks at around 60 fps. I will check this out at the next peak time in Dalaran.

[JasonDTM]

In 25-player raid fights I usually get 150+ fps, and in most zones without players I usually get like 250 fps. However the only problem is Dalaran peak time.

I'll try to figure out how to force CF, if it's possible.

I hate it break it to you, but that's how it is.

Shattrah was just as bad back in BC.

[Gamekiller]

Like others have said: You can't do much.

Not only does WoW not support Crossfire or SLI but I've found depending on drivers, the number of people around, and the alignment of the stars in a certain way... you'll never get consistent results.
Due tot he badly coded engine, old hardware seems to do better.

Dunno, it's dumb.

[tool_462]

Easiest way to fix it...buy an E6600 and a 4670 Maybe someday they will patch to use better hardware...better.

[deaffob]

I think many people here are either seriously misinformed about wow or smoking some crack. WOW is really well coded,j ust as well as any source-based games. I only have one 5870 and I get 150fps in dalaran and 270+ in classic wow places like Ironforge. I've been playing WOW for over 4 or 5 years (since the beta) and I've been in top 10 arena teams in BG9 and shadowburn battlegroup for over 6 seasons. That being said, I know a thing or two about wow because to compete against other top teams, I want to get any edge there is. Getting good fps in WOW is not just about your graphic card. It is mostly dependent on your HDD speed and your net. There were times that CPU and GPU were bottlenecking FPS in WOW but that's the the case anymore. I live right next to my server Blackrock which is located in the westcoast. So I constantly get 9~11ms ping. One thing you should know is that you can't expect to get triple digit fps right when you enter Dal, at that time, your computer doesn't even have the whole data that need to be processed. You should wait at least 1 sec before you can decide if it's the right fps you are really getting. Just jump around for a bit after you enter the Dal. Your can definitely push triple digits no problem. I have 4.5ghz E8400 so you should be definitely fine and people should back off with their accusation of wow being life sucking blackhole. The game has grown over the years tremendously and players have matured a lot more than before.

[w4tch0]

sniper_sung, did you try to disable Hyper Threading on your i7?
(You can do it in BIOS)

From what I remember, I could run WoW WoTLK all max with just E8400 @ 3,6GHz and a Radeon 4850 also OCed a bit and almost all the time I had 60FPS (vsync) including towns.

EDIT: or just park your self in the Inn in the sewers, you'll get plenty of FPS in there, and IMO it's the best Inn in game anyway :P

[sniper_sung]

Like others have said: You can't do much.

Not only does WoW not support Crossfire or SLI but I've found depending on drivers, the number of people around, and the alignment of the stars in a certain way... you'll never get consistent results.
Due tot he badly coded engine, old hardware seems to do better.

Dunno, it's dumb.

I have just confirmed that WoW 3.3.3 does not benefit from extra GPU if a single primary GPU is capable. In full screen mode crossfire is actually working. However the sum of the load on these 2 cards never exceeds 100%. Typically it's 40% on each card. Hence I have the same fps as in window mode, which is below 30 fps at peak time.

This is similar to the following example:

On a dual core CPU we want to compute SuperPI. The extra core doesn't really improve the computing time even if the extra core can share some load with the primary one, because the sum of the loads on these two cores are equal to 100%. This is because SuperPI is not parallelized.

However in the case of playing a 1080p movie on a low-end dual core CPU, it is possible to notice the situations where the sum of loads on two cores exceeding 100%, which means the application benefits from the extra core.

sniper_sung, did you try to disable Hyper Threading on your i7?
(You can do it in BIOS)

From what I remember, I could run WoW WoTLK all max with just E8400 @ 3,6GHz and a Radeon 4850 also OCed a bit and almost all the time I had 60FPS (vsync) including towns.

EDIT: or just park your self in the Inn in the sewers, you'll get plenty of FPS in there, and IMO it's the best Inn in game anyway :P

The Vargoth's Retreat is perhaps where I can get most fps in Dalaran (250 fps):



The inn in the sewers gives me around 160 fps:



In the ages of E8400, even my laptop shown as my sig can get 30 fps in Dalaran. The game engine is refreshing tremendously fast as the patches go on.

Yes I have tried to turn off Hyperthreading Technology and this had no effect on my fps at all.

... WOW is really well coded,j ust as well as any source-based games. I only have one 5870 and I get 150fps in dalaran and 270+ in classic wow places like Ironforge. ... I live right next to my server Blackrock which is located in the westcoast. So I constantly get 9~11ms ping...

This might be a good explanation on my low fps. I usually get latency above 100ms.

[jaredpace]

Looks like the bad framerates in WOW are caused by peak time server loads combined with distant internet connections. So maybe you should search for a server with a <20ms ping, very few hops, shorts tracert, etc.
THis is obvious since, once you load the game down with huge raids and lots of polygons, you can still get 150 fps (except at peak time server loads). Therefore, no amount of fast gpu+cpu hardware is going to save you from
game code that cannot sufficiently support your situation and that size of a player count. You already know that you are capable of 100 to 200 fps, and everyone is saying the 30fps happens at peak times...

I suggest to force v-sync & triple buffering via d3d overider. Maybe it will force 60fps at all times and improve your 30fps situations in peak times... it will also get rid of horizontal screen
tearing if you are experiencing any of that. But instead of 150-200fps in those raids, you will be capped at 60,70,72,75 or whatever your monitors refresh rate is. (which isn't a bad thing) And as a plus
the 30 fps situations might end up looking a lot smoother with a few frames pre rendered into buffer

[sniper_sung]

Update:

In the name of Science I have done some benchmarks.

The benchmark scene is to take a flight from "Conquest Hold" to "Vengeance Landing" in Northrend. Using Fraps 3.2.1, fps values were captured for 4 modes:

a) Crossfire in full screen mode
b) Crossfire in window mode
c) Single card in full screen mode
d) Single card in window mode

Here are the results:



Can anyone here give any comments on this?

[vfx]

Unless they've changed it recently, I don't believe crossfire works in windowed mode so that explains that. Interesting that windowed mode vs full has that much of an impact on FPS.

As for ping, try doing the TCP No Delay & Ack Frequency tweak here: http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/kille...ead.php?t=2344

Edit again: Disable that GearScore addon, a friend had problems with it a week ago that was causing him to drop to ridiculous frame rates in raids.

[Chickenfeed]

I think many people here are either seriously misinformed about wow or smoking some crack. WOW is really well coded,j ust as well as any source-based games. I only have one 5870 and I get 150fps in dalaran and 270+ in classic wow places like Ironforge. I've been playing WOW for over 4 or 5 years (since the beta) and I've been in top 10 arena teams in BG9 and shadowburn battlegroup for over 6 seasons. That being said, I know a thing or two about wow because to compete against other top teams, I want to get any edge there is. Getting good fps in WOW is not just about your graphic card. It is mostly dependent on your HDD speed and your net. There were times that CPU and GPU were bottlenecking FPS in WOW but that's the the case anymore. I live right next to my server Blackrock which is located in the westcoast. So I constantly get 9~11ms ping. One thing you should know is that you can't expect to get triple digit fps right when you enter Dal, at that time, your computer doesn't even have the whole data that need to be processed. You should wait at least 1 sec before you can decide if it's the right fps you are really getting. Just jump around for a bit after you enter the Dal. Your can definitely push triple digits no problem. I have 4.5ghz E8400 so you should be definitely fine and people should back off with their accusation of wow being life sucking blackhole. The game has grown over the years tremendously and players have matured a lot more than before.

I'm sorry but you aren't going to get 100fps + consistently in Dalaran 1920x1080+ with higher settings and AA (entering a small room with nothing to render doesn't count... im sorry ) At lower resolutions yes ( 1440x900 or less ), I'd believe that but if you are going to come in here and say you get 150+fps in Dalaran with your said system at 1920x1200, I'm sorry but that is a lie. I went from a E8400 / 4870x2 to a i7 / 5870 and although things ran faster, it still was around 25-60fps tops throughout Dalaran during peak times. There is no magical way you'll be getting 2x that. I've played the game on many different systems ( friends / lan parties ect ) and your claims are only consistent with running at a low resolution. If you are I appologize ( you never mentioned your resolution so I'll give you the benifit of the doubt ). If you aren't...

@Sniper

Yes that is correct. Crossfire doesn't work in windowed mode. It has been like this for years.

[xman01]

you spent all that money for wow. damn. i understand the headache, a "sh.it" graphics game and you can't max out.

jus say to hell with wow and play some games that'll really make use of that $2000 system!

[deaffob]

I'm sorry but you aren't going to get 100fps + consistently in Dalaran 1920x1080+ with higher settings and AA (entering a small room with nothing to render doesn't count... im sorry ) At lower resolutions yes ( 1440x900 or less ), I'd believe that but if you are going to come in here and say you get 150+fps in Dalaran with your said system at 1920x1200, I'm sorry but that is a lie. I went from a E8400 / 4870x2 to a i7 / 5870 and although things ran faster, it still was around 25-60fps tops throughout Dalaran during peak times. There is no magical way you'll be getting 2x that. I've played the game on many different systems ( friends / lan parties ect ) and your claims are only consistent with running at a low resolution. If you are I appologize ( you never mentioned your resolution so I'll give you the benifit of the doubt ). If you aren't...

@Sniper

Yes that is correct. Crossfire doesn't work in windowed mode. It has been like this for years.

I do get 120~150 in dalaran unless there is server wide lag. I always play with 8X AA in wow and ultra preset(everything max). The only time I get 50~70fps is in wintergrasp when there are 500+ players in the same area. Yes my server blackrock probably has more pvper than any other server in US. One more thing is, if you have strong enough GPU, WOW doesn't give almost any negative impact on your performance with respect to AA.

[sniper_sung]

I do get 120~150 in dalaran unless there is server wide lag. I always play with 8X AA in wow and ultra preset(everything max). The only time I get 50~70fps is in wintergrasp when there are 500+ players in the same area. Yes my server blackrock probably has more pvper than any other server in US. One more thing is, if you have strong enough GPU, WOW doesn't give almost any negative impact on your performance with respect to AA.

Yes I have noticed that x8 AA gives the same performance as no AA, which means GPU is perhaps not the bottleneck. As my speculation Blizzard is enforcing some constraints to force each client to synchronize with the server and keep updating the location of each other player, at a relatively high frequency. (To prevent from cheating, e.g. walking through walls etc.) In such case network latency and number of players in sight can be a real problem.

[Hell Hound]

Get a Killer NIC.

[mr_mordred2095]

Few things I've found with wow... I'm using a 4870x2, i5 750 @ 4ghz + 4GB DDR3 @ 2000 9-9-9

* Windowed mode will only use a single card/core.
* Game is heavily CPU dependant in some areas, and heavily GPU in others.
* C2D e7500 @ 3.8ghz is nowhere near enough to max out a single 4870x2 running with everything on max* 1920x1080 4xaa
* *= Except shadows. Shadows on max drops my framerate by 75%. I turn them off.

[tuanster1119]

Throwing more hardware at this problem will not fix it. WoW is known scale horribly with crossfire and SLI. If you're expecting anything over 30fps in Dalaran, you're dreaming especially during peak times.

[jincuteguy]

Get the new board EVGA SR-2 which supports Two 6core Xeons cpus and come back here and tell us if that will improve your fps =) Im curious to see if anyone has this setup and can post some screenshots of showing the fps in WoW, would be great.