FPS nose dive and random latency spikes

[swollenpickles]

Going back around 2 months back I was running WoW with no problems. I'd generally sit at 60fps and latency would sit between 300-350. Lately though WoW has been playing up a lot on me.

Latency seems to be fluctuating, some times it's at 300ms but it will often spike to over 1000 and it's gone up to 6000ms a few times (before lagging out).

In terms of the FPS rather than the 60fps I used to have I now sit on 30fps far more often than not. Getting into a BG or a raid situation (Marrowgar flames are a good example) the Fps can drop further (has gone down to 2 on occasions).

Everything else on my PC is working fine. My download speeds on everything else are the same now as they were 6 months ago.

I can't figure out whats causing it or how to fix it so any advice is appreciated.

p.s. I've been going through the Blizz support forums and there are a few people reporting the same issues but Blizz don't seem to have much of a response.

[Helgi]

I know the 3.3.5 patch introduced a whole new host of performance issues that weren't in the game before. They also fixed a bunch of performance bugs. I personally have seen a 5-10 fps increase since the 3.3.5 patch, but I know others have seen the exact opposite.

Anyway, I would check to ensure that you have the latest graphics drivers installed. When Blizzard releases a patch, they always primarily test it on the latest versions of video card drivers, and will make fixes to increase performance on those drivers. However, this often will decrease performance on previous drivers, so in the gaming world it is almost always a good idea to keep your video card drivers up to date.

If you still have problems after that we'll explore other solutions.

[swollenpickles]

I know the 3.3.5 patch introduced a whole new host of performance issues that weren't in the game before. They also fixed a bunch of performance bugs. I personally have seen a 5-10 fps increase since the 3.3.5 patch, but I know others have seen the exact opposite.

Anyway, I would check to ensure that you have the latest graphics drivers installed. When Blizzard releases a patch, they always primarily test it on the latest versions of video card drivers, and will make fixes to increase performance on those drivers. However, this often will decrease performance on previous drivers, so in the gaming world it is almost always a good idea to keep your video card drivers up to date.

If you still have problems after that we'll explore other solutions.

I'm going to double check the graphics card drivers again tonight but I'm pretty sure they are up to date. I'll see how it goes.

[swollenpickles]

I checked drivers again last night. They were up to date from what I could tell, but I re-updated them just to be sure. Last night I played wow in windowed mode and had CPUID HWMonitor running as well to monitor the temperature. I'd read that low FPS can be caused by overheating graphics cards. During the night my FPS hovered around 60, down to 30 at times in ICC and dropped down to 12 for a short period. It wasn't as bad as it has been, but in saying that it wasn't what it was a few months ago either.

Here's the report from HWMonitor. Unfortunately it doesn't have the min/max temps but the GPU Core never exceeded 65°C at any time during the night (I played for about 4 hours). From what I understand 65°C isn't excessively hot? This wouldn't be the cause would it?

Hardware monitor ACPI
Temperature 0 55°C (131°F) [0xCD2] (TZ00)
Temperature 1 49°C (120°F) [0xC96] (TZ01)
Temperature 2 55°C (131°F) [0xCD2] (TZ02)

Hardware monitor Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T9550
Temperature 0 44°C (111°F) [0x38] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 47°C (116°F) [0x35] (Core #1)

Hardware monitor ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
Temperature 0 56°C (132°F) (GPU Core)

Hardware monitor ST9500420ASG
Temperature 0 41°C (105°F) [0x29] (Assembly)
Temperature 2 41°C (105°F) [0x29] (Air Flow)

Hardware monitor Battery 1
Voltage 0 12.50 Volts [0x30D5] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 5200 mWh [0x1450] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 4649 mWh [0x1229] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 4649 mWh [0x1229] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 11 pc [0x59] (Wear Level)
Level 1 100 pc [0x64] (Charge Level)

[Helgi]

65°C is definitely not hot at all, its right around the range I would expect it to be. 80°C is the "worry zone", and most chips will fry right around the 90°C mark.

So it isn't heat, and it isn't your video card driver... hmmm... I'll come back after I think about it some more.

[swollenpickles]

65°C is definitely not hot at all, its right around the range I would expect it to be. 80°C is the "worry zone", and most chips will fry right around the 90°C mark.

So it isn't heat, and it isn't your video card driver... hmmm... I'll come back after I think about it some more.

If there's any other info I can give that will help let me know.

In terms of latency, it wasn't bad last night. Probably best its been in a while. I'm on wireless which i know is not ideal but it's what I have to work with. I used to sit at 300ms 99.9% of the time. Lately (started the same time as FPS issues) latency has been far less stable running low then massively high. It's very weird. I'm not much good when it comes to optimizing connections and all that so I'm not sure what's going on.