Here's the dealio. I've been working with my computer for a bit now trying to figure out where the bottleneck is.

SPECS:
Athlon 3700 64 bit San Diego (2.2ghz)
XP Pro 64 (got it for free, dont ask)
2gb Corsair Gaming Ram with heatsinks
Nvidia 7900 GT PCIE
Normal 120gb 7000rpm WD drive. Used only for games and a secondary drive. it is SATA
Motherboard is a Gigabyte (tiger direct no longer lists it) socket 939

Original Problem:
WoW and other FPS games run at 20-60fps when they should be running much higher.

What I've done so far:

1) At first I thought it was my ram so I replaced the ram with faster ram. It went up a tiny bit, nothing much.

2) Then I noticed that I had most of my games installed on the same drive as my OS. Moved them and performance went way up. Averaging about 50-70fps. Still the low cap.

My hardware is very decent, I run Ventrilo and perhaps winamp on occassion and nothing is shared off my computer. So why are my framerates so crappy. Where's the bottleneck. Could it be the bus on the Motherboard or the Motherboard itself? Perhaps it's the processor. I have noticed that my processor is maxxed out sometimes when playing FPS games. I'm wondering if there is a configuration issue or if the processor speed limitation was hit. If that's the most obvious answer I'll just upgrade my mobo/proc to an X2. But I wanted to make sure it really was that before I drop that kind of cash.

I posted a while back about Raptor drives and how much performance they gave. Is it really that much difference with this level of system? three years ago I was on top of crap like this but I just don't have the time anymore to read through tons of Tom's Hardware articles. What's your opinion on what my bottlenecks could be?

I appreciate the help!

3/13/2007 7:13:12 AM

Quote :

"I noticed that I had most of my games installed on the same drive as my OS. Moved them and performance went way up. Averaging about 50-70fps. Still the low cap."

lol it still amazes me that you think you know how to use a computer, and that people in this forum generally don't seem to disagree with it

3/13/2007 7:42:40 AM

i didnt know wow was a FPS

3/13/2007 8:10:10 AM

Are you sure your frame rates aren't set to have an upperlimit? I know in WoW, I have mine set to not go above the refresh of my monitor. There's no reason that computer shouldn't maintain at least 60 fps in WoW except for the occasional dip which is more network related than anything else.

3/13/2007 8:34:57 AM

WoW isn't "that" much of a FPS compared to UT or Cheaterstrike but when you go from 10fps to 40fps it's lag you can do without.

I never claimed to be a hardware expert. I just didn't expect THAT much of a difference in performance with the hardware of today. Thus why I am asking people here, who I think might know more about optimization a setup than I do.

I'll check on the framerate cap. That's a good idea. I did replace my monitor a while back and I think it's at 60 instead of 75. Thanks!

3/13/2007 8:52:03 AM

you sure do like using fps and FPS together. wow isnt an "FPS" at all.

3/13/2007 9:37:09 AM

FYI: the human eye is virturally uncapable of decerning framerate differences above 30 fps.

3/13/2007 10:51:29 AM

^That's the kind of crap you read on the internet 10 years ago and actually think it applies to the real world. Anyone who's played games for more than 5 minutes can tell the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps or more.

Also:

Quote :

"XP Pro 64 (got it for free, dont ask)"

Probably the root of your problem. No one who plays games actually uses that shit.

[Edited on March 13, 2007 at 10:57 AM. Reason : :]

3/13/2007 10:55:26 AM

Quote :

"ol it still amazes me that you think you know how to use a computer, and that people in this forum generally don't seem to disagree with it"

Thanks alias. Next time, why don't you provide some useful input instead of just trolling?

You tried running any benchmarking tools (3dMark, Sandra, etc.) to determine where the bottleneck might be? You tried doing anything with single-player (i.e. no network required) games? Run Doom3 or HL2 on high AA and AF and tell us results.

3/13/2007 6:10:14 PM

just by looking at your specs theonly bottle neck i could think of is xp pro64 and the 3700+

3/13/2007 7:01:10 PM

Quote :

"FYI: the human eye is virturally uncapable of decerning framerate differences above 30 fps."

The human eye doesn't really see "frames" and while you can't really make out images lasting less than 1/30th of a second (though you could possibly perceive the movement and reflexively turn to it) there is a definite increase in fluidness for frame rates up to about 80-100 or so. Some people may even be able to perceive improvements higher than that. Remember that the nerves of the eye don't send the information to your brain at the same time. Think of it like interlaced video except instead of 2 frames interlaced, it's continuous.

Even with that it still depends on how fast the motion is... the refresh rate of the screen... whether it's done progressively or not... etc. Good rule of thumb is... not to worry about getting the frames per second above the refresh rate of the monitor since the monitor won't be able to reproduce it anyways.

^Agreed. Yeah, after you install an OS with good driver support (XP 32 bit) you should notice a big improvement. The only other thing really holding you back is that processor

[Edited on March 13, 2007 at 9:30 PM. Reason : ]

3/13/2007 9:23:14 PM

what kind of monitor are you using and what is it operating at.

not that this really matters for the fps number you're reading... but it might allow me to chuckle when you're shooting for numbers it may not be able to display anyway.

3/13/2007 9:31:31 PM

Let me be more clear so there's no misconception of what I'm talking about. My problem is that it's not maintaining a steady Frames Per minute. While the human eye may not be able to tell past a certain fps I sure can tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps. So your comment is wrong.

Doom 3 I play at higher settings. Not extreme. The only lag I ever experienced came when I was outside.

as for 64 bit driver support I really haven't had a trouble with it. I won the copy for free when I went to a training seminar about a year ago.

Wow is an FPS game especially when you're pvp'ing. Lets say a lot of events happen on your screen, rogue takes off, mages are aoe'ing, warlocks are raining down hell fire, the effects of a weapon procing go off... framerate can drop, causing you to lag in a sense not knowing where people are. your spells won't cast because the guy attacking you is now behind you but you can't do anything because you get every 4th frame. Sure sounds like an FPS to me. Next comment .

I think I found what's going on though. I turned on the latency monitor for Titan bars and saw that my latency was going from 100ish... to sometimes a nice and steady 440+ ms. Tonight it went as high as 1100. I've called Time Warner about the issue and it seems I'm not the only person in the area with these problems.

What happens is at a certain point I'll be instant nuking and the game lags for a second and then it catches up. Originally it started as just people jumping around when there were lots around casting, proccing etc. My framerate went way down but it seems it's the result of dropped packets and spotty connectivity.

Did a tracert to http://www.worldofwarcraft.com and http://www.google.com and both show high pings to certain hops. also ran the speed test as http://www.speedtest.net where I usually get 2,000-3,000 download... and was getting 200. This is when I called time Warner and they came by, redid all the connections and sure enough they saw the problem too.

No, no bittorrent, etc. My upload was fine. Now it's up to Time Warner to fix the issue.

3/13/2007 10:07:01 PM

Quote :

"Wow is an FPS game especially when you're pvp'ing. Lets say a lot of events happen on your screen, rogue takes off, mages are aoe'ing, warlocks are raining down hell fire, the effects of a weapon procing go off... framerate can drop, causing you to lag in a sense not knowing where people are. your spells won't cast because the guy attacking you is now behind you but you can't do anything because you get every 4th frame. Sure sounds like an FPS to me."

dumbest thing I've read in a while, do you even know what a fps is?

3/13/2007 10:15:39 PM

tried using ncsu's nameservers?

message_topic.aspx?topic=359307

3/13/2007 10:28:08 PM

I myself say that 20fps is the bare min for games to be playable. I prefer at least 30fps. I can definately notice a difference between 20 to 30, 30 to 60, and 60 to 90. It's a bit harder for me to notice between 90 and anything above 100, but if you put 120 next to 90 or 60, tell me you can't notice a much noticeable difference in smoothness.

The only problem is that at high res, the refresh rate is pretty much capped to about 60-75 depending on your monitor and what res (on CRT's). LCD's are mostly set to 60fps, but some newer ones are able to go higher and vsync is recommended for smooth transitions on those displays.

3/13/2007 11:20:19 PM

thats what i was trying to say... i mean.. 85hz is about average for a crt (or an old one) and 60hz for lcds so no matter what your computer is tossing out over 100 (yeah mine goes to 146 sometimes but who cares) you'll probably never actually see that many fps

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 6:27 AM. Reason : .]

3/14/2007 6:27:15 AM

Quote :

"Quote : "Wow is an FPS game especially when you're pvp'ing. Lets say a lot of events happen on your screen, rogue takes off, mages are aoe'ing, warlocks are raining down hell fire, the effects of a weapon procing go off... framerate can drop, causing you to lag in a sense not knowing where people are. your spells won't cast because the guy attacking you is now behind you but you can't do anything because you get every 4th frame. Sure sounds like an FPS to me." dumbest thing I've read in a while, do you even know what a fps is?"

Yes... it's frames per second. Similar to traditional movie projectors you see in the theaters today where it shows frames of a picture so many times a second. After a certain point the human eye cannot detect it. However the human eye can detect changes in Frames Per Second

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate#Frame_rates_in_video_games

Notice how it says 20-30fps are MINIMALLY ACCEPTABLE at the end of the first paragraph?

My problem even if it wasn't lag was directly related to the Frames I could see per second. Whether it be lag or not I was getting as low as 5 fps, and my ability to compensate when it goes from 5 to 50 randomly isn't that good. I think my statement is very valid.

Again my goal isn't to get beyond the monitors capability but to keep it at a smoother level without much deviation. Overpowered hardware is a quick dirty solution to this issue. Unfortunately in my situations it's not the hardware at all. It is the internet connection losing packets which make it appear that I'm losing framerate since it's so subtle at first.

The monitor I have is a Dell Ultrasharp 19", (forget the model #).

3/14/2007 7:17:14 AM

wait a second

someone thinks wow is an FPS?

it isnt first person, nor a shooter


are you kidding me?



Here is a little game of "which doesnt belong"






[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 7:33 AM. Reason : .]

3/14/2007 7:30:08 AM

WoW is a hybrid of an FPS.

Typical FPS
You shoot a gun, You dodge around objects to block shots, depending on your angle on someone you can sneak up. If you lag it affects your ability to attack or defend yourself.

Wow
You swing a sword, cast spells. You dodge around objects to block people from casting spells or hitting you with bullets or targetting you, depending on your angle on someone, or if you're a rogue you can sneak up on them. If you lag it affects your ability to attack or defend yourself.

Sure, WoW isn't 100% pure bread FPS, but it has almost all the same characteristics of an FPS. Hell just look at the BG's. It's fucking cheaterstrike with swords and magic instead of guns. It's the same damn thing. You spawn, you die, you respawn...

The ONLY difference is the fact that you don't have to "aim" but you do have to target, be within range, and be looking at their general direction unless it's an AOE (think grenade).

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 8:00 AM. Reason : !]

3/14/2007 7:59:48 AM

dude - you are a fucking moron

FPS - First Person Shooter...i.e. you play the game in the first person point of view...since you're a retard, I'll let you know first person is defined as through the eyes of the character

FPS has absolutely nothing to do with fps

anyway, get rid of xp 64...reformat/defrag/whatever else you want to do...and are you sure it's graphical lag you're getting and not server lag?

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 8:17 AM. Reason : .]

3/14/2007 8:15:29 AM

it was even better because he didnt understand what an FPS was, but compared it to UT and CS thus picking other valid choices for comparison.

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 8:26 AM. Reason : aiming is half, if not all, of what makes it a "shooter" you goon]

3/14/2007 8:25:21 AM

Dur, okay so I got caught up in the frames per second and misplaced in my brain fps. First person shooter still has the same basis in my arguement. So while I had a mental snafu my points still stand. While you aren't firing a gun that that X damage no matter what "class" you are. The same exists for WoW except it's far more complicated. There's 1209381029 guns that do different damage, and their are swords, magic, etc.

Think of it this way. WoW is an FPS with thousands of weapon, gun combinations, with magic, really big knives and the map is fucking huge. It has the abilty to play exactly as a First Person Shooter, but can also play as a third person shooter.

So... I admit I fubared. But I still stand by my arguement.

3/14/2007 8:45:31 AM

Let me be one of the many people to say that wow is in no way whatsoever an FPS.

3/14/2007 8:55:45 AM

i dont know much about it, but isnt WoW a rpg that isnt in the first person?

3/14/2007 9:01:23 AM

WoW is most definitely NOT a FPS ... not even close, ever, at all.

It's a MMORPG, completely in every way. Oh Btw, that stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Where is the First Person Shooter part of the name? Nowhere.

Not to mention, you dump countless amounts of money into the monthly subscription. I don't know any (popular) FPS games on computers that make you do that.

FPS is being quick on your feet, lots of tactics, and great fun. There are no quests, no exploration, and definitely no socialites hanging around a town flapping their collective keyboard shaped mouths.

3/14/2007 9:37:40 AM

you should just said, "ok i was wrong, i got my game styles mixed up." instead you've tried to convince us that it wasnt that big of a mistake, which is incorrect.

that said, (to everyone else) i believe you can zoom into first person view in most MMO's I've played including WOW, but that still doesnt make it close to the same thing.

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 10:15 AM. Reason : again rage the whole aiming thing is really what makes it a shooter, targetting is VERY different]

3/14/2007 10:14:33 AM

1) Yes I was wrong. I screwed up with the fps. I whole heartedly admit I forgot what Fps stood for in my fps rant.

2) WoW is very much a first person shooter depending on how you play. But this arguement can go on forever. I've already presented why I think it's such. Noone took my points and discounted them just said it wasn't.

gs7... you're saying that you need to be quick on your feet (carrying the flag, running for your life, chasing someone), lots of tactics (guess you don't know about pvp group tactics, paired pvp, raid groups on targets and strategies needed to beat them), no quests! (guess planting that bomb isn't a quest or sorry it's called a mission!), no socialites...(ventrilo, teamspeak... don't your remember "lolzor noob" "pwned" etc).

So what ARE the differences?

1) You can play in third person
2) Much more complex than a standard fps.
3) Much larger maps (wow is a enormous world)
4) More classes to choose between than 2, or sniper etc.

I openly admit that if you went to a gaming store and looked for WoW under FPS you wouldn't find it. I agree that looking at WoW from a whole it belongs under RPG more than it does FPS. I even admit that me defending it as an FPS is like a fat man defending his right to eat a donut while on a diet.

The point I'm trying to make is that WoW is commonly played like an FPS especially when it's organized PVP. A lot of the game mechanics operate like an FPS in that way. My situation involved the mechanics that operate identically to the mechanics a First Person Shooter uses in order to play effectively and not scream "F***ing lag!".

So in the end. I admit Wow is not technically an FPS. Happy?

3/14/2007 11:12:16 AM

im happy, except that you said we didnt dispute your evidence of it being an fps (oral sex isnt really sex right!).

i agree many of the gameplay mechanics can be similar. unfortunately that is true for many other game styles as well. the differences are what make them different classes of games. many game types require reflexes, tactics, etc that gs described (those would really just be "action" games). warcraft requires that, but that doesnt make it a fps either.

even things like GRAW arent technically FPS's and they are nearly identical except for the view point. the first person and shooter parts are the keys, not the play style.

this thread is more interesting this way

3/14/2007 1:46:19 PM

Good, admission is the first step towards recovery.

I never said that WoW wasn't a shooter, or didn't have action or tactics ... and I definitely wasn't saying that a FPS was more complex or lacked "missions" of sort.

Fwiw, I'll give you your complexity on a silver platter ... because I sure as hell don't want to deal with armor degrading, looting corpses, running around looking for mobs, political bullshit within pvp fights, quest camping (yea I know you use group tactics), huge maps that take long periods of time to navigate, being stuck in one class (yea, you can choose at the beginning), and I really don't care to play in third person. That, and I can appreciate the fact that you guys pretend you are playing a FPS while paying $15/mo for an action-oriented RPG.

Let's see, why do I like playing FPS? Recently BF2 has been my game of choice, along with the Point of Existence 2 (PoE2) mod and the Project Reality mod it provides hours of destruction and fighting and I get to choose whichever class I want. The classes btw are varied enough that it CAN make a difference which kit to play at certain times for certain situations. There is no maintenance anywhere in the game, except to re-arm if I run out of bullets, 'nades, explosives, etc, and that's easy enough to deal with. Beyond that, the tactics are fun and the conversation on teamspeak (etc) is probably 95% about fighting or tactics, there isn't that "j00r pwn3d n00b" going on. Oh, and the nonsensical politics and BS, they just don't happen like they do in the community RPG games, and that's a great thing imo.

Action is all the time in FPS games, that's what I'm looking for in a game, I don't want to sit around twiddling my thumbs while my character runs from point A to B, or crafts some l33tarmor +10. All that said, I've been playing FPS since the beginning so maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, but I still have a blast every time I play one.

To each their own I guess.

3/14/2007 2:17:04 PM

^ I used to be heavy into Quake2, Quake 3, Action Quake etc (precursors to CheaterStrike). I haven't played BattleFront since the first one and I never got the mechanics of it. Of course knowing what I used to play it was a you hit where you aimed kind of thing and in the newer games you have to take into account a realistic spread of bullet fire and how to adjust your fire to compensate.

I even used to help run a CounterStrike server but got so tired of the obvious cheaters. Don't get me wrong. I'll admit when I get schooled but it's kind of obvious when you watch someone look at a wall knowing when someone is coming, or aimbots... oh jesus don't get me started on those. I think that's what drew me into WoW and Everquest so much.

You can't cheat easily and IF you do you have a lot to lose because of it. All the time you put into leveling your character etc gone in a heartbeat so the price isn't worth it. Counterstrike for example... you get banned from that server. Whup te do. There's a mechanism in place to deal with people that ruin the fun of the game. Of course lately watching people do the speed hack is just plain annoying. At least they figured out how to detect that crap.

3/14/2007 2:51:22 PM

playing online console games helps with some of that thankfully. controls arent as great obviously, but it is still fun. love me some cod3.

3/14/2007 3:13:29 PM

Quote :

"2) WoW is very much a first person shooter depending on how you play. But this arguement can go on forever. I've already presented why I think it's such. Noone took my points and discounted them just said it wasn't."

Ok first off WOW is not seen thru the first person perspective and there is no shooting in it at all. So its not a FPS. I have not played it but I'm going to assume its like any other mmorpg setup where you click on something and then hit a key to do the action you want. You don't aim weapons in the first person at any point.

Back to your problem it sounds like your problem is not so much low fps as lag. Are you sure you have a decent enough internet connection to play online games? Sounds like your connection is the bottleneck to me.

3/14/2007 3:27:08 PM

Can this get anymore offtopic?

3/14/2007 3:37:28 PM

^^ reread the past few posts you skipped and I admitted defeat.

3/14/2007 3:39:59 PM

Quote :

"First person shooter still has the same basis in my arguement. So while I had a mental snafu my points still stand. While you aren't firing a gun that that X damage no matter what "class" you are. The same exists for WoW except it's far more complicated. There's 1209381029 guns that do different damage, and their are swords, magic, etc. Think of it this way. WoW is an FPS with thousands of weapon, gun combinations, with magic, really big knives and the map is fucking huge. It has the abilty to play exactly as a First Person Shooter, but can also play as a third person shooter. "

Quote :

"2) WoW is very much a first person shooter depending on how you play. But this arguement can go on forever. I've already presented why I think it's such. Noone took my points and discounted them just said it wasn't. "

Simply no. WoW is not an FPS, no matter how you spin it. What you're doing is essentially saying that an apple IS an orange, because both of them have fruit, are edible, and have seeds. Apples and oranges are two completely different kinds of fruit, even though they have some common features, just as WoW and FPS games are completely different kinds of games, even though they have some common gameplay elements.

Quote :

"So what ARE the differences? 1) You can play in third person"

Did you just say that the difference between WoW and a First-Person Shooter is that WoW isn't played in first-person, and then try to say that it's still "very much a first person shooter"? I mean, that's a complete contradiction in name, definition, and taxonomy. Playing from a first-person perspective might be an important enough feature of an FPS to even put it in the genre name!

3/14/2007 3:52:06 PM

Quote :

"Normal 120gb 7000rpm WD drive. Used only for games and a secondary drive. it is SATA Original Problem: WoW and other FPS games run at 20-60fps when they should be running much higher."

There are your problems. Wow's programmed like shit. Your fps is always going to be garbage unless you have enough video ram to load ~2gb of textures into memory at once. A faster, half full or less HDD will help with texture load times and consequential slowdowns.

3/14/2007 3:55:24 PM

just caught that... they make a 7000rpm hard drives? Missing 200 somewhere... guess they got chopped up to bits from WoW's FPS game...

3/14/2007 4:15:53 PM

I can tell you that XP x64 edition is probably not the problem. I've been using it for over a year now and have run numerous games (CoD2, CS:S, ET, FEAR, HL2, etc) and have never had any issues. Don't know why so many people are against it. It has a few driver issues but nothing that has interfered with gaming so far.

3/14/2007 4:53:25 PM

FPS game = frames per second game

BF2 = battlefront

heh, I learn something new every day I guess.

3/14/2007 5:28:33 PM

The six degrees of Kevin Bacon a FPS.

Back to the topic, did you resolve the original problem?

3/14/2007 5:03:11 PM

you mean battle field 2?

3/14/2007 5:03:23 PM

he was quoting Raige's interpretation of FPS and BF2

3/15/2007 12:46:02 AM

Quote :

"I can tell you that XP x64 edition is probably not the problem. I've been using it for over a year now and have run numerous games (CoD2, CS:S, ET, FEAR, HL2, etc) and have never had any issues. Don't know why so many people are against it. It has a few driver issues but nothing that has interfered with gaming so far. 3/14/2007 4:"

That's nice for you, but every benchmark that I've ever seen would suggest that you'd get better performance in your games if you weren't using XP 64 bit edition. You might not be having PROBLEMS, but you'd most likely see better framerates if you used the 32 bit version.

Maybe it's changed by now though, but considering driver support for the 64 bit version of vista still sucks depending on what card you have I imagine it's highly dependent on what card and driver you're using.

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 12:56 AM. Reason : ]

3/15/2007 12:49:10 AM

gah dammit. bf2 is battlefield 1942... sigh not battlefront the star wars game. Fired. so fired. The 7000rpm was a typo. it's 7200rpm. Man I'm just screwing up all over this post. The harddrive that the game is one is used only for games. It's has about 60gb free so I don't think that's the problem.

Just to give you guys an idea of the latency I'm experiencing. Here's a ping to ncsu from me and a tracert. You'll notice the problem start locally.

http://www.raige.net/lagproblem.rtf

This was done during a time where my latency was averaging 500-1100ms.

3/15/2007 5:53:00 AM

That's a lot of packet loss, run a ping from another machine that's behind your router and see if they experience the same.

If it's a personal network-wide issue, who is running a P2P app? I'm willing to bet if you turn off all P2P or at least optimize them to only use ~60% of available upload bandwidth combined then you will notice an immediate improvement.

3/15/2007 11:14:02 AM

nope we did the same test without the router on it during one of the instances. same deal. It's the first major hop but they haven't figured it out yet. Seems a guy down the st, and another 2 apartments in my complex are having the same issues.

It happens almost on the dot at 5:45 so it's probably something that happens on a timed basis. When I know more I'll let ya know.

3/15/2007 1:16:53 PM

This thread makes me LAWL

What monitor are you using and what is the refresh rate.

Is vertical sync turned on in your game settings or through video card settings?

3/15/2007 2:51:39 PM

bf2 = battlefield 2, not 1942, that was the original

i agree with gs7's post about FPS over RPG's

3/15/2007 7:49:00 PM

this thread made my morning :-). now i'm off to pwn some noobs in C&C (Conqure and Carnage) with my 1337 FPS skillz.


sorry Raige... everyone else was doing it, i just had to. its good you've atleast admitted part of you mistake but its bad that you still didn't realize the completeness of it.

3/16/2007 7:54:20 AM