Extremely low FPS on menus

Technical Support
162

That may be true for you but it’s not for others.
Part of the issue as far as I can tell is that the wc3r menu uses a chromium renderer that is not respecting hardware - on my dual GPU laptop (which is a large number of them) it tries to render the menu on the integrated GPU instead of the dedicated GPU and the integrated GPU is not designed to render stuff like that, it’s intended for low demand low power use like displaying my desktop. Games need to use the dedicated GPU.

SC2 and D3 do not have this issue. If you do not have a similar dual GPU setup then you won’t experience the problem. The issue is that many people do experience this.

163

i do have a similar setup actually, on 2 laptops. i have only tested it on my asus so far and it worked well there. it have an intel HD 3000 and an nvidia gt 630m. starcraft 2 was really slow to start on my toshiba, because there was a delay as it switched gpus from integrated to dedicated. you could tell me what integrated gpu you have, i told you what i have.

164

Yeah I don’t know what they’re doing different in wc3r that causes it to break on some setups, I imagine it’s something particularly silly related to the way they’re launching the chromium renderer. Mine does not switch from one GPU to another, it uses offloading to render things on the dGPU (mine is a 1050m) and that is sent to the iGPU which then puts it on screen. That’s why on some setups the workaround of disabling the integrated GPU is not possible, because it’s not switching between them, they are both in use simultaneously.

165

the 1000 gpus is no longer called m. with that new setup, it might simply be too new. warcraft 3 is after all an old game. they did not remake it. my asus laptop is fairly old and is therefore not too new. guess you need a desktop, as they do not usually use multiple gpus.

166

It’s not new, it’s a 2017 XPS 15.

This setup literally predates wc3r which is when they did remake the menu system, because Chromium literally didn’t exist when the original war 3 was made.
I am able to play the original version of wc3 (installed from CDs as blizz stopped allowing download) and the requirements for it are incredibly low and it runs perfectly fine (v1.27b).

They’ve done something wrong in their implementation of it, it’s that simple, I don’t know why you’re here trying to make excuses over and over for why it isn’t their fault, this thread was started in Feb 2000, literally just after launch of the game, this is literally a bug from the actual first release of wc3r that hasn’t been fixed in two years.

167

warcraft 3 is from 2002. warcraft 3 reforged have just been patched on top of the game from 2002.

168

No, it’s not patched on top, the engine was redone, the menu systems were redone, the entire netcode was redone and it doesn’t even use the same battle net, it doesn’t use the same licencing, the ‘upgrade’ was literally downloading an entirely new client that is not remotely the same as the old one. I clearly know when the original wc3 is from since I bought it then and just said I used the literal CDs to play it.

wc3r is nearly 30gb, a CD holds 700mb, even with TFT it’s only just over 1 gb installed, it’s monumentally a different scale. The engine was rewritten, then menus are not even remotely the same implementation.

The original wc3 is old enough it can run on an integrated GPU. The menus of wc3r cannot run on one and you think it’s just patched on top? Wow

So why do they sell it as a new game? It’s not the same game, it’s not patched on top of it, it just has a ‘classic’ mode that uses old graphics in it and they forced everyone to ‘upgrade’ to that rather than let us run the old game.

It’s clear you actually don’t understand the tech nor software development at all so perhaps you shouldn’t be arguing about it. As noted, Chromium literally didn’t exist in 2002 but that’s what’s used in the menu now. You don’t understand the tech, just stop.

169

no, the engine was not altered. they just added a new menu system to the engine from 2002. the restrictions of the old engine is still in place which includes limited support for newer hardware. licensing have nothing to do with the software directly. the reason warcraft 3 reforged takes so much space is because the new HD assets takes a lot of space. i understand the technology much better than you. remasters is sold as new games, despite not being built from the ground up. the development of warcraft 3 reforged took about a year. if they had built a new engine, it would have taken 5 years(like starcraft 2).

170

Same issue here in 2022, gtx 1070, msi gs65 Stealth thin 8rf.
3fps in menu
Wtf Blizzard?

171

Hello! I don’t want to impose any pressure, however It’s been about 18 months if I’m correct. I’d just like to ask that if there is anything to share regarding this issue. Thanks :slight_smile:

3 Likes
173

I tried this, in the settings I chose “windowed full screen” and restarted the game. It didnt work. Any ideas?

175

Hi! I’ve tried to remove my previous message, and it disappear for a while, and now, I’m seeing that it is here again. I’m sorry if I’ve misinformed you.
All that I’ve described partually right, and partually wrong. That was just a luck that the game starts few times in a row normaly. Right after I’ve written that message, I tested how it works again and it is all were failed.

But I created other rough approach, which can be helpful to run the game finally. I will describe it on the next message.

1 Like
176

Hello everyone again. Dear friends and dear support members, I spent a day of rerunning the game. Can’t imagine why I’ve spent so much time with that. But that testing have moved me to conclusion, that sometimes the game starting with normally working GPU rendering of Chromium which integrated in Warcraft III - Reforged, and renders the scene and menu.

What I did to understand what prevents the game from starting without fps slowed down
I tried to kill BlizzardBrowser process many times while Warcraft III main process working because I was thinking that the problem in BlizzardBrowser process exactly and I was thinking that if it will be restarted then at some restart BlizzardBrowser process with type=gpu-process which provides hardware accelerated rendereing will not be crashed and executed successfully (If you kill BlizzardBrowser process while Warcraft is working, Warcraft will restart Blizzard Browser)
It is all was invain.

Then I just applied that practice to Warcraft III executable. I’ve written application in Golang programming language, which rerun Warcraft allover again, if after BlizzardBrowser subprocess start will be no BlizzardBrowser subprocess which provides gpu rendering. And it is working! Sometimes it needs 6 attempts to restart the game, sometimes it needs 20 attempts of Warcraft to be restarted to make that BlizzardBrowser and Warcraft tondem to work normally.
Also I’m thinking that the problem is not in BlizzardBrowser process, but exactly in Warcraft executable. I’m thinking so, because you can terminate BlizzardBrowser alloveragain in your task manager and it never will be restarted with hardware acceleration support, but if you restarting Warcraft itself, at some rerun, BlizzardBrowser will be started with Hardware acceleration usage, because BlizzardBrowser subprocess will not crash.

What you can do to start the game normally
As I’ve said I’ve written utility/application in Golang. That utility have no reverse engineering of the game itself and have no anything bad made to Blizzard licence agreement. No hacking. No game process memory interruption/intrusion. It gathers no information. It just starts Warcraft executable and restarts it if no hardware acceration BlizzardBrowser subprocess after few seconds of Warcraft start.

Disclaimer first:

A kind of disclaimer

  1. It’s better to disable internet temporarely, as every restart of Warcraft turns to connections to server, and it can make some usage of resources of the server if application connecting all over again.
  2. There is no guarantee, that my approach and my app will work in your case.
  3. There is no guarantee, that the game will work stable at any case, with or without hardware acceleration supported BlizzardBrowser execution.
  4. Also, I can’t give you a guarantee that the system will not hang or will not go to BSOD (blue screen of death) after the game will be restart for so many times in a short period of time. For example from my point of view, nvidia drivers the most instable last years (IMHO). Maybe I will be wrong in this statement.
  5. Please feel free to check my file with your antivirus, be with actual antivirul databases. Also you can use virustotal service. You can search VirusTotal by your own in the google for example.
    Here are the results of latest check of binary in virustotal. Sadly link to VirusTotal aren’t allowed here, so I can share only part of the link with you guys:
    /gui/file/92055045ac73f0eee0727c2d8c24a4cf965ea8c3df914dd709593bdc8ff12b9e/details
  6. Blizzard, please feel free to check my code. There is no nothing to hide.
  7. Please keep in mind that antiviral products presented on VirusTotal works in paranoid mode, which means that they can treat almost any application as threat. From my point of view best approach will be to look on what the most antiviral products are saying, like Kaspersky, DrWeb, Symantec, McAffe.
  8. You can compile that executable by your own anyway, or ask a friend to do that. Reminding that repository is here on GitHub:
    https://github.com/ivy-reps/war3-reforged-menu-hw-accel-bug-workaround
    You can freely fork it if you need. I hope I will be ready to mke fixes. To request them, please use Issues tab of repository.

This is my first GitHub repository shown to the peoples and I’m sorry if it is prepared badly. That repositiory contains the source code of that utility:
https://github.com/ivy-reps/war3-reforged-menu-hw-accel-bug-workaround

Here is the link to executable that I’ve compiled and placed there on the GitHub:
https://github.com/ivy-reps/war3-reforged-menu-hw-accel-bug-workaround/releases/download/v.0.1.9/Try-to-start-Warcraft-III-Reforged-without-freezes.v.0.1.9.exe

Here is release page for 0.1.9

Changelog of 0.1.9 from 16.04.2022

  • Forced the game to start in windowed mode, to allow to a window to be really hidden
  • Window blinking finally not happening
  • Now you can see what number attempt is happening
  • After 3D renderer will be started with Hardware acceleration, without crash, you will get also balloon notification (at leased works in Windows 7)
  • Possibly, game window will go windowed fullscreen after you will press Go play it! button. (made with simulation of ALT + ENTER keys pressed)
  • Launcher will show the game only after Go play it! button pressed. I want you to be sure that the app have closed before you will start the game
  • Launcher window width have increased to include all texts
  • Add minutes spent on reloading of the game
  • Make relauncher to react only on Warcraft’s III child BlizzardBrowser.exe processes

Executable have compiled in Windows 7 environment. I can’t say whether that will work in Windows 8 and Windows 10 or not.

That executable should be placed to the game executable folder
For example the game installed here:
Q:\Games\Blizzard Entertainment\Warcraft III

Then the file should be placed here:
Q:\Games\Blizzard Entertainment\Warcraft III\_retail_\x86_64

Then just open Try-to-start-Warcraft-III-Reforged-without-freezes.v.0.1.9.exe and wait until app will be rerunning the game allover again until it will start normally with no freeze.

At my case, my system is Windows 7. And I have almost obsolete PC of 2008 year, but the game works fine except that lighting effect. If lighting effect have turned on, the game became incredible laggy, but I think, with now days video devices will be no such problem as it happend in my case.

I think there are no need to make them, because the game starts at some point as it expected, and it’s enought even if I made code it dirty and roughly. I’m ready to fix something anyway.

Dear Blizzard/Activision. I’m playing your games for so long! I love you very much! I really want you to make the best games in the world. Please find your time to make small hotfix. You don’t need to rewrite the whole game. If you have sources you need to make just a small fix to prevent that badly working communication between Warcraft III and Chromium, or a fix of how Warcraft III initializes 3D Rendering, because I’m sure that it’s a problem not in BlizzardBrowser, but exactly in Warcraft exeutable. But, anyway… Who the hell I’m?

Best Regards!

2 Likes
177

New PTR wooo!

However with reforged graphics, im having mini screenfreezes when im clicking on an icon of a building, or a building, maybe some units even?

Maybe its about my computer specs, but hey.

New PTR woo!

1 Like
178

i have that problem myself. it is based on how warcraft 3 loads assets. it waits until the assets is needed by loading them. when they are loaded however, the problem goes away. it is only there on the first load of the assets. only solution is to run the game off a fast harddrive.