Patch 1.36 FPS Drop Bug Fix

General Discussion
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Hi, as you might have known, there has been a huge FPS drop since 1.33 patch came out, specially on Laptops using Hybrid GPUs (Nvidia + Intel)

This happens in SD GFX Mode, because : the game refuses to render game using Nvidia, it reverts back to rendering on Intel one, as if it simply guesses that there is no need to render on GPU or whatever

On a modern laptop, with a modern CPU, the Intel GFX is surely able to render the game at 144Hz in 1920x1080, so normal users will not notice it

But as for me or other players who are using External monitor (like 3440x1440 for me), the FPS drop is surely noticable, it gives me 100 FPS with 100% of CPU usage and 0% of GPU usage, and a huge mouse lag and un-smooth gameplay experience

I’m not a regular user who complains at blizz, I have tested every possible solution to force the Game’s binary to use dedicated GPU, it worked until 1.32, and stopped working in 1.33, It refuses to render Classic GFX on dedicated GPU

This leads us to a funny situation in which : My HD GFX FPS is higher than my SD GFX FPS! in HD GFX it uses my GPU and gives me around 140FPS, in SD mode it uses my CPU and give me around 100FPS!

Possible reasons why this is happening ? Well, my guesses are the changes that made under the hood in 1.33 for the DX, the developers might have updated the DX versions and the newer versions do not support the old games with Native Fullscreen support

there is an option in the game called : Native Fullscreen, and this was used to fix the FPS problems in the good old days and even in the Reforged until 1.32, but since 1.33 the Native Fullscreen makes no difference with the Windowed Fullscreen, they both are using DWM to manage the window of the game, and that is what bottlenecks as result

The old versions of DX were able to force Native Fullscreen and handle all rendering and drawing themselves, not handle it to windows’s DWM, so the choice what to render with and what to do, was up to the game, but in this case, it is up to windows and it simply thinks that CPU is enough for this workload

I can assure you I’m using latest version of drivers up until the day, for both Intel and Nvidia, and have forced every single binary of warcraft to be rendered on GPU, in both windows power management and Graphic Settings, and even in Nvidia Control Panel, and every other possible place you might think

When I’m playing in HD mode, the game is utilizing my GPU, and task manager indicates that warcraft exe is consuming GPU, but when I use SD mode, Warcraft has no real GPU usage, and the usage of Intel GPU on DWM.exe is on 100%

Please fix this issue, I can cooperate for any information you might need, Please Fix this bug

This irritates me in one way, but there are some others who have quit W3 since 1.33 because they used to get 60FPS and now they are getting 1-2 FPS

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sou do brasil e estou com esse mesmo problema, tenho um i7 3770 com hd intel 4000 sempre joguei warcraft 3 nesse pc e ate em pc’s inferiores, agora nao consigo jogar, fico com 1-2 FPS e isso é injogavel, fico triste por isso, comprei um jogo e nao posso joga-lo mais…

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This issue is not exclusive to this game, it’s not a game bug at all. It happens with lots of games, and the solution is to disable the integrated graphics. It is intel/nvidia that needs to make their software better in this specific instance.

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Disabling Inegrated Graphics is not a solution, nor is it viable when using laptop with an external display, and it is exclusive to the game, if you retard have read my articles, I have mentioned that everything was fine in 1.32, it all started since 1.33

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Yes it is. And unless only the integrated graphics is allowed to output to the external video port (which would be a horrible design), there is little downside to doing so.

Ultimately, the problem is with the software driving your graphics hardware, not with the game.

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I have not been able to play since 1.32, the update from 1.33 onwards is impossible for me to play, only my fps are at 3-5 and it is impossible to play it, I tried to update my drivers but I couldn’t play even then, what a pity they can’t solve it this problem…

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disable. the. integrated. graphics. Fixed.

If your discrete GPU is nvidia, you can follow these steps:

Open the NVIDIA control panel.
Navigate to 3D settings > Manage 3D settings.
Open the Program settings tab and select your game from the dropdown menu.
Select Preferred graphics processor for this program from the second dropdown menu. 
Save your changes.

See also this article from Intel on the topic:

Ultimately, this is not a game bug but bad settings on your PC or bad design of your laptop.

Blizzard deserves a jug of haterade for some things, but this is not one of them. It’s not their fault your PC isn’t using the correct GPU.

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I don’t have nvidia, I have intel, following these steps do you think I’ll be able to play?

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If your laptop has intel’s ARC graphics, then yes, following their steps linked above should work.

The only people it wont work for are people who ONLY have integrated graphics, in which case they’re SOL, becuase integrated graphics are horrible.

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no, well haha ​​I have integrated graphics, I already did everything to be able to play, but only patch 1.33 ruined my game and blizzard did nothing about it, many players stopped playing because of this problem.

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Many players being you and… you.

I’ve not heard anyone complain about this outside of this thread, and this isn’t exactly a large sample size.

All it takes is disabling the integrated graphics for this game. It isn’t a bug in the game, so if anyone’s quitting over this, well they’re never coming back because it isn’t blizzard’s fault.

I really don’t believe you didn’t have performance issues before 1.33 as integrated graphics are garbage and pretty much any 3D game less than 10 years old is going to choke if it runs at all.

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I played Warcraft 3 on an integrated graphics laptop 10 years ago and the game played great! I was able to play multiplayer LAN with my friends and we were getting 60 fps or a high enough FPS at least that it did not even occur to us to check the FPS.

If the game worked on their computers, then updated in a patch so that it did not work, then even if the users are confused about the technical details or reason why it stopped working, then I think it would be fair to say in such a case that it was still a bug in the game.

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That’s great! That was 10 years ago and the game was heavily modified for Reforged. So what you did 10 years ago isn’t relevant to this discussion. The system requirements have changed, and people not within the system requirements can expect the game not to work well or at all.

As I said, I do not believe them when they say this. I experienced zero performance difference after patch 1.33 and neither has anyone else i’ve asked (and I did ask around after hearing about this).

Something happened on their PC’s side. This is all aside from the fact that it’s been specifically mentioned in this thread in at least one case of the user having a discrete GPU and the integrated graphics are being used instead, which is a configuration problem on their side, not a bug in the game. This is a common problem that isn’t specific to just Warcraft III.

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That’s because you have literally 5 or more times the performance of the recommended specs. But for some odd reason on my end, it had messed around with the voltage on my MSI GF65 Thin 10 UE gaming laptop (RTX 3060 i5 10500H 16GB DDR4 RAM) and caused much higher GPU temps than it should’ve. And according to the official specs, it shouldn’t be a problem with my setup. Also I do have desktop 3060 with R7 3700X 16GB DDR4 RAM which it has no issues as well.

They still need to fix the performance instability. And I doubt you would have nearly every configurable PCs and laptops to disprove anyone’s claim with the said hardware.

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Oh, so you know what my PC specs are with your magic clairvoyance?

While I have a nice and recent CPU, my GPU is garbage, so I most certainly don’t get the best possible framerates. But I can certainly promise you those framerates I’m getting did not change in any noticable way from before to after the patch. I’ve noticed no significant change in hardware temps.

We’ve well established that this is an issue of multi GPU systems using the integrated graphics, which there is a solution for and it is not the game’s fault.

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From what you were saying about your own PC, it doesn’t sound like garbage GPU.

Muxless gaming laptops are still a thing, and saying a solution to disable a hardware feature as well saying the game isn’t at fault is completely asinine. Literally every game is designed around the hardware not the other way around. Which it is like saying Intel has to design their 12th gen E cores and P cores around Denuvo instead of Denuvo design around E cores and P cores like it should’ve.

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What have I said about it other than “i have a nice CPU but my GPU is garbage?”
Very interested to know.

It isn’t even that important, you can play with uncapped frame rate, so you would see a difference by having the FPS display on no matter what your GPU is. And there wasn’t one.

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Multi GPU systems have settings to designate the GPU to use with a particular application (see the intel article above). So no, it isn’t in any way “completely asinine” to say that it isn’t the game’s fault, because it ISN’T the game’s fault. The game just runs on whatever GPU the system decides to use with it. while it is possible for applications to specify, the default is still going to be whatever the system decides. Again, this is a very common issue and it is not specific to warcraft III. Many, many games have this issue and while the ability to select which GPU to use within the game is possible, but is not a common feature (and 100% requires application restart). The very fact that this issue isn’t exclusive to the game means it isn’t the game’s fault. If the game was saying “Hey windows, can I use the integrated graphics?” “Sure!” you would have a point, but that’s not what’s happening. It’s windows saying “The information I have says the user wants to use the integrated GPU with this application.”

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You clearly don’t know what you are talking about. And you would then attempt to gaslight anyone who would criticize your knowledge on the subject. I had clearly made sure the game is running on the Discrete GPU. Although Windows clearly had marked the game to run-on High-Performance GPU. It isn’t a windows issue, nor it is a hardware issue (especially software to the said hardware itself).

What you’re saying the game had zero issues from the start, is completely and utterly false.

You need to seek help if you are letting this “slight and inconvenient” problem bothering you.

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Generally, anytime someone says this, it is they who doesn’t know what they’re talking about instead. Particularly if that’s all they can say about it.

I’m not trying to gaslight anyone, if you’re questioning your reality, that’s your choice. But that’s not why I’m here.

I’ve NEVER said the game has “zero issues.” Ever. The game has more issues than I can even count. But I have seen no actual evidence of the 1.33 patch changing people’s frame rates, and until someone presents that evidence, I can not accept this as a game issue , because I did not encounter any measurable performance difference across the patch release.

This doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen for anyone, but it does mean that it’s far more likely that it is a hardware or configuration specific issue if so.