yeah. the game can be maxxed out with a gtx 970. the issue is there are a couple settings from the normal wow interface that are designed to tank your system in hopes you will buy one of their partners graphics cards. notice how they upped the requirements for shadowlands? why? its not like they added anything more graphically.
what they did is they have hidden a couple particle settings attached to an overall setting in the wow interface. like fog being attached to the particles as well as weather effects. so if you want the pretty weather effects you have to set the particles to higher settings, but doing so will set the fog to a level that is unreal for gpus and provides 0 benefits visually…seriously, 0 benefits, its just there to tank systems and they know this.
in short, set your settings via cvars and dont use their normal interface. you can get better graphics that way and it will be buttery smooth. Till of course they put a patch in that ruins it in a single dungeon like they did a couple months ago…WoW…paid for beta game.
Yes. I have a 1070 Ti, and FPS varies from 80 (heavy player pop areas) to 144 (cap, in small player areas, and sometimes raids).
I would be able to more consistently cap FPS with a 2070S, or the holy dream of a 3070.
I get 80-180 FPS with everything maxed out at 4K, and since I view on a 43" 60Hz monitor he graphics remain smooth until I get into Ardenwealg, where the frame rate frequently drops into the mid-40s.
I’m actually really impressed that they seemed to account for framerates above 60 in their animations. Like, I might just be talking out of my butt, but I swear Sharkbait’s wing flaps are a heck of a lot smoother past 60.
Maybe they’re not, but either way…
I just received a monster of a new machine, and for the first time in my WoW-playing life, I can absolutely max out the sliders.
That said, I can also run other games with better graphics in general, and I can load Skyrim with 250 4k texture mods and get 60fps (it would be more, but we throttle it for screen flicker).
So, yes, WoW looks much better w/everything topped out and LOD for days…but compared to just about any other game on the table right now, it’s way behind.