Yes I am using RTSS
Unless you’re capped at 60 fps in 1080p and not maxed on settings, that must be some magic 9900k.
This is because WoW isn’t fully using all of your cores/threads. It’s relying heavily on a small number of threads, and that’s why you’re not seeing 100% CPU usage.
With a 9900K and with Hyper-Threading enabled, you have 16 logical threads. If you’re seeing 20% CPU usage, that still means that ~3 cores are effectively pegged at full load. You also likely won’t see individual cores at 100% all that frequently, since the OS is likely scheduling the load between cores. This is very common.
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Thanks for explaining. I appreciate it. Was unaware it worked like that.
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So with all this in mind, is there any way for the Devs to assign certain elements of the game, to certain cores/threads? I got no experience with WoW’s engine, I just know other MMOs have added multicore/thread support after release.
WoW has had some multi-threaded optimisations over the years. DirectX 12 in patch 8.0 yielded some general improvements, and there were specific multi-threaded optimisations on top of that in 8.1 as well. Here was some short testing I did a few years ago, when 8.1 was on PTR:
I’m sure I had more benchmarks/results somewhere, but they don’t appear to be in my post history. Odd.
Anyway, I too would love to see more general optimisation. Feasibly it can be really tricky to do - especially if trying to improve parallelism in a game whose technical roots are as old as WoW’s - but the benefits could be large if they manage to squeeze more performance out of the client.
If this game could utilize 98% GPU in Valdrakken or packed raids/bgs, we’re talking 30fps average up to 60fps easily on low/midrange systems. I just hope the performance issues currently going on gets fixed and then some optimizations.
This is related to Graphics->View Distance. Setting this to 1 doubles my FPS in this city. Seems that the city is just very poorly optimized in terms of blocking out the surrounding views from being rendered.
hopefully there’s a fix soon.
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Blizzard doesnt seem to be in very much of a hurry improving performance.
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Same issue here…Been googling why FPS on Valdrakken is super low (50-70) compared to average 80-100. I guess low FPS (misery) loves company.
Ryzen 7 5800x
3080
32GB 3200
I found a solution… It worked for me. not sure if this will work for everyone else… But the stutter and the 50fps and the lag went away actually I’m at 70 now without noticing any lag almost smooth.
Go to NVDIIA control panel, then go to manage 3d settings, then Program settings… Select World of Warcraft Retail if it’s not there select ADD and choose WoW.Retail from your folder…
then go to Low latency mode set it to ULTRA
OpenGL GDI combability set it to: Prefer performance
Triple buffering set it to ON.
then click Apply and go to WoW Folder… click on Retail. then Go to the WoW Icon the game itself inside the folder… and right click , Proprties last option. then compability then remove the Check on disable full screen optimization…
This worked so well for me… let me know.
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I have a 9900k and 1 core is pegged at 80-90% the whole time in Valdrakken.
Since 2004 cpu ipc has only increased about 5x (not much really) People keep assuming it’s the game… No its the instructions per clock and L2/L3 cache that help in these situations. The 5800x3d is capable of 70-80fps in valdrakken so all these people saying they have a good rig are unfortunately incorrect. I for one are waiting to drop coin on the upcoming 7700x3d/7800x3d and know exactly what to expect by doing so
Pretty dumb take if I’ve ever seen one, the game engine is definitely badly optimized. You shouldn’t need an X3D CPU for an 18 year old game, with graphics far from 2022 standards.
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I actually got a 5800X3D just a week ago. The improvement in WoW from a 5950X was really noticeable. It’s the most substantial that a CPU upgrade has felt for this game since I upgraded from an i7-920 to an i7-4770K in 2013.
I do get 70-80 FPS in Valdrakken at times, but busy nights will still drop it a bit lower. It holds far higher and steadier than the 5950X, regardless.
Still, there’s probably a fair bit of additional room for client optimisations so that people don’t need a 5800X3D or current-gen chip to get better performance. Hopefully someday. 
Yeah, I didn’t see anyone say they had this amazing highest end machine. I saw people saying things like it’s not a potato. Most of the CPU’s I see listed are decent CPUs, not junk by any stretch. My 10600 at the time was right up there in single core performance. When 95% of the game runs between 80 and my cap of 140 fps and literally one area runs at between 45 and 70 fps there is absolutely optimizations needed and I refuse to believe not possible.
Saying that I have an extra GPU and powersupply sitting around and was thinking of building a second computer. Was thinking of a 12600 or a 13600 for that build. Seems like they are the best bang for your buck. I don’t need massive core counts/threads. Hopefully a modern CPU will get me 60fps in a 20 year old game
I just tested FF14 and frame rates get absolutely ravaged in city hubs where there are 25-40 people hanging out. Go from being able to get around 150-200fps on ultra settings, in the world, to 40-60fps in the hubs with a lot of people in proximity. I don’t play the game, but there’s some hub area in some foresty looking starting place that had a ton of people around one of the teleport hub things. Yeah, I know, super vague, but I didn’t really pay attention to the names because I don’t play the game.
This isn’t just a WoW issue, as I’ve stated in other threads, MMOs are brutal on the main thread and there’s no real way around this other than to shard the hell out of the game so that there’s never more than a few dozen people in one area.
Come back with some better stories, as the Tortollan says. I’ve tested all the other MMOs in packed cities, doesn’t stutter and the fps drop is nowhere near what we see in WoW.
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https://imgur.com/a/NeM7j69
You were saying?
Out in the actual world, the FPS can go even higher. The drop in this clip is roughly 50% with only a couple dozen players+NPCs around… WoW’s rendering, while stylized and cartoony, is far more intensive to render in the newer expansions like SL and DF. Would you like me to whip out some GPU profiling analysis to prove that as well? GPUOpen works pretty well for doing so…
In WoW, I’ll average like 80fps on ultra settings in the newer zones and drop to like 50 in packed areas like the Org AH. Sounds like a similar drop, but the difference is that there will be 40-60 players+NPCs in view on Area52 that I play on.
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That wasn’t too bad. I could go into the Valdrakken bank with uncapped 400 fps and outside near the fountain area and have 40 - ON an absolute high end PC.