Random FPS Drops - SOLUTION FOUND!

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Hello Mac Friends

I wanted to offer some tips on settings that helped me solve random fps drops when playing wow retail (the war within) on my Mac.

The issue I had was that everything would be running great, then seemingly for no reason my fps would drop pretty much in half.
From 100 fps to around 50 fps or lower.

This would happen while standing around in a mostly empty part of Dornogal, in delves, and in Dungeons (raid was not out yet but I assume the same).
System temperatures were fine at around 60 degrees celsius with plenty of headroom to push harder, and there was nothing else of import happening on my Mac that I could identify as the cause.

My specs/setup:
M4 MacBook Pro 14 with 14-Core CPU, 20-Core GPU, and 24GB Memory.
I’m using a 2560x1440 144hz external display connected directly to the Mac with a USB-C to DisplayPort cable.
OS version is Sequoia 15.6

The Macbook is open on a laptop stand to act as my second display.
I use TG Pro with a custom fan curve to manage cooling.

First I adjusted my graphics settings for my preferences which are:

  1. The game generally looks good.
  2. I can clearly see all of the important effects in-game.
  3. I get a stable 100 fps in M+ dungeons with big pulls, raids, delves, and while running around in Dornogal.

Note: I specifically limit FPS to 100 via game settings. I could get another 20-30 in most scenarios with my current settings by removing the limit, but maximum fps is not a priority for me on this device - I’d rather a comfortable experience knowing system temps are good and fans are not running at max rpm. My fan curve in TG Pro means the fans are always running during a wow session but they’re a comfortable volume.

The common suggestions I found to address performance issues and fps drops were:

  1. Disable Universal Control - This did not seem to have any impact from short testing - the FPS drops still occurred, but I left it disabled as I’m not using it anyway.

  2. Set Compute Effects to low - This was already disabled for me as most of my graphic settings were recommendations from Quazzi (YouTuber) for improving performance and visuals in M+.

  3. Enable Vertical Sync - I left this disabled.

  4. Disable Multithreaded Rendering - I left this enabled.

  5. Disable MacoOS’s Game Mode for wow - I left this enabled.

  6. Enable Triple Buffering - This is what solved the problem for me! The tooltip mentions it can increase input latency, but I have not noticed any change.

Input latency still feels the same and after a few days of testing, and with the fps display enabled I have not observed a single occurance of the drop or felt any weird lag.
The game feels great now!

Good luck everyone! I hope this helps!

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