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FPS in WoW on iMac 24" alu? Disapointing so far.

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PellePirat

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 23, 2007
38
0
Heya

I have installed the only game i play, World Of Warcraft, on my new alu iMac 24", but tbh, i not very satiesfied with the framerate compared to my PC setup, but i have heard a lot mention that it runs smoothly on their iMacs.

Maybe i have bigger demands, but i just wanna see if there is anything i could do to tweak WoW.

Screenshot of video settings:



And i mean, i have almost turned everything off, but still i got around 20-30FPS when playing. I can reach 75-80FPS in empty IF, but as soon as i go out, it drops to 20-30FPS. Imo, thats very sucky.

Im usually having around 100FPS on my old PC with a Geforce 7950GT, i know its better, but that much? I tried changing resolution on iMac, but it doesnt change the FPS that much, and looks bad.

So far im very dissapointed about the WoW performance, which is a old game with simple graphic.

Besides the low FPS. there is a constant stutter in the picturet. It look likes its skipping a frame or so 1-2 time pr. second. Even if im walking in IF with 80FPS, its not smooth, there is these short stutters a couple of time pr. sec. Its very easy to see on the cast bar which moves very uneven. My latency is around 30-35, so not a latency prob. either. I have tried turning off all addons, but no difference. It seems better if i play the game in a window, so does the FPS atually, but then the eyboard and mouse buttons aint configured to the wow setup :-S

WoW is the only game i play, so im really dissapointed that it performs so bad on my iMac so far. I just hope there is something wrong that can be fixed.

Tech Info:
Alu iMac, 24", 2.4ghz, 3gb ram
 
I'm thinking about getting an iMac with similar specs to yours and my concern was for low FPS in Wow. Although I would dual boot and probably run WoW in XP.

I take it you're running WoW in OS X? Which version?
 
Something isn't right to have only 20-30 FPS on your iMac. My iBook averages over 20 FPS when I'm outside in WoW, although it is at 1024x768 and on lower settings than your screenshot provides (although still not completely minimal settings). The GeForce 7950GT in your PC really is much, much better than your iMac's Radeon HD 2600 (I have a GeForce 7900GS in my aging gaming PC), but your iMac should not be performing that poorly. As stomer suggested, have you tried booted in Windows XP and playing it?
 
Ok I suggest you try taking off full screen glow and if you have multisampling on take it down to x1. These really put a dent into your FPS. If that doesnt work send me a SS with what I just suggested and I'll look into it more for you!

Edit: Also I dont think you need to have virtical sync on unless your screen tears when its not on.
 
Really turn it all down and off

PellePirat said:
And i mean, i have almost turned everything off, but still i got around 20-30FPS when playing.
Click to expand...

Your screenshot seems to show many things still on, and you're at high resolution. Try lower resolution (maybe much lower, at least to establish the effect on frame rate), turning off glow, and especially shadows. I know, you're used to more luxury with your PC. Sorry, I don't play WoW though, but Age of Empires 3 on PC, whose speed seemed very much affected by resolution and shadows especially.

Worst case work around: turn everything off and drag all those sliders to the "easier" extreme (e.g. near). Set resolution to 640x480. I know it's very frustrating to hear this with new hardware... but at least you'll have fun until you resolve the issue. Lag is much worse than no eye candy, IMO.

Have fun.
 
friarlicious said:
Your screenshot seems to show many things still on, and you're at high resolution. Try lower resolution (maybe much lower, at least to establish the effect on frame rate), turning off glow, and especially shadows. I know, you're used to more luxury with your PC. Sorry, I don't play WoW though, but Age of Empires 3 on PC, whose speed seemed very much affected by resolution and shadows especially.

Worst case work around: turn everything off and drag all those sliders to the "easier" extreme (e.g. near). Set resolution to 640x480. I know it's very frustrating to hear this with new hardware... but at least you'll have fun until you resolve the issue. Lag is much worse than no eye candy, IMO.

Have fun.
Click to expand...

You shouldent have to take down your resolution to something of 640x480...because on my 4 almost 5 year old Mac I get low frame rates at my full resolution. As I said before full screen glow really takes an effect on your computer. Also make sure you have mutisampling at x1 as this hurts your frame rate. Resolution should be no problem with your kind of hardware.
 
I'd agree with 'something isn't right'. On my brothers MBP (similar speed graphics card), he runs it maxed out. Greatest view distance/AA/Resolution etc.

Bearing in mind this is bootcamp, although you really should be able to max out WoW even in OSX.
 
Thanks a lot for the answers so far.

Well, ill try installing XP or vista one day, but not at the moment.

But, i tried disabling full screen glow, and thats deffo the biggest sinner. Weirdly enough i tried switching it off once before, without any effect, but i just tested it outside IF, and the difference was clear.

With FSG on, i got 30FPS outside IF looking over the land.
With FSG off, i got 45-60 at same location and scenario, and there is no visual difference really.

Ill try testing some more when i get home.
 
AppleWoW said:
You shouldent have to take down your resolution to something of 640x480...because on my 4 almost 5 year old Mac I get low frame rates at my full resolution. As I said before full screen glow really takes an effect on your computer. Also make sure you have mutisampling at x1 as this hurts your frame rate. Resolution should be no problem with your kind of hardware.
Click to expand...
I think friarlicious was only suggesting to try this not as a permanant solution, but to see what % effect resolution has on the framerate. If the framerate goes way up, then the resolution is a big issue, if not, then probably the game/GPU settings or possibly something else (bad drivers, whatever) is the culprit.

And at 1920x1200, you are pushing about 80% more pixels than at a typical 1280x1024, so yes, it can severely affect performance, especially on the GPU of an iMac, which is decent but not exactly high-end. Performance of low- and mid-range graphics cards tends to fall off dramatically as you reach higher resolutions.

And yes, full screen glow will kill your performance on a Mac. Nice effect but not worth the hit IMO.
 
motulist said:
For those who don't play WoW or other games, like me, I found a page that shows exactly what graphical differences these settings actually look like. To me the full screen glow makes things looks slightly better, but only very slightly. If there's a significant frame rate drop with it on, then I'd definitely recommend keeping it off.
Click to expand...

Thats a pretty nifty link that one, tried to make some myself, but this will do. And yeah, not many of the eye candy options, make insane differences.

I was wondering, its it doable to play wow in other than the native solution or other than the widescreen resolutions? I was thinking of 1280X1024? Its not an option in the video options in WoW though. Could be fun to try as a test.

And, does anyone know of a overclocking utility or other optimized drivers for MAC osX? Could be fun to test out.
 
PellePirat said:
And, does anyone know of a overclocking utility or other optimized drivers for MAC osX? Could be fun to test out.
Click to expand...


Try aticcelerator, it's supper easy and effective. I don't play games with it, but I can confirm that when I need some extra juice, it can make a real difference. Of course, as with all overclocking, proceed at your own risk. I keep it clocked normal at the times when I don't need the extra horsepower.
 
This is why I sold my two month old 24" Al iMac. Game performance was horrible. Yes, I game. I don't fit into Steve Job's iLife mold but love OS X. WinXP on the Mac was equally horrible. My three year old PC with GeForce 6800GT Ultra played better. So, I downgraded. Too bad too becuase I know a lot of people who would love to own a Mac but don't want an iMac and the Mac Pro is too much.
 
You're playing at 1920x1200... very hard for any computer. The 20" is better for gaming in that respect.
 
The key is not to have full screen glow and Multi-Sampling on at the same time.

Turn off full screen glow and put multisampling at 2x. If performance is still not good enough for you, durn down AA and AF.

8 month old MBP is running WoW just fine now that I have figured out how she likes to WoW. I remember reading on a board (this one or blizzard) that the Mac WoW client has a problem with having full screen glow and multisampling on which would make the video card work harder then it needs to. Don't quote me on that.

There is a Blizzard employee that posts here often and I think he would know best. Or simply ask in the official blizzard forums.

And don't install vista, my pc took a 50% framerate hit as a result.
 
When you run a game at such high resolutions it is pretty pointless to run multisampling. On my system I had it set at 6x or 8x, whatever the highest was, and was running 20-25 fps, when i turned it down to 1x, my fps shot up to 35-40, with everything else on the highest, at 1680x1050 resolution, and you couldn't tell a difference at all whatsoever.:apple:
 
gekko513 said:
You're playing at 1920x1200... very hard for any computer. The 20" is better for gaming in that respect.
Click to expand...

If you can't play WoW with all settings turned up on modern Mac hardware, then there is something wrong. The game is nowhere near as graphically demanding as say EQ2.
 
diamond.g said:
If you can't play WoW with all settings turned up on modern Mac hardware, then there is something wrong. The game is nowhere near as graphically demanding as say EQ2.
Click to expand...
Doesn't help when the screen resolution is 1920x1200. See here how the screen resolution cripples fps for any game.
fear_00.gif
 
gekko513 said:
Doesn't help when the screen resolution is 1920x1200. See here how the screen resolution cripples fps for any game.
fear_00.gif
Click to expand...

Interesting slide. Sadly no one benchmarks WoW anymore. From what I have read draw distance, AA and how many sprites are in the scene heavily affect the FPS.

Games like FEAR were different beast when it came to graphics.
 
I'm really sad to read your results, as I was going to purchase this exact machine and my primary concern was low FPS with WOW (and having to basically reduce all of the settings to get adequate performance). I'm sorry but WOW is not exactly top of the line anymore, if a new machine can't runa 3 year old game adequately, that does not bode well.

I hate windows but it seems to be the only option you have if you intend to play games...I wish Steve Jobs would stick his iLife mentality in an uncomfortable place.
 
texas2001 said:
This is why I sold my two month old 24" Al iMac. Game performance was horrible. Yes, I game. I don't fit into Steve Job's iLife mold but love OS X. WinXP on the Mac was equally horrible. My three year old PC with GeForce 6800GT Ultra played better. So, I downgraded. Too bad too becuase I know a lot of people who would love to own a Mac but don't want an iMac and the Mac Pro is too much.
Click to expand...


I feel you completely. I love OS X too and have been using it for 6 years now but games just suck on Mac hardware. It's not the hardware's fault, it must be OS X's.

I want to get a notebook pretty quick here but with all these reports of 3 year old games running like crap on modern hardware, I can't help but look at other companies (but what though? HP? Never a Dell. Sony maybe?).

I sure hope the ability to run games stops sucking in OS X.
 
so if an imac can't run a 3 year old game acceptably (that is with most settings turned on and just FSB turned off and draw distance decreased) can someone recommend a pc that might? not going to get a dell as my experience has typically not been great with them...do I just build my own?
 
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