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Low FPS during games.

M

Maddison

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 26, 2006
5
0
Hello everyone!

I have an iMAC G5 1.8ghz, the 17' version with 2gb of ram. I recently purchased the highly addictive game world of warcraft. After learning about the game through friends and looking at the box i read the system specification and my system is more than qualified to handle the job... So i thought.

Well anyways when i play the game i get some really low fps, people tell me that it's some ram issue. I have 2gb of ram and my buddy runs the game some what smooth with 1gb on his powerbook G4. Is there some way that i can optimize the performance? like some program or some thing i can download to make the video card work better? I already set my system speed to "highest" and i even set the graphic settings on the lowest settings and yet i still get low FPS...

help!

- thanks
 
i'm running the game at 1440 x 900. the highest setting.
Any lower the game looks really distorted and it doesn't really increase FPS.
 
I've find that turning off anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering have given me the biggest performance boosts. Resolution doesn't seem to effect the performance on my iMac G5 either.
 
you mean by turning off those video settings via the video game itself?
cause i did set everything on low and it still didn't do anything.

or did you mean turning off anti ailising / antristopic through some program or video setting on OSX?
 
you could also try turning the music off....that can be rather performance intesive at times
 
i too tried that as well, turning off the music. still no improvement in fps

I know this sounds crazy but, what would happen if i put like 2700 Speed ram in my imac. I currently have 3200 in it.
 
Maddison said:
you mean by turning off those video settings via the video game itself?
cause i did set everything on low and it still didn't do anything.

or did you mean turning off anti ailising / antristopic through some program or video setting on OSX?
Click to expand...
In the game itself. I played America's Army and turned off anisotropic filtering. I got many more frames. Have you applied the latest update for it? I've heard it really increases performance.

Maddison said:
i too tried that as well, turning off the music. still no improvement in fps

I know this sounds crazy but, what would happen if i put like 2700 Speed ram in my imac. I currently have 3200 in it.
Click to expand...
It won't work at all. You've already maxed it out at 2 GB too.
 
Can you give us an example of the "low FPS" that you mention, and where its specifically low? Towns, dungeons, outdoors, everywhere?

The biggest framerate killers in WoW are the following:
Terrain draw distance - this should be set to half or lower.
Full screen glow - turn off
Anti aliasing and AF - turn off
Vertex Shaders - TURN ON

Everything else can be turned on or set to max as they barely affect performance. Also make sure that if you're running Tiger to set Spotlight to not scan the WoW folder (this used to be a bug, not sure if it still exists or not).

If all else fails, delete the WTF folder and reconfigure the game from scratch. Occasionally that helps.
 
It could also be a GeForce 4 MX (32MB).. which would explain why it looks shittay. And frankly WoW looks shittay (and runs slowly) on my 15" PB with a 64MB video card. I have to minimize all the graphics to make it smooth. It's especially irksome in comparison to my other 2 Macs I play it on with a 128MB video card and a 256 video card.
 
yellow said:
It could also be a GeForce 4 MX (32MB).. which would explain why it looks shittay. And frankly WoW looks shittay (and runs slowly) on my 15" PB with a 64MB video card. I have to minimize all the graphics to make it smooth. It's especially irksome in comparison to my other 2 Macs I play it on with a 128MB video card and a 256 video card.
Click to expand...
I doubt it's the educational model.
 
OOooooh.. I see. The 1.6GHz came with the crappiest video card. Well, I'll guess and say the OP has the FX 5200 Ultra.
 
gekko513 said:
You never said how many FPS you actually get? At least I can't find it.
Click to expand...

Oh with everything turned on LOW = average 10-15 "daytime" 15-20 at night.

This is the funny part.

Everything on high [full screen glow, terrain highlights etc.] = average 10-13 "daytime" 13-17 "night"
 
Im considering building a $400 pc just for playing WoW and other games.

My system: Dual-core 2ghz PowerMac, 2gb ram, Geforce 600 LE (128mb) video. (latest Tiger release)
WoW setting: Everything on medium or lower. Ant-aliasing off, etc.
FPS: 17-26 while *outside*

My bro's inexpensive system: Single-core AMD 3500, 1gb of ram, onboard video. (WinXP)
WoW settings: Everything on high, Ant-aliasing on, etc.
FPS: 30-40 while oustide.

The low performance of my system on WoW makes me sick.
 
Josh said:
Im considering building a $400 pc just for playing WoW and other games.

My system: Dual-core 2ghz PowerMac, 2gb ram, Geforce 600 LE (128mb) video. (latest Tiger release)
WoW setting: Everything on medium or lower. Ant-aliasing off, etc.
FPS: 17-26 while *outside*

My bro's inexpensive system: Single-core AMD 3500, 1gb of ram, onboard video. (WinXP)
WoW settings: Everything on high, Ant-aliasing on, etc.
FPS: 30-40 while oustide.

The low performance of my system on WoW makes me sick.
Click to expand...

What resolution?
 
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