Analyzing Spires of Ascension FPS drop - excess amount of shaded pixels

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I’ve benchmarked SoA on a couple of systems, I’ve collected logs from Radeon GPU Profiler and there is likely a clear reason why this dungeon after 9.0.5 has low FPS for some users.

So for RX 460 4GB and 1050Ti the FPS will be quite low while for stronger GPUs like even GTX 1070 at 1080p or RTX 3070 at 3440x1440 it will be lower than before but still “overkill” in most cases.

RX 460 4GB + i5-9400F average FPS at the entrance:

  • SoA: 37,6 FPS
  • HoA: 43,1 FPS
  • ToP: 52,6 FPS
  • Necrotic Wake: 84,7 FPS
  • De Other Side: 120 FPS

If you collect data with Radeon GPU Profiler the amount of GPU events per frame is similar, amount of shaded vertices is similar… but when you compare amount of shaded pixels per frame then SoA is top at 125 million pixels (121 million for Ardenweald test spot, 60 million for Theater and 29 million for Necrotic Wake).

It looks like SoA compared to other dungeons shades way more pixels thus lower performance, way lower for iGPU/dGPU with low pixel fill rate/VRAM bandwidth.

Similar bug was in Rustbolt in BfA when after a hotfix the FPS dropped noticeably and the profiler also showed vastly more pixels shaded.

Full analysis on:

https://rk.edu.pl/en/analyzing-wow-shadowlands-spires-ascension-905-performance-regression/
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Good analysis, but honestly? I don’t think Blizzard care.

All that will happen is that instead of fixing it, they will increase the minimum requirements.

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They cannot do that for the simple fact that this issue happens both on very high end specs as well as very low specs.

They have to address this issue because it’s ridiculous, especially in arenas (there’s a bastion-themed arena map with the same issue) and in M+ where FPS can affect the quality of gameplay by a lot, especially on high keys where you need to be very precise.

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Great job!

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Fantastic job, maybe blizzard can fix it now you told them what the problem is…

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Bumping this thread

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Bumping threads for the sake of bumping them, is against the forum Code of Conduct.

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So is calling out people bumping threads.

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Except it’s not. If you believe it is, feel free to report me.

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The same was in Legion, huge FPS drops. Actually FPS nowdays is lower then on start of SL expansion. Dunno what they did again.

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I question why someone is able to do this on the forums but not Blizzard programmers?

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What do you mean I bump threads for the sake of bumping them ? It’s a huge issue that affects a lot of people and to which we get no answer so the thread goes down in the dust bin. I’m not going to let the thread fade into obscurity, I want this issue addressed. If you have a problem with it, then tough luck.

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I can’t believe it’s been months and still no fix or even a word from Blizzard. And yet they have the resources to re-record old VA lines from 6 expansions earlier for no good reason. Shameful.

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Yea… I’ve actually been chat restricted for 1 day on the forums for bumping the threads I think. Atrocious.

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hello BLIZZARD!!! it’s may and still no solution!

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Nothing huh?
Oh, our small indie company… :smiley:

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This is still happening. is there any option in the graphic settings that can be lowered to somewhat fix it?

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nope, as it shows up even at mode 1. What some did was to switch to DX11 legacy when like looking at SoA exist, then back to DX12 and it could temporary “fix” it.

Jira says they seen it, but likely they can’t fix it that easily :smiley:

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I’ve fixed it with 3060RTX instead of 940MX, now have plenty of memory to handle that buggy code.

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Bug still exists. Making +20 timing technically 10x harder due fps stutter. Thank you blizzard. Not bothering to fix BUG that has existed since ALPHA.

You sure care about players. Like this thing called GPU SHORTAGE must not affect ppl who play the game in 0 ways.

Keep up the good work. :+1: