Dragonflight terrible performance / low fps

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Hello, I made this thread to talk about lower DF performance. This thread is NOT about stutters - they are a separate issue with shaders / texture loading as it seems (but they still exist and annoy me).

My specs: i7-6700k / 16GB high frequency RAM / GTX 1660ti and wow is installed on NVME samsung EVO SSD, which is healthy. Windows 10, everything updated.

Before Dragonflight I could go on a Sepulcher raid or Castle Nathria and even with 25M and high (7/8 out of 10 graphical settings) with max draw distance, max clutter I had more than 60fps, it NEVER went down under that.

Now with Dragonflight in, my PC struggles to have 50-55 fps in a dungeon during and out of fights, and when it stutters of course it goes below that amount, but still it’s about overall performance, so 50-55 is “stable” fps I get in a dungeon. I get this on 5/6 settings, which is way lower than I had before.

In Valdrakken it never goes beyond 60fps, stays at 45-50 and I have massive stutters, if raid looked like this (and I presume it will) it would be literally unplayable (with stutters it’s a slide show sometimes). But in the peak of SL i never had less than 85fps in Oribos (once again, on way higher settings than now, with programs in the background, without overclocking)

I understand that minimum and required specs went up, but come on, game looks worse with these lower settings and runs way worse. I love what Dragonflight has to offer, but it literally drains my fun out of the game.

I made this post to ask you guys, if you had something similar happening, most of the topics highlight the stutters not overall performance in the game

I even overclocked my CPU and RAM (by 10-15%).

Summary:
After DF patch dropped, on way lower settings than before, with less addons (now I have all turned off), with cleaner PC install and less bloatware, with overclocked RAM and CPU, with fans tuned to 100% speed (unlike before), with programs like discord or browsers turned off - my performance in Dragonflight is worse than ever before - 5m dungeon on all the mentioned above is worse than intensive 25m fight in Shadowlands.

My observation is that WOW struggles to use what PC has to offer, and it has some kind of problem with textures and models. I have stutters (low fps spike and then back to normal) when new objects load in, be it furniture, trees or NPC’s/players. When I had some kind of quest, where mobs were spawning, each time when they did, it stuttered. Valdrakken is the worst.

In advance, I did all the things I could.
That is: updated drivers / used new drivers. I changed system to win 11 with updates / now I run win 10 with updates. I have no viruses. I have no addons. Maximum performance in GeForce settings is on / same with my PC’s windows power plan. I did the stuff with Render command set to 0, did not helped. I did reloaded the UI. Temps are normal, GPU usage seems weirdly low (only in WoW / only since DF patch). My latency / ping is fine - game in that matter is really responsive.

ps. I was interested how Linux community is doing and it turned out that they even have problems with launching the game, a friend of mine since WOD played on linux, and he just updated the game, changed nothing - now some stuff changed that he can’t even launch it. Maybe that would be a clue to solving a problem, it seems that game had big changes introduced.

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2

Id say check out your set up
I am playing on my old laptop with graphic settings on 7,no lag,no fps drops,no anything (unless theres server lag)
Maybe you need new drivers,seems Nvidia got drivers update not long time ago

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what specs do u have? Can u test ur fps in Valdrakken vs open world?

Everything is fine with my pc, I run games like Witcher 3 / newest Forza, Battlefield 1 on very high/ultra settings and it’s buttery smooth. Nothing lags, no stutters in any games whatsoever.

I tested old drivers / newest ones.

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(1920x1080, Intel Core i7 2.8 ГГц, RAM 16 ГБ, HDD 1000 ГБ, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti)
Will send you screenshots with fps after work
:wink:

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Sure, thanks a lot

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Also, do you use addons/weakauras?
Some Addons have been causing terrible lag

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None, not even postal - nothing.

I just tested right now, being on maxxed out all settings and going down to medium ones - improved my fps by 5, literally 5 not like 30-40fps. Only going to lowest possible made me go 20 fps up in Valdrakken. (area wasn’t even that crowded) But turning camera around and moving destroys stable (but low) fps when I sit in one place and it jumps around even to 17, when new textures load in.

8

This game is optimized by monkeys

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9

WoW has always been very heavy on the CPU.
The problem is that it relies heavily on singlethreading performance or IPC.
This is where the 6700K or similiar CPUs are struggleing.

I upgraded before the DF release from a Ryzen 3900X to a Ryzen 5800X3D and it doubled my FPS.
Sitting at 70-90 FPS looking at the AH in Valdrakken on settings 9.
Reducing to 7 gets me 15 FPS more.

The 6700K is 7 years old now.
That’s a very long time in tech space and it definately was worth it’s money two times over.
But there comes a time when you just have to realize that you need to upgrade.

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I understand your point, but that doesn’t change the fact that my and your PC are well over what wow should need, wow is more ancient than my CPU. I don’t have any fps problems in any games whatsoever, other than wow, even other mmos like FFXIV run flawlessly. When in FFXIV we were were fighting rares with a group of 50, it did not stutter, nor it did in big city, lowest fps on highest settings was like 55, ever.
People with processor similar to yours also happen to have problems with fps, I understand that my CPU is not top notch, but how come it’s worse than SL by a double, when I did overclock it by 10%, and got rid of other programs.

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It’s not ancient. It has had upgrades with EVERY expansion which increased the requirements.
Just look at classic WoW and compare it with Shadowlands or DF.
It’s night and day and so are the requirements.
Can it run on a toaster if you set everything to low? Yes sure.
Does anyone want to play like that though?
Most gamers these days have displays with 120+Hz, they want high FPS to take advantage of that.

FF does use more CPU threads than WoW does… which in turn makes your CPU perform alot better. Like in newer games.
But we are talking about WoW here and the fact that your CPU is slow in this game no matter what you believe.

That is a problem that started with DF.
They changed something in the engine, probably because of Dragonriding and the fast fyling speeds there.
This engine was not made for such fast traversal and streaming of the objects in the zones.
Anyways, even without those stutters your general FPS would be quite low compared to older content.
You can test it, go to vanilla zones, BC or wrath… even up until MOP and your FPS will be alot higher than in Legion, BFA etc.

The game has gotten alot more complex in the last few expansions.
The zones are much richer with details and objects.

Btw the game is meant to be played at settings 7, anything above that puts ALOT more strain on your GPU and also on your CPU because of draw distance and Level of Detail.

10% OC doesn’t do much especially if the base performance is already quite low.
I mean even a 120€ Intel CPU will give you almost double the performance.

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The problem is, I right now in Oribos with only npcs and few players, I have less fps than I had before prepatch, when it was packed with people. I know my CPU is not “suited” for the game beause of 1 thread, but something went bad. It’s not like my performance in game decreased by 10%, it did by like 40%. I just wonder if it really should be so radical.
Also I play on “5” settings, but only putting everything at 1 gives me 60 fps in valdrakken, and I mean literally everything.

I plan to upgrade CPU in the first Q of 2023, but still I wasn’t expecting game to be unplayable in battleground, and I fear how raids are going to look like.

Btw my pals have processors from 2021 Q4, high range intel and 2nd friend has 2021 Q3 high range AMD and it’s still disappointing. Looking at forums a lot of people have severe problems.
Should this game really require high end CPU’s to hold 60 fps on medium?

I get your point fully, but I’m just disappointed.

I know that I will have better fps in like alterac valley vs new zones. But why I never experienced situation under 60fps in SL, with addons, oc off, cluttered pc, unoptimized settings, but now with everything that can help performance on, I have worse in the exact same zones from SL?

Without NPC’s around, my fps in DF zones is pretty much similar to what I have in SL zones, but loading npcs/monsters and them being on screen clutters my fps stronger than even before.

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I appreciate the effort, I really do, but I’ve tested so many systems with all sorts of hardware combos that all got the same stutters. The day pre-patch hit I was in ZM and that zone to this day got lower fps, pop-ins and stutters it didn’t have before it went live.

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Flying around ZM has me go under 60fps due to mobs only, without any players whatsoever now, than few months ago. This summer I was questing in ZM… But I was doing world bosses and world quests there with other players… On way higher settings, without optimization and bla bla, I know I repeat myself. But something really went wrong, it’s something with the game, and I’m not talking about stutters rn, but framerate. I know wow has evolved, I play since Cata, but situation where, the exact same place, without any efforts to make my game run smoother whatsoever, gives me lower fps, than before - when there are no players and fighting - there’s something clearly wrong.

I understand that my CPU has to be upgraded, but this situation is absurd. It’s not >only< about DF zones. It’s not only about stutters. While you make me think, that my CPU is old, wow evolved, and DF low performance stays, even if stuttering ends - so why my SL performance is worse? (without mentioning stutters)

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Thanks for pointing out that this is not the asset loading suttering issue that others have reported. Cheers and hope you get it resolved.

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I’m not saying the performance in DF didn’t decrease, it did.
I recently upgraded to a 5800X3D which is the fastest CPU in WoW atm together with the 13K Intels.
Still having stutters and too low FPS in Valdrakken.
It’s playable… but not acceptable, especially if you are on weaker hardware.

So i just found this “Benchmark” of DF with old and new GPUs/CPUs:
It’s in german but just look at the numbers :slight_smile:

This is what i meant with WoW needs a very strong CPU.

They f…ed up :stuck_out_tongue:

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Omg it’s so bad…
Guess I’ll start saving up money for the new CPU then, but still framerate is disappointing. Absurd that you need such strong CPU to stay over 60fps in some dungeon.
Maybe they will at least come closer to SL average framerate, if they did, I would be happy. It’s something with character models/npcs/monsters etc. Dragonriding gets me under 60fps, only if i fly above the ground where there are npcs loading.

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Yes, even in SL dungeons i was dropping below 60 FPS on the regular with my Ryzen 3900X.
So far with the 5800X3D im mostly above 100 FPS.
We’ll see in M+ soon.

I’m sure it will improve over time, but don’t expect much.
At the very least they need to fix the stuttering issue.
That’s more annoying than constant but lower FPS.
Frametime spikes are really noticeable.
Before the pre-patch i had no stuttering at all.

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If on 5 settings I will get 60fps in LFR I would be happy. In SL I was running 7/8 settings (mostly 7) and never dropped in raid to 55 fps, 56 was my 0.1% minimum. If I had it like this, I would be happy.

flying around is great, I can have like 50 fps in Valdrakken but come on… 30?
Dungeons dump even to 40. According to site u sent me, i should get like 45-50 fps in a dungeon with 1660super and i7-7700k while being all settings maxxed out. I have similar setup to this, true my CPU is weaker, But I’ve overclocked it to basic 7700k state, but I’m on 5 settings not even getting these 40 fps… that’s a bummer. I just hope for a fix, to make it at least not painful.

ps. any idea why ur CPU is stronger in DF in comparison to other CPU’s which are newer? (other AMD)

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Weird thing is, I got a laptop for work and to game on the go (i7 12700H, 3060, 16gb DDR5 4800mhz) no stutters/bad performance. On my desktop (i9 9900KF, 3080, 32gb DDR4 3000mhz, I get a lot of performance issues, lower fps and a lot of stutter. Especially when dragonriding fast and textures need to load in. It’s annoying.

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