I don’t know how is this possible but when running the game with vsync off, and without any form of frame capping, I get much higher 1/0.1% lows then with either of those things.
I can be in a full Orgrimmar with all limitations off, and never drop below 190 fps, but if I either enable vsync (either game or driver level), or any kind of frame rate cap to around my monitor refresh rate of 144, so that the fps actually feels smooth and good, there are constant drops and micro stutters in populated areas when running around and moving the camera.
This has nothing to do with hardware, I have a 7800x3d so there’s nothing to upgrade the CPU to, it’s like the game has much worse 0.1% lows when fps is capped in any way. It means that the game is literally never fully locked regardless of your frame times. Valdrakken is a lost cause and was probably optimized by chatGPT, but the same behavior happens in Classic in Org etc.
So TLDR:
no vsync/unlocked fps = fps ranges from 190 to 230 in a full Org and never drops below, but it drains unnecessary power and doesn’t feel as good as a proper RTSS frame pacing
any kind of vsync+frame cap = micro stuttering and 0.1% lows that are much lower than uncapped.
I’ve been using RTSS for years I already mentioned it in the post, the problem is that WoW is unable to keep any sort of frame rate without stuttering or drops. For example, I cap my fps to 140 in RTSS, and I will get frequent stutters in populated areas that are very visible on the frame time graph.
However, when fps is completely unlocked, the actual fps never comes to close to 140, it doesn’t even drop below 190. If everything worked correctly, I shouldn’t be seeing these drops when fps is capped because uncapping it proves the game never comes close to those numbers, it’s like the game always stutters and goes below what I cap it to.
This only happens in populated areas with tons of players, but the new DF UI has been horribly for performance because almost every interface action causes a frametime spike. Open the map = spike/stutter, open your bags = spike, open talents = spike, open a treasure chest in Remix that you get every nanosond = big spike, etc etc.
It behaves the same way sadly, vsync off + fps cap still results in drops below the cap, even when the game always stays far above those numbers without the cap. The same thing happens with vsync on but fps caps off, only then the frame pacing is much worse as usual. I also checked both Gsync on and off, and the same behavior is visible in both cases.