How is getting 45 fps in Valdrakken on a high end system acceptable in 2023, 7 months after release?

Basically, 0 work has been done on the game’s performance since November, and the performance is horrible in Valdrakken and every time there are a lot of people on-screen during a major event. World bosses run just like Val if not worse, and WoW is currently the biggest and worst-running MMO on the market.

I was refusing to play ESO and GW2 for years because they ran like trash too whenever you were near a city, but even those 2 now run drastically better while WoW is embarrassingly bad despite being the most profitable one, and much worse now after 10.1.

Prior to this patch, I was getting about 60-70 in Valdrakken during the day (also terrible compared to the rest of the world because frame times are awfully erratic), which has now dropped to the mid-40s. The only way to get back to the 60s now is to drop view distance and environmental detail to 0 and have the game look like a joke and worse than the original vanilla in 2004.

Here are SSs for the game with max settings, sliders dropped to 0, and the system specs (imgur . com /a/qz4NrIb). I wouldn’t be surprised if the game is still using one or two CPU threads properly like we’re in 2004 once again.

Zaralek entrance is also a joke because it is the equivalent of squeezing through narrow crevices and trees in the last gen of AAA games, it’s a loading screen but worse, because actual loading screens are faster on fast CPUs and SSDs. This just wastes your time like Shadowlands wormholes, and it’s not immersive because you just know that it’s a loading screen.

It existing in the world this way and possibly even degrades performance everywhere because idk what else could have dropped my average Valdrakken fps from 60-70 to 40-50.

Edit: updating with hardware since I don’t know if anyone can access the link: 4080/5800x3D/32gb 3600mhz/NVMe

Updating the main post with this as well so people can try it out:
I managed to narrow it down to AMD SMT (multi-threading), since disabling it in BIOS got me back to the framerates I was getting prior to 10.1, 60s or low 70s when the crowd isn’t completely wild. This is still bad obviously and it doesn’t account for Valdrakken’s awful performance in general, but it mitigates the 10.1 degradation.

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do you play on max settings ? i’ve never had issues in other mentioned games(except server issues) , wow is always lagging for some reason, i’m having a smoother experience after a ram upgrade but still not the best. you should be getting more than 40 but if its on max settings then it kinda is normal(for wow), also they bring out an event that causes both server issues and lags so i have my hopes really low on these issues getting solved because i mean why would u make things worse …

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Always the same question, but needs to be asked…
Are your addons up to date?

Ive found that just one OOD addon can screw me up totally, though I’m with the above poster, haven’t experienced the fps problem you described, even this morning i was sitting nicely at 90 odd on an older PC

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None of the graphical settings affect CPU usage except for the sliders like view distance and environmental detail, and CPU is the issue here because the GPU sits at like 50% even with all the settings maxed out.

This is with all addons turned off, I tested specifically without addons to narrow it down to the game itself. I don’t actively use more than 10-15 addons and I’ve only found that some weakauras can negatively affect performance.

But this is still below 50 fps when standing in the main square in Valdrakken just down the steps, with no add-ons and max settings, or 75 with all settings on low and the game looking horrible.

Where are you getting 90 fps? Because if it’s not Valdrakken or during a large event, then yeah it’s not the issue I’m referring to. The rest of the world runs more or less fine although the CPU is still being held up but above 100 fps, so that’s not an issue.

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Standing in Valdrakken and also doing the Storm event, hell haven’t noticed a significant drop anywhere.

How about PC drivers (cpu and gpu)?

Edit…bear in mind this is on a 6 yr old pc.

Edit2 I used to get lag spikes when the world boss was going down, but not since SL.

Max settings with a 3080 and a 5900x 32gb ram i get around 110 FPS.
Maybe you need to look at your setup.

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i have a lower ryzen cpu & lower nvidia gpu and even my fps is not at 40 now, does your cpu or ram go %100 ? i play on 7/10 setting btw .
the issue is obviously about the game being a thousand years old but you can get smoother performance with that setup

his setup is pretty much the same as you , it can be about addons then

No I don’t because the issue is with the game, there are no magical switches in Windows or BIOS that would get me to 100 fps in Valdrakken.

If you are referring to open world then it’s not an issue, I’m only talking about Val, large group events and zergs.

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If the issue is with the game, why is mine ok and yours isnt? Have you been through all your startup programs and disabled what you dont use?
Have you been through your services and disabled the ones that you dont need?

When wow is running it isnt the only thing running…

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Just logged onto Valdrakken on Draenor and I am sitting comfortably at 85 fps, Ok it doesn’t look as busy as it could be, but it still isn’t anywhere near the 45 fps you’re getting.

Have you got scripts or something else running in the background on the PC?

I only get 40-45 fps in Valdrakken too. I’m not finding it an issue though.

I get 100 anywhere else.

But it’s not just you :slight_smile:

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Strange isn’t it, it’s just down to the original engine being around when Noah was alive, maybe the combination of the old engine and certain addons etc could affect it, who knows?

85 fps in the main square near the steps going toward the portals, near AH and all that? Do you also have view distance and environmental sliders turned all the way down? Would you mind posting a screenshot with the visible fps in that port?

I’ve no idea if that’s true because I’m not having similar issues in any other game. Something is massively wrong.

What hardware are you using? May be it’s something down to AMD CPUs specifically but unlikely if Chonko is also getting 100 fps in Val as he says.

Indeed, on the other hand as I’m not struggling with the FPS drop I’ve never looked into improving it. I don’t spend a lot of time in Valdrakken and the only thing that actually causes me to get lagged out (a little) is the work orders. It’s minor but there is a delay.

I’ve never looked into if it’s better without addons or that I could adjust my settings. I prefer having everything look purdy.

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That’s me moving around the city, so in answer to your question Yes

Edit…what’s the point of screenshotting the fps, that’s what it is.

Anyway, as Puny has mentioned, even 45 shouldn’t be intrusive

it’s not about AMD , i get 50-60 fps. what’s your fps when all addons are disabled ?

To be fair, the only time I am there is to pick up the weekly questline (aiding the accord) and to hand it in.

Edit…I’ve found Weakauras are the main culprits even down to having to disable the whole addon unless it is for something I need on a specific character.

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The interface is single-threaded meaning all addons and weakauras run on a single core. If it’s maxed out it will prevent new frames from being generated and reduce load on your GPU.
Usually this manifests as constant micro-stutters. (at least this used to be the case back in the day, not sure whether it changed).

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Yes I don’t use it really, but if for example one of my characters has an use for a WA then I’d use it solely on that character.

Don’t raid or run instances anymore (since MoP actually) so never needed the options that it would give.

I do play between high-ultra settings and even I have roughly 45FPS in Valdrakken. And my GPU and CPU are mostly at maximum usage of 50% while in Valdrakken with lots of people.

It is just the “built-in” limitation of the launcher/.exe that limits how much the Game is allowed to use of your hardware that results in this performance break.

As far as I know, WoW doesn’t even support multi-processoring which is pretty common these days for modern games.

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