Patch 11.1, game freezes for 3-6 seconds randomly, in dungeons/raids

IN PATCH 11.1 a lot of people get freezes (3-6 second freezes). Looking
at “Peak CPU”, it says “99%” but there is no info on what caused it. IS this
Blizzard problem, or do I have to buy a new $3000 USD Dollar
computer ??? this is gamebreaking … when there is LFR or heroic
dungeon during fights, i have experienced it 2 (TWO) times already. And I
just bought 150 dollar worth of like faction and race changes … PLease,
tell me that Blizzard has acknowledged the problem. if it’s gonna be like
this, i’m just gonna cancel my subcsription if this is the new normal >:(

13 Likes

Freezes during big pulls in instances are likely due to one (or perhaps all ) of the folowing:

  • The game struggling to load all the various player ability effects into GPU memory
  • Addons scanning the combat log too aggressively.
  • Buggy or out of date addons spewing errors into the games log files
  • Something else running on your machine

For the 1st issue - adjusting the graphics settings to minimise particle effects can help a lot. I suggest trying a fight with graphics set to 1 and moving up from there - the graphics settings does allow you to have separate settings for raid+BG to the rest of the game, and it’s often worth having lower settings for raid that elsewhere.

For the 2nd - if you use Details there’s an option in it’s settings to reduce the rate at which it scans the combat log - I strongly recommend you try adjusting that from the default of 0.2 to at least 1. Consider disabling combat addons to see if it improves things.

For the 3rd - ensure you have updated all your addons (and weak auras) and consider using the Bug Sack and Bug Grabber addons which will allow you to see when addons are misbehaving in a non intrusive way. Always disable addons which generate more than 3-5 errors per play session until the developer can fix them.

For #4 wow only ever uses 2-3 CPU cores - so if you have a multi core CPU (anyhting from a i5 upwards or a modern AMD equivalent) and it’s hitting 99% (on such a CPU wow rarely uses more than 25-35%) - it’s a near certainty that the issue is being caused by something else running on your machine. If you are not aware of anything else running - I’d suggest doing a deep malware check. YOu can use WIndows Task manager to see how much of the CPU wow is really using.

If you do a youtube search for " What’s killing your WoW FPS?" - you can find a 3 part series by the developer of Deadly Boss Mods where he runs through the causes of bad performance and how you can adjust both the base game settings and addon settings to make the game run better.

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These are the addons that I have:
DBM
Details (set to 1 second update when the Nerubar palace raid dropped)
Leatrix Plus (just to enable rain when lower graphic details are set)
RareScanner

I noticed there were 2 updates for Details and RareScanner, but anyway, i disabled RareScanner, and anectodally, i haven’t had freezes since then??? Could just be that addons were updated and thusly fixed the freezes? Or they are truly random and I will get them randomly a few times per week or month? Or 3 times per 5 hours? We just don’t know.

I record my gameplay to see what happens just before the freeze, but there is no indication of why it happens, just freezes for a few seconds (But, i haven’t had any freezes since those 2-3 freezes (1 or 2 in new raid, 1 in the rook finery dungeon (the one where you fight a gryphon first boss, but i had the freeze when fighting the last couple of enemies on the “bridge” before jumping down to fight the last boss)

I have heavy freezes since 11.1 too. One freeze was even for about 10-15 seconds in Priory. This freeze actually left my UI downscaled significantly that only reset after combat ended. I also have freezes in Dornogal that I never had previously.

1 Like

Having the same issue here. Any one knows what is causing this?

2 Likes

Also started to have this freezes in m+. Sometimes it happens 2 times per dungeon, sometimes 0. Never happened to me before

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chiming in, I have the same since 11.1
sometimes once a night, sometimes none
freezes for about 3-4sec

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Change the “target FPS” options in the graphics menu. Uncheck it, or took the bar to very bottom.
If your fps drops below the value the system tries to reduce the graphics details. And the question is here. How much? … And if u change any graphics options whenever, it takes time, so the game will “freeze”. Then the fps goes normally, and everything set to previuos presets.

i didnt have this checked and had freezes. Seems like setting resolution to 100% fixed it for me, atleast for now

adding in my bit here as well:

For context, I use a Mac Mini M4 Pro, 12-Core CPU / 16-Core GPU / 24GB Unified Memory / 512GB SSD Storage.

Normally run WoW on graphics settings of 8, never had a problem, everything ran as it should at 60fps, sometimes dipping to maybe 50fps. I use a few add-ons as well, once again nothing that would break the bank & nothing that has caused problems either.

11.1 has been released & since then the second I open the game, boom fan kicks in at 2.5/3k RPM, CPU increase to around 90° & FPS dropped to around 40-45, all with the same settings & add-ons as before, also the same happens if I run full screen or window mode.

I’ve since reinstalled WoW, with no add ons, turned graphics to 8 & the same thing happens as above!

Today I noticed Undermine had weird fps drop when I use drive.

Week ago was smooth drive. Now see weird freeze animation

Identical to what I am getting, game has ran perfect since I got my new PC, soon as 11.1 hit I started getting random freezes for roughly 3 seconds, at the worst times in M+.

Still getting freezes even without addons enabled. Tried reinstalling the game completely but still get random freeze like i would say 3-4 times per week?

I’ve been thinking about buying one of those X3D processors but if it’s a game problem, that likely wont help. At least the game doesn’t crash, so when it happens, you just gotta pray that it doesn’t happen in key moments that wipe your group.

Any Blizzard Software Engineers wanna chime in on this? THanks

EDIT: NA (North America) players also have this issue, and it happens on both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards it seems.

I’m just a casual player (LFR, heroic dungeons, timewalking dungeons), but imagine if you are doing Mythic raid or Mythic+. I think Liquid also experienced this, at least that’s what some commenters on reddit/twitch said).

2 Likes

I’ve tried this too, tried changing RAM speed to see if it helps, reinstalled wow, rolled back NVIDIA driver among a few other things. Thought it may be details addon so changed the scrape timing to three seconds and still did it. Gotta be something in the client/engine thats causing it.

Same thing happening to me, only this patch, random freezes in m+/raid for 3 seconds or so. It doesn’t freeze my PC, just the game and I have died to multiple mechanics now because of it which makes raiding very awkward

Happened to me recently too and my machine ain’t no slouch, r7 5700x and a 4080, happened in dorn for me as well, not just dungeons.

Same problem since 11.1. Random Freezes for 3-8 seconds when doing M+. Happens once every 1 or 2 runs but usually am dead when it ends. Apart from that i have steady 60 FPS so not sure its a hardware problem.

same here any fixes?

Same issue here. It’s so random.

My setup:
5700x3d
7800XT

So, I was experiencing this same issue when I tabbed out. Sometimes it would lock up entirely and I’d have to wait for it to respond again before it returned to normal. Apparently the last patch swapped my settings to Direct-x 12. Swapping back to 11 fixed the issue for me, may be worth looking into.

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