Persistent FPS Drops During Boss Fights and High-Action Scenarios

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Hello Blizzard Developers and WoW Community,

I’m posting here as advised by GM’s :melting_face: to share details about the FPS issues I’ve been experiencing in World of Warcraft, in the hope that this can bring attention to a potential optimization concern and help identify a solution.

The Issue

  • My 110-130 FPS drops significantly during boss fights and other high-action scenarios, often ranging between 20-40 FPS despite lowering all in-game settings, including resolution, 2K or below. (results- 20 ppl raid)
  • These performance issues occur consistently, making critical encounters frustrating and impacting overall gameplay quality.

What I’ve Tried

  1. In-Game Adjustments:
    • Lowered Render Scale and all graphical settings to minimal values.
    • Disabled features like Ray Tracing (which I don’t use, and no one can during boss fights), Shadows, and SSAO etc.
  2. Add-On Management:
    • Disabled or optimized resource-intensive add-ons like WeakAuras and ElvUI.
  3. System Configuration:
    • Enabled Game Mode in Windows and set the power plan to High Performance.
    • Verified that my drivers are up to date.
  4. Resolution Changes:
    • Experimented with resolutions ranging from 2K down to 1080p, without meaningful improvement in FPS during demanding scenarios.
  5. Game:
    • I tried a game repair, but it did not fix the FPS issues I’ve been experiencing.
  6. PC:
    • I’ve tried numerous PC optimization tweaks, including undoing overclocks and resetting everything to default, but there’s been no significant improvement. In fact, performance has worsened slightly.

System Specs

  • CPU: Intel i9-10900K
  • GPU: ASUS ROG Strix GeForce® RTX™ 3090 OC
  • RAM: X2 G.SKILL Trident Z Royal Silver, 16GB(2x8GB) DDR4, 4800MHz CL18
  • OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit

Observations and Feedback

It appears that WoW’s game engine relies heavily on a single thread for most game logic and rendering tasks. This design prioritizes high clock speeds over multi-core utilization, which may explain the bottleneck I’m experiencing. While my system performs well with other demanding games, WoW’s single-thread optimization seems to limit its performance in high-action scenarios.

Community and Developer Input Needed

  • Have other players encountered similar FPS drops during boss fights or high-action gameplay?
  • To the development team: Are there plans to enhance multi-core utilization or optimize the game engine for better performance in high-stress situations?

I hope this post helps spark a productive discussion and provides valuable insights for the developers to consider.

Thank you for your time and support!

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No offense but there have been many threads about the game engine being severly limited by one main CPU thread.
Blizzard knows this obviously but we haven’t gotten any info about any planned changes to the engine.
They just keep putting in more stuff that makes it worse and worse.
TWW first raid tier is probably the worst performing raid ever (and that’s with a 5800X3D here).
I’ve seen gameplay from streamers with a 7800X3D and even 9800X3D.
They still drop below 60 FPS in 30man raids or 40man BGs etc.

Everyone experiences this, anyone that says otherwise just doesn’t notice the low FPS (probably used to it) or is just not telling the truth.

The lowest FPS i had in 30man HC Nerub-ar Palace was sub 30 on Rasha-nan pull i think :smiley:
On the more demanding bosses (or should i say less optimized) like Rash, Broodtwister, Court and Queen i drop to the 40s regularly.

20man mythic or HC is much better but still has drops below 60 sometimes.

I can only recommend getting a 9800X3D if you can afford it and find one, not much else you can do if you want acceptable FPS in progress raids.

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