What kinds of addons degrade performance most?

[wowunderachiever]

I have been doing some game movie-making and want to reduce the amount of resources being used.

I have a buttload of addons, but like a hoarder, I have a hard time giving up any of them.

I'm wondering if the auction ones (which I depend on heavily) bog things down or just take up more space than smaller addons?

Do addons like Power Auras, Watcher, and TellMeWhen use more resources because they are constantly calculating? I'm sure if I got carried away with a bunch of animated stuff Power Auras can do that would mess up FPS and all.

How about packs like extra fonts? Or things that just change the look of something such as Gnomeworks which gives me new crafting interface, or Pitbull which changes the unit frames?

*** Basically, I'd just like to know some general principles to help me decide in broad terms what needs to be cut first and what can stay being it probably isn't hurting anything.

*** Also, what is a good addon that I can use to see useful info about what other addons are using too much resources?

[Haleth]

Anything which does a lot of calculations or constantly processes information uses a lot of CPU, e.g. addons which track the combat log like Recount. Or something which is badly coded and has a lot of unnecessary loops.

[wowunderachiever]

Originally Posted by Haleth Anything which does a lot of calculations or constantly processes information uses a lot of CPU, e.g. addons which track the combat log like Recount. Or something which is badly coded and has a lot of unnecessary loops.

What's the quickest and best way to spot which ones are problematic in the ways you mentioned and which or okay to leave installed?

What addon do you use to track that kind of information?

[Haleth]

I only use code from authors I know and trust, or I check it myself. I never use super-complicated addons like Recount so it's doable.

This apparently tracks CPU usage. I'm not sure how reliable it is, but it'll work:

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...rformance.html

[Phanx]

I'm not thrilled about the large chunk of advertising at the top of that addon's page. It's for another one of the author's addons, but still... it's pretty annoying. I'd probably opt for an addon whose author was more interested in publishing quality code than in boosting their download numbers.

ResourceTools is more aimed at developers, rather than casually curious users, and will provide more detailed information. It hasn't been updated since 2009, but it worked fine as of the last time I used it (maybe 6 months ago), and I don't think anything in the relevant API has changed since then, so it should still be fine.

Alternatively, you could post a list of your addons, and we can quickly point out which ones are going to be the most resource-intensive. You can use this script to quickly get a text listing of your addons.