Addon related FPS issues

[Warlocomotif]

Long time user, first time poster Long story short, I'm having absolutely insane FPS problems during raids with the UI I set up. By that I mean, it literally goes down to about 1 or 2 FPS after not too long.

I've written a post on this on another forum already, but figured it might help also posting it here.

As of 3.0 I created a new UI. Since 3.0 I've had massive FPS problems during raids. Or rather, when a ton of people are casting things nearby at the same time. When I disabled all addons, my FPS went from 2 (Litterally, no exageration, 2fps), to 40+. I'm currently in the process of trying to narrow it down to either a specific addon, or a hand ful of addons that could be causing the problem; but all help on the subject would be very much appreciated. Part of the problem in narrowing it down is that I need an actual raid/raid encounter to reproduce the problem, which very much limits my "testing". Below follows a list of addons I'm currently using. I've managed to exclude a few from being the potential cause and put these in underlined italic. Altoholic Bagnon Bartender 4 BigWigs ButtonFacade Clique CowTip eCastingBar eePanels2 Grid IceHud2 MikScrollingBattleText MobMap MozzFullWorldMap Omen OmniCC oRA2 PitBull Pol_Monitor Prat3.0 RatingBuster Recount SatrinaBuffFrame simpleMiniMap SunwellAlarm WIM Any help on narrowing the issue down would be deeply appreciated.

Replaced IceHud with ArcHud the moment I found out Archud had been updated; and I managed to get into a TK pug and enabled a few more addons to try narrow it down further. It seems like there's a memory leak somewhere, since my FPS usually starts fine, and breaks down into being absolutely unbearable. Addons I added when problems did start to occur again: BigWigs ButtonFacade eCastingBar MikScrollingBattleText OmniCC oRA2 PitBull Satrina Buff Frames I suppose that doesn't mean that it can only be one of these addons, but atleast 1 of these addons has to be atleast part of the problem

[Dreadlorde]

It's probably eCastingBar, it hasn't been updated in ages iirc.

[Warlocomotif]

Originally Posted by Dreadlorde It's probably eCastingBar, it hasn't been updated in ages iirc.

It's been updated twice since 3.0, though i'll make sure to test ecb specifically next time I get a chance. Thanks

[Dreadlorde]

Oh, sorry . I thought it wasn't being updated anymore; it wasn't the last time I played WoW, which would be 2 months 2 days .

[Akryn]

as unusual as it is for addon ram usage to cause problems, it sounds like that is what is happening here. or at least it would be my first guess, because if it's cpu usage one of those addons is doing something *amazingly* stupid.

are any of your addons using an excessive amount of ram during raids?

it's also possible that despite appearing to come from an addon, it isn't. you might want to check cpu usage of other processes running on your computer, free physical ram, and free disk space on your system disk/partition.

[Warlocomotif]

Originally Posted by Akryn as unusual as it is for addon ram usage to cause problems, it sounds like that is what is happening here. or at least it would be my first guess, because if it's cpu usage one of those addons is doing something *amazingly* stupid. are any of your addons using an excessive amount of ram during raids? it's also possible that despite appearing to come from an addon, it isn't. you might want to check cpu usage of other processes running on your computer, free physical ram, and free disk space on your system disk/partition.

I installed StatBlock Memory to see if I could find anything starting to eat through notably much memory, but it seemed to never change for anything.

With that said, in the comments something is said about memory not normally changing under any circumstances; so I'm not sure if that's a general comment or a justification for the addon to only actually look at addon memory usage once-and displaying the values from that check from there on out.

When I disabled all addons, FPS stayed stable and high; so I'm fairly convinced that it is addon related.

[Warlocomotif]

Going through my screenshots directory I found something interesting:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/8...8002508jd9.jpg

Why the hell is Button Facade using so much memory? It's normally much, much lower; plus I can't think of any reason as to what could justify that memory usage for the functionality of Button Facade.

Recount I can sort of understand using that much, but if ButtonFacade is using that much I'd guess that there are some big problems in the code somewhere (and perhaps what is causing the problem).

Going to try look into this slightly more, but its hard to say much of anything now due to the fact that I need an actual raid or something similar to verify if it's (part of) the problem.

[Yhor]

I had the same issues during raids. I checked the memory from addons and started disabling from highest to lowest. After a bit of disabling and enabling of a few, I decided to disable raid frames and use the default to test and got about 10 fps back (from 2-5fps before disabling raid frames mod). After switching to all Pitbull frames (notice you are using as well), it has given me about 21 fps during high spell activity (still attempting to get back to my old 35-40 fps I had before patch). Not sure if this helps, but it worked for me.
Good luck and let us know if you get it fixed.

[Warlocomotif]

Originally Posted by Yhor I had the same issues during raids. I checked the memory from addons and started disabling from highest to lowest. After a bit of disabling and enabling of a few, I decided to disable raid frames and use the default to test and got about 10 fps back (from 2-5fps before disabling raid frames mod). After switching to all Pitbull frames (notice you are using as well), it has given me about 21 fps during high spell activity (still attempting to get back to my old 35-40 fps I had before patch). Not sure if this helps, but it worked for me. Good luck and let us know if you get it fixed.

Well, my main is a Warlock. So for the most part I can get away with having no raid frames at all; which I did a hand ful of times. Past that, I indeed use Pitbull.

What's annoying is that pre-patch I was using a whopping 82mb on addons, and never had a problem with FPS at all.

[thebum]

I use some of those addons too and none of those have caused me any problems. But you can try turning the shadow quality all the way to the bottom, that increased my fps by around 20. Maybe then it wont be needed to remove some of your addons.

[Bufe]

Originally Posted by Warlocomotif Going through my screenshots directory I found something interesting: http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/8...8002508jd9.jpg Why the hell is Button Facade using so much memory? It's normally much, much lower; plus I can't think of any reason as to what could justify that memory usage for the functionality of Button Facade. Recount I can sort of understand using that much, but if ButtonFacade is using that much I'd guess that there are some big problems in the code somewhere (and perhaps what is causing the problem). Going to try look into this slightly more, but its hard to say much of anything now due to the fact that I need an actual raid or something similar to verify if it's (part of) the problem.

If thats your UI, no wonder it sucks FPS...

I did a test.

With UI, 130FPS
Without UI 275FPS.

The UI claims more than DOUBLE the FPS onscreen.

You UI use "graphics" on it, and considering how bright the colours are, I can see how it might lagg like hell.
UI's with less variation in colours will be faster to render, than the kind of UI u have which looks like a christmas tree...

Bufe

[Warlocomotif]

Is that even a serious reply? You honestly think using class colors for Grid and 3 small eepanels textures are going to reduce my FPS by a factor of 50? Even besides the fact that I had already concluded eepanels to not be causing the problem - that's a rediculous claim/suggestion.

Thanks for trying to help, though if you don't mind... No thanks.

[Dridzt]

Static memory will not affect your FPS like that, no matter how high it is.

Only way memory usage from addons could cause you issues is if your system has so little that it resorts to excessive paging to the hard drive
(which I sincerely doubt)

or if the rate of increasing memory is very big and forces the garbage collector to kick in too often.

CPU usage caused by addons on the other part can directly affect your fps.

The first thing I'd check is if you haven't inadvertently enabled cpu profiling.
If you did that while testing for performance with one of the addons used for that purpose,
and forgot to turn it back off it can drop your fps like a brick and it's far worse in group environment than it is solo.

Solo/idling you might get away with a minimal fps loss with cpu profiling enabled, but when things "start happening"
your system will slow to a stand-still.

cpu profiling is stored in a console variable and persists across logins.
So if you enabled it to test your addons when you were solo
and didn't turn it back off thinking it'll default "off" next time you logon it would explain your issues.

/console set scriptProfile 0
followed by a reloadUI will turn cpu profiling off if it's currently on.

Even if cpu profiling wasn't on, that's the area you should be looking at for fps related problems.
cpu usage, not memory usage.

Another thing missing from your list of addons is some error capturing addon.
BugGrabber + BugSack or Swatter or any of the equivalents.
If you also don't have the "Show Lua Errors" checkbox ticked on in your default Interface options,
you might have an addon throwing a bazillion errors and you'd never know it.
A broken onupdate handler could cause you fps problems.

To recap:
1. get an error capturing addon and check that you're not getting lua errors.
2. make sure cpu profiling isn't enabled.
3. look for cpu usage problems in addons and not memory usage predominantly when dealing with fps issues.

[Warlocomotif]

Thanks for a termendously constructive response!
\
I got BugSack and used the /console + /reloudui commands, granted I haven't had a chance to test wether it made a difference yet.

On the subject of your third point, do you know of any addons that monitor CPU usage of addons? Or genarally an addon that provides more extensive information about addon performance.

[Dridzt]

I was using OptionHouse until recently but it's not yet updated for wow 3.0.2.

(the core of the addon still works fine, only gui updates are needed)

Watch that space, I'm sure Shadowed will get around to fixing it soon.

[Seerah]

No, he has said that it wouldn't make it to 3.0. But there are replacements.

[Petrah]

Keep in mind also that they updated the graphics engine with the patch. Be sure to turn down some of your in game video settings, and turn off shadows completely.

[Warlocomotif]

Originally Posted by Silenia Keep in mind also that they updated the graphics engine with the patch. Be sure to turn down some of your in game video settings, and turn off shadows completely.

I turned those all the way down, so thats definitely not it.

Anyway... I got a little more testing done today, and actually had great FPS throughout. Addons I disabled are:

Altoholic
ButtonFacade
Mobmap
Recount
SatrinaBuffFrame

Will try narrow it down even further, or hopefully find that the console command is what fixed the problem. But so far I'm expecting ButtonFacadde and SBF (SBF Because I ran into some insane FPS problems at some point while configuring it).

[Riprap]

How recent is your Satrina's Buff Frames? There was apparently a HUGE problem with its interactions with ButtonFacade, such that Satrina disabled BF support entirely.

I noticed I was getting huge pauses in raid when I would gain or lose a buff, and the more I gained or lost, the worse it was. In a raid, with procs going off all over the place, and totems going up and down and up and down, and people moving in and out of range, it was just unplayable. I disabled SBF, and that fixed it for me, got rid of the pauses completely, but it seems to be caused by ButtonFacade. That was one of the versions with ButtonFacade enabled. She's since disabled them, see here:

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...BF3.0Beta.html

I'm going to try the newer beta and see how that does. But I know that's been one big cause of slowdowns on my computer. Since you're seeing the same huge memory usage by BF, that might be the issue for you as well. I also noticed that it would get progressively worse and worse as we went along.

Hope that helps.

[Warlocomotif]

Originally Posted by Riprap How recent is your Satrina's Buff Frames? There was apparently a HUGE problem with its interactions with ButtonFacade, such that Satrina disabled BF support entirely. I noticed I was getting huge pauses in raid when I would gain or lose a buff, and the more I gained or lost, the worse it was. In a raid, with procs going off all over the place, and totems going up and down and up and down, and people moving in and out of range, it was just unplayable. I disabled SBF, and that fixed it for me, got rid of the pauses completely, but it seems to be caused by ButtonFacade. That was one of the versions with ButtonFacade enabled. She's since disabled them, see here: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...BF3.0Beta.html I'm going to try the newer beta and see how that does. But I know that's been one big cause of slowdowns on my computer. Since you're seeing the same huge memory usage by BF, that might be the issue for you as well. I also noticed that it would get progressively worse and worse as we went along. Hope that helps.

I narrowed it down to being something with those 2 addons last night, and yeah that sounds exactly like the problem. I was particularly suspicious of these 2 addons because; when configuring SBF I had the exact same problems occuring at some point. And during raids the memory usage of BF seemed to grow to unreasonable hights.

The SBF I had However did not support BF as far as I could tell, but I updated it anyway.