low fps causing "jerking"?

Cyn325 · 11-04-10, 09:02 AM

This in a way is more about my daughter's computer than mine. We have similar configurations & the exact same video card. Before the patch, the game ran practically flawlessly on her computer...only exception would be some lag in like dragonblight where there were a lot of trees (only in the treey areas tho). Rarely lagged in Dalaran unless it was extremely busy. My computer, on the other hand, has always lagged in Dalaran (attributed this to the one major difference in our computers....she has 2x the ram that I do). Mine also tends to take twice as long to load anything as hers. Here's the weird part though. AFTER patch 4.0.1, she has been having severe framerate issues (especially in Dalaran). Mine it just took updating the video card driver to fix so it pretty much ran like it used to (despite fps being halved). Hers, on the other hand, we have updated drivers, dumped interface, wtf, cache folders & everything else that Blizz has suggested. Dalaran is still a big issue for her but even outside of Dal (doesn't much matter where) she gets really "jerky" (best way we've found to describe it) video. All the "fixes" we've found and tried have helped some (made her sick to her stomache watching it at first so she couldn't even play) but there is still a slight jerkiness to it especially around water & when she's on her flyers. I don't know, is there maybe a setting we should be looking at specifically to be trying to tweak for her? Any suggestions would be helpful. Upgrading her video card isn't really an option at this point (not sure that would help much anyway).

Taryble · 11-04-10, 10:57 AM

Maybe try turning off the "new" water effects? Just set "water quality" to it's lowest setting, that'll be the old water. Could help.

Nobgul · 11-04-10, 10:59 AM

It sounds like "tearing" there is a option to help reduce it in the video options. I am not at my "WoW" computer right now so I cannot check but I will post back with the exact setting name as soon as I can. The option is vertical sync it is in the top right of the video options.

I would start by turning everything down to low. Make sure that your wow window size is set to the same size as your dekstop. Make sure that the refresh rate matches what your monitor is running at. Set the vetcial sync to enabled.

I suggest that you make these changes on the screen where you would put your username and password. You can access them from the options menu on the right. As far as I know if you change video options in that screen it does not require you to restart wow. And even if it does it's just the login screen.

Once everything is set to low and the other options are set to match your current desktop resolution as well as the vertical sync, Log into the game. If you still get "jittering" or "lagged" movement it is 100% not a wow issue and will need to look for other causes.

Maul · 11-04-10, 11:07 AM

Is "Display Lua Errors" turned on in Blizzard's interface options (Help Section)?

If it is not turn it on and see if there are addon errors.

Petrah · 11-04-10, 12:04 PM

Forgive me if this was already done, but I only have what you didn't say to go on.

Did you uninstall the current video driver and install the latest one from the video card manufacturers web site (not Windows Update)?

Did you go through all of the SavedVariables folders (there's more than one) in your WTF folder and delete any lua/lua.bak files from addons no longer installed?

Did you reset everything to default (temporarily move, not copy, the Interface and WTF folders to the desktop and delete the Cache folder) and log into the game to see if the issue persists?

Did you check to see if the video card or the CPU may be overheating?

Cyn325 · 11-05-10, 10:12 AM

Only new thing that we haven't tried is the overheating issue. Exactly how would we check that? Though come to think of it, it has been a couple months since I have been able to tear her computer away from her to blow the dust out of it and we recently had some weatherization work done on our house that kicked up a lot of extra dust in the house (could barely breathe some days cuz of allergies while it was being done lol). Should we be trying that as well?

Nobgul · 11-05-10, 10:15 AM

I clean my computer out every 3 months. You would be amazed how much dust can effect the computer. Especially on the processor and the video card fan.

MoonWitch · 11-06-10, 02:48 AM

With the temp note :

I used to smoke in my bedroom, so every single month I cleaned out my pc. When I say cleaned out, I mean - remove fans, clean fans with pure alcohol (98%), clean and blow out heatsink. Every so often I would even remove the heatsink from my CPU to properly clean it, repaste and re-set it. Same on my GPU.

Now that I no longer smoke in my room, I have to clean it out less but still that's how I "roll" with my machine.

Torhal · 11-07-10, 02:07 AM

Put WoW on a different physical drive. Failing that, uninstall any non-pertinent software. Are you using it? No? Uninstall. Disk-access can cause these issues.