Frame rate woesFollow

Hi,

I haven't posted here but it seems like the right place.

I have a P4 3.4 GHz processor, 4 GB of memory and a Radeon HD 4670. My MB is an Intel D945PVS.

My frame rates, with video settings in WoW set pretty low, rarely gets over 16 fps but is usually between 6 and 12. The only thing that I can think of to do is either upgrade the graphics card or the processor, or both. My board, it appears from the Intel site, can take up to a Quad Core Pentium. The Vista "Windows Experience Index" is 4.4 if that is very meaningful.

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Edited, Mar 29th 2009 6:22pm by medeardorff

Thanks. I will upgrade the processor then. Will an upgraded graphics card help, too?

Your processor is your limiting factor there.

Unlikely.


Any recommendations?

Install XP.

Good luck.

I agree with Dread Lörd Kaolian,

CPU, Video card and also a possible PSU upgrade would really boost your overall performance.

If you are not afraid of backing up and doing a reinstall Windows XP at this time in my opinion is much less of a resource hog then Vista. Will just installing Windows XP make you cap out your FPS, certainly not however it will help.

If you can setup the system and have the money the Nvidia 290 or 295 series is amazing.

On the motherboard specified, with a mid range current generation ATI graphics card and adequate ram, the bottleneck in potential speed of the machine on an intel 945 chipset board IS the 5 year old processor. You may indeed be hitting 50 fps (though i'd be suprised if it were averaging over 24 in combat) with all the particle and other graphics effects turned off on that machine, and I'd take a 7600 over most ATI cards any day, but the fact remains that the video card in that box is probably not being used to anywhere near its full potential because of the single core with hyperthreading nature of that processor. It's not Wow, it's all the other **** on the machine running in the background that will tend to bog things down in a single core environment. Especially with the Vista Aero interface enabled and the DirectX 10 processes running in the background.

Vista flat out does not run well on a single core. Period.

Yeah, because spending $80-130 to downgrade to an obsolete operating system when windows 7 is right around the corner is a really good use of resources.

Downgrade to Windows XP. Never use a Windows release in the first year it is out unless you wanna figure out all the bugs and be the guinea pig for hackers. Nothing will be compatible for Windows 7 the first year it is out anyway.

Smash is right the bottleneck is not your CPU, it rarely is even though people who don't understand much about PCs always point to this (or the video card.)

Most often overlooked is the bus speed on your motherboard which controls how fast devices such as your memory, CPU, and video card can communicate with each other. On most PCs this is your limiting factor. Your motherboard CPU combo look fine, but do you know what type (speed, not brand) of memory you are using?

Your problem most likely is software related. Downgrade to XP and/or kill unnecessary background programs that are hogging up system resources. Haven't used Vista much myself, but you should be able to gear your PC for performance somewhere in the system properties. Also make sure you don't have any worms, viruses, etc...

Vista "was" worthless. They have fixed nearly every problem it was having. Sure, it's slightly slower than XP for gaming if you leave Aero on, but it is a hell of alot more stable, has better security. 64 bit Vista especially is a much better gaming platform than any variant of XP across the board simply due to the amount of Ram you can cram in it and the application compatability that XP 64 lacks. Of course 64 bit becomes crucial for the current generation of Core i7 processors, motherboards for which all contain 6 DDR3 ram slots. Especially when he already has the OS. that money would be better spent on a processor which would fit that motherboard with no other upgrades.

If your game supports directX 10, then it looks shiny. Worth, or worthlessness is really subjective when talkign about visual effects. I suppose one could argue that 3D acceleration period is worthless because it is slower than pixle sprite rendering. That would just be silly though. Most games released in the last 2 years support DirectX 10 now.

spending money to downgrade to XP is a complete waste. Spending the money on hardware to make use of the operating system that will supplant XP as the primary gaming OS in September is not a waste. Especially when a significant processor upgrade can be had for $120 these days.