World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

jarch87 · 2011-11-01 14:42:20

Does anyone here play WoW, and does end game raiding?

My system:
Arch linux x86_64
i5-750 OC to 3.2Ghz
AMD HD 6870
8GB Memory
750GB Sata Drive

I upgraded to the new video card this past week(Was on a 9800GTS), after having horrid performance in raiding. We are 6/7H 25 man. During raids I was seeing very poor FPS (under 20, and some times under 10). Fights like Ragnaros where the seeds explode would cause a graphical studder.

Even after upgrading the video card, installing an after market liquid cooler on my CPU and a new 850W power supply my fps is all over the place. I haven't 25 man raided yet(Will tonight, we raid tues/wed), but i'm concerned the problem is not resolved. In Oggrimar on the ground i'll see 30-45FPS. Questing i'll see over 100, or 150FPS. Same with different instances. This is on ultra settings. I haven't seen anything that bogs down FPS like a 25 man raid in Firelands though, so I have nothing I can go 'test' with outside of raiding.

Changing affinity mask in Config.wtf did not have any affect on the cores WoW used, infact regardless of what I set it to the cpu.log in wow's log folder only showed '2 cores', yet top only showed it pegging out one core(80+% usage). taskset shows WoW.exe to be set to 'f' (all available cores), however changing this to 7 does make it use 3 cores. I haven't noticed if it actually increased FPS though.

I've disabled Swap and ran only wow, and the FPS doesn't seem to change.

Changing the graphics from ultra to low has minimal impact on FPS. The dips were still there with the 9800GTS.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? Or more importantly does anyone do 25 man heroic content, with good FPS the entire time? I made the switch to pure linux prior to raiding this tier, so I don't have a windows installation to confirm this is just linux or my hardware(though im very close to installing windows 7 to see).

I am using the catalyst driver via pacman.

Last edited by jarch87 (2011-11-01 14:44:19)

e-simon · 2011-11-01 15:04:30

AFAIK: You will not get the FPS you used to have in windows.

I used to play in high end content (vanilla, bc, wotlk, cata), since i changed to linux only as my OS' .
However, i 'had' to change from desktop (4x2.5 ghz, 8 gb ram, 1tb drive, 9800gt -sli) to laptop (2x1.87 ghz, 3gb ram, intel gpu).
This said, you can imagine i tend to quit wow, but it is still playable, on the laptop, i have at max 7 fps in sw, and around 15 fps out fight in a 10 raid.
This is AFTER tweaking, and accepting grafical itches (players are either full white or full black, and some polygons where players stand on are blacked out too, with all settings on low.

However, i had written a wine optimization, according to best guess or knowhow.
I'd welcome a feedback for the DirectX part

#!/bin/bash
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# | Project sea:	Package of small scripts for an easy set up of linux uses	|
# | Description:	Tries to optimize Wine for either OpenGL, DirectX or Intel 'gpu'|
# | Script by:		Simon A. Erat (sea)						|
# | Contact:		http://forums.fedoraforum.org/member.php?u=183882	(sea)	|
# | Date (created):	2011.08.28 ( year / month / day )				|
# | Date (changed):	2011.10.06							|
# | FileVersion:	0.2								|
# | Resource:									|
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# |
# | Optimize for OpenGL / DirectX / Intel GPU
# |
WineOpenGL()
{
	echo "Optimize for OpenGL"
	#seawinetricks "Use builtin DLL's" 		"alldlls=default"           	# builtin / default
	winetricks 		"ddr=opengl"                	# opengl / gdi
	#seawinetricks "Use ARB shaders" 		"glsl=disabled"             	# disabled / enabled
	#seawinetricks "Multisampling" 			"multisampling=disabled" 	# disabled / enabled
	winetricks  		"mwo=disable"         		# disable / enable / force
	winetricks 		"orm=backbuffer"         	# backbuffer / fbo
	#seawinetricks "StrictDrawOrdering" 		"strictdrawordering=disable" 	# disable / enable
	winetricks  		"vsm=hardware"              	# hardware / none
	winetricks 		"psm=enabled"               	# disabled / enabled
	doregedit
}
WineDirectX()
{
	echo "Optimize for DirectX"
	#seawinetricks "Use builtin DLL's" 		"alldlls=default"           	# builtin / default
	winetricks 			"directx9"
	winetricks 		"ddr=gdi"                   	# opengl / gdi
	winetricks 		"glsl=enabled"              	# disabled / enabled
	winetricks  			"multisampling=disabled"    	# disabled / enabled
	winetricks  		"mwo=disable"         		# disable / enable / force
	winetricks  		"orm=backbuffer"         	# backbuffer / fbo
	#seawinetricks "StrictDrawOrdering" 		"strictdrawordering=disable" 	# disable / enable
	winetricks 		"vsm=hardware"              	# hardware / none
	winetricks  		"psm=disabled"         		# disabled / enabled
}
WineIntel()
{
	echo "Optimize for Intel GPU's"
	#seawinetricks "Use builtin DLL's" 		"alldlls=builtin"            	# builtin / default
	#seawinetricks "DirectX 9" 			"directx9"			# d3dx9_36
	winetricks  		"ddr=opengl"                    # opengl / gdi
	#seawinetricks "Use ARB shaders" 		"glsl=disabled"                 # disabled / enabled
	#seawinetricks "Multisampling" 			"multisampling=enabled"         # disabled / enabled
	#seawinetricks "MouseWarpOverride" 		"mwo=enabled"         		# disabled / enable / force
	#seawinetricks "OffscreenRenderingMode" 	"orm=backbuffer"         	# backbuffer / fbo
	#seawinetricks "StrictDrawOrdering" 		"strictdrawordering=disable" 	# disable / enable
	#seawinetricks "VertexShaderMode" 		"vsm=''"                 	# hardware / none
	winetricks  		"psm=disabled"         		# disabled / enabled
	winetricks 		"videomemorysize=1024"		# 1024 / 512 / default
}
doregedit()
{
    echo "Regedit for OpenGL"
	# show the data to enter in Wine Registry,
	# start Wine Registry
    echo -e "\nRegedit should start every second."
    echo -e "----------------------------------"
    echo -e "goto:          ${redf}CurUser/SW/Wine${reset}"
    echo -e "left Mbtn:     New Key"
    echo -e "                   ${redf}OpenGL${reset}"
    echo -e "left Mbtn:     New String"
    echo -e "String Name:   ${redf}DisabledExtensions${reset}"
    echo -e "String Value:  ${redf}GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object${reset}"
    echo -e "----------------------------------"
    echo -e ""
    regedit
}
echo "sea games WINE 'optimization'"
select menu in Intel OpenGL DirectX ; do
	case $menu in
		"Intel")	WineIntel && return 0	;;
		"OpenGL")	WineOpenGL && return 0	;;
		"DirectX")	WineDirectX && return 0	;;
		else)		return 1		;;
	esac
done

NOTE: The script has been modified to be posted, some settings might be diffrent for your system, if an error occours there might be a script error due to the changes.

Hope this helps

Last edited by e-simon (2011-11-01 15:06:53)

jarch87 · 2011-11-01 16:55:52

Thanks for that script, I will try a few of those wine tricks for opengl.

Is there a way to see what my current setting is before changing?

do you remember what type of fps you had during those raids?

jarch87 · 2011-11-02 13:31:39

I did the wine tricks, didn't notice any gains or losses though.

I did overclock my i5-750 last night to 4Ghz, it's running <50C while gaming so i'm happy with it. I have a second fan I need to add to the radiator to do a push/pull instead of just a pull setup.

We did 10 heroic last night instead of 25 heroic(try and kill rag on 10H before end of tier). I didn't have any graphical issues while running on ultra, no studders and no drops=)

muffinss · 2011-11-04 03:27:22

Any reason why you went AMD for your video card needs? Last I herd, Nvidia was king for 3D performance on Linux or has that changed?

I personally haven't played WoW on linux since Cats release but when I ran it last in Wine on my old Nvidia 470 when Cat came out it ran fantastic at Ultra, though that was in OpenGL mode (No fancy water :[)

gallow · 2011-11-05 01:24:18

You should be fine- I was getting 60+ fps in raids with fairly high spell detail on a much lesser system- Phenom x4 with an GTS 450.

Outside of making sure it was running OpenGL, I didn't do anything else fancy.

I'm wondering if you might want to switch to Nvidia. ATI support is improving, but I think Nvidia still has a huge lead in linux gaming.

Korrode · 2012-03-16 05:33:25

I am currently chasing WoW performance as I too am quite unhappy with 25-man RAID framerate and 'stuttering'. (Although I get upwards of 150 fps (when I un-limit the fps from 60 for testing purposes) around lowly populated areas.)

I have a quad-core Phenom, 8GB DDR3 RAM and a GTX285... it should be tonnes of grunt for WoW.

I have gained some improvement today by various means, but am still not happy. The low framerate and seeming 'stutter' every few seconds during 25-man raid is bad when i'm dps and basically unacceptable when I'm trying to tank in movement/position intensive fights.
Here's my setup as of now:

64bit Arch Linux
3.2.11-416 BFS kernel ( http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=50934 ) additionally configured to be optimised for AMD K8 platform. ( CONFIG_MK8=y )
nvidia-bfs 295.20 ( http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37087 )
Using a 32bit chroot, not multilibs.
Wine 1.4 i686 + RGL patch ( http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=48462 )
OpenGL mode ( SET gxApi "OpenGL" )
All WoW graphics options set to nothing above where they would be on the 'fair' preset

I'll add too that for me the "Performance Tweak" at the bottom of the page on the ArchWiki makes the game crash when attempting to run it.

If anyone knows of any tweaks I can try for anything whether it be the WoW config, Wine registry, system nvidia driver settings or even kernel config, i'd much appreciate hearing about them.

edit: oh and i tried the various winetricks tweaks for OpenGL mode posted earlier by e-simon... for me at least, there's no difference, or very little.

Last edited by Korrode (2012-03-16 09:16:19)

Piki · 2012-03-16 16:14:20

IIRC there were a few dll files you need to download for WoW, and add overrides in winecfg. WoW should run without them, but I remember getting 'slightly' better performance with them (though I was on a somewhat ancient laptop at the time). Did you guys install the DLL files?

Last I played WoW was on an Intel video card with 16MB video RAM built in to the video card (this was around the time of the first expansion), and I got slightly better FPS using WINE using the same video settings in the game, although I couldn't expect much since the minimum video RAM for WoW was 32MB. I couldn't go into crowded areas without lagging to death and overheating the laptop.

EDIT: Found a post over at linuxforums.org, it mentions the dlls, plus a few settings in winecfg. It's at the bottom of part one, just above the bold text saying "Part 2: Installing World of Warcraft": www.linuxforums.org/forum/wine/62932-ho … -wine.html

Last edited by Piki (2012-03-16 16:25:24)

Korrode · 2012-03-29 05:17:01

So i feel like a bit of a newb for not noticing/trying this earlier; I had "Force full GPU scaling" on for both my screens (togglable in nvidia-settings). That setting when on of course is adding an entire additional display 'overlay' for the GPU to deal with. I turned it off and gained a massive performance boost.

Another important note: the RGL patch is great for low intensity areas/activities, but, for me at least, in 25-man raiding it is the cause of occasional 'stutters', i'm actually better off with stock Wine when 25-manning (overall framerate is less, but still perfectly playable, with no 'stutter').

Later EDIT:
After a bit more testing i'm not as happy with the improvement. There seems to be a lot of inconsistency, possibly related to other stuff on my system using resources, or related to how long WoW has been running... :-/

Last edited by Korrode (2012-03-29 07:51:23)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-11-01 14:42:20

World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#2 2011-11-01 15:04:30

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#3 2011-11-01 16:55:52

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#4 2011-11-02 13:31:39

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#5 2011-11-04 03:27:22

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#6 2011-11-05 01:24:18

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#7 2012-03-16 05:33:25

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#8 2012-03-16 16:14:20

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

#9 2012-03-29 05:17:01

Re: World of Warcraft - End Game Raiding Performance?

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