What should I do? (CPU --> ???)

[dg]

So I have this computer that's been running real well for a while. Vista 32, 2GB DDR2 Ram, Nvidia 8800GT, and then the Intel E4400. Lately I've been lagging (video lag, mind you) a ton when I play World of Warcraft. I play it at 1280x1024 with 4x AA, but the frame rate has been dropping to the teens when I get into some higher-res Northrend areas. So my question becomes:

Q. What is hindering my performance?
A. I'm fairly certain that it's not my GPU. It's not the greatest, but it definitely works. I'm almost 100 positive it is the CPU's fault and the game is bottle-necking on that.

So, I have an Intel E4400. I do not (seriously, don't suggest it. Not enough money right now.) want a new motherboard, so the processor has to be LGA775. What should I upgrade to? Is there a difference between a Core 2 Duo with slightly higher clock speeds (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115036) or a Core 2 Quad with lower (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115018) speed (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115057)? Preferably under $150-$200.

Thanks in advance!



tl;dr verison:

E4400 upgrade ---> ??? (must be under $150-$200 and be LGA775.)

[ThePlague]

when I play World of Warcraft.

play World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft
There's your problem.

[dg]

Being a douchebag (http://www.myspace.com/gus_the_racer_7)is cool too.


Wait...



Oh yeah, I don't give a shit about what some people might think about World of Warcraft. I am just asking for some help with my computer. Leave your incompetence (http://www.modacity.net/forums/member.php?u=2134)at the door. Thanks! :-)

[Syuusuke]

How bout other games? Do they chug along too?

(Look here (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010340343%2050001157%201051707842%204017&name=%24100%20-%20%24200))

[flibitijibibo]

Check your video settings again. 3.1.1 made some bizarre graphics change, so now there's ultra mode settings that would likely cause your lag. My PC (see specs tab) runs it at about 60fps (in Outland, I dunno about Northrend), so it's likely the CPU.

[dg]

Yeah, I play Fallout 3 and Team Fortress same resolution and they never drop below 20-30 FPS. I'm not exactly the "hardcore" gamer type anymore, so I'm some what out of the technology loop. :-)


Check your video settings again. 3.1.1 made some bizarre graphics change, so now there's ultra mode settings that would likely cause your lag. My PC (see specs tab) runs it at about 60fps, so it's likely the CPU.

Yeah, I'm running everything on "High," not Ultra. I did move the Shadow quality down a bit, though.

[legionaire45]

If you don't mind getting your hands a little bit dirty you could try overclocking that CPU a bit - you can usually get a couple hundreds mHz out of them on the stock heatsink without requiring any voltage changes or threatening the life of the CPU :P.

These (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115057) are (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055) probably the best bang for buck available at the moment.

[Syuusuke]

Just a quick test, run everything at low...why? If its good, its definitely your CPU...if it still sucks then there might be something up with wOw.

[ThePlague]

Being a douchebag (http://www.myspace.com/gus_the_racer_7)is cool too.


Wait...



Oh yeah, I don't give a shit about what some people might think about World of Warcraft. I am just asking for some help with my computer. Leave your incompetence (http://www.modacity.net/forums/member.php?u=2134)at the door. Thanks! :-)
I didn't say it was bad, I have friends that play it. It might be that new patch that came out, because I heard it was buggy as hell.

Also, I have a right to be a douchebag, I won that race against some kid that drove dirty as hell and gave me whiplash.

[dg]

If you don't mind getting your hands a little bit dirty you could try overclocking that CPU a bit - you can usually get a couple hundreds mHz out of them on the stock heatsink without requiring any voltage changes or threatening the life of the CPU :P.

These (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115057) are (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055) probably the best bang for buck available at the moment.

I'm overclocking right now at around 200mHz over default clock. I don't know anything about memory ratios or anything, so I don't want to risk anything more. I have an aftermarket heatsink on my CPU now to try and bring down the temperatures.


Just a quick test, run everything at low...why? If its good, its definitely your CPU...if it still sucks then there might be something up with wOw.

Just did a test and turning everything to "low" boosted me up over 107FPS. CPU it is! :-)


I didn't say it was bad, I have friends that play it. It might be that new patch that came out, because I heard it was buggy as hell.

Then you should have said "It's fairly buggy right now, it might be the new patch." Social intelligence! :-D



So, obviously the consensus is that I need to upgrade my processor. So is there any clear difference between the Dual Cores and Quad Cores? (And yes, I know that Dual has two, while Quad has four. Thank you.)

[Nick]

A few things here ...

1. I think Syuusuke meant to say it's definitely your GPU, not CPU, if the game runs fine at low quality settings. Any AI or other CPU-based processing is not going to be significantly affected by you changing the graphics mode settings.
2. Try grabbing a beta graphics card driver (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_185.68_beta.html) and seeing if that helps your performance any.
3. You should have Vista 64-bit installed. You are currently only using 3.5GB of your system memory because your graphics card has 512MB of its own RAM. The total system RAM - motherboard-based and graphics-based - cannot be addressed above 4GB in a 32-bit system. It probably won't help / fix your issue, but you're certainly not getting all the memory you paid for right now.
4. If you're going to get a new CPU and want to keep it for another year or two, I'd say spend the extra bit of cash and get one with a larger L2 cache than the ones mentioned by legionaire45, such as this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131). Regardless of what CPU you get (if you get one), don't use the stock cooler - get something nice (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118003) instead, especially if you want to overclock in the future.

Nick

[Syuusuke]

Yase. GPU.. do #2 though.

Another quick question, do you know version of the drivers you are using now?

[dg]

3. You should have Vista 64-bit installed. You are currently only using 3.5GB of your system memory because your graphics card has 512MB of its own RAM. The total system RAM - motherboard-based and graphics-based - cannot be addressed above 4GB in a 32-bit system. It probably won't help / fix your issue, but you're certainly not getting all the memory you paid for right now.
4. If you're going to get a new CPU and want to keep it for another year or two, I'd say spend the extra bit of cash and get one with a larger L2 cache than the ones mentioned by legionaire45, such as this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131). Regardless of what CPU you get (if you get one), don't use the stock cooler - get something nice (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118003) instead, especially if you want to overclock in the future.

Nick


Ah, I mistyped in my first post. I have a total of 2GB of DDR2 ram. That is the main fact why I'm not running Vista64 right now!

Secondly, does L2 cache make that big of a difference? And I'm still wondering if the dual core vs. quad core makes any sort of noticeable difference. I do not do any sort of video editing, music mixing, or any sort of multi-core optimized tasks. So would this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115036)be a better deal than this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131), in my case? (Also, I have that exact Zalman model you mentioned already.)


Thanks for the quick responses! I really do appreciate all of your help, everyone!

[InnerGoat]

The higher clocked dual core would be better in the case of playing WoW if the game is still single threaded...

[Nick]

Secondly, does L2 cache make that big of a difference?
Article on the impact of L2 cache size. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cache-size-matter,1709.html)


And I'm still wondering if the dual core vs. quad core makes any sort of noticeable difference. I do not do any sort of video editing, music mixing, or any sort of multi-core optimized tasks.
As far as dual-core vs. quad-core, I would say getting a quad-core is pretty important when it comes to being "future proof". All of your old games may not utilize it, but Fallout 3 sure does and any Source-engine, Unreal-engine, or CryEngine game will. If you want this upgrade to be relevant for a few months, then go with dual-core, but if you want to keep it long-term I would say quad-core is essential.

Let me say again that I doubt the problem is your CPU. Unless you have some mysterious new process that is stealing CPU time while you're running WoW, nothing should have made such a dramatic change from when you first started playing.

My vote would be:

1. Try the beta driver (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_185.68_beta.html). Also, what driver do you currently have? (Windows Key, type "Device Manager", Enter, exand "Display adapter", double-click graphics card, go to "Driver" tab, type "Driver Version:" here.)
2. If that doesn't help, think about grabbing a new graphics card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434). It'll be a bit cheaper than a new GPU and you can carry it over to your next system. You may be able to use EVGA's "Step Up" program (http://www.evga.com/stepup/) to get a newer card for cheaper.
Nick

[InnerGoat]

I doubt the 8800GT would have a problem with WoW at that resolution, Nick :-3

Do try a different driver though, and grab eVGA Precision from the eVGA site to monitor your temps while in game. I'm curious how hot it runs in those slow playing areas?

e: You could grab GPU-z (http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/) and make sure the card is running at full speed PCIe16x as well if you wish.

[Nick]

Well I don't play WoW, so how would I know :p Based on the symptoms he's describing though, it sure doesn't sound like a CPU-based issue.

Nick

[Atty]

Could it be the CPU bottle necking the GPU? If I recall correctly, WoW is a huge CPU whore, so while you may have the graphics power to run the game properly you're being hindered by the CPU?

Not sure though, I've been out of the "game" for some time.


Also, tl;dr'd thread, sup.

[dg]

My driver is 182.50. I doubt the beta driver is going to help that much, but I'll download it anyway. Also, this isn't a problem that "just started." I just had never had a zone this graphically intense.

[Syuusuke]

Another quick question, is it consistently low framerate?

[NullZero]

E4400 is still not too bad - I'm still thinking it is your GPU that is bottlenecking your performance.

As for dual-core vs quad-core (CPU), like nick said, if you want to be future-proof, go with a quad-core. The E8400 used to be the best bang for it's buck and was regularly compared to the Q6600 regarding price-wise, but as the prices fall, you would of course be better off with the quad-core nick suggested (if you still want to get a new CPU).

[dg]

Thank you all for the responses!

First off, let me tell you that I'm an idiot. I should investigated the problem more thoroughly. The only thing that ran through my mind was "I can play Call of Duty 4 no problem on High settings, but on World of Warcraft it's stuttering!" Then I came here. No real investigation, yet a strong sense of anger and disappointment from my computer.

Well ladies and gentlemen, let tell you that the problem does not have anything to do with my CPU or GPU. Actually, it doesn't have to even deal with hardware. Just as with the Matrix, the issue is choice. World of Warcraft has these fantastic things called quests which send you to various places to do various things. Being a fancy-shmancy computer guy, I said "There must be an easier way to track these things!" And lo' and behold, QuestHelper came. A .lua addon for WoW that marked places to go and drew little maps to help me.

So today, I decided that I was going to try out another addon, similar to QuestHelper, but without any fancy gimmicks. So I deleted the old one and added the new, then fired up WoW. As I hopped in-game, there was a difference. No "hiccups," no popping geometry, and not even a drop in FPS. In fact, I was getting about 15 FPS more than I usually do! Then it hit me...

Memory. QuestHelper took up about 45MB of in-game memory, while my new addon takes up less than 800Kb. Yes, Watson, the mystery is solved. I chose to try and be tricky.


So, thank you to everyone here who responded. I am fairly certain I am going to buy the E8400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037) that people kept mentioning, but no new graphics card. Thanks again and remember to do your damn homework before jumping to conclusions!

[NullZero]

'Tis good to hear that you fixed your little epidemic :D

[Nick]

Memory. QuestHelper took up about 45MB of in-game memory, while my new addon takes up less than 800Kb. Yes, Watson, the mystery is solved. I chose to try and be tricky.

So, thank you to everyone here who responded. I am fairly certain I am going to buy the E8400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037) that people kept mentioning, but no new graphics card. Thanks again and remember to do your damn homework before jumping to conclusions!Well, glad you figured out the cause, but I would bet it had more to do with an inefficient script wasting CPU cycles than an issue with memory consumption. Off with the coder's head!

Also, I still really recommend the quad core option. All of the game engines I mentioned have multi-threading support and that doesn't mean just two cores. You'll be more pleased with a quad core in the long run as I went from a dual core to a quad core and can't imagine going back (disclaimer: other factors, such as jump in clock speed and architecture change, contributed to this but seeing 3-4 cores typically in use says to me it's a good time to start using quad core processors).

If you can't afford the Q9450 right now, just save up your money as you have no pressing need for a new processor at this time (now that you've fixed your problem). Better yet, save up even more money and get a new motherboard so you can hop on the Core i7 train to awesomeland. Just my opinion.

Nick

[dg]

Well, glad you figured out the cause, but I would bet it had more to do with an inefficient script wasting CPU cycles than an issue with memory consumption. Off with the coder's head!

Also, I still really recommend the quad core option. All of the game engines I mentioned have multi-threading support and that doesn't mean just two cores. You'll be more pleased with a quad core in the long run as I went from a dual core to a quad core and can't imagine going back (disclaimer: other factors, such as jump in clock speed and architecture change, contributed to this but seeing 3-4 cores typically in use says to me it's a good time to start using quad core processors).

If you can't afford the Q9450 right now, just save up your money as you have no pressing need for a new processor at this time (now that you've fixed your problem). Better yet, save up even more money and get a new motherboard so you can hop on the Core i7 train to awesomeland. Just my opinion.

Nick

Thank you for allowing me to second guess myself. Congratulations, I officially have no clue what to buy now. :-)

P.s. Wasting CPU cycles in correct! It said "in-game memory" in WoW, but I just read up of the addon and it is being called a "CPU hogger." You win!


Thanks again, all! :-)