Daveskater said:
See what
System Requirements Lab rates your PC for WoW, see if it passes the recommended specs. I agree that adding an extra 1gb of ram should help you nicely but you could also lower the game's graphical settings too.
What version of Windows are you running?
The problem with the RAM statement that I am seeing though is that 1GB should be sufficient in any areas that aren't pretty populated such as Stormwind or Orgrimmar. If that is when it's happening then it's true that RAM might be an issue, since World of Warcraft is RAM intensive in highly active areas of the game.
If he is getting frame rates that low while out questing with not many people around, I believe something else is going on. As we have said, resolution or other graphics settings may be set too high and that would be my first thought especially with his video card. It's not very high end, but more or less should be fine for this game, but I'm not entirely sure on how well the X550 performs.
Personally I played the game with an X1800XT and at one time I played with a 9700 Pro. When I first started playing I had 512MB of RAM which was a massive issue in cities such as Ironforge. Upgrading made a huge difference there, but once you hit the 1GB mark I'm thinking his settings or video card might possibly be the main bottleneck.
Again, not saying that 2GB of total RAM won't make a difference. It may, so it's probably worth the attempt and if graphic settings are in fact an issue here, the additional RAM would probably help to allow you to play at your current settings.
To be financially effective, try lowering your resolution a bit ESPECIALLY if it's higher than 1024x768. Or you may try playing at 800x600. I think you should be fine at 1024x768, but don't quote me on that. Then as some have said you could try upgrading to 2GB of RAM. If that doesn't do it, you might need to invest in a video card.
Honestly though I just don't feel like the X550 is a problem here at resolutions 1024x768 and below. Unless some other setting is killing your frame rate such as anti-aliasing, so I see no need to upgrade your video card unless that is just something that you want to do. As I said, I played the game with a 9700 Pro and 1GB of RAM at one point with no problems that I remember.
South Shore when PVP was very active there, before they opened battlegrounds was a great test of hardware. Oh the good old days of World of Warcraft.
It's hard to be sure, but there, you have my thoughts.
