Need Help with FPS

[redtee]

Hello! I'm looking for help with increasing my FPS and you all looked like a very knowledgeable source. I've had World of Warcraft for a few months now, but recently as I've become more heavily involved in the game, I've realized that my low FPS is causing more noticeable problems with things that didn't really matter earlier on (for people looking for an example, I'm now running Kara and can't afford to have FPS rate slow me down.)

I have an ok internet connection at school, a much better one at home, it's cable. My computer is a Toshiba Satellite Laptop I purchased in 2005, with 896 MB of RAM and I think an ATI RS300/RS300M Accelerated Graphics Port. I'm not sure about the video information, I know next to nothing about hardware.

As for the game itself, I'm using a regular amount of addons, not any more than most people in my situation have, and the game generally runs between 5-10 FPS. It HAS run around 20 FPS before, but it's pretty rare for me, and some days it'll be running 2-4 FPS on average.

It's a horrible way to play, essentially.

I've tried quitting out of all other programs, but I'm not sure if that helps or what exactly I need to do to fix the problem. I'd prefer not having to buy new hardware, especially since I don't know what exactly the problem is, so any advice you could offer would be wonderful.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

 

[EvilCow]

Have you tried installing the latest drivers for you're VGA card??
Usually latest drivers fix problems without you having to buy new hardware!

 

[resu]

to be honest theres not much you can do hardware wise on a laptop appart from increasing the RAM .. which is a pretty straight forward job and should create a massive difference.

from what your saying your gfx card is using some of RAM for itself.

you could try messing around with what amounts the gfx card uses.. .more = better until to reach the optimum .. then youll start losing performance as you wont enough RAM to play the game.

if youve done what you can on the computer side and theres still very little difference then youll have to start looking at the game itself e.g

what resolution do you run the game?

what are the rest of the gfx settings?

there is also a box in WoWs settings that lowers the gfx needs of the game .. tho i cant remember off the top of my head what its called

youll have to play around with them for yourself and find the settings that work for you.

sorry i cant be of more help .. ill try and post later if i can peal myself away from GTA4 and get on WoW lol