64-bit Vista with WoW

[CptFarnsworth]

I recently purchased a new HP laptop back in November with the following spec:

Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT
Intel Core 2 duo 2.58 Ghz 6mb L2 cache
3gb RAM
5400RPM 250gb HD
64-bit Vista Home Edition

So far, I've been able to play games like TF2, Portal, HL2, L4D, Bioshock, and PoP perfectly on max or close to max settings. Naturally, I assumed that I'd be able to run World of Warcraft perfectly at max settings. So, with settings put to max, I ran WoW. Even though it told me I was running at 40fps, I was getting this constant screen lag which occurred every few seconds. So, I decided to try it on lowest settings. Still there, but not as much. Does anyone have any suggestions? I've tried repairing and re-installing the files for WoW, and still nothing. I'm about ready to go back to 32-bit XP.

 

[LNCPapa]

Not sure what is causing this problem but I'm pretty sure it's not specifically 64 bit Vista causing it. I've been playing WoW in 64 bit Vista for quite some time now and I've had no issues except when I max shadow detail on an SLI setup.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

Any suggestions then?

 

[domi978]

WoW should work fine with your computer specs........ I would say it's a WoW server problem.

Where is the lag happening in game? Are you in a major city? trying during peak play hours? Does your server say FULL population? Med? Low? High?

Some servers are highly populated and no matter what PC you have you will experience lag when playing during peak hours in certain areas like major cities. Once you enter a new area your on a different server soooo.

You can test this simply by going to a less populated zone like Elwynn forest
or make a new character on a server with a low population
if you still have lag then go to worldofwarcraft.com technical support, they have good TS.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

It isn't the server. I have multiple friends who play on the same server with no problems whatsoever. I also tried it on a low population server and had the same issue.

 

[Rollie2010]

What your experiencing is screen tearing, that's my guess. Do you have vertical sync on? That should disable the tearing.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

I have vertical sync on with triple buffering, and the problem is still there. The lag is really that game-hurting, it just looks annoying and gets irritating after awhile. All that happens is a quick skip in the fps that pushes me back the smallest amount, sometimes with multiple in quick succession. I really don't know what it would be.

 

[MetalX]

Try turning off the new shadow detail levels implemented with patch 3.0. Vista 64 doesn't seem to like them very much.

EDIT: Just saw that LNCPapa was having the same problem with SLI on Vista 64... maybe it happens without SLI too.

 

[troganhorse]

happened to me too. I reinstalled my graphics drivers and instead of geting nvidia drivers from site, have windows search web. That worked for me.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

My shadow settings are set to lowest; still happening. I tried searching for new drivers through windows, and it claimed that my drivers were up-to-date, but that might be because HP likes to put restrictions on their products. Thanks for all the help so far, but it's still happening.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

Does anyone have any ideas at this point?

 

[Manikle]

Have you looked at the WoW forum for the answer?
I took a look and found a rather long thread called "FPS drops/lags every ~15 seconds"
I will post a link to the thread in my next post, as I will then have reached post requirement.

 

[Manikle]

Here is the link to the WoW thread, which addresses your problem:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12368277969&sid=1

I did not read through it to see how/if it has been solved, but at least it is a known problem that should be addressed over there.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

I'll look into that, but my problem is a little different than that. I get the little "hiccups" every few seconds, not every 15. Also, I don't think it has much to do with graphics, because even though WoW obviously runs a little better on lowest settings, it occurrs just as much is it does on max settings. Even when it's happening, my FPS, is usually well above 30, so my guess is that the problem is seperate.

 

[Manikle]

Well, one man's "every few seconds" is another man's "about every 15 seconds"--too bad it doesn't seem to be the case, in this instance.
I do believe that the WoW forum is still the best place to look for the answer.
There is at least one other thread that I saw right away, which addresses what the post-er calls stutter and that problem was resolved by downloading the latest Windows updates.
Even if nothing there proves to be the answer, if you post your problem there, it appears as though the software mfgr. attempts to address it--and it is an incredibly active forum.
Hope you're able to resolve it promptly.

 

[CptFarnsworth]

Posted my problem on WoW TS forums, and seem to get better responses from this site. I've now tried re-installing my graphics drivers, updating 64-bit Vista, and checking my svchost.exe files while playing WoW; nothing. I'm at a loss.

 

[Gaze]

Do you have "Reduce Input Lag" checked? (Video > Resolution)