Cores for Cataclysm

[LavCat]

WoW can use more than 2 cores right now, I think 8 is max. I do not know how the performance scales with cores. I currently use a dual core i3 at 4GHz and I've never had a situation where performance was unacceptable.

You do have to mess a little with setProcessAffinity in config.wtf
5 = cores 1&3
7 = cores 1,2,3
10 = cores 2&4
14 = Cores 2,3,4
15 = Cores 1,2,3,4

I assume it can keep going all the way to at least 255.

According to a blue post in this thread though, it may be unnecessary to change these settings manually anymore, though I know there was a period where you did have to do it manually: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread...0298&sid=1

Windows 7 will also park cores under certain conditions, and this seems to affect WoW users. Details of how to turn this off here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?high=&...73&mpage=1
Be sure to click the other link in the first post, which has a reversible registry entry for disabling instead of deleting an existing entry.

It's possible that you can improve your performance without a processor upgrade. I've seen people noting significant FPS increases just by messing with processor mask and disabling core parking.

As far as other upgrades helping, that would need more details. Where do you experience degradations? In general, GPU options can be turned down pretty far to the point that CPU is probably the only thing that you would ever NEED to upgrade to get better performance. However, I'm guessing if you have Win7 and an x3, your video performance is probably not a major issue.

For what it's worth, I'm using an i3 @ 4GHz and 5770 (mild overclock) with (2) 1280x1024 monitors, one for the viewport and one for chat windows and maps and such.. essentially slightly more video power than running 1280x. I started by setting everything "ultra". Performance was okay, but I hate the shadows at ultra, and turning these down moved performance to flawless (always over 60FPS). I'll disable more annoying stuff later (like grass that sticks up and hides the mobs). Haven't done anything really challenging (running recount and combat logging while in a 25 man), but I don't see a huge performance difference between Cata and Wrath.

You playing Cataclysm Beta? Do you use the DirectX 11 option or DX9?

From what I've read processAffinityMask is set to maximum by default. In any event all three of my cores seem to be used. I have never seen a core parked (not that I check that often), but parking is not supposed to happen unless one has four or more cores, which I don't.

I like eye candy. I run a single monitor 1920x1200. Everything is turned up except for shadows, which are set one notch down from max. The max shadows setting lowers frame rate too much. My AA is currently set to 4x Edge-detect, which to my eye looks better than 4x set in game. I can't run higher than 4x Edge-detect without a frame rate hit. Even so I drop down to 30 fps flying through dense trees. I'd like to run AA higher than 4x Edge-detect if I could.

Frame rate also drops in Dalaran, but in most places it is 60 fps for me. I am amazed that Cataclysm does not have lower frame rates. When Wrath came out (actually the patch before Wrath) everything slowed to a crawl on my machine, necessitating a new video card.

I seem to get better results setting the Wow.exe process to high priority. Unfortunately I don't know how to make the setting stick. I have to set the priority in Task Manager each time WoW is started. Anyone know how to do this automatically?