FPS and Smoothness more telling than CPU use?

[JonJonz]

My pc is 5 years old and not top of the line, so when I first started playing, my cpu use was high, and my frames per second were low, and sometimes the screen would get jerky or stutter on frames.

I tried analyzing various addons using cpu and memory meters, but that never really seemed very productive.

I found the most productive thing to focus on is simply frames per second and how smooth action looks on screen. Total frames per second seems most limited by high graphic options. I run high graphic options when playing solo and exploring, but always go minimum graphic options when running dungeons etc.

In my experience lags, short pauses, and generally jerky game play shows up when I have addons running that load up the cpu and memory.

What determines the best performance on your PC?

What things have you done to keep good frame rate and smoothness?

[Fizzlemizz]

I found in the past that shadow quality would drastically effect frame rate, high quality, low FPS. I would think ground density would also be in that categpoy.

[Rilgamon]

Here I do this for good fps:
- Switch off healing and dmg displayed on screen and on your player unitframe.
- Replace standard buttons with dominos or bartender.
- Reduce the logging in your combatlog to important stuff.
- Dont use Recount/Skada or stuff.

[jeruku]

Both CPU and Memory(circumstance) I have found play a role in smooth gameplay. Anything outright eating your CPU usage and anything creating large expansive tables being iterated over on every frame(or once every second) are usually bad. These two things are found commonly in shaders and texture quality for game settings; in terms of addons this is often inventory tracking, logging, and nameplate scanning.

As stated by others I too turn shadows, shaders, and textures to a reasonable setting for my hardware. For addons I avoid, or customize, ones that log far too much or scan inefficiently.

If you happen to be using Tidy Plates, or most common nameplate addons, do not continue use. My computer is 8 years old so I know your struggle more than you might think.

[JDoubleU00]

Originally Posted by jeruku Both CPU and Memory(circumstance) I have found play a role in smooth gameplay. Anything outright eating your CPU usage and anything creating large expansive tables being iterated over on every frame(or once every second) are usually bad. These two things are found commonly in shaders and texture quality for game settings; in terms of addons this is often inventory tracking, logging, and nameplate scanning. As stated by others I too turn shadows, shaders, and textures to a reasonable setting for my hardware. For addons I avoid, or customize, ones that log far too much or scan inefficiently. If you happen to be using Tidy Plates, or most common nameplate addons, do not continue use. My computer is 8 years old so I know your struggle more than you might think.

What is a good if any nameplate addon? I don't like the default one much.

[sirann]

Rnameplates2 is pretty good for cpu efficiency

Allows aura tracking, pretty "hackable" to modify for your specific needs as zork does aa good job commenting his code and using practically plain text variable names.

I've noticed exactly one encounter of slight fps lag and it was when I managed to get over 200 nameplates stacked on my screen.

I moused over that area, simultaneously firing 200 aura updates and dropped to 70 fps. Can't recommend this addon enough

[jeruku]

Originally Posted by rocnroll What is a good if any nameplate addon? I don't like the default one much.

KuiNameplates on Curse, the code was well written and does not(as I recall, I could also be wrong) use overly convoluted tables on frame updates. In fact it is one of the addons I took inspiration from when writing my own nameplate addons.