WoW FPS

Over the past week or so, I've been doing a modified computer build for my wife--in effect, buying a low-cost off-the-shelf PC with a decent processor and a hardy amount of RAM then upgrading the individual components as necessary to bring things up to spec. Overwhelmingly this has gone fabulously, with one notable snag:

World of Warcraft.

There is just something about this game, deep in it's coding, that makes it do the strangest things. After its 2004 debut, it's been patched and expanded so many times that the game as it exists right now is sort of the gaming equivalent of The Burrow--one layer merely stacked on top of each other as necessary. There is no one component of a computer that a person can upgrade to give them perfect FPS at all times. Period. As it's an older game, it's seen more graphics cards come and go than most ever will, and there's simply no optimizing it for every single one. Add onto that CPU loads and network latency, and from one area to the next your FPS are going to bounce around like nobody's business.

Quite frankly, anybody telling you that they have 150 FPS at all times in WoW is either an outright liar, or running some sort of basement supercomputer. On two capable laptops and the newly built desktop, I regularly watch my FPS bounce around anywhere from 20-30 in Dalaran, to 30-35 in Zangarmarsh, and 150+ in instances and indoor locations. There simply is no one hardware configuration or software setting that is going to lock down your FPS at all times. More importantly, I've come to realize, is stabilizing it above 30 FPS. The game is optimized to run at 30 FPS, so if you can keep your system at or above that whenever something important is going on, you're golden.

Ultimately it is more than a bit disappointing to have an extremely capable setup run seemingly so poorly on such a seemingly old game, but when you realize how expansive and massive the world is, and how much can really be going on at once, 30 FPS really isn't that bad. It's definitely something a person can safely live, even if they're not going to be writing home about it any time soon.

Plus, if you're anything like me you can just boot up COD4 and enjoy the pure pleasure of 150 FPS.