Benchmarking Warcraft using /timetest

[krick]

I don't know about you guys, but the new expansion is killing my frame rates.  I was able to play TBC with most of the graphics sliders at halfway or higher.  Now, even with everything turned all the way down, it's choppy and laggy.

So I've spent the last few days purchasing parts to build a new Warcraft rig.  Once I get it built, I want to do a little benchmarking.  Ultimately, I want to figure out which settings on my computer have the most impact on the frame rate so that I can maximize everything I can.

From the 2.3.0 patch notes...

/timetest is a command that can be run to provide information on game performance. /timetest 0 turns the command off. When the command is issued, the next time a player uses a flight master to travel, certain statistics will be measured and displayed at the end of that flight. All weather effects and spawns are shutdown during the test.

Has anyone used this yet?   I'm thinking that if we want to generate consistent results, we should use the same flight path in the same direction.  Also, we should use a pair of neutral flight paths so that both horde and alliance can do the same benchmark.  Though, since the actual path of the flight goes through different towns for each faction, they aren't going to be directly comparable.

Here's the list of neutral flight paths...
http://www.wowwiki.com/Flight_master#Neutral_Flight_Masters

I'm thinking that it should be as long a flight path as possible for valid results.

I propose for Azeroth...

Marshal's Refuge, Un'Goro Crater  <-->  Emerald Sanctuary, Felwood

(for a shorter benchmark, we can use Ratchet to split the path in half)

And for Outland...

Terrace of Light, Shattrath City  <-->  The Stormspire, Netherstorm

I'm not that familiar with Northrend yet, so I'm open to suggestions.

[Jeffrey]

I suggest that Blizzard fixes the lag instead of putting out more expansions! 

I run a pretty decent rig:

AMD 5000+ Black Edition overclocked
4 gigs ddr2 ram
2 8600 gt's in sli
750 gig sata hdd

And I still get lag.  Everywhere.  With this rig I should be able to crank everything, but I can't.

[Maadcowmoo]

I suggest that Blizzard fixes the lag instead of putting out more expansions! 

I run a pretty decent rig:

AMD 5000+ Black Edition overclocked
4 gigs ddr2 ram
2 8600 gt's in sli
750 gig sata hdd

And I still get lag.  Everywhere.  With this rig I should be able to crank everything, but I can't.

You know ... not all the time its Blizzards fault. There can be so many different reasons why ppl are getting lag or having techy issues with the game. I for one think that they are doing a fantastic job at fixing and accommodating the endless suply of complaints that we throw at them.

You want some serious lag and big time issues ... try rolling on one of them private servers where you can max you char in just a few hours of work.

This isn't to say that its all "our" fault and Blizz can't do anything ... its just ... i feel we have it really good compaired to we could have it as.

[Atsushi]

If you have issues with Lag the first thing you should do is disable your add-ons and make sure that issues are happening from that. That is usually the culprit 50% of the time.

My wife has had issues and disabled her Lylock and everything was fine. When I started to have issues, it was an issue with QuestHelper which had to be fixed by an updated version. A lot of time people don't' realize how much information some mods process which tends to cause some of the lag.

[Ezudane]

I turned of shadows in the graphics settings and my performance levelled out to pre WOTLK.

[brian]

"You know ... not all the time its Blizzards fault."

What are you a GM? jease many people out there have $2,000 systems and up playin wow and still have issues E.G. Dalarn lag,.. the infamous "Laggius" (once fixed distributed the lag to all other naxx 25 bosses) and lest not forget the awesome job they did with arena and wintergrasp this last week!

yes it is Blizzes fault it's their game thus their blame to be had.

[Danavan]

Yes lets all blame blizz for makeing an awesome game and ...*gasp*...being human too.  Just think about all the code that goes into making a game of this magnitude.

For those of us who have ever messed with, for example, C++ imagine the wintergrasp bug was one F***in semicolon and you, the over worked and underpaid coder, has to explain to the millions of angry fans exactly how hard could a missing semicolon be to find.

[Atsushi]

What are you a GM? jease many people out there have $2,000 systems and up playin wow and still have issues E.G. Dalarn lag,.. the infamous "Laggius" (once fixed distributed the lag to all other naxx 25 bosses) and lest not forget the awesome job they did with arena and wintergrasp this last week!

yes it is Blizzes fault it's their game thus their blame to be had.

$2000 systems? That's all? ^_^

Do you realize how many people with $600-1500 systems that run just fine with no lag. Do you even understand what 'lag' is?

Lag - "Latency is the time taken for a sent packet of data to be received at the other end. It includes the time to encode the packet for transmission and transmit it, the time for that data to traverse the network equipment between the nodes, and the time to receive and decode the data."

And that is the simple term, not including GPU latency which is the time for the processor to process and communicate with the video card, among other things.

Between "You" and "Blizzards" servers there are most likely at least 10 servers it goes through, even if you are in LA there are at least 5 it goes through BEFORE it even reaches their server. They are by no ways responsible for other people's servers that the data is transmitted on.

Now in the case of 3.0.8 patch when everytime WG was won, it killed Northrend yes that is Blizzards fault. That is on their server and effects 100% everyone. However lag does not 100% effect everyone. Which means somewhere between you and their servers there is a delay, hiccup or whatever.

Blizzard controls their servers, their data. You can control your computer, what you have on it. However no one CPU is exactly alike even if it has the same hardware, parts from the same company made by the same person. Whatever happens between you and them isn't their responsibility.

[Mila]

Atsushi  yay for you!!! now thats a nice and informative post an-no bullshit! yay for you and as we say here on my country "eres la pura verga!!!!!"jajajaj osea bien chingon jojojo

[Maadcowmoo]

/bow Atsushi