Vista64 playing wow with low fps

[johns0]

I just did a fresh install of vista64 home premium and installed all the latest 64 drivers and installed world of warcraft and started playing and found my fps are now 6-30 where as in winxp it used to be 30-100 fps averaging around 50,i shut down aero and the sidebar and anything else but no difference.

My index score isrocessor 4.2
ram 4.0
graphics 5.9
hdd 5.2
I dont have virus scanner running or any other source that is hogging cpu resources,anyone else having this problem and find a cure?

[Abbadon]

You need to re-install Windows XP to have your fps back.

[SanderMan]

Or you need more RAM.

[johns0]

Or you need more RAM.

If you looked at my profile you would see i have 2 gigs of ram,its not a lag or cache problem,its just lower fps.

[redwudz]

From the Vista compatibility page: http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

World of Warcraft - May have issues with Graphics and Sound (Depending on Hardware Installed)

Though your graphics card seems rated high enough. You might want to check around for a forum for the game to see if they have any ideas. I would also make sure the graphics card driver is completely Vista compatible, even with using their newest drivers. Not all manufacturers have caught up yet.

[buttzilla]

Even though frame rates went down on vista yours are really low. I believe your problem is the 64 bit version. Most programs out there are not compatable because of lack of driver support. What i'm saying is most games were not writen to be used on 64 bit os. A lot of games have updates available for 64 bit windows so check the games web page for updates. Also do you have a 64 bit version of your video cards driver installed?

[johns0]

I got the newest vista 64bit nvidea drivers installed and checked with blizzard for update info but none,guess i got to wait till they have better drivers and compatibility.

[JohnnyMalaria]

If WOW uses DirectSound for audio, that could be your problem.

DirectSound is emulated by software under Vista and can hurt performance.

As a temporary measure to test the theory, disable your sound card and see if the fps goes up.

[BJ_M]

You need to re-install Windows XP to have your fps back.

exactly

[redwudz]

I have XP 64 on one of my computers and it's problematic with drivers also. MS and the hardware manufacturers don't seem to put a lot of effort into 64 bit hardware and programs. That's why I run Vista 32bit on my Vista computer.

[johns0]

If WOW uses DirectSound for audio, that could be your problem.

DirectSound is emulated by software under Vista and can hurt performance.

As a temporary measure to test the theory, disable your sound card and see if the fps goes up.

Did what you said and my fps went right back to what they used to be,with sound disabled the game plays good now,hope they can do something about sound emulation,thanks for the info and tip.Now i know what the problem is caused by.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I don't know anything about WOW - can you tell it what audio drivers to use? With Vista, a given piece of audio hardware will be visible to applications as a DirectSound-based one and as a new Vista audio layer one.

In one of our applications, we had to deliberately add support for the user to choose the drivers to use to get around the DirectSound + Vista performance problem.

[edDV]

I thought power gamers were still using DOS or Win98se. Maybe Win2000 if big drives are desired.

The OS just gets in the way of game performance.

[ofbarea]

Maybe Creative ALchemy can help (I have not review it in detail).
http://www.soundblaster.com/Applications/article.asp?articleID=68455&categoryID=13