Low GPU load when playing WoW

[ssawgift]

My card is a newly bought ASUS R9 280X. I noticed that when I play WoW (25-raid), FPS drops from 60+ to below 30, but at the same time GPU Load in GPU-Z shows only around 35%.

Some days ago I tried a bitcoin miner and the software can fill GPU Load almost to 100% and GPU Temperature is around 75 degrees Celsius.

Are there other people who have the same problem with me?

 

[de.das.dude]

its called power saving. it does not need that power so it clokcs down. WoW is to 280x like 2+2 was to einstein

 

[ssawgift]

Is there any way to tell the video card driver not saving power? Instead I want performance.

 

[r9]

its called power saving. it does not need that power so it clokcs down. WoW is to 280x like 2+2 was to einstein

He is saying below 30 FPS that is not 2+2 obviously. Try different driver make sure you have uninstalled all previous drivers and try disabling vsync and any background services that may be working in the background.

 

[de.das.dude]

Is there any way to tell the video card driver not saving power? Instead I want performance.

try the new 13.12 drivers

 

[DF is BUSY]

what cpu are you using?


fill in your system specs, OP.

 

[newtekie1]

what cpu are you using?

This. WoW can become CPU limited very quickly.

 

[buildzoid]

Blizz games are really hard on CPUs especially AMDs so that might be the cause.

 

[...PACMAN...]

Why do people say so often that WoW doesn't need a semi decent GPU? It does. DX11 Ultra at anything 1080p or above with AA requires something that has a little bit of grunt. It's true that CPU is king for the minimums but if you want all those DX11 gfx with high levels of AA you still need that dedicated GPU which can cope.

 

[sulfur]

World of Warcraft loves CPU power Like other MMO's CPU>GPU. Even older PC's with OCED CPU's can handle MoP 5.4 with 60fps 1080p without drops.

 

[Frick]

Why do people say so often that WoW doesn't need a semi decent GPU? It does. DX11 Ultra at anything 1080p or above with AA requires something that has a little bit of grunt. It's true that CPU is king for the minimums but if you want all those DX11 gfx with high levels of AA you still need that dedicated GPU which can cope.

Turn stuff down and you can run it on anything though,

 

[Blue-Knight]

FPS drops from 60+ to below 30, but at the same time GPU Load in GPU-Z shows only around 35%.

If VSync is turned on and it's limiting the frame rate to monitor refresh rate or half refresh rate (in this case 60/30) then the GPU usage will not go to 100%.

And if your GPU isn't at 100% load and your frame rate in game is not equal to your monitor's refresh rate (in this case 60) then there's something on your system that is limiting the full potential of the GPU (most of the time, the CPU).

If VSync is disabled and your GPU load is not at 100%, then then there's something on your system that is limiting the FULL potential of the GPU (most of the time, the CPU).

Not sure. I can be wrong.

 

[...PACMAN...]

Turn stuff down and you can run it on anything though,

True, true. And yes, like I said CPU is king for minimums but you are not gonna run over 60fps constant with a sub par GPU on ultra with good levels of AA with any CPU... old or new.

 

[ssawgift]

Thanks all for your replies. I updated my specs, please see if anything may cause the problem.

 

[v12dock]

Is the game in the background or foreground while this problem is occurring?

 

[ssawgift]

It's normal foreground play. GPU-Z is capable of recording stats over time.

 

[DF is BUSY]

a 4/8 xeon, 8gb ram, 280x and a ssd should have no problems running WoW...

did you try reinstalling AMD drivers?
desperate measure=reinstall WoW?
really extra desperate measure=reinstall windows?

 

[Kaynar]

I'm pretty sure blizzard didn't have Xeons in mind when making WoW. In fact even a 4+ ghz i7 won't play at 60fps in a 25man raid no matter what GPU you have. I have had a 7970 in the past and now a Titan, none of them goes above 30% load because this game is badly coded and CPU bound. I'm pretty sure 30fps for a stock xeon is a good performance in 25man. And it's definately not a GPU issue.

You can try to reduce GPU-bound graphics options and see for yourself that your fps will not really increase.

 

[ssawgift]

The CPU is actually not a problem because CPU load is never very high in the sense that it never exceeds 30% during game play.

According to Kaynar, maybe it's Blizzard that is to be responsible for this problem. I once heard that AMD cards have problem of low GPU load with games. But Kaynar says NVIDIA card also has this same problem with WoW. This means this problem does not pertain to specific card maker.

 

[...PACMAN...]

How about trying to mess with CPU affinity? http://www.wowwiki.com/CVar_processAffinityMask

I don't know what else to suggest. I have a 4670K with a 760 and it plays the game smooth as silk on Ultra with 8xAA. You should be having no issues. Hope you get it sorted.

 

[Mussels]

The CPU is actually not a problem because CPU load is never very high in the sense that it never exceeds 30% during game play.

According to Kaynar, maybe it's Blizzard that is to be responsible for this problem. I once heard that AMD cards have problem of low GPU load with games. But Kaynar says NVIDIA card also has this same problem with WoW. This means this problem does not pertain to specific card maker.

FYI, 30% of an 8 threaded CPU is over two threads maxed out (12.5% would be one maxed out).

so yeah - you're CPU limited. games require highly clocked CPU's, not ones with excess cores.

 

[jboydgolfer]

In my experience, Catalyst control center has been coming with A LOT of graphic functions set to On as a default. I had an issue of My own a few months back, and found an issue where catalyst was Default set to Do something that was causing HUGE performance loss, after a couple days of speaking with support , we ended up tracing the issue to catalyst's setting's being set to the "on" position right out of the gate. I would recommend going into it, and Verifying that ALL settings are on the "use application" setting, then go onward from there.

 

[ssawgift]

FYI, 30% of an 8 threaded CPU is over two threads maxed out (12.5% would be one maxed out).

so yeah - you're CPU limited. games require highly clocked CPU's, not ones with excess cores.

But E3-1230 V2 is already one of the best CPUs out there - moreover, the best ones are all multi-cores. I'm so confused. A game like WoW should only stress the GPU instead of the CPU.

 

[newtekie1]

But E3-1230 V2 is already one of the best CPUs out there - moreover, the best ones are all multi-cores. I'm so confused. A game like WoW should only stress the GPU instead of the CPU.

Unfortunately WoW stresses the CPU not modern GPUs. Any reasonably decent modern GPU can max out WoW graphically. And even though the E3-1230V2 is a very power CPU, it is still your limiting factor. People with 4.0GHz overclocks on CPUs just like yours are still CPU limited in WoW.

 

[Aquinus]

But E3-1230 V2 is already one of the best CPUs out there - moreover, the best ones are all multi-cores. I'm so confused. A game like WoW should only stress the GPU instead of the CPU.

If only you knew how wrong that statement was. Xeons are designed for different workloads. Not to say it won't play WoW well, but WoW definitely can't fully utilize 8 threads, so more cores does not mean more power in this case. There are some settings that hit the CPU harder than others. If you're running everything in Ultra, there is almost no way that you're going to realize 60FPS during a RAID with your hardware. It's not that the hardware isn't capable of doing it, it's that the software isn't.

With all of this said, an i5 clocked higher would probably out perform your Xeon for WoW, much like it would in other Blizzard games.

If you don't mind me asking, why did you get a Xeon in the first place? It's not like any the features of a Xeon will help you game while you throw your ability to overclock out the window.