MBP performance jerky in WoW

My fps stays about 30 in WoW, but the performance is very, very jerky. Does anyone know how to remedy this? My MBP has a 2.2ghz processor and 128mb 8600gt. I have all the settings set to high, except for the ground details. With these settings, both my desktop PC (3.0ghz P4 and 6600gt) and other laptop (Dell m1210 - 2.0ghz and go7400) run smoothly at 30fps, with only occasional drops in battle ground and in highly populated towns. What's up with this? The MBP's hardware is definitely superior, but the performance is really pathetic. I'm guessing that I've done something wrong? Note: I didn't bother doing a fresh install of OSX after I got the laptop home. My other computers, by contrast, run very clean versions of WinXP Pro.

Edit: the PC runs a 1600x1200 monitor and the Dell's resolution is 1280x800

 

I don't have a MBP, but are you playing it plugged not on battery? Also, you are running it in OSX and not Parallels? I know those two could affect performance.

That is all I got. I'm from Hawaii too

Aloha.

 

I'm definitely playing plugged in. WoW is running in OS 10.4

 

There's your problem. Games will always run better under windows, drastically better. I heard that a recent leopard graphics update helped boost performance, but I see you are running Tiger.

Your best bet for great performance is gaming under boot camp.

 

As 00fez sez, I read that 10.4 doesn't play WoW very great, but 10.5.2(?) does.

People complained about the same thing (jerkiness).

I'm sure you tried it, but search for OSX 10.4 and WoW jerky.

On another note WoW patch 2.4 (coming soon) is said to bring better performance. I don't know if that will help though.

 

Okay. I guess I'll refrain from playing WoW under 10.4. My computer came preloaded with it, but Apple threw a 10.5 disk into the box. Ugh. I was hoping that I could hold out on an OS install until I decided to replace the hard drive. Bleh...

 

Why don't you just install bootcamp then? Just make a 12GB partition, install xp, and install wow. You can use the same dvd's to install the windows version.

 

Can I partition the disk like this? There is one 120gb partition that OS X currently exists on. Won't I have to wipe OS X, partition the disk, and THEN reinstall OSX/BootCamp-XP?

 

Eh? I used to run WoW on my MB Black w/o problems. Admittedly, not on the highest of settings but decently high enough. If at all there was lag, it would be in large scale battles but even then, the game played pretty well.

 

WoW in 10.4 is awful. For me it was so choppy that I couldn't play it (my PC with a fx 5600 ran it better).

In Windows it runs at max settings at 60 fps (where it's capped).

 

No, you wont have to wipe your current partition. Boot camp will just create another partition alongside the one you currently have. Though I think that in order to use boot camp you need to install leopard, not quite sure how that is working now...

 

This is the beauty of mac. What you have to do is run the boot camp assistant , and it'll basically do everything for you and no you don't have to reinstall. THIS IS NOT WINDOWS

 

The disk tool will shrink your existing partition to the size you want. The freed space will be used to make another partition which you use to install windows upon.

 

Can't say on Tiger, but between XP and Leopard on mine, I get the EXACT same FPS at the same res and settings.

But not sure why you are getting jerky performance. Is it everywhere?

 

WoW isn't capped at 60fps, fyi. The problem is your display is likely a 60hz display so anything above 60fps is pointless. If you have a 120hz display, 120fps is possible!

 

not that it matters. in a game like wow, 30+ fps is all you really need. the most extreme twitch games can benefit from more to an extent.

apple pretty much requires that you keep up to date with software.... i think tiger isn't getting any more updates?

just go ahead and make the switch to leopard. if that doesn't solve the problem, install boot camp and run wow from there.

 

Hmmm that's very odd. before I upgraded my MBP from 2 Gb's of ram to 4 Gb's of ram I still have perfect FPS in wow. No hiccups at all. I have the same model as you 2.2 Ghz and 128 Mb card. Outlands I was getting well over 30 FPS and that's on top of when I played in full screen mode. Make sure your VSync setting is off. But other then that I ran it natively in OS X Tiger and installed no special drivers other then what the machine came with.

 

Hmm... Questions:
1) If I BootCamp XP, will I have to reinstall BootCamp & XP when I switch to Leopard?
2) If I install BootCamp with XP, can I access that XP install through parallels/VMWare?

 

I get 15-20 FPS pretty much any where. Except Ogrimar or Shattrah. Shat will drop me to 6-8. Too many damn people...

I installed it on my desktop, it's a AMD XP 3000+ 1gb ram and an x800xt. It gets slightly better performance but I hate having 1280x1024 on a 19" screen. WTB higher resolution! Just funny to see that my POS underlocked X1600 being beaten by the x800xt lol.