Disclaimer: I realise that the game is not done yet. I also realise that it is not optimised yet (as far as WotLK features go, anyway). All I want is to state my opinion on the current game’s engine and hopefully see some improvements soon!
My system is fairly fast. Here it is:
System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600)
Language: Danish
System manufacturer: Me!
Motherboard model: ASUS P5KC
BIOS version 08.00.12
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-6400)
DirectX-version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Videocard: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB – latest beta drivers. (Problem is the same with normal drivers)
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 172x LCD. 1280x1024 @ 75Hz
Also, do not move this to the techsupport forum, as I do not require technical support. These are problems I see across the board, and they need to be forwarded and corrected.
Performance
The engine for World of Warcraft has really been going downhill since the game first released in 2005. (In Europe that is) I remember playing World of Warcraft beta maxed out with a Radeon 9800 Pro. Now, 3 years later, that same card barely reaches medium settings on the same computer, so I had to upgrade.
Why? What have you changed? In WotLK beta the game runs at between 20-35 FPS maxed out on the above system.
I’ve noticed that the game runs slower and slower with each and every patch applied to the game. So I checked the difference between live and beta with live settings, and sure enough: Roughly a drop of 4 FPS. In the patch that made Dual-Core CPU’s work in WoW performance took an enormous hit for some people, and I am one of them.
The game really runs very poorly on very fast systems. On of my friends recently got himself a new computer for about £3000, including awesome cooling and 2 Radeon 4870 in CrossFire mode.
He can barely push 50 FPS on beta, and pushes around 70 FPS on live.
You’ve got to be kidding me! How can he max out Crysis at 50-60 FPS and barely do the same to WoW? WoW should be pushing 75 (his monitor’s refreshrate) flat. There should be no doubts about this.
How can I run Crysis maxed out (very high settings hack) at 30 FPS but barely push that in WoW? WoW looks artistically good, but technically it is not very impressive since it’s old. This is no surprise. What is a surprise is that my graphics card simply cannot handle these outdated graphics. Graphics of a similar calibre can be found in games like UT2004, where I can push 230+ FPS! (In Onslaught)
Shadows just, straight up, look bad
The most rough implementation I’ve seen for a while must be the one in the start of the beta, but those shadows looked awesome. You could see them from a mile away and they were sharp and detailed – and they just looked bloody excellent. They were also a systemkiller. But rather than keeping them as a slashcommand for curious people you simply removed the option, replacing them with a range of 0 to 4, where 0 are no shadows (fine and expected) and 4 looks bloody awful.
The shadows render at an incredibly short distance. For some things like trees you have to be standing directly underneath the tree to see any shadows at all. The shadows also do not move corresponding to the game world’s lighting but only according to the sun. Sure, they’re better than what we originally had – but you had done it so right and then you smash your accomplishment to pieces.
The shadows need to be drawn at a longer distance and they need to respond the lightsources in the environment. In fact I suggest you change the game’s lighting system entirely – it could use an overhaul.
Although the shadows that you do see look just great! There simply needs to be far more of them.
Overheating problems
There appears to be a bug somewhere, and this is probably one you’ll have to talk to the GPU-manufacturers about, which causes every high-end GFX card that I know of to overheat in the game’s main menu and if you have VSync disabled whilst playing the game. It also occurs if alt-tabbed.
This causes the fan to speed up to tremendous speeds, producing a ton of noise and generally getting the techsavvy guy very, very worried. After enough hours some overclocked systems will crash due to overheat. I cannot say what causes this – I find it extremely weird, but I tested it across a wide range of high-end systems and it happens across the board. It needs to be corrected, fast. You cannot let a bug like this make it to live – it could cause serious trouble!
Closing Thoughts
Let me tell you that Wrath of the Lich King is simply an awesome expansion to an awesome game, and I look forward to its release very much. However, the engine is not up to scratch. I don’t neccecarily need graphics improvements, but performance-hampering bugs need to be sorted out. It’s getting a little silly that our computers cannot handle a game like this.
Sincerely
- Koruji/Ishayu (Stormscale)/Setherori (Aszune)
