64-bit or 32-bit?

[nusse]

System: Dell 1645 XPS .. ATI Mobility 1 GB HD 4870 (I think .. definitely a HD 4XXX series) 6GB of RAM. Kernel 2.6.35

Anyway .. I am using the 10.9 drivers on Linux mint (but seeing this on other distros I have tried .. all ubuntu/debian based) and trying to play World of Warcraft through wine and getting rather poor performance. Typically around 30-40 fps.

My question is, is that what I should expect? Should I try 32-bit as opposed to 64-bit perhaps? That is about the only thing I think I haven't tried to get better performance.

Or am I expecting too much from ATI at the moment? I just figure in the past when I played on a lower-end laptop I saw better frames than this and it is something I am either not doing right, or not configured.

Any help is appreciated.

[rohcQaH]

I really doubt that 32bit will make any difference.

I don't know how fast WoW is supposed to be, but Wine can add a certain amount of overhead. appdb.winehq.org probably has some app-specific wine-tweaks you could try.

[Panix]

the bottelnek of "World of Warcraft" is the CPU on -windows and WINE need much more CPU power.

Nice try.

The min. cpu option on a Dell XPS 1645 is an Intel i7. The processor won't be the bottleneck. Could be a WINE issue or amazingly enough, maybe a video driver?

[nusse]

the bottelnek of "World of Warcraft" is the CPU on -windows and WINE need much more CPU power.

do can start WOW in the OpenGL mode but some features don't work in the GL mode like the minimap.

the CPU is an i7, so I should be okay there.

I just noticed that they released a new BIOS that is supposedly fixing a lot of performance issues .. specifically CPU throttling .. so I will give that a go and see if I don't notice an improvement.

[Panix]

But, the mobile cpu is still an i7! You are saying it's the cpu?!?

OP. here's some links that may or may not help but at least there might be some relevant info someplace:

http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_Warcraft_functionality_on_Wine

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WorldofWarcraft

http://gamegate2k.com/world-of-warcraft/run-wow-on-linux/

http://iloverobots.net/2010/09/22/world-warcraft-ubuntu/

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=17421

[droidhacker]

Wow. Its an "i7". Is that supposed to mean something? That chip is mediocre at best (in the grand scheme of things), and it certainly isn't an incredible speed monster. On top of that, in order to achieve its potential, code needs to be compiled to take advantage of ITS characteristics -- not a first-generation K8. You're throwing a generic-compiled 32bit wine and windoze application at it! Its NOT going to be fast!

[Panix]

I can't believe that an i7 cpu is the bottleneck. That makes no sense. WOW is not an intensive game. I have seen a Gentoo user with no more powerful than a standard Core 2 Duo machine run it fine. Also, Windows users running it with Pentium 4 systems. The OP might want to try lowering resolution or other settings but to say his i7 cpu is bottlenecking sounds crazy to me.

[Panix]

I just witnessed it running what I thought was okay on older machines, that's all.

But, this page seems to imply the frames aren't going to be all that impressive.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,693737/WoW-Wrath-of-the-Lich-King-CPU-benchmarks-with-Phenom-II-and-Core-i5/Practice/

I guess I'm done contributing to the thread. Hopefully, the OP finds the links I posted, useful.

[squirrl]

There were graphics updates to the latest revision of World of Warcraft. Generally you can't expect to turn the resolution to it's peak and enable all the advanced options for graphics.

Wine may not be an emulator according to its' authors but it's still translating calls to Direct3D into OpenGL calls farther passing them on to the OpenGL driver mechanisms.

http://www.notebookreview.com/price/product.asp?productFamilyID=1326&pid=252186

LCD's look best at their highest resolution but the games have never played good at this values. That is one of the perks to having a monitor. 800x600 still looked as superb as 1680x1050. Refresh rates over 80hz were excellent. Another scam to make you buy a better video card. Even the xbox 360 can't seem to play gaves over 720p .. 1280x720 and it's a radeon with a 3-core Xenon.


So with all that said you really only have 2 options.

Linux: lowest settings and resolution
Windows: Highest settings.

Respect

[cb88]

Sure it may be cpu bound.. I really can't see calling it cpu bottlenecked as that implies a slower than normal cpu whereas this is a faster than average cpu.