How do I increase my game FPS?

Question

Level 1

5 points

How do I increase my game FPS?

World of Warcraft's in game FPS is very low, and in raid environment where multi-player spells and graphics are going off I even have frame lock ups.
Searching around on google, I found limitless tip and tricks for Windows users, but nothing for Max OS X users.
Any tips or info on where to look would be appreciated.
Somethings I found that could cross over to mac from pc users (but I don't know how to do):
1. Somehow telling your system to use all cores at high setting (as to one used and one playing it cool)
2. Disabling power efficiency settings, allowing your computer to max it performance
3. Marking the Program (ex:World of Warcraft) as high priority for CPU processing

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.6.6), 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Posted on Feb 13, 2011 8:51 AM

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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

170,616 points

Feb 9, 2017 7:59 AM in response to Sgt. jayB

hd will only make it load faster it will not make the game itself run more fluid

more memory could help but as stated video card will likely be the limitation so lowering resolution and eye candy is the best way to get more fps

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Answer 2

BSteely

Level 5

7,643 points

Feb 13, 2011 8:59 AM in response to WoWgamer

4. Drop the screen resolution to something lower than max

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Answer 3

WoWgamer Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 13, 2011 9:35 AM in response to BSteely

Two setting options for screen resolution:
1-Regular (text and chat messages are less clear then webpages (unless you turn particle density up, which I have at lowest setting)

2-Think Zelda graphics.. but fuzzy. I'm not willing to play the game if I can't even read any text on the screen because it looks like a smeared Picasso painting.

I have followed the games website Optimum settings for my specific Mac Mini's best in-game performance. This is a question for what I can do Out-of-Game.
Thanks

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Answer 4

BSteely

Level 5

7,643 points

Feb 13, 2011 12:20 PM in response to WoWgamer

I meant lowering the resolution outside of the game, e.g. through Displays Preferences. You can still stay with "1-Regular" in that case.

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Answer 5

WoWgamer Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 13, 2011 5:04 PM in response to BSteely

Ahh, I just tried it when I read your post, and no change what so ever in FPS. Surprisingly. Because when I put it on Picasso mode in-game, it gives me noticeable gains in FPS (when i reduce from 1270X down to 840) However when I went in game with my display setting for the OSX at 840- the game only had the 840 option, and it was as low of frame rate, as when it was at 1270.
I wish I could customize the resolution on the screen, because some where in between the two would still be visible enough to read in game text, and at the same time give me enough FPS to Raid the 25 during high spell activity encounters.

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Answer 6

Feb 13, 2011 6:41 PM in response to BSteely

I'm a WoW gamer too, and this is the best fix. I usually run at max resolution.. but in WoW.. turning it down will really pick up the frames per second.

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Answer 7

WoWgamer Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 13, 2011 10:58 PM in response to VGA d1sc1pL3

That does help. 1 thing I did find out through a few more hours of looking and reading.
I run world of warcraft, and open *activity monitor* so it shows me the PID (process ID) for me it was 568
then i ran Terminal and put in the following sudo renice -20 568 [enter] had to put my password _ then it seemed to run wow a bit smoother.
It basically told wow at (-20) it had the processors priority on cycling (as to what I understand).
-20 is max setting u can put a process to as priority, and vs vas giving it a +20 will make it least priority for cpu recycling.

Only prob I had with this. And i tested it.
I closed wow and ran it again.. well this time is was PID :601. so I am guessing that my previous command of 568 is now useless or (I hope not) assigning 601 to some other random process that I don't want to have priority.

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Answer 8

Jul 12, 2013 12:47 AM in response to WoWgamer

for 3d games u can always set the graphics to medium but, it will make ur game lagg at certain point, but it all depends on ur hardware, u either upgrade ur mac to something better like

16gb RAM DDR5

NVIDIA with at least a 2 to 4 gb of Graphics RAM

Quad-Core i7 3.6 to 3.8 GHz

( I know this is expensive but then again, this WILL MAKE YOUR MAC AND IT'S GAMING EXPERIENCE AMAZING AND FAST AS ****! )

You should update your OS X because it has those graphics drivers in them but, apple never tells u about the graphics update they feature inside those OS updates, trust me, i had skyrim and i have a 10gb RAM and with INTEL 3000 1000mb, that game lagged a **** lot, trust me, and at that time i had 10.8.1, i didnt know about other updates, just didnt get time. So as soon as i updated straight to 10.8.4, Skyrim never lagged! the driver updates were so good that it improved the FPS in all the games, from crappy ones like minecraft, to awesome games like Far Cry 3 or Dead Island Riptide!

so i really prefer a hardware update with OS X updates

Thank you! and hope this helped u!

Message was edited by: maclover1234 itself :)

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Answer 9

Feb 9, 2017 7:38 AM in response to WoWgamer

I too play WOW, I am about to upgrade my HD with a SSD model from Crucial and increase the RAM to 16gb. Anyone try this? Don't know how much it will help during raids.

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Answer 10

Rudegar

Level 10

170,616 points

Feb 9, 2017 7:58 AM in response to WoWgamer

likely the video card which is the bottleneck not the cpu

so lower the resolution and eye candy in the game

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