WoW unplayable in windowed mode

Zil wrote:
> Mark (newsgroups) <marknewsgroups RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I've always played WoW in full screen mode, but recently tried windowed.
>> When I try, it slows to a crawl, less than 1 fps, I can actually see the
>> redraw happening. My framerates are otherwise decent (full screen mode),
>> and my machine isn't bad:
>> Athlon 64 3500+
>> 2GB Ram
>> Radeon X1950 Pro
>> Windows XP
>> ViewSonic LCD
>>
>> I tried dechecking vertical resynch. I suppose I could try lowering my
>> graphics settings, but it that's the case then I won't bother with
>> windowed mode. I can understand taking a knock in fps, but not to this
>> extent. Surely something else is going on? Anyone have any ideas?
>
>
> I run WoW in windowed mode without problem, so it's not a generic WoW
> issue.
>
> I get a decrease in FPS in windows mode, but it's only a small decrease.
>
> I'm on Windows Vista though, with an nVidia 8800GTX, so maybe it's
> a driver issue (I was never a big fan of ATI drivers). It may be worth
> making sure you've got the latest stable driver for your video card.

I'll check this out.

I did some more playing around, setting to 800x600, decreasing all my
settings to lowest, and I get a small increase, but still only get 7fps
in windowed mode. There is definitely something wrong because as I
mentioned, Guild Wars played perfectly in windowed mode at high settings.

> I would also suggest (as someone else has already done in this thread)
> checking the colour depth of the Windows desktop (right-click your
> desktop, select Properties -> Settings, then check the Colour Quality
> box - make sure it's set to the same number of bits as WoW is.

I tried this, my desktop was set at 32 bit, WoW at 24 bit. I decreased
them both to 16, no difference. Are you saying that everyone who runs
WoW in windowed mode has to decrease there windows colour deptch to 16
bit? I doubt that.

Mark (newsgroups) wrote:
> I've always played WoW in full screen mode, but recently tried windowed.
> When I try, it slows to a crawl, less than 1 fps, I can actually see the
> redraw happening. My framerates are otherwise decent (full screen mode),
> and my machine isn't bad:
> Athlon 64 3500+
> 2GB Ram
> Radeon X1950 Pro
> Windows XP
> ViewSonic LCD
>
> I tried dechecking vertical resynch. I suppose I could try lowering my
> graphics settings, but it that's the case then I won't bother with
> windowed mode. I can understand taking a knock in fps, but not to this
> extent. Surely something else is going on? Anyone have any ideas?

Well, I finally found some information about this.

http://tinyurl.com/2wlm4u

If I set the multisampling in WoW to 1x it solves the problem of
unplayable FPS, but really it's no solution at all. I don't want to look
at jagged edges all the time, WoW looks noticeable worse with 1x AA.

So I guess I'll just have to stick to fullscreen mode.