[Wine] WoW Performance - Degrades over Time

[Nom]

Hi All,

I've posted for some suggestions in the WoW forums, but it's been suggested that I post here as well, as I'm more likely to get someone who has a clue :)

PROBLEM
======

After an extended play time in one area (~ 1 hour), or rapid travel between areas, the performance degrades substantially. It goes from 60+ FPS to about 5FPS and doesn't recover until I restart the game. 

A restart brings an instant performance boost, even in the same area I just logged out. For instance, I was just in Icecrown (up in the air, looking at a large landscape), getting 5fps. I logged out and in, and am now getting 45fps.  This seems to indicate it's not a graphics performance issue (ie. I don't have quality settings set too high).

It's not just the low framerate either, it's constantly stop-starting which basically adds up to making it near impossible to play. 


HARDWARE/CONFIG
=============
CPU - AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor (@2.6GHz)
Memory: 4GB
Video Card: GeForce 9800 GT Card

OS: Fedora 10
Wine Version: 1.1.14 (Fedora package)


OTHER NOTES
=========
I've noted that memory usage is sensible.  Prior to writing this post, I just restarted a game which only had a resident size of 980mb.  The OS had plenty of free memory.

I've adjusted just about every setting or tweak in the game to try and isolate the issue, including different timing mode settings which can be tweaked.  Nothing has succeeded in resolving the issue.

The problem has persisted through multiple Wine versions, and seems to get no better or worse.


Thanks in advance for any help :)