World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a game that is very well supported by Blizzard Entertainment. Even in its release in 2004, it had relatively simple graphics that ran on low hardware requirements for the time. Total game size has just been optimized, and a fresh install is just under 25GB. However, there are some very simple graphical tweaks that can make the game load much faster.
Graphical Tweaks
Multimonitor Support
On a multi-monitor display, depending on which monitor the window is initially launched in before setting Windowed (Fullscreen) mode, it is possible to run two or more windowed fullscreen instances of World of Warcraft (or other compatible games, like Starcraft II) on the other monitor(s).
Denser Foliage and Clutter
It is possible to increase the foliage/clutter density of the game further than the slider allows using this command:
/console groundEffectDensity 256
If performance is no longer at an acceptable level, this change can be reverted by adjusting the ground effect density slider in the graphics options.
Windowed mode on Mac
For a long time there was a bug where the player was unable to drag the screen after having gone into windowed mode which meant that the player couldn't decide on the screen size except for the defaults. In later patches this was fixed but in some rare cases the issue still persists. Follow these steps if you're still having the problem:
- Open World of Warcraft - Disable all add-ons at the character screen - Enter the game - Enter windowed mode (command+m or command+enter) - Force quit the game - Relaunch it as normal
This should fix it, if not just temporarily.
Performance Improvements
DirectX 11 Rendering
One of the new features in Cataclysm is WoW's ability to render using the DirectX 11 API. DirectX 11 can significantly boost performance in some scenarios (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3229374095) This API can be enabled on systems running a DirectX 10, 10.1, or 11-compliant graphics card and operating system. This includes all graphics cards from the nVidia GeForce 8000-series and up, and all ATI cards from the Radeon HD 2000-series and up; some Intel chips support this as well, but the differences are far more subtle and there is a higher risk for issues to crop up.
In addition to just having the right GPU, you must also have an OS that supports DirectX 10/11. For full DirectX 11 rendering, you need Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 of any flavor. Windows Vista without Service Pack 2 will be able to run the API still, but it will only use shader model 4.0 (DX10).
This option can be enabled by going to Options, navigating to the Advanced tab and then changing the graphics API to DirectX 11.
Texture Cache Size (DirectX 9 ONLY)
gxTextureCacheSize is a CVar that affects the D3D9 API; if you're already using DirectX 10/11 mode, this CVar will not have any affect. This variable decides how much memory - in megabytes - to use for caching textures. The default value is '0', meaning the game will dynamically adjust the cache. Some players have found better performance - particularly with rapid camera movements - by manually selecting a value for this. As a general rule of thumb, ~70-75% of your VRAM tends to be the best value. For example, if you have a 1.5 GB GTX 480, a good value to try would be 1152 MB. The syntax would look like this:
SET gxTextureCacheSize "1152"
For quick reference, these are 75% values. Feel free to use more or less as depending on specific configuration settings.
- 128 MB: 96
- 256 MB: 192
- 384 MB: 288
- 512 MB: 384
- 768 MB: 576
- 896 MB: 672
- 1 GB: 768
- 1.125 GB: 864
- 1.25 GB: 960
- 1.5 GB: 1152
- 2 GB: 1536
gxTextureCacheSize allows pretty much any whole number, but be sure not to set it too low or too high. If set too low, you will not properly utilize your video memory; if set too high, you'll start using system RAM instead, negatively impacting performance. Values below 32 MB and above 2047 MB always seem to yield terrible performance.
SSD
If World of Warcraft is installed on an SSD, this will drastically decrease the load times for zoning.
Move SSD Cache
The World of Warcraft cache folder is required to hold uncompressed files and hotfix data. To save space on the SSD, it is possible to junction link the cache folder to a different drive. This should save approximately 7.5 GB of space on the SSD, although it may incur a minor performance hit.
mklink /j "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\Data\Cache" "D:\Games\Blizzard Stuff\World of Warcraft\Data\Cache\"
Save Game Data
Config Location
C:\Games\World of Warcraft\WTF\[ACCOUNTNAME]\
Config Cloud Sync
Dropbox: yes Live Mesh 2011: yes, but Dropbox is faster and more reliable in this instance
World of Warcraft config cloud sync guide available on Shiny Hacks.
Improvements
Borderless Windowed Fullscreen
This is natively supported as Windowed (Fullscreen).