sarf

Read the Anand post linked in Kalroths post.

What I got from the article is this: for static data that is seldom changed but often read, SSDs are the best solution available at the moment. This makes placing WoWs Data directory on a SSD a very good idea. At the same time, for overwriting files, SSDs are currently not that good - this means that you shouldn't put your Interface, WTF or Cache directory there. My recommendation for maximum performance would be to set up a really fast harddrive (your Raptor would be ideal) with everything except the Data directory, and using Junction to put a link to WoW data files on the SSD.

In your case, having a Raptor is never wrong since you can simply stick the entire WoW directory on it and enjoy good loading speeds and not have to worry about splitting it up between drives and NTFS hardlink inconsistencies. That said, if you are feeling flush with cash, grabbing a small OCZ Core 30GB SSD and putting WoW data files there (and doing a junction) would give you the best of both worlds.

As it stands, SSDs that are not extremely high priced (such as the Intel X25 model) require special handling to be used to their full potential. My advice above is for the low priced SSDs. Correctly used (or with expensive enough hardware) you will get awesome performance (note that the same methodology can be used for any game which keeps static files in a separate directory - which is most games, these days - you can also do a junction from the SSD to a regular HDD if the game is static except for certain directories).

Be like a child - greedy, self-centered and immune from prosecution.

 

◊ nathanbp

From page 13 of Welcome to AnandTech.com [ Article: The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ], the minimum random write speed on a Vertex is still 50% faster than on a VelociRaptor (and the maximum is 5 times faster). The Intel X25 is still an order of magnitude faster, but there's no reason not to put your full WoW install on a 30 GB Vertex, especially if it's the only thing on there so you can wipe it every once in a while to restore it to "new" speeds.

Edit: Plus, reading tons of small files (like addons and data) is what normal hard drives are worst at. I'd speculate that if you have a lot of addons you might get a better loading performance increase out of just putting the interface and WTF folders on a ramdisk/SSD than putting the data files on one. Obviously having everything on a SSD is the best solution.

 

sarf

While it is true that normal harddrives suck at small files, they suck equally at random access of large files... which is what WoW does the whole time it is running (and especially during zone in to Dalaran). Reading small files is done at the beginning and writing them is done at the end. If we could do some sort of behind-the-scenes remounting of the Interface/WTF directory (from SSD to HDD) after WoW is done reading that would be best.

From the analysis someone made of a normal Dalaran login and how it hit the Data directory, I'd say that your best bang for the buck would be to store the Data directory on a cheap SSD. Of course, if money is no object, then put the entire thing on one of those battery-backed up RAM drives!

Be like a child - greedy, self-centered and immune from prosecution.

 

sp00n

WoW doesn't actually write to the Interface directory, does it?
As far as I know it only reads from there, so it would be a safe bet to place it on the SSD as well. Only when you update an addon, write access to the Interface folder does happen. But so is the same for the data folder when updating WoW itself.

Cahce and WTF would be the one where most of the write access happens, alongside /Logs if you enabled combat logging for example.

 

Lollersk8er

WoW doesn't write while it's running.

 

Kokolums

This post is for low-end computers.

my specs:

Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop (5 years old)
P4 2.8 GHZ
ATI Radeon 9700 128 MB video ram
2 GB Ram
XP

I turn all my settings to low except spell detail. My video resolution can go to 1900x1200, but I may run at 1280x800.

CRITICALLY IMPORTANT: Few people realize this but Blizz does not support setting Video > Resolution > Multisampling to 16-bit. That means two things. 1. You may experience some blockiness in this mode when viewing far-away objects or other anomalies and 2. When you exit the game and restart WoW, the graphics will default back to 24-bit. So you must set it to 16-bit every time you restart WoW. A lot of people may think that have set graphics to minimum but have not because of this. 16-bit offers a massive performance increase for some users. Run at 16-bit and 1xmultisample.

Under these settings, I won't lag in Dalran and I won't lag in WG even in the most intense fights.

Another tweak:

Here is a massive 25-page thread spanning a couple years from numerous gamers using various systems and games reporting on how alt-tabbing affects FPS.

8800 huge fps improvement after alt-tab. Did you notice this? - nV News Forums

Essentially it seems that for some people, alt-tabbing out and back-in can briefly spike framerates. I experience this myself on my video card running WoW. But as it turns out, it seems that alt-tabbing AT ALL can corrupt the engine in some way in many games.

There's a lot of confusing information in those 25 pages but after reading it I boiled it down to this tweak: If you are getting low FPS in WoW, change the resolution while in-game and do not alt-tab after you do so. When I log in, I set to 16-bit, I change it from 1280x800 to 1900x1200 and never alt-tab. If I do this, I can run at full resolution in WG in the most intense battles and I won't lag at all, even with viewing distance almost maxed, and that's with my pitiful 128 MB video card. If I alt-tab even once, I will start to chop and lag and it will appear my comp can't handle WoW...until I change the resolution in-game again.

Interestingly, logging out and back in won't stop the choking and lagging. Only changing the resolution in-game makes it run smoothly.

edit to add: I run XP

 

Blayze

Indeed. My last laptop could not handle WoW at the default settings it reset to, even with everything set down to minimum. I had to manually shift it into 16-bit to prevent it from lagging to absolute buggery ten minutes down the line.

As for Alt-Tabbing, I noticed a similar thing in KotOR 2. The planet Dantooine was an absolute nightmare to visit, as every few minutes the game started lagging hideously. Alt-Tabbing out and back in again solved the problem and returned the game to normal for the next few minutes, while also causing my characters to run across the map super-fast like fat children chasing after cake.

While it might not be WoW, it's not unheard of.

 

sp00n

It does, but only while zoning (not 100% sure though) and /console reloadui (which is basically the same).

 

Dibsclaw

A quick addition to this: When I first used this setting, upon entering a portal (on Sarth for instance) or using invisibility on my mage, my game screen went black. My UI etc was still visible. Updating my graphics drivers solved this issue as well as a lot of the blockiness reported above. So, if you are going to be using this setting test it out before performing any critical raid roles and get your drivers updated. It is a fantastic fps boost for my machine.

 

Enova

Is there any way to force the game to launch under these settings? I'm using an old GeForce 6800, and the nVidia control panel doesn't seem to be able to save the settings either.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Trashbag

This mod may be of interest to you guys trying to load in 16bit, I remember the frustration of having to deal with this while playing on my laptop so I bookmarked it in case I ever needed to play using those settings again

Gfx ( Gfx : WoWInterface Downloads : Graphic UI Mods )

 

Extenze

I got a few PM's cFos so I'll elaborate on it.

Feature List

cFos will work with whatever drivers you currently run your hardware on, it doesn't replace those. It changes how Windows handles the packets that are sent out, not how your hardware interacts.

Using cForSpeed on multiple computers on the same network, it has the ability to go into Variable (Cooperative) mode, which means that it'll adjust itself to variable amounts of bandwidth, working cooperatively with what the other computers on the network are doing.

For the most part, cFos is unobtrusive, and is hardly noticeable. (you can select multiple styles of skin, this one is Shinner's Skin (Transparent) available on the website). It shows incoming, outgoing, ping to cfos's site and few other things.

The only thing you need to mess with is the "Favor Ping/Favor Bandwidth" option available on the system tray icon. Other than that, there's not much to it. Of course there's a lot of options for favoring certain protocols, and applications of each other. cFos has a pretty easy to use interface for these settings.

Sorry about the grey fonts, I changed my system's theme and it doesn't show up well

 

sarf

Once again, if you wish to improve throughput solely for WoW and do not have problems with your ADSL connection maxing the outbound traffic, use Cadfael's Java proxy and FreeCap. Set up FreeCap to use localhost port 1180 (not 1080), run the Java proxy and run WoW from FreeCap.

As said, this solution does not work when you have problems other than WoWs network technology (such as maxing your upload bandwidth while on ADSL, preventing ACKs from going out and causing data to get resent). It will, however, provide a more targeted method for fixing WoW than changing the way the entire network stack behaves. Also, it's free.

Sorry for spamming the links (I think I have posted them before in this thread), but it might be good for people to try out a free, more targeted version before paying for a commercial network stack optimization package.

Be like a child - greedy, self-centered and immune from prosecution.

 

Machinator

Does Alt-Tab cause WoW to put more load on the network? I notice I get disconnected coming back from an Alt-Tab if I'm doing it a lot and wondering if it be related to what a couple people have mentioned here.

Also in many games there are advanced console commands or config files that give more options than just the menus, shaders, ambient lighting, force directx version and such. Trying to get more fps I looked at the WoW console commands and didn't see much that wasn't in the menu already. Is there no way to cfg like this in WoW?

"Information is ammunition."

 

sarf

I doubt it puts more load on the CPU - it may be that your computer prioritizes foreground processes and leaves WoW choking in the background, leaving it to time out after a relatively short while.

A double-check - you are aware of the AFK-autologout?

Be like a child - greedy, self-centered and immune from prosecution.

 

Machinator

Yeah, its not AFK, I can be in windowed mode and watch the game go behind say a browser, when I alt-tab back then it DCs, thought that was odd. I notice Ventrilo also DCs when I alt-tab a lot, though not at the same time as WoW, just in the same general time period (15m or so). This leads me to believe it might be something with my network card, but I don't know how to test that theory.

"Information is ammunition."

 

sarf

Very strange.

It seems more likely that you may have a few bad sectors in the harddrive where your swapfile resides, and when swapping back the application it gets corrupted... but that would require extremely selective bad sectors to only produce DCs and not crashes.

Check your hardware - buy a network card or borrow one from a friend if you can to eliminate the possible failure sources.

Be like a child - greedy, self-centered and immune from prosecution.

 

Machinator

Its something that has persisted over several hard drive formats, just this conversation reminded me of it. If I get around to it I'll try another network card.

I didn't see it mentioned but there is a console command to set the fps WoW runs at while in the backround, might help those who are getting CPU chewed up while alt-tabbed outside WoW.

"Information is ammunition."

 

Qrt

I had similar issues with alt-tabbing in the past but I put them down to Firefox being a resource-hog with bad memory-leak problems. In later updates of Firefox the issues have all but vanished, but I never raid with my browser open in the background just in case.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Igor, help me with the bags.
Igor: Soitenly. You take the blonde, I'll take the one in the turban.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I was talking about the luggage.

 

◊ Caffeine

/console maxfpsbk 5
sets the maximum fps while alt-tabbed to 5, /console maxfpsbk 0 to remove the throttle.

For Mac users that often keep Safari open while playing, I can't recommend ClickToFlash (rentzsch's clicktoflash at master - GitHub) enough. It replaces flash items with a clickable button, click it and it will load the embedded flash. Really helped me with performance on my Macbook Pro since Flash tends to eat a lot of CPU time.

 

matt889

I notice I was getting alot of Lag in Naxx 25 on Saph with spell level detail on max, when I lowered the Spell Level Detail I went from around 5fps to around 20fps. So now I only turn the spell level detail up when I need it.

Specs:
Nvidia 8600gt
Intel Dual Core e2200
3gigs ram

 

SmellFunky

I currently play at 1200x768 (wide) windowed. My desktop resolution is 1920x1200 because I have a 24" monitor. I was wondering: Do I get better performance if I run WoW in full screen or is it better to run windows (same res, same gfx settings).

 

sp00n

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly, but well, why not just try it?

Many posters in this thread stated that running in full screen is faster than windowed mode, which I cannot really support from personal experience though (the last time I was running in full screen was back in BWL, where the Razorgore encounter absolutely destroyed my FPS - otherwise I simply cannot stand having no quick access to my other open windows (browser, minesweeper) while waiting for the raid).

However, switching from 1200x768 windowed to 1920x1200 full screen might very well turn out to be a shoot in your own foot in terms of FPS. You could try to lower your in-game resolution to your current 1200x768 in full screen (if it's that what you meant), but then you'll have to deal with interpolation by running in a non native resolution, and depending on how good your monitor handles this, it might be perfectly fine or an absolute no-go.

 

chaud

This can likely be explained by the improved multicore support in 3.1. See here and here for the details.

 

Arvak-

I'm wondering if anyone else that uses and NV 8600GT has experienced serious framerate drops since the release of 3.0? I'm talking about 25-man raids in particular, and only during combat. I've already ruled out addons. Basically, I want to know if anyone else using this particular line of graphics cards is having similar performance?