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Some (not-so-basic) Tweaks I've found for computer performance improvements for playing WoW.
I read a lot of message boards and waded through a fair amount of discussion about the tweaks and how they were discovered and tested. This page is for those that want the result, but don't particularly care to do the wading themselves. (For those that like wading, while other sites had information, this thread did the best job at pulling it all together. Many Thanks to Strunker for all the work he did doing that.)
Collectivly these changes took me from WoW video settings of Fair-to-Good at 12 fps to High-to-Ultra at 16fps and reduced my latency from 90-120ms to 35-50ms.
You will need to restart WoW after making the 'Cores' fix, and restart your computer after you've made all the other fixes listed that you choose to apply. No need to restart after each one, but there is a need to restart after you've applied them all, or all that you're going to.
OK...There are essentially 4 fixes I'm going to discuss, each with a short discussion so you can decide if you think it's useful to you. For more in depth information, see the link above.
Presented here in my opinion of the order of importance:
NOTE! If using both, I suggest using the fix I suggest here for the Nagle Algorithm fix first, even though overall I think the TCPAckFrequency fix is overall more important.
1. The 'TCPAck' Fix
2. The 'Nagle Algorithm' Fix
3. The 'Cores' Fix
4. The 'Core Parking' Fix (Windows 7 Only)
The 'TCPAck' Fix
Windows, by default does not send acknowledgments of packets recieved for each packet it recieves as it recieves them. It queues them and sends several at once. For standard web browsing, email and other 'normal' internet functions, this is fine. In gaming it increases latency since the gaming server waits for an ack or for a period of time before sending more packets. This fix is the single biggest reason my latency dropped so drastically.
Leatrix put together several VBS scripts to apply it, remove it, or check for it. They work well and can be downloaded here or here.
The 'Nagle Algorithm' Fix
Much like the TCPAck Fix, but the other way around, sort of. TCP/IP standards call for small amounts of data that need to be sent (not acknowledgements, but data sent, which is what makes this different) to be queued and sent in a 'batch' if you will. Again, this works find for 'normal' web use, but increases game latency. Strunker, mentioned above, wrote a batch file that changes this. It also makes the TCPAck fix, but, by Strunker's own admission, and I agree with him, Leatrix's script is better at making the TCPAck fix. Strunker's batch file also deals with the 'Core Parking Fix'.
Strunker's batch file can be downloaded here or here. Don't let the name scare you - I've used it and it's fine. If asked to run or save when downloading, save it to someplace you know where you put it and run it from there. It gives you a choice of which of it's possible fixes you want to perform when it runs.
The 'Cores' Fix
Depending on how many Processors Cores your machine has and wether or not your machine is HyperThreaded, WoW may not optimize your core usage. So first we have to determine those things and then decided what to do with the information.
How many cores?
If you right-click 'Computer' (or 'My Computer') it will tell you the processor type and a quick Google searh of that should tell you how many cores you have.
WTF is 'Hyperthreading?
That's not important right now, but to find out if your machine is HT (HyperThreaded) or not, open 'Task Manager' (Right-click the task bar and choose 'Task Manager' or 'Start Task Manager') and then click on the 'Performance' tab. If you have the same number of processors showing there as your Google search told you there were cores in your processor, your machine is NOT HT. If you have double the number the Google search told you that you had cores, Then your machine IS HT. For most of you reading this, your machines won't be HT.
Now, what to do with this information? We're going to add a line (or change a line) in your 'config.wtf' file located in teh 'WTF' directory of your WoW directory. Open that file in Notepad (or the text editor of your choice) and look for
SET processAffinityMask "X"
where X is some number. If it's there, we're going to change it, and if not, we're going to add it.
My recommendations for what number to use are listed in the table below. For more information to make a different choice if you like, see the link for 'wading' in the first paragraph.
| Cores | HyperThreaded? | Setting |
|---|
| 4 | Yes | 84 |
| 4 | No | 15 |
| 2 | Yes | 5 |
| 2 | No | 5 |
| If you have a single core, no change or addition to the config.WTF is necessary. |
The 'Core Parking' Fix (Windows 7 Only)
WoW, on it's own usually, and certainly with the 'Core' Change above, will run different parts of itself (or 'engines') on different processor cores. This is a good thing. Windows 7, in it's infinite wisdom, can sometimes decide that a processor core isn't busy enough and move the processess running on it to other cores, and 'Park' that core, to conserve energy and very marginally lower the processor temparature. Yet again, fine for normal computer useage, but not optimal for gaming. Strunker's batch file can also disable that feature in Widnows 7.
Strunker's batch file can be downloaded here or here. Don't let the name scare you - I've used it and it's fine. If asked to run or save, save it to someplace you know where you put it and run it from there. It gives you a choice of which of it's possible fixes you want to perform when it runs.
I hope this information was brief enough to not put anyone to sleep, and sufficient to give you the information and tools you might need to tweak your systems a bit. I expect anyone reading this already knows me, but if not and you care, I usually play on Lothar either as Volshan or Losamra.
Happy Gaming
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