World of Warcraft Tweaking

[Lenardo]

Read this today and damn if it didn't cut my Loading times in HALF and boosted my fps by ~25-50%...(at work , gonna try at home tonite)

Edit the config.wtf file ( in c:\program files\world of warcraft\wtf) and add this line

SET timingMethod "1"

you can have it set to 0,1, or 2
i used 1 and i tried it

first i timed how long it took for me to fully load my character into wow without this line-from hitting enter on login password to fully into game - 42 seconds

i fully exited wow, edited in the SET timingMethod "1" into the config.wtf and then restarted wow

15 seconds from login/pw enter hit to fully in game - i hadn't
moved my character at all;
then i went to stormwind- typically i get ~15-20 fps with this computer in stormwind...
35fps on the run to auction house entering the ah- ALL characters were loaded already- typically there is a few seconds where it loads everyone. gonna see what this does at home tonite...

[Azith Evertoon]

I seem to recall a similar change in everquest....
hum

[Aamen]

I run a fairly beefy rig....I average around 100 fps in Ironforge.

I tried this tweak which improved my loadtimes by about 5% but capped me at 64 fps. Unacceptable for me but I'm interested to hear performance improvements on low end rigs.

Also, tons of people do not optimize their setup -- things like vsync, to gain the most performance so I'm curious if people that see improvements from this tweak have tried the basics already.

[Tazer]

Ever since I installed Vista (Boo!) my wow performance has gone down the toilet. My framerate has been for shit. In the good ole XP days I too was getting 100ish fps in IF, and as much as 130 in quiet parts of the world.

Now I'm lucky if I get 40ish. Gonna rollback to XP today, but I digress...

This shaved roughly 25% off my load times, but did nothing for my frame rate.

[Twofists Afury]

Where in the file do you add this line? in the beginning? at the end? does it make a difference?

[Lenardo]

i added to the end, shouldn't make a difference whre you put it as long as it is in the file.

tried this at home with my lesser computer (the one i use)

1.5gig ram
amd 2.8 cpu athlon 64 (non dual core)
ati x800 video card

loading times were slightly faster, however the one thing i DEFINATELY noticed was the fact that things loaded up FASTER when flying by/to them

for example, this not in the file = me waiting ~2-3 seconds per stop doing the skettis egg bombing run waiting for the eggs to load. (using netherdrake mount & riding crop)
me waiting 2-3 seconds for the quest npc to load for turnin/getting quest
this setting in file = eggs there when i arrive- npc there on turning and acquisition of quest... it was a noticable change.

i might try setting 2 to see if there is more difference, i used 1. (i assume 0 = "off")


doing it to my other computer tonite

[guice666]

Anybody know what this setting means and what it's actually used for? I'd be curious to find out its real purpose and why it wasn't on by default in the first place.

[guice666]

Btw, it definitely turns something off. Different graphics like the bomb quest bomb marker stutters while I was flying.

However, it did really up my FPS.

[guice666]

Found it: http://www.wowwiki.com/CVar_timingMethod

That's odd....I don't have a duel core. 0.o

[Aamen]

Ok, did another test...ran the Fires of Skettis bombing circuit that Len ran, value set at "1", same as before: capped me at 64 FPS but the eggs did load faster...rather, I could 'see' them before I got to them.

So, I set the timing value to "2" and the FPS cap was gone (60-80 FPS around Skettis), load times a bit better, distant objects like the eggs were already drawn so overall a nice improvement. I'll have to do some more testing and hear from others but for now this is an improvement for me so I'm keeping the setting in place.

Btw my rig is basically:

Nvidia nForce 680i SLI MB
Intel Core2Duo E6600 2.4GHz
2 Gigs DDR2 Ram
Nvidia GForce 7950 GT
Win XP Pro

[Lenardo]

definately going to have to try setting 2..

the key is distant objects loading BEFORE you get there...which is nice for things like BOmbing Runs...

[wycca]

Thanks for the post Len, will help me in my Alliance noob ganking...