World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively popular MMORPG game that has been entertaining players for over 15 years. However, with its demanding memory and CPU utilization, it can be challenging for players to maintain a high frame rate. Whether you're a seasoned player or a newcomer to the game, optimizing your settings can make a big difference in your experience. In this article, we'll guide you through the best practices to boost your FPS and increase your overall performance in World of Warcraft.

Optimize World of Warcraft In-Game Settings

Changing your World of Warcraft settings usually makes the biggest performance improvement for low to mid-end systems. Open up your settings, and make changes according to your system’s specifications. Most of the setting changes showcased apply to low-end PCs. If you experience performance issues while using the recommended system requirements, then follow the next steps.

Grapihcs Settings — WoW Graphics Settings

Lower your Graphics Settings

Navigate to your settings, and in the Graphics tab, set the screen resolution and aspect ratio to your native monitor resolution. If you still need more performance after all the tweaks, consider lowering the resolution scale from 100% to around 90%. This will reduce the visual quality, but your performance will increase quite a bit.

Set the monitor option to the desired monitor and deactivate Anti-Aliasing and VSync. As for the quality settings, set the Texture Resolution option to fair or low, depending on your GPU. Spell Density to half, enable Projected Textures, and set the View Distance option to about 7, which is the default value. Environment Detail and Ground Clutter are set to 1; unless you have the power to spare, you can increase them to around 3 to 4. Set Shadow Quality to Low, Liquid Detail to Fair, disable Sunshafts, set Particle Density option to Low, SSAO to Low, disable Depth of Field, and disable Outline Mode. Don’t forget to hit apply the changes.

Advanced Video Settings

Make sure to enable the Raid and Battleground settings, these will be applied when in a raid or battleground. It would be best to lower these options reasonably, as these will be applied when you play in large groups. Reduce your Spell Density, Liquid Detail, and other effects options before applying your changes again.

In the Advanced settings, activate Triple Buffering, and set the Texture Filtering option to 2x Anisotropic. Deactivate Ray Traced Shadows, set the Ambient Occlusion type to auto detect, deactivate MSAA, activate Multisample Alpha Test, and deactivate the Post-Processing AA and Resample Quality options. Make sure you set the Graphics API option to the highest DirectX version you can set. Set the Graphics Card option to your primary GPU, then on the right hand side, make sure you set the maximum FPS for the foreground to a value above the refresh rate of your screen, but below the maximum FPS you can achieve.

Change WoW Process Priority

To further increase the World of Warcraft performance on your PC, we will change the application’s priority compared to other programs running in the background.

Right-click your taskbar to open up your Task Manager. In the Processes tab, right-click the World of Warcraft process and select go to details. In the Details tab, the application should be highlighted. Right-click the game process and set the priority to high.

Don’t change the priority to High in case the game is already using up 100% of your CPU capabilities.

This will, in turn, allocate more resources to playing World of Warcraft and should increase your performance, especially if you have other programs running in the background.

To reduce the CPU utilization from other programs, I suggest you end some programs from running in the background, which you don't need when playing World of Warcraft. Make sure to only end programs from running that you know won't break your operating system. In the Startup tab, you can prevent programs from starting on system boot.

Update Graphics Card Driver

NVIDIA graphics cards can utilize the GeForce Experience application. Click here to download the application to your system. When the download is completed, open up the application, and in the Drivers tab, select Download. This will download and install the latest GPU update and should take a few minutes to complete.

Update Operating System

To optimize your system for performance, you should ensure that your operating system is up to date. Simply search for Update in your taskbar search. In your Check for updates system settings window, make sure to download the latest update and make sure to restart your PC after that the download is completed. This will in any case help you with performance issues.

Windows Update.jpg — Windows Settings > Windows Update

Disable Xbox Game Bar Recording

Some native Windows 10 settings can reduce your overall performance while playing World of Warcraft. Disable the Game Bar recording option, as it continuously records your gameplay and audio.

In your taskbar search, enter: Game Bar to open up the game bar system settings.

Make sure to uncheck the recording option. In the Captures tab, make sure to disable the background recording option. These settings will only reduce your performance. If you want to record your gameplay, I suggest using OBS Studio or an external capture card if you lack performance.

Optimize NVIDIA Control Panel Settings for Gaming

Making changes to your NVIDIA control panel can be essential. Change a few options in your NVIDIA control panel to improve the World of Warcraft performance on your system.

Right-click your desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel to open up your NVIDIA control panel. In your control panel, navigate to Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings.

NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings

Select Add a program to customize and then add the game from the program list. If you cannot find World of Warcraft in the program list, click on Browse. In your file explorer, you will have to locate the drive and path on which you installed World of Warcraft and add it to the program list.

Make sure that the CUDA setting is set to your primary GPU, set the Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance, and set the texture filtering quality to Performance.

Windows 10 Graphics Settings

Windows 10 allows you to utilize power user settings, such as your graphics settings. To change your graphics settings, enter Graphics Settings in your taskbar search to open up your native settings.

When selecting Browse your file explorer will open up, where you will have to navigate to the drive and path where the game is saved. After adding the program to your graphics settings list, the operating system lets you choose between:

Let Windows choose
Power Saving (Usually Intel HD Graphics)
High Performance (Usually, your graphics card(s)
Specific GPU (Choose which GPU to use)

For the most system performance, use the High-Performance option. If your GPU is bottlenecking your performance, you should set it to Let Windows Decide. Don't forget to apply your changes.

Delete Windows Temporary Files

Your hard drive might be cluttered with unwanted files. These files will induce lag if not removed properly. You can delete your temporary files manually or use PC cleanup programs, such as CCleaner. These applications are usually the best choice as it will automatically keep your hard-drive clean for you. To manually delete your temporary files, enter %temp% in your taskbar search and hit enter. A new folder will open up. Make sure to delete the content of your temporary files folder.

Sometimes, this can take a couple of minutes if you haven’t done this before. Some files will most likely stay in your temp folder, as these are still in use by your programs. To completely delete these files, you should also make sure to empty your recycle bin.

Lag in WoW can be caused by a number of factors such as outdated drivers, hardware issues, or poor internet connection. It's best to troubleshoot each of these issues to narrow down the root cause of the problem.
Lowering the graphics settings such as view distance, texture quality, and particle density can significantly improve your FPS. It's also a good idea to turn off shadows and reduce the anti-aliasing for better performance.
Yes, updating your graphics card drivers can improve performance and fix any compatibility issues with the game.
Yes, overclocking your CPU or GPU can increase your FPS and overall performance. However, it's important to be careful when overclocking as it can cause overheating and damage to your hardware if not done correctly.
Using an SSD can significantly improve the loading times and performance of WoW. It's recommended to use an SSD for the game installation and storage to avoid any bottlenecks.