# Reducing Latency for World of Warcraft - TUTORIAL



## GnBanditoCI5

**Admins, feel free to sticky this post if you wish**

*Reducing Latency for World of Warcraft*

Ok, due to the overwhelming outcries of MY GOD I CANT EVEN MOVE IN DALARAN that are welling up out of the underground sewer pipes. I have decided to write this tutorial on things that MAY help you tweek out your computer to maybe make the pain seem a little less.

As always, I hope they help, and I claim NO responsibility for any damages that may arise from those of you who dont have a clue messin up their computers..LOL. But with that said, as long as you follow these steps PRECISLY, you shouldnt have anything to worry about.

Here we go.....

One way to reduce latency is by use of a PAID service called GamePath http://www.gamepath.net , I have never used this service, but it looks good on paper.

They claim....
"Lower your WoW ping drastically, especially for Oceanic players! Our servers are strategically hosted in various parts of the US to provide you with optimal route and latency to the World of Warcraft USA game servers. 
The server acts as a middleman to regulate traffic and also to bypass certain limitations of TCP/IP thereby enabling better connectivity and responsiveness! 
"
Again, I have never used the service, nor know anyone that has, *USE AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!*

Now on to the nitty gritty, tried and true methods....

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*EDIT REGISTRY TO REDUCE LATENCY*

1. Click START / RUN
2. Type CMD
3. Type ipconfig
4. Get your IP address (write it down), close command prompt window.

5. Click START / RUN
6. Type regedit
7. BACKUP RGISTRY (Highlight "MY COMPUTER" in registry, right click it and select "EXPORT" point it to your desktop and name it "Registry Backup", make sure EXPORT RANGE is set to ALL, click save)
8. Navigate registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
9. Click on folders listed and find the folder that lists YOUR IP as one of the values in the right hand pane ( such as a value named "DhcpDefaultGateway" and/or "DhcpIPAddress"
10. Now that you found the correct folder, put your mouse pointer in the white field on the right hand side, in an empty area and RIGHT CLICK
11. Choose NEW / DWORD VALUE
12. It will create a new registry key in the list, which will already be highlighted and named "New Value #1"
13. Rename that key "TcpAckFrequency" ( WITHOUT THE "" quotes - just TcpAckFrequency )
14. Right click on the new registry key and select MODIFY
15. In the "VALUE DATA" field change the vlaue from 0 to 1
16. Click OK
17. Close the registry editor by clicking the X on top right corner

18. Click START / CONTROL PANEL / NETWORK CONNECTIONS
19. RIGHT CLICK on your MAIN internet connection, most likely named "Local Area Connection" and select DISABLE
20. Give it a second to do its thing and disable your connection.
21. RIGHT CLICK it again and select ENABLE, this will force it to grab a new connection and make use of the changes you made in the registry.

Thats it, Enjoy,
GnBanditoCI5

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*DECREASING LATANCY BY REMOVING OLD PATCHES YOU NO LONGER NEED*

1. Navigate to your World of Warcraft install directory, ( USUALLY "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft" )

2. You will find in this folder all the patches that have been downloaded and ALREADY installed into the game, so you will NO LONGER need them.

3. The files you are looking for are not only the PATCHES themselves, but ALSO the downloaded .exe for the respective patch.

4. You are looking for files with names similar to this "WoW-2.3.0.7561-to-2.3.2.7741-enUS-patch.exe" that is the patch and "WoW-2.3.0.7561-to-2.3.2.7741-enUS-downloader.exe" is the downloader for THAT patch. The files have icons as follows....The Downloader icon looks like a Tornado and the patch icon looks like stars falling.

5. Highlight BOTH MATCHING files, and either RIGHT click and select DELETE or simply hit the DELETE key on your keyboard.

6. Now all you need to do is simply browse that folder for ANY and ALL files that meet that criteria. For every patch.exe there will be a downloader.exe file. Again, highlight them BOTH and delete.

7. You MAY find that you have a few extra DOWNLOADER files, but no patch to go with them, you can go ahead and delete them as well. As well as any files named something similar to this "WoW-2.3.0-enUS-patch.exe.PART" that is simply a patch that isnt finished downloading for whatever reason, such as you may have downloaded a specific patch from fileplanet and installed it, therefore the game detected you no longer NEED that patch and stopped downloading.

**IMPORTANT**
You may notice there IS a folder in that directory named "PATCHES", this is the folder used by the blizzard downloader to download CURRENT patches such as 3.0.9-to-3.1.0, so I would suggest you leave that folder alone unless you want to redownload the entire patch again )~

Thats it...Enjoy,
GnBanditoCI5

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*DECREASE LATENCY BY NOT DOWNLOADING PATCHES IN THE BACKGROUND WHILE YOU PLAY*

This one is simple but will bypass the NEWS SCREEN application and in the process NOT download patches while you play. You should download your patches from Fileplanet anyway, alot faster...LOL

1. Simply navigate to your World of Warcraft install directory, ( USUALLY "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft" )
2. You will see TWO Wow icons ( The W inside a circle ).
3. One is named "LAUNCHER.exe" and the other is named "Wow.exe"
4. Simply right click on the one named "Wow.exe" and drag it out to your desktop and let go, choose "CREATE SHORTCUT HERE"

Thats it, from now on, lauch World of Warcraft using this shorcut.

Thats it...Enjoy,
GnBanditoCI5

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*INCREASE THE SPEED WOW ACTUALLY LAUNCHES*

Since we just created a shortcut to launch World of Warcraft, why not take it one step further and increase the speed at which the game actually starts up...shall we?

By default, Microsoft includes the /prefetch:1 switch to speed up it's Windows Media Player application start time. This switch can be used for other Windows applications and also many third party programs.

To use it for World of Warcraft, simply do this...

1. Right click on the World of Warcraft shortcut you just made from previous step and select PROPERTIES from the menu.

2. In the Target: Field add the /prefetch:1 switch to the very end of the path, like this: "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe" /prefetch:1 and then click APPLY, then click OK.
(*DONT FORGET THE SPACE *just before /prefetch:1)

3. Now start World of Warcraft. It will load faster than it ever has before.

**NOTE**
This /prefetch:1 switch method can be used on ANY SHORTCUT for any application, just make sure its a SHORTCUT, you know, the icons with the little arrow in the bottom left corner!

And there you have it, other than these suggestions, if your still experiencing horrific latency in World of Warcraft, I would think its time to buy a better Internet Service Provider, video card, processor or more memory or maybe think about retiring that copy of windows 95 your sportin. For that, stay tuned for the "How to reduce the LACK OF A JOB" tutorial I will be releasing in the near future..LOL

Hope this helps some of you people....Happy hunting!
GnBanditoCI5

Here are MY results for some speed tests I did BEFORE making these changes, and AFTER....judge for yourselves

Bandwidth tests using PCPitStop http://www.pcpitstop.com/

PRIOR TO CHANGES
Test Server = Los Angeles im in New York

Test #1
Ping = 88ms
Download Speed = 4184 kbps
Upload Speed = 963 kbps

Test #2
Ping = 88ms
Download Speed = 5565 kbps
Upload Speed = 964 kbps

Test #3
Ping = 88ms
Download Speed = 7224 kbps
Upload Speed = 964 kbps

Average
Ping = 88ms
Download Speed = 5657.6 kbps
Upload Speed = 963.6 kbps

=====================================
AFTER CHANGES
Test Server = Los Angeles im in New York

Test #1
Ping = 89 ms
Download Speed = 7899 kbps
Upload Speed = 962 kbps

Test #2
Ping = 88 ms
Download Speed = 7390 kbps
Upload Speed = 962 kbps

Test #3
Ping = 89 ms
Download Speed = 6767 kbps
Upload Speed = 966 kbps

Average
Ping = 88.6 ms
Download Speed = 7352 kbps
Upload Speed = 963.3 kbps

7352kbps verses 5657kbps dowload speed gain, works for me :tongue:

=======================================================================

**NOTE**
Bandwidth speed tests are dependant on MANY factors, as is latency on the internet in general. Anything from poor signals from ANY one of the specific hops it takes for your data to get from you to say the bandwidth test sites server, or the world of warcraft server.

Or it could be your drunk cousin Jethro hit the local internet service pole that supplies the entire village!!!

Also, on the volume of traffic at any given moment in time, its a variable that you need to keep in mind when running speed tests, and /or playing World of Warcraft. Thats why I PERSONALLY prefer to play and farm from around 3am to 8am Eastern time being I live in New York.

Not only is the connection much better at those times for me, but there are less 12 year olds tryin to gank my Titanium nodes )~

So anyway, now that I gave you the ancient secrets that have been passed down in my family from one generation to the next, I shall now have to KILL YOU ALL!....prepare for annihilation!!

Enjoy people,
GnBanditoCI5

GnBandito
Bronzebeard


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## FilletMcSlay

"14. Right *click on the new registry key* and select MODIFY"
May I ask what is the "new registry key"?
Thanks.


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## 4ll4nul4te

"*EDIT REGISTRY TO REDUCE LATENCY 
*11. Choose NEW / DWORD VALUE":

- I got a 64-bit system, should I choose the "QWORD Value" instead?
My best guess was that yeas I should. Now testing to see how this works. At first glance I don't get to see any changes. Now I'm going into an instance, and did not notice much of difference, but after a few minutes, I figured out that I was downloading at high speed and was not lagging my game. Would not like to jump into conclusions, but seems that it does improve latency performance for your game. Will let you guys know if it does get to help.


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## Dignitor

Thanks mate ... It was really helpful . i noticed that i dont have lag in the wow capital city and the screen loading faster indeed ... Keep up the good work


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