How To Reduce WoW Loading Times

I´ve deleted the data folder and hit scan and repair.
Now it downloads 108GB and I need to wait for a even longer loading screen :D

This method freed up 40gb space on my drive, thanks.

Loadingscreen went from 28.9 seconds to 10,2 seconds - thanks for the tip <3

Bro, your videos have been popping up for me lately and every time I worry the title will be clickbait but low and behold, useful WoW content! This is something I didn't know and a cursory look over my game it has shrunk by 30GB just cleaning this up.

This deleting DATA is the wort tip ever it completly broke everything and i needed to download over 100gb

Interesting. I may not have reinstalled since wod. Will check.
But I have noticed the game loading slower over the last year despite having a fast ssd

Such a simple fix and it works soooo well. I’ve been playing since vanilla and didn’t do a clean install until around 2012, then again in 2015. I CE raid, use a ton of adding and WA’s. I have a top end gaming machine I built. Coming into TWW and all of the lag issues, I would literally go to bare bone addons to help with the lag (much of which caused by blizz) and bare boned graphics on a top end computer... But, my load in/ reload times were painfully slow. I did this the day you released this vid and it’s absolutely cut my load/reload by more than half. I know big addons affect this too but wow!!! Absolutely earned my sub off this vid!😊

13mins in 1 sentence = delete your Data folder (and redownload the whole game again)

This gave me ~70gb less data, nice. Great explanation! 👌
Also an investigation into nameplate addons would be nice, as they seem to nuke fps (I have an old pc though) Neatplates, Plater, Threat Plates.

Wishmongold ftw. Thanks for all the pro stuff.

blizzard already says to do that

Make sure you install the game on an internal drive. This may seem like common sense but if you have WoW on an external drive you are killing your loading times.

I knew they stored the data there, but had no idea how CASC actually worked. Loading screens and stuttering was getting kinda annoying since my installation was like 6 years old so this tip was insanely beneficial for me. Keep these videos coming, loving it!

The hero Azeroth truly needed

Always amazing gettin to see your vids, its great watching something where the person actually knows what they are talkin about and can explain why that method will work!
Great channel and video man, keep it up!

I was wondering if i should use DBM or Bigwigs/Littlewigs. Is DBM faster?

BRO GAMES ON MAC

do i need to back up all my profile setting such a elvui /detail or plater?

Doesn't this mostly have to do with the File System though?
Like, NTFS for example of Windows, even on flash based drives (SSD and NVME, like my WD SN850X 4TB which i have the game installed on) files will still get fragmented, and while the seek time to find them will be virtually the same for any of them, unlike HDDs, fragmentation still occurs, which, still affects both type of drives but flash-based ones to a lesser degree because of that BUT....
I have personally defragmented flash-based drives on purpose(and then hard TRIM them), since i don't care about their specific total write times being reduced (jsut for testing), and when they now read a file sequentially, what you get back as a result from these drives, is reading a file at sequential speeds which are way higher than random 4k read speeds which is what happens when parts of files are fragmented.

So, regardless of WoW's container's file issues specifically, doesn't their system keep meta data files to know where things are to reduce this issue to a major degree to the point that it become basically nearly irrelevant?
I bet the OS's file system has more issues because of fragmentation in that regard compared to the CASC (different type of fragmentation of course, especially when its layered on top of the OS's file system) even though NTFS also uses meta data for the same purpose.
Because even if you delete the Data folder, regardless if you get back any speed increase from that, won't you still be at the same scenario when you back to the game and then you enter an area which you previously had in your Data folder but now if you delete it, you don't, so it has to be redownloaded, and this recreating the issue from the begging especially since each update basically causes the same thing within the container itself?

Like, you would think Blizzard is not that dumb to have not improved their container over 10 years after it's introduction, especially to account for this issue even partially?

Cause i am pretty sure that even if they didn't, NTFS's fragmentation issue, for Windows at least (even the latest version of this which is quite better at not fragmenting files as much), is gonna cause more penalty in loading times and assets downloaded in real time compared to when you know have to redownload assets than CASC's file ordering method, right?

Recently discovered your channel. This is my second watch-through of this video (saw it at work and finally made it to my PC to complete this process). Keep up the great work!

It's lagging cause you play on MAC

KAP

lol so if I havent reinstaled since 2018 there is no wonder I have problems? :p

Really informative explanation 👍 I'm curious if you could recommend a prebuilt pc to run wow like a beast , have about €1500 to spend , I know self builds are more value for money but wouldn't wanna hassle you for the individual parts 😂 any help would be welcome 🫡

You explain it so well. Keep it up, love these videos! You will blow up for sure

Hey I tried this cuz I have been having trouble with stutter and crazy loading screens. Does this effect when you load into ”new” content again? Cuz I tried a dungeon after and I could barely play it because it wouldnt stop lagging and stuttering. Maybe just my crappy computer or should I just reinstall…?

i gotta set aside an hour for this fix
hopefully works
thanks bro

In terms of the data files, I highly advise against placebo reinstalling unless you're getting actual errors in game that are indicative of corruption. It's an easy way to unnecessarily wear your SSD's life. Also, the pak files get reorganized and reoptimized from time to time anyways(part of the last steps of the updating process usually). You'll see the tool using a ton of CPU and disk, while updating and the download speed might appear to be moving extremely slowly, while it's doing some medium to large update(a really common complain on tech support forums: Why is my download speed slow????). When it comes to following the system requirements of the game, the game requires solid state storage for the game and SSDs don't really care that much about data being scattered around in tons of files since the seek times are magnitudes faster than a mechanical drive(don't ever try to defrag a solid state drive, but if you look, the drive will have some ridiculous level of fragmentation, like 90% and it's completely normal). Worst case scenario, WoW has to fully load a couple gigs of data on a load screen. On a 30 dollar SSD, that's a handful of seconds give or take some margin of error for any CPU work that needs to be performed like compression/decompression/etc.

The real issue is addons and the fact that they are single threaded and tied to the main thread of the game engine. You could write a simple addon with a handful of lines of code that performs some long and expensive loop operation and make a NASA level PC's load screens minutes long, with zero other addons present. Abnormally long load times are almost exclusively due to addons or netcode/network/server issues.

So, basically, I delete the Data folder (mine is 140 gb btw :P) and it re-downloads and re-installs it all again. Sounds quite logical indeed, worth a try.

Incredible tip! I cant wait to try this

Dude, thank you for posting these videos. You do an excellent job explaining all the steps necessary to run WoW smoother. Really appreciate you and your work!

Holy crap, I have over 4k indices! 😂 I have been getting so annoyed at the load in time, I'm like WHY!!! My hubs loads in way before I do, he reinstalled just before this expac. We have great systems too, but I haven't installed in... 4 years maybe? Trying this right now. Thank you. I bet this file system made a lot more sense in Warcraft days.

Thank you for this advice! 🖖

Just followed your advice tonight and my loading screens are much better. I see you've got a few FPS improvement videos so gonna check them out next. Liked and subscribed. Thanks!

Man, I was so looking forward to this. I love the explanation and tbf it's a very simple fix. Did this and my loading screen ... was actually 30 secs longer. Fuck me.
Edit: Although this actually happened to me, it seems to be a problem on my end - the instructions in this video are correct and working but it looks like I messed something up on the way. I didn't mean to say that this does not work.

Holy sh*t !! I had no idea about this. This is OMEGA helpful! I wish the WoW community would be full with people as helpful as you. 👍🏻

thank you sir!!

Honestly, knowing the reason it works is even better than knowing it works...

I haven't re-installed since 2005 I don't think. Hmmm....

Many years ago I had an install going back to August 2005 and over the years WoW had installed in several locations including the Windows “game” folder. Eventually I uninstalled the game and then reinstalled it and it was all in one place. At the time it was on hard disks, in later years I built a new machine entirely of SSDs which made things faster. I think a few years ago Blizz said not to use hard disks beyond a certain patch.

Okay Soooo is there a CASC defrag out there? Would be neat if it is doable (pre-NTFS nostalgia)!

The other thing I really want to mention regarding load times is addons which load up a lot of info as soon as you log in. Common ones are Altholic, Bagnon and pretty much all account-wide data addons. The reason being is that they will spam the server with all sorts of retrieval requests as soon as you spawn which is BEFORE the loading screen finishing. It seems like this will freeze the loading progress until most of the requests pass through and then allow UI to load.

There was an addon (Speedy Load) back in the day that held those requests until the UI was loaded and allowed all those housekeeping requests to be loaded then. I wish someone would update it's code and allow it to at least throttle the most offending addons. Getting a DC and waiting for a load in the middile of the action is bad REALLY BAD.

Bonus TIPs:
1. On Windows go to your Virus and Protection Settings--->Exclusions and add your wow folder to it. This will prevent wow from being scanned every time you load it up which really does matter A LOT sometimes. Other virus protection software usually have a way to do that too. <<<<USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK>>>>

2. Use symbolic links if you're using NTFS and actually change the physical locations of your "WTF" and "Interface" folders to another fast drive. This will allow data and addons to load more efficiently. Your mileage may vary. This is a rather advanced tip but if you look around the internet there are tools to make it very easy to do. But don't try this unless you know what your are doing as you could very easily lose your data if you mess up at any step.

linus wow tips

This video actually saved me, holy thank you.

dont forget that this guy is the creator of Deadly boss Mods addon

Amazing info! I haven’t re-installed since BFA and was always scared to mess with folders because I will straight up quit if I lose my addons, weak aura settings, and binds lol

I'll definitely have to try this. Haven't done a clean install of the retail game in maybe 10 or more years.

This actually makes a lot of sense, considering the game took a big hit on load times after a few updates. I also think my m.2 is also not performing well as it's always seemed a bit slow. And yes, I checked bios to make sure proper settings... think it's just a bad bin.

king

SMART and clever I hate replacing my wtf files and im sure this will help along with cutting some of my million addons at 600mb ;p

i did this and the game install all over, im crying!