Realm: Netherwing Performance Enhancing For 2.4.3 Client

[Cozmo]

With using the old 2.4.3 WoW client that was release way back in 2007, so comes all the limitations of an ancient game engine. This thread will be dedicated to performance enhancements for us 2.4.3 client users.

 

ProcessAffinityMask - Setting your wow client to use multiple cores

In the WTF folder of your wow directory there is a simple text file named "Config" that holds all the settings for WoW. And some settings that will not be displayed in the default game menus.

We are going to focus on "SET processAffinityMask" which should be the 4th line in that text file. By default this should be set to 0. Which means it will either use one or two cores.

Changing the "0" to what ever number of cores you have will NOT do the trick here. With modern processors of AMD finding the right affinity mask number can be tricky. Intel is much more simple in that you can tell WoW to run on any number of cores you see in the affinity mask chart linked below.

 

AMD Ryzen Users - IMPORTANT!

If you have a AMD Ryzen processor it is important that you use the correct number mask due the cache and the architecture of Ryzen processors. We want WoW to be running on the physical core and not the multithread/logical core within, so that all the cache for that single core can be used for WoW and not shared. Doing this will give a big performance boost in populated areas of the server. Here the affinity mask numbers you should use if you have a Ryzen processor.

4-core/4-thread Ryzen 3 - SET processAffinityMask "12"

4-core/8-thread Ryzen 5 - SET processAffinityMask "240"

6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 - SET processAffinityMask "4032"

8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 - SET processAffinityMask "65280"

For myself I use a Ryzen 9 with 16 cores and 32 threads however, I find using 16 cores for a game that came out 16 years ago a bit of an overkill. So I use the affinity mask number "65280" which will let it run on 8 cores but not on their logical/multi-threaded core. When you edit the "SET processAffinityMask" line in the config text file it should look like this.

 

Click save and close the text file.

 

 

Boot up WoW and enjoy the multi-core performance boost!

 

Intel processor Users

Now Intel users have their pick of the affinity mask chart as there shouldn't be much if any performance loss in choosing any set of mask number as long as there are more than 2 cores. Here are some suggested affinity mask number to use.

Quad core without Hyperthreading (4-cores/0-threads), older i5 and i7 - SET processAffinityMask "15"

Quad core with Hyperthreading (4-cores/8-threads), older i7 - SET processAffinityMask "255"

Hex-Core with Hyperthreading (6-cores/12-threads) - SET processAffinityMask "1344"

8-cores/16-threads, i7 and i9 - SET processAffinityMask "65535"

Cooling issues/Multi-boxing/Laptops for Intel

If you are having cooling issues while running WoW. It is suggested that you adjust your affinity mask number in a similar way that AMD Ryzen users should do, Setting your affinity mask to avoid hyperthreaded/logical cores. Here are some affinity mask numbers for those who might be having cooling issues.

Quad core with Hyperthreading (4-cores/4-threads) - SET processAffinityMask "85"

8-cores/16-threads, i7 and i9 - SET processAffinityMask "21845"

 

More information along with the affinity mask chart can be found here