[Guide] How to let wow use more cores of your cpu

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October 15, 2015
Nobleofsnow

[Guide] How to let wow use more cores of your cpu

Hi there,
I did some looking around since i got a AMD FX-9590 (8 cores)
but noticed my fps was quite low in populated area's and noticed wow used 4-6 cores out of the 8 available.

I remembered seeing a post on the official wow forums about this issue and did some digging,
now finally i have wow using all 8 available cores :)

This is the "thing" that influences the amount of cores your client will use: processaffinitymask.

this. under normal circumstances is automatically assigned by your client itself with the first startup of the game.
You can change the value in your world of warcraft/wtf/config.wtf file.
Changing the value can help your game run better but also A LOT slower so be careful with what you do. (best to backup your config.wtf)

how to set Processaffinitymask:

Basically tells your PC which cores to use.

The values:

Spoiler: Show

For dual cores the value should be 3
For triple cores the value should be 7
For quad cores the value should be 15
For hexa(6) cores the value should be 191 And
For octa(8) cores the value should be 255.

To change this:
go to your config.wtf and edit it with notepad or notepad++ both work.
If you see this line: SET processAffinityMask "x"
replace the X with one of these values given above.
If you cant see the line, simply Copy, or Type it with the correct value.

How to know if your client uses which cores

There are addons that monitor these things, yet i do not know what their names are, probably 5 minutes of googling will help a lot.
However if you are using windows 10 (and i think its the same in 8)

you can just open your Taskmanager> Click on more details> Go to the Processes tab> CPU>
if you see one graph, rightclick and select (Change graph to> logical processors) >
Start up your client, login and when you load your character hover your mouse over the last core(s),
if you see a small popup windows saying "CPU x Parked" it means windows is not utilizing it. (then this quide will work)

I hope this Guide helped you, in case you still have questions, try reviewing one of the given sources and or ask it in this thread.

Sources

Spoiler: Show

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8882678280
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...8478?page=3#60
http://wow.gamepedia.com/CVar_timingMethod
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/CVar_processAffinityMask
November 6, 2015
NigelFarage

From http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/CVar_processAffinityMask:
"Manually adjusting this CVar is no longer needed as of 3.3.2 unless you're trying to run the game on specific cores. It is now uncapped so it will run on whatever core your OS deems as fit."

Doesn't this mean that it will use all of my cores anyway?
November 9, 2015
Nobleofsnow

Quote:

Originally Posted by NigelFarage

From http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/CVar_processAffinityMask:
"Manually adjusting this CVar is no longer needed as of 3.3.2 unless you're trying to run the game on specific cores. It is now uncapped so it will run on whatever core your OS deems as fit."

Doesn't this mean that it will use all of my cores anyway?

Normally yes,
but considering some people might use wow on a flashdrive/external harddisk,
or replaced their CPU, and not reinstall windows/use a fresh copy of wow. it wont automatically change it.

I took a look at my cpu core usage and wow only used 4 out of 8, however when i changed it it uses all 8 of them :)
January 22, 2019
erikli009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nobleofsnow

Normally yes,
but considering some people might use wow on a flashdrive/external harddisk,
or replaced their CPU, and not reinstall windows/use a fresh copy of wow. it wont automatically change it.

I took a look at my cpu core usage and wow only used 4 out of 8, however when i changed it it uses all 8 of them :)

Did all what u wrote and now my wow works just fine, instead of lagging around in wintergrasp and such.. thank you!
May 20, 2019
Prode

Thanks this fixed my lockups in Northrend. Puts my i9 to good use.
February 3, 2021
lucaflavius96

Not working...
February 4, 2021
dccct

Thanks. To find out how many cores WoW was using, I had to use a different approach: I went under the Details tab, and Right-clicked on Wow.exe to Set Affinity. The pop up window showed a list of cores and check marks next to each indicating its status.
February 4, 2021
lucaflavius96

Affinity

Quote:

Originally Posted by dccct

Thanks. To find out how many cores WoW was using, I had to use a different approach: I went under the Details tab, and Right-clicked on Wow.exe to Set Affinity. The pop up window showed a list of cores and check marks next to each indicating its status.

@dccct in my case all cores are checked but still WoW is using mostly of the time 1 core.. I have I7 9700 and I don't know how to make this game work on all core.. I play on WOTLK Lordaeron.
February 4, 2021
dccct

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucaflavius96

@dccct in my case all cores are checked but still WoW is using mostly of the time 1 core.. I have I7 9700 and I don't know how to make this game work on all core.. I play on WOTLK Lordaeron.

According to what I found on https://superuser.com/questions/8671...-is-running-on

"Threads are what are sent to cores for processing, not processes. Most modern processes have multiple threads.

If you manually set the affinity for a process, then all threads for the process should stick to a single processor. Since you manually set it, you should know which CPU it's on. ;)

But if you don't specify, then the thread(s) will be controlled by the OS and underlying processing hardware, and would jump around between processors at a speed that would be unwatchable, and very likely inaccurate by the time it was displayed to you."

It would appear there is not much we can do other than allowing the game to use all the cores. It is up to the Operating System to decide which thread goes to which processor.
April 6, 2021
duindaer

Quote:

Originally Posted by dccct

According to what I found on https://superuser.com/questions/8671...-is-running-on

"Threads are what are sent to cores for processing, not processes. Most modern processes have multiple threads.

If you manually set the affinity for a process, then all threads for the process should stick to a single processor. Since you manually set it, you should know which CPU it's on. ;)

But if you don't specify, then the thread(s) will be controlled by the OS and underlying processing hardware, and would jump around between processors at a speed that would be unwatchable, and very likely inaccurate by the time it was displayed to you."

It would appear there is not much we can do other than allowing the game to use all the cores. It is up to the Operating System to decide which thread goes to which processor.

Since the 3.3.2 WoW patch, you dont need to change anything about "processAffinityMask".