Molsan Method

I had been having frames-per-second (fps) and general lag problems with World of Warcraft ever since I installed Wrath of the Lich King. After tweaking Windows XP and adjusting the video effects, I was able to triple my fps and started enjoying the game the way it was meant to be played. Typically out in Azeroth, I consistently averaged about 19 fps. In Dalaran, I hovered somewhere around 3-5 fps. After performing all of these steps, I was able to pull 58 fps in Azeroth, and an astounding (at least for me anyway) 19 fps in Dalaran!

My gaming machine is a Dell laptop, running Windows XP with very few applications on it other than WoW. If you use your computer for things other than gaming, you may want to skip some of the post’s suggested changes. If you make changes to your computer based on this post or the post over at Guide2Games, please do so at your own risk. What worked for me may or may not work for you.

I followed the steps provided by a March 26, 2008 forum post titled, “Tweak XP for Gaming” by silver-dragon on the Guide2Games site. I recapped how I achieved this below. This guide is intended for PC users running the Windows XP operating system with at least 256MB of RAM.

Set a Restore Point Before Starting

Before you begin, you’ll want to backup your machine in case anything goes wrong. Using Windows XP, access the System Restore option here:

Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> System Tools –> System Restore

1. Choose the option to create a restore point.

2. Create a useful description for your restore point. If you do have to roll Windows XP back to a previous state, you’ll be asked to choose a restore point based on the date and description of the restore point.

3. Click the “Create” button, and wait for the restore point confirmation.

Create a New User Profile

You may or may not want to create a new user profile before starting. I opted not to because I’m the only user of the computer and use it primarily for gaming. Access your User Accounts under the Control Panel, and create a new profile if you prefer. Then log into your computer using this new profile before continuing.

Performance Options

By default, your computer’s performance is going to be determined by Windows. Don’t let Windows do that to you.

1. Right-click on My Computer and choose Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.

3. Click the Settings button (under Performance).
4. Click Adjust for best performance.
5. Scroll to the bottom and check the last option, “Use visual styles on windows and buttons.”

6. Click OK on the Performance Options window.
7. Click OK on the System Properties window.

Backup and Fix Your Registry

In future steps, you’ll be asked to modify your system registry. Before doing so, I recommend scanning your registry for problems and creating a registry backup file. I use a freeware application called CCleaner to do this for me. Do the following after installing CCleaner:

1. Open CCleaner.
2. Click on the Registry tab.
3. Click on Scan for Issues.

4. Click on Fix selected issues.
5. Click Yes when prompted to backup your changes to the registry.
6. Save the .reg file to your computer.
7. Click on Fix All Selected Issues.
8. Click OK when asked if you’re sure you want to fix all selected issues.
9. Click Close.

Remove Startup Programs

When Windows starts, applications will also begin to run. Some programs will be visible to you in the system tray, while others are hidden to you and running in the background. You can use CCleaner to manage your startup programs, disabling those that you don’t want to run when Windows starts.

1. Open CCleaner.
2. Click on the Tools tab.
3. Click Startup.

4. Review your the list of programs that run when your computer starts.
5. Right-click on the program and choose Disable to prevent this program from running when Windows starts.

Memory Management

You’ll be modifying your system registry at this point. Since you created a registry backup with CCleaner, these are fairly safe changes to make. However, altering your system registry can be dangerous if you aren’t careful. Proceed with caution and make sure that you are following these steps accurately.

1. Enter “regedit” under Start –> Run.
2. In your Registry Editor, navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management.”
3. Double-click on DisablePagingExecutive and enter a decimal value of 1. This allows Windows XP to keep data in memory instead of paging sections of RAM supposedly increasing hard drive performance.

4. Double-click on LargeSystemCache and enter a decimal value of 1. This will allow the Windows XP kernel to run in memory and supposedly improves system performance.

5. Create a new DWORD called “IOPageLockLimit” and enter a hexadecimal value of 4000 if you have 128MB of RAM, 10000 if you have 256MB of RAM, or 40000 if you have more than 512MB of RAM. This will supposedly increase the speed of your disk cache.

6. Reboot your computer.

Disable DLL Caching

After an application has closed and finished using DLL files, Windows will cache the DLL files for a period of time. This can be an inefficient use of memory, and the post recommends that you disable this caching feature.

1. Enter “regedit” under Start –> Run.
2. In your Registry Editor, navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer.”
3. Create a new DWORD called “AlwaysUnloadDLL” and enter a decimal value of 1. This will disable DLL caching when an application is closed.

4. Reboot your computer.

Tweak the Swap File

The following tweak tells Windows to not use any swap file until there is no more free RAM left. This should increase your gaming performance.

1. Enter “msconfig” under Start –> Run to open the System Configuration Utility.
2. Click the SYSTEM.INI tab.
3. Left-click on [386enh].
4. Click New.
5. Enter “ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1″ into the box.

6. Click OK.
7. When prompted, click Restart to reboot your computer.

Disable Unnecessary Windows Services

Windows XP is full of services that start running as soon as your computer boots up. Each of these services consume memory and other system resources. However, many of them are not needed, especially for gaming.

According to the forum post, the following list of services can be safely disabled. You will notice that several of these services are not running and set to an empty status with a Startup Type value of “Manual.” You don’t have to disable these unless you want to.

Please check the description of each service and decide for yourself if you want to disable it or not. Disabling the “Themes” service will probably be the most jarring as it will most likely change the look and feel of your current Windows XP theme.

• alerter
• Application Layer Gateway Service
• Application Management
• Automatic Updates
• Background Intelligent Transfer
• Clipbook
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• Distributed Transaction Coordinater
• Error Reporting Service
• Fast User Switching Compatibility
• IMAPI CD-Burning
• Indexing Service
• IPSEC Services
• Messenger
• Net Logon
• Net Meeting
• Remote Desktop Sharing
• Network DDE
• Network DDE DSDM
• Portable Media Serial Number
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
• Remote Registry
• Secondary Logon
• Smartcard
• SSDP Discovery Service
• Telnet
• Themes
• Uninterruptible Power Supply
• Universal Plug and Play Device Host
• Upload Manager
• Webclient
• Wireless Zero Configuration
• WMI Performance Adaptor

1. Enter “services.msc” under Start –> Run to open up your computer’s Services.
2. Double-click a service.
3. Change the Startup Type to Disabled.
4. Click on Stop.

5. Click OK.
6. Close the Services window after disabling services.

WoW Video Effects

After completing all of the above changes and having rebooted your computer (probably several times by now), you’re ready to fire up WoW. Make note of your frame rate and then access the game’s video effects settings.

Move your Video Quality slider bar left or right and click Okay. You should perform this step several times until you’ve achieved an optimal fps value for your computer. For me, setting the Video Quality to “Fair” outperformed all of the other settings.

Good luck to you! Here’s to better gaming and computing performance for Windows XP users!