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How to Make Dragonflight Run Smoother: A Comprehensive Guide

Experiencing lag and stuttering in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight can be incredibly frustrating, hindering your immersion and performance. Thankfully, there are numerous tweaks and adjustments you can make to significantly improve your game’s performance. To directly answer the question, “How do I make Dragonflight run smoother?” the process involves a multifaceted approach that addresses your hardware, software, and in-game settings. It includes ensuring your graphics drivers are up to date, optimizing Windows settings, managing addons, adjusting in-game graphics options, and monitoring your system for overheating. This guide will break down each of these areas in detail to help you achieve a smoother and more enjoyable Dragonflight experience.

Optimizing Your System for Dragonflight

Improving performance in Dragonflight starts with ensuring your PC is properly configured for gaming. Let’s explore the key areas to focus on:

Windows Settings

Enable Game Mode: This Windows feature prioritizes system resources to the game, reducing background processes that can cause performance dips. To find it, simply use the Windows search bar and type “Game Mode”.
Power Management: Ensure your power plan is set to “High Performance”. This can be found in the Power Options within the Control Panel. This allows your system to operate at its maximum capacity rather than trying to save energy.
Graphics Driver Updates: Keep your graphics card drivers updated. Regularly updating to the latest version from NVIDIA or AMD can significantly improve performance and resolve known issues. If you’ve recently updated and experienced a performance drop, consider reverting to a previous version.
Background Applications: Close all unnecessary applications while gaming to free up system resources. Programs running in the background, even if seemingly idle, can impact your game’s performance.

In-Game Graphics Settings

DirectX: Experiment with different DirectX versions. If you’re using DirectX 12, try switching to DirectX 11 or even DirectX 11 Legacy, and vice versa, to see which provides better performance for your system.
Render Scale: Reducing the render scale can significantly boost FPS. A slight reduction to 98% from 100% can make a noticeable difference, especially on lower-end systems.
Resample Quality & Sharpness: Set Resample Quality to FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 for improved visual clarity, and adjust Resample Sharpness to 0.5 or 0.6 to find a balance between sharpness and performance.
Anti-Aliasing: Consider setting anti-aliasing to Advanced as a general starting point and experiment to find the best balance. Lower settings may improve performance but sacrifice visual quality.
Adjust Other Graphics Options: Experiment with lower settings for other graphics options such as shadow quality, liquid detail, and view distance to see which options you can live without. Every change will increase performance, even if only by a small amount, and when all of them are combined you can see huge increases.

Addons and Overheating

Addon Management: Outdated or conflicting addons can cause significant performance issues. Start by temporarily disabling all addons and your addon manager. Then, update each one individually, checking your FPS after each update to identify any problematic ones.
Overheating: Check that your computer fans and heatsinks are free of dust. Overheating can cause throttling, which dramatically reduces performance, or even system crashes and lockups. Make sure your system has adequate cooling.

Network Optimization

Wired Connection: If possible, use a wired Ethernet connection instead of Wi-Fi. Wired connections are generally more stable and less prone to interference, which can lead to lag.
Internet Connection: Ensure your internet connection is stable. Network issues can cause lag even if your hardware is optimized. Release and renew your IP and flush your DNS to resolve any network conflicts.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are 15 frequently asked questions to further assist you in improving Dragonflight performance:

1. Why is Dragonflight so laggy?

Lag in Dragonflight can stem from various factors, including outdated graphics drivers, software or driver conflicts, high network latency, overheating, and demanding graphics settings that your hardware can’t handle. Outdated or conflicting addons can also cause significant performance issues.

2. How do I fix my Dragonflight FPS?

To improve FPS, focus on updating graphics drivers, disabling problematic addons, experimenting with different DirectX versions, adjusting your in-game graphics settings (particularly Render Scale), and ensuring your system is not overheating. Enabling Game Mode and setting your power plan to High Performance can also help.

3. What is the best render scale setting for Dragonflight?

A render scale of 98% is often recommended as a good starting point. This reduces the rendering resolution slightly, which can lead to a significant improvement in performance without drastically impacting visual quality.

4. What does render scale do in WoW?

The render scale determines the proportion of your selected resolution that the game outputs. For instance, at a 1440p resolution with a 100% render scale, the game will render at 1440p. Lowering it to 70% would output closer to a 1080p resolution.

5. Why is WoW so laggy on my computer even though I have a good PC?

Even on a powerful PC, issues like outdated drivers, software conflicts, high network latency, and even demanding graphics settings that your PC is struggling to render can cause lag. Ensure all of your software is up-to-date and check your in game graphics settings.

6. How do I improve game framerate in WoW?

Update your graphics card drivers, adjust your in-game graphics settings, enable Game Mode in Windows 10, reduce the game resolution, manage your power options, and ensure your PC is well-cooled and does not suffer from overheating.

7. Is 16GB RAM enough for Dragonflight?

Yes, 16GB of RAM is highly recommended for a smooth Dragonflight experience. While it might run on 8GB, 16GB provides a noticeable improvement, especially when multitasking.

8. What is the best processor for Dragonflight?

The recommended CPU is an Intel Core i7-8700K or equivalent. For maximum performance, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 or similar graphics card is recommended.

9. Is Dragonflight a soft reboot?

Yes, Dragonflight serves as a soft reboot, marking a shift from the previous expansion’s narrative. It takes place three years after Shadowlands and doesn’t directly continue that story.

10. Is questing or dungeons faster for leveling in Dragonflight?

While both are viable for leveling, questing can often be faster, especially once you reach higher levels. Starting zone quests are very fast and some zones are quicker to level in then dungeons, such as certain zones from Warlords of Draenor.

11. Should I use triple buffering in WoW?

Triple buffering is only useful if your game consistently gets an FPS higher than your monitor’s refresh rate, e.g., 100+ FPS on a 60Hz monitor. Otherwise, it’s best to leave it off.

12. What framerate is considered smooth in a game?

A minimum of 30 FPS is considered playable, but many gamers prefer 60 FPS or higher for a smoother experience.

13. How do I make WoW less laggy from a network standpoint?

Release and renew your IP and flush your DNS to resolve network conflicts. Opt for a wired connection where possible and ensure your router isn’t too far from your computer.

14. Is my computer good enough to play WoW Dragonflight?

Check your system specifications against the recommended requirements: Windows 10 64-bit, Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD FX-8310 or better processors, and sufficient RAM and graphics card.

15. What causes high latency in WoW?

High latency in WoW is caused by an overcrowded server, issues with your internet connection, problems with the route your data takes, or possibly game bugs or maintenance.

By following these guidelines and addressing the potential issues outlined above, you can significantly improve the performance of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight and enjoy a smoother and more immersive gaming experience.