WoW Forever runs on the modern WoW engine with new lighting, volumetric fog, PBR water and far longer draw distances, so the old Classic rule of "max everything" no longer holds. On a strong PC with everything on Ultra High, a handful of settings eat most of the frame rate while changing very little on screen, and a few console commands make the world look better than any menu preset can.
Below you will find what each graphics setting actually costs in FPS, the order in which to lower them, which ones are safe to drop and which ones break the look, fixes for FPS drops, the 60 FPS cap and high ping, the console commands for dense grass and a sharper image, and ready presets for high-end, mid-range and low-end PCs.
The FPS figures come from side-by-side tests on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D with a Radeon RX 9070 XT at 1440p, moving each setting from its lowest to its highest value. Newer tests on a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super and a six-year-old MacBook found the same expensive settings. Your numbers will differ, but the order stays the same on most systems.
| Setting | FPS cost, low to max | Best value for most PCs |
|---|---|---|
| Secondary Lighting | Up to 50-60 FPS | Good |
| Compute Effects | About 40 FPS from High to Ultra High | High |
| Render Scale | The biggest lever: fewer pixels can nearly double FPS | 100%, or 90% if you still need frames |
| Anti-Aliasing | About 35 FPS for 8x multisample | CMAA2, or CMAA2 + 2x |
| Shadow Quality | About 25 FPS | Good |
| SSAO | About 10 FPS | Good |
| View Distance | Little or none in the newest tests, fog hides the far distance | 8-10 |
| Environment Detail | A few FPS | 8 or higher |
| Texture Resolution | A few FPS, uses VRAM | High |
| Liquid Detail (PBR) | Up to 4 FPS | High or Ultra |
| Character Models (HD or SD) | No measurable difference | Your choice |
Lower things in this order. Secondary Lighting and Compute Effects come first: set them to Good and High, and on the test PC that alone is well over 100 FPS back with almost no visible loss. If you still need frames, take 10% off the render scale next, before you touch anything else. Only then move on to anti-aliasing and shadows.
The Display tab decides how many pixels the game renders and how it smooths them, so it sets the ceiling for everything else. Use Windowed (Fullscreen) mode, turn Vertical Sync off unless you see screen tearing, and set Low Latency Mode to NVIDIA Reflex + Boost if your card supports it.
Forever's new lighting does its work for every pixel on screen, so the number of pixels you render matters more than in any earlier version of WoW. In one test, going from 1440p down to 1080p almost doubled the frame rate in some areas. You rarely need to go that far: because the cost grows so quickly with resolution, taking just 10% off the render scale gives back a lot of frames with very little blur.
Go lower only on weak hardware. At 75% the picture turns soft, and the game has no modern upscaler such as DLSS to hide it, only an old version of AMD FSR. If your FPS is still low after Secondary Lighting and Compute Effects, render scale is the next setting to try, ahead of shadows, view distance or textures.
You have probably seen the advice to drop Render Scale to 98% or 90% for a sharper picture. That visual gain has nothing to do with resolution: below 100% the game switches on its resample sharpening filter, and that filter is what makes the image look crisper. The console command ResampleAlwaysSharpen turns the same filter on at 100% render scale, so you keep full resolution and still get the sharper image. The commands section below has the exact line.
Most players set Anti-Aliasing to the maximum, CMAA2 plus 8x multisample. Dropping multisample from 8x to 2x gives about 25 FPS back, and running CMAA2 alone adds another 10, with almost no visible difference in normal play. Going down to FXAA is where jagged edges start to show.
Two caveats from players. 8x multisample can make edges in front of fog or water flicker, and it pushes power draw much higher than CMAA2 alone. CMAA2, on the other hand, smooths thin branches less well while you move, so if that bothers you, CMAA2 with 2x or 4x multisample and Multisample Alpha Test on is the middle ground.
The Graphics Quality slider at the top of the tab only sets a starting preset. Every setting below can be changed on its own, and that is where the frames are. As a rule, the highest step of almost every setting is disproportionately expensive, so one step below the top is usually the best trade.
Turning shadows off gave about 205 FPS against 180 on Ultra High. Only Ultra High draws shadows on trees and objects far away, and between High, Ultra and Ultra High the difference is visible mostly at a distance. Good is the best compromise if you need the frames. Low shadows also make forests look washed out at range, because everything far away loses its shade.
Compute Effects drives the volumetric fog and the sun rays, and it is one of the heaviest settings in the game: High can be 40 FPS more than Ultra High for nearly the same picture, especially when you look at the ground, which is most of the time. Do not go down to Low, because some effects simply disappear, the fog breaks into visible blocks and the light shafts turn into blurry noise.
Ultra High is worth it only on a strong PC, when the fog shows as separate wisps instead of a flat haze. Compute Effects also loads the GPU more than it lowers FPS, so if your card runs hot, this is the first setting to drop.
Secondary Lighting is the new lighting Blizzard showed off for Forever, and it matters most in dark areas such as caves, inns and night time. It is also the single most expensive setting: going from Fair to High can be a 50 FPS swing depending on the zone, and High to Ultra alone can cost as much again with a difference that is hard to see. Keep it at Good or above, since Low and Fair remove most of the depth the new engine adds.
Early beta builds had a bug where Secondary Lighting used your raid graphics settings outside raids, so Fair could run heavier than Good. Blizzard fixed it in October. If lowering the setting ever seems to do nothing, turn on raid graphics settings and set them to the same values as your normal ones.
SSAO adds contact shadows where objects meet the ground and in corners. Without it, crates, trees and characters look like they float above the floor, so keep it at Good. It costs around 10 FPS across its range. Depth Effects adds depth of field to distant terrain; it costs frames, and on high-resolution monitors many players prefer it off because it softens the background.
On a weak PC, turning SSAO, Depth Effects and Compute Effects all off is a valid last resort for FPS. Just know that the game will look flatter than Classic ever did on modern hardware.
Forever has two water settings. Legacy Liquid Detail covers only the old-style liquids that are left in the world, so it can sit on Low. PBR Liquid Detail controls the new water with reflections and flow. It costs at most a few FPS, so run it on High or Ultra; Low has no real reason to exist.
Texture Resolution costs only a couple of FPS but uses video memory, and Low textures are a massive visual downgrade, so keep them on High if you have the VRAM. Even on a weak laptop, textures on High looked much better at almost no cost. Particle Density can stay high outside raids. Spell Density set to Essential hides other players' minor spell effects while keeping yours, which helps in 40-player raids and battlegrounds. Keep Projected Textures on, because it draws ground effects you need to see.
Bloom Intensity is maxed out by default, and in bright zones such as Mulgore and The Barrens it can be blinding. Lower it a few steps. It costs almost no FPS either way.
When you first log in, the game asks you to choose an Experience Preset. Classic gives you standard-definition character models along with the old screen layout, while Enhanced gives you HD models, quest markers on the map and the modern layout. Models are a per-character choice, and you can switch them later in the Options menu or at a Barbershop.
In side-by-side tests there was no measurable FPS difference between HD and SD models, so this is purely a question of look. Do not switch to SD to fix a low frame rate: the settings above are where the frames are.
Forever draws much further than Classic did: from The Barrens you can see Hyjal, and from Westfall the top of Blackrock Mountain. In older WoW, View Distance was the first thing players lowered for FPS. In Forever, the newest tests found no notable impact on frame rate, because the volumetric fog already hides the far distance. Earlier tests measured 5-10 FPS between 7 and 10, so on a weak PC it is worth a try, but keep it at 8 or higher where you can. Below 7 you lose views like Blackrock Mountain from Redridge Mountains, and below 4 the world starts to look empty.
Environment Detail controls how far trees, bushes and buildings load, and turning it right down makes them pop in close to you. Lower it only if you are fine-tuning for the last few frames. Ground Clutter is the grass and small plants; the slider gives a little FPS back, and the console commands below take it much further than the slider allows.
The Advanced tab holds the settings that decide how smooth the game feels rather than how it looks:
Contrast, brightness and gamma are personal, but one tweak stands out: raising Contrast from the default 50 to 60-70 makes the image a little darker and makes the new lighting pop, especially indoors.
Some of the biggest visual upgrades are not in the menu at all. Type each line into chat and press Enter. The grass commands push vegetation far beyond what the Ground Clutter slider allows, and the effect is the first thing you notice in Elwynn Forest or Ashenvale.
/console groundEffectDensity 256 /console groundEffectDist 500 /console groundEffectFade 370 /console ResampleAlwaysSharpen 1 /console cameraDistanceMaxZoomFactor 4.0 /console weatherDensity 3
Each command and what it changes:
| Command | Default | Recommended | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| groundEffectDensity | About 48, set by Ground Clutter | 64 for a clear upgrade, 128 or 256 (max) for dense grass | How much grass grows on the ground |
| groundEffectDist | About 200, set by Ground Clutter | 500 (max) | How far away grass is drawn |
| groundEffectFade | 70 | 370 | How softly grass fades in at the edge of that distance |
| ResampleAlwaysSharpen | 0 | 1 | Turns on resample sharpening at 100% render scale |
| cameraDistanceMaxZoomFactor | 2 | 2.6 to 4.0 | How far the camera can zoom out |
| weatherDensity | 2 | 3 | Denser rain and snow |
Density 256 with full distance makes grass look truly dense, and 128 is a good middle ground. Even 64 is a noticeable upgrade over the slider's maximum of 48, and it is the safer choice on a mid-range PC, because grass eats more FPS than you would expect. After ResampleAlwaysSharpen, set the strength with the Resample Sharpness slider in Advanced: around 0.6-0.7 keeps the image crisp without the grainy over-sharpened look of the maximum. With the zoom command, the camera reaches much further than the slider allows, which helps in PvP and makes for good screenshots.
Yes. Values set with /console are saved to your game config and stay after a restart, so you type them once. The exception is the grass: moving the Ground Clutter slider rewrites groundEffectDensity and groundEffectDist, so set the slider first and run the commands after it. To undo a command, enter it again with the default value from the table.
Back up Config.wtf in the WTF folder before you experiment. A crash or a client update can reset it to auto-detected defaults, and with a copy you get all your settings back in one step. If a command ever leaves the game in a bad state, deleting Config.wtf restores the defaults.
These presets put the tests above into one place. High-end means a current card on the level of an RX 9070 XT or RTX 4080 at 1440p; mid-range is around an RTX 3060 at 1080p-1440p; low-end is a GTX 1050 Ti-class card or a laptop.
| Setting | High-end | Mid-range | Low-end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Render Scale | 100% | 100% | 85-90% |
| Anti-Aliasing | CMAA2 + 2x | CMAA2 | CMAA2 |
| Shadow Quality | Ultra | Good | Fair |
| PBR Liquid Detail | Ultra | High | Good |
| Compute Effects | High | High | Good |
| Secondary Lighting | High | Good | Good |
| SSAO | High | Good | Off |
| Texture Resolution | High | High | High if VRAM allows, otherwise Fair |
| View Distance | 10 | 8 | 7 |
| Environment Detail | 10 | 8 | 5 |
| Grass commands | Density 256, distance 500 | Density 64-128, distance 500 | Skip |
Start from your row, then move one setting at a time while watching the FPS counter (Ctrl+R) in a busy spot such as a capital city. The order to lower things is the same on every PC: Secondary Lighting and Compute Effects, then render scale, then anti-aliasing and shadows.
Most FPS complaints from the beta come down to a few causes: the two heavy lighting settings, crowded cities, and a handful of client bugs. Work through them in this order, and test each change in the same place so you can compare.
Press Ctrl+R to toggle the frame rate counter on screen. Test in a capital such as Stormwind City or Thunder Bluff, which were the heaviest places in the beta. A setting that holds there holds almost anywhere.
Lowering the whole Graphics Quality preset often helps less than you would expect. Change the expensive settings one by one instead:
If you see stutter while turning the camera, try Windowed (Fullscreen) and Fullscreen and keep whichever runs smoother. If the game crashes or shows graphics bugs, switch the Graphics API between DirectX 12 and DirectX 11.
In mid-October beta builds, many players, mostly on NVIDIA cards with DirectX 12, found the game locked at exactly 60 FPS no matter what they set. The client logged a "thermal state" warning and capped itself, even on cool hardware. A Blizzard developer acknowledged the bug and said a fix was coming, and players reported the cap gone in the stress-test build. Blizzard has not listed the fix in patch notes, so if you still hit it at launch, try these steps:
Capitals are where FPS drops hardest, because hundreds of players gather in one spot. Native nameplates are a big part of it: with many players around, they cost testers 40-50 FPS in capitals. Turn friendly nameplates off in cities, and set Spell Density to Essential. If your FPS stays low after leaving a busy city, restart the game.
Early in the beta, a memory leak made the frame rate sink slowly over hours of play. Blizzard fixed it in September. If you still notice FPS falling the longer you play, restarting the client brings it back, and it is worth reporting.
Some beta players saw shadows jump or flicker as the camera moved. Blizzard said in early October that it was working on a fix, but it has not confirmed that the fix made it into the launch client. If you see it, switching between DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 is the first thing to try, as with any graphics bug.
Addons that tune your settings automatically, such as HyperFrame, sound like an easy way out. In tests, their default settings narrowed the camera field of view, which renders less of the world and can cause motion sickness, and objects started popping in. The settings above give the same frames back without side effects. Our best WoW Forever addons guide lists the addons that do work at launch and how to install them.
Ping is network delay, not frame rate: the game runs smoothly, but spells and movement react late. In the beta, many European players saw 600 to 800 ms and more. That was mostly geography: the beta ran only on North American servers, so every action crossed the Atlantic. At launch, WoW Forever has realms in Europe, North America and Oceania, so pick one in your region and most of that delay disappears. Our WoW Forever realms guide lists them.
If your ping is still high on a realm in your region, two settings under Options → Network helped many players in the beta:
Everything above is about making the new engine run well and look its best. If you would rather have the old look back, with standard-definition models, the classic interface and less fog and glow, that is a different set of switches. Our guide to making WoW Forever look like Classic covers SD models, the Classic Edit Mode preset and the ClassicUI Forever addon.
Getting ready for launch? These guides cover the rest:
These are the questions players ask most often about graphics and performance in WoW Forever.
Secondary Lighting and Compute Effects, followed by render scale, multisample anti-aliasing and Shadow Quality. Setting the first two to Good and High gives back most of the lost frames with little visible change.
Press Ctrl+R. The frame rate counter appears on screen, and the same keys hide it again.
Usually because of a beta bug where the client wrongly detected a thermal problem and capped itself at 60 FPS. Blizzard acknowledged it, and players reported it fixed in the stress-test build. If you still see it, check Logs\gx.log for "Imposing FPS cap of 60 FPS", switch to DirectX 11 and turn off NVIDIA Smooth Motion. Also make sure VSync on a 60 Hz monitor or a 60 FPS cap is not the cause.
In the beta, there were only North American servers, so players in Europe saw 600 ms and more. At launch, play on a realm in your region. If ping is still high, untick "Optimize network for speed" under Options → Network, turn on IPv6 and restart the client.
No. They are saved to your config. Only the grass commands get overwritten when you move the Ground Clutter slider, so run them again after touching it.
No. It only works because the game sharpens the image below 100%. /console ResampleAlwaysSharpen 1 turns the same sharpening on at full resolution.
Not fully. /console volumeFog 0 no longer switches it off after a beta update. Compute Effects sets the fog quality, and even its lowest value keeps a low-resolution fog.
In side-by-side tests there was no measurable FPS difference between HD and SD models, so pick the look you prefer.
DirectX 12 runs better on most systems. Switch to DirectX 11 only if you get crashes, graphics bugs or the 60 FPS cap.
Forever needs a card that supports a specific compute shader feature: at least AMD GCN 1 (2012), NVIDIA Maxwell (2014) or Intel Skylake (2015). A GeForce GTX 750 Ti, any GTX 900 card, a Radeon HD 7850 or Intel HD 530 can start the game, while a GTX 760, 770 or 780, a Radeon HD 6950 or Intel HD 6000 cannot. Blizzard notes that these oldest supported cards are still well below the game's minimum requirements.
Type /console cameraDistanceMaxZoomFactor 4.0 in chat. Lower values such as 2.6 give a smaller extra zoom.
