Here is a list of things to consider if you are getting slow load times in game in order of importance
1) Get an ssd (and ideally a faster internet connection) but mostly the ssd. 2) Turn off every unnescessary addon or try to limit how many addons load with the game and take up in game ram 3) Close other tabs,sites or applications that may be using a lot of bandwith (and ram) like twitch, netflix or other similar sites or at least close some of your tabs there. 4) Try to ideally keep your pc clean from viruses/unnescessary running programms.
And somehow there’s still less loading time when playing wow compared to playing FFXIV. It’s actually one of my biggest complaints about the second game.
WoW loads in as little as under 1 second. then when i turn on every damn addon i have, maybe 3 or 4 seconds? grpahics maxed out on retail, i think my 1% highs for load times would be around 4 or 5 seconds.
this video for whatever reason, makes no sense to me. i have not waited more than 5 seconds on a load screen since i ran an FX6300 + rx 560 + 8gb ddr3 + HDD.
From what I got from this: Turn off Weak Auras if you aren't using it for anything (M+,Raids, etc) as it's the biggest contributor to your load times. (Other addons don't contribute that much but having a ton of addons will add up) Download an Addon Manager and create Profiles for different situations. (Raids/M+, Leveling, World questing) Turn View Distance down to anything below 7 as 8 and up have bigger jumps in load times than from 7 to 1 view distance. (Pick your preference or PC limitations) Set the cvars worldPreloadNonCritcal to 0. Use a macro or use AdvancedInterfaceOptions(easier). The other cvars options are fine to turn off too but aren't that big of a difference. Probably best to keep render scale to your native res. FSR is broken and reducing render scale actually makes it worse.
The load time on the screen and then more as it takes ages and ages for anything to load once you get finally in is ..insane. I don't even run but like 3 addons.. fasterloot, hidetalkinghead, and.. thats it actually. So 2 addons and my load time is astronomical with a good pc. :/
WoW seems to process all addon loading/initial setup on just a single CPU core, so the more of them you have, obviously it will take (much) longer to slog through for that poor overworked core.
Also, I've found (anecdotally) that enabling IP v6 in WoW adds huuuuge login/zoning delays. Absolutely massive. Now, I haven't tested IP6 since switching ISP, maybe that could affect things, but nevertheless, this setting might be something worth watching out for, I dunno. shrug
Long load times is a really big (first-world) issue. One of the reasons I quit Destiny was it took A FRIGGIN MINUTE to enter/leave the city and/or a playing area. This on a high-spec at the time 10-core PC. Yes, I had all settings in the game maxed, but I still don't think it should take a couple minutes to start playing the game (entering the city about a minute of loading, leaving city and entering a playing area, another minute roughly.)
So, ugh. No.
Also, I've cut all addons out of my life these days (too much faff with the constant updating etc), except for the Wowhead looter, which has a very handy coordinates display. No genuine impact on loading times that I can tell from just this lone addon.
So the Stormwind load time jump on view distance from 10 -9 is so big because of Westfall, the tornado to be exact, at view distance 10 you can see it from the mage tower, at 9, you cant.
Wow’s been loading slow since I had to move it to a different hard drive that wasn’t the same as my operating system. Haven’t been able to fix it in the main game. I’m assuming it’s my add-ons but in plunder storm i’ve been using /console worldPreloadNonCritical 0 On the first game, I logged onto and it usually clears it up .
My addons are 1,012MB and my load times are much worse than 15 seconds xD Thanks for the video. I will keep my addons and suffer the load times i guess.
OK it's ridiculous how much of an impact just changing max view distance from 10 to 9 has. Just tried it out of curiosity and my load time cut in half. WTF?
since battle for azeroth came out my loading times in wow got worse and worse. i ended up playing the game on the lowest settings it looked very pixelated but it sped up the loading .and this really angered me since i bought a nice gaming pc a few months earlier and i was running the game maxed out 4k 60fps. even after this started happening my frame rate was good but the loading took forever .and even when in game i would have issues were npc's would be invisible when i moved too quickly .but i mostly played classic wow for a few years but i came back to retail to play shadowlands but it was literally unplayable it took 30 minutes to get in game and then everything was broken .
I have HORRIFIC issues loading into places. I have absolutely no addons or mods installed on my computer that would need to run so I don't have those to turn off. It's probably my computer a little bit? I have an HDD instead of an SSD and I can't afford to replace my computer at the moment. But that's unlikely to be the whole issue. Oddly, FFXIV tends to load just fine and I have no issues playing that game, but the moment I try to do anything in even remotely "current" areas of WoW I'm in fecking stopmotion if I'm even able to zone in at all.
As much as I fully get the benefits of cutting back on the unneeded load times from addons etc. WoW overall is pretty nice for load times compared to other games. I had a look at destiny recently and it's load times without any addons are massive
Most loading issues comes down to your hard drive. Not really your cpu or your graphics card. ALSO addons up the ass is going to be most of the issue. I play with Platers and recount… bagnon and thats it and I got 0 issues and never have. The more addons you pick up the more loading there's going to be, pretty self explanatory
The way I HATED being the lead in Plunder Duos 😭😭😭
turn off addons.
Saved You A Click version please, a 36 minute video for this answer seems excessive.
Here is a list of things to consider if you are getting slow load times in game in order of importance
1) Get an ssd (and ideally a faster internet connection) but mostly the ssd.
2) Turn off every unnescessary addon or try to limit how many addons load with the game and take up in game ram
3) Close other tabs,sites or applications that may be using a lot of bandwith (and ram) like twitch, netflix or other similar sites or at least close some of your tabs there.
4) Try to ideally keep your pc clean from viruses/unnescessary running programms.
Extra tip: Really just get an ssd.
also dragonflight has been more intense for overheating on my system, a exteernal fan helped greatly. but addons cost more
And somehow there’s still less loading time when playing wow compared to playing FFXIV. It’s actually one of my biggest complaints about the second game.
I played EQ this is no where near as bad as EQ, you had to load at every zone
when you have a fast pc with a fast ssd and yet wow loads like you run it on a potato
so do i have to uninstall the addons totally or just turn them off?
it's like disabling all the things that want to run at startup on windows. I applaud Matts efforts here!
I actually had a Hearthstone macro to set my view distance to zero before using the stone.
loads really slowly?
ryzen 7 3700x
32gb 4x8gb ddr4
rx 5700
samsung sata ssd
WoW loads in as little as under 1 second. then when i turn on every damn addon i have, maybe 3 or 4 seconds? grpahics maxed out on retail, i think my 1% highs for load times would be around 4 or 5 seconds.
this video for whatever reason, makes no sense to me. i have not waited more than 5 seconds on a load screen since i ran an FX6300 + rx 560 + 8gb ddr3 + HDD.
Wow loads faster than ESO by a heart beat
EDIT: CAN YOU PLEASE TEST HOW MUCH LONGER LOADING IS WITH ELVUI
Bro 14 seconds to load while minecraft on my son's ps4 takes 14 MINUTES to open lmao
Wow /console worldPreloadNonCritical 0 really does feel like a loading time cheat code, thanks for the useful info
From what I got from this:
Turn off Weak Auras if you aren't using it for anything (M+,Raids, etc) as it's the biggest contributor to your load times. (Other addons don't contribute that much but having a ton of addons will add up)
Download an Addon Manager and create Profiles for different situations. (Raids/M+, Leveling, World questing)
Turn View Distance down to anything below 7 as 8 and up have bigger jumps in load times than from 7 to 1 view distance. (Pick your preference or PC limitations)
Set the cvars worldPreloadNonCritcal to 0. Use a macro or use AdvancedInterfaceOptions(easier). The other cvars options are fine to turn off too but aren't that big of a difference.
Probably best to keep render scale to your native res. FSR is broken and reducing render scale actually makes it worse.
The load time on the screen and then more as it takes ages and ages for anything to load once you get finally in is ..insane. I don't even run but like 3 addons.. fasterloot, hidetalkinghead, and.. thats it actually. So 2 addons and my load time is astronomical with a good pc. :/
WoW seems to process all addon loading/initial setup on just a single CPU core, so the more of them you have, obviously it will take (much) longer to slog through for that poor overworked core.
Also, I've found (anecdotally) that enabling IP v6 in WoW adds huuuuge login/zoning delays. Absolutely massive. Now, I haven't tested IP6 since switching ISP, maybe that could affect things, but nevertheless, this setting might be something worth watching out for, I dunno. shrug
Long load times is a really big (first-world) issue. One of the reasons I quit Destiny was it took A FRIGGIN MINUTE to enter/leave the city and/or a playing area. This on a high-spec at the time 10-core PC. Yes, I had all settings in the game maxed, but I still don't think it should take a couple minutes to start playing the game (entering the city about a minute of loading, leaving city and entering a playing area, another minute roughly.)
So, ugh. No.
Also, I've cut all addons out of my life these days (too much faff with the constant updating etc), except for the Wowhead looter, which has a very handy coordinates display. No genuine impact on loading times that I can tell from just this lone addon.
So the Stormwind load time jump on view distance from 10 -9 is so big because of Westfall, the tornado to be exact, at view distance 10 you can see it from the mage tower, at 9, you cant.
Wow’s been loading slow since I had to move it to a different hard drive that wasn’t the same as my operating system. Haven’t been able to fix it in the main game. I’m assuming it’s my add-ons but in plunder storm i’ve been using
/console worldPreloadNonCritical 0
On the first game, I logged onto and it usually clears it up .
Idk what happened but shadowlands ran so much better lol.
My addons are 1,012MB and my load times are much worse than 15 seconds xD Thanks for the video. I will keep my addons and suffer the load times i guess.
OK it's ridiculous how much of an impact just changing max view distance from 10 to 9 has. Just tried it out of curiosity and my load time cut in half. WTF?
Never had that much issues with loading times. And never used weakaura's, or other big addons. It makes sense that a vanilla loadout loads the fastest
Asmongold: "Blizzard should disallow all addons."
Everyone: He's insane!
Bellular: Addons are increasing loading time.
Everyone: Delete your addons!
since battle for azeroth came out my loading times in wow got worse and worse. i ended up playing the game on the lowest settings it looked very pixelated but it sped up the loading .and this really angered me since i bought a nice gaming pc a few months earlier and i was running the game maxed out 4k 60fps. even after this started happening my frame rate was good but the loading took forever .and even when in game i would have issues were npc's would be invisible when i moved too quickly .but i mostly played classic wow for a few years but i came back to retail to play shadowlands but it was literally unplayable it took 30 minutes to get in game and then everything was broken .
I have HORRIFIC issues loading into places. I have absolutely no addons or mods installed on my computer that would need to run so I don't have those to turn off. It's probably my computer a little bit? I have an HDD instead of an SSD and I can't afford to replace my computer at the moment. But that's unlikely to be the whole issue. Oddly, FFXIV tends to load just fine and I have no issues playing that game, but the moment I try to do anything in even remotely "current" areas of WoW I'm in fecking stopmotion if I'm even able to zone in at all.
Most people I knew, including myself, used a HS macro to set view distance to minimum in vanilla WotLK not to crash…
As much as I fully get the benefits of cutting back on the unneeded load times from addons etc. WoW overall is pretty nice for load times compared to other games. I had a look at destiny recently and it's load times without any addons are massive
By not playing, all load screens are instant
Great video with a fantastic test- and dataset! Well done! 👍
Most loading issues comes down to your hard drive. Not really your cpu or your graphics card. ALSO addons up the ass is going to be most of the issue. I play with Platers and recount… bagnon and thats it and I got 0 issues and never have. The more addons you pick up the more loading there's going to be, pretty self explanatory