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World of Warcraft Lag Issues

"World of Warcraft" is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that as of 2011 has a player base in excess of 12 million people. World or Warcraft connects remote servers to your home computer and is constantly transmitting data back and forth. Lag is the slowdown of data transfer between the two computers and can cause many complications with the game. When lag increases it can become very difficult to interact with the environment. Lag can also increase to the point where the remote server disconnects the user, which forces the game to shut down.

Shut Down Other Connections
- MMORPGs require fast Internet connections to run smoothly, and it is vital that no other programs or applications are using bandwidth in the background. Minimize World of Warcraft, or press the "Alt" and "Tab" keys together to bring up your desktop. Verify that there are no other applications running that use the Internet. File sharing and torrent clients are common examples of applications that hog a lot of Internet bandwidth and should be shut down before playing.
Update Drivers
- It is imperative that your operating system and all relevant drivers are up to date. Outdated drivers can cause software conflicts that place an increased burden on your computer's processor. Consult your operating system's user manual to learn how to check for new updates to your computer.
Eliminate Add-Ons
- "World of Warcraft" allows users to create and install their own custom add-ons. Occasionally, these add-ons will conflict with one another and generate large amounts of lag. From the character screen, click the "Add Ons" tab to view the list of add-ons you have running. Uncheck them all and start the game to see if lag has improved. If so, enable each add-on one by one to determine which one was causing the lag issue.
Graphics
- It is possible that the lag you are experiencing in-game is not caused by your connection. If your video and audio settings are too high for your computer to handle, you will experience lag through frame loss and stuttering. Press "Esc" to open the main menu and click on "Video Settings." Reduce the video settings and turn off "shadows" and "weather effects" to decrease the load on your system.

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