performance optimization retail - tukui-org/ElvUI GitHub Wiki

Step 1: Enable System - Graphics - Raid Graphics Quality

First of all you have to enable the checkbox "Raid Graphics Quality" and then
click on the "Raid and Battleground" bar to setup your graphics quality in instance content.

Following with some recommendations and explanations. They will obviously not work for every system and setup.

General

  • Graphics Quality can be 10. It will automatically switch over to Custom in our process of tweaking.
  • Texture Resolution can be High. Performance impact is almost non-existent and your game will look better.
  • Spell Density should be Essential. Less effects on your screen. You will still see important effects like healing zones.
  • Projected Textures has to be Enabled. Otherwise you will miss important void zones and die to boss mechanics.

Environment

  • View Distance does not exist in instances. You should set it to 1.
  • Environment Detail does not exist in instances. You should set it to 1.
  • Ground Clutter does not exist in instances. You should set it to 1.

Effects

  • Shadow Quality should be Low.
  • Liquid Detail should be Low.
  • Particle Density atleast High. Recommended Ultra for raiding.
  • SSAO, Depth Effects and Compute Effects should be Disabled.
  • I suggest you set Outline Mode to High.

Example screenshot

  • This is the Raid and Battleground section. Open world content is not affected by this.

Raid and Battleground

Anti-Aliasing

  • Turn it off for 1080p or higher. At the top of the Graphics section (Set to "None").
  • Alternatively you can use Multisample Techniques and set it to 4x or 8x.
  • Enable Multisample Alpha-Test if you decide to use 4x or 8x.

Render Scale (Big FPS!)

  • You can use a lower render scale and upscale it back to a crisp clean look.
  • Start at Render Scale of 83% and adjust if needed.
  • Set Resample Quality to FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 at the bottom of the Graphics tab.
  • Set Resample Sharpness to 0 otherwise your screen might look blurry (Default is 0.2).

Advanced tweaking

  • Disable Ray Traced Shadows unless you are using a 3090Ti or 4000 series.
  • Use the Ambient Occlusion Type FidelityFX CACAO for the quality of lightning effects.
  • Disable Target FPS.
  • Don't use the ingame FPS limiter. If you need to limit your max FPS then do it in your driver control panel.

Console commands for Raid effects

  • /console RAIDWaterDetail 0 (Default is 0)
  • /console RAIDweatherDensity 0 (Default is 3)

Step 2: Lua errors

Lua errors will always impact your performance. Even if you disable or hide them.

Blizzard Console Variable

  • Enable the error frame with the following chat command /console scriptErrors 1
  • Reload your UI with the following chat command /reload

BugSack and BugGrabber

  • We recommend to download BugSack and BugGrabber.
  • BugGrabber will catch all your Lua errors and consolidate them into a Minimap icon which you can open on click.
  • This is the best way to go through your errors and share them with AddOn authors so they can fix them.

Step 3: Optimizing in General

Friendly NamePlates

  • You should turn off Friendly NamePlates in Raids using the hotkey (Default is Shift-V). Even in name-only mode with hidden health bars.
  • They have a major performance impact in situations where auras (Buffs and Debuffs) are applied to your Raid.
  • All the health events in the background will still fire and kill your FPS (Roughly a 15 to 20 FPS loss for low-mid systems).
  • This is a Blizzard bug. They just set the health bar alpha to 0 instead of fully deactivating them.

Profiling

  • Profiling your CPU and Memory usage is nice, but it does impact your performance.
  • Make sure to disable it with the following chat command /console scriptProfile 0 and then /reload
  • Make sure to disable addons like AddOn CPU Usage if you don't need them.

Step 4: Optimize your ElvUI

General - Cosmetic

  • Using Thin Borders, UnitFrame Thin Borders and Nameplate Thin Borders will improve your fps slightly.

ActionBars

  • If you have empty and unused bars which you don't use, disable them.
  • If you want to use hotkeys on a hidden bar, enable the bar and set visibility state to hide.

Cooldown Text

  • We recommend to use the ElvUI Cooldown Text module instead of AddOns like OmniCC.
  • Our module is optimized for ElvUI frames.

DataBars

  • Disable bars if you don't need them. Completely disable Experience on max level.
  • Turn off threat if you don't care about it.

NamePlates

  • Do not use Portraits or Heal Prediction for the best performance.
  • Clean up old Style Filters if you no longer use them.

Tooltip

  • Disable Target Info and Role for the best performance.
  • Other informations are automatically hidden in combat and won't have any impact.

UnitFrames

  • Disable Smooth Bars in the General tab of UnitFrames.
  • The bigger your Filter Priority for Buffs and Debuffs, the higher the performance impact. Try to optimize them.
  • Do not use Portraits.
  • Do not use Heal Prediction for all frames if you are for example a DPS or Tank and don't need the information.

Bonus

It is highly recommended to do a full reset of your World of Warcraft installation for each expansion release.

This is obviously something people don't like to do but a clean install will improve your stability and performance.
Don't backup any files when doing this. Especially not the WTF or Interface folders. You have to do a full reset.
You can export your profile strings, but you should not carry over old files to the new install.
Your keybinds and actionbar spell placements will not reset. They are stored on Blizzards server.

How to do a full reset

  • Uninstall WoW in your Battle.net client.
  • Close the Battle.net Client.
  • Go in your drive and delete the leftover World of Warcraft folder.
  • Log back in to the Battle.net Client and start a fresh download.

The best time to perform a full reset is between the Pre-Expansion patch and the full Expansion release.

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