August 25, 2023

Dragonflight Best Settings Guide for Maximum FPS in 2023

With each update, Blizzard adds more elements to render into WoW, making the game consistently more demanding. Fortunately, they also add plenty of advanced parameters to let you choose how many effects you want to sacrifice for better performance. This WoW graphics settings guide should help you figure them out.

Note that much of that depends on your PC. While you can absolutely increase your FPS without sacrificing the quality of the picture, some more advanced parameters would be barred for you if you have an older PC or incompatible hardware. It’s still possible to increase your WoW Dragonflight low FPS.

Optimal FPS for Dragonflight

World of Warcraft is an energetic game. There’s a lot going on there and you don’t want to miss anything because your PC slowed down for a second, especially in a raid. As such, keep your FPS above 60 at all times. If it’s below that, you need to consider your visual settings, GPU drivers, and optimization. To view your FPS count in-game, click CTRL+R.

However, because each PC is unique, even some of the best WoW graphics settings Dragonflight has to offer should be negotiated if your FPS is dangerously close to 60.

Some Initial Windows Parameters

Before even starting the game, you can toggle a few parameters in your Windows settings to make Dragonflight run smoother. Find these in the Windows search bar:

Enable “Game Mode“. The PC will redirect its power to the game while you’re playing it at the expense of other tasks.
Disable “Xbox Game Bar“. This parameter can decrease your performance without contributing much to Dragonflight.
Enable “Hardware–Accelerated GPU Scheduling“. Doing that will redirect power from the CPU to GPU, which could decrease the input lag.
Change your “Power Options“ to “High Performance“ or “Balanced“. This will increase the output of your PC, as well as its energy consumption.

These parameters will help you increase FPS in WoW Dragonflight slightly, although you may test how they affect your comfort in real-time with your game open.

Radeon Drivers

Between AMD and NVidia, there’s no clear answer to what’s the best GPU for WoW Dragonflight. Whatever you have, you’ll do fine if the drivers are fresh. On the front page of your AMD desktop app, check the “driver and software” window at the top right corner to see if it’s “up to date.”

After that, you can proceed to “gaming” -> “graphics” -> “custom” to toggle your options a bit.

AMD Graphics Settings

There are plenty of options here for how to make World of Warcraft run faster, including several advanced parameters.

“Radeon Super Resolution” is an upscaling technique that allows you to bring your resolution up to a required level without decreasing your performance. You can reduce your resolution in the game and enable this mechanic to rerender the missing resolution back to the native level artificially.

“Radeon Anti–Lag“ is another potentially good setting that combats input lag. It works in a similar way to the hardware-accelerated scheduling, because it makes sure the CPU isn’t bothered by some additional tasks while you’re playing. This lets you reduce the task queue and make it easier for your PC to register input commands.

“Radeon Chill“ is just a way to limit your FPS. You can set a minimal FPS to demand a certain level of performance even at the expense of other processes. You can also set a maximum level to reduce energy consumption. Alternatively, you can put them at the same amount to make sure your FPS is always on the same level.

NVidia Drivers

To check the relevancy of your drivers on NVidia, go to the “NVidia Control Panel“ on your desktop, then go to “help” and select “updates.” This will open up a window where you can check if you’re good on recent drivers and if there is something to download. If everything’s in order, you can go ahead and play with the parameters.

NVidia Graphics Settings

You might want to address several advanced features here, as well.

“Low Latency Mode“ is an option you should enable in the “Manage 3D Settings“ section. It will decrease the time it takes the CPU to process the frames. This mode accomplished it by queuing a much lower number of frames for your processor to work with.

You’ll also want to set your “Max Frame Rate“ as part of your WoW Dragonflight optimization. It’s usually done to reduce the energy costs for your laptop or PC, but it can also help you stay in the optimal GSYNC range if you have GSYNC turned on (which you probably should). The right framerate limit would be about 160.

Also, consider disabling the “Change ECC State” (known to decrease your framerate). Then toggle the “Change Resolution” to your native proportions and set up the “Refresh Rate” (in the same section) to the max. This will ensure that your screen updates as fast as possible.

In–Game Settings

Your in-game settings naturally play a large role, but it doesn’t mean that all of those preparatory steps are optional. In fact, you might have additional settings that are unique to your GPU, which will improve your framerate. Once you’ve dealt with them, enter the game and start tinkering. These are currently the best WoW graphics settings of 2023:

Accessibility/General:

Camera Shake — None. You can leave some shake, but it ultimately worsens visibility, which you don’t want.

System/Graphics:

Display Mode — Fullscreen
Resolution — Native
Render Scale — 90-100%. The 100% scale means your resolution is scaled in full. You can lower it if you use Radeon Super Resolution or the in-game Fidelity FX Super Resolution.
Vertical Sync — Disabled. Enabling it fixes excessive tearing but reduces input.
Image-Based Techniques — FXAA High
Camera FOV — 60. Too much FOV means more rendering, which harms the framerate.

System/Graphics/Advanced:

You can put everything in this section at low. You don’t want to disable some of these options because it can mess with your perception of the important game elements, but putting them in the lowest acceptable way will do the trick. The only exceptions are spell density, outline mode, and projected textures, which need to be a bit higher.

System/Graphics/Raid and Battleground:

Triple Buffering — Disabled
Ray Traced Shadows — Disabled
Ambient Occlusion Type — FidelityFX CACAO
Resample Quality — FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0. This WoW performance issues fix works similarly to Radeon’s Super Resolution.

The other parameters are at your discretion and should be considered according to your needs and capabilities. The general logic is to balance good visibility and quality of visuals while not overloading the system. It takes some trial and error, estimating how much you are willing to sacrifice for extra framerate. These are, however, the WoW settings for best FPS.