By making a few system adjustments, I have gotten WoW to run consistently at 25-30 fps, which I think is adequate for an enjoyable mmorpg experience, especially if the T/TR is only used to supplement play on a desktop PC. The optimizations can be broken down into three categories:
Graphics: Improve Framerate
- Reduce the in-game graphical settings to their bare minimums. Drag all the slider bars to the lowest settings, and leave ONLY the “Level of Detail” and “Hardware Cursor” checkboxes enabled. Enabling any other ones will decrease framerate.
- In Windows, right click on your desktop and go into Display Properties>Settings>Advanced>Intel Extreme Graphics and select No Borders. In game, change the resolution to 800x600.
- In WoW, click on the chat window, right click on the tab, and change the font size to 16.
- Check your framerate by downloading FRAPS.
Hard Drive: Prevent Object Load Stuttering
- Defragment the hard drive on a periodic basis. Find this in Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter.
- Install more RAM. More RAM reduces hard drive seeks, which is especially important since the T/TR uses a 4200 RPM drive. Find a 512 MB DDR microDIMM PC2700 module on google between $100-$150.
CPU & General: General Performance
- Run a spyware/malware checker such as Microsoft Antispyware and/or Lavasoft Adaware to eliminate spyware. Some spyware slows your system down.
- Prevent non-vital background apps and system resources from running. This guide details how to do this.
- Tweak the registry using TuneXP to increase performance.
If it was possible to force the T/TR to display at 848x480, that would be the optimal resolution for WoW, giving you both the widescreen aspect as well as increased framerate. Unfortunately it seems the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 can’t drive the display at this size (If anyone can get their T/TR to run at this res please let me know!) Anyways, I hope these guidelines will help some T/TR owning players out there.
