http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...034803&sid=1#0

Hi Samdeathwkzz,

The game requires all of the files to be present at the time the game loads. All data is scattered all over so you can't really throw parts of World of Warcraft onto a RAM disk. Maybe you'll encounter a mob in Eastern Kingdom or a player with a certain pet that makes use of an expansion file. You can still use one copy of the game to launch multiple instances so if you have enough RAM to do that, more power to you. If you do not have enough, you'll have to use a different storage medium.

High speed SSDs (especially if they're in a stripe RAID) with large read numbers are great for the game and can help you load things quickly. Hard drives aren't bad either.

World of Warcraft uses occlusion but I'm not sure if it preloads player data that are close to you.
Occlusion:
In computer graphics, the term is used to describe the manner in which an object closer to the viewport masks (or occludes) an object further away from the viewport. In the graphics pipeline, a form of occlusion culling is used to remove hidden surfaces before shading and rasterizing take place.


Basically this means that Silencer is correct that you want media that has low access times over media that has high transfer bandwidth.

So, a pair of cheap 36G raptors in raidzero is not sufficient, but you can use that for basic WoW storage at little cost.

Then you need to get in order:

12-24G System Ram (I7) is best. (this solution is like 6 months away)
2 Acard in 4 raid0 ram (the $400 Card) is 2nd best. (acard infos here: ACard ANS-9010 RAM Drive) (this solution is actually available now.)
1 Acrad in 2 raid0 ram (the $400 Card) is 3rd best.
Intel SSD 4th (some infos here: Running 5x WoWs on a capped server using the latest intel X25 SSD), given that you can get the Acard for about the same price this solution seems unwise).
Other SSD 5th (if cheaper then Acard - should be). Some infos: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...h,2127-10.html
2 more raptors for 4X Raid0 is cheap mans solution 6th (way cheaper but access times way worse then Acard).

Notice on the Acard you dont use the CFL or whatever that is just have the wow folder in the two cheapo raptors and read the whole folder to the Acardd before you start wow and read the whole folder back to the raptors when you end, I guess one raptor is just as good as two and a lot safer.

So just take that list and buy the best you can afford. End of story.


KEEP IN MIND this infos in MORE important then your CPU or your Video Card, those two (if decent) are not the bottleneck its getting infos from the wow folder to your system ram and/or video card that is more important. In other words going from raptors to SSD or Acard will help your fps more then going from dual to quad cores or going from a 9600 to a 280.


Ok here is a .11 ms access time ssd drive for $165 (i.e. for wow about as good as the Intel SSD): This seems a very very resonable and cost effective solution. Better to go to the Acard if you need more then 16G or you have the $400 (plus $12 per G of ram).

http://www.sandisk.com/OEM/ProductCa...A_5000_25.aspx

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Sandisk-SSD-...3A1%7C294%3A50