World of Warcraft Not Using GPU: 4 Working Solutions

Written By Farhan Max

We all know the ongoing scarcity of chip shortages. Which affected the gaming industry in significant parameters. 

Because of the chip shortage and ongoing corona pandemic, the whole industry slowed down. Resulting in fewer gaming products on the market.
GPUs are like a treasure now. You cannot find them anywhere. Even if you do, it’s going to cost you a fortune.

Another reason GPUs are priced higher is because of the ongoing bitcoin mining competition. Every mining company owns Thousands of GPUs! This is why normal consumers are not getting any.

Can Intel Graphics 620 run WoW?

You can play World of warcraft battle for Azeroth in Intel Graphics 620. But you have to lower your resolution to 720p. Also, you have to place all the graphical settings to low. Intel 620 igpu will give around 40 FPS on wow in the lowest possible settings.

As I said, many people are sticking to their igpu because of the chip shortage and sky-high GPU price, resulting in some errors. 

Well, you don’t have to worry about that. In this guideline, I will explain how you can maximize your GPU settings in wow.

world-of-warcraft-not-using-gpu

So keep reading till the end to get your desired fix.

Check our latest post on WOW Best Starting Zone.

Does WOW use GPU?

You will not even be able to launch your operating system if you do not have a graphics card. However, the majority of PC mainboards are equipped with an inbuilt graphics card that allows you to play games that do not need a lot of graphics rather effectively.

Whether you play World of Warcraft on an integrated GPU, I’m not sure if it will run well, but you should be able to at the very least get it started.
As a matter of fact, every game will use a GPU unit of a computer. The real question would be whether wow can run on igpu or you need an additional GPU unit to run the game at ease.

Check out my new post on How Much is WOW Per Month.

Before answering the question, I would like to clarify that World of Warcraft is a CPU-intensive game. Meaning if you have a good enough CPU paired with an igpu, you might play world of warcraft in lower or mid settings. But it would hardly reach up to 60 fps gaming. 

It’s sad that Intel CPUs outperform AMD’s in some situations, notably raids and battlegrounds when your frame rate will be slowed down regardless of your setup. A higher frequency CPU will still outperform a slower one even in the direst of circumstances.

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But apart from a higher-end CPU, wow will always make the most out of your GPU.

It is possible that the minimum system requirements for World of Warcraft Classic may alter over time as a result of prospective software updates.

Minimum requirements for World of Warcraft to run at its top settings are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M (2 GB VRAM), AMD Radeon R9 M290 (2 GB VRAM), and Intel HD Graphics 530.

Check out the easiest way to WOW Ground Mounts.

But obviously, if you want to push the limits, then you have to get a GPU that supports RTX. Because wow, shadowland’s is now ray tracing enabled. 

Be aware that this just affects shadows; therefore, turning it on won’t result in noticeably better visual quality; rather, it will simply provide more realistic-looking shadows. The functionality may also be disabled completely. You won’t notice as much of an improvement as you would with, say, Minecraft’s RTX implementation since this doesn’t totally alter the game’s lighting model.

Nonetheless, In nighttime scenarios, it’s wonderful for illuminating the scene with flickering fires, windows, streetlights, and other luminaries; yet, in “normal” gameplay, you wouldn’t even realize it was there. Actually, I think WOW’s style is a bit too cartoony for real-world lighting, but I keep it on since, well, that’s the entire point of having a card with RTX in the first place. I’m running it at 60 frames per second with Vsync, and it’s stable at 55 frames per second with visual setting 8. Despite this, it does not seem to be as aesthetically attractive as titles like Cyberpunk2077, Metro, and Battlefield 2042.

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Consider the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands system requirements before purchasing if you’ve been playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games on an outdated potato computer. Now that the minimum and recommended specs have been raised to include a new generation of processors and graphics cards, you have to match the level too in order to play the game smoothly.

How To Fix World Of Warcraft Not Using GPU

Sometimes when we have a dedicated GPU paired with an igpu, our windows process tries to give the upper hand to the igpu. It can happen if you are on a laptop. As in our laptop, there are battery savings options that will save the battery cutting the CPU/GPU usage. It might happen on the desktop due to usage priority. 

So without any further ado, let’s jump into the troubleshooting.

But before that, go through our epic guide on WOW Lingo: What it is & How to Play.

Here are the steps to fix wow not using GPU:

1. Update All your Drivers

This is the first thing you should do. If you have outdated drivers, that will lead you to use the igpu instead of your dedicated GPU. So in order to play wow smoothly, you have to update all your drivers to the latest one.

nvedia-update

Here are the steps to update your drivers:

  • Go to your GPU driver’s application.
  • Click on settings.
  • Press on check for updates.
  • Download and install the updates.

Do the same for your integrated GPU. You can also easily update all your drivers using an automatic download manager that will detect all the software updates you need on your device and will automatically download and install them.

In a hurry? Check out my new post on WOW VS WOW Classic.

2. Set Your NVIDIA card as default

If you have two GPU units on your board, then you have to select which one you want to use by default.

default-nvedia

Here are the steps to set Nvidia GPUs as default:

  • Right-click on your mouse.
  • Open your Nvidia control panel.
  • Go to 3D settings.
  • Click on adjust image settings with preview.
  • Set use the advanced 3D image settings.
  • Move to manage 3D settings.
  • Set high-performance Nvidia processor in your preferred graphics processor.
  • Go to Physx configuration. 
  • Set your dedicated GPU as a Physx processor.

Now, if you launch your wow application, you will see your game is now using your main GPU. If you are still having the issue follow the next method.

Also, check our exclusive tutorial on Can You Play WOW Solo.

3. Set your graphics settings on high performance

You will mostly see this problem if you are using a laptop. So before configuring the graphics settings, disable the battery saving option and click on the performance mode.

Here are the steps to disable battery saver on laptop:

  • Go to the bottom right of your laptop.
  • Look for your battery Icon.
  • Click on your battery settings.
  • Set the battery to performance mode.

You have disabled the battery saving option now; you have to configure the graphics settings.

Here are the steps for configuring the graphics settings:

Search graphics settings on the search bar.

  • Click on graphics settings.
  • Browse the application you want to change.
  • Click on the world of warcraft.
  • Tap on options.
  • Set graphics preference to high performance.

Now your laptop will use the main you of your laptop. You can try this on your desktop as well.

Check out my new post why World of Warcraft Not Launching.

4. Launch using DirectX 11

If you still that your GPU usage is still at 0%, then launching the game with DX11 might help. As many players reported, when they launched the game using DX11, they got a performance boost. Meaning more fps and stability.

wow

Here are the steps to launch the game using DX11:

  • Close the wow client.
  • Start the battle.net application.
  • Navigate to your World of Warcraft app.
  • Scroll all the way down to the game settings.
  • Tick on Additional command-line parameters
  • Write -d3d11 in the box
  • Save the configuration.

Now, your wow client will launch using the dx11 settings. And you should be able to see your GPU usage.

Also, check out our separate post on the best World of Warcraft gaming laptop.

Final Thoughts

WOW, not using GPU will arise if you are playing the game in battery-saving options, mostly on laptops. Also, as wow is a more CPU-intensive game, the usage of GPU will be lower than usual anyway.

Hopefully, with this guideline, you can solve your problem.

And if you still have any queries, then you can always reach out to us.

About The Author
Farhan Max is a tech geek with a particular interest in computer hardware. He's been fascinated by gaming since childhood and is now completing his undergraduate studies while researching and testing the latest tech innovations. Alongside his love for all things geeky, Farhan is also a skilled photographer.

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