Lag and computer specs

For years I believed that if a MMORPG was showing lots of lag, the reason was a slow connection or an overloaded server. Since I played WoW on different computers, I know that the specs of your computer play a big role as well. I'm currently at my parent's house for christmas, I'm playing WoW on the laptop, and lag in the big cities like Ironforge is considerably worse on the laptop than it is on my home gaming PC. Number of players around you plays a big role, but the limiting factor is not the server capacity or internet speed, but your RAM or the speed of your graphics card.

Well, the good news is that outside of the cities the lag isn't really noticeable, not even on the laptop, and so I can play if I want. This year I installed wireless ADSL at my parents place, because they didn't want to string cables all through the house, and so my laptop is automatically connected here. I like WiFi.

When I'm not using my laptop to play, I use him as DVD-player. I bought the complete first season of CSI on DVD, and I like watching those very much.
- posted by Tobold @ 2:28 PM Permanent Link