Hello everyone!
After today’s update, I found a bug that causes the setting “secondary lighting” to reset to “HIGH” even if it doesn’t says that way in the settings. Let me explain myself:
I’ve been playing since beta release, with no issues (nothing crazy), and my GPU usage has always been 20-30% (my GPU is NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080), perhaps a bit higher or lower, depending on the area and the number of players nearby.
But today I logged-in, I was in Stormwind, and my GPU usage was 70%-80%. Settings to medium-low. I play also Overwatch and Retail, medium-low settings, always GPU usage was under 40%. I walked out of the city and I kept having that issue. So then I checked my graphics settings, and everything was just as I had configured it. Then I changed the secondary lighting from medium to high, and I noticed NOT CHANGE AT ALL.
Why? because it was already on HIGH even if the setting indicated MEDIUM (remember we have three options, medium-fair-high). And suddenly my GPU usage was back to normal, 20-30%.
Now the fun part: I walked back in Stormwind and noticed a graphic-glitch, it looked as if the shadows were quickly “reloading”. Sure enough, the setting I had just changed (secondary lighting to MEDIUM) had reverted to “HIGH”, even though the settings menu didn’t reflect this change; I know this because my GPU usage (which I monitor with MSI afterburner) had skyrocketed to 70-90%. I manually changed the setting to “HIGH”, resulting in no visual change at all, (remember “it was in medium”), and then switched it to “MEDIUM”, and that time there was a visible change, the shadows quickly loading again, and my GPU usage dropped to 20-30%. I thought we were being forced to use the “HIGH” setting in the city, but then I realized, while walking from Elwynn Forest to Westfall, that this change HAPPENS WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR ZONE.
So, TL;DR:
There is currently a bug where, if you use the “MEDIUM-FAIR” setting for secondary lighting WHEN you change the zone where you are at, it resets to the “HIGH” option (without actually changing the setting in the menu).
I would appreciate it if someone could try changing the secondary lighting setting to “MEDIUM” and walk out of an area to check if this is an issue that isn’t happening only to me!
I’ve checked the beta error folder and found these, which are directly related to what I wrote above. I haven’t encounted them before; I’m attaching a portion of the reports:
World of Warcraft: Beta Build (build 70205)
Exe: C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft_classic_beta_\WowB.exe
Command: "C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft_classic_beta_\WowB.exe" -launcherlogin -uid wow_classic_beta
Time: Oct 3, 2026 7:57:57.010 AM
==============================================================================
Error: ASSERTSAFE(SanitizeIndex(index), ...)
File: d:\BuildServer2\Builder\checkouts\0\Engine\Source\ShaderEffect\OcclusionQuery.cpp
Line: 205
ProcessID: 4912
ThreadID: 11120
Hash: e6346655
<Exception.IssueType> Exception
AssertSafe
Exception.Summary:
ASSERTSAFE(SanitizeIndex(index), ...) at d:\BuildServer2\Builder\checkouts\0\Engine\Source\ShaderEffect\OcclusionQuery.cpp(205)
<:Exception.Summary>
Exception.Assertion:
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722e059ed>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722cd8165>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722cdce1c>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722cdd6f2>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff724d82898>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff724d82d3d>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff724aa792b>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff72114da68>("WowB.exe")
<:Exception.Assertion>
Exception.HashBlock:
DBG-OPTIONS
ERROR #135
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722e059ed>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722cd8165>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722cdce1c>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff722cdd6f2>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff724d82898>("WowB.exe")
DBG-ADDR<00007ff724d82d3d>("WowB.exe")
DBG-OPTIONS<>
<:Exception.HashBlock>
No
<Jira.JiraProjectId> 11701
<Jira.JiraProjectKey> WOW11
<Exception.ProjectId> 10
Btw, I also tested deleting cache-interface-wtf and had the same issue.
Workaround here:
Like Rommax said, is taking the secondary lighting setting from “RAID AND BATTLEGROUND SETTINGS”, so what I did is:
Turn on raid and bg settings.
Change secondary lighting.
Apply and save.
Turn off raid and bg settings.
Working smoothly with no issues.