Minimum required internet speed to play

I am moving to a rural area and internet providers are sparse. It looks like my options are satellite or maybe DSL. What is the minimum speed that WoW will work in? It looks like my options are max 25 mbps no matter what I choose. Thanks

Satellite will most likely be unplayable. Generally DSL is fine the game uses little bandwidth. you will have zero issues with 5 mega bits

Ok great, thanks!

Hi, my landlord just downgraded to slower internet, my new download speed is around 15-20 mega bits per second, and the game is lagging out, taking over 3 minutes to load in quest givers in orgrimmar when I return from a fishing quest. Are there any settings I can change to reduce lag? I already have it set to the lowest graphics settings.

Me again, just specifying I was on my level 30 Orc Hunter at the time.

Unless you are using a lot of bandwidth, or sharing the connection with someone who is, that speed is plenty to play the game with no issues. It is probably something else causing the problem. You might post a winmtr, run for 10-15 minutes. https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/27780

1 Like

Wow, as soon as I started running that software, I have no more lag

I am currently at my mom, and she’s using satellite, she only has 2mbit too. I’ve played WoW (Classic) this morning, and while it does spike from time to time, I was usually around 75ms. To be honest, I was expecting worse than that. I was only casually questing, no raid/dungeons so I can’t say it’s going to be perfect everywhere, but I guess it can’t really be worse than what I am on right now :slight_smile:

1 Like

It’s funny because you were able to play during BC on dial up internet, no lag but the occasional disconnect

1 Like

Ive played on satellite before, had pings of 500 to 650

Unplayable ? depends i guess if you are a hardcore PvP’er or just a regular guy.
In battlegrounds you will get owned easy 1 on 1 (also depending what class (caster or melee is a big difference with those pings)

as a caster, warlock for example you can just wiggle your way trough a bunch of mobs and tab-dot them easy without actually noticing anything of the lag.

But like today it doesnt even matter if you got the best internet connection out there because the servers keep lagging and crashing by themself making the game unplayable for all.

I play on a verizon mobil hotspot… I drive truck so it depends on how many bars I get, but when it’s 3 or better, I have no issues with the game. Maybe find out which network has the best signal and look into that.

3 Likes

satellite is sometimes just fine. for a lot of people it will work with good speed and relatively low latency. the issue is that sometimes your latency isn’t good, and if your latency is very bad, there might be no fix. it is an inherently risky way to connect when for some people, the best it gets will be very bad. this isn’t true for dsl and cable, where under basically all circumstances you should have an acceptable connection.

1 Like

I know this is an older post but if you’re still rural, there may be another option for you if the cell coverage is decent. MoFi makes fantastic modems, paired with a 4G LTE network provider and you could get really decent download speeds and very good latency. I’m in the middle of nowhere on an island essentially with the nearest tower over 5 miles away but still get 24mbps download speed with 32 latency and unlimited data. Blows satellite away (latency in satellite is a game killer, not to mention the limited data plans). Couple ways to do this, get a package through a 3rd party provider like unlimitedville but it’s pricey or you could buy the modem and find other solutions for unlimited data plan SIM cards from various providers for much less.

[Edited by Blizzard] This thread has been inactive for some time. Please be mindful of resurrecting older threads. A new or more recent thread can be created to continue the discussion. Locking this thread.