Suddenly Cannot Login Due to New Flickering (Workaround Applicable)

Support Technical Support
1

Hello. All of a sudden, as of either Tuesday or Wednesday this week (12/9 or 12/10), it seems I cannot log in to the game without a workaround. I’m at a bit of a loss. I’ve made a video of the issue but I can’t post a link here it seems. If anyone knows how I can post a link here, please let me know.

Essentially the issue is that I open up the game, and right when it’s about to get me to the character select, the game starts flickering endlessly and I can’t select any of my characters. On the taskbar, it looks like the icon for the game vanishes and gets restored many times, rapidly. The game just stays like that in perpetuity, while I’m able to hear the music.

The game has always worked perfectly fine, and I made no changes or updates to the computer before this happened. The only thing I saw that was changed was a small windows update on 12/10. I uninstalled this tonight, and I still have the issue. I installed the latest graphics drivers, and even rolled back to some old good ones, and still nothing.

I’m using Windows 11. The ‘workaround’ to this is by modifying my widescreen monitor to basically change its mode to allow for two inputs, such that it uses half its screen for my desktop computer instead of the whole thing. That brings it to a 2560 x 1440 (from a 5120 x 1440), and that immediately lets me see my characters and stops the flickering.

Then, once I’m in the game, I can undo that special split screen monitor setting, go back to 5120 x 1440, and I’m good to go. But that’s no way to live!

I also tried exiting the game in Windowed mode so I can start it up in Windowed mode, and that also fixed the issue, but again it’s unacceptable to need to do all this workaround forevermore & for no reason. I’ve also tried Scan and Repair, with no luck. No WoW patches were released around that time as far as I could tell from the Patch Notes section in the launcher, only the week prior.

Messing with refresh rates of my monitor, as well as foreground fps and background fps settings in WoW did absolutely nothing.

This is such a random, permanent pain. Does anyone know what to do about it?

2

I had a similar flicking issue, turning off HDR in windows resolved it.

2 Likes
3

An excellent thought; my HDR has been off though and after toggling it on and then off again in Windows, still nothing… I can’t think of any other place that might control HDR, can you?

4

The robot overloads have suggestions:

Switch DirectX mode

  • Many players report that changing WoW’s graphics API from DirectX 12 to DirectX 11 eliminates flickering at character select.

  • DX11 tends to be more stable on certain ultrawide setups, even if DX12 usually offers better performance.

2. Match FPS cap to monitor refresh rate

  • Set Max Foreground FPS equal to your monitor’s refresh rate (e.g., 144 Hz).
  • Disable Max Background FPS entirely.
  • Flickering often occurs when WoW’s FPS cap conflicts with G-Sync/FreeSync refresh logic.

3. Check G-Sync/FreeSync settings

  • If your monitor uses adaptive sync, try toggling it off in NVIDIA/AMD control panel.
  • Some ultrawide monitors misbehave when G-Sync is active during resolution changes.
  • Alternatively, force WoW to run with G-Sync enabled only in fullscreen mode.

4. Force resolution scaling

  • Instead of relying on your monitor’s split-input workaround, try setting WoW’s resolution manually to 5120x1440 in the config file.
  • Navigate to WTF\Config.wtf and add or edit:

Code

SET gxResolution "5120x1440"
SET gxWindow "0"
  • This can prevent the game from “flickering” between resolutions at launch.

5. Windows 11 display troubleshooting

  • Flickering can also stem from Windows’ compositor. Try:
    • Disabling Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows settings.
    • Running WoW with Compatibility mode (Windows 10).
    • Checking Task Manager during flicker: if only WoW flickers, it’s app-specific; if the whole screen flickers, it’s driver/OS-level
5

You know…I hate to say it but somehow the problem fixed itself, after a week+. It left as inexplicably as it came @.@ Some weird Tuesday ultra minor patch and then fixed by some other Tuesday super minor patch? I have no idea…

Never seen anything quite like this before.

I didn’t do any of your steps as a result but rest assured if it comes back, I will; thanks a million!

6

Not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.

2 Likes
7

LOL right? When I say I’ve never seen anything like this, do note that I’ve playing Warcraft religiously since Warcraft 3, if that ages me a little. So I do feel bad for the support and then this happening -_- Thanks again :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

8

God I wish mine would fix itself :frowning: Because along with the flash came EXTREME latency to the point the game is unplayable and I have been scouring the forums for any kind of solution….