Client Fixes and Tweaks

Turtle WoW is a mod on the 1.12 version of the game from late 2006, and as with any old game, tech problems arise. Some issues have been fixed in later versions of WoW, while we are stuck with this version. These mods intend to fix issues, and enhance your experience of playing on Turtle WoW.

All entries listed here are compatible with each other, and should also be compatible with other Addons and Mods.

VanillaFixes
Old WoW suffers from stuttering and lag problems, and this mod solves these. VanillaFixes also supplies DXVK, a technology that allows your modern graphics card to use Vulkan to render graphics, instead of the old DirectX 9 tech.


 * 1) Download the release zip from https://github.com/hannesmann/vanillafixes/releases
 * 2) For Windows users, you should grab the DXVK version if you have a relatively modern computer that has support for Vulkan. DXVK usually results in a massive performance boost but can introduce issues, some of which can be resolved by experienced users by instead downloading a newer copy of d3d9.dll from https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases
 * 3) For Linux/Steam Deck users, grab the non DXVK version, and use Lutris/Steam proton or another solution which will handle installing and updating DXVK for you.
 * 4) Extract the files from this zip, and place all of them into your Turtle WoW Folder, where your WoW.exe is at.
 * 5) From now on, make sure you launch the game by running VanillaFixes.exe. VF will need to handle the job of launching WoW.exe for you.

You should be able to tell VF and DXVK are working from a strong performance increase with noticeably less stuttering and lag spikes.

Vanilla-Tweaks
Turtle WoW ships with an alternative WoWFoV.exe, which corrects the field of view of the game to look correct on 16:9 displays. This exe also allows sound to continue playing when WoW is in the background. You can opt to use this premade FoV exe, or...

Using vanilla-tweaks yourself will let you configure these two tweaks as well as: expanding the RAM cap from 2 to 4GB, changing the distance that nameplates render, allow you to Autoloot without needing to hold shift, increase foliage render distance, and so on. To use, follow the instructions at https://github.com/brndd/vanilla-tweaks#usage.

Unlike the rest of the mods that need to load every time, vanilla-tweaks is a one time thing! You mod your exe once, then it is good to go and you can delete the Vanilla-Tweaks.exe tool. KEEP IN MIND: When TurtleWoW updates to a new version with a new patch number, your .exe will be wiped and replaced. You will have to re-run Vanilla-Tweaks on this new exe to get your customizations back!

Keep in mind that if you are using VanillaFixes, VF will run whatever in that folder is named WoW.exe. When using vanilla-tweaks, you'll need to do some file renaming and shuffle the tweaked exe around so that the desired tweaked exe is specifically named WoW.exe.

Side note: If you are using Vanilla-Tweaks' autoloot fix, and you'd like to fix the looting cursor icons to match this new behavior, install this simple mod too: https://github.com/GryllsAddons/CursorLootIcons

Nampower
The 1.12 client has a fatal flaw for anyone whose class uses a castbar: A player is not allowed to cast a second spell until after the client receives word of the completion of the previous spell. This means that in addition to the cast time, you have to wait for the time it takes a message to arrive from the server. In a common worst case scenario, most U.S. based players that connect to E.U. based realms like Turtle results in a ~10-20% drop in effective DPS. Nampower hacks the client to fix this.

Download Nampower from https://github.com/namreeb/nampower/releases, extract the zip into your TurtleWoW folder. If you already use VanillaFixes, you're all done as VF will load the nampower.dll that you just installed. If you do not use VF, then you must use loader.exe to start wow from now on so that Nampower can be loaded.

Start casting spells, use slam, aimed shot, etc. You should notice the difference.

Classic-Snowfall
When you keybind an ability and press it, on new WoW clients the ability will activate the moment you press down. However, on Turtle's 2006 client, abilities only activate once you lift your finger off the keypress. Coupled with latency, this adds to a feeling of unresponsiveness.

If you use pfUI, this issue is already fixed for you :)

For non-pfUI users, download the "ClassicSnowFall" addon as per Addons

Once installed, the client should act just like modern WoW clients in this regard.

ImpulseBooster
The speed at which the game is able to load your addons in old WoW clients is directly tied to the game's refresh rate, which needlessly slows down login load times especially when you have many addons. ImpulseBooster aims to fix this.

Download the "Impulse-Booster" addon as per Addons

Once installed, you should notice generally faster load times on stronger PCs that weren't already bottle-necked on the CPU.

Beware! This may cause bugs with the UI causing elements to be whited out. See the bug report here.

AutoLogin
Those who play Blizzard's official Retail and Classic will know that the launcher is nice in that it lets you automatically log into the game client. Private servers don't exactly have this functionality, but there are tools to help automate logging in for a more seamless experience.

Beware! These solutions store your credentials in plain text readable by any program on your computer... so if a virus/someone hacks your computer, it's possible for your wow password to be stolen!

Turtle AutoLogin
This is recommended for most users, who only have one or just a few accounts. This UI mod adjusts the main login screen and expands the "Remember username" feature to remember everything instead. Important: This mod saves your usernames and passwords in your TurtleWoW/WTF/Config.wtf file, so remember this before sharing this file!

Download from the patch-y.mpq file from https://github.com/Haaxor1689/turtle-autologin/releases and place it into your <TurtleWoW/Data/ folder. Launch the game, and you should see on the top right that your accounts are being stored. You can log in and out to test this, and even set if an account should only ever log into a specific character.

(External) AutoLogin
If you have too many accounts that you have ran into the ~220 character limit of Turtle AutoLogin, you might be interested in using this alternative external tool instead.

Download the tool at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hannesmann/AutoLogin/master/bin/AutoLogin.exe and place into your TurtleWoW folder. Create a desktop shortcut that runs this AutoLogin.exe. Edit this shortcut's Target field to add the required arguments to the program: It needs to know whtether to load VanillaFixes.exe, loader.exe, or just WoW.exe (depending on if you use the above mods or not), then it needs your username, then the password, and finally the delay in miliseconds of how long to wait before it enters the keypresses.

Once done, the Start In field should look something like  while the Target field looks something like. This shortcut should now seamlessly launch the game with your other mods, and your credentials will be typed in ready for you to hit enter and start playing.

If you are technically experienced, you can devise a batch or shell script to manage all of your accounts in a single script.