Media Player Boosts World of Warcraft Performance?

In a bit of odd news, Joystiq’s WoW Insider website is reporting that running Windows Media Player in the background can actually boost World of Warcraft performance by up to 50%.

Many players have experienced faster WoW loading times with Windows Media Player (WMP) running in the background. Some players are also reporting lower latency and higher frames per second.

This tip surfaced in the Europe forums late November and was picked up by the US forums two weeks ago. Many players are reporting shortened loading times, some by more than 50%.

I did a quick test and found that by running WMP in the background, minimized and not playing anything, the login screen popped up about 20 seconds quicker than usual. The world loading time (time between clicking Enter World button and character appearing on screen) was also faster by about 15 seconds.

Very strange.