- A functional wow private server using Mangos
This is the most important thing, if you haven’t configured your wow server properly, please check how to configure mangos first

- WoW Model Viewer – http://code.google.com/p/wowmodelviewer/
This is needed in order to get WoW Display ID. And in this case to get the display / model id for specific creature

As a side note, actually you can also get the display ID of creatures you want by looking through UDB database which we’ve installed previously. But because i never play on official server, i know nothing about any cool creatures that can be found inside WoW World so looking through Model Viewer seems to be the best choice for me because i can see how the creature looks :P

And make sure that mangosd.exe process isn’t running before starting this process

All you have to do is just open WOW Model Viewer and then choose View -> View NPC to see NPC Model with it’s Display ID (Display ID is listed as the second value) and you’ll get the creature display id

In this example we’re going to create a new custom vendor + repair npc (4224) for mangos using The Lich King Model (28672) with creature id 100001 plus 100000 health called Reaper-X with subname www.reaper-x.com (obviously you’re free to change the npc name to your liking)

Anyway, now we need to open command prompt as usual, then type this

mysql -uroot -p
# switch database to mangos
use mangos
# inserting new rows for creature on mangos
INSERT INTO creature_template (entry, modelid_A, modelid_H, name, subname, minhealth, maxhealth, npcflag) VALUES
( 100001, 28672, 28672, 'Reaper-X', 'www.reaper-x.com', 100000, 100000, 4224 );
# checking whether the previous value has been inserted to database
SELECT entry, name, subname from creature_template where entry = 100001;
# quit mysql
quit

1. Delete everything inside your WoW cache directory (Your WoW Installation Directory\Cache)

2. Now start mangosd.exe and then open your wow client, and finally log on to your server

3. Choose the best position on where your new custom npc should be placed (the new custom npc will be added to your current character position in WoW, and also facing the same position as your character so make sure to position your character properly)

4. type .npc add 100001

5. And voila! you’re done adding your new custom vendor npc

1. Click on the npc

2. Type .lookup item itemname where itemname should be replaced with whatever item you want your new custom vendor sell (in this example i choose Shadowmourne)

3. Type .npc additem #itemid where itemid should be replaced with previous value displayed on the previous lookup (in this example i type .npc additem 49623 to add Shadowmourne to the npc)

4. You’re done

If you asked me, on where did i get the NPCFlag value from, well the answer is you can see the NPCFlag by looking at the source code of Mangos (unit.h). And to make things easier for you, here’s an example of where i get that 4224 value (Vendor NPC + Repairer)

Mangos NPCFlag

enum NPCFlags
{
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_NONE = 0x00000000,
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_GOSSIP = 0x00000001, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_QUESTGIVER = 0x00000002, // guessed, probably ok
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_UNK1 = 0x00000004,
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_UNK2 = 0x00000008,
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_TRAINER = 0x00000010, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_TRAINER_CLASS = 0x00000020, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_TRAINER_PROFESSION = 0x00000040, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_VENDOR = 0x00000080, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_VENDOR_AMMO = 0x00000100, // 100%, general goods vendor
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_VENDOR_FOOD = 0x00000200, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_VENDOR_POISON = 0x00000400, // guessed
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_VENDOR_REAGENT = 0x00000800, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_REPAIR = 0x00001000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_FLIGHTMASTER = 0x00002000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_SPIRITHEALER = 0x00004000, // guessed
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_SPIRITGUIDE = 0x00008000, // guessed
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_INNKEEPER = 0x00010000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_BANKER = 0x00020000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_PETITIONER = 0x00040000, // 100% 0xC0000 = guild petitions, 0x40000 = arena team petitions
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_TABARDDESIGNER = 0x00080000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_BATTLEMASTER = 0x00100000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_AUCTIONEER = 0x00200000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_STABLEMASTER = 0x00400000, // 100%
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_GUILD_BANKER = 0x00800000, // cause client to send 997 opcode
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_SPELLCLICK = 0x01000000, // cause client to send 1015 opcode (spell click), dynamic, set at loading and don't must be set in DB
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_GUARD = 0x10000000 // custom flag for guards
};

As you can see from the above code we’re using this value to create our custom vendor + repair npc

UNIT_NPC_FLAG_VENDOR = 0x00000080
UNIT_NPC_FLAG_REPAIR = 0x00001000

According to the above value, if we count that two value we get 1080 as the result, and you might be wondering on where does the 4224 came from? the answer is, because the value displayed as hexadecimal, we need to convert it to decimal first and 1080 (80+1000) hexadecimal equal to 4224 decimal

World of Warcraft Client version 3.3.3 (11723)
This guide is tested on WoW 3.3.3a client, so if you’re using newer version or older version of WoW, then it may / may not work for you

MySQL
If you currently don’t have MySQL installed on your computer, please follow my previous guide on how to install MySQL on Windows XP or how to install MySQL on Windows Vista

Compiled Mangos Binary / Executable
Check my previous mangos compile guide because without the binary / executable itself, you won’t be able to run your own WoW private server. And beside this guide is based on my mangos compilation guide. So if you follow my previous guide completely (including the directory structure) then it’ll make thing easier for you

TortoiseSVN
This is needed in order to get the database for Mangos, as for the installation process i’ve described it on the compile guide. So if you follow the previous compile guide then you don’t need to reinstall it again

UDB and ACID Database
UDB and ACID is required so you can see NPC and doing quest in the WoW World, see below for instruction to get UDB and ACID

Downloading UDB and ACID

The first step is obviously downloading the required database in order for your WoW server to function as it should be, to do this we’re going to use TortoiseSVN to fetch the required files

1. Open Windows Explorer and right click on an empty space then choose SVN Checkout and type

http://unifieddb.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/unifieddb/trunk

as the repository address

2. After finished with the above process, wow we need to download SD2 ACID. Type

http://sd2-acid.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/sd2-acid

as the svn repository url

And now we’re done with the requirements

Creating Directory Structure

Create new folder in C:\ named WoW and inside the WoW directory you just created, create two directories named data and mangos. So it’ll look like this

Although this step can be considered non essential, but if you created a directory structure, it can make upgrading Mangos and the required files such as DBC and Maps much easier later and beside in this guide i’m using the directory structure specified here so other than that it can make things easier for you to follow this guide

Extracting DBC and Maps

1. Copy the ad.exe from contrib directory inside your mangos compile directory (on my compile example, the mangos compile directory is C:\Mangos-git) into your WoW installation directory. Then run the ad.exe and when it’s done you’ll see two new folders created named DBC and Maps

2. After finished with the extraction process, now you need to move the DBC and Maps directory from your WoW installation directory to C:\WoW\data

Copying Mangos Config Files

Remember the directory structure we’ve created earlier? if yes, then that’s good because in this example i’m going to use the directory structure created earlier, if you choose to skip the creating directory structure part then make sure to adjust everything accordingly

1. Now you’ll need to copy the mangosd.conf.in, realmd.conf.in, scriptdev2.conf.in from your Mangos compile directory (use the search function as shown at below image) to C:\WoW\Mangos

2. And then copy everything from the Bin directory inside your mangos compile directory into C:\WoW\Mangos and then rename mangosd.conf.in, realmd.conf.in and scriptdev2.conf.in into mangosd.conf, realmd.conf, scriptdev2.conf. So in the end, you have these files (see below image) inside C:\WoW\Mangos directory

Setting Mangos Datadir

Go to directory C:\WoW\Mangos and open mangosd.conf and search for

DataDir = "."

and replace it with

DataDir = "C:\WoW\data"

Installing Mangos Databases

Before starting in this process, please note that the directory structure used is based on the mangos compile guide so if you use different path, make sure to adjust them accordingly. Also if you get "mysql is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." that means you didn’t set up MySQL to be installed to your Environment Variables PATH. See the MySQL Installation Guide on my previous guide for more info

1. Open Command prompt, and then type

cd /d c:\mangos-git\sql

then followed by

mysql -uroot -p -v < create_mysql.sql

This will create mangos database structure and also create the necessary user (because using root is dangerous)

2. Then type

mysql -uroot -p -v -D realmd < realmd.sql

This will import the necessary realmd tables into the realmd database

3. Finally type (but don’t close the command prompt yet)

mysql -uroot -p -v -D characters < characters.sql

This will import the necessary tables into the characters database

Installing UDB (Unified Database)

1. Remember the part about downloading database? if yes, then go to the directory where you download the UDB database, and then extract the UDB_0.12.0_mangos_9582_SD2_1639.zip inside the Full DB directory of your UnifiedDatabase directory so it’ll look like this

2. And now we’re going to import the database (it may take a while depending on how fast your computer is). From the command prompt window from before, type (don’t close the command prompt window yet again)

cd /d C:\unifieddb\Full_DB

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < UDB_0.12.0_mangos_9582_SD2_1639.sql

Updating Mangos Database

Because the Full UDB database is designed for Mangos Revision 9582, and at the time i wrote this my current Mangos compile is at Revision 9771, so of course we need to perform the database upgrade first or else Mangos will refuse to run

Tips: look at the UDB filename it state mangos 9582 which means that every mangos core update before and equal to Mangos 9582 has been applied and so we need to apply sql update that is released after revision 9582 as for checking your mangos revision, just run mangosd.exe or realmd.exe and it’ll display your Mangos revision

So because the current UDB full release is at 9582, we need to look at any sql\updates file in your mangos compile directory that is above 9582 revision and then manually import each sql file one by one

For example right after 9582 in sql\updates\0.16 in mangos compile directory there is a sql file named 9589_01_mangos_creature_template.sql, so we need to import that one first and you can do this by simply typing:

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < 9589_01_mangos_creature_template.sql

and right after 9589_01_mangos_creature_template.sql there’s another sql update filename called 9590_01_mangos_db_script_string.sql, so then you need to type

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < 9590_01_mangos_db_script_string.sql

and so on, basically you’ll need to locate each sql update file that contain mangos in the filename (ignore the realmd and characters), and then manually import each sql file accordingly

and in the future, in case you want to upgrade your mangos installation, you can do so by executing each sql file including the realmd. But why we didn’t import the characters and realmd sql file in this guide? the answer is simple, because we’re doing a fresh installation the realmd database and characters database already contain the latest update, but of course in the future the realmd and characters database might be different because there’ll be another update, so you’ll have to import all sql files one by one

For example, 9767_03_characters_characters.sql. Means that it should be imported to characters database and to import it you need to type

mysql -uroot -p -v -D characters < 9767_03_characters_characters.sql

And for realmd update, the sql filename 9748_01_realmd_realmlist.sql and to import it you need to type

mysql -uroot -p -v -D realmd < 9748_01_realmd_realmlist.sql

That’s it basically, this may be confusing at the beginning but once you get used to it, it’ll be easy for you

Updating UDB

Now we need to update our UDB database too (because there’s an update at the time i wrote this), here’s how to do this

cd /d c:\unifieddb\Updated\0.12.0_additions

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < 389_updatepack_mangos.sql

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < 390_updatepack_mangos.sql

Tips: if there’s an update for UDB in the future all you have to do is just import the correct update accordingly

Installing Scriptdev2

From the command prompt type

cd /d c:\scriptdev2\sql

mysql -uroot -p -v < scriptdev2_create_database.sql

mysql -uroot -p -v -D scriptdev2 < scriptdev2_create_structure_mysql.sql

mysql -uroot -p -v -D scriptdev2 < scriptdev2_script_full.sql

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < mangos_scriptname_full.sql

Installing ACID Database

From the command prompt again type

cd /d c:\sd2-acid\trunk\wotlk\3.0.4

mysql -uroot -p -v -D mangos < 3.0.4_acid.sql

Editing realmlist.wtf

The next step would be editing your realmlist.wtf file located inside your wow installation directory\data\enUS (or your WoW Region like enGB, etc) and insert this

set realmlist 127.0.0.1

replacing everything inside the realmlist.wtf (make sure to create backup)

Creating GM Account

Now before getting into the World of Warcraft world, you need to create an account first for you to use, and to do that first you need to make sure realmd and mangosd process is running and then in the mangosd window type

account create username password

Where username is whatever username you want, and password is whatever you want for the account password. And then type

account set addon username 2

To set the expansion pack to Wrath of the Lich King (0 = Classic WoW, 1 = The Burning Crusade, 2 = Wrath of the Lich King) for the username you choose. And finally type

account set gmlevel username 3

To give the highest GM (Game Master) level to the username you choose, so he/she can do anything he/she want from wreaking havoc to causing apocalypse

in the example above, i create a new gm account with reaper as username and ilovekeikokitagawa as the password (p.s don’t take the password seriously) :P

That’s it you’re done … if i forgot something, don’t be shy just let me know so i can fix it immediately. And if you got any questions or have a request for the next article, feel free to post your comment :)

And, if you want to create custom npc on your mangos server, please check how to create custom npc guide

And, if you feel overwhelmed by this (even the fast method isn’t working for you) i can help you directly by using Teamviewer and don’t worry it’s free (but of course i also accept donation to pay for this monthly server bill). If you want me to help you directly make sure to contact me first by using the contact form

Optional: Setting up Public WoW Server

If you want to host your own wow private server from home, then there’s one small change you need to apply so other people can connect to your wow server, and here’s the guide

First of all you need to open the command prompt and type

mysql -uroot -p

now type

use realmd;

and finally type

select * from realmlist;

and you’ll see the realm address is set to 127.0.0.1 by default, but because we’re going to allow other people to connect to our server, we need to change the ip address into your Public IP Address. The simple way to know your public ip address is by visiting whatismyip.com and make a note of your IP Address

Once we’ve obtained the public ip address the next step would be changing the ip address in the realmlist table, to do this just type

update realmlist set address = 'your public ip address';

then to make sure the change has been applied successfully, we need to type

select * from realmlist;

If you’ve changed it successfully then you’ll see your new public ip address instead of 127.0.0.1

The next step is restart realmd.exe, and mangosd.exe process in order for the change to take effect

Now after finished with the above process, you’ll need to open your realmlist.wtf and change the set realmlist into your public IP Address …. and tell your client to use the your public ip address in their realmlist.wtf file and you’re all set ;)

p.s if you’re behind router, make sure to forward port 3724 and 8085 (default port used by WoW) on your router

To those with Dynamic IP Address

If your provider gave you a dynamic ip address, then the solution is to get yourself a dyndns address first, and to do this you need to go to www.dyndns.com and register an account there, and i assume that your wow server is called mycoolwowserver.dyndns.com

Then after finished with the registration process, all you have to do is just follow the setting up public wow server and replace public ip address with your dyndns.com address

For example at this part:

update realmlist set address = 'your public ip address';

You need to replace the command with

update realmlist set address = 'mycoolwowserver.dyndns.com';

And then continue with the rest of setting up public wow server part. And after finished with all public wow server part, now you need to open hosts file located in Windows\System32\drivers\etc (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts), and then add this at the bottom of the file

127.0.0.1 mycoolwowserver.dyndns.com

And you’re done configuring your public wow server :)

If you feel overwhelmed by everything listed in this guide then feel free to use this option, but make sure you have mysql installed as listed on mysql guide for vista (for vista users) and mysql guide for xp for windows xp users

1. Extract the file into C:\
2. Copy ad.exe from tools directory into your WoW installation directory and let ad.exe finished with extracting DBC and MAPS and then move the DBC and MAPS directory to C:\WoW\data
3. Edit realmlist.wtf in your WoW installation directory (it’s located in Data\enUS or enGB or your WoW region) and set realmlist 127.0.0.1

4. Run import.bat and when prompted for password, enter your mysql root password
5. Start realmd.exe and mangosd.exe
6. Create account as described in the Final adjustment part … and play

Enjoy, consider this as a supplement for this extremely long guide and oh make sure your WoW client is version 3.3.3 and it’ll create a fresh installation so if you previously have used mangos and don’t want to lose your precious data make sure to create backup first

Download Supplement from Megaupload | Download Supplement from Rapidshare

MSYSGit – Download MSYSGit
This is needed in order to get the mangos source and also make updating the source much easier and make sure to get the Full Installer for official GIT

TortoiseSVN – Download TortoiseSVN
This is needed in order to get ScriptDev2 source and also updating the source

Visual Studio Express 2008 SP1 – Download Visual Studio Express
Make sure to download Visual Studio Express 2008 SP1 offline Install ISO Image (748MB) that contains everything to make things much easier, and beside this guide is tested only on Visual Studio Express 2008 SP1

MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD-ROM – Download MagicISO
This is needed to mount the ISO Image file so you can start the installation, but if you already have other Virtual CD program installed then there’s no need to download this

1. Install MagicISO for the first step

2. Mount Visual Studio Express 2008 SP1 Image by right clicking on MagicISO tray icon, then choose Virtual CD/DVD-ROM, then Mount Image

3. Then choose to install Visual C++ only

4. After finished with VS Express installation then you need to install MSYSGit

In Windows Vista it’s necessary to install GIT to other directory than Program Files if UAC enabled, so in this example i installed it to C:\Git

5. Install TortoiseSVN (because TortoiseSVN installation is straight forward i don’t think i need to put image as an example) :)

1. Run GIT Bash from start menu and type

cd /c

then type

git clone git://github.com/mangos/mangos.git mangos-git

in this example i choose to download mangos to C:\mangos-git, but you can change the path if you want

2. Now you need to open Windows Explorer and then right click on empty area and then choose SVN Checkout to download Scriptdev2 source and then type

http://scriptdev2.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/scriptdev2

as the repository URL

1. Open mangosdVC90.sln inside win directory in mangos-git directory

2. Change the build configuration to Release and if you’re trying to build the x64 version make sure to change the Win32 to x64 as well

3. Click on Build and then choose Rebuild Solution

4. Done …

1. Copy the entire scriptdev2 directory to mangos-git\src\bindings

2. Just like before, open scriptVC90.sln and then set the build configuration to release and if you’re trying to build the x64 version make sure to change the Win32 to x64 as well

3. Then choose Build -> Rebuild Solution

4. And done …

Okay so we’re done with the compile process, but what if you want to update your Mangos Source later? … well all you have to do is just type

cd /c/mangos-git

and then type

git pull

And you’re done updating mangos. As for updating Scriptdev2, all you have to do is just right click on Scriptdev2 folder and then choose SVN Update

You’re done compiling mangos, the compiled binary can be found at the Bin directory inside mangos-git directory. The rest is of course to configure mangos and scriptdev2 itself, if you need help on how to configure mangos please check my new mangos configure guide

Apache HTTP Server – Download Apache
Make sure to download Apache 2.2.x version (because this guide is intended for Apache 2.2 series)

PHP for Windows – Download PHP
Make sure to download PHP 5.3 VC6 Thread Safe version

MySQL – Download MySQL
Make sure to download the Essential version to save your bandwidth which is really useful if you have slow connection speed like me

At the time i wrote this the latest version of Apache is 2.2.15, PHP 5.3.2, and MySQL 5.1.45

1. First of all run the apache installer until you reached this Apache server information screen and fill in localhost (or other value you want but to make it simple i just put localhost)

2. Then choose Typical for the setup type

3. And then when asked to choose the installation directory, make sure to use the default path to install it to program files directory as shown below (because that’s what this guide all about, to assist you to install apache into program files directory while UAC enabled)

4. After installing Apache you will see there’s a new icon installed on the System Tray (where the clock displayed in Windows), the new icon is called Apache Service Monitor, which is basically a tool to help you to Start/Stop/Restart Apache quickly and when you double click on it you’ll see this

1. Create a new directory named PHP5 in C:\ so it’ll end up like below image for an example (you’re free to use other path, but if you choose to put it in different path, make sure to adjust them accordingly because in this guide i assume the PHP is extracted to C:\PHP5)

2. Find php.ini-production in C:\PHP5 and then rename it to php.ini

3. Now you need to open php.ini using your favorite text editor (in this example i use notepad) and locate extension_dir directives and change the value into

"C:\PHP5\ext"

4. Now you need to find output_buffering and change it to

output_buffering = Off

5. Find php_bz2.dll, php_mbstring.dll, php_mysql.dll, and php_mysqli.dll at the extensions section in php.ini and uncomment it (by removing the ; character)

6. Now we’ve finished configuring the php.ini, and so for the next step we’re going to run notepad as admin

7. Now while running notepad as admin, you need to open C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf

8. After opening httpd.conf, locate and uncomment expires_module, headers_module, rewrite_module and then add

LoadModule php5_module "c:/php5/php5apache2_2.dll"

9. Now you need to find this in httpd.conf

<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.html
</IfModule>

and replace with

<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.php
</IfModule>

10. As for the next step, you need to locate (still in httpd.conf)

<IfModule mime_module>

and inside that directives, add:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

11. Because Vista UAC doesn’t allow you to create / edit files in Program Files directory, then the next step would be changing the root directory of your server from C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs\ (default) into C:\htdocs. And to do this you’ll need to find:

DocumentRoot "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs"

and replace it with

DocumentRoot "C:/htdocs"

then find

<Directory "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs">

and replace it with

<Directory "C:/htdocs">

then find (inside the Directory directives)

AllowOverride None

and replace it with

AllowOverride All

12. Now you need to open System Properties and you can do this by pressing Windows Key + Pause/Break or by right clicking on My Computer then choose Properties, and then followed by clicking Advanced System Settings

13. At the System Properties, go to the Advanced Tab and then click on Environment Variables

14. Now you need to add PHPRC into System Variables, and to do this you just need to click on New at the System Variables section and then add

Variable name: PHPRC
Variable value: C:\PHP5

15. Still in Environment Variables, next you need to double click on Path under System Variables and then add

;C:\PHP5

16. Now we’re done with the Environment Variables. The next step would be creating a directory named htdocs in C:\ (C:\htdocs) and then create a file named test.php inside that directory

17. Open the test.php file you just created with notepad and add this line

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

18. Now we’re done with the PHP + Apache integration. Save your work and then restart your computer

19. Finally after finished with the booting process, now open your favorite browser (in this example i use Internet Explorer 7 which is the default browser for a freshly installed Windows Vista installation) and then type

http://localhost/test.php

And you’re done with Apache PHP integration process :) … now we’re going to continue with MySQL installation on Windows Vista

1. For the first step you would need to run the MySQL Installer, then choose Typical setup type when asked to install it to default directory

2. Continue with the installation process

3. When you reached this screen after MySQL installation process finished, check Configure the MySQL Server Now and uncheck Register the MySQL Server now (but it’s up to you whether you want to register or not)

4. When asked for the configuration type, choose Detailed (because you want better control obviously) ;)

5. Then choose Developer Machine as the server type to make sure MySQL doesn’t eat too much memory (well if you have plenty of RAM then feel free to choose other server type to suit your needs)

6. And then choose MultiFunctional Database when asked

7. When asked for the InnoDB storage location, choose C:\MySQL InnoDB Datafiles\ (but of course feel free to use different path if you want)

8. And when asked for the max concurrent connection that MySQL would accept choose Decission Support (DSS)/OLAP (but if you think that you’re going to have many concurrent connection later especially if you’re running a popular WoW Private server then you can choose Manual Setting and choose the best value for your application, but make sure to not put a very high value)

9. When you reached the MySQL networking options, just leave it at default value

10. As for the MySQL default character set, choose Best Support for Multilingualism to make UTF8 as the default charset

11. And then when you reached Windows options, don’t forget to check Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH so you can access MySQL easily from the command line from anywhere

12. Now comes the most important part of the MySQL installation, and that is setting a root password for MySQL (root is the superuser in MySQL, make sure to remember root password and don’t give it to anyone else)

13. Now you’re done installing MySQL

You’re done installing Apache 2.2, PHP 5.3 and MySQL 5.1 on your Windows Vista computer. Hopefully you enjoy this quick guide and of course if i missed / forgot something, please do let me know in the comment area below :)

Apache HTTP Server – Download Apache
Make sure to download Apache 2.2.x version (because this guide is intended for Apache 2.2 series)

PHP for Windows – Download PHP
Make sure to download PHP 5.3 VS6 Thread Safe version

MySQL – Download MySQL
Make sure to download the Essential version to save your bandwidth

At the time i wrote this the latest version of Apache is 2.2.15, PHP 5.3.2, and MySQL 5.1.45

1. Begin by running the apache installer until you reached this screen that prompt you to insert your Apache server information

2. Then when the installer asked you for the setup type, choose Typical

3. And then when asked to choose the installation directory, make sure to use the default path as shown below (otherwise you’ll need to adjust everything else to match your Apache installation directory later)

4. And finally you’re done installing Apache. After installing Apache you would notice there’s a new icon installed on the System Tray (where the clock displayed in Windows), the new icon is called Apache Service Monitor, which is basically a tool to help you to Start/Stop/Restart Apache quickly and when you double click on it you’ll see this

1. Create a new directory named PHP5 in C:\ so it’ll end up like below image for an example (you’re free to use other path, but if you choose to put it in different path, make sure to adjust them accordingly because in this guide i assume the PHP is extracted to C:\PHP5)

2. Locate php.ini-production in C:\PHP5 then rename it to php.ini

3. Open php.ini and locate extension_dir directives and change the value into

"C:\PHP5\ext"

4. Still with php.ini, next you need to find output_buffering and change it to

output_buffering = Off

5. Locate php_bz2.dll, php_mbstring.dll, php_mysql.dll, and php_mysqli.dll and uncomment it

6. Now we are done with the php.ini configuration, the next step would be locating Apache httpd.conf (if you didn’t change the default Apache installation directory it can be found at C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf)

7. Open httpd.conf and uncomment expires_module, headers_module, rewrite_module and then add

LoadModule php5_module "c:/php5/php5apache2_2.dll"

8. Still in httpd.conf, inside

<IfModule mime_module>

add:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

9. Still in httpd.conf once again, locate

<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.html
</IfModule>

and replace with

<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.php
</IfModule>

10. Now we’re done with httpd.conf the next step is opening System Properties (Windows Key + Pause/Break or by right clicking My Computer and then choose Properties) and then choose Advanced tab and finally click on Environment Variables

11. Locate Path under System Variables and then double click on it then add

;C:\PHP5

12. Still in Environment Variables, next you need to click New System Variables and then add

Variable name: PHPRC
Variable value: C:\PHP5

13. We’re finished with adding and editing System Variables, now go to C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs and then create a new text file inside that directory named test.php and open it with notepad then add this

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

14. Now we’re done with the PHP Apache integration. Save your work and then restart your computer

15. Finally after finished booting into Windows XP, now open your favorite browser (in this example i use Internet Explorer 6 which is the default browser for a freshly installed Windows XP installation) and then type

http://localhost/test.php

And you’re done with Apache PHP integration process :) … the next step would be Installing MySQL on Windows XP

1. Run the MySQL Installer, then choose Typical setup type when asked to install it to default path

2. And continue with the installation process

3. When you reached this screen after MySQL installation process finished, check Configure the MySQL Server Now and uncheck Register the MySQL Server now

4. When asked for the configuration type, choose Detailed

5. Then choose Developer Machine as the server type to make sure MySQL doesn’t use too much memory (well if you have plenty of RAM then feel free to choose other server type to suit your needs)

6. And then choose MultiFunctional Database when prompted

7. When asked for the InnoDB storage location, choose C:\MySQL InnoDB Datafiles\

8. And when asked for the max concurrent connection that MySQL would accept choose Decission Support (DSS)/OLAP (but if you think that you’re going to have many concurrent connection later especially if you’re running a popular WoW Private server then you can choose Manual Setting and choose what would be the best value for your application)

9. When you reached the MySQL networking options, just leave it at default value

10. As for the MySQL default character set, choose Best Support for Multilingualism to make UTF8 as the default charset

11. And then when you reached Windows options, don’t forget to check Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH so you can access MySQL easily from the command line

12. Now comes the most important part of the MySQL installation, and that is setting a root password for MySQL (root is the superuser in MySQL, make sure to remember root password and don’t give it to anyone else)

13. Now you’re done installing MySQL

You’re done installing Apache 2.2, PHP 5.3 and MySQL 5.1 on your Windows XP computer. Hopefully you enjoy this quick guide and of course if i missed something, please do let me know in the comment area below :)

– PCSX2 SVN Compile

Download Reaper-X PCSX2 SVN Compile

Please check Reaper-X PCSX2 SVN Compile / Build. In order to make things easier for you to download whenever i’ve compiled newer pcsx2 revision, i’ve put it on separate page :)

In most case you don’t need SVN version, but in case you want a more updated version of PCSX2 and it’s plugins, i’ve compiled it for you so you can just download it for the purpose of this guide (and beside using the svn revision offers better compatibility and speed for me, and sometime it fixes problems too)

Also i’ve included both the Legacy GUI and New GUI of PCSX2, but because the new gui of pcsx2 is still in early stage, i’m only going to post the configuration option of the legacy gui. But of course if you want to test the new gui version, feel free to do so

– Latest DirectX End User Runtime

Download: here

This is needed obviously in order to use pcsx2 properly

– PCSX2 Bios file (PS2 Bios)

Obviously this is needed in order to play games on pcsx2 or else you won’t be able to use pcsx2. But because it’s illegal to put them here, feel free to use your favorite search engine to locate the file

– Computer Hardware:

• Processor: at least Dual Core processor (Intel Core 2 Duo or Athlon 64 X2)
• Graphic Card / VGA Card: at least Geforce 8600 (based on my test)
• RAM: at least 1GB

If your computer doesn’t meet the above requirements (the hardware section) then chances are you’ll end up in slow motion mode when playing games on pcsx2

– Operating Sytem: Windows Vista or above

I’d suggest you to use Windows Vista or above in order to utilize DirectX 10 / 11 from the GSDX Plugin of PCSX2 to get faster speed (in my case i’ve experienced a boost while playing Final Fantasy XII on PCSX2 in DirectX 10 mode compared to DirectX 9 in Windows XP)

– Optional Update for Windows Vista users to get DirectX 11 on Vista

Make sure to upgrade your Vista Installation to SP2 (if you haven’t upgraded from SP1 yet) and also install KB971512 in order to use DirectX 10 function in GSDX option in Windows Vista because of the recent changes made by PCSX2 team

• Download Windows Vista SP2: Click here
• Download Windows Vista KB971512 x86 version: Click here
• Download Windows Vista KB971512 x64 version: Click here

PCSX2 Graphics Plugin

There are 3 Graphics plugin included in my R2830 release, there are GSDX, ZeroGS, and ZzOGL. And i recommend you to use GSDX first and if it’s giving you problem on certain game you are free to switch it to another plugin.

Depending on your processor, if your processor support SSSE3 instruction then choose GSDX SSSE3, if your processor support SSE4.1 then choose it instead. But in my case because my Phenom Quad Core CPU only support SSE2 instruction, then of course i can only choose GSDX SSE2

Note: The easiest way to see what features your cpu has, you can look at the PCSX2 Output Window, for example mine is:

Detected MMX
Detected SSE
Detected SSE2
Detected SSE3
Not Detected SSSE3
Not Detected SSE4.1
Not Detected SSE4.2

That means i can’t use SSSE3, and SSE4.1 version of the GSDX plugin

PCSX2 Sound Plugin

There are two options for you to choose, the first one and also the recommended sound plugin is SPU2–X, while the other one is ZeroSPU2. If for example when you play certain game using SPU2–X and get no sound at all or hangs, then try switching to ZeroSPU2 (for example, when i play Wild Arms 5 using SPU2–X as the sound plugin, i can’t get past the menu screen, and after switching to ZeroSPU2, the problem is fixed but of course i tested this on earlier version of SPU2–X so the result might be differ now)

PCSX2 Controller Plugin

Here you can choose between two plugins, Lilypad and SSSXPad (the other two not listed does nothing). And i recommend you to choose Lilypad because of the features (i’m using XBOX 360 Controller both wired and wireless without problem using Lilypad). Here’s what my configuration looks like

But of course you can always use your keyboard as controller on pcsx2 if you don’t own a joystick, you are free to choose between SSSXPad and Lilypad

PCSX2 CDVD Plugin

There are three options for you to choose in this section, cDVDGigahertz, Linuz ISO CDVD, CDVDolio (the other one not listed does nothing). If you have virtual cd program installed then i recommend you to choose between cDVDGigaherts or CDVDolio (i choose CDVDolio) but if you don’t have virtual cd installed and don’t want to install it then you can use Linuz ISO CDVD Plugin, so you can run iso directly from PCSX2 but of course PCSX2 also offer that feature directly so you can choose between using plugin or directly running iso from pcsx2. Basically if you ask me on how to run iso file on pcsx2 (.nrg, .iso, .bin, .mds), the answer is you can use the PCSX2 SVN Version included in this post (if you don’t want to use ISO Plugin, although i’m not going to ask you why), or if you feel like using PCSX2 0.9.6 then you need to use the linuz iso cdvd plugin that way you can run ps2 games from disk

In my case since i have virtual cd installed, i choose CDVDolio, and here’s what it looks like

That’s it basically … and you’re done, try testing ps2 games on pcsx2 straight away and see if you can run it or not. But what if your games run slow? or the games you’re trying to run not running at all? then see below section

PCSX2 CPU Config and Speed Hacks

If you have games that won’t run at all and you’ve tried many possible combination but it still not working, then you can try opening the pcsx2 cpu config dialog and then check MicroVU0 and microVU1

By default PCSX2 Legacy GUI doesn’t enable the MicroVU0 and MicroVU1 so try enabling it first (both of them or choose one of them only) and see whether your game run or not

Note: according to pcsx2 team, MicroVU offer higher compatibility in exchange for speed

If it’s still not running then chances are the game is still not currently supported, but what if it’s run except that the speed is slow? … speed hacks is the solution

Because there are no best configuration here (for example it’s good for ABC game but break DEF game) so you’ll need to play around by yourself with the speed hack option

But if you choose to enable MicroVU earlier, then you can try enabling Status Flag Hack for an increased speed when using MicroVU (so far i haven’t noticed any problem on my games, but results might be different because i don’t have all the ps2 games out there in this world)

Also don’t forget there’s Gamefixes option in pcsx2, so if you try to run games and you found problem, check the gamefixes too and see whether your current game problem can be fixed from the gamefixes option. But if you’ve tried everything and it just not working then make a visit to the pcsx2 forums

Cheating on PCSX2

If you love / like cheating on your ps2 games on pcsx2, please check my previous guide about cheating on pcsx2

If you have full control of your server (VPS or Dedicated) or know that mod_deflate and mod_setenvif is installed and enabled by your web host (Shared Hosting), then instead of using Gzip, you should choose to use mod_deflate instead, because it gives better performance compared to gzip. And in order to use it / test whether your server support deflate or not, put this in your .htaccess file


AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-php
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-fastphp
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

I choose to not include the module check, so you’ll know right away that if it’s not working then you’ll get a 500 Internal Server Error message, and in this case you should use the GZip method instead that is descibed below

Enable Wordpress Gzip Compression

If you’re running Wordpress 2.5+ then you might notice that in Wordpress 2.5+ Gzip compression has been removed. But as many people know that by enabling Gzip compression it can reduce your site size quite significant (at least for me) and in the end the visitors will get the benefit of having a faster page load with the only drawback is increased CPU Utilization

In order to use this for Wordpress 2.5+ all you have to do is just download Wordpress Gzip Plugin from Il Filosofo Website and don’t forget to activate it ;)

Compressing / Gzipping CSS and Javascript

By compressing (gzipping) your CSS and Javascript, you’ll definitely provide your site visitors faster page load because of the smaller file that needs to be downloaded by your visitors, with the only downside that you’ll use more CPU Cycles in order to compress your CSS and JS file except if you’re using the third method

The first method, the downside of this method is you’ll need to edit your theme file to point to the php file (using cpu cycles whenever your css / js file requested)

1.1 Open your style.css file and add this on top of the file

<?php
header("content-type: text/css");
if ( extension_loaded('zlib') && substr_count($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip') ) {
ob_start("ob_gzhandler");
} else {
ob_start();
}
?>

1.2 Rename the style.css (wordpress theme usually use this filename in most case) filename into style.php

1.3 Open header.php in your theme directory and locate the following line

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />

1.4 Replace it with this

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/style.php" type="text/css" media="screen" />

The second method (no cpu cycles wasted whenever your css / js file requested)

Note: You’ll need mod_rewrite, mod_headers, and mod_mime enabled

2.1 Compress your css / js file into gzip using 7–zip or similar program

2.2 Upload the gzipped file (.gz) into the same folder as the css file / js file

2.3 Put this into your .htaccess file

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} \.(js|css)$
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.gz -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /$1.gz [QSA,L]
<FilesMatch "\.css.gz$">
ForceType text/css
Header set Content-Encoding "gzip"
Header set Vary "Accept-Encoding"
</FilesMatch>
<FilesMatch "\.js.gz$">
ForceType text/javascript
Header set Content-Encoding "gzip"
Header set Vary "Accept-Encoding"
</FilesMatch>

Make sure to use one method only, not all of them. And of course there are other ways of doing this but i’ll leave that to you ;)

By using query cache you can reduce the number of queries used, and in short you can get the benefit of having faster page load while at the same time reducing load on your server

If you’re on shared hosting, then all you have to do is just download W3 Total Cache because it have the option to store the cached files to disk (although it also have other options as well like storing to Various Opcode Cacher like Xcache, APC, and eAccelerator)

Although if it’s for me i’m using the Xcache Object Cache which is originally created by Neosmart and later modified by Dougal Campbell

If you have frequent visitors that came to your site and they are not the type that automatically clear their browser cache whenever they close their browser, then using Far Future Expiration will definitely help your site to load faster for them, but obviously if they are the type that will automatically clear everything when their exit their browser then this tip will do nothing to help your site performance (feel free to check them at Yuiblog here and here)

Anyway in order to do this, you’ll need to have mod_expires enabled (in most case it should already be enabled), and you can put below code in the httpd.conf or if you don’t have access to apache configuration file, then you can use .htaccess method but you don’t have to worry because this code is compatible whether it is placed in httpd.conf or .htaccess file

And here’s the code, you can put it in the .htaccess file that is located in your main directory / root directory or you can also put it in the httpd.conf (below code can be used directly unless you want to change it)

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000
ExpiresByType image/png A2592000
ExpiresByType image/jpg A2592000
ExpiresByType image/jpeg A2592000
ExpiresByType text/javascript A2592000
ExpiresByType application/javascript A2592000
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A2592000
ExpiresByType text/css A2592000

And here’s the simple explanation on what the above code do:

ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000 means any Gif Image Mime-Type will expire after 2592000 seconds or 720 hour in clients (visitors) cache after being accessed

But what if you don’t like it to expire for about 720 hour? then simple you can always change 2592000 seconds into something else you want or better if you don’t want to count how many hour xxxx seconds is, then you can always type it like below (note: below code is just an example you should change it to a far future expiry)

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 day"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 hour"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 10 minutes"
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month 10 days"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 10 days 5 minutes"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month 20 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month 1 day"

Obviously the above example is much easier to read, right? so feel free to choose on which method do you want to use ;) and for more info you can read Apache mod_expires manual

From Wikipedia:

An ETag (entity tag) is part of HTTP, the protocol for the World Wide Web. It is a response header that may be returned by an HTTP/1.1 compliant web server and is used to determine change in content at a given URL. When a new HTTP response contains the same ETag as an older HTTP response, the client can conclude that the content is the same without further downloading. The header is useful for intermediary devices that perform caching, as well as for client web browsers that cache results. One method of generating the ETag is based on the last modified time of the file and the size of the file, another is using a checksum.

And according to Yuiblog

If you’re not taking advantage of the flexible validation model that ETags provide, it’s better to just remove the ETag altogether. The Last-Modified  header validates based on the component’s timestamp. And removing the ETag reduces the size of the HTTP headers in both the response and subsequent requests.

And fortunately it’s really simple on how to remove / disable etags completely from being sent, all you have to do is just put this in your httpd.conf (if you have root access) or put it in your .htaccess file that is located in your root directory

FileETag None

But what if you want to disable Etags for specific filetype only, like images for example? then use below code:

<FilesMatch "\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$">
FileETag None
</FilesMatch>

By enabling MySQL Query Cache and also tweaking MySQL you can improve overall Wordpress performance because Wordpress relies on MySQL (other than PHP of course)

But unfortunately you’ll need root access which is not available on shared hosting. So in order to perform this you’ll need at least VPS (but i’m sure most shared hosting already enabled query cache)

In order to do this you’ll need to edit my.cnf file and add / adjust query_cache_type, query_cache_limit, query_cache_size and query_cache_min_res_unit but because there’s no perfect rule here, so you need to adjust each value by yourself

As for tweaking the mysql configuration i’d recommend you to download both MySQL Tuning Primer and MySQL Tuner so you know which variables need to be adjusted. But of course make sure that the mysql process has run for at least 48 hours before doing this

By using PHP Opcode Cacher you get the benefit of having reduced load on your server and also faster execution time of PHP Scripts

Unfortunately if you’re on shared host you’re out of luck on this one too because you’ll need root access in order to install a PHP Accelerator / PHP Opcode Cacher

But if you’re on VPS or Dedicated server then all you have to do is just choose between APC, Xcache, or eAccelerator (those three are the most known and most used PHP Accelerator)

This is actually is optional (in my opinion) because i never used it for obvious reason and that is i don’t have that many visitors per day, but when you have tons of visitors per day or your site getting slashdotted or dugged (well i’ve never experienced any of them) then the only thing you need is to reduce load on your server to almost next to nothing and that is done by simply converting your dynamic site (php in this case) to static site (pure html)

And all you have to do to go into this mode is just choose between WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache

But of course if your server / host still can’t cope up with the demand you can always use CoralCDN

Smaller images means faster page loading time, and so in order to make your website load as fast as possible to your site visitors, you can try to optimize it a little bit further

My recommendation for this section are jpegoptim and optipng, you can use it on your server (if you have root access) or you can also use it from your own computer before uploading images to your web server

Obviously this part can be considered as generic website optimization especially to those who use many images on their site

There are many other methods to optimize your blog even more like tuning Apache, using reverse proxy, change unneeded call to MySQL like displaying blogname into a static one, disabling unneeded plugins, removing those useless image in sidebar that makes your blog looks like MySpace, etc.