[kpne1home]

Could someone post some results of WoW running under Rosetta?

[greenamp]

I think it's safe to assume that running any modern game under emulation will not yield very good performance.

Read this:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...=14711&p=5

So far people are saying WoW runs "ok" with Rosetta, with the consensus being that you need at least 1g ram for best results.
There will be a free Universal Binary patch in a week or two which will allow you to run WoW normally on x86 Macs.

[baphomeh]

I'm an IT Project manager who has been a hard core windows user since I was 13 (now 33). I have recently (the last four years) been working off and on on an adult themed MMO called "Underworld MMO" (now that there is part two of the movie I may change the name) http://underworld.wecometoplay.com

I recently had to buy a new dev machine to test my game client on and with the switch to Intel, I decided that NOW was the time to get an iMac. So what I still have to wait a few months until they actually have Windoze running on the new iMac.

Obviously, I always knew i would;d have to eventually get an account to play WoW since it is the NUMBER ONE MMORPG out in the marketplace. My old computer was a IBM Thinkpad T41 (Approximately equal to a 3 point something GHz P4) with a Radeon 9000 class GPU (actually the 9200 I believe).

I had played Anarchy Online and other MMO on it, but never WoW. I had run WoW on my Athlon XP 2200 with Radeon 9600XT before that machine was destroyed so I had a comparison from that.

Anyways.. That was the backstory.. To make the long story short, I got a 20 inch iMac with 256 MB Video Ram and a 1 Gig stick and I was determined to see how WoW would run under Rosetta.

In my Windows gaming experience, I had always played full screen and always using medium range resolutions (usually 800x600 or 1024x768 at MOST) with most graphics options turned on.

Ars Technica pegs the iMac 20" as a performer roughly equivalent to an Athlon 64 X2 3800-4200 (which means nothing to Mac users I guess) so I was excited to see what this "50 percent performance hit" would do to WoW.

I won't bore you with the details.. suffice it to say that I run WoW in a window on my desktop (which i resize at will) at the FULL 1600 x 1050 resolution. I have ALL graphics options and eye candy turned up to maximum (I have no idea which ones are actually workign ro nto because I never played WoW anywhere else and my friends who play it have weak graphics adapters) and the options screen seems to accept those settings.

Does ti play AMZINGLY fast? No.. I get AT MAX RES and with all eye candy on.. maybe 20 FPS or so? mayeb a bit less? I dunno, btu besides the lower frame rate it seems to perform smoothly, without glitches, and all sound and graphics effects seem to be workign fine.

I have no basis of compariosn.. but from what i have played so far, it is MORE than adequate. It looks good, it is at max res, and it has playable frame rates. What mroe could I ask for?

I must say that I am EXTREMELY impressed with Rosetta. I guess die hard players may nto think it's good enough, but if you'r e not a die hard gamer (and you cant possibly be such on a Mac.. no offense meant) than you will be in relative heaven on the new mac.

Please ask me any questiosn you woudl like, keep in mind I have only played for a total fo 5 horus inmy hwhoel life now...

[Tardbus]

http://forums.macnn.com/77/gaming/271972/use-the-search-button-folks/

[baphomeh]

Maybe I'm a little slow, btu I looked through every thread still posted in rthis section fo the forum and found ZERO other threads relating to WoW performance on the new intel iMacs.

As a new Mac user (and new WoW player) I'm really excited to share whatever I can to be of help.

[LagunaSol]

Here's hoping Blizzard releases the universal binary soon (next week perhaps?) so we can see what these new iMacs can really do!

[Chuckit]

I'm betting Tuesday.

[Zubir]

There's a report floating out there, somewhere, of someone who saw the WoW UB running at the recent Macworld. They reported the game was running at 60-100 fps with all the eye candy cranked.

[baphomeh]

I remember reading taht as well, abotu teh 60-100 frames per second. The normal human can see at a maximum of around 60 FPS.. so anythign above that is pretty much overkill.

Studies in Japan have shown that really high frame rates at ultra size/crispiness can lead to nausea..

true.. but seriously.. it runs PRETTY damn smooth at 1600x1050 usign Rosetta.. I can only imagien what it woudl do with 2Gigs Ram and no emulation on a system with an X1600 and 256MB?

[rbarris]

It won't be all that long before the WoW UA (1.9.3) is out and we can set aside the discussion of its performance under emulation.

The new iMac is very fast, though if you do dial every one of the settings up to maximum you will notice an impact on playability with WoW. As with the PowerPC version, terrain distance, full screen glow, and vertical sync have the biggest impacts on FPS.

That said, I think if you went from an iMac G5 with a certain set of game-options configured, and set up the iMac Core Duo the same way, you would notice a healthy boost in speed across the board. It's quite noticeable.

[LagunaSol]

One thing this Intel switch will do is strip away any excuses for Macs to provide a poor gaming environment. I'm afraid once we have full PC-parity (processor & graphics cards), the Mac will still lag behind the Windows world. Then we can really feel the mockery of the gaming fanboy nation. I believe I've read reports of poor Open GL implementation in OS X?

I had great hopes for the UT2004 universal binary, but early benchmarks seem to indicate it's not much better than my 2-year-old PC/video card. Which is hard to understand. Better than on a G5, but still far short of the PC world. (Please correct me if I'm wrong?)

I wish Apple would take the gaming thing seriously. I'm no hardcore gamer, so it's not a major factor for me, but gaming is huge for a lot of people who buy computers. If Apple would get on board and address their gaming shortcomings, it could have a real positive impact on sales. Remember GameSprockets and the "gaming kitchens" Apple once hosted? How about dedicating a team to focus on optimal gaming performance on Intel Macs? Please Apple, don't force me to rely on a dual-boot situation just to play cutting-edge games (or worse, fire up the dusty PC sitting in the corner, which I yearn to dump forever).

I'll be interested to see not how the WoW universal binary compares to the iMac G5, but how it compares to PCs with equivalent hardware configurations.

Despite Apple's historically nonchalant attitude about gaming, I'll be forever a fan of Blizzard for their full support (and equal treatment) of the Mac gaming market. We can mourn the loss (sellout) of Bungie, but hopefully we'll always have Blizzard.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

One thing this Intel switch will do is strip away any excuses for Macs to provide a poor gaming environment. I'm afraid once we have full PC-parity (processor & graphics cards), the Mac will still lag behind the Windows world. Then we can really feel the mockery of the gaming fanboy nation. I believe I've read reports of poor Open GL implementation in OS X?

I had great hopes for the UT2004 universal binary, but early benchmarks seem to indicate it's not much better than my 2-year-old PC/video card. Which is hard to understand. Better than on a G5, but still far short of the PC world. (Please correct me if I'm wrong?)

I wish Apple would take the gaming thing seriously. I'm no hardcore gamer, so it's not a major factor for me, but gaming is huge for a lot of people who buy computers. If Apple would get on board and address their gaming shortcomings, it could have a real positive impact on sales. Remember GameSprockets and the "gaming kitchens" Apple once hosted? How about dedicating a team to focus on optimal gaming performance on Intel Macs? Please Apple, don't force me to rely on a dual-boot situation just to play cutting-edge games (or worse, fire up the dusty PC sitting in the corner, which I yearn to dump forever).

I'll be interested to see not how the WoW universal binary compares to the iMac G5, but how it compares to PCs with equivalent hardware configurations.

Despite Apple's historically nonchalant attitude about gaming, I'll be forever a fan of Blizzard for their full support (and equal treatment) of the Mac gaming market. We can mourn the loss (sellout) of Bungie, but hopefully we'll always have Blizzard.

It's not a 'poor implementation'...it's simply a different implementation. OpenGL was tuned for things other than gaming. Such is life.

As for UT2k4 UB benchmarks...they're extremely respectable, if borderline amazing. You'll hardly ever get better performance on Mac than on Windows because most of these games are created on Windows, optimized and then ported to other platform. Again, such is life.

Moving from PPC to x86 will close the performance gap. The difference will be so negligeable that only the hardest of hardcore gamers would stay with a PC for the extra few FPS.

You gotta weigh the pros and the cons. If you've got a Mac for gaming and gaming only, you made a mistake. The Mac is a multipurpose tool...and gaming is a bonus. If you only want to game, the Xbox 360, PS3, Revolution or PC is the way to go.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Here's a link to benchmarks that were done a few days ago: http://www.macologist.org/showthread.php?t=2257

Observe the difference between the 1.8 G5 and the 1.83 DC. 2x difference in *every* case. Sure, the new iMac has 2 cores and a wicked (for a consumer computer) video card...but this is a 1299$ computer we're talking about...one that is elegant...not cobbled together in a DIY manner.

Dunno if the game's been tweaked further since...the MacNN crowd has been highly uncooperative in providing numbers thus far.

You're right though...it'd be interesting to see benchmarks of UT2k4 on a 1.83 or 2.0GHz DC PC with an x1600 for a fair comparison.

[darcybaston]

WoW patch for Intel is out today. Have fun!

[baphomeh]

Originally Posted by darcybaston

WoW patch for Intel is out today. Have fun!

WOOT!!!

Let me know if anyone wants any detailed info about how the game runs on a 20" iMac with 2 Gigs and 256MB Vram and how to actually get that info

I am new to WoW and don't knwo how to show FPS or anythign like that.

Email me at baphomeh@gmail.com or find me at http://www.neopangaia.org/nation

[G Barnett]

you can show FPS in WoW simply by hitting Ctrl-R.

[darcybaston]

Baphomeh, can you provide a general anecdotal description on how your gameplay has changed with the new patch? Thanks!

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by baphomeh

WOOT!!!

Let me know if anyone wants any detailed info about how the game runs on a 20" iMac with 2 Gigs and 256MB Vram and how to actually get that info

I am new to WoW and don't knwo how to show FPS or anythign like that.

Email me at baphomeh@gmail.com or find me at http://www.neopangaia.org/nation

Yes please do! If you wouldn't mind just jacking up all the graphic settings to the highest, and turning on all the bells and whistles then doing some FPS tests that would be great. I want to see how it performs at the highest level.

To get FPS reading hit Ctrl-R. Then run around in a big city (Orgrimmar if you're Horde, Ironforge if you're Alliance). Also run around other areas. Just give a general range of FPS in different areas with all settings jacked up. Thanks!

[lenox]

Originally Posted by baphomeh

I remember reading taht as well, abotu teh 60-100 frames per second. The normal human can see at a maximum of around 60 FPS.. so anythign above that is pretty much overkill.

You're dead wrong, unless at least 80-90% of gamers are superhumans.

[Xidius]

Originally Posted by baphomeh

The normal human can see at a maximum of around 60 FPS.

Actually, the average human eye can process at a maximum of 240 FPS. Now, if you are asking if we can tell the difference between (say) 120 FPS and 220 FPS, that's another thing entirely.

The pulses are sent every 1/24 seconds, (which is why the film standard is 24 FPS. 1 frame per pulse is found to be most comfortable.) but our eyes actually transmit 10 frames per pulse.

- Xidius

[LagunaSol]

And as far as high framerate being "overkill," just remember, if it's getting 100+ FPS in the low-demand areas, you're more likely to get a good (30+ FPS) framerate when you really need it (lots of combatants in demanding areas). So there's no such thing as "too much power."

[terigox]

Has anyone done any performance comparisons with the new Universal patch from WoW?? I'm very interested

[baphomeh]

Unfortunately, I did not know how to get FPS before the patch and (of course) it patches automatically.

With that said, with every graphic option turned all the way up and the resolution set for maximum settings (1600x1050?) the agmae ran at 19-25 FPS even when zoomed all the way out in the MOST dense gameplay areas (and showing all NPC names, etc.. as I said.. every detail maxed and every box checked)

It seems to run a bit smoother, more framerate than before.. but I have no idea what the FPS was before the patch.

[rbarris]

Originally Posted by baphomeh

Unfortunately, I did not know how to get FPS before the patch and (of course) it patches automatically.

With that said, with every graphic option turned all the way up and the resolution set for maximum settings (1600x1050?) the agmae ran at 19-25 FPS even when zoomed all the way out in the MOST dense gameplay areas (and showing all NPC names, etc.. as I said.. every detail maxed and every box checked)

It seems to run a bit smoother, more framerate than before.. but I have no idea what the FPS was before the patch.

Try it again with the full screen glow unchecked (you said you had everything maxed?).

Glow is the big FPS killer on the Mac client presently.

[baphomeh]

Ohhhh.. interesting. I was wonderign why teh FPS was not higher. I ran it at full screen and also in a window at a variety of resolutions and bumping down a few notches did nto seem to give me many more FPS.

The X1600 is definitely much more powerful than the 9600XT that was in my Athlon XP 2200 desktop.

[terigox]

Yea the full screen glow might help some too. Those aren't too bad of FPSs for the details turned up!

Anyone able to do a direct comparison? I'm going to scour the internet for one too, I'll let you know if I find one!

[a2daj]

As others said, turn off fullscreen glow. Also set Terrain Distance to no more than the halfway mark. Disable multisample for now. Others have reported issues with it enabled. For Anisotropic filtering there's virtually no difference between the halfway mark and the maximum setting. IMO, anything higher than halfway is a waste of VRAM.

[Chuckit]

Can you post some new numbers without the glow? I'm curious what it can go to.

[::maroma::]

Thanks for the numbers. It sounds very nice.