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TazmanDman · Jul 4, 2002, 08:14 PM

I noticed the requirements for a pc running War III needs a graphics card of 8mg minimal (with Direct X support), but for the Mac its 16mg.... what's the deal? Is Direct X that much better than Open GL?

I have a pismo 500 powerbook with 640ram and 8mg video... I want to play War III on my one and only mac!!!!

any thoughts are welcome... maybe i'm just ranting <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

-Taz

rsh · Jul 4, 2002, 08:27 PM

All I can say is that my nephew installed it on his g4 450 with Rage128 Pro and it runs pretty choppy with "low" graphics options selected. He has 384MB of RAM.

It runs like silk (so far) and looks beautiful on my Dual-G PowerMac with the stock Nvidia GeForce 4mx.

SirCastor · Jul 5, 2002, 01:12 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by rsh:
All I can say is that my nephew installed it on his g4 450 with Rage128 Pro and it runs pretty choppy with "low" graphics options selected. He has 384MB of RAM.

It runs like silk (so far) and looks beautiful on my Dual-G PowerMac with the stock Nvidia GeForce 4mx.<hr /></blockquote>I'm in a similar situation, except my machine is a G4 400 (384mb RAM too), and I've got a Radeon 8500. Mine's choppy... here's the clincher though.. it's smooth (and beautiful) in OS 9...

-A

bOOzo · Jul 5, 2002, 04:45 PM

OS X performance seems to be kind of bad.. I'm going to try it in OS 9. Hopefully Jaguar will make the performance better.

I have no idea why they say at least 16 MB VRAM for Mac. It works quite fine on my iBook 600 Mhz, 640 MB RAM. But this is also in OS X and I'm going to try it in 9.

voice- · Jul 5, 2002, 06:55 PM

what? OS X runs smooth on my 733Mhz G4. GeForce 2 MX shows graphics smoothly and perfectly...this is the first game that made me feel like I was still i the game with the requirements. I haven't even thought about trying OS 9 yet

Rand · Jul 5, 2002, 07:42 PM

I've got myself a beige G3 300 with a maxed out graphics card (oh yah, that was 4 years ago... (6mb)) and it is unplayable.... OSX doesn't even support OpenGL on this machine, so I MUST boot into 9 to play it.....

I also have a iBook 400 SE with the 8mb rage mobile... playable, but only because I have the patience (from messing with OSX on that beige machine) of a slug trying to cross a freeway....

p.s. I'm glad i'm buying a new computer next week... otherwise it would have been $60 down the drain....

juanvaldes · Jul 5, 2002, 08:22 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Rand:
I've got myself a beige G3 300 with a maxed out graphics card (oh yah, that was 4 years ago... (6mb)) and it is unplayable.... OSX doesn't even support OpenGL on this machine, so I MUST boot into 9 to play it.....

I also have a iBook 400 SE with the 8mb rage mobile... playable, but only because I have the patience (from messing with OSX on that beige machine) of a slug trying to cross a freeway....

p.s. I'm glad i'm buying a new computer next week... otherwise it would have been $60 down the drain....<hr /></blockquote>well, you do realize you don't even have the min requirements?
Runs okay on my dual 450 w/Rage 128 Pro, so I'm just a smige above min but it turns into a slide show when you got 100+ units fighting at once.

also, you do mean 3 weeks right? Until after Macworld and new macs come out right? <img border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" title="" src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" />

Sten · Jul 7, 2002, 04:16 PM

Bad performance? Hardly. It's very playable on my G4/733, Ati Radeon 7500, the all mighty, all powerful, 128MB of ram, and all options set as high as they go. I could not believe my eyes when OSX was loading a level 2-3x faster than OS9. And OSX didn't crash 3/4 of the way loading like OS9 did.

Of course, when 20+ characters on the screen are fighting, it's pretty slow. I play at 1024x768, so all I need to do is to drop the res, and get more ram!

Sten

Big Mac · Jul 7, 2002, 04:36 PM

It seems as if the performance people are getting from the game is quite variable. I've heard of iMac 800s not playing it well at all, but I've also heard of much lesser machines making it. I wonder what's going on here.

Chimpmaster · Jul 7, 2002, 04:39 PM

Guys, I dont mean to "reign on your parade", but a g4 733 is hardly "low end".

I agree however, that the requirements are relatively modest for warcraft III. I am running it on a new g4 imac with 384mb ram and the performance is good.

I believe that performance would be acceptable on a g3 500/ g4 400 and up, as long as you have a ati rage 128 ultra (16mb) or above, though on a lower end machine you may need to turn to resolution down.

G4 400 w radeon or gforce 2 mx would run it fine, surely ?

Jeff Binder · Jul 7, 2002, 08:23 PM

Performance is adequate on a G3/350/512MB/32MB Radeon PCI. I can turn a few graphics settings up with no effect. This makes sense, seeing as the processor is the weak link.

voice- · Jul 7, 2002, 09:49 PM

What is low-end then? The 733Mhz PowerMac is discontinued by Apple...lowest now is 800Mhz, in 3 weeks I think this, too, will be out of here...but just to see what all the bitching is about I'll install it on my iMac 400Mhz G3 comp...bet it runs great

BannanaFiend · Jul 7, 2002, 11:02 PM

Well it runs like crap on my G4733, GeForce2mx, 684 megs ram when I am in X, and like a dream in 9... I refuse to reboot just for a game though. Blizzard really dropped the ball here. They had better fix this in a patch soon.
Something of interest: even when reniced to -20, it only uses half the cpu. You would think that something that is choking like it is would be trying to use more than that. The reason for it choking is probably that it does not use enough cpu, which makes no sense.

In any case, they should fix this immediately. It is shameful that a company like Blizzard would do such shoddy work.

BannanaFiend · Jul 7, 2002, 11:52 PM

*sigh* double post...

I may as well make use of this slot... I sent my complaint in to blizzard support. Hopefully they will have a solution or a patch soon.

I urge the rest of you to do the same. The only way things will improve is if we bitch and moan about it.

[ 07-08-2002, 02:48 AM: Message edited by: BannanaFiend ]

kneissl · Jul 7, 2002, 11:55 PM

I'm running it on a G4 yikes (chipped to 450) with a Radeon 7000.. in osx on minimum settings it runs awful.. really not playable over battle net and very frustrating with chop all around. not much better in OS9 but noticeably smoother until you get into a real battle, I played it on a friends PC with a nice Nvidia card.. max the resolution out on his monitor and it runs as smooth as can be..

i guess i need a new computer, although i'm a bit sad cuz i bought the radeon thinking it would put me far enough in the requirements range to run at least smoothly. and I HATE choppy mouse movement.

the game seems really great to me, just wish it would run smooth in the bottom barrel settings on my comp.

voice- · Jul 8, 2002, 12:45 AM

OK, just tried it on the minimal-specced iMac, it ran awful. This strengthens my thoughts, my PowerMac runs the game beautifuly...

BannanaFiend · Jul 8, 2002, 01:51 AM

I installed it on my iBook 600 w/ rage 128 8MB vram. It does work, at roughly the same speed as my 733 Quicksilver w/ a GeForce2mx. I would consider this performance reasonable on such a slow video card as the iBook's, though my tower, well I've made that rant already.

bOOzo · Jul 8, 2002, 06:45 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by BannanaFiend:
Well it runs like crap on my G4733, GeForce2mx, 684 megs ram when I am in X, and like a dream in 9... I refuse to reboot just for a game though. Blizzard really dropped the ball here. They had better fix this in a patch soon.
Something of interest: even when reniced to -20, it only uses half the cpu. You would think that something that is choking like it is would be trying to use more than that. The reason for it choking is probably that it does not use enough cpu, which makes no sense.

In any case, they should fix this immediately. It is shameful that a company like Blizzard would do such shoddy work.<hr /></blockquote>My setup is very much like this, only with 768 MB RAM and my performance also sucks in OS X. Smooth as silk in OS 9 though...!
The same problem accours when using Diablo II with OpenGL.. And yes, they really need to fix this!! I have 10.1.5..

I discovered that even though I turned down my setting to 640x480 and low texture detail, it would still not perform any better! And the cutscenes with zoomed in camera is not fun to watch.. In OS 9, however, I can play with 1024x768 and medium texture quality and the rest set to high...

mitchell_pgh · Jul 8, 2002, 02:55 PM

I have a 733, and gameplay is fine... I do have an ATI 7500, so that may be the difference...

dj247046 · Jul 8, 2002, 04:28 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I have a 733, and gameplay is fine... I do have an ATI 7500, so that may be the difference...<hr /></blockquote>I've got my resolution set at 1280x854 with medium detail across the board and WarCraft III runs "stutter free" on my PowerBook. (See my specs below)

-Dave

Jul 16, 2002, 07:46 PM

A had it running on my 450 Cube with the original ATI Rage vid card.. and it was near unplayable in anthing but the lowest detail.. So, I installed a Geforce 2 MX, now I am running it at 1280x1024 all detail @ the highest setting and it is generally silky, not quite as smooth as it runs on my Athlon 1.4.with GF 2GTS at home, but not far off it either.

Running on OSX 10.1.5...

Surf

echoes · Jul 16, 2002, 08:30 PM

Everyone who's saying their performance is great... have you played it on BNet? That seems to be where things go down the tubes for me.