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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > So can the new Intel Mini handle WoW?

So can the new Intel Mini handle WoW?
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stuffedmonkey
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Mar 5, 2006, 08:35 PM
 
Right now I'm stuck playing World of Warcraft on the PC that I built.... That machine is nothing great at all - basically a athlon XP 2500 with a Radeon 9200 and 512 ram. Desptite the lowly config, the game runs very well except for the cities.


Now I'm looking to upgrade my Mac, which is my main computer. It would really be nice to have WoW on it - and the admins on the Mac WoW forum seem to believe it will work. Have any of you new Intel Mini owners had the chance to try it out? It would be great to have some hands on knowledge.

Thanks!
     
Tomchu
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Mar 5, 2006, 09:56 PM
 
Your current PC will handle it better than the Mini, I can say that for sure.
     
Burke
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Mar 5, 2006, 11:16 PM
 
It will run...and poorly so. Don't even bother.
     
icruise
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Mar 6, 2006, 12:26 AM
 
You'd be much better off with an iMac if you plan to play a lot of games like WoW.
     
jamil5454
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Mar 6, 2006, 12:42 AM
 
You're better off spending the money on RAM and video card upgrades for your PC. That way you'll be able to play all games better.
     
toddtmw
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Mar 6, 2006, 11:07 AM
 
I realize you are all trying to help, but so far all of the posts have been speculation. I'm not saying the speculation is wrong, but I thing the original poster would be better served if someone with a Mini could try it to see what it is capable of. There are a lot of different things that can be tweaked in the video options of WOW. Pressing CTRL-R will turn on a display of frame rate.

If someone with a Mini could load World of Warcraft on it and play with the different options and report the frame rate (say while spinning in t a circle) that would be much more helpful.

I don't have a Mini, but I DO have an iMac CoreDuo and it plays Great on that. But I have 128 meg of VRAM. At 1600x1050, I get 30+ fps with everything else turned off. Or about 18-20 fps (And some jerkyness) with EVERYTHING maxed out. Alternatively, at 800x600 with everything turned on, I can get about 50-60 fps. Interestingly, I can't really get above 60 fps no matter what I do.

So, if the Mini ran at 800x600 and had everything set to it's lowest setting, it might be able to keep up. Not the best experience to play in, and I agree that upgrading PC he already has is probably a better way to get a better WOW machine..

-Todd
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parsec_kadets
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Mar 6, 2006, 01:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by toddtmw
Interestingly, I can't really get above 60 fps no matter what I do.
There's an option, I forget what it's called, that limits your frame rate to refresh rate of your screen. This reduces image tearing that can becaused by the screen refreshing in the middle of a frame redraw. If you turn the option off you'll see the fram rate number jump up, but you won't get any bennefit since the monitor can't refresh that fast anyway.
     
toddtmw
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Mar 6, 2006, 02:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by parsec_kadets
There's an option, I forget what it's called, that limits your frame rate to refresh rate of your screen. This reduces image tearing that can becaused by the screen refreshing in the middle of a frame redraw. If you turn the option off you'll see the fram rate number jump up, but you won't get any bennefit since the monitor can't refresh that fast anyway.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I did have that option set...that explains it. Thanks.

-Todd
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mduell
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Mar 6, 2006, 06:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by parsec_kadets
There's an option, I forget what it's called, that limits your frame rate to refresh rate of your screen. This reduces image tearing that can becaused by the screen refreshing in the middle of a frame redraw. If you turn the option off you'll see the fram rate number jump up, but you won't get any bennefit since the monitor can't refresh that fast anyway.
Vsync (vertical sync)
     
doctre
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Mar 7, 2006, 04:00 AM
 
I've got a Core Duo mini with 1G RAM. It runs Wow better than the G4 mini did. At both 1280x1024 with all sliders set to high and default color depth / AA (24bit and 1x) in Org I get between 8-18fps. Oddly enough switching the res up to 1680x1050 doesn't change my framerate. I've not run outside of Org yet but the game is way more playable than it was on the G4 mini. The G4 mini could barely manage 10fps in org with everything turned all the way down at 1280x1024.

Edit: In my more recent ramblings I've just remembered that my original playing of WOW on my G4 mini was actually at 1024x768.
( Last edited by doctre; Mar 7, 2006 at 04:33 PM. )
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toddtmw
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Mar 7, 2006, 02:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by doctre
I've got a Core Duo mini with 1G RAM. It runs Wow better than the G4 mini did. At both 1280x1024 with all sliders set to high and default color depth / AA (24bit and 1x) in Org I get between 8-18fps. Oddly enough switching the res up to 1680x1050 doesn't change my framerate. I've not run outside of Org yet but the game is way more playable than it was on the G4 mini. The G4 mini could barely manage 10fps in org with everything turned all the way down at 1280x1024.
Cool. It sounds like it's better than most people thought. Would you be willing to run a test with all of the settings set to their most efficient settings? (Maybe even at different resolutions...) How high can you get the frame rate?

Thanks.

-Todd
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Eug Wanker
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Mar 7, 2006, 03:14 PM
 
I've got a Core Duo mini with 1G RAM. It runs Wow better than the G4 mini did. At both 1280x1024 with all sliders set to high and default color depth / AA (24bit and 1x) in Org I get between 8-18fps.
You find that acceptable?
     
justinkim
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Mar 7, 2006, 03:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug Wanker
You find that acceptable?
Well, he does have the graphics turned up (though admittedly not all the way up), so that actually bodes fairly well for those of us who are willing to turn some of the graphical bells and whistles down or off.

I know that my Athlon 64 3400+/1GB RAM/Radeon 9800 Pro occasionally chokes and stutters in IF, so having the mini choke a little in high-lag areas isn't all that surprising or worrying.

IMHO, having low FPS in IF or Org is more annoying than detrimental. Having 18fps in EPL would be more of a problem.
     
doctre
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Mar 7, 2006, 04:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug Wanker
You find that acceptable?
Actually in comparison to the G4 mini which couldn't hold that framerate even with everything turned all the way down and running at a lower res (1024x768) which I still played on for a while, I find it delightful. I wanted to see if the GMA950 would out perform the Radeon 9200 in WOW and it does. As this is a consumer grade Mac and not for gaming (IMO) I think it does a heck of a job with a recent generation 3D game. The WOW folks also mention that once they get an intel mini in house they are going to see what they can do to (if anything) make WOW run better on it. They do say that they won't be recommending WOW on a mini with less than 1G of RAM though.

Edit: I'd really be interested to see how that mini they upped to a 2.16 Core Duo would rate to see if more processor speed would affect the overall performance of WOW. On a side note the only game that I am currently playing on mac hardware is World of Warcraft. All other gaming benchmarks for this machine or any other Mac (at present) are irrelevant to me, I just wanted to add that so you could see what page I'm coming from.

Edit: Rereading the thread I noticed that earlier I was discussing the G4 mini at 1280x1024. That was a mistake, when I was playing on the G4 mini I was playing at 1024x768.
( Last edited by doctre; Mar 7, 2006 at 04:34 PM. )
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thunderous_funker
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Mar 9, 2006, 02:30 AM
 
It certainly is welcome news that the GMA950 is a reasonable performer on WoW. Thanks a lot for posting your results. I'd like to hear more after you've run an instance or two.

One video setting in particular I'd like to hear back on is the depth setting. You know, the slider for how far off in the instance you can see. On my G4 Mini I have to keep that almost all the way down for any decent fps. That has a pretty harsh impact on gaming, particularly PvP. Curious what setting you've got the GMA950 running at.

Thanks
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toddtmw
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Mar 9, 2006, 11:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by thunderous_funker
It certainly is welcome news that the GMA950 is a reasonable performer on WoW. Thanks a lot for posting your results. I'd like to hear more after you've run an instance or two.

One video setting in particular I'd like to hear back on is the depth setting. You know, the slider for how far off in the instance you can see. On my G4 Mini I have to keep that almost all the way down for any decent fps. That has a pretty harsh impact on gaming, particularly PvP. Curious what setting you've got the GMA950 running at.

Thanks
I don't even turn the depth setting up too high on my iMac Core Duo (only has the 128 meg video card). At 1600x1050, the extra depth really bogs things down.
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toddtmw
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Mar 9, 2006, 11:15 AM
 
Duplicate post because of a server timeout. Maybe if the mods lock more threads, obsessively move threads to the correct forum and pen us all in one giant useless thread, performance will increase.

Oh, wait, they're already doing that and it's not helping...

Maybe we need more typos and grammatical errors on the main pages...
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Chuckit
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Mar 9, 2006, 06:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug Wanker
You find that acceptable?
In Org, it sounds all right to me. That's about what my PowerBook gets there, and I generally consider the game playable.
Chuck
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