[DaveNinja]

How do you think WoW will run on a Mac Mini (1.25Ghz, 512 MB RAM)?
The only thing lower than the requirement is the 32 MB of VRAM instead of the 64MB reccomended/required.

I was thinking of replacing my old B&W G3 that i'm using as a server with a Mac Mini if it can run WoW so I can play at the same time as my wife (she's taken over the WoW account on my G5).

-DaveNinja

[Luca Rescigno]

I don't have WoW... but I don't think you'll get ANY modern game to run well at all with only 32 MB of VRAM. In my experience playing Warcraft III on a Mac, I needed at least 64 MB of VRAM just to get good performance. As soon as I got enough VRAM, it played great regardless of other specs. Even on a G4/450, with a 64 MB video card it was like butter at max settings.

So assuming you need 64 MB of VRAM to run WoW effectively (and I am assuming you do, given that it's a brand new game), the minimum Mac you can get to run it really well would be the $1299 iMac G5.

[Skip Breakfast]

I have a Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB AGP card in my G4 and I'm lucky to get 14fps on WoW. I think it will suck bullocks on the Mini.

[The iMac Man]

The video card in the Mini Mac is a joke.

If you need a 64mb video card, you need a 64mb video card.... not a 32mb video card.

The Mini Mac is not for gaming....

[DaveNinja]

Originally posted by The iMac Man:
The video card in the Mini Mac is a joke.

If you need a 64mb video card, you need a 64mb video card.... not a 32mb video card.

The Mini Mac is not for gaming....

I've thought Ive seen people saying they're playing it on eMacs and G4 iMacs?

[Sosa]

You can play modern games with a 32 meg video card, just not those that are too graphically demanding. You can play plenty of other strategy games....

[The iMac Man]

Originally posted by DaveNinja:
I've thought Ive seen people saying they're playing it on eMacs and G4 iMacs?

Yeah, with 64mb video cards maybe....

The video card is pretty much the most important piece of hardware when it comes to gaming. If the requirements call for a 64mb video card, then you need 64mb. The game might not even run on a 32mb video card... I dunno, it's not my kinda of game, and I've never played it.

[DaveNinja]

Originally posted by The iMac Man:
Yeah, with 64mb video cards maybe....

The video card is pretty much the most important piece of hardware when it comes to gaming. If the requirements call for a 64mb video card, then you need 64mb. The game might not even run on a 32mb video card... I dunno, it's not my kinda of game, and I've never played it.

The 64MB requirement was from the apple.com page. I just looked at amazon and the Mac requirements have its as 32 MB Vram and 512 MB Ram.
Anyone have the requirements from the official site? Its blocked from me here at work.

[The iMac Man]

Originally posted by DaveNinja:
The 64MB requirement was from the apple.com page. I just looked at amazon and the Mac requirements have its as 32 MB Vram and 512 MB Ram.
Anyone have the requirements from the official site? Its blocked from me here at work.

Oh, okay, I thought you were saying you knew it needed 64mb...

Here are the posted specs:

Mac� System OS X 10.3.5 OS:

* 933 MHz or higher G4 or G5 processor
* 512 MB RAM or higher; DDR RAM recommended
* ATI or NVIDIA video hardware with 32 MB VRAM or more
* 4 GB or more of available hard drive space
* MacOS X 10.3.5 or newer
* 56k or higher modem with an Internet connection


So, I guess it'll run, but not great.... definitely not like on your G5.

[DaveNinja]

Originally posted by The iMac Man:
Oh, okay, I thought you were saying you knew it needed 64mb...

Here are the posted specs:

Mac� System OS X 10.3.5 OS:

* 933 MHz or higher G4 or G5 processor
* 512 MB RAM or higher; DDR RAM recommended
* ATI or NVIDIA video hardware with 32 MB VRAM or more
* 4 GB or more of available hard drive space
* MacOS X 10.3.5 or newer
* 56k or higher modem with an Internet connection


So, I guess it'll run, but not great.... definitely not like on your G5.

Thanks for looking them up and posting them. Seems like a Mac Mini with a 512 ram upgrade would work. It would be run off a old 15 inch CRT so its ok if it doesnt look as good as the G5. Now to save up some money.

[AKcrab]

I play on a G4 867 with a GeForce 2MX 32MB...
It sucketh at times, but for the most part is fine.
I see people with much higher level systems complain about the "lag" too, so I'm not really sure exactly WHAT rig will give really good performance.

[CincyGamer]

It should run great. I am using a 1 GHZ Powerbook with an older video card and it plays great on that. I get around 22 FPS with all but Terain distance on highest setting. The mini has 25% faster cpu, faster hard drive and newer card. I am very pleased.

[TheBadgerHunter]

Originally posted by The iMac Man:
The video card in the Mini Mac is a joke.

If you need a 64mb video card, you need a 64mb video card.... not a 32mb video card.

The Mini Mac is not for gaming....

This is of course one of the most moronic misconceptions. A 32mb card, particularly a 9200, will run WoW or ANY game with good performance. MOST games don't require a 64 MB card and even ones that do will run okay IF you turn down the settings.

[TheBadgerHunter]

Originally posted by Skip Breakfast:
I have a Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB AGP card in my G4 and I'm lucky to get 14fps on WoW. I think it will suck bullocks on the Mini.

That is a hardware issue. Contact Blizzard with it. I get around 17 FPS on a 7500 w32MB so obviously you aren't lacking in power.

[sideus]

I play WoW on a PowerBook 12' (1GHZ, Go5200 32MB) with no problems. Decent speed, about 20 fps in outdoor areas, 70+ in indoor areas.

[webb3201]

Go for it....

I play WOW on two machines, a Quicksilver dual 1 gig with a 64mb card and a Powerbook 12" with a 32 mb card. I dont see a tremendous difference in the game, granted I use the desktop more due to ergonomics.

Blizzard made a good game that looks passable with the graphics setting very low. Enjoy and remember ........PLAY AS THE HORDE AND CRUSH THE ALLIANCE

[DaveNinja]

Its settled then. I'll try to get a Mac Mini (1.25Ghz with 512 MB RAMM) in a couple weeks when they come out. Now i just have to find 575 bucks.

[gbafan]

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
It should run great. I am using a 1 GHZ Powerbook with an older video card and it plays great on that. I get around 22 FPS with all but Terain distance on highest setting. The mini has 25% faster cpu, faster hard drive and newer card. I am very pleased.

Yes I can confirm this information. When traveling I too play on a 12" PB and performance is fine. I think the Mac Mini will actually play the game better.

The one thing though to watch out for is raiding or heavy PvP action. PvP on a machine such as the 12" PB or Mac Mini certainly is not going to help you much. This is where the power of a G5 really kicks in.

[gbafan]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
That is a hardware issue. Contact Blizzard with it. I get around 17 FPS on a 7500 w32MB so obviously you aren't lacking in power.

I will follow this up with saying that the 9000/128MB card that I have in a 1.4Ghz G4 is not up to snuff. For some reason this card gets torrid performance, even compared to my 12" PB. The only time the tower outpaces the PB is during raid and/or PvP action.

I'm not sure what the problem is; driver or hardware?

[videian28]

playable, not great but definatly playable

[The iMac Man]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
This is of course one of the most moronic misconceptions. A 32mb card, particularly a 9200, will run WoW or ANY game with good performance. MOST games don't require a 64 MB card and even ones that do will run okay IF you turn down the settings.

First of all, don't call me a moron... I am far from a moron, thank you.

Second of all, I don't know anything about WoW... it's not my kind of game. So, I thought DaveNinja KNEW that it needed a 64mb video card, and was going with that.

And, there ARE games that REQUIRE a 64mb video card... good luck running those on a 32mb card. The game probably wont even launch without enough video RAM, even if you turn down settings, that wont work. The RAM is used to store textures, etc.

Try running this game on a 32mb:

http://www.aspyr.com/detail.php?p_ga...=&p_game_nav=4

[velporama]

I am interested in this too, too bad until someone actually runs/tests it on a mini Mac all of this discussion is theoretical at best.

Best bet, be patient a let someone with 600 to burn give it a shot.

Cheers,

Velporama.

[yikes600]

Originally posted by velporama:
I am interested in this too, too bad until someone actually runs/tests it on a mini Mac all of this discussion is theoretical at best.

Best bet, be patient a let someone with 600 to burn give it a shot.

Cheers,

Velporama.

It will run exactly the same as it does the current eMac (same G4/1.25GHz, Radeon 9200 32MB, 167Hz bus)... which is not good.

[itai195]

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
It should run great. I am using a 1 GHZ Powerbook with an older video card and it plays great on that. I get around 22 FPS with all but Terain distance on highest setting. The mini has 25% faster cpu, faster hard drive and newer card. I am very pleased.

Hmm, my G5 with Radeon 9800 and similar settings only performs slightly better than your PowerBook. I'm still not happy about having to leave the terrain distance all the way down to get decent performance on my Mac.

It will run on a Mac Mini, but my guess is that it won't run well. Don't worry though, it doesn't run all that well on pretty much any Mac.

[entrox]

Originally posted by The iMac Man:
The game probably wont even launch without enough video RAM, even if you turn down settings, that wont work. The RAM is used to store textures, etc.[/url]

So? You can swap textures from client memory to server memory at any time in a frame. I can see abysmal performance, but I don't get why it shouldn't work at all.

[The iMac Man]

Originally posted by entrox:
So? You can swap textures from client memory to server memory at any time in a frame. I can see abysmal performance, but I don't get why it shouldn't work at all.

Try it then... buy 007 Nightfire and see if it runs on a 32mb card.

[solbo]

Originally posted by itai195:
Don't worry though, it doesn't run all that well on pretty much any Mac.

Isn't that the truth.

[a2daj]

I disagree. It runs great on my Dual 2.5 G5 with Radeon 9800 Pro (original Mac Edition).

[itai195]

Originally posted by a2daj:
I disagree. It runs great on my Dual 2.5 G5 with Radeon 9800 Pro (original Mac Edition).

It runs great on the top of the line Mac with the (until recently) top of the line ATI graphics card? Well shucks

How far do you have the terrain distance turned up? That's my major gripe, really.

[The iMac Man]

Here is a quote from Glenda Adams (of Aspyr) over at the IMG forums:



Aspyr Game Agent has the new Mac mini specs built in now, so if you run it you can see what games will run on the new Mac. 32mb of vram is the main limiting factor, it only stops a few current games though.

Glenda


--------------------
Glenda Adams
Director of Development, Aspyr Media


http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/...ic=18748&st=40

[jpg71]

Originally posted by itai195:
It will run on a Mac Mini, but my guess is that it won't run well. Don't worry though, it doesn't run all that well on pretty much any Mac.

It's quite playable on my 1.5Ghz PowerBook, 1GB RAM, 128MB ATI, driving a 1280x1024 display with everything turned up except for terrain distance. To be honest, I haven't really tried raising that to see how it performs, so I'll check that later - but I wouldn't say it doesn't run all that well.

Is there a particular benchmark that I should try out to get real-world results? I realize that different areas of the game perform differently based on the amount of objects within view, so if there's a particular spot that is accepted as a good benchmark, maybe we can all get an idea of how the game performs accross different machines and settings?

[solbo]

Originally posted by jpg71:
It's quite playable on my 1.5Ghz PowerBook, 1GB RAM, 128MB ATI, driving a 1280x1024 display with everything turned up except for terrain distance. To be honest, I haven't really tried raising that to see how it performs, so I'll check that later - but I wouldn't say it doesn't run all that well.

Is there a particular benchmark that I should try out to get real-world results? I realize that different areas of the game perform differently based on the amount of objects within view, so if there's a particular spot that is accepted as a good benchmark, maybe we can all get an idea of how the game performs accross different machines and settings?

The best way to see how badly it performs on a Mac is to find a similarly specced PC and play it on that. The difference in smoothness and overall playability is fairly huge. Even with almost the same video card.

Sure, it is playable on a Mac but the difference between the two is amazing really.

The best place to test it out would probably be some place like deep in Ashenvale, since there are so many trees and such. That is where I get the most obvious performance hits on both a Mac and a PC.

[jpg71]

Originally posted by solbo:
The best way to see how badly it performs on a Mac is to find a similarly specced PC and play it on that. The difference in smoothness and overall playability is fairly huge. Even with almost the same video card.

Sure, it is playable on a Mac but the difference between the two is amazing really.

The best place to test it out would probably be some place like deep in Ashenvale, since there are so many trees and such. That is where I get the most obvious performance hits on both a Mac and a PC.

Point well taken, but comparing the PC to the Mac, regardless of how fast the PC is, doesn't validate the statement I was finding issue with "...it doesn't run all that well on pretty much any Mac."

I still maintain that the game plays well on my Mac. Yeah, it plays much smoother on my P4 3.4Ghz with a Radeon 9800, but that's another story for another day.

Thank you for the suggestion on checking out performance in Ashenvale, I'll see how much it stresses the ol' PowerBook.

[greenamp]

If you turn all the settings down, and run the game in a window at 800x600 resolution, you should be able to get between 10-30 fps. I do this on my 1ghz iBook and get the same results. Since the HD is so slow though, the more memory the better.

[benb]

Originally posted by solbo:
The best place to test it out would probably be some place like deep in Ashenvale, since there are so many trees and such. That is where I get the most obvious performance hits on both a Mac and a PC.

Or say an Auction House at 9pm.

[greenamp]

Auction house lag is primarily sever side. None of the uber GPUs out there will save you from the lag cancer that is Iron Forge, lol.

On a side note, I hear word that they are working on an AH for Storm Wind.

[robo74]

I see some strange posts here...

For those with a G5 and higher end card... switch servers or something, cause something is wrong.

I first started on a Dual 1.8 with 9800 Pro retail (128mb) and I was doing 40+ unless your in the laggy area's. Once both Apple and Blizzard did the updates, I now see that the FPS does not go past 100.0 but thats not in all area's..mainly 50's and 60's. settings are almost all turned up.


As far as the mini. I got my Cousin hooked on this game with his 1.25 eMac. After the updated and since he added ram, he gets solid 20 and 30's and it looks real nice.
If you play wow and are considering a mini... no worries. You would be suprised on how well it looks.

Rob

[Xidius]

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
It should run great. I am using a 1 GHZ Powerbook with an older video card and it plays great on that. I get around 22 FPS with all but Terain distance on highest setting. The mini has 25% faster cpu, faster hard drive and newer card. I am very pleased.

Originally posted by sideus:
I play WoW on a PowerBook 12' (1GHZ, Go5200 32MB) with no problems. Decent speed, about 20 fps in outdoor areas, 70+ in indoor areas.

Originally posted by gbafan:
Yes I can confirm this information.

Well all I can say is..

I guess it's time to sell my 1.5Ghz 17" 128mb 1gb Powerbook and upgrade to a 1Ghz 12" with 32mb Go5200.

With terrain distance set at lowest, I am lucky to get 25fps indoors, and I generally hover around 8-15 anywhere else.

My brother's 1.25Ghz 15" reflects similar performance.... but wow. You guys have some super 12"ers there, I can attest to that. And might I add, I am on a low population server with little or no lag.

By the way, what are mac users doing being alliance? If we wanted to be in the majority we'd be using windows! =P

For the Horde!

- Xidius

[itai195]

Originally posted by Xidius:
For the Horde!

- Xidius

Horde are the majority on my server

jpg71 -- I agree that the game is playable on a lot of Macs, but that wasn't my point. I realize that direct comparisons to PC performance aren't quite reasonable, but I think Macs are too far behind the curve in this game. A friend's aging 2GHz Pentium with Radeon 9700 is easily outperforming my G5. I'm not complaining -- I've played the game a ton -- but I'm just a little disappointed with Mac performance. Blizzard did a great job getting a simultaneous release out, I hope they can continue to improve Mac performance.

[Bookie]

The correct answer is YES, WoW will run fine on a Mini, a).if you turn down the distance and b). upgrade to 512 RAM.

How do I know?

Compare the Mini's specs to my iBook:

Processor speed: 1.25 gHz vs. 1.2 gHz

Video: Radeon 9200 w/ 32 MB VRAM

HD speed: 4200 rpm.

All exactly the same, except my iBook is slightly slower. WoW runs GREAT on my computer, so I think it will run great on a mini as well.

My iBook also does well on UT 2004, C&C Generals, and any other game I've tried on it. Of course it won't run DOOM 3, but most games out there will be decent on a mini, with some tweaking in the video options.

[goMac]

Originally posted by The iMac Man:
Try it then... buy 007 Nightfire and see if it runs on a 32mb card.

No, hes actually right. No matter what the size of vram on your graphics card is you will always be swapping in and out of ram. More vram will improve your speeds however because swapping from RAM to vram causes slowdowns. More likely than not Nightfire was specifically coded not to run on a 32 MB card.

I've done a lot of work with OpenGL. I've loaded huge textures in and they worked fine on a Rage 128 16 MB. It was much slower, but it worked.

[videian28]

Originally posted by solbo:
The best way to see how badly it performs on a Mac is to find a similarly specced PC and play it on that. The difference in smoothness and overall playability is fairly huge. Even with almost the same video card.

Sure, it is playable on a Mac but the difference between the two is amazing really.

The best place to test it out would probably be some place like deep in Ashenvale, since there are so many trees and such. That is where I get the most obvious performance hits on both a Mac and a PC.

heh, funny you should mention this, recently my brother in law started living with us, he plays right next to me on a PC, specs are not quite up to mine, but thats not really the point, he gets errors ALL the time, he is constantly fighing to actually get to play.

He takes good care of his machine, everything that is needed, updates almost daily, anti virus, anti malware/spyware, defrags, etc... yet still he watchs me play while he waits to reboot =p

oh...he wants a mac (just can't afford one yet)

[benb]

Better hope you already have a copy of WoW, or you might not be able to play it even when the Mini ships.

[DaveNinja]

I ended up getting a 1.6 G5 iMac with 512 mb of RAM. After spending hours looks around for a copy of the game i ended up just buying one from a local guy for 20 bucks more than retail. My wife and i have to get as much playing time in as we can before the new baby is born so the 20 bucks was worth not having to wait til more copies are released (incase that wasnt til march). The iMac drops more frames than my dual 1.8 G5 but still gets around 30 fps more of the time. At first it was really bad, like 9 fps. But it went away after a half hour or hour. No idea why. I have a gig of ram coming for it on monday, so that should speed up things.

[Arkham_c]

A guy in my guild just got the faster mini with 1GB of RAM. He said he gets 25-30fps at 1024x768. Definitely playable.

[gbafan]

Originally posted by Xidius:
Well all I can say is..

I guess it's time to sell my 1.5Ghz 17" 128mb 1gb Powerbook and upgrade to a 1Ghz 12" with 32mb Go5200.

With terrain distance set at lowest, I am lucky to get 25fps indoors, and I generally hover around 8-15 anywhere else.

My brother's 1.25Ghz 15" reflects similar performance.... but wow. You guys have some super 12"ers there, I can attest to that. And might I add, I am on a low population server with little or no lag.

By the way, what are mac users doing being alliance? If we wanted to be in the majority we'd be using windows! =P

For the Horde!

- Xidius

You again?

I play Horde, thank you very much.

And if you're going to quote someone; do it correctly and not out of context.

And for the record; I mainly play on a loaded PC which owns all of these Macs hands down. But you don't really care now do you?

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...25#post2360866

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
It should run great. I am using a 1 GHZ Powerbook with an older video card and it plays great on that. I get around 22 FPS with all but Terain distance on highest setting. The mini has 25% faster cpu, faster hard drive and newer card. I am very pleased.

Originally posted by gbfan:
Yes I can confirm this information. When traveling I too play on a 12" PB and performance is fine. I think the Mac Mini will actually play the game better.

The one thing though to watch out for is raiding or heavy PvP action. PvP on a machine such as the 12" PB or Mac Mini certainly is not going to help you much. This is where the power of a G5 really kicks in.

[onryou]

Originally posted by benb:
Or say an Auction House at 9pm.

amen to that!

onryou

[CincyGamer]

I have been playing on a 1 ghz powerbook with radeon 9000 64 megs VRAM. The game has been playing great on this 2 year old laptop. Most of the time I get in the 20's fp. I have some options on lowest and some on highest. I have seen good PCs running the game and there is a night and day difference, but I am really happy on how it plays with old computer.

On the other hand, other Mac games I own such as Knights of The Old Republic and Halo I am purposely waiting until I get the PowerMac G5 to play with Radeon 9800 or better. Games like Call of Duty and Jedi Outcast, Warcraft III run awesome on the mac. Just waiting on Apple to release the PM 3 GHZ then I'll pick up the dual 2.5.

**note** my friend bought a laptop the same time as mine and now he cant stand playing WoW on his 2 GHZ celeron presario, he has to buy a new computer. OTOH, I am very happy and play WoW and loving it.
I am getting Metal of Honor Warchest this week and that will be awesome as well.

The mac mini even at 1.25 GHZ is a great machine and can be used for all kinds of things .. programming, fast web surfing, some games
(obviously not Doom3), movies and photos, iTunes etc. It is really amazing how well the G4 cpu holds up. My mom used my laptop yesterday to surf the web while my parents came down to see me. She said my laptop is faster than her P4 dell laptop work bought her.
My friend and I both played Warcraft III together and mine has all options on highest and starts faster/plays better than his 2.0 GHZ (mine is a 1 GHZ)

My laptop was $2200 + $200 for 1 GB ram, I think his was about $1200. But you get what you pay for.. mine has a real screen and
is titanium and 1 inch thin and DVD burner and 1 GB ram. His laptop can only go to 512 MB and is plastic and thick and screen really sucks and PoS video card (Radeon IGP). You get what you pay for. I am very pleased with switching.

[onryou]

If you don't own a mac mini, why are you giving your opinions? If you don't own one, don't say something won't work. I own a powerbook 12" it has the 64 mb nvidia card. It runs REALLY good, I know what you're thinking it's a 64, and the mini has a 32... Well, my answer to that is... I have also played on a Dell Dim2400, dunno if you all know anything about that pc, but it is a piece of sh*t.

The video is onboard Intel crap. It has mad ram, 768, and it runs, laggy and in towns low frame rate. But, most of the time, it runs pretty damn well. It usually hovers around 15 to 20 frames (very very playable) and my point is, if it runs on that POS machine, and it runs decently. It will run on the mini.

My pwrbook it runs like a champ. Granted its a better v.card not much only the v.mem. If you get a mac mini and put 512 or a gig of mem in that, it WILL be VERY playable.

BTW, on my pb, I get 40 fps in STV.

Yep,
onryou

[a2daj]

A Mac mini with 1 GB of RAM would be much, much better for running WoW than 512 MB of RAM. At 512 you'll be swapping out the the HD a lot. 768 MB should allow the various system processes and WoW to operate fully in real memory. 1 GB would be better because I haven't seen many 768 MB sticks