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Can Mini 320 graphics handle WoW okay? Catyclism?

QuantumLo0p

QuantumLo0p

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 28, 2006
992
30
U.S.A.
I posted a general inquiry in the Mini hardware forum but decided not to ask about gaming in that thread.

So....what do you all think about the new Mini's 320 graphics, will it be able to play WoW okay and what is your speculation about Cat? I heard Blizz is going to up the graphics a bit in Cat so I am a little concerned about the new Mini, specifically the 320 graphics.

Ready to pull the trigger on a Mini because my old PowerMac has one foot int he grave and the other is on a banana peel!

Thanks in advance for any input!
:)
 
Yes. Even with the very slight bumps they do to the graphics engine WoW is still one of the least graphically demanding MMO's on the market. That is part of the reason that it was able to become so popular, ANYBODY can run it ha. People are still playing WoW fine with their computers from 2004.
 
Not sure if this is any help, but I've been playing WoW on my 13 inch MBP 2.26 ghz, 4 gig of ram with a 7200 rpm HD, no real issues at all except it runs pretty hot even with a cooling pad.
 
Here's what I experienced so far:

The new Mini's hard drive is very slow. (upgrading soon I hope) Once an app loads, everything is fine. It is definitely not a raid-0, basically like a conventional drive in a notebook. No surprises about that.

The graphics are just a little better than the 6800 in my dual G5 PowerMac. Dalaran lags slightly at low settings but 10-mans are fine. Have not done any 25-mans yet. I could do 25's with my old setup on low settings so I am anticipating the new Mini will do the same or better. (non-scientific guess, I know)

Overall I am satisfied with my new Mini so far. It is so quiet! I am used to my old PowerMac doing the "jet-plane-take-off" fans maxxing out once in a while. In fact, with normal room noise I cannot here anything. Only when the room is totally quiet can I hear anything from the Mini.
:)
 
Today i tested wow on the new mini.
resolution 1920x1080 a few settings to mid, a few to max.
sure: shadow quality to min.
multisampling set to 1x (important)

so i get about 50-120fps - absolutely playable. i am impressed. the "old" mini could not handle wow on my screen with that resolution.

so... sorry - i have not tested 40 men raid haha.. meanwhile after 4 or 5 years since beta i play only sometimes. no time for raids etc..
 
QuantumLo0p said:
Here's what I experienced so far:

The new Mini's hard drive is very slow. (upgrading soon I hope) Once an app loads, everything is fine. It is definitely not a raid-0, basically like a conventional drive in a notebook. No surprises about that.

The graphics are just a little better than the 6800 in my dual G5 PowerMac. Dalaran lags slightly at low settings but 10-mans are fine. Have not done any 25-mans yet. I could do 25's with my old setup on low settings so I am anticipating the new Mini will do the same or better. (non-scientific guess, I know)

Overall I am satisfied with my new Mini so far. It is so quiet! I am used to my old PowerMac doing the "jet-plane-take-off" fans maxxing out once in a while. In fact, with normal room noise I cannot here anything. Only when the room is totally quiet can I hear anything from the Mini.
:)
Click to expand...

Little better? I think you might want to double check your information.
 
Meever said:
Little better? I think you might want to double check your information.
Click to expand...

Yes, I said exactly what I meant, based off personal experience. Sure you can look at generic graphics benchmarks all day long but the final say is how it actually performs in day to day usage.

I am using my Mini at minimum settings and it does indeed perform better than my old graphics, a little. Yes, I know " a little" isn't exactly scientific. I still have a lot of lag in Dal and 25-mans are playable only on low settings. I know what video lag is since I have a little experience (20+ years) using computer where graphics are a very important part of computing, CAD/CAM/CAE computing. Although workstation graphic hardware and gaming hardware mainly differ only by firmware, lag is still lag, all day long, 24/7/365....yadda yadda yadda.

I would prefer to run WoW on much, much higher settings but the Mini is definitely not able to do this. Before anyone jumps in my face in a fit of Mini-fan-boy rage let me say I never expected that from the beginning. I only slightly better performance than what I had, which the Mini delivered.

I think perspective is very important and I must say that my actual experience is is also using the oem hdd and the standard 2GB of ram. Also, I usually have a number of apps open at any given time which is reasonable to expect.

All in all I am satisfied with my Mini and it does exactly what I expected it to do. More ram and a better hard drive are planned for the near future. It also runs fairly hot once gaming gets underway. I am trying to find a nice usb powered fan to sit atop the enclosure to help keep things cool.


My ideal setup is a dedicated gaming rig which is planned for later this year, as I have stated in other threads. Higher end graphics are definitely planned.
 
I have some youtube videos displaying WoW running with places like Dalaran and such with the new 320M on the newest Macbook Pro 13". Feel free to check it out and see the performance. I also have many other games running on the 320M to show the overall performance of the Mac.

www.youtube.com/KadMac25
 
QuantumLo0p said:
Here's what I experienced so far:

The new Mini's hard drive is very slow. (upgrading soon I hope) Once an app loads, everything is fine. It is definitely not a raid-0, basically like a conventional drive in a notebook. No surprises about that.

The graphics are just a little better than the 6800 in my dual G5 PowerMac. Dalaran lags slightly at low settings but 10-mans are fine. Have not done any 25-mans yet. I could do 25's with my old setup on low settings so I am anticipating the new Mini will do the same or better. (non-scientific guess, I know)

Overall I am satisfied with my new Mini so far. It is so quiet! I am used to my old PowerMac doing the "jet-plane-take-off" fans maxxing out once in a while. In fact, with normal room noise I cannot here anything. Only when the room is totally quiet can I hear anything from the Mini.
:)
Click to expand...

I used a macbook pro 1.83 and raided up until I quit the game in the server's best guild. I had the 2nd top DPS on my servers First Kil'jaeden kill as a Rogue a very FPS sensitive DPS class. In WOLK, I raided T8-T9 with same set up, had some lag issues in certain fights, but managed to swap my main to a Cat Druid and get top DPS using add ons, as well as heal off spec in 10 mans with grid. I assume mac mini 2010 is significantly better than my old MBP and should perform very nice. Someone in my guild suggested running Bootcamp for %20 better performance. Here is a link I followed closely http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4028094861&sid=1
 
If you won't be doing anything besides basic questing and you don't mind mediocre graphics, then yes it will run it fine. With the update in Cataclysm expect the game to be more demanding.

That being said, remember that extremely old hardware can still run WoW fine, so you should not have a problem running it, just don't expect all the bells and whistles.
 
hurriance said:
If you won't be doing anything besides basic questing and you don't mind mediocre graphics, then yes it will run it fine. With the update in Cataclysm expect the game to be more demanding.

That being said, remember that extremely old hardware can still run WoW fine, so you should not have a problem running it, just don't expect all the bells and whistles.
Click to expand...

I guess you missed the part about Rogue DPS on a 1.83 MBP and Kil'jaeden which was a server first, pre patch. Same MBP raided 25 man t8 and t9 content before I quit game without problems, even with all the AOE

QuantumLo0p you will be fine in expansion, but for better FPS boot camp it
 
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