Improving WoW Performace on MBP?

[jinyoungkim7]

Hey guys, as of right now I play WoW on my base 13' mid 2010 MBP. I noticed that it gets a little hot but I heard its fine because the aluminum body dissipates the heat or something. Should I be doing anything about the heat?

Also, I do max fps at 27 but I lag a little outside Orgrimmar where lots of people PvP and inside major cities. What can I do to upgrade my MBP to make WoW run smoother, especially when Cataclysm launches. As of right now I play on the lowest possible setting but I'd rather play at middle settings if I can. I can spend up to $150-$200 to do whatever I need.

Thanks for the input, in advance!

 

[foiden]

I played my MBP 2009 model with medium to high settings just fine. Though to be fair, I wasn't messing inside the major cities too much. But out in the field, the game maintained a smooth and fast clip. Definitely around the speeds you quoted there. So you may be able to push up some of your specs without a noticeable decline in performance. I just don't remember the exact setting or two I didn't push up to get the other bells and whistles while maintaining the FPS. But if I remember right, there's like only 1 or 2 things in your graphics settings, that slow things down. The rest seem to hardly do anything detrimental for the graphical boost.

 

[QuantumLo0p]

I don't have WoW up at the moment but if you mouse over the settings they generally say how much they impact performance, such as slightly, greatly, etc-. Don't forget there are two pages of graphics settings: graphics and advanced. I have most of my settings very low but have the distance turned up a little and set the max frame rates around 33. My Mini does get quite warm and I have been assured it is fine but it still worries me a little. I can't remember what the gaming temp was the last time I checked but I have a small, external fan cooling the case. (yeah, I know it may seem stupid to some people)
You will probably find a lot of varied post responses on the same hardware. Obviously a big factor is individual preferences and interpretation of what quality is. Try playing with your settings and post again if you have more questions.