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Play wow on iMac

I

iiPwn

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2011
45
0
Hey! I just sold my Macbook Pro and now i want an iMac. Im going to play some World of Warcraft now and then. I wonder if the 27" iMac with 3,1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 2560 x 1440 resulution, 4 GB (two 2 GB) and AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1 Gb can run World of Warcraft on the best graphics? (I think it's named "ultra") Also i will play some CSS but im pretty sure it will run that good. Anyone got a clue when there are coming new iMacs and what the update will be? I mean if it's worth to wait.
Thanks :)
 
I have no doubt about an iMac of that specification running WOW at it's highest settings. It's a seven year old game, not to mention it designed to be scalable regards performance. You should have no problem.
 
You'd be surprised at how difficult it can be to run WoW on ultra with perfect framerate at the resolution the 27" iMac uses. I'd imagine on the 6970m you'll be good to go though, Apple finally put a card capable of supporting the really high resolution.
 
Dr. McKay said:
Yes, the 6970 is more powerful but with the resolution of the 27", it has to deal with a lot more pixels. So it'll be about the same as the 21" with 5670.
Click to expand...

Wich means that the 6970m can handle WoW on ultra?
 
I have the previous top-end 27" (i7 2.93/HD 5750) and I have to keep some of the advanced graphics options throttled to achieve acceptable performance. Nothing is set to Ultra.

Shadows and water are the real killers, and the aliasing bug for water settings above Fair is still very much in place for me on 10.6.8. Even with lower settings, however, I only get 30-40 fps in most zones.

The game will also eat up its allotted 2Gb of memory very quickly, so you're going to need more RAM for a smooth-running system.
 
Just turn the resolution down in game and run Ultra... it'll look better than trying to run the full native resolution on lower graphics settings.
 
As far as CSS goes, even the Mobility Radeon X1600's in the original Intel iMacs could run it at 1680x1050 with high settings with a great framerate.
 
doh123 said:
Just turn the resolution down in game and run Ultra... it'll look better than trying to run the full native resolution on lower graphics settings.
Click to expand...

It's a mixed bag and contradictory. You'll have better textures and effects but it'll look fuzzier overall. Personally, I like higher resolution with less detail. I have everything on low, except view distance on good at full res (1920x1200). I could lower that to 1280x800 and increase the quality, but I don't like the way that looks. Also, lowering the resolution doesn't allow me to increase the detail all that much.

It's a compromise anyway, and it's a case of finding what works best for you...
 
You won't be able to run it on ultra without some slowdown, Blizzard has actually upped the graphics quite a bit since the game has been out.
 
I'm not quite sure why everyone is saying it won't run on ultra. If you do a quick search you'll see that people are getting 30-70fps with Cataclysm.

Sure, it's not the 100+fps from a dedicated gaming machine, but I cap my frame rates at 30 anyway and most monitors are only 60Hz.

If you have any slow downs, it is generally recommended to turn down sunshafts, shadows, and water detail, but I believe Blizzard has fixed some of the problems recently.
 
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