WoW playing on my laptop

[luna crescent]

I have comcast cable connection so lag shouldn't be a problem.

However, I'm not even sure if my laptop meets minimum system requirements of WoW.

Ibook G3 900 mhz, OS 10.4.3, 640 MB SDRAM, 32 MB Video Card (I'm not sure what video card though)

Should I try to install it?

[toomuchstereo]

It will run but it will be an bad experience.

[luna crescent]

At least it will run right? I can turn the settings down to the lowest it can be.

[Patmian212]

At least it will run right? I can turn the settings down to the lowest it can be.
With your low settings I would say get a gig of ram for it to run psudo decently. Your settings should cope for lets say the first 15 levels of the game but after that I would consider it unplayable and FORGET about going into ironforge. The ibook in my sig gets anywhere around 14-23 FPS in wow with everything on low.

[G5Unit]

Man, WOW isn't even that nice looking of a game, why are the requirments so high?

[Patmian212]

Man, WOW isn't even that nice looking of a game, why are the requirments so high?
Im sorry but I have to disagree, it is a good looking game even on low settings, I mean I dont think a 1ghz processor 512mb ram and 32mb vram is soo high, even though it plays like crap on those stats.

[Yvan256]

At least it will run right? I can turn the settings down to the lowest it can be.

On my Mac mini (see sig), with all settings off/lowest, I hate going in big cities (too many players) because my FPS drops to 4-5.

Outside, I get from 20 to 30 FPS depending on the surroundings and monsters.

I'm sorry to say your old iBook will probably melt if you try and play WoW on it. ;-)

[luna crescent]

Er... I wish I could play on my apple laptop even though I have a well specced out windows desktop.

My mom just wouldn't let me use it during school days (weekends included) because she knows I will be playing games on it.

I wonder if the mactel ibooks can run WoW moderately well...

[Mord]

i tired it on a 900MHz g3, was playable, not pleasant but it was ok.

[Ecodisk]

Im sorry but I have to disagree, it is a good looking game even on low settings, I mean I dont think a 1ghz processor 512mb ram and 32mb vram is soo high, even though it plays like crap on those stats.

Compared to half-life 2 and guild wars which have about the same system requirements (minimum) it doesn't look that great.......not that graphics really matter or anything:P

[luna crescent]

Did it have increased ram like mine does?

[rufwork]

With your low settings I would say get a gig of ram for it to run psudo decently. Your settings should cope for lets say the first 15 levels of the game but after that I would consider it unplayable and FORGET about going into ironforge. The ibook in my sig gets anywhere around 14-23 FPS in wow with everything on low.

I've got the same iBook with a gig and a quarter of RAM and everything runs quite well. I believe the game uses Altivec, and I thought the sys reqs say they require G4+ for this reason. Was surprised to hear it'd even run on a G3 iBook.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/technology.html

I have a Windows box with an AMD 3000+ and 512 megs of RAM with decent integrated video (as oxymoronically as that sounds) and the iBook plays the game much more easily as a rule. So it's definitely a RAM issue that you're going to be worried about moreso than proc.

In any event, max RAM and don't expect much, if anything, from that processor.

Unrelated, I've been very impressed with the game's ability to run with very little bandwidth. Played on a 28.8 cxn for a while when my DSL was down, and no worries whatsoever. Impressive.

[csubear]

I've played on a GPRS modem ~1.9-3.0k/sec. Ie my cell phone with bluetooth. The latency was high, but the game was playable.

[Ultimate-Omen]

I've played on a GPRS modem ~1.9-3.0k/sec. Ie my cell phone with bluetooth. The latency was high, but the game was playable.
how ironic...you can play it on sub-56k while my 802.11g wireless 768k dsl gives me latencies in the thousands.

[Mord]

err, g3 ibooks can only take 640MB ram, no more.....

[csubear]

how ironic...you can play it on sub-56k while my 802.11g wireless 768k dsl gives me latencies in the thousands.

Magic words 802.11. The latency associated with that can be really nasty. I used to try and play at my university, but i had about 2k in latencies. This was on there 802.11 network.

[luna crescent]

How can I increase my g3 ibook ram from 640 mb to 1GB?
My 2nd slot seemed to only fit 512 MB ram not a 1GB ram chip.

Even so, I will try to run it and see how it goes. It won't hurt to try.

[After G]

Depends on your definition of playable. 17 FPS is not for me. I want my character to walk, not stutter.

[Ultimate-Omen]

Magic words 802.11. The latency associated with that can be really nasty. I used to try and play at my university, but i had about 2k in latencies. This was on there 802.11 network.
b-b-but...its 802.11g!...:( ;) :D

[huck500]

Magic words 802.11. The latency associated with that can be really nasty. I used to try and play at my university, but i had about 2k in latencies. This was on there 802.11 network.

30-70 on my 802.11g network...

[Ultimate-Omen]

30-70 on my 802.11g network...
LIAR!...now how'd you go and get such good latencies?:p

[csubear]

30-70 on my 802.11g network...

It vary variable.

If your network is experiencing lots of interference then you start having real latency issues. The distance to the router, and the number of wireless router you have to go though to get to a land line are also factors.

[beige matchbox]

Don't know what you playing at, the difference for me between ethernet and 802.11 is at most 5ms on my home network :confused:

Maybe if the base station was being over run with clients it could account for high latencies, but this wouldn't be an issue on most home networks :)


I get around 20ms on most net games by the way, depending on the server of course

[mishi]

i played from lvl 1-60 on my powerbook...(specs in sig). playable, even in AB and WSG. but i tell you what the only time where i had to go over to my PC (specs below also) was when it was 40v40 in Alterac valley. i somtimes got 4-5fps in AV with my powerbook. so yeah it will be playable untill you get to lvl 60 and have to go on large MC/ZG/BWL raids. (for some reason my powerbook runs worse in ZG which is 20 man than MC and BWL which are both 40 man).

[Ultimate-Omen]

(for some reason my powerbook runs worse in ZG which is 20 man than MC and BWL which are both 40 man).
well BWL and MC are indoor enviornments (meaning the GPU has to render a roof, not a moving sky.) plus, from what i remember, ZG has a lot of times where you're fighting a crap ton of enemies (think the tiger dude.)

[Agathon]

You should be able to do OK with that computer for a few months.

You no longer have to go into Ironforge since the last patch, because Auction Houses have been put in all the major cities (long overdue).

However, there have been all sorts of technical problems with the game in the last few weeks (high latencies, disconnects, lag, long queues to get on). I thought it was the holidays, but it has become even worse in the last few days. Even the forums keep bugging out.

I'm hoping it will be fixed in the next few weeks, or I am cancelling my account.

[luna crescent]

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm definately going to try to install the game.

Besides I'm not planning to play intensively during the school days cause I have hw to do. I'm only going to play on my laptop for a few months (get to a mediocre level) and then transition to my desktop during the summer where I can do all the good stuff.

[rufwork]

i played from lvl 1-60 on my powerbook...(specs in sig). playable, even in AB and WSG. but i tell you what the only time where i had to go over to my PC (specs below also) was when it was 40v40 in Alterac valley. i somtimes got 4-5fps in AV with my powerbook. so yeah it will be playable untill you get to lvl 60 and have to go on large MC/ZG/BWL raids. (for some reason my powerbook runs worse in ZG which is 20 man than MC and BWL which are both 40 man).

That's an excellent point. I'd forgotten 40-player raids and haven't tried battlegrounds yet (even though I've got a lvl 48 druid; mostly just solo). Even the auction house in Ironforge wasn't too bad on the iBook, since you're really not doing anything too closely tied to lag, but yes, I could see wanting much more when doing large instances or PvP.

Guess I will eventually be shelling out for that X800 GTO2 [for Windows tower]. *sigh*

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2656&p=3

[luna crescent]

I've just finished installing and now I'm patching the game. I had a little scare when the installer screen blatantly said my cpu speed didn't meet minimum requirements. However, I still managed to bypass warning and install the game.

Oddly the patching is taking longer than the installing. I hope it doesn't fail.

[luna crescent]

This is wierd. The patch keeps unexpectedly quitting or freezing my computer. I don't think it has anything to do with my system specs.

I heard a little of issues with 1.9.0 patch. Is there a link to an older patch for the mac?

[rufwork]

This is wierd. The patch keeps unexpectedly quitting or freezing my computer. I don't think it has anything to do with my system specs.

I heard a little of issues with 1.9.0 patch. Is there a link to an older patch for the mac?

You wouldn't be able to log on to the servers with anything less than 1.9. It (1.9) has been rather buggy, but I wonder if quick crashes aren't the result of the game looking for Altivec? Anybody play this thing consistently with a G3?

So does the patching freeze or is it freezing when you try to play? I assume the former. ??

[Patmian212]

This is wierd. The patch keeps unexpectedly quitting or freezing my computer. I don't think it has anything to do with my system specs.

I heard a little of issues with 1.9.0 patch. Is there a link to an older patch for the mac?
I recomend wating about 45 mins, mine took a while but in the end it was just a matter of time.

[luna crescent]

Just 20 minutes ago, the blue bar reached the end and I thought it was successful. Then my mouse froze and everything froze. I got impatient and turned off the computer and now I'm patching again...

Maybe I should just wait until the freeze stops.

[Patmian212]

Just 20 minutes ago, the blue bar reached the end and I thought it was successful. Then my mouse froze and everything froze. I got impatient and turned off the computer and now I'm patching again...

Maybe I should just wait until the freeze stops.
When the bar reaches the end, wait a bit, mine never freezes per say but from when the bar reaches the end until patching is actually done can take a bit of time.

[luna crescent]

Bar reached the end again and it didn't freeze persay this time around.

However, its taking an awfully long time and the patch size itself is 1.6 gb and growing.

Hey it patched!!!!! But now I have another problem. The game asked me to accept the TOS again but this time there were no words and I couldn't press the button accept. Now I'm stuck.

[esXXI]

Bar reached the end again and it didn't freeze persay this time around.

However, its taking an awfully long time and the patch size itself is 1.6 gb and growing.

Hey it patched!!!!! But now I have another problem. The game asked me to accept the TOS again but this time there were no words and I couldn't press the button accept. Now I'm stuck.

Try clicking and dragging your mouse down the "scrollbar" area to the bottom. The TOS always requires you to move to the end of the text before accepting.

(Oh and man, my Rev.b 20" iMac is sweet for playing WoW :D)

[shortyjj]

well BWL and MC are indoor enviornments (meaning the GPU has to render a roof, not a moving sky.) plus, from what i remember, ZG has a lot of times where you're fighting a crap ton of enemies (think the tiger dude.)

I finally saw Nefarian go down last night... outdoor environment in BWL, 40 man raid, and he spawns a ton of enemies... all this smoothly on my PB. And I'm a healer, ie can't cut it with "stutter".



PB 12" rev C, 768, 5200

[luna crescent]

That wasn't exactly the problem. There were 2 pages of TOS and I accepted the first page. However the 2nd page, there was no text. I couldn't scroll so no "accept" button. Thus, my only choice was to press decline button.

Now I'm doing a fresh install and repatching.

Hey, it is working quite well now. I can actually play this game reasonably.

[Ultimate-Omen]

I finally saw Nefarian go down last night... outdoor environment in BWL, 40 man raid, and he spawns a ton of enemies... all this smoothly on my PB. And I'm a healer, ie can't cut it with "stutter".



PB 12" rev C, 768, 5200
wow...your pb ran smoothly during the fight? how many fps did you see at that point?

[luna crescent]

Shoot... I accidently modified my setrealm.wtf file. I forgot how to reconnect to the blizzard servers. Can somebody tell me?

[Ultimate-Omen]

Shoot... I accidently modified my setrealm.wtf file. I forgot how to reconnect to the blizzard servers. Can somebody tell me?
easy! go into your wtf folder (applications/world of warcraft/wtf) and delete everything in it! start wow and you're set!

[lasuther]

I have a 60 warrior, 60 pally, and a soon to be 60 priest by playing on the iBook below. The game still looks good on min video specs, and you will have big lag problems in area with a lot of users like Alterac Valley and Iron Forge. Just buy a 17"iMac and you won't have to worry about your performance. That is what I'm doing :)

lasuther