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Upgrade to 4GB of RAM for World of Warcraft?

M

Mcbar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 20, 2008
25
0
hi all,
just a quick one - i run World of warcraft (all expansions) on my White Macbook 2.4Ghz Duo 2 Core with 2 GB of RAM and the standard onboard graphics card just fine thanks very much but......
i need to have the draw distance very near, if i extend the distance displayed it looks fantastic but the fps go right down and i can't really play. my question is if i upgrade to 4GB or RAM do you think that it will help with this specific issue as i am happy with the Laptop otherwise and would not really use the RAM for anything else, but i really like the extra detail when you can see far into the distance, and would be happy to upgrade for this.
thanks a lot in advance, :D
 
cluthz

cluthz

macrumors 68040
Jun 15, 2004
3,118
4
Norway
Mcbar said:
hi all,
just a quick one - i run World of warcraft (all expansions) on my White Macbook 2.4Ghz Duo 2 Core with 2 GB of RAM and the standard onboard graphics card just fine thanks very much but......
i need to have the draw distance very near, if i extend the distance displayed it looks fantastic but the fps go right down and i can't really play. my question is if i upgrade to 4GB or RAM do you think that it will help with this specific issue as i am happy with the Laptop otherwise and would not really use the RAM for anything else, but i really like the extra detail when you can see far into the distance, and would be happy to upgrade for this.
thanks a lot in advance, :D
Click to expand...

Well more RAM will always help on performance, but its the gfx card thats the problem.
I'm using a Macboo Pro with 4GB and I can only turn up about halfway untill it starts struttering.

Open activity monitor and see how much free ram you have while playing wow.
 
M

Mcbar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 20, 2008
25
0
i have about 240Mb not being used it says when i am playing normally - i wonder if i get more RAM if there is a way to utilise it more?
thanks for the reply - i thought the Graphics card would be the determining factor
 
C

cashel

macrumors member
Oct 30, 2006
72
0
Wouldn't boosting the ram actually help the graphics card? I figured this would be the case because it uses the same shared system ram, so more ram installed = more ram available for the graphics card. Not saying it'll run Crysis or anything, but it's gotta help a little bit.
 
D

davwin

macrumors regular
Nov 4, 2008
191
8
Upping my MacBook to 4GB RAM did help performance in WoW for me but, not in draw distance specifically; it helped more with the occasional "stutter" I would get when entering a city or highly populated area or when loading a giant - that kind of thing.
 
M

Mcbar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 20, 2008
25
0
thanks very much for all your posts, it sounds like the increase wont help that much with the draw distance but i have found 4Gb for £40 so i am going to give it a go - i will post the results for anyone else who is thinking of doing the same.
 
apfhex

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
More RAM might not help framerate, but it will help overall performance with WoW. I noticed a difference when I upgraded mine. With all the addons people use, WoW can eat up RAM and cause lots of disk access. For example when loading Shattrath having just come from Black Temple or something (back in my TBC raid days), it would slow to a crawl just loading all the data.
 
F

feuerschlange

macrumors regular
Oct 13, 2008
221
0
More RAM with OS X is a no brainer. It doesn't really matter, whether you see an improvement with a particular game, but the overall performance of OS X is so much better with more RAM.

When I upgraded my MBP from 4 to 6GB via an OWC upgrade, I couldn't believe it. Everything just goes.

Program restarts (you start a program, that has not been kicked out of the RAM) is instant, whereas with 2GB less RAM I had to wait the same annoying splash screens.

Everything really feels snappier - a great improvement for your working with a very little investment (RAM is dirt cheap for older machines these days).
 
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