Running WoW on MBA

I have a C2D 2.4GHZ 2010 MBP with the integrated Intel graphics. It can run EvE Online - Incarna on low settings.

I would be confident that a new MBA could handle WoW.

Ya the reviews said it runs it just fine

SteveSparks said:

Do you have any links to the reviews?

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Here

Elven said:

I have a C2D 2.4GHZ 2010 MBP with the integrated Intel graphics. It can run EvE Online - Incarna on low settings.

I would be confident that a new MBA could handle WoW.

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2010 13" MBP's, as well as 2010 MBA's have the nvidia 320m integrated gpu. It's about 12% to 20% more powerful than the intel 3000.

It's hard to say which one runs better, the antiquated c2d cpu may have been a bottleneck on last years model. Despite the weaker gpu, it may actually run better on the 2011 models.

in a dual boot environment, the 2010 model would fare better because drivers for the nvidia card are more compatible with windows.

in osx only, youd be better with this year's model.

If you go into detail in the benchmarks the 2010 11 inch model provides higher FPS than the 2011 11 inch model. At the same time the 2011 13 inch model provides higher FPS then the 2010 13 inch model.

The difference for the 11 inch is 31 FPS vs 22 FPS. At native resolution this is the difference between playable and not playable.

Duke15 said:

Here

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Useless review. They don't give any information on the settings. Only saying they were on autodetect.

-_-

BUMP

So tonight I just bought an 11 inch i5/4GB/128 2011 MBA and cloned my old 11 inch 1.6/4GB/128 2010 MBA and decided to run my own test. I decided that I wanted to eliminate all variances and have a controlled measure. So I basically parked myself somewhere and took a screen shot of the FPS on one computer then logged off and then logged on with the other computer and took another screenshot of the FPS. The results are shocking based on these benchmarks:

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/143/wowscrnshot072311002408.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/683/wowscrnshot072311002505.jpg/

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/820/wowscrnshot072311002339.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/109/wowscrnshot072311002206.jpg/


While playing I noticed the FPS difference. Plus the FPS dropped to sub 5 during a mass res in Isle of Conquest which simply did not happen on the 2010 MBA.

What I'm beginning to see here is that the 2011 is still sub par to the 2010 MBA in terms of graphics and gaming, and I honestly have no idea where people are getting that its better.

Oppressed said:

BUMP

So tonight I just bought an 11 inch i5/4GB/128 2011 MBA and cloned my old 11 inch 1.6/4GB/128 2010 MBA and decided to run my own test. I decided that I wanted to eliminate all variances and have a controlled measure. So I basically parked myself somewhere and took a screen shot of the FPS on one computer then logged off and then logged on with the other computer and took another screenshot of the FPS. The results are shocking based on these benchmarks:

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/143/wowscrnshot072311002408.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/683/wowscrnshot072311002505.jpg/

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/820/wowscrnshot072311002339.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/109/wowscrnshot072311002206.jpg/


While playing I noticed the FPS difference. Plus the FPS dropped to sub 5 during a mass res in Isle of Conquest which simply did not happen on the 2010 MBA.

What I'm beginning to see here is that the 2011 is still sub par to the 2010 MBA in terms of graphics and gaming, and I honestly have no idea where people are getting that its better.

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The 2011 will probably load the game faster, but it sure as hell isn't going to get better FPS than the 2010, which ultimately is far more important than the speed of the load. How quickly do your fans turn on when playing on each?

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This is really big, like gonna return my model and go with m11x big. Can you confirm all settings were identical?

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Can you confirm, also, that you have the 11" with 384mb shared and not 256 mb? Stunningly disappointing since I thought from all early reviews I could do my WoWing on this. Apparently not. Back to ****** Windows I go!

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Sorry - I just can't express how utterly i am disappointed. **** Intel and their need for exclusivity for their bottom of the barrel cards. Was looking forward to owning this for years to come, too.

Oppressed said:

BUMP

So tonight I just bought an 11 inch i5/4GB/128 2011 MBA and cloned my old 11 inch 1.6/4GB/128 2010 MBA and decided to run my own test. I decided that I wanted to eliminate all variances and have a controlled measure. So I basically parked myself somewhere and took a screen shot of the FPS on one computer then logged off and then logged on with the other computer and took another screenshot of the FPS. The results are shocking based on these benchmarks:

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/143/wowscrnshot072311002408.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/683/wowscrnshot072311002505.jpg/

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/820/wowscrnshot072311002339.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/109/wowscrnshot072311002206.jpg/


While playing I noticed the FPS difference. Plus the FPS dropped to sub 5 during a mass res in Isle of Conquest which simply did not happen on the 2010 MBA.

What I'm beginning to see here is that the 2011 is still sub par to the 2010 MBA in terms of graphics and gaming, and I honestly have no idea where people are getting that its better.

Click to expand...

On the second set of screenshots, it looks as though the textures on the roof are lower as well.

Also, do they both have AA settings turned on? It almost looks like the 2010 shots have harsher edges, it's probably the subtle shifting of angles, but it may be the settings or just difference in the way the gpus are rendering the frames.

Don't listen to this guy... The 2011 is more powerful however certain options slow it down. If you choose the recommended video settings for both the 2011 runs at 60fps whereas 2010 gets 40-50.

However if you change the shadows from low to fair the FPS cuts to 30. There's some weird GPU issues like this with some things however with the right settings WoW is far better on the 2011. I have an i7 13" and a 2.13 ghz core 2 duo model

LeakedDave said:

Don't listen to this guy... The 2011 is more powerful however certain options slow it down. If you choose the recommended video settings for both the 2011 runs at 60fps whereas 2010 gets 40-50.

However if you change the shadows from low to fair the FPS cuts to 30. There's some weird GPU issues like this with some things however with the right settings WoW is far better on the 2011. I have an i7 13" and a 2.13 ghz core 2 duo model

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All of the settings, mods, and everything else I can't think of were cloned off my previous 2010 model. I wanted to get as close to an accurate assessment of the difference between the two as I can.

Also read the fine print on some of those benchmarks about the auto detect. 2010 put the graphic detail on medium to good, the auto detect on 2011 put it all on low. Match the two together settings wise and you see the difference then.

Another thing to note is that the settings were not changed, but what I found interesting is that the settings would not even let you select either High or Ultra for any setting. They were greyed out and says in red letters "unable to select due to graphic reasons". Even though I was running everything on low it still bugged me.

The reason I did this was because I could sit all day and watch people playing wow on youtube and read benchmarks, but I would still wonder what real world FPS I would get personally. I was looking forward to this computer very much, but I am having second thoughts considering that the extent that I taxed the computer was the GPU and not the CPU.

Oppressed said:

All of the settings, mods, and everything else I can't think of were cloned off my previous 2010 model. I wanted to get as close to an accurate assessment of the difference between the two as I can.

Another thing to note is that the settings were not changed, but what I found interesting is that the settings would not even let you select either High or Ultra for any setting. They were greyed out and says in red letters "unable to select due to graphic reasons". Even though I was running everything on low it still bugged me.

The reason I did this was because I could sit all day and watch people playing wow on youtube and read benchmarks, but I would still wonder what real world FPS I would get personally. I was looking forward to this computer very much, but I am having second thoughts considering that the extent that I taxed the computer was the GPU and not the CPU.

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Just copying the settings over won't really show you if it can run good or not. Check which settings the HD 3000 should have turned off or use "auto detect".

Here are the settings used on both.

2011: http://imageshack.us/f/819/wowscrnshot072311071612.jpg/

2010: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/200/wowscrnshot072311071838.jpg/


Exactly the same and for the most part it WAS at auto detect. The 2011 wants everything to be low. Shoot me though I want my view distance at more then low because that can mess up my game play.

You can also see the omission of options which might not effect me, but it just bugs me that I cannot select them on my brand new computer.

Oppressed said:

Here are the settings used on both.

2011: http://imageshack.us/f/819/wowscrnshot072311071612.jpg/

2010: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/200/wowscrnshot072311071838.jpg/


Exactly the same and for the most part it WAS at auto detect. The 2011 wants everything to be low. Shoot me though I want my view distance at more then low because that can mess up my game play.

You can also see the omission of options which might not effect me, but it just bugs me that I cannot select them on my brand new computer.

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Check how much better the details on the second picture are compared with the first, even though the settings are identical.

I didn't expect to be able to make a pretty WoW experience on the Air. If I wanted that over all else, I'd have gone with the m11x, my other choice, which I left behind solely because it's Windows machine. Ultimately I chose the Air partially because I expected it to at least run WoW, though.

I see some of your settings are in the "good" range. You can crank down the ground clutter and environment detail and recover a great deal of FPS, and keep the distance view. I don't need to see more grass on the ground to have fun in the game.

It's getting better reviews on SC2 and other games. I wonder if there's something like a driver issue. I'm assuming your card is the 384 and not the 256?

Flagg said:

Check how much better the details on the second picture are compared with the first, even though the settings are identical.

I didn't expect to be able to make a pretty WoW experience on the Air. If I wanted that over all else, I'd have gone with the m11x, my other choice, which I left behind solely because it's Windows machine. Ultimately I chose the Air partially because I expected it to at least run WoW, though.

I see some of your settings are in the "good" range. You can crank down the ground clutter and environment detail and recover a great deal of FPS, and keep the distance view. I don't need to see more grass on the ground to have fun in the game.

It's getting better reviews on SC2 and other games. I wonder if there's something like a driver issue. I'm assuming your card is the 384 and not the 256?

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Yes 384. Also I suppose I could turn down the quality of some of the details but why should I have to do such a thing to even make it equal to that of the previous generation?


Also yeah I see the difference between the textures on the walls of the buildings. Its clear when you load both photos and tab between them.

Update: After doing arena games today it was playable until for some reason it would literally freeze for 3-4 seconds. Which I'm sure you know would cost the game. The only time the freeze corresponded to something going on was when in the Dalaran sewers arena the water splashed down from the starting area. Other then that I can't explain the other freezes.

Oppressed said:

Yes 384. Also I suppose I could turn down the quality of some of the details but why should I have to do such a thing to even make it equal to that of the previous generation?


Also yeah I see the difference between the textures on the walls of the buildings. Its clear when you load both photos and tab between them.

Update: After doing arena games today it was playable until for some reason it would literally freeze for 3-4 seconds. Which I'm sure you know would cost the game. The only time the freeze corresponded to something going on was when in the Dalaran sewers arena the water splashed down from the starting area. Other then that I can't explain the other freezes.

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Are you running on the native resolution?

I'll take a look for myself when my i7 gets shipped. It's a bit surprising given that so many other games run better.

Do you know whether the 13" is having these issues? According to your links above, it should be fine.

Also, I'd like to get a few more opinions from WoW players before I get rash and bang the gong on this thing before I even get it.

Flagg said:

Are you running on the native resolution?

I'll take a look for myself when my i7 gets shipped. It's a bit surprising given that so many other games run better.

Do you know whether the 13" is having these issues? According to your links above, it should be fine.

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Yeah its native. The reason people are getting equal and sometimes better FPS is because they put the 2011 settings on the lowest they can go. If I did the same for the 2010 I bet it would sky rocket.

Oppressed said:

BUMP

So tonight I just bought an 11 inch i5/4GB/128 2011 MBA and cloned my old 11 inch 1.6/4GB/128 2010 MBA and decided to run my own test. I decided that I wanted to eliminate all variances and have a controlled measure. So I basically parked myself somewhere and took a screen shot of the FPS on one computer then logged off and then logged on with the other computer and took another screenshot of the FPS. The results are shocking based on these benchmarks:

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/143/wowscrnshot072311002408.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/683/wowscrnshot072311002505.jpg/

2011 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/820/wowscrnshot072311002339.jpg/

2010 MBA: http://imageshack.us/f/109/wowscrnshot072311002206.jpg/


While playing I noticed the FPS difference. Plus the FPS dropped to sub 5 during a mass res in Isle of Conquest which simply did not happen on the 2010 MBA.

What I'm beginning to see here is that the 2011 is still sub par to the 2010 MBA in terms of graphics and gaming, and I honestly have no idea where people are getting that its better.

Click to expand...

Finally a controlled comparison (albeit of one game). Thanks to you sir.