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bitethis

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 21, 2012
58
88
I have been playing WoW for a long time. I have seen many mac issues get pushed aside but this is unacceptable.

Since the release of MoP I have not been able to play because my FPS flucuate and drop even on the lowest setting.

I tried getting help in the blizzard forum. Only to be told it was my hardware and to contact apple. This was suggested after the various fixes they threw at me did not work.

I do not believe this to be a problem with hardware but something seriously wrong with the game and it is not being addressed.

My posts have since been removed from the blizzard forums and there is nothing more I can say there.

I know to some it might seem silly but I left behind a lot of people. I was an officer, I had many duties, spent many hours leveling and gearing many toons, helping others out and this is how blizzard treats me.

At this point I dont know what else to do. I am just trying to get the word out that there that something is wrong. I have even contacted wow.joystiq.com but have not heard back.

Any input, knowledge, who to contact regarding this would be greatly appreciated.
 

syrinxx

macrumors member
Nov 7, 2011
45
0
Forget Blizz

same here - wrote a lot - nothing happened!

here is my story in short form:

had an imac with core 2 duo and a ati radeon x1600 with 256 mb memory
played the SC2 beta not full but in a native resolution with med low details!

2010 i bought a mid 2010 imac with 2,93 ghz ati 5740 1Gb 27" 16 GB Ram.
when i first played SC2 when it came out it ran maxed out in native resolution. after the 10.6 open GL patch from apple it ran even better.

wow in there days ran maxed out with about 40-60fps without any troubles.

after a few moths sc2 was patched. it never ever ran as smooth as it was before.

april 2012 a bought a mid 2011 27" imac maxed out 2b Ati 6970m and so on.
Wow with Cata ran maxed out with about 60-80fps in SW and a little slow down in raids ...
SC2 ran even worst.
i bought Diablo 3 ... what shall i say ... from the beta on this game never ever ran on a mac under OSX

today: D3 stutters like hell
SC2 stutters like hell
wow i unplayable with the settings from cata

conclusio: every of theses games look worst than they did when they ran. now Sc2 looks like on my old 2006 Core 2 Duo, wow looks like BC times on a G4 mini and Diablo ist just a cheap joke!!!

i will never ever buy oder play any blizz game - never EVER !!!!

ps. forget their tech forum - even a monkey is able to repeat SMC RESET - PRAM RESET and WTF Folder delete ...
 

Nightarchaon

macrumors 65816
Sep 1, 2010
1,393
30
the issue is not a hardware or a software issue

The issue is your still playing WoW,

Its LONG past its best before date, has been since the expansions started ruining the main game by making it possible to get from level 1 to max in a day of grinding..

Death to XP curve changes, dungeon, raid and battlefield teleporting queues...

bring back the days when you had to get a group for scarlett monastery and ride forth , none of this pokemon crap.

:D:D

on a more serious note, i have a friend whos better half is still addicted to WoW and she complains all the time about the performance, turns out its the 97.3 billion addons shes running.. try disabling all the addons and see what happens.
 

syrinxx

macrumors member
Nov 7, 2011
45
0
tried everything ... clean install and so on ... to the mbp ... do you play it in native resoltion of the 27" inch iMac? if you have retina try it an tell me that theses games run smooth...

the problem is these games except D3 ran awesome under osx. the look the same but the fps is much less of what it was...

that is the shame. if you play all these games in win 7 they run (except D3) with good FPS...

open GL of 10.8 is worst than 10.7 is worst than 10.6 ...

is just my opinion ...
 

SingularityG

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2012
338
0
I hear graphic card drivers that came with Mountain Lion made many games unplayable to some extent. Developers have a hard time figuring out a workaround to make these games running well again and simply blame :apple: for this, hence their "Call-APPLE" response.

Since :apple: is pushing sales of the top of the line models, it's possible that releasing new graphic card drivers for any Mac older than 2012 is pretty down on their list.

Anyway, I own the 17" 2010 Macbook Pro and must say that all Blizzard games run really well.

WoW runs a bit worse in some MoP areas, but the performance there can be improved by some minor tweaking.

I can get a decent framerate in both D3 and SC2, running with almost everything on high.
 
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bitethis

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 21, 2012
58
88
Im not sure it has anything to do with pushing mac sales because there are plenty of people with newer models that are experiencing the same thing.

to be honest I am not sure what the problem really is but from what I have dealt with in the blizzard forums I just feel like it could have been handled better.

I followed all of their possible fixes. some even multiple times and it made no change in the issue.

I was averaging around 90fps just regular dungeons and around 60-70 in 25man but something happened and it wasnt just on the release of MoP.

I played MoP for 2 days without any issues but by the 3rd night I logged in and thats when the FPS issue started.

Anyway I do appreciate the comments and I am happy for those of you that are able to play.

who knows
 

eXan

macrumors 601
Jan 10, 2005
4,731
63
Russia
I'm sorry, but thit is a bad example of a thread asking for help. It contains absolutely no information for people to work with. No tech specs, no details on when, where and under what conditions do fps drop, no listing of what fixes did you try, etc, etc. Its all just bashing Blizz.
 

bitethis

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 21, 2012
58
88
eXan, this is far from bashing blizzard but youve already formed your opinion. anyway thanks for your comment and happy holidays.
 

SingularityG

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2012
338
0
Im not sure it has anything to do with pushing mac sales because there are plenty of people with newer models that are experiencing the same thing.

What I meant was that :apple: is yet to release drivers fixing these issues, but who knows what graphic cards they keep supported.;)

Anyway, if the performance drop occurred just like that from one day to the next and there was no MoP update at the time, then it really might not be anything wrong with the game itself.

If other similarly demanding games run fine, it's probably not the hardware, but it could be Apps in the background, Energy Saver, something with the WoW's cache or plug-ins, new OS X update and basically anything else that was changed during that time (which is not helping, at all:eek:).

Also note that only the new MoP areas are more demanding on the hardware. When you go to older areas, the performance is the same as before.

Have you tried bootcamping WoW?
 

rudmaz

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2011
2
0
Had the same problem

Hello,

I had the same problem a litle while ago. It started after the first patch of pandaria (can't remember the one). I tried everything from reinstalling the game to reinstalling the os.

Eventually i found two ways to make it work:

1 Adding more ram to the system. I upgraded to 10GB of ram which seemed to fix the problem. (I play on a 2007 mac pro)

2 bootcamp with windows.

My computer is a 2007 mac pro with 10GB of ram and a ATI Radeon hd5770. Playing under OSX gave me 50-60 fps on "good" while playing under windows i can set everything to ultra and get the same FPS.
 

syrinxx

macrumors member
Nov 7, 2011
45
0
i also see bootcamp as the best way to get good fps.

to the former poster about bashing.
there is a difference between bashing and criticising. blizz should tell customers if they want to play their games on mac the will have to face fps problems.

in my case i had to buy win7 to play sc2 and D3 as i would expect from may 2500€ imac mid 2011.

it seems apple doesn´t care much of optimizing theis drivers or what ever.

yet there is a gap! Arkham city oder Arkham asylum run like buttercream maxed out .Dirt 2 the same ... Sc2 did

so i would see a duality between blizz making a worse job and apple not caring.

i bought a mac not to use win anymore. so i like to play a few games ... have to use win again.

i wouldn´t care if the games under osx lose a few fps compared to win but playing some games make you think of a broken GPU or missing ram ...
using win shows the real game power of your machine.

apple should work on this! anyone in the 10.8.3 beta? any differences?

if you look at D3 oder SC2 it is a shame what they did to mac users ... is i said ... mid 2010 imac maxed out native res the game ran perfect even in 4v4 epic battles ... now it stutters in a lower res with low/med settings ...

gave apple my mac to check the hardware ... nothing found everything ok...

this all happens under clean install with just the games installed - after ram changes ... pram resets - chache folder deletes and so on ...

its just bad software ...
 

bakeumsj

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2013
3
0
Well I was getting really tired of restarting to my Bootcamp vista 64 partition to play WoW so I currently just wiped my hard drive clean of windows. I did this for several reasons including mediocre fps performance compared to my native windows laptop. I cant say the FPS was horrible but on 'high' settings it was choppy and frequently below 40fps. I read a lot of posts about the difference between Bootcamp and mac OSX performance being close so I decided to gut the hard drive and give it a go.

I am currently running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 which I read on many forums is better for gaming drivers than Lion so we shall see. I am currently downloading WoW so i'll give you my impressions soon as I can play [with full system specs]... wish me luck :D

PS ---> one thing I do know is that mouse cursor sucks in OSX, which i'm going to have to find a workaround for, but hoping for decent framerates!

Also as far as blizzard is concerned they have been making mac games since I have owned my first computer when Warcraft 1 was available and have always had great support for OSX. I believe the OP should include more system specs and specific FPS rates/problems.
 

jomiv

macrumors newbie
Jul 6, 2010
22
0
El Paso TX
I'm not here to bash or anything.. I just need some help.

I have a uRMBP (2.7,16RAM,768) and I'm being forced to play this at a.. Well lower than what I expected resolution.

I have.. No idea how to fix this besides just putting everything on fair and lowering the resolution to something similar to 1920x1080.. It used to run perfectly fine.. But 10 addons later.. It kinda just.. Bleh.

Anyone got any ideas what I'm doing wrong?.. I'm a WoW newb.. also a Guild Wars 2 newb..
 

bakeumsj

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2013
3
0
Just came back to report my fps in Mac OSX 10.6.8

Currently running a Radeon HD 6870 in a 2.8Ghz Octo Mac Pro 3.1, 4gb Ram (Don't Buy IRam, i've had multiple sticks fail and they are ignoring my warranty request) . I am running the game High-Ultra (2x Multisampling, 8x Anti-Alias) with Shadows on Low, Water on Fair, and SSAO disabled. I am averaging anywhere from 46-90 FPS in most areas. I have yet to do a 25 man raid but I will definitely let you know how that goes.

I can definitely say in Graphic Intense areas such as Vale of Eternal blossoms that my graphics are running smoother than in bootcamp Vista. I would frequently chop down to 35 fps in this area on High Setting on (1x Multisampling with Low Shadow, Low Water, & SSA disabled). My fps in this area does go lower but its a much smoother transition and hovers around 46-50 fps.

Surprisingly my Mouse is working fine and not nearly as choppy as last time I played Starcraft.

All these FPS are with the game around 81% downloaded...

Overall I am quite pleased with the OSX performance, while high burst fps is lower, the average rate is more consistent and less choppy and the anti-aliasing makes my performance suffer less in OSX than vista as well as multi-sampling. I swear the Graphics on same settings look better in OSX as well, just in Vale I was doing dailies and the smoke environment effects where actually visible and smooth. No more rebooting to Bootcamp.

Edited---> Forgot to mention 1920x1200 Resolution for all this info...
 
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VoR

macrumors 6502a
Sep 8, 2008
917
15
UK
I think Win7 probably would have been a better bet than Vista :)

Regarding the mouse cursor - A friend of mine played WoW a fair while ago but couldn't use OSX because of the mouse acceleration. Have they changed this (or allowed it to be disabled) over the last couple of years?

A long time ago I used to love playing FPS games, but irrelevant of framerate etc, the mouse cursor in OSX really made it unplayable. The craziest thing to me was how oblivious to this most people were!

edit : I haven't used OSX since about 10.6, none of the 3rd party apps and osx tweaks worked 100% at disabling acceleration - Has this changed?
 
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chrono1081

macrumors G3
Jan 26, 2008
8,443
4,138
Isla Nublar
Blizzard has horrible support. Its amazing how bad it is. Sorry to hear that OP but by the sounds of it it is definitely not a hardware issue.

I myself have been locked out of Diablo 3, a game I paid $60 for for months and Blizzard doesn't even have a way to contact them by phone (its greyed out on their website!). Garbage company.
 

bitethis

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 21, 2012
58
88
I have still had no luck getting WoW to run smoothly on either a 2009 27" iMac or 2010 24" iMac.

I just cant explain the huge difference between my fps. I once was averaging around between 60 and 90. rarely did it ever dip below 60.

even without a cap set on good settings I get 60 in storm wind but once I step out into elwynn forest it drops to 27 and lower and gets all choppy.


I appreciate all the information and comments. perhaps we will figure out what is going on.

thanks
 

labars

macrumors member
Oct 8, 2011
78
0
I think Win7 probably would have been a better bet than Vista :)

Regarding the mouse cursor - A friend of mine played WoW a fair while ago but couldn't use OSX because of the mouse acceleration. Have they changed this (or allowed it to be disabled) over the last couple of years?

A long time ago I used to love playing FPS games, but irrelevant of framerate etc, the mouse cursor in OSX really made it unplayable. The craziest thing to me was how oblivious to this most people were!

edit : I haven't used OSX since about 10.6, none of the 3rd party apps and osx tweaks worked 100% at disabling acceleration - Has this changed?
You should definitely try SmoothMouse! It's still in beta, so it may be a bit buggy with some software, though I haven't experienced any problems myself.

This is the only way to get good mouse precision on OSX at the moment, and is one of the best things to have happened to OSX in many years if you ask me. Try it out!

link: http://smoothmouse.net/forum/topic/40-latest-version-download/
 

VoR

macrumors 6502a
Sep 8, 2008
917
15
UK
You should definitely try SmoothMouse! It's still in beta, so it may be a bit buggy with some software, though I haven't experienced any problems myself.

This is the only way to get good mouse precision on OSX at the moment, and is one of the best things to have happened to OSX in many years if you ask me. Try it out!

link: http://smoothmouse.net/forum/topic/40-latest-version-download/

Thanks - I'll give it a go when I get the chance, not running OSX much at the moment.
Although... I'm slightly worried by the "it may be a bit buggy with some software" comment! Are you talking about OS versions (that's fine) or actual applications (rings alarm bells)?

I've been waiting for a simple, system-wide switch for as long as I can remember (that actually works...). I don't really play any games any more, and have no idea how anyone can play anything 'seriously' on OSX because of this.
 

syrinxx

macrumors member
Nov 7, 2011
45
0
i doubt there will be a possibility to play blizz games in native rezz with maxed out candy on macs these days.

search battle net forums and you will see people talking about fps problems for years now.

osx and blizz games do not fit anymore.

as i said i own a nearly maxed out mid 2011 i7 iMac
3,4 ghz 12gb ram ati 6970m 2gb
d3 stutters
wow is not playable in raids in native res with maxed settings low and med are better
sc2 runs in low med ...

except d3 these games ran maxed out ... with ever osx update and blizz patch these games loose fps ...

a lot of users cant lie ...
 

bakeumsj

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2013
3
0
I'm not saying Mac will outperform windows on blizzard games but its not a whiteout either. I am running a 5 year old machine with Xeon processors not optimized for gaming and my ram is only 4 gigs and I'm on average getting 50 fps on high settings in WOW so clearly something is not going right. Have you tried smc fan control? Is your hard drive full? Are you expecting to run this game on ultra settings with shadows ssao and water effects on high at 2600x1600 resolution? Perhaps it really is something with Blizzard or the Osx video drivers but I suspect a lot of this is operator error...
 

syrinxx

macrumors member
Nov 7, 2011
45
0
user error?
xeon machine - so Mac Pro? these macs used to have desktop gpus. friend of mine also 4 year old mp with ati 4870 i think. this card outperforms my ati 6970m with 4 times the ram of his card.

thats point one.

all the blizz games are native. if you compare them to their win versions u loose fps under osx. in some strange cases some people tell they win fps in osx. i doubt that.

as i said - sc2 ran perfect maxed out on my machine. the fps jump from 90 to 10 to 40 to 3 and so on. in d3 you loose 20-30 fps compared to win and geht rubber banding and stuttering also in lower resolutions under osx.

wow is a special case ... i will not comment that piece of sh**t.

blizz and apple give a **** on drivers ... the devs have to look on gpu drivers and speed in every second update. nothing happens.

to be honest ... i loose hope playing games on mac which look good an run smooth...

bootcamp sadly is the answer ...

user error? omg?
 
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