15" MPB and WoW

[mattgoldey]

My new MBP arrived today, and of course the first thing I did was copy over my WoW folder from my old machine. I had to have most everything turned down on my old machine in order to make it playable in 25-man raids. I immediately turned the graphics settings to "Ultra" on the new machine and logged in.

I am impressed. 42-44fps while running around Dalaran, and everything looks GORGEOUS. I had no idea how beautiful this game was until today.

Tonight is raid night, so I may update this thread with more thoughts afterwards (or tomorrow morning if I'm too tired tonight).

PS - The keyboard feels nicer on this machine than on my old one. Not sure what the difference is, but it feels nicer.

 

[sixwings]

This is what I was going to do tonight. I have been playing WoW on an 06 white macbook, except UPS delivered to the wrong address so now I have wait another week.

Damn.

 

[TxMacAddict]

I'm definitely interested in seeing a report of your 25 man experience... And if you end up turning down the settings at all for the boss fights to get a solid frame rate.

 

[James_C]

I would be interested to find out what happens to the temperature and fan noise after playing WoW for an extended period.

 

[mattgoldey]

I should also mention that the results I posted are from the built-in display. Tonight I'll be raiding with my Dell 23" LCD attached.

 

[mattgoldey]

I would be interested to find out what happens to the temperature and fan noise after playing WoW for an extended period.

I use it on my mStand 90% of the time, so heat isn't an issue for me. The fans generally run a lot when I'm playing WoW, but they're quite enough that it doesn't bother me. Speaking of course from my experience with my non-Pro MacBook.

http://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html

 

[TxMacAddict]

The mstand is very nice. I picked mine up at frys and also have a bookstand or whatever you call it from twelve south.

 

[Link2999]

Would the i5 vs. i7 make a difference while playing a game like WoW? Going to be buying one pretty shortly and this is one deciding factor.

 

[mattgoldey]

Would the i5 vs. i7 make a difference while playing a game like WoW? Going to be buying one pretty shortly and this is one deciding factor.

The processor won't make much difference, but to get the 512MB of video RAM, you have to go with the i7 and that video RAM will make a difference in gaming.

 

[mobilehaathi]

Using the machine in my sig, I turned everything up to max and got very playable frame rates (40-60), even in a 10 man last night. Not too shabby.

 

[mattgoldey]

10-man ToGC on Lord Jaraxxus... getting 60-80fps on my external 23" monitor. Graphics settings nearly maxed out. Turned off shadows. Turned down View Distance a bit.

 

[therealseebs]

What resolution are you running at?

I'm on a 17" i7, and I'm getting about 20fps in Dalaran. Haven't messed around with settings much, though. Way better than my old laptop, anyway.

 

[mattgoldey]

What resolution are you running at?

I'm on a 17" i7, and I'm getting about 20fps in Dalaran. Haven't messed around with settings much, though. Way better than my old laptop, anyway.

1920x1080

 

[magbarn]

1920x1080

I would try bootcamp win 7 for wow. My 2009 15 mbp with 512mb VRAM would add up to 10 fps in win7 vs osx. It's either crappy osx drivers or poorer coding on the osx wow software

 

[mattgoldey]

I would try bootcamp win 7 for wow. My 2009 15 mbp with 512mb VRAM would add up to 10 fps in win7 vs osx. It's either crappy osx drivers or poorer coding on the osx wow software

I will not desecrate my MBP with Windows, thx.

 

[Liudavid]

I have playing WoW with late08 15" MBP > early09 17" MBP > sony Z117 until now, no problem with 25 man raid at all. Except Turing shadow to minimum and set AA to 1x, other settings were keeping maxed. So I expected the new MBP will perform well enough for current WoW.

 

[DesmoPilot]

The processor won't make much difference, but to get the 512MB of video RAM, you have to go with the i7 and that video RAM will make a difference in gaming.

Wrong. WoW is heavily CPU bound.

 

[Josias]

I remember played WoW on my Rev. A MacBook (2 GHz CD, 1 GB) with GMA 950. Hyjal trash was hell on that machine, and it always took forever to get back to a proper framerate after hearthing to Shatt. Even with most things turned down, I only got 16-17 FPS on 25 mans.

After I got my 13" MacBook Pro (2.53 GHz C2D, 4 GB), I could have everything turned to max, and still get ≈30 FPS in BG's and most raids. When mining in Silithus, I usually get ≈47. A friend of mine has a 24" ACD, so gonna try it out on that one.

 

[cluthz]

Which renderer are you using?
The GLL renderer in WoW gives me 20-30 extra FPS compared to the OpenGL.
Without fullscreen glow and anti-aliasing im getting 60-80 FPS in Dalaran everything else maxed.
Thats 30 FPS more than on my SR MBP (which had the 8600mGT with 128mb)

 

[mattgoldey]

Wrong. WoW is heavily CPU bound.

That may be so, but there's not a huge difference between the high-end i5 and the optional i7. The point I was trying to make was that the additional video RAM would make a bigger difference.

 

[btrav13]

I'm using the new 15in i7 and in Dal it is laggy as hell. Should I turn off the shared video and go with dedicated video full time while playing? Would this make that big of a difference?

 

[cluthz]

I'm using the new 15in i7 and in Dal it is laggy as hell. Should I turn off the shared video and go with dedicated video full time while playing? Would this make that big of a difference?

Which renderer are you using?

I get a lot better FPS with the GLL renderer

Info about renderes:

You can switch to GLL by doing those steps.
#1 Start WoW and login with your favorite character.
#2 In the game chat, type : /console gxApi GLL
#3 Restart WoW
#4 Verify that in windowed mode, the minimize button is yellow and not grey

To switch back to OpenGL:
#1 Start WoW and login with your favorite character.
#2 In the game chat, type : /console gxApi OpenGL
#3 Restart WoW
#4 Verify that in windowed mode, the minimize button is grey and not yellow

 

[mattgoldey]

Which renderer are you using?

I get a lot better FPS with the GLL renderer

Info about renderes:

Oooh... I may try that out and see if I can boost my performance even more! Thanks!

 

[cluthz]

Notice that WoW runs faster in Maximized windowmode than in full screen for some lame reason.

 

[mattgoldey]

Which renderer are you using?

I get a lot better FPS with the GLL renderer

Info about renderes:

Early results are encouraging... instead of the 40-something fps I reported in my original post, I was in the low 60's in Dalaran just now. I need to try it again tonight when more people are logged on, though, to be a fair test.