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Anyone using a 09 Mac Pro for World of Warcraft?

zepharus

zepharus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 7, 2007
684
2
Im specifically looking for folks using a the Apple 4870 512Mb , any PC 4870, or a 4890 (Hell let me know if you are using the GTX 285 Mac edition also) in combination with a 30" monitor.

If I could get a few responses as to performace that would be great. Im looking at this setup and I play WoW frequently , but that is the ONLY game I play... thanks in advance
 
I have it running on a 2.93ghz Quad 09 with stock apple 4870 512mb graphics card. Everything set at max and lowest frame rate is around 55fps.

Looks wonderful with everything turned up.
 
dekka007 said:
I have it running on a 2.93ghz Quad 09 with stock apple 4870 512mb graphics card. Everything set at max and lowest frame rate is around 55fps.

Looks wonderful with everything turned up.
Click to expand...

Is this on a 30" monitor? what res?
 
playing wow wit my mac pro 09 + the built GT120. so far i get 30-40fps at dalaran.

lower 10fps when heavy raid. seems smooth for me. :)

Edit: im using full HD (1920x1080) samsung 2333sw LCD monitor. maybe a normal 20inch or lower will do better
 
2.6 Quad '09, ATI 4870, max settings with shadows on my 30" at 2560x1600.

Lowest frame rates are in Dalaran of course, at about ~20fps, otherwise its usually 30+

DSCF0613.jpg
 
thepawn said:
2.6 Quad '09, ATI 4870, max settings with shadows on my 30" at 2560x1600.

Lowest frame rates are in Dalaran of course, at about ~20fps, otherwise its usually 30+
Click to expand...

Exactely the type of response I was looking for, thank you much. BTW, is this using the 512MB 4870 from apple? The 1GB PC ones would net another 10+ FPS at that high res Im thinking..
 
thepawn said:
2.6 Quad '09, ATI 4870, max settings with shadows on my 30" at 2560x1600.

Lowest frame rates are in Dalaran of course, at about ~20fps, otherwise its usually 30+
Click to expand...
Thanks for this information - that's close to the spec I was thinking of buying.

That seems quite a disappointing performance in Dalaran, so I wonder if there are other limits than the graphics card. Could you please give a little bit more detail about your machine specs, e.g. RAM.

Also, if you've tried any 25-man raids, how is the frame rate in them?
 
Brazzan said:
Thanks for this information - that's close to the spec I was thinking of buying.

That seems quite a disappointing performance in Dalaran, so I wonder if there are other limits than the graphics card. Could you please give a little bit more detail about your machine specs, e.g. RAM.

Also, if you've tried any 25-man raids, how is the frame rate in them?
Click to expand...

WoW is extremely CPU speed dependant. Meaning the higher your CPU is clocked the better WoW runs. you could have the best GPU on earth and be bottle necked to low FPS. Dalaran is always low. 20-30 is the best you can hope for on ANY machine when its crowded.
 
I've got 8gb of RAM in my machine, though its nowhere near that high in use...you can probably do it with 3-4gb and have a browser open. (I dual-monitor it)...and I have the Apple ATI 4870 512mb card.

Dalaran is more cpu for the lag there... the only guys in my guild higher then me are GTX285-SLI's on i950 (3.06ghz) machines....and they only clock low 40s in Dalaran.

Raids I'm always 30+ fps with full detail and shadows, even on battles with tons of spell detail like Saphron or Yogg.
 
Thanks once again, Thepawn. My 2008 MBP (4GB, 2.53GHz) gets ~25FPS in Dalaran on medium settings, 2560x1600, so I'd initially assumed it was a rendering issue, rather than a RAM/CPU one, as presumably the CPU loads there are similar, no matter what your graphics settings are. So, either I'm wrong on that, or there's some other limit, such as internet connection.

A bit of a mystery. If doubling the RAM, going from a 2.53 GHz core duo to a 2.6 GHz quad core Nehalem and going from 9600M to 4870 doesn't help frame rates in Dalaran, what does?
 
Brazzan said:
Thanks once again, Thepawn. My 2008 MBP (4GB, 2.53GHz) gets ~25FPS in Dalaran on medium settings, 2560x1600, so I'd initially assumed it was a rendering issue, rather than a RAM/CPU one, as presumably the CPU loads there are similar, no matter what your graphics settings are. So, either I'm wrong on that, or there's some other limit, such as internet connection.

A bit of a mystery. If doubling the RAM, going from a 2.53 GHz core duo to a 2.6 GHz quad core Nehalem and going from 9600M to 4870 doesn't help frame rates in Dalaran, what does?
Click to expand...

the CPU is the limiting factor.. TRUST me. And it doesnt matter that the Nahalem is the superior processor. WoW runs on ONE processor only and it is dependant on CLOCK speed. Meaning if you were to over clock that C2D to 3gz, it would outperform the nehalem. Trust me on this. Also if you have 2GB of RAM you are set in WoW. anything less you will chop in cities and anything more is overkill.
 
zepharus said:
the CPU is the limiting factor.. TRUST me. And it doesnt matter that the Nahalem is the superior processor. WoW runs on ONE processor only and it is dependant on CLOCK speed. Meaning if you were to over clock that C2D to 3gz, it would outperform the nehalem. Trust me on this. Also if you have 2GB of RAM you are set in WoW. anything less you will chop in cities and anything more is overkill.
Click to expand...

WoW is threaded and core aware. This has been confirmed by Blizzard's Mac Support team on their forums. It can apparently generate about 3 to 4 cores worth of load in the worst situations.

EDIT: the "glfaster" console command is proof of that WoW is capable of utilizing multicore machines with great positive gains.
 
zepharus said:
the CPU is the limiting factor.. TRUST me. And it doesnt matter that the Nahalem is the superior processor. WoW runs on ONE processor only and it is dependant on CLOCK speed. Meaning if you were to over clock that C2D to 3gz, it would outperform the nehalem. Trust me on this. Also if you have 2GB of RAM you are set in WoW. anything less you will chop in cities and anything more is overkill.
Click to expand...
Would you mind linking me to somewhere I can read about this more?

WoWWiki suggests that the Mac client does use multi-cores, so I'm not sure where you're getting your information from.
 
Brazzan said:
Would you mind linking me to somewhere I can read about this more?

WoWWiki suggests that the Mac client does use multi-cores, so I'm not sure where you're getting your information from.
Click to expand...

then I stand corrected. I was referring to the PC version which I was under the impression did not use Multi cores. If Im wrong that is great.. so anyone have info on enabling multi cores?
 
I'm running a 09 Mac Pro 8 core 2.26 with the 4780 and a GT120. Wow runs pretty good. Up to 170 or so FPS when in Org in an unpopulated area but it slows down in Dal, but still a respectable speed.

On a side note, as an experiment, I dual booted Vista on the same box and Wow ran a considerably SLOWER frame rate on Vista than OS X, which surprised me.
 
The issues in Dalaran (or Shatt before that, or IronLag before that) has to do with programming bottlenecks in interpreting the data that is coming to the client. That's why the one statement in there that "the clock speed makes the biggest difference" for the most part is the right one...multicores will help out the mac client, but only clock speed will make it higher unless they work on getting the client to handle the streams better.

It's all that object-location placement updating that slows it down once your gfx card is good enough to handle the terrain and textures. That's why network can also bottleneck it (though I have a 50/20 fios connection, so its not network here).

To that end though, I generally don't care if the fps is low in dalaran (20+ is fine with me), I'm not battling there.... as long as I'm 40+ in most raids is all I'm happy about. :)
 
thepawn said:
The issues in Dalaran (or Shatt before that, or IronLag before that) has to do with programming bottlenecks in interpreting the data that is coming to the client. That's why the one statement in there that "the clock speed makes the biggest difference" for the most part is the right one...multicores will help out the mac client, but only clock speed will make it higher unless they work on getting the client to handle the streams better.

It's all that object-location placement updating that slows it down once your gfx card is good enough to handle the terrain and textures. That's why network can also bottleneck it (though I have a 50/20 fios connection, so its not network here).

To that end though, I generally don't care if the fps is low in dalaran (20+ is fine with me), I'm not battling there.... as long as I'm 40+ in most raids is all I'm happy about. :)
Click to expand...

So then my question becomes if I purchase a 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro 09' and use the 4870 512MB OR the GTX 285 1 GB in it, on a 30" Monitor will I see acceptable Frames? Acceptable to me are 60FPs in "normal" areas. I could care less if Dalaran is 20 fps..

If someone can answer this for me unequivocally Im sold..
 
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