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Anyone using a 09 Mac Pro for World of Warcraft?

I have .. sorry i HAD :) WoW running on a 2.66 Quad 09 with the ATI 4870.
So i can only speak for a 24 inch Display with 1920x1200 resolution.
All was fine and i say that also as a PC Gamer.

If you also plan to use Bootcam / Windows native i would go with the GTX 285 because it has more Video Ram than the stock ATI 4870.

As an alternative you could flash a PC 4870 with 1 GB of VRAM for your Mac Pro. But this gives the problem, that mostly the second DVI Port will not work anymore so you can use only 1 Screen.

For resolutions above 2500 x XXXX i would go with the Nvidia.
 
WoW will run on lowest common hardware

WoW is not a highly graphically intense game. It will run great on a mac mini fgs!
 
masmullin said:
WoW is not a highly graphically intense game. It will run great on a mac mini fgs!
Click to expand...

Nice of you to start calling names.. very mature.

As a side not I aint looking for it to "run" Im looking for it to LOOK as good as it can and RUN as fast as it can. Im coming for an overclocked Core i7 @ 3.8 Ghz and a GTX 295. so Im looking for a little more than lowest common hardware but thanks...
 
zepharus said:
As a side not I aint looking for it to "run" Im looking for it to LOOK as good as it can and RUN as fast as it can.
Click to expand...
Same here. I've already got it running ok and looking ok @2560x1600 with my MBP. I'm curious about making it look great and run quickly, which is why thepawn's feedback has been so helpful.

Incidentally, WOW won't run well or look good on a mac mini unless you are at a very low resolution. My first experiments with a 13" unibody macbook required almost minimum settings to get it to run at 30fps @ 1600x1024, although it was better at native resolution. It's ok for a little "I'm bored in a hotel-room" soloing, but you wouldn't want to raid like that.
 
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 ... 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).
Click to expand...
Thanks for the expanded explanation. If I'm honest, i can live with the lower FPS in Dalaran too, it's just that I'm greedy, so I'd rather not :)
 
Probably a bit late...

The only game I have on my MP '09 2.66 Octo with official 4870 is Wow.

On a 30 ACD with everything cranked, native res, and 4x AA it runs like a dream.
 
Tallest Skil said:
ANYTHING can play it.
Click to expand...

While technically true, its not true in a realistic sense, ie not at "the best it can" at a high frame rate. The game may be 5 years old but they have periodically updated and increased the graphics quality since its initial release.

The shadow-rendering that WoW uses in OpenGL is very intensive, if you turn on high-res dynamic shadows (matches the texture shape of the object that is being lit, not just a "little circle") you will tank a Mac Mini's gfx chipset when there are 40+ objects on the screen to compute the shadows for. The newest iMacs can mostly keep up but will drop below 30fps with max details and dynamic shadows in a raid context. How do I know? My brother has an iMac 24" and plays as well, so I have real-world exposure to it. We've had keep shadows at the "simple" setting and back off on terrain-distance settings to keep his frame rates smooth.

If you can swing the cost of the GTX285, definitely get it over the ATI4870...the difference is not "huge" for WoW performance, but it'll give you some more fps plus let you eventually start playing with cuda functionality.
 
Tallest Skil said:
It's a five year old game. ANYTHING can play it.
Click to expand...
To test this, I disabled the 9600M on my MBP and switched to the 9400M (the same as the mac mini), turned the game up to Ultra on my 2560x1600 and it was unable to run at all; I got a "this content cannot be played at this resolution" error from the monitor. The 9600M runs at about 10fps in deserted areas of Northrend with "ultra" settings, 4xAA, but at least it does run.

You can only play it at acceptable frame rates with a mac mini at much lower resolution and graphical settings.
 
zepharus said:
As a side not I aint looking for it to "run" Im looking for it to LOOK as good as it can and RUN as fast as it can. Im coming for an overclocked Core i7 @ 3.8 Ghz and a GTX 295.
Click to expand...

May I ask why you are moving gaming-wise to MacIntosh? This machine should be spanking everythin in terms of games.

I'm not saying that Apple needs fewer gamers - quite the contrary. More gamers means eventually OSX gets its equivilant DirectX. But personally a MacPro purchase that revolves just around World of Warcraft is an interesting proposition; so once again, why are you moving away from that machine?
 
Dr.Pants said:
May I ask why you are moving gaming-wise to MacIntosh? This machine should be spanking everythin in terms of games.

I'm not saying that Apple needs fewer gamers - quite the contrary. More gamers means eventually OSX gets its equivilant DirectX. But personally a MacPro purchase that revolves just around World of Warcraft is an interesting proposition; so once again, why are you moving away from that machine?
Click to expand...

He may be like me...the only game I play with any level of consistency now is World of Warcraft, but otherwise I do lots of web surfing, photo fiddling, music and office-doc type stuff. It's why I moved back to Mac, though Windows 7 did make me hesitate for a moment (have you guys seen the Win7 Touch pack? Cant' wait to put that on my tablet laptop, hope the gfx chipset doesn't choke)... I got tired of all the tasks I had to do to keep my Windows machine clean, tight and in tip top shape. I wanted less fiddling, more doing. :) Bi-product of getting older I guess, lol. I did install Steam in Crossover Games and it runs fine, which is about the only other thing I played lately (Day of Defeat : Source)...
 
I can't help but think everyone's FPS would be 10+ higher if you bootcamped it in windows. It seems like windows>osx for games. I mean..in windows you have new graphics drivers every month or so that are increasingly optimized..OSX seems to put out a new graphics driver much less often..
 
Freyqq said:
I can't help but think everyone's FPS would be 10+ higher if you bootcamped it in windows.
Click to expand...
That may well be true, but bootcamping is a PITA, as it prevents you switching out to do other things. We could also all buy Windows gaming machines for half the price, but in each case you'd lose all the reasons we bought Macs in the first place.

The key question for me is "how can I run WOW as well as possible without putting up with the grief associated with Windows?". Ultimately, using OSX makes me smile at the computer, using Windows makes me swear at it.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Uh, that was an acronym, not an insult.



And a Mac Mini can make it look as good as it can. It's a five year old game. ANYTHING can play it.
Click to expand...

Ugh that's it. I've tried as long as i can to just ignore the fud you post but that did it for me. The straw that broke the camel's back.

WoW now has several times the geometry density in a given space then it did at launch five years ago. Every expansion and patch brings with it minor updates. But you wouldn't know that since all you read (and spew out for that matter) is troll regurgitation from other mac/gaming/hardware forums. I can almost predict word for word what you post before you even do it.

This game can bring a top of the line Mac Pro to its knees in its worst situations. Blame it on wtv component you want, in the end, it still brings it to its knees.

And if i were you, I'd stay very clear of hardware talk because you clearly have no clue. Your post history is full of fud and people calling you out on it.

There are many industry professionals, including me, that can easily call you out on your fud but we don't out of politeness. But I've personally had enough. I like this mac forum enough to risk a ban calling you out on your eternal fud spewing because its for the better.

Not only that, you're always all cranky with people who are obviously just looking for help and you throw around the "troll" argument WAY too often at them simply because they haven't spent as much time as you reading and posting in mac/gaming/hardware forums.

Clean up you're act because you are honestly getting on a lot of peoples nerves including mine. More importantly, you are not doing anyone any good with your attitude and you are definitely giving our mac community a bad image.

Your elitist attitude is not welcome here.

Not only that, I'm pretty sure I've called you on this kind of thing before.
 
thepawn said:
He may be like me...the only game I play with any level of consistency now is World of Warcraft, but otherwise I do lots of web surfing, photo fiddling, music and office-doc type stuff. It's why I moved back to Mac, though Windows 7 did make me hesitate for a moment (have you guys seen the Win7 Touch pack? Cant' wait to put that on my tablet laptop, hope the gfx chipset doesn't choke)... I got tired of all the tasks I had to do to keep my Windows machine clean, tight and in tip top shape. I wanted less fiddling, more doing. :) Bi-product of getting older I guess, lol. I did install Steam in Crossover Games and it runs fine, which is about the only other thing I played lately (Day of Defeat : Source)...
Click to expand...


I could not have summed it up any better than that. you hit what im doing EXACTLY on the head. I really do think its a by product of getting older. I want to play some occasional WoW and surf, photos, some Hd vid editing and my office stuff. If I want to heavy game from here on out I have all 3 consoles. PC gaming is honestly close to dead if you ask me...
 
zepharus said:
I could not have summed it up any better than that. you hit what im doing EXACTLY on the head. I really do think its a by product of getting older. I want to play some occasional WoW and surf, photos, some Hd vid editing and my office stuff. If I want to heavy game from here on out I have all 3 consoles. PC gaming is honestly close to dead if you ask me...
Click to expand...

And so Mac gaming is not?

I think that everything you've said is perfectly valid except for the last part; my situation is that I have a machine for gaming and another machine for editing.

I guess a by-product of being a youngster is that an AIO work/office/gaming solution is that the first two never get done as the last one is always eating away at the other's time;):D
 
For what it's worth,

I've got a 2.66 Quad '09 with a GTX 285 as my primary computer that I also play some WoW on (all settings at max). Only on a 24" monitor however.

70fps on average (low-end in Dalaran around 20fps, high-end 200+ in some old world content). 25-mans/40-mans are smooth as can be; so are capitol city raids for that matter.

Even on the GT120, those framerates were only slightly lower (say around 10% less) and still more than acceptable.
 
I've gone ahead & ordered a mac pro much like yours, thepawn. Thanks for the advice.
 
Whyren said:
For what it's worth,

I've got a 2.66 Quad '09 with a GTX 285 as my primary computer that I also play some WoW on (all settings at max). Only on a 24" monitor however.

70fps on average (low-end in Dalaran around 20fps, high-end 200+ in some old world content). 25-mans/40-mans are smooth as can be; so are capitol city raids for that matter.

Even on the GT120, those framerates were only slightly lower (say around 10% less) and still more than acceptable.
Click to expand...

good to know, I've been debating if I am going to upgrade or not. thanks.
 
lannister80 said:
Yes:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311&sid=1&pageNo=3

I twiddled with it and wasn't able to notice any difference in frame rate.
Click to expand...

OH MY GOD. i just enabled 255 affinity setting (setting using all cores and all Hyperthreading on Core i7) and im getting over 200 FPS in certain areas of WoTLK now!! That is unbelievable!

PLEASE tell me that WoW in OS X is able to use all the cores and Hyperthreading of the Nahelem for WoW! Can you use the affinity setting in OS X as well?
 
zepharus said:
OH MY GOD. i just enabled 255 affinity setting (setting using all cores and all Hyperthreading on Core i7) and im getting over 200 FPS in certain areas of WoTLK now!! That is unbelievable!

PLEASE tell me that WoW in OS X is able to use all the cores and Hyperthreading of the Nahelem for WoW! Can you use the affinity setting in OS X as well?
Click to expand...

You can.
 
zepharus said:
How is this done then? I just checked the config file in the OS X client and there is not setting for affinity mask. Any help here would be great.
Click to expand...

It was in mine?

SET accounttype "LK"
SET weatherDensity "3"
SET processAffinityMask "85"
SET textureFilteringMode "5"

I changed it to 85, which means use the 4 true cores (not the HT cores) ... The default was 3.
 
thepawn said:
It was in mine?

SET accounttype "LK"
SET weatherDensity "3"
SET processAffinityMask "85"
SET textureFilteringMode "5"

I changed it to 85, which means use the 4 true cores (not the HT cores) ... The default was 3.
Click to expand...

Hmm it is NOt in the family iMac upstairs thats odd. trust me when I tell you to TRY 255. I was shocked at the increase.
 
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