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WoW on iMacG5 or Mac mini ?

S

slowtreme

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 27, 2003
348
0
Tampa FL
Been a while since I posted. My iBook died, and I gave my G4 iMac away to family... and I lost my life to World of Warcraft.

I want a Mac again. Can anyone give me honest opinions of playing WoW on an iMacG5 w/ 1gig ram vs a Mac mini w/ 1gig ram? How does this compare to playing on a 2ghz AMD box?

I'm thinking the mini doesnt have enought Video ram to be worthwhile, and I've read complaints about the 5200fx in the iMac. I still refuse to buy a powermac G5 because they are just to hugantic. I'm currently using a PC that I modded into a G4 case, and I don't want anything on my desk bigger than that :(
 
slowtreme said:
Been a while since I posted. My iBook died, and I gave my G4 iMac away to family... and I lost my life to World of Warcraft.

I want a Mac again. Can anyone give me honest opinions of playing WoW on an iMacG5 w/ 1gig ram vs a Mac mini w/ 1gig ram? How does this compare to playing on a 2ghz AMD box?

I'm thinking the mini doesnt have enought Video ram to be worthwhile, and I've read complaints about the 5200fx in the iMac. I still refuse to buy a powermac G5 because they are just to hugantic. I'm currently using a PC that I modded into a G4 case, and I don't want anything on my desk bigger than that :(
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Wow is not yet fully optimize for the MacOS Platform. I have PM G5 1.8 /w 1g +9800 Pro 256 ram and still having to lower terrain distance to low to be able to play. So if you want to go the Mac Mini was be prepare to have everything at low to be able to get a acceptable framerate.
 
Well right now I'm on a AMD 2500XP with 1gig ram and a GF3-Ti200 I guess I get around 20-30 fps. I don't spend a lot of time with FPS showing. I could just upgrade my VC and get great speeds, but I'd rather get a new Mac. I hope someone has played WoW on a iMacG5 17" and can give me a warm fuzzy about picking one up
 
pdpfilms said:
kkkkkhhhh- shhht-----pfff---aCHOO.... what was that you said?
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Bought empty case on Ebay, took PC guts, installed them in empty case (with some internal mods to make screws fit). it's not that unusual.
 
slowtreme said:
Well right now I'm on a AMD 2500XP with 1gig ram and a GF3-Ti200 I guess I get around 20-30 fps. I don't spend a lot of time with FPS showing. I could just upgrade my VC and get great speeds, but I'd rather get a new Mac. I hope someone has played WoW on a iMacG5 17" and can give me a warm fuzzy about picking one up
Click to expand...

Trust me, don't expect the same framerate on Mac.
 
Even with higher framerates on a mac, it looks like it's playing worse as it doesn't support triple-buffering. :(

I tried out WoW on a 20" iMac G5 with 1gig ram, and performance was awful. If you don't mind dropping the resolution to about 1024x768 though, it ran really well. (but was quite blurry as it's not the screen's native resolution)
 
WoW Mac gaming

Seriously, do not try playing WoW on an iMac or Mac Mini.
I've played on G5 1.6 with X800, 9600, 5200 with 1GB and 2GB RAM. FPS is decent on only the X800 at around low 40 fps with terrain distance at lowest levels on 20" Cinema Display (native rez). Performance in towns, raids, or areas with high number of players sucks with 9600 and lower.

On the iMac with 512 MB, the 5200 is atrocious! I rarely hit anything above 12 fps in open areas (low terrain distance, low everything, native LCD rez).

My iBook, the closest machine in spec to the Mac Mini also is horrible getting sub 10 fps. Not playable for all but the most desperate situations.

Use the PC for the one thing it was designed to do well - play games! Keep the trusty Mac for the more important things in life: surfing, e-mail, media, and thottbot!
 
Thoroughly disappointing that Apple continues to miss my market segment for computers. They do so many cool things, and yet I never find a good reason to buy new. (my last 3 macs have been used)

Thanks for the honest opinions. I'll probably hold off on a new mac purchase for a while longer.
 
Anybody tried to play World of Warcraft on a G4 iBook with the 1.2 Ghz CPU? I am actually just wondering what the performance would be like, as I am thinking on getting myself on of these little beasts, even though I am perfectly sure it isn't a good machine to play games like WoW. But than again, the iBook I am probably going to buy, isn't thought to play... Thus I will not care about if I have to put down the draw distance, and the detail level and whatnot...

Ah, I should add that the machine will have > 1 Gig of RAM for sure, dunno if that changes anything at all, for the transfer between system RAM and GPU RAM is often damn slow. I suppose one notices that I am not that much into gaming at all. Anyhow, any information would be great.
 
maradong said:
Anybody tried to play World of Warcraft on a G4 iBook with the 1.2 Ghz CPU? I am actually just wondering what the performance would be like, as I am thinking on getting myself on of these little beasts, even though I am perfectly sure it isn't a good machine to play games like WoW. But than again, the iBook I am probably going to buy, isn't thought to play... Thus I will not care about if I have to put down the draw distance, and the detail level and whatnot...

Ah, I should add that the machine will have > 1 Gig of RAM for sure, dunno if that changes anything at all, for the transfer between system RAM and GPU RAM is often damn slow. I suppose one notices that I am not that much into gaming at all. Anyhow, any information would be great.
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If the G5 wan't do it, even with a better Gcard then I doubt an iBook is going to do it.
 
I just thought I'd throw in my opinion. I have a PB 12'' rev. B and WoW runs like crap on it. I have to turn everything pretty much all the way down in order to even get playable framerates. A friend of mine plays on a 15'' TiBook and it runs even worse, I'm not sure how he deals with it. This makes the game look like garbage and detracts from the entire experience.

Needless to say, I don't play on my PB. I run it on my PC (3.2ghz P4, 1gig of ram, Geforce 6800GT) and I can run it at 1280x1024 with all the options turned to max and still get around 50 fps most of the time.

Honestly, if you want to play WoW, the Mac platform really isn't your best choice. I understand you want to buy a Mac, but I think you are going to be disappointed in its performance.
 
Hmm, I've logged over 200 hours playing WoW on my 12" 1.33, and except for the few places where everybody suffers from lag, I've never been disappointed. And it's a whole log better relaxing on the couch and playing it for hours than if I had to be tied to a desk for those 200 hours...
 
Well, I might not have made myself clear. I will buy the iBook anyhow, whether WoW runs fine on it or not. It's just that I would have been great to be able to play it on it as well.
 
Powerbook

I play on my 15" PB 1.5 GHz but I have the 128 video card and the faster hard drive...it's pretty playable with everything set to low. It plays better than the G5 iMac because of the video card, I think. I typically get 30-40 FPS all the time, and since the last patch it seems more consistent (when you can log on, anyway :rolleyes: ).
 
I play on a 1.8 ghz 17" iMac G5 and while the fps is very low, it is entirely playable. I have the res turned down to the lowest widescreen option, but I really don't see much a of a difference in quality from that.

I have the texture details turned down, and all of the pixel options on. AF is all the way down, or maybe just a hair up from there. The enviroment details distance is at max, and the terrain detail distance is at half up. The distance details toggle is on.

With these settings I get an entirely playable 10-15fps outdoors (it starts at about 10 and jumps to 15 once all the textures in the area have been loaded) and in the 20-30 indoors depending on how big the area is, etc. I hav the normal lag everyone does in the very crowded areas, of course.

All in in all it is quite playable and everything looks pretty good. However, I am considering switchign to a mini and building a gaming PC...

Rob
 
Mini for everything except gaming plus a PC rig seems like a good option...

I only play WoW and Call of Duty, some Unreal now and then... besides, I love Macs too much to build a PC rig. I even went so far as overclocking and modding my G4 tower (not recommended... ugh).

But yeah, the current iMac or Mini will just SUCK for this game. The Powerbooks and G5s (pro line) will be fine. iBook should be okay too (with your expectations, maradong).

My 1.5/128 PB played fine with native resolution... just lower the terran distance until they optimize some more. Terrain highlights are BEAUTIFUL.

Can't wait to see how my new 17" performs. Better be good cause this is my baby for a long, long time... gotta be able to play Quake 4.

-DF
 
dferrara said:
Mini for everything except gaming plus a PC rig seems like a good option...

I only play WoW and Call of Duty, some Unreal now and then... besides, I love Macs too much to build a PC rig. I even went so far as overclocking and modding my G4 tower (not recommended... ugh).

But yeah, the current iMac or Mini will just SUCK for this game. The Powerbooks and G5s (pro line) will be fine. iBook should be okay too (with your expectations, maradong).

-DF
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I have to say the despite what everyone says the current iMacs are pretty decent for gaming. I haven't tried a game yet that I haven't been satisfied with. UT2k4 plays perfect at max settings and high resolution (the fps will drop into the low 20's if you go into a wide open outdoor area, but it's still very playable), I'd say fps averaging in the 30's. And that's the UT2k4 DEMO, i understand the retail version is even faster. WoW play just fine. It COULD be a little smoother, but I could also turn the settings down some as well. Everything before those games plays well, of course; America's Army, RtCW, Warcraft3, BF1942, and everythign else I have thrown at it run nicely. Some of the early reports look like Doom 3 actually plays decently on these as well... not to shabby.

The only reasons I am thinking about going mini+gaming PC is that 1) I want a bigger display, and the graphics power to fill all those pixels, 2) HL2 :) , and 3) I want two machines to be able to encode video and play games at the same time, for example (or any 2 task at the same tiem, really) and can't afford 2 Macs.

For day to day tasks and iLife work, a mini with enough RAM and a big, fast external harddrive will stay usefull for a long time. A cheap gaming PC can be upgraded for the latest and greatest with to much effort or cost.
 
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