World of Warcraft Performance Guide
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 23, 2005 12:17 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
The balance between GPU and CPU performance isn't all that matters to World of Warcraft. Memory size is also a very important factor in building a smooth running WoW box. As with any high end gaming box, less than 512MB of memory is simply unacceptable for WoW. However, the requirements here are a little more strenuous than usual. We found that ideally, you need 1GB of memory to have WoW running on a machine that has other applications running in the background. While you can get by with less than that, for the best overall performance, the sweet spot is 1GB. With memory prices at the lowest that they will be for the next few months, making that 1GB or more upgrade is a bit easier now than it was before or than it will be later on.
Blizzard has also done a good job of providing Mac support for World of Warcraft. In fact, the same discs used to install the PC version will work in installing the Mac version of WoW. Unfortunately, Mac WoW performance is nothing to write home about. Performance on a dual G5 2.5GHz with an ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition is less than half of the performance of a single Athlon 64 4000+ and a Radeon X800 XT. The performance on slower video cards is just as disappointing. Blizzard has been active in improving Mac WoW performance, but the gap remains to be nothing short of huge. Mac OS X has never been known as a gaming platform of choice, but Mac users should at least be able to run the games to which they do have access at comparable frame rates to their PC counterparts. Regardless of whether the Mac WoW performance issues are the fault of Apple, Blizzard or the GPU vendors, they need to be fixed if any of the responsible companies actually care about that user base. WoW is quite playable on the Mac - it's just noticeably slower than on the PC.
From an overall standpoint, World of Warcraft is much more demanding of a game than it seems. The game is quite playable on older hardware, and visually, it looks very similar even on DX8 class GPUs, but higher resolutions and getting rid of irritating choppiness when rotating your camera in the world are both enabled through faster GPUs and CPUs.
WoW is generally more GPU limited than CPU limited, but you still need a relatively fast CPU. On the AMD side, the Athlon 64 3500+ continues to be the sweet spot, while the Pentium 4 650/550 is the more balanced choice for Intel folks. And as always, we found that the Extreme Edition is a waste of money.
But if you happen to have a relatively new Athlon 64 or Pentium 4 system, you're pretty much good to go. The biggest need for a CPU upgrade will be lower clocked Northwood and Athlon XP based systems.
As far as GPUs go, the more you spend, the higher the resolution that you can run and the smoother that things will be at that resolution. The ATI vs. NVIDIA decision is really up to you for most GPUs except at the lower price points, where the 6600GT and the 6200 both outclass their ATI competitors.
If you're one of the 1.5 million people who has found themselves addicted to World of Warcraft, you might as well feed your hardware addiction at the same time, right?
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trs80m1 - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
Great article, though I was disappointed to see that the ATI 9600XT (my card, of course) got left off. Hope you get a chance to add that, since I'd like to keep that card when I build a new A64 system soon.Two other requests: City of Heroes performance review, and how does the Internet connection affect framerate? i.e. Cable vs DSL vs Dial-up
Thanks again!
segagenesis - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
I dont think WoW even supports AA, at least on my card (read above). I force enable it outside and it works up to the character selection screen, but in game it goes away (back to jaggies). What gives?Glayde - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
Hey I want to say thanks for doing comparisons on a game I play, it's hard to compare other benchmarks to actual results i'd get in game.One thing I'd like to ask about though, none of your tests were with AA enabeled? (since AA isn't changed in-game in WoW, you need to do it out of game).
cHodAXUK - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
Nice article, how about a look at EQ2 and DAoC Catacombs as well? The later has just had a major DX9 engine upgrade and all the old art/textures/models have been overhauled.Gholam - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
Heh, approaching Orgrimmar auction house/bank area in prime time really puts the stress on any system :) I have a Winchester running at 2.6GHz and a 6800GT PCIe at 420/1200, and it's still a little choppy there, especially on initial approach, although I suspect that is due to bunches of textures being loaded.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
For this particular test LOD didn't dramatically influence performance, but you all right, if it does annoy you turning the option off definitely helps.sbuckler
That comment was made for lower clocked Northwoods, I've made the appropriate clarification in the review.
Illissius
The big difference ends up being in overall smoothness of gameplay, which is determined by minimum frame rates as well as averages. Unfortunately due to the nature of the test being non deterministic not all of the minimum frame rates make total sense, thus we left those statistics out.
Take care,
Anand
WooDaddy - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
My favorite part about the review is on the last page:"And as always we found that the Extreme Edition is a waste of money"
I think anyone who is BUILDING a computer who uses a Intel processor for GAMING is nucking futz! I mean how many AT reviews do you have to read until you get it in your think skull that Intel is absolutely not the best way to go for gaming!?!</rant off>
Sorry about that... Seriously, though. Good review. Time to upgrade the Ti4200 128Mb. I've been waiting for a review like this.
Illissius - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
The 6600GT is only 15% slower than the 6800GT? That seems rather very odd...OrSin - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
Alittle off subject can we get beachmarks with some RTS games too. Thier was time when they were all 2d games, but now alot of them are 3d now. Kohan 2, and Axis and Allies both use the Grybo engine. This engine is used in quite a few RTS games. Most games have in game films so you can re-run the film to test thier game play.Thanks.
EODetroit - Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - link
Interesting, I might have to try that some time, thanks for the quick reply on resolutions... might let me see a wider FoV, useful for PvP.