Benchmark specific for WOW?

[Lcarvone]

A co-worker of mine is looking to buy a used laptop to play WOW. I have a couple to choose from at different specs and different prices. My question is, is there a benchmark I can run on each, specific to WOW, that I can download and try to provide some detail (i.e fps, etc) on the potential performance before he buys? The pertinent specs are below:

#1

Turion 1.8 ghz
1 gig ram (860 megs available)
Onboard ATI Xpress 200 (64 mb shared memory)


#2

Pentium M 1.6 ghz
1 gig ram
Mobile Radeon 9600 (128 mb dedicated memory)


Any and all input on benchmarks and/or thoughts based on experience are appreciated

 

[lurk3r]

I doubt the first one will work at all, the second with a ram upgrade could be ok at very low settings.

 

[BassBomb]

I doubt the first one will work at all, the second with a ram upgrade could be ok at very low settings.

replace OK with terrible and he is right

 

[Anubis]

neither of those will work, i have a old dell lappy - Inspiron 8600 its got better specs then both of those you listed and it runs wow at 1-3 FPS with all the settings as low as they can go

 

[Lcarvone]

Wow (the surprised kind, not the game acronym), the minimum specs are well below both these lappys. I have also read numerous threads of people with specs less than this running it at low/medium settings. As to my original question, does there exist such a benchmark or maybe one that would be indicative of WOW performance?

 

[iahk]

wow's original min requirements are fine. but once you hit burning crusade and wrath of the lich king, those minimum requirements realistically skyrocket. wow is an extremely ram heavy game too. i had a c2d e5200 and radeon 4890 1GB with 2GB of ram of dalaran would turn into a 10fps zone and randomly crash at times.

 

[EarthwormJim]

I've played WoW on my netbook. Overclocked to 2ghz with 2gb of RAM it's playable unless you plan on raiding or spending time in Dalaran (bye bye half the game right there).

Why does your coworker have to get a laptop and why used? Gaming on a laptop is horrible compared to a desktop.

 

[soccerballtux]

Wow (the surprised kind, not the game acronym), the minimum specs are well below both these lappys. I have also read numerous threads of people with specs less than this running it at low/medium settings. As to my original question, does there exist such a benchmark or maybe one that would be indicative of WOW performance?

the problem is the lack of dedicated memory. Both setups will be severely CPU limited, but the 2nd one will fare better at graphics no doubt. If you just wanted to use it for grinding mats you'd be fine.

 

[Lcarvone]

Why does your coworker have to get a laptop and why used? Gaming on a laptop is horrible compared to a desktop.

I agree with this...they travel a decent amount and for extended periods away and want to be able to play while gone. A gaming laptop with sufficient specs is way out of their price range at this point.

 

[Lcarvone]

wow's original min requirements are fine. but once you hit burning crusade and wrath of the lich king, those minimum requirements realistically skyrocket. wow is an extremely ram heavy game too. i had a c2d e5200 and radeon 4890 1GB with 2GB of ram of dalaran would turn into a 10fps zone and randomly crash at times.

Again I am not a gamer but this is kinda sad....one of the great benefits of WOW from the beginning from what I am told is that it was playable for vast amounts of people who had (and in many cases still have) modest systems. For all intents and purposes their systems can do everything else just fine...just not gaming.

 

[rcpratt]

There's a pretty big difference between a modest desktop and a nearly crippled laptop.

 

[magomago]

ya both will be ugly and near unplayable. Maybe vanilla wow from long ago would work okay....but nothing on these.

although FYI: wow is more cpu bound more than anything (not sure if WOTLK changed that at all)

 

[Lcarvone]

There's a pretty big difference between a modest desktop and a nearly crippled laptop.

True if you are speaking modest by today's standards. But not based upon the typical desktop system in late 2004 through 2006 versus these laptops when the game was "new"

Thanks for all of the input...I'll pass it along

PS: I just installed the WOW demo on the lesser laptop and get between 19 and 35 fps...haven't really gone anywhere though since I know nothing about the game

 

[magomago]

True if you are speaking modest by today's standards. But not based upon the typical desktop system in late 2004 through 2006 versus these laptops when the game was "new"

Thanks for all of the input...I'll pass it along

PS: I just installed the WOW demo on the lesser laptop and get between 19 and 35 fps...haven't really gone anywhere though since I know nothing about the game

Ya wait'll you leave that area. Dunno if Azeroth has had a real face lift yet, but it'll start to cry once you hit outlands and beyond.

 

[Schfifty Five]

I have a Intel C2D @ 2.2ghz, 2 GB Ram, and an nVidia Geforce 8400M GS, and I can run wow on low settings with about 30 fps avg.

WoW is heavily dependent on the CPU, less so on RAM, and probably considerable less so than Video Card. Though having more ram/better video card does help.

So regarding those laptops, it probably would run ok on low settings, but I wouldn't want to use those laptops.

Another thing, gaming on a laptop is pretty uncomfortable, just FYI.

 

[rcpratt]

True if you are speaking modest by today's standards. But not based upon the typical desktop system in late 2004 through 2006 versus these laptops when the game was "new"

Thanks for all of the input...I'll pass it along

PS: I just installed the WOW demo on the lesser laptop and get between 19 and 35 fps...haven't really gone anywhere though since I know nothing about the game

Not really. My 2005 laptop (C2D) played vanilla okay, but really struggled with the first expansion...and that's far more powerful than the things you're considering. A modest 2005 desktop would still be okay on low settings.

 

[Cheesetogo]

As others have said, the FPS in WoW really drops down once you get into the new content. For example, one machine I have will get about 90 fps in the old world, and about 15-30 in the new zones. If I try to go into the main city, I get less than 1 fps (mostly due to ram, it only has 1 GB).

 

[yh125d]

The most they would realistically be able to bear on the better of those two is leveling in vanilla (up to 60). They definitely won't be able to play anything BC or WotLK. I have a new modest IGP laptop with C2D T6600 and Intel 4500, and it isn't even remotely playable in BC content

 

[CKent]

Your gpu can be middle of the road, as long as it's semi-current, not a budget model, adn not integrated, you're fine.

WoW loves a fast cpu though. Loves it. Neither of those will do the trick. They'll be ok in the starting areas, but the minute you try to run a 25man raid they'll pretty much grind to a halt.

While I'm on the subject, 2gb ram should be enough to run wow without too much trouble. I multitask a lot and upping my desktop from 2gb to 4gb helped reduce stuttering though.

 

[CountZero]

The most they would realistically be able to bear on the better of those two is leveling in vanilla (up to 60). They definitely won't be able to play anything BC or WotLK. I have a new modest IGP laptop with C2D T6600 and Intel 4500, and it isn't even remotely playable in BC content

Some point in the next year or so the old world will be getting redone for Cataclysm so even that might run poorly after the expansion.

 

[Scotteq]

The minimum system requirements for the current iteration of the game are:

Win XP/Vista/7, with the latest service packs

Minimum CPU: Intel Pentium 4, 1.3 Ghz or Althon XP 1500+
Recommended CPU: Dual Core

Minimum memory: 512MB for XP, and 1GB for Vista and higher
Recommended memory: 1GB for XP, and 2GB for Vista and higher

Minimum Graphics: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or an nVidia GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended Graphics: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel shader capability with 128MB VRAM. Such as an ATI Radeon X1600, or nVidia GeForce 7600GT class card, or better.

Sound - DirectX compatible sound card, or motherboard sound capability.

 

[MagickMan]

They're full of shit , WoW won't run on those minimums. It'll hang, crash, and generally choke whenever you're around more than a handful of other players.

A >3GHz C2Q does really well, 3.6GHz or faster is noticeably better in Wintergrasp, Dalaran, and 25-man raids. In fact, it's one of the only games I've seen that actually benefits from an overclocked i7 or i5, no matter what resolution you're running. The more CPU power you can throw at it, the better.

In order of importance for WoW: very fast CPU, low latency connection, SSD, and a more distant forth is your video card. Yeah, a good SSD can change your experience in the game completely, you'll get much faster loads and zone changes, plus it gets rid of little stutters from all the non-sequential reads and writes. Also, consider 4GB of RAM to be a minimum.

 

[smackababy]

They're full of shit , WoW won't run on those minimums. It'll hang, crash, and generally choke whenever you're around more than a handful of other players.

A >3GHz C2Q does really well, 3.6GHz or faster is noticeably better in Wintergrasp, Dalaran, and 25-man raids. In fact, it's one of the only games I've seen that actually benefits from an overclocked i7 or i5, no matter what resolution you're running. The more CPU power you can throw at it, the better.

In order of importance for WoW: very fast CPU, low latency connection, SSD, and a more distant forth is your video card. Yeah, a good SSD can change your experience in the game completely, you'll get much faster loads and zone changes, plus it gets rid of little stutters from all the non-sequential reads and writes. Also, consider 4GB of RAM to be a minimum.

Extremely true. I have WoW installed on a OCZ Vertex and it runs much better than when it was on a traditional HDD, even a better performing one (WD Cavair Black 640GB).

 

[Scotteq]

Well... For right or wrong, Blizzard's interpretation of "Acceptable Performance" may well be similar to their views on "Class Balance"...

 

[Anubis]

The minimum system requirements for the current iteration of the game are:

Win XP/Vista/7, with the latest service packs

Minimum CPU: Intel Pentium 4, 1.3 Ghz or Althon XP 1500+
Recommended CPU: Dual Core

Minimum memory: 512MB for XP, and 1GB for Vista and higher
Recommended memory: 1GB for XP, and 2GB for Vista and higher

Minimum Graphics: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or an nVidia GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended Graphics: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel shader capability with 128MB VRAM. Such as an ATI Radeon X1600, or nVidia GeForce 7600GT class card, or better.

Sound - DirectX compatible sound card, or motherboard sound capability.

pretty sure that assumes you play at 1024x768