Can this laptop handle WOW?

[scrawnydude]

I am thinking of buying a new laptop and I am wondering if it would be able to handle WOW.
It is an acer aspire AS5535-5452 Notebook PC. It has 3GB DDR2, 320GB HDD, an AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1GHz processor, dedicated graphics, ATI radeon HD 3200 graphics card, it runs on vista premium( I will likely get windows 7), and it has a max res of 1366 x 768. Anyone know if this has what it takes to handle things like WOW.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: scrawnydude
I am thinking of buying a new laptop and I am wondering if it would be able to handle WOW.
It is an acer aspire AS5535-5452 Notebook PC. It has 3GB DDR2, 320GB HDD, an AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1GHz processor, dedicated graphics, ATI radeon HD 3200 graphics card, it runs on vista premium( I will likely get windows 7), and it has a max res of 1366 x 768. Anyone know if this has what it takes to handle things like WOW.

WoW System Requirements

* Windows Vista or Windows XP
* Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP 1500+ 1300 MHz
* 512 MB or more of RAM (1 GB for Vista Users)
* 32 MB 3D video card with Hardware T&L or better
* 15 GB free HD space
* 4× CD-ROM drive
* Broadband Internet connection


WoW will run on that laptop, though you'll be turning down display settings. And when you enter highly detailed areas or areas with a lot of people, your frame rate is going to crawl.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

I'm guessing you're not going to like playing WoW on that laptop. It'll run but not very well.

 

[RaiderJ]

I was under the impression WoW could be run on just about anything. Might have to fiddle with detail settings, but shouldn't be an issue to run on that laptop.

 

[fatpat268]

It'll be fine. Just turn down the shadow settings (at high, it can make pretty much any system struggle to run it past 40-50 fps).

But it'll be plenty playable.

 

[Chriscross3234]

For a point of reference, my Asus 15" has an Intel T7200 (I think) Duo Core, 2gb DDR2, and an ATI Radeon X1700 256mb (up to 768mb using RAM) and it ran WoW perfectly fine with 1280x800 resolution and graphics set to medium with 2xAA (I think I turned it down to no AA though). IIRC there was no problem running through Ironforge or Shath and there were no problems raiding.

Not really sure how our laptops compare with each other, but my laptop is about 2 years old and it can run WoW without a hitch, except that after an hour or two of play it felt like the sun was sitting in your lap.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Chriscross3234
For a point of reference, my Asus 15" has an Intel T7200 (I think) Duo Core, 2gb DDR2, and an ATI Radeon X1700 256mb (up to 768mb using RAM) and it ran WoW perfectly fine with 1280x800 resolution and graphics set to medium with 2xAA (I think I turned it down to no AA though). IIRC there was no problem running through Ironforge or Shath and there were no problems raiding.

Not really sure how our laptops compare with each other, but my laptop is about 2 years old and it can run WoW without a hitch, except that after an hour or two of play it felt like the sun was sitting in your lap.

You have a discrete GPU, the HD 3200 is an integrated video chip. One of the fastest integrated chips, but still integrated, and will get pounded into the dust by a 30 dollar video card.

 

[Barfo]

Yeah I used to play it on my GMA X3100 laptop with low settings and it was playable, as long as you don't expect to run it at the highest settings and frame rate you'll be ok.

 

[KMFJD]

You could run atleast 2 copies of wow on that laptop...

 

[BenSkywalker]

I think people in this thread haven't played WoW in quite a while if at all by the sounds of it.

Some benchmarks/ You'll probably be OK with settings turned way down doing solo quests, but even in 5 mans you are going to struggle badly and forget raids or going to Dal during primetime. At 1280x1024 without AA a 4830 can't hit 40FPS(a GTX260 is at 65, it is a vid card issue). The integrated graphics on that mobo are going to roll over and cry.

You are much better off finding yourself a laptop with a stronger graphics chip then that if you really want to play WoW. It will run on that, but it would be a very painful experience.

 

[fatpat268]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
I think people in this thread haven't played WoW in quite a while if at all by the sounds of it.

Some benchmarks/ You'll probably be OK with settings turned way down doing solo quests, but even in 5 mans you are going to struggle badly and forget raids or going to Dal during primetime. At 1280x1024 without AA a 4830 can't hit 40FPS(a GTX260 is at 65, it is a vid card issue). The integrated graphics on that mobo are going to roll over and cry.

You are much better off finding yourself a laptop with a stronger graphics chip then that if you really want to play WoW. It will run on that, but it would be a very painful experience.

BS.

I've gotten a steady 45fps in raids on my 13 inch Mac with Nvidia 9400m graphics with medium low settings and shadows set all the way down. I got easily 60fps (I limit it with vsync) on my 8800gt with everything turned up but shadows. Dalaran still lags a bit, but that's just because there's so many people there and it seems more of a network issue.

I'm not sure where the HD 3200 falls in comparison to the 9400m, but I'm pretty sure they're on equal footing.

Also, the number one thing that kills your framerate is shadows. I used to have mine all the way to max and my computer would chug at sometimes. I turned it down to medium, and instantly shot up to 60fps with only a little bit of visual quality loss. So, the only way that article is getting such crummy numbers is that they have shadows turned all the way up. Because quite frankly, wotlk doesn't look that much better than bc or vanilla wow.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I've gotten a steady 45fps in raids on my 13 inch Mac with Nvidia 9400m graphics with medium low settings and shows set all the way down.

That's interesting, I see single digit FPS in raids with shadows off running a far more powerful graphics chip then what you have in raids. Don't even have to go too deep into raids either, first couple of AOE pulls in the spider wing are plenty enough. Have to turn settings way down to maintain a decent framerate. Dal during peak hours is a slideshow, although I am on a rather high pop server, if I drop settings down close to minimum for everything I get reasonable framerates.

Also, the number one thing that kills your framerate is shadows.

Shadows in WoW are all done on the CPU per the development team.

So, the only way that article is getting such crummy numbers is that they have shadows turned all the way up. Because quite frankly, wotlk doesn't look that much better than bc or vanilla wow.

Geometric detail has been more then doubled, texture detail on characters has increased ~4 times and draw distance has been doubled not to mention considerably more shader effects are used in Wrath versus Outlands and both of them are far more intensive then vanilla.

 

[ivan2]

i ran wow on a 5 year old dell 8300, it will run on your laptop.

 

[fatpat268]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

I've gotten a steady 45fps in raids on my 13 inch Mac with Nvidia 9400m graphics with medium low settings and shows set all the way down.

That's interesting, I see single digit FPS in raids with shadows off running a far more powerful graphics chip then what you have in raids. Don't even have to go too deep into raids either, first couple of AOE pulls in the spider wing are plenty enough. Have to turn settings way down to maintain a decent framerate. Dal during peak hours is a slideshow, although I am on a rather high pop server, if I drop settings down close to minimum for everything I get reasonable framerates.

Also, the number one thing that kills your framerate is shadows.

Shadows in WoW are all done on the CPU per the development team.

So, the only way that article is getting such crummy numbers is that they have shadows turned all the way up. Because quite frankly, wotlk doesn't look that much better than bc or vanilla wow.

Geometric detail has been more then doubled, texture detail on characters has increased ~4 times and draw distance has been doubled not to mention considerably more shader effects are used in Wrath versus Outlands and both of them are far more intensive then vanilla.

No, shadows at it's maximum level will take a good 20fps from just about any system, and you don't get that much of a visual difference. I don't know all the technicalities about it, but if I lose that much fps for a minor difference, it's not well optimized to me.