Some Of You Will Need An Upgrade! - Wrath Requirements Dissected
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iTZKooPA on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - 46 Comments Tags: i need a new computer, intel gma, oh crap, on-board, system requirements, upgrade, wotlk, wrath, wrath of the lich king
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - 46 Comments Tags: i need a new computer, intel gma, oh crap, on-board, system requirements, upgrade, wotlk, wrath, wrath of the lich king 
Blizzard Entertainment announced the official System Requirements for their second expansion to World of Warcraft. Wrath of the Lich King sports higher requirements in a few areas that will likely force some users to upgrade their computers, or go nuts and get new ones. The announcement comes by way of Bornakk and the official forums. If you are interested in the full run down, then click that link. I will simply highlight and discuss the major changes.We learned shortly after Wrath's official release date was announced that the title would only be available on DVD. According to a poll run by WoWInsider, this means that some 7.5% of WoW users will need to upgrade their CD-ROM or CD-RW drive to a DVD-ROM or DVD+-RW. Thankfully, that cost is only about $30-$50, if you have the know how to install it yourself. Of course, there are some tricks around this, such as loading the game off an ISO image by way of an external harddrive. The rest of the upgrades are likely caused by Wrath's bump in graphics capabilities, like real-time shadows.
The upgrades fragment a bit for the different platforms, PC or Mac. First off, PC users must have Windows XP SP3 or Vista SP1, but both service packs are free upgrades (for legal owners). This means that users of Windows 2000 will finally have to make the jump to Vista. Those who are scared of Vista should start searching for copies of XP now.
Then comes the most drastic change for PC users. PC machines are required to have a faster processor than before, a 1.3GHz processor (or equivalent) instead of that old 800MHz dog. That is almost a 40% boost and will cause people on the low end to upgrade. If you have the know-how this can be cheap, but most people will probably just opt for a new machine. Ram and video card requirements remain the same, although Vista users need double the Ram than XP players, since that OS is a hog.
Mac gamers are an entirely different story though. I will start it off with the worse news, all G4 machines will be unable to play Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard states that the minimum processor requirement for Mac machines is a Power PC G5 1.6GHz processor. This kills G4s across the board, PowerMac and PowerBooks. As for the OS, 10.3.x is being dropped in favor of 10.4.11 or higher. Look on the bright side , at least your OS doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Mac players will also need double the Ram at 1GB required, another low-cost upgrade.
Lastly and most costly, Mac Minis and most MacBooks have been dropped due to their on-board video cards being a bit behind. MacBooks released almost three years after World of Warcraft can not play Wrath due to Apple's poor choice in graphics processors. Models from Late 2007 were finally updated with the Intel GMA X3100 on-board graphics solution, which can do the needed Lighting and Hardware Transform. However, as of press time Blizzard has not confirmed them as suitable for Wrath, but it meets the announcement's listed requirements.
It seems that many Apple supporters got the short end of the stick on this deal. This isn't to say that all year old PC laptops will be able to play Wrath. Many OEM manufacturers (Dell, HP, Sony, etc) cut costs on the low- and mid-range machines the same way. Rule of thumb for those PC gamers, if you have an Intel on-board solution, there is cause for concern. Lucky for me, my third gaming machine (I have a problem) squeaks by the requirements with a Radeon 9700 Pro. How do your machines hold up?
Reader Comments (46)
I'm really right on the edge for system requirements:
* Processor: 1,333 GHz
* Memory: 512MB
(Almost same numbers in Blizzard post)
Good thing about being a 2D/3D Artist: even my tablet PC blows those specs away.
Really looking forward to cranking all the new settings up to max. Makes the game feel much, much more epic.
I guess I really ought to be thankful for that hard drive failure several months ago, which finally pushed my sister and I to buy a new computer. Otherwise, we'd have to pay for a DVD reader and a new processor.
Right about now, I'm really glad I just bought the Dell XPS 1730 laptop...but I'm regretting not splurging for the WoW edition. I'll meet the minimum requirements for Wrath with no problem, but I'd like to stay ahead of the game for future expansions. And who wouldn't just love to have dual 512MB graphics cards, right? Like I said, I wish I would have just bit the bullet and paid a little more. Oh well....I'm super psyched for Wrath!
I think that it is really sad that 7.5% of people are still running less then a gig of ram and a pathetic processor. I think that there should be incentives by computer companys to buy new computers, or at least from peoples friends...if it is more then 2-3 years old it is dead get a new one or upgrade(the far cheaper way)
Yes I am negative. But this upgrade will I HOPE kill the young kids urges to enter the WOW arena. Those under 12 years old shouldnt even be able to log in. FOR THE HORDE!
mine holds up well but i have vista so i might need more Ram but mine is fairly new so it has a dvd player built right in i have a pretty gd memory and my Processor is 14 GHz so i might need to by some more RAM and ty for the update now i know what to be expecting when i get it and be ready for it
No problems here..
iMac
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4GHz
Memory: 2GB
Video Card: ATI, RadeonHD2600
Well i have a year old XPS 730 so no problems there for requirements but then i bought a new Alienware Area-51 ALX i am pretty sure i can run Lich on it about a couple hundred times at once :P but then again its estimated to be delivered around the 10th of november so cross my fingers its then lol and isn't good to save money instead of spending it :)
Woot! Just got my new laptop and it blows those specs out of the water. Huzzah for a continuation of full blown graphics awesomeness!
If you wanna know if yoour computer can run it, then follow this linl
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
*link
BTW Awesome show. can't wait for WOTLK =)
Im beating the recommended by a slight bit, so im probably not gonna crank the graphics...
Running on Vista, with a dual core processor and 2 gigs of ram... I don't know what my graphics card is, and i dont know how to find out (someone tell me ^^). This has been a thing, i have been waiting excitedly for, as ive had a feeling i wouldn't be able to run it... Taking 15gb of harddisk space, is a bit much thuogh, so i supose ill end up buying an extern harddisc, to put away all the crap on my pc.
If you wanna know if your computer can run it, then follow this link:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
Btw Awesome show!
WOTLK FTW!!!!
I'm set for some time:
AMD Athlon 9850 Quad Core at 2.5 Ghz
ASUS M3N72-D
2 gigs of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX
my work computer runs win 2000 )-:
2GHz 2GB MacBook running game really well ATM but yeah it has the GMA950 Graphics Processor which sucks arse, cause as a poor lowly student I really can't afford an upgrade right now. My only hope is to do some cash jobs on the side, get a desktop that'll run it =(
So decided to check out if my system could cope with wotlk. as i can currently run tbc in low dps but otherwise pretty fine unless im in mh and aoe-ing like crazy where i drop to 3-4 fps.
so i found out that my graphics card fails the minimum requirements, so with 2 copy's of wotlk on the way and no way to upgrade, im fudged.
quite a let down that i really wont be able to run it
hey phra you can stop hoping because blizz oficialy killed my excitement for WOTLK i supose i should be gratefull now i might be able to focus in school but if you ask me i think this whole thing is bogus for starters because i have no idea what are you talking about never been much of a computer export my parents hate me playing this game i doudt their buy me all these upgrades so i whould like so send out my kudos to blizz and the imployes you have killed my excitement for the new expenchion and just as a side note their are more than 10 million people playing this game adult and children and not all of am have allot of money whats little to you is allot to them i know i am one of am
lucky for em my computer has these upgrades
512 MBs of ram, 3.06 Ghz, Nvidia Geforce 5200.
I'm on the edge.
<---- alienware /purrrrr
3gb's ram
Intel GMA X3100
Vista SP1
Works great for me even in Shatt, I can usually get around 5-50 fps. On med-high graphics levels.
(that being my laptop)
Now on my $8000 dollar gaming rig. I get around 100fps on high detail, 50-75 in shatt. Or around 400fps low detail and around 300-400 in shatt.
So even if my laptop can't handle it I god my pretty gaming rig.
got*
My Hackintosh has a 2.4 GHz quad-core (I gotta crank that baby up to 3, but I'm too lazy to re-apply the thermal paste), 2 Gigs of Ram, a 512MB 9800 GTX.
I'm using a USB wi-fi adapter, though. That is ghetto.
this dell dimension 3000 was done during burning crusades launch i have know idea how it kept playing wow on low since onboard is junk. is done im purchasing parts to build a new one today actually what a coincedence the new specs of my pc blow the minimum and maximum req out way :P, i should be set for wow for probably another 6 or 8 years