Some Of You Will Need An Upgrade! - Wrath Requirements Dissected
Posted by 
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)
@mark probably cheaper just to buy a new rig.
And I just did the Can you RUN it test. And for low specs, I got my computer stat all the way right beside the Fast computer sign. And for high specs, I got right in between the recommended and Fast computer sign.
That being on my laptop I think I am good to go.
Why the hell are people even talking about playing it on there laptops.
I got a PC
8GB ddr
280gtx
that top dual core one e8600 i beleave cloaked to 4ghz
2TB harddisk space.
If you wanna play the game smooth with some nice grafics you just cant play the game on a laptop.
This is my pc setup atm. Yes it plays wow pritty well but if i see the test system with only gettin 23 fps with everything maxed thats just kinda retarded.
But ah yea wow is all about CPU speed i ques.
@ Dakota
i am buying a whole new rig that paragraph came out wrong i mean im dumping this dell into the closet and i have case /motherboard/the rest of the parts coming in a few days.
Still over the requirements. I bought a laptop in July and it's more than enough to do anything. I think this thing can run Crysis..........hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I've got a 2.6 intel dualcore
4 gb ram
win xp sp3
geforce gts 640mb video card
this is my baby and can turn every game to maximum awesomeness(exept crysis, it laggs a bit at maximum awesomeness ;) ) and at least wow handles it self like a dream.
Love to see the WotLK in november.
Hmmm....
WindowsXP S3 - check
Pentium 4 1.3GHz (have 2.6GHz actually) - check
1GB ram (have 4 actually) - check
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT - check (but still planning on getting a better card)
DirectX - check
13GB free space - check (love that 650GB external and my 2 350GB internal drives ^_^)
I think I'm ready, but I'm still tweeking to get the ultimate gaming machine. A better graphics card and I'll be set.
My computer will probably run it decently, 3,0ghz core2duo, 8800GTS 320mb right now(4850 soon) and 2GB of PC6400 ram. I'm a bit worried about my XPS though..
Macbook Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz
Poor onboard video card isn't going to be supported...so sad. After 3 years of WoW...i have to give it up. We're talking weeks of game time invested. All gone.
Goodbye Blizzard...
*breaths a sigh of relief:
http://tinyurl.com/47uuhd
Well as a college student running on a Mac Powerbook G4 pro that I bought '05 for freshman year, I guess I'm screwed. I've wanted to upgrade which would be nice but not quite sure if I have the money for it. So... this really sucks blizzard, especially since i already pre-ordered and might not be able to use it :-(
After taking a close look at my specs... it seems that my system requirements are there, but it's still on a G4 machine. Do you think Blizz said for Macs to be G5 because most non-upgraded G4's couldn't do it or even if they meet the specs a G4 still would not work?
Well for all you make lovers don't go out and buy a new laptop just yet, The new brick apple laptops are supposedly coming out in just a a week or two, at the next apple event.
mac lovers*
(crappy keyboard at school)
First of all, I'd like to say alienware kicks ass. 2 year old laptop and I'm well past the requirements.
Second of all I'm tired of people getting pissed at companies who require more performance out of systems for their games. If they didnt, we'd still be runnin 24 bit games, if we were lucky.
If you are a Computer gamer, its part of the show. Fork over the cash, or buy a nintendo....
I'm glad most of the wow players are going to be kk. I on the other hand will not. Been playing for 4 years now, and now i will have to stop playing because of the upgrade. will it was fun
and O to all those who say fork the cash over you know what you all can do. some of us try hard to make it and work hard for our kids and money dont grow on trees were i come from.. so we deal with what we have and for most of us who like to have fun some time we play wow and now we will have to stop. but remember some people dont have the money you have to upgrade. so stop
let me see what i have hmm......
athon 64 x2 6400+ over clocked to 4.5ghz (from 3.2) on both
8gb ram ddr2
(2X) nvidia 7900 gto's in sli (planning on buying the 9600 gt's)
with all of that WoW purrs like a kitten and i bet i wont have a troble w/ Wotlk either
and btw im getting 55-70 fps w/ maxed graphics (in 25-man raids)
I really don't see the big deal, Getting a system that runs those reqs should not be expensive nor difficult, unless you insist on running a mac. If you have a pc and need to upgrade a video card or whatever, go to newegg.com, their stuff is super cheap and great. You can get a compliant video card for like $50. If you need to upgrade the processor tho, that'll cost a bit, although if you don't have a 1.3 ghz processor already, then you are WAY behind the curve.
My Powebook G4 1.25G with 1G memory is way below specs. My wife is able to heal Naxx and any instance. Only problem is running through Dalran is about 1 FPS though LMAO. She can't even autofollow me (I'm on a Core 2 Duo laptop ATM). We're probably going to have to upgrade hers. Anyone know if the new Macbook 2.4G will do the job?
I am running a powerbook G4, 2 gigs of ram, 1.5Ghz processor speed, and WoW works ok for me. I have to turn the graphics ALL of the way down, and I don't have great FPS, but they are decent, and I can still DPS in a 25 man raid.
I had an older Macbook and it ran WoW fine, including Wrath. Orgrimmar was always incredibly laggy for me, but other than that it ran alright. I got a newer Macbook (still the white polycarbonate) because Sims 3 wouldn't run on it. Now WoW runs even better!