The obvious report: Wrath will not require Vista
Just in case you were wondering (or if your friend used the mediocre Shadowrun FPS as proof that all games from now on will require Vista), no, we're almost sure that there's no way Wrath of the Lich King will require Windows Vista to run. In fact, even though Neth is only kind of certain in the thread, we'll make it 100%: you won't need Vista to run the next expansion.Not only is Vista not exactly setting even high-end gamers' hearts afire, but Blizzard is traditionally about as lenient as it gets on system requirements. They did up the ante a little bit when Burning Crusade was released, and we do know that Wrath will require a little more of your computer with those shiny ice shaders (not too much more -- they may ask for more RAM or a faster than the current 800mhz processor). But as much as Microsoft would love what may again be the best selling expansion in the world to require Vista, it's just not going to happen -- Blizzard has too many subscribers here to lock a good number of them with an operating system that's not going over so well.
So ignore what your smirking friend tells you -- if you can run Burning Crusade, you'll be able to run Wrath on the same box.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Forums, Hardware






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Havitech Mar 12th 2008 4:12PM
Vista is crap, and Blizzard would never be dumb enough to make WotLK (or any game, ever, for that matter) Vista-only.
The only game that is Vista-exclusive that I can think of is Halo 2, which of course is made by Microsoft.
Hank Mar 12th 2008 4:20PM
I've had few problems running WoW on my Vista machines, but the right decision is to continue to support XP, and not make an OS upgrade a requirement to play the xpac. They ended support for 95/98/MistakeEdition already.
billgates Mar 12th 2008 4:26PM
OS X FTW
h8rain Mar 12th 2008 10:39PM
Agreed.
I play using a MBP. Heck even my wife;s old G5 iMac plays WoW fairly well (one of the first of the previous gen, 17" with low low end video card)
Making it Vista only would be like making it Mac only. Blizzard success comes from making great games, that are available to basically anyone who would play games. If you machine can't play a Blizzard game, then you probably would not play it anyways (yes, you the one that only plays Book Worm).
Candina@WH Mar 12th 2008 4:30PM
I am a tech geek. I LOATH vista and all it represents. ;)
I have OS X envy.
Maybe next time I will pony up the cash to buy a Mac. But for now, I am stuck on a PC.
NeSuKuN Mar 12th 2008 4:50PM
Just in case you didn't know, WoW runs perfectly on a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackintosh. I play using one (my macbook is terrible for gaming :S)
Baal80 Mar 12th 2008 8:28PM
WoW on my Vista Ultimate runs perfectly fine with stable 60 fps (all sliders on "Video" are max).
bohemian21 Mar 12th 2008 10:15PM
@NeSuKuN -- WoW [and BC] run just peachy on my 2.2GHz, 4GB MacBook. :)
NeSuKuN Mar 13th 2008 2:13AM
@bohemian21, sure, but mine is a first gen with only 512MB xD
karellen Mar 12th 2008 4:42PM
Of course they won't. If they required Vista for Wrath, they'd generate a lot more account cancellations than Vista upgrades.
Havitech Mar 12th 2008 5:09PM
@andyjay220
Who are these strange, elusive people who swear by Windows ME? Show me one and I will show you a leprechaun riding a unicorn.
Megarain Mar 12th 2008 4:44PM
I have to say, Vista on a properly built machine(Read: Not baseline or legacy) should run vista fine. I don't see why people call it utter crap.....
Megarain Mar 12th 2008 4:46PM
Sorry, been reading textbooks all day. Should read:
*should run just fine.
Said vista twice.
andyjay220 Mar 12th 2008 5:19PM
It's the same song and dance that happened with windows ME, 2000, xp, etc. The OS is fine except the driver support is lagging behind (which I admit is not good). However, I run a high end gaming rig with many fancy parts and vista works just fine and dandy for me. But we're going to have ppl who swear by it and swear at it, just like everything else.
AlmtyBob Mar 12th 2008 5:11PM
No, actually 98, Win2k, and XP didn't have nearly as many issues as Vista has now and had at launch. All 3 OSes were fairly large progressive leaps forwards in terms of driver support, ease of use, security, etc. All 3 had minor issues for the first couple of months that were resolved. However, 98 and XP had widespread adoption relatively quickly (2k was more of a commercial oriented OS). There were few people who just had to hold on to 95 and didn't want 98 or had to keep 98/2k when XP was out. Vista has so little going for it. It's got the all-or-nothing security system that most people, including me, disable the first day. Game performance is awful. DirectX 10 is currently a sick joke. Driver support is spotty. If I wanted an OS where drivers were a pain in the ass, had a pretty GUI, game performance sucked, and no one use or knew how to correctly use the security features I'd download Ubuntu and Compiz.
Silverslide Mar 12th 2008 5:44PM
Vista got a bad rap when it came out due to driver issues; these have been largely resolved (see link below);
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page3.asp
With minimal drops in performance for an OS that is doing more under the hood (desktop search etc...). I think if you actually go back to when XP, 2000 and other OS's were released you'd realise this is actually a pretty stable and performant OS (the benchmarks for games on XP never got close to the old 9x numbers).
If you are using Vista I would advise using a USB stick and enabling it as a "Super Fetch" drive the increase in load times (after an initial load) are really noticable especially with games.
Megarain Mar 12th 2008 6:45PM
I don't see how ubuntu has crappy driver support. Nor do I see really crappy driver support with Vista. Sure, with some really old tech.
Verde Mar 12th 2008 4:45PM
Uh, how could they make it Vista Exclusive?
Blizzard develops all their games for Windows AND Mac OS X, so... no. Unless the couple years I've been running WoW on my Mac has been a dream...
Megarain Mar 12th 2008 4:51PM
I guess you are right.
Ryan Mar 12th 2008 5:10PM
Good, cause that would've been a deal breaker for me anyways.