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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsSystem requirements posted for WotLK
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 7th 2008 at 2:30PM
Blizzard has been putting off posting system requirements for Wrath of the Lich King for a while, but they've finally made a commitment, posted on the official forums. As one might expect, they're fairly forgiving given modern hardware, but they are significantly bumped from the BC requirements (which were not updated from classic WoW, aside from nominally requiring a broadband connection). Here are the minimum and recommended requirements for Wrath:
- PC:
- Windows XP SP3 or Vista SP1 (Windows 2000 no longer supported)
- Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1.5 GHz (up from 800 MHz Intel/AMD). Dual-core recommended.
- RAM: 512 MB/1 GB for Vista,
doubled fromsame as previous. 1 GB/2 GB recommended. - Video: GPU with hardware transform and lighting and 32 MB VRAM, same as before. Recommended 128 MB VRAM.
- Mac:
- Mac OS X 10.4.11 (10.3 no longer supported)
- PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo. Big change here: G4s are no longer supported. This one actually affects me, since I do have some G4 machines hanging around the house. Intel 1.8 GHz recommended.
- RAM: 1 GB, up from 512 MB. 2 GB recommended.
- Video: Hardware transform and lighting, 64 MB VRAM. On the face of it, this rules out the integrated graphics found on MacBooks and Mac Minis, but there's been no official word on it yet. 128 MB VRAM recommended.
For those of you who don't meet these requirements (of whom there should be a lot more than there are now with the BC requirements), don't despair too much. The prevailing opinion is that these are more suggested minimums than actual enforced limits. If you don't have quite a fast enough processor or a proper video card, Wrath will probably still run, although your frame rates might not be very high. If you manage to find a computer that doesn't meet the BC requirements now and install WoW on it, it will still run, albeit probably not very well; there's no reason to think that will change in Wrath.
Anyway, here's hoping the updated requirements will let them put more prettiness in LK, although we know at this point there will not be a full graphical revamp.
Filed under: Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
Bloodletter Oct 7th 2008 2:55PM
Meh, not sure.
I'm running the BETA pretty shittily at 10 - 15fps (even with the exactly same settings as TBC, which gives me 35 - 65FPS) - so I guess if you have good performance on BETA as compared to old TBC, the actual game release should give you the same performance.
What specs do you have?
I have 1.66GHz Centrino Duo, Geforce 8400M GS (64mb VRAM), 2gb RAM and WinVis Premium.
I was kinda hoping for more than 15fps with these specs, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.
Naix Oct 7th 2008 2:58PM
Replace that 1.6 with a 3.0 ghz. They are only like $100 now.
gameleon Oct 7th 2008 3:04PM
Bloodletter, are you sure youve turned shadow quality to low?
That's a new setting and takes a high load on your Grahic card.
vlad Oct 7th 2008 3:57PM
hmm, you may want to scale back your settings sadly.
im getting between 60-80fps on beta @ 1920 x 1200. everything.
just using a single 512mb 8000gt
4gb ram
dual core 2.4ghz.
nothing bleeding edge.
vlad Oct 7th 2008 4:23PM
err, typos. "everything maxxed" and "8800gt"
Jonamon Oct 7th 2008 2:46PM
Just wondering, when I had both The Burning Crusade + the Wrath beta installed, it was taking up roughly 20+GB of my HD space, addons included.
Does anybody know how much space WoW+TBC+WotLK will be taking up when installed together?
I don't know if I'm prepared for 25GB or however much it was. I suspected a lot of it was to do with the beta download, but hey, what do I know.
IanC Oct 7th 2008 2:49PM
It will be less, since the beta makes a copy of your original WoW + TBC files.
Jonamon Oct 7th 2008 2:54PM
Ah thanks, I was a bit worried as my Hardrive is practically full, I had to stop playing the beta to put a few new albums on (not that the EU beta is playable anyway)
IanC Oct 7th 2008 3:00PM
lol i know what you mean, i haven't been on the beta much due to the problems
ViolatorGG Oct 29th 2008 5:24AM
WoW+TBC takes less than 8GB of space currently. You can burn those patchfiles into CD/DVD disks and free HD space.
At least my installation takes less than 8GB of HD space.
Jay Oct 7th 2008 2:47PM
i've been playing the beta just as fine as on live with a 2.0 coreduo macbook with 2 gb of ram and the GMA950 integrated graphics.
if they change the live from the beta, i'd be pretty shocked.
IanC Oct 10th 2008 9:38AM
Ow, there goes using my laptop for the odd bit of WoWing.... (G4 iBook)
gameleon Oct 7th 2008 2:58PM
'RAM: 512 MB/1 GB for Vista, doubled from previous.'
don't see the 'doubling'.
Its been that way since patch 1.10(i bought WoW around patch 1.9.4 or something, and i have it saying 512mb required/1024mb recommended in the paper manual that came with it. The vista note wasnt included ofc)
Naix Oct 7th 2008 2:57PM
You can build a pretty awesome gaming PC for about $900. Or buy a Dell with a nice processor and a pcie 2.0 slot and get a nice Nvidia video card.
Bloodletter Oct 7th 2008 3:03PM
I a sixth form student with a laptop. No time to work for a new PC, unfortunately. :(
Just going to have to hope I win the win the god damn scratch card lottery or something.
:D
Brad Oct 7th 2008 4:23PM
Actually, if you have a working computer already, it's not very expensive to upgrade your computer to be close to the end in performance. This is also considering that you're not "snooty" and insisting on getting an Intel processor that costs over 2x as much as AMD.
For the parts I recently upgrade my computer with, an AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition ~$170, Asus M3A78 Motherboard ~$85, 4 gb Corsair XMS2 RAM ~$125, and a ATI Radeon X1650 Pro ~$50 (I know the video card isn't "top of the line") it doesn't cost much at all. Keep in mind that this is excluding any non-performance upgrades (i.e. hard drive, cd-rom).
That's only $430 assuming you can use your old parts that still work and less if you want to downgrade some of those pieces (I'm partial to Asus and Corsair).
Arthomis Oct 7th 2008 2:58PM
You also forgot to mention that you will need a DVD-ROM to install Wrath since it will not be sent out on CDs anymore.
Steve Oct 7th 2008 2:58PM
This means the end of the line for my old PowerBook G4, I'm afraid. :(
rocketscientist Oct 7th 2008 2:58PM
For the mac users out there, and I am one, so don't take this the wrong way...
You can spec a PC that exceeds, far exceeds, all of these requirements for under $500. If you want specs, go look at arstechnica.com for the "Ultimate Budget Box" article they posted last week. I think they put together a PC with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for $550. That includes buying Windows.
And you'll be able to play Portal.
Apple *really* screwed up not making a tower machine that's upgradeable and doesn't cost more than a good used car.
Kat Oct 7th 2008 3:13PM
That's all true, but that basically would make this a $600 expansion which is silly. I like my mac; I like it alot, so when I upgrade that computer it will be with another mac and until that time I'll just find some other way to spend my extra time and money every month.