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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 5 of 6)
Strabo Oct 7th 2008 4:10PM
Oh wait, I have a 4870, not 3870, so your frame rate might be a bit lower - 30-40 % less? Still more than playable even with max settings outside of Dalaran.
Sky Shark X2 Oct 7th 2008 4:14PM
Thanks dude for answering my question. I have dell XPS 630, its quite a fine machine, is yours custom built or bought from a manufacturer?
venumus Oct 7th 2008 3:56PM
i have an amd turion 64. its a duel core. but each one is only 800mgz is that gonna be an issue?
BillDoor Oct 7th 2008 4:12PM
I'm running the beta just fine on my Dell pentium M laptop. Spell detail and such are up to a reasonable level, the super-cool new shadows are off.
jay Oct 7th 2008 5:02PM
Yeah the shadows are sweet, but they really do play a big part in slowing down one's frame rate.
Brian Oct 7th 2008 4:26PM
I play on an intel mac mini and I meet all the requirements apart form the graphics. While I have integrated graphics that has 64 MB shared memory I can do most things OK. The other thing to remember about intel macs is that you can boot camp windows which may make WoW run better on your machine.
I am in the Beta and everything plays fine by my normal standards but then my normal standards has everything set down low. Apart from spell detail; in groups and raids bosses often have abilities that need you to be able to see what is happening. And example of this is Nightbane in Kara, with no spell detail I can't see the burning coals.
Eric Diaz Oct 7th 2008 4:46PM
Meh. These aren't much of a change.
If you can run BC fine you'll be able to run Wrath no problem. I haven't noticed much of a degrade in performance in the beta that wasn't due mostly to lag.
Anttwan Oct 7th 2008 5:00PM
XP sp3 ?, i know BC needed SP2 but i didnt have SP2 at the time and it run fine for me. so dose this mean i dont need sp3?
Phortex Oct 8th 2008 10:39AM
ffs... I got a g4, 1,25gHz... what will happend to me? :(
Justgiz Oct 7th 2008 5:47PM
Looks like im never gonna play again, unless i buy a new computer. but im poor. damn you blizzard.
Grimsik Oct 8th 2008 12:04AM
What exactly does "Windows 2000 no longer supported" mean? I have pulled through with my old system so far, and like many others, just do not have the finances to afford a new one. If i can currently run the wotLK beta with Windows 2000, am i going to encounter problems with the retail version?
Josh Oct 8th 2008 9:14PM
Just means when they are doing updates and what not that they will not have consideration for what effects it might have on Windows 2k. This is not to say it won't work. But just if it stops working they won't care. And also if this happens. It's not necessarily the end of the world, b/c there are other ppl like you who will want it to work and some may have the know-how to create a fix.
SlipperyJim Oct 8th 2008 4:20AM
it means that Blizzard technical support won't support any problems you have if you can't get the game running in Windows 2000 (that's not to say it won't work though)
Lovechild Oct 7th 2008 9:50PM
I enjoy running WoW in max windowed mode at 1680x1050 and in the current game it is smooth.
In the beta there is noticeably slowdown running it that way, switching back to full screen and I get a extra 30 FPS.. but I am spoiled I like switching between monitor with out alt tabbing. So hopping that bliz put some polish in to wrath.
System spec are a E8400 overclocked to 4Ghz Radeon HD 4870 overclocked and 4 gigs of ram.
P.S. also using the pretty wow macro works in beta also. http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/04/24/macro-for-a-prettier-wow/ Not sure how much that effect the games fps but it is to pretty not to use.
Josh Oct 8th 2008 9:15PM
Really? I tried the Macro and didn't even notice a difference.. I thought they had put them into the Client now.
Lovechild Oct 9th 2008 4:37PM
Here a side by side of macor on and off
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31241845@N02/ thought i posted this yesterday
Kyle Epperson Oct 7th 2008 10:58PM
This kinda sucks the big ones... and almost makes me want to get my $5 reservation fee back and just quit wow... I have a 1GHz PowerPC G4, 1.25 GB DDR SDRAM, 80 GB memory.... the requirements will be the same as BC, eh? BULL SHNIT!!! If mine doesn't work, I probably will quit wow...
Ondrej 70 NE rogue Whisperwind
Kizz 70 BE huntard Cairne
Mohrlock Oct 7th 2008 11:53PM
I used to run WoW without a hitch (Pre-BC & BC) on a 1.4ghz Pentium, 16MB Nivdia GPU with only 512mb of RAM (Toshiba Craptop). With next to EVERYTHING turned to low for graphics options I was still running at a comfortable 30fps most times... (*cough* I do have a beast of a desktop as well). Maybe that was thanks to having an Nvidia card, maybe it was my net connection, maybe it was all the tweaking and semi-clocking I did?
Admittedly Shat & IF were off limits, running at around 5-10fps on high-congestion times. My GPU only died a few months ago now, but still 2 1/2 years running on those specs I don't think the "average" person out there has too much to QQ about.
Honestly I think we're all lucky Blizz isn't in kahoots with the GPU/Processor companies like everyother game company out there who expect you to have a barely-2-month-old PC/GPU/RAM setup to run their games.
Crysis anyone?!
I feel bad for those of you who are going to miss out on all the beautiful new graphics enhancements in WotLK :( But if you really want to keep with WoW, or gaming in general, splashing out barely even a few hundred on a new GPU or some RAM isn't too much in comparison to what you'll get out of it.
Nvidia & ATI have been spitting out so many new GPUs lately that it's pushing down the price on what used to be top-end cards 6-12 months ago.
Or you can just turn everything to "low" and cross your fingers you don't go frying your GPU like I did on my lappy. Everything may appear to be fine but once you start to notice freezes and pixel tearing your in for a world of pain you could've easily avoided. Fore-warned is fore-armed :)
alex Oct 8th 2008 1:03PM
personally i think those specs are incredibly low. If the game runs decently on that kind of machine are they downgrading it? I swear that MS Office probably has steeper requirements than that.
Also you failed to mention the 2 stats i care most about which are HD Space, and RAM recommendation (for base game, obviously addons are impossible for Blizz to predict).
pinshot Oct 8th 2008 4:16AM
if you consider yourself a gamer (which you are if you are reading this) and your systems specs are below WOTLK MAX settings then your an idiot!go out and get a propper card now and stop making Blizz hold back on the good stuff just so a few whiners can run a fantastic game on a piece of crap machine!