World Of Warcraft: WoW, Upgrading, and You

Judgement
As we all know, how much you have to spend also puts a limit on what kind of computer or upgrade you'll need, so in advance, please don't come back at me saying OMG TOO MUCH MONEY or whatever, because I know computers cost a lot. But if you're going to pay monthly for a game that is not running well, you should consider an upgrade in general -- a simple RAM upgrade will work wonders towards letting you play games effectively.

Loren:
Judgement here will give most of the comments on PC rigs, I'll be giving you Mac gamers the lowdown on what it takes to run World of Warcraft. For those interested in how a LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH rig handled World of Warcraft, go right to the benchmarks I've included at the end of this article.

Judgement:
I'm going to start with a little list of MMORPGs I've played:

Shadowbane - shitty graphics (sorry, no other word for it); extensive stress due to crowding (many players on-screen at once due to guild wars)
Lineage 2 Open Beta - good graphics, lots of crowding (it was a big beta). Risk Your Life Open Beta - great graphics, little to no crowding (was a Korean game)
Final Fantasy XI - amazing graphics, overcrowded areas like like Quifim and Kazham
City of Heroes - good graphics, way too much crowding (man, that city needs a lot of heroes...)
SWG 14 Day Trial - Played it for 2 minutes, got bored, uninstalled it.
I also play graphic/gameplay intensive games like Warcraft 3, Battlefield 1942, etc. etc. etc.

The reason I wrote that is to tell you that my experience with games vary, and I know which specs are the best for which type of problems your computer will encounter. Problems with graphics and problems with crowding may both result in lag, or even link-death (disconnecting), but they're working with completely different parts of your machine.

World of Warcraft will fall into the category of Great Graphics, and yes, tons of crowding. So lets prep your machine for that.

Loren:
Although World of Warcraft sometimes has had over 3,000 players online at one time in one realm, the lag is quite manageable. Recently, Blizzard conducted a stress test for World of Warcraft, and the results which testers experienced firsthand were almost flawless. Despite attempting to throw as many testers as were humanly possible at the servers, they handled it quite admirably, and the vast majority of testers experienced little or no lag regardless of their hardware setup. The real "crunchy" times when your hardware will be a problem are graphically intensive parts of the game, such as enjoying a flight on your factions air taxi such as a Gryphon, and entering large cities where there are hundreds of players present. An example would be Ironforge near the bank/auction house, or during a large raid.

Judgement:
Here are MY specs:

Processor: AMD64 3200+
RAM: 1024 MB DDR
Hard Drive: Dual HD, 100gig, 60gig (160gig total; mentioning it because of the Stand Alone patch)
Graphics Card: 256MB NVidia FX5700
OS (Operating System): Windows XP Home Edition
Monitor: Hopefully I'll get a decent flat screen by the time WoW comes out. Working on it. Right now I'm sitting with a 15" LCD monitor, which I absolutely hate.

This system runs for something like $1800 on eBay, which you'd have to either be rich or nuts to buy. You can build something like that for about $1000 or less, which is already pretty cheap for what I have. If you're able to build your own computer, and have a decent amount of pocket cash, it's definitely a valid investment (I plan to carry this computer without upgrades through college, and I'm entering my junior year of highschool now). Once Windows makes a 64-bit OS, my computer = teh pwnz0r (or whatever).

Now, onto the good part. YOUR machine.

Alright, so no one really cares what I'm using. Fine. Let's talk about you. This is my personal preference on what the general system specs should be for anyone who wants to play good (not Shadowbane) MMORPGs, with a bad mix of crowding and great graphics. Awesome on the eyes, killer on the box. You DO NOT need a beast machine to run whatever you want on your computer. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT go out and spend a bajillion dollars to play WoW. That money doesn't go to Blizzard =P

Monitor: If you're a casual gamer (under 2 hours of play/day) you can get whatever you want. For those of you who play more than 2 hours a day, what do you always end up doing? Resting your head on your desk and look up at the monitor, or tilt your chair and check out whats on the tube near-by. When you move your head so you're not facing the LCD directly, it gets darker. If you don't mind it, and you already have an LCD, fine. I hate it, i'm getting a regular flatscreen. A 19" Flat runs you about $300. 19" is a huge monitor. Save up, it's worth it.

Loren:
If you are going to get an LCD screen, make sure you get one with a good refresh rate. What is a good refresh rate? Well, about 16ms - or better. Anything greater than 16s and in many 3D games, you will get an effect called "ghosting". Since the refresh rate is not fast enough, things that move like, say, your character, will still appear to be in one location, when they are in fact in another location. If you plan on playing at least one FPS game this is even more important.

Judgement:
Sound System: My computer came with surround sound, because I kept the speakers off my old ones. Surround sound is awesome, and it's decently cheap. If you don't need surround sound, don't bother. It's purely there for immersion (I like to get INTO my games when I play them). A 2-3 speaker set and a subwoofer is more than fine as a sound system, and those run pretty cheap, and COME with most computers with little-to-no added cost.

Loren:
I recently went out to purchase some real speakers for my system. I got a 5.1 surround sound system with 2 front and 2 rear speakers, one center speaker, and a sub. This setup cost me 100 dollars - Canadian. The brand was Altec Lansing.

Judgement:
Mouse/Keyboard: Mouses (yes, they're not called mice) can run as expensive as $50. My new computer came with wireless mouse and keyboard, which is nice for when I want to play on my forehead. You guys don't need an amazing mouse or keyboard. I will say that you should get an optical/laser mouse, purely because ball/rolling mouses tend to collect dust on the interior, and cleaning it is an added hassle. A good optical mouse runs about $20. Unless you plan to play from the bathroom (and have a direct line of site from there to your computer) you don't need a wireless keyboard -- I have no preference.

Loren:
The best keyboard on the market right now is actually one of the least expensive. Look for the Logitech Elite keyboard. It costs only 39.99 - Canadian, and comes with plenty of extra buttons which are usually for opening the internet, email, etc easily. Don't be fooled, these buttons are just begging to be retrofitted into something far more useful: hotkeys for World of Warcraft! Luckily, the keyboard comes with a software CD so you can disable them all first and then set up your WoW hotkeys from in-game (so you don't launch the internet every time you cast a fireball).

Judgement:
Okay, let's get to the good stuff. Throw your toaster back into the kitchen, it's time to get a new box. The first thing to consider is you can minimize WoW -- which means you'll probably be running AIM in the background (or YIM, mIRC, ICQ, MSN whatever) to talk to your friends who are a) either playing on a different faction/server at the moment to let them know if anything (guild war, PvP tournament, raid, you're going to go into an instance, etc.) and b) not playing WoW. Multitasking is never a bad thing.

RAM: The minimum RAM to run WoW is currently 256MB RAM. I wouldn't settle for less than 512, simply because a 512 RAM stick does't cost twice as much as a 256. If your computer can hold a 512, I suggest you get one. If not, it might be time for a new motherboard...

Loren:
For gamers that demand absolutely no lag whatsoever (from your computer. There is still latency from the internet and the servers), you will want to upgrade all the way to 1 gig of ram. Comparing my computer that ran WoW with 512 and that same computer after I upgraded it to 1 gig, I can say safely that my results were twice as good (as you'd expect - twice the ram) and from that day on I said farewell to lag caused by my computer.

Judgement:
Processor: The minimum speed for a processor to run WoW is currently 800MHz or higher. You'd be safe with a 1.0, but honestly, anyone running under 1.8-2.0 needs to upgrade. There's plenty of things that you can do with a 2.0GHz computer that you simply can't with a 800MHz. You don't need a 64-bit processor, you don't need a Pentium 4 3.6GHz monster. It'll eat you. Don't do it. If you already have one, awesome. If you have the 800MHz, I'd consider the upgrade very seriously, especially if you want to play for more than an hour a day (without killing your machine).

Loren:
In a demonstration by Blizzard, an 800 mhz machine was able to run six copies of WoW simultaneously with good results. Again, lag in WoW does not follow the rules of how fast your computer is: it is all about graphically intensive areas such as gryphon rides and times when there are lots of players present on the screen at one time. During those times, you will want at least a 1 ghz computer. All of my 1.2 ghz computers handle wow like superman on laundry day.

Judgement:
Graphics Card: The minimum graphics card to play WoW is a GeForce 2. I'm pretty sure that's a 64MB Card. I have no objections to this card, as I've had one for years and played most MMORPGs on it. I've even played FFXI with very little lag in high-density areas. However, my graphics were on medium-low, which is good but... not great. If you can handle medium-low graphics (personally, I can't anymore, but my computer spoils me) then your 64MB GeForce 2 is fine. My suggestion is either a Radeon or anothe GeForce, but one with 128MB behind it. You'll be able to play with better graphics, and with very little lag. Plus, a 128MB card will take you a long way in terms of other games.

Loren:
I have done extensive research on my graphics card for WoW. For the money, the best card is actually the Radeon 9600. After that point as far as Radeon cards running WoW go, you're paying for gradually diminishing returns in performance.

Judgement:
Hard Drive: If you're a memory hog, you should probably consider a 60gig HD or more, depending on just how much memory you use. If not, a standard 40gig should be fine. Space makes no difference, except when things like the recent Stand Alone patch happen, and you need a certain amount of space available.

Loren:
WoW requires at least 3 gig of space free at this time. If you buy a hard drive, I would recommend an 80 gig as it isn't much more expensive than a 60 gig and thus is the best "bang for your buck".

Judgement:
Operating System: I use XP, I love it. There's currently nothing on what OS PCs require, other than it needs to be Windows. I have no real suggestion, and can only say that I prefer XP. It's the newest and it's accepted by everything, simple as that.

Loren:
I use Mac OSX but have also tested WoW on ME, and XP. If you use OSX you will be happy to know that WoW runs better on a 1.2 Ghz Mac than it does on a 1.2 Ghz windows machine with similar features in terms of performance. Unfortunately, there are some bugs that WoW has (it's beta) that are specific to Macs, but these are being ironed out as we speak (these are not performance related bugs but graphically related ones). Also, despite using ME for a number of years, I finally upgraded and it made a world of difference in stablity. Far, far less crashes.

Judgement:
I realize that money is a huge issue, and just how much is too much to spend can be a very big question. If you completely need to revamp your entire computer for WoW, I suggest getting a dell. They're cheap, and they come pretty well equipped for the money you spend. My old computer was a Dell, the only thing I upgraded was the RAM. I spent about $500 total (with upgrades) and it was a great machine. Don't be stingy, but don't over-spend. Remember, a computer can do MUCH MORE than just play games, if you give it the stuff it needs to do so.

Benchmarks:
Mac G4 1.2ghz /w 1 gig ram, at an average of 28 fps in a large city (Stormwind). - All settings full.
Mac G4 1.2ghz /w 1 gig ram, at an average of 18 fps in a large city (Stormwind) while crowded. -All settings full.
Mac G4 1.2ghz /w 1 gig ram, at an average of 40 fps in a large city (Stormwind). -Settings minimum but still 1024x768 resolution.
Mac G4 1.2ghz /w 1 gig ram, at an average of 24 fps in a large city (Stormwind) while crowded. -Settings minimum but still 1024x768 resolution.

PC 1.2ghz /w 512 ram, average of 27 fps in a large city (Stormwind). -All settings full.
PC 1.2ghz /w 512 ram, average of 17 fps in a large city (Stormwind) - crowded. -All settings full.
PC 1.2ghz /w 512 ram, average of 38 fps in a large city (Stormwind). -All settings min, but still 1024x768 resolution.
PC 1.2ghz /w 512 ram, average of 19 fps in a large city (Stormwind) - crowded. -All settings min, but still 1024x768.

Have fun, and see you in WoW!