World of Warcraft on iMac

Not ultra, but at full resolution: http://www.barefeats.com/imac10g.html

The benchmarks are run under OS X - gaming will be faster when run under Windows via Boot Camp.

Still, the card in the iMac is a Mobility Radeon HD 5850 - which should be a bit slower than the desktop 4870, IIRC.

09minimac wrote:

I wish I could have gotten the i7 and 8GB ram, but the stock quad is amazing.

Same here, but I was impatient. Still, the quad i5 is not exactly slow 🙂

I'm thinking of buying the 21.5 inch 2010 iMac and I want to know, just in your opinion, if it could handle WoW on ultra, for cataclysm, if I keep the shadows medium to low? Any idea what FPS would be? I too only play WoW and I can't really afford the 27 inch option - I could up the i3 cpu to the i5 on the 21.5 inch which i understand makes a big difference where WoW is concerned - again just looking for opinions unless someone owns the machine and has a conclusive answer - thanks

I play WoW and ran your test as best I could. In Stormwind and surrounding area, I ranged from 15-30 fps withe everything on ultra or maxed out. It was certainly playable but had the slightest hesititancy as the frame rate got lower. My latency was 43 ms. My res was 1920 x 1200. I tried the 2560 x 1440 and my frame rate stayed about 15 all the time. The graphics looked excellent especially the water. Only 4 of the 8 virtual cores were being used and each at about 20% capacity. Hope this helps answer your question. DarkMoonMan -- Pew-Pew

Well, since patch 4.0.3a, things have gone bad on my iMac really. According to Blizzard forums, 10.6.5 will fix all. It didn't. Tests done on ICC and things pre-4.0.3a are useless. Now that the shattering took place and the new graphics are out, you should test it now.

As I haven't been raiding yet. Farming my gear currently at 85, I've been running dungeons lately and there are hardly any problems there. Except if you get into a stage where the ground is cluttered with void zones (which happens in the Halls of Origination).

The problem is going around the new areas such as Twilight Highlands. Setting everything to Ultra except shadows to good and Sunshafts disabled (due to bug in OS X as per Blizzard), and resolution to native 2560x1440, the fps suffers and goes down to 20 fps. Sometimes less. The annoying part is that at certain areas, the fps will boom to 80 fps but once you turn the camera around, the picture will almost freeze as it is trying to view the whole scenery at the same fps. Until it drops it to 20 or less, then the camera will start stuttering around to the location you want.

I NEVER had such problem in any patch pre to 4.0.3a.

Speaking to PC users using Windows on identical spec as the iMac, they're leaving at a stable 60-80fps on all at ultra! Even a post at a forum I once found that someone installed Windows on the same iMac and World of Warcraft ran easily with 20 more fps. This surely proves that either the drives of the video card in OS X aren't up to date, or there is an algorithmic problem within OS X to handle graphics of video games as good as Windows.

I always hated admitting this for the past 20+ years I've been using Mac, but when it comes to video games, that's one area where the Mac have always been lagging behind Windows' PCs.

Please Apple fix this. Blizzard claims boldly that this an OS X issue.

P.S. Not only that you can't run Sunshafts on WoW on OS X, but you also can't use Multisampling, which is an anti-aliasing effect. Again, this is only 4.0.x WoW. Previously, everything works. Yes, Blizzard did change its engine, but according to them, OS X 10.6.5 should be capable. Then they posted that those issues aren't resolved yet and the resolution is with Apple.

I have a 27" Core i3 with the ATI 5670 and 4 GB RAM. At native resolution with medium/high settings, I get 30 FPS consistently.

Multisampling is disabled when water effects are set above "fair" because the new effects have some bad reaction when it's enabled. I've gotten the game to allow turn on multisampling with water effects, and it leaves artifacts everywhere. I haven't heard of any problems with sunshafts. I leave them on low and disabling them has no effect on performance.

Overall, it's not what I'd expect from a machine this powerful, but it's still very playable.

I've read the same explanations for Blizzard and others, and if true it kind of floors me that OS X would have such outdated drivers. Is Apple's implementation of OpenGL really that far behind? Why is that? Shouldn't a platform that used to be the answer for graphics work do better than that?

I am currently in the market for a new computer and want to finally get rid of my last Windows box. I look to use iLife heavily for iMovie and iPhoto (I do that now on a 15" macbook Pro) and I WoW (currently on old "gaming PC"). My Goal this weekend was to pickup a iMac i7 and do both activities on it, 60% WoW time (3 hours a night) and 40% iLife time (weekends).

Now that a background is out there I read this post and became concerned that Cataclysm will not run "awesome" on iMac. Have you been able to play since yesterdays updates? I know on the PC side I saw MAJOR performance improves and all of stability fixes (random WoW #131 134 errors stopped). Also, knowing that I have to not play on Ultra for this price point is a little dis-concerning, BUT did you follow the steps in this forum? http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/969747052 If not, what are all your settings at and did you cap the FPS at 60?

Thank you in advance.

Most of my settings follow the recommendations for "Mid 2010 Core i3/i5 iMac with ATI 5670 Graphics Card", but I do have liquid detail on good and and VSync/Triple Buffering are enabled. I get too much tearing with it disabled.

My FPS is capped at 60 because of VSync, but I usually sit at 30. Again, this is really not bad at all as long as I don't think about the expectation that a machine this nice should be able to do better. The only thing that truly bugs me is not being able to have multisampling enabled with liquid detail above "fair." Most of the time it's not that noticeable, but in areas with a lot of straight edges (like docks), it can look just horrendous.

If I had any other reason at all to have a Windows installation, I'd be curious to try playing on 7 with this hardware, because some players are reporting an improvement when doing this.

Since you make heavy use of iLife I'd probably opt for the iMac anyway. I think you'll still be able to get your enjoyment out of WoW on that machine even if the performance doesn't meet expectations.

Hey just wondering i got a imac 27" with I7 8gb ram and ati 5750 HD and when i am in wow and turned all on max i get 23 fps ????

what am i doing wrong

Nothing. For some strange reason my 27" i7 also struggles in OS X. I can play with everything on Ultra using Bootcamp and Windows 7, but it kneels when I try in OS X. WoW also recommends "Good" on most of the settings.

You get higher FPS if you turn off Sunshafts, set Shadows to "Good" and set water to "Fair". It's the new graphics engine, and that the drivers for the ATI card are really bad.

have you guys heard of any news that this will be addresses and fixed? I am getting an iMac and hoping I will still be able to play WOW with ultra settings. Thanks!

Have you gotten the iMac? I am still in the market (I WoW repair weekly on my Win7 box which is my primary WoW machine) as I am trying to hold out for maybe a iMac refresh in March. How is WoW now? 4.0.6 hit the streets today so I am also hoping that helps. My Macbook Pro Duo Core runs 4.0.6 with Ultra on, FPS in Org is 12... (ouch).

My iMac dreams are slowing turning into Mac Pro as I like the idea of a 5870 desktop graphics card and the ability to insert additional Disk's but the Pro does not get me a sweet display (well thats another $1000...) and the Pro is a little overkill for my needs... I love apple but am having all sorts of issue picking a PC Desktop replacement... (my friend just got a alienware i7 with SSD and crossfire dual 6870 cards for the price of a Mac Pro and he is LOVING how fast that is ... downside, no Mac OS)..