iMac able to run World of Warcraft?

Question

Level 2

262 points

iMac able to run World of Warcraft?

My friend has a either 700 MHZ or 800 MHZ iMac G3 with 1 GBs of ram, and 90 GB Hard Drive, and he said he bought one of the last iMac G3s ever, and he said he upgraded the thing to the limit except for the Hard drive.

He is running Tiger on it right now without problems, and he can play a lot of games from 1999 - 2004, and he wonders if it will run World of Warcraft?

Can it?

Black MacBook 2.0GHZ I 512 MB RAM I 80 GB HD, Mac OS X (10.4.7), Also have an iMac G3 TrayLoader 333 MHZ

Posted on Feb 18, 2007 1:17 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Feb 18, 2007 1:59 PM in response to VivaLaCaz

nope:
Mac® OS X 10.3.9:

* 933 MHz or higher G4, or G5, or Intel processor
* 512 MB RAM or higher; DDR RAM recommended
* ATI or NVIDIA® video hardware with 32 MB VRAM or more
* 6.0 GB available HD space
* 4x CD-Rom drive
* 56k or better Internet connection

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/technology.html

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 18, 2007 2:40 PM in response to VivaLaCaz

Sorry, a G3 of any flavour is not a gaming machine and never was. If you want to run serious modern games the minimum is a G5 iMac, but if you're really serious, like the Windows mob you'll have to go Pro - G4 tower with the best video card available as a minimum, 2C2D Mac Pro Custom for the ultimate.

Reply

Answer 3

Feb 18, 2007 3:45 PM in response to VivaLaCaz

I have heard from many that even if you have the minimum specifications for World of Warcraft, you have to turn down all the graphical options, and it looks pretty bad. My brothers tried installing World of Warcraft on my iMac G3 400 Mhz, and the game ran so slow that their character wouldn't even move. And that was even with all the graphical options turned to their minimum. So, your friend's computer may run better than that, but most likely still sluggish enough that keystrokes may not register quickly, making the game frustrating.

I found the specs for the last iMac G3 ever released here. You will notice it is under the minimum requirements in many areas.

If you want the graphics to be amazing, you should go for a Mac Pro. But, I have an iMac G5 with 2 GB RAM, 2.0 GHz G5, and an ATI Radeon 9600 with 128 MB DDR and World of Warcraft runs nicely. I haven't played, but my brothers have, and they both have no complaints about how my iMac runs it. They are even able to multitask (browse the web, run Ventrillo/TeamSpeak) when they are playing on my iMac G5.

Reply

Answer 4

VivaLaCaz Author

Level 2

262 points

Feb 19, 2007 1:11 PM in response to VivaLaCaz

I got the processor speed wrong. He said he bought a different processor and added it in. It is a G4 1.2 GHZ processor in an iMac G3. He got it from his dad who works for Best Buy and knows a somebody in a processor company, and that the G4 1.2 GHZ processors aren't made anymore because they were too expensive, therefore they were on clearance.

He loaded up World of Warcraft, and he says it runs fairly alright. He says it's playable, but no joyride either.

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 19, 2007 3:24 PM in response to VivaLaCaz

No surprise there - processor upgrades do not achieve a great deal because they don't upgrade the bus speed and aren't supported by the rest of the hardware/firmware.

Frankly, given the information to hand I'd lose the machine.

Reply