Will my 2nd PC play WoW or am I in for grief??

jctazzy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 22, 2008
Messages
150
I've got a pretty specific question about the hardware capabilities of my 2nd PC as it relates to WoW, especially the recent expansions...
The processor is well above minimum spec but isn't a dual core. Anyone have any positive experience running WoW on a system like this or am I setting myself up for a World of Grief?



Your feedback is much appreciated...

Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz (Northwood) processor
Radeon x1950PRO 256MB AGP
2 GB DDR 400/PC 3200 RAM
FSP Group SAGA+ AX-450PN 450W
Windows XP SP3
 
My spare machine plays WoW just fine. It's got an Athlon 64 3200+ single core, 2gb DDR400, and an nVidia 7950GT. I'm having trouble remembering how the x1950 Pro is, but if I recall it's similar in performance to the 7950GT.

That said, I play Wrath of the Lich King at 1280x1024 resolution, max graphics except for shadow quality, which I have set to the lowest possible setting.

WoW: WotLK should run completely fine on your machine, although perhaps not at max eye-candy and/or resolution. WoW is very forgiving, however, if you scale back some of the options.

You should be fine.
 
Your gonna have to turn your draw distance and shadows WAY down to get decent framerates and probably specular lighting also with that vid card. Also be prepared for that single P4 to be spiked most of the time, WoW loves CPU's cycles and back when I ran my 2.8 P4 Northwood back in *2003* SWG would regularly suck up 80%
 
Your gonna have to turn your draw distance and shadows WAY down to get decent framerates and probably specular lighting also with that vid card. Also be prepared for that single P4 to be spiked most of the time, WoW loves CPU's cycles and back when I ran my 2.8 P4 Northwood back in *2003* SWG would regularly suck up 80%



I can understand concerns on the CPU but for the GPU? The recommended card is an X1600 and I'm running an X1950. :confused:
 
I think WoW should run more than fine on that, I know someone who plays it with an x1600 and a P4 2.0ghz. You should be fine as long as you don't expect to crank the settings all the way up.
 
I think a lot of people aren't aware that the most recent expansion pack also introduced new shaders, textures, and spell/particle/shadow effects into the game. It's no Crysis, but WoW is a much more demanding game then it was when it came out four years ago.

That said, your computer should be fine, but don't expect anything great. You'll probably have to lower your graphics settings to medium or low and even then you may get some CPU spikes as mentioned earlier. Although the game is still friendly to a wide variety of PCs new and old, Blizzard has changed and added coding here and there to really take advantage of newer technology, and things will run much smoother on a multi-core system.

If you don't mind playing at lower settings, you're good to go. Otherwise I'd think about investing in a new computer.
 
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