Running WoW on a Netbook

Grimham

Grimham

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I searched the forum, but only got a few references to Wow, nothing concrete.

On the average Netbook (I say "average" because they are all quite similar with the base specs) how does WoW run. I only ask this because my friend is about to purchase a laptop for his daughter who is having spinal surgery and will be bedridden for the next several months. The doctor has already made it clear that she should be lifting/carrying/toting *nothing* over several pounds for the near future. I specifically ask about WoW because the only game she plays (although she does all the other Myspace junk and whatever else 12 year olds do). I know the SSD's are rather small so he was thinking about a portable 2.5 HDD as well. Anyone have opinions? Or does anyone know of any light reliable laptops in the sub $500 range that would work well for her? Thanks.
 
WoW is kinda deceptive. It used to be pretty light on the system (heck, it was released in 2004), but as time has gone by it has gotten much more bloated. It has become somewhat of a cpu hog. As such, I think that the Atom (found in most netbooks) would not do very well with it. I mean, I'm sure it would run, and would probably be playable for solo/old world stuff, but I think the poor little Atom would choke in cities or in groups.

You'd also want to have 2G of ram.



I think a compact "normal" laptop (with a "real" cpu) would be a much better idea. A 12.1 or 13.3 inch laptop doesn't weigh THAT much more than a netbook. Also, a full WoW + expansions install takes up about 13 gigs of space :eek: That's more than a lot of netbooks have as total storage lol
 
The users on the wind forum say it can play vanila WoW sort of but struggles in burning crusade and chokes in the latest expansion. With the Wind the CPU can be overclocked 24% and the GPU about 3x but that still doesn't really help. She needs that new Nvidia atom chipset with a 9400 that isn't out yet
 
I wonder how well that will do, but for that price I am not sure if its worth it.
 
It ran.. on its absolute lowest possible settings on my AAO. Got an average of 20fps in the least populated places. Didn't even bother trying a major city.
 
Netbooks are deigned for portability and basic computing, I understand that the technology is out there for some gaming, but overall the costs will not justify the means.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Y'all have confirmed what I was pretty much thinking - you can run WoW on the average Netbook, but you probably wouldn't want to. I'll steer my friend in a different direction.
 
OmegaAvenger said:
I wouldn't even try to game on a netbook. The keys are too damn small.
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Maybe you SHOULD try, because the keys are only 8% smaller (than normal keyboards) on the newer netbooks. Unless you have massive sausage fingers, you should have no problem.
 
Hmm, the atheros chip was one of the first things I removed from my AAO, Intel 5300 in its place.
 
I can honestly say as long as you're in classic wow, it's pretty playable. As you go thru the content, Burning Crusade gets worse performance wise, and Lich King gets you some pretty low frame rates. Depending on what you are doing tho, I did level my DK from 71-72 exclusively on my Lenovo S10. It wasn't pretty, fps dipping to 5-10fps at times, but it was playable :p Even managed to get some open world pvp killing on, made it feel that much more accomplished because i mashed the wrong buttons half the time :D
 
Like I said, a normal netbook will be able to play classic WoW pretty well. It's the power of the low resolution screen, you don't need as much to run it.

If you want something that can run the later expansions, but keep in the ultraportable range (for weight, which you said was important) the ASUS N10's are kind of your only options atm.

If you really want to stick with the 2-2.5lb range, your choices are Regular Netbook that'll run Classic WoW (Think ASUS EeePC 1000H) for about $350-400, or the ASUS N10's that'll handle the later expansions nicely, but will cost $680-800.

If you are willing to go into the realm of 5-7lbs, you have a lot of options in "traditional" small laptops. But if you're thinking ultraportable, those are your picks.

If you have a Copy of WinXP and don't mind doing a format/reinstall on Xp, you can go with the $680 version, but it really is the "Cost-Speed-Size Choose two" thing.
 
Mysticode said:
Maybe you SHOULD try, because the keys are only 8% smaller (than normal keyboards) on the newer netbooks. Unless you have massive sausage fingers, you should have no problem.
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The keys may only be that much smaller, which in alot of cases the keys are actually bigger than my own keyboard, but the problem is the keys are soo close together.
 
i'm waiting for a netbook based on the Nvidia ION platform and a dual core ATOM cpu. that should provide enough power for WoW. i think they should start coming out for Q3, not sure though.

i'd also like it to have a dvd player, 2gig of ram and a 120gig hdd, i guess i'll be waiting a while, haha.
 
It runs just fine on my Asus EEEPC 701 Surf model. And this is the gen1 series. The newer netbooks have better graphics and the atom processor. They won't have any trouble playing it trust me. Mine gets 20fps max and usually 10-15 when I am running around killing things. Definitely playable.
 
"Running WoW on a Netbook" ranks where on the top 10 'signs that you're hopelessly addicted' list? ;)

criccio said:
Hmm, the atheros chip was one of the first things I removed from my AAO, Intel 5300 in its place.
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Is it noticeably better? I haven't had any problem w/the WiFi on mine, goes farther than the cheapo USB Linksys antenna I had lying around, though I know that's probably not saying much, but it basically goes thru the 3 concrete walls from the dining room (router) to my bedroom where said antenna and my iPod touch don't get much of a signal, heh. My desktop's always been on wired ethernet so I've never had to mess much with the WiFi...
 
Bump to the top. Any "current gen" notebooks able to to do this better? I play wow with a n52te and a wireless mouse, so the only real change for me is screen size. Be nice to random the random daily and check the AH while out of town and do raids on my main system.
 
You probably shouldn't necro a dead thread... (8 months)

But to give you a quick idea, there are several better alternatives out now for a fair price.

Some of the newer atom based notebooks use ION chipsets (Geforce 9400M), which is the best as far as video card performance goes, but the processor is still weak. Games limited by mainly the video card would do best with ION, so wow should play good on this.

There is one netbook that uses a core 2 duo at 1.2ghz and uses the intel 4500HMD integrated video card. the video card is not as good as the ION, but still much, much better than the GMA900 on older netbooks, and the processor is by far the fastest, being a stripped down core 2 instead of a atom.

AMD has a offering that has a radeon x1250 of some type I recall, should be better than the standard netbook, the battery life isn't as good, but the AMD processor is a dual core if I recall.
 
If you can afford it, you're probably better off w/some of the CULV laptops out there rather than a netbook, some are as small as a netbook (11.6-14" usually) and have battery life that rivals them as well (8+ hours). ASUS' UL--VT line will even come w/a hybrid graphics setup (you can switch between the integrated Intel graphics to a GF 210, faster than ION...

I think the smallest one in that line w/the hyridgraphics setup is the UL30Vt tho (13"), I don't think the UL20 is available with it (and Acer's Timeline series w/o that perk is usually cheaper, and has HDMI all the way down to their 11.6" model, unlike the UL20).
 
Goran said:
It runs just fine on my Asus EEEPC 701 Surf model. And this is the gen1 series. The newer netbooks have better graphics and the atom processor. They won't have any trouble playing it trust me. Mine gets 20fps max and usually 10-15 when I am running around killing things. Definitely playable.
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Can you tell me what the performance is like in 5-man, 10-man and 25-mans?
 
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