laptop to play World of warcraft on?

[glancealot]

The key to WoW isn't the processor or gpu.

It's the memory.

Blizzard games always use shortcuts that don't really impact actual appearance to cut system requirements drastically.

Basically this is what will happen:

Have a bad GPU: You're going to have to work at a somewhat lower resolution and turn many effects off. I used to play at mid resolution, now I play at lowest, and I can barley notice the difference where it actually matters. I also turned most effects off too, and I can still dodge lava waves/get out of void zones just fine. However, if you pvp at higher brackets then it may be a problem because you won't be able to see pinpoint exactly what your opponents are doing in high level arena play, just at a glance.

However, the more memory you have the faster your game will run. That means less seizing in dalaran, less frame lag in 25 man raids, less seizing in wintergrasp/battlegrounds.

All in all for WoW the order is

Memory
GPU
CPU

thanks alot.

may i ask you what GPU you use? in fact, can you please tell me your entire system specs including operating system and etc? much much appreciated!

[sikyon]

thanks alot.

may i ask you what GPU you use? in fact, can you please tell me your entire system specs including operating system and etc? much much appreciated!

To be honest, my computer is a 4 year old desktop and getting replaced by a laptop shortly XD

I'm using a AMD3700, a 6800GS, and 1gig of ram

The 1 gig of ram kills me sometimes. I strongly encourage 2 gigs, especially if you want to try and run vista.

[glancealot]

I just wanted to say thank you to all the people that helped!

especially sikyon

the laptop that i finally decided to get is this one:



2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/1MB cache,4GB,Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD

(The difference between the GMA X4500 and the GMA X4500HD is that the GMA X4500HD is capable of "full 1080p high-definition video playback, including Blu-ray disc movies",[12] the GMA X4500 however does not have that capability.[13] The G43 and the G45 chipsets are manufactured with 65nm technology.)

not too shabby for ($670.88 CAD) $544.728 USD

i look forward to getting it!

(takes forever for dell to ship their products...)

[Sooca]

glance, go to the dell.ca website, find the studio 15 laptop, select the cheapest one, scroll over to the video card option select the Radeon 3450, this card is the best your going to get for your price range. 2Ghz processor and 2GB ram is more than enough for WoW.
It'll play wow much much better than Intel's 4500.
799 CAD with free shipping
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mob...50.9593.0.html
go here for more info on the 3450.

[glancealot]

glance, go to the dell.ca website, find the studio 15 laptop, select the cheapest one, scroll over to the video card option select the Radeon 3450, this card is the best your going to get for your price range. 2Ghz processor and 2GB ram is more than enough for WoW.
It'll play wow much much better than Intel's 4500.
799 CAD with free shipping
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mob...50.9593.0.html
go here for more info on the 3450.

but in canada we need to pay almost 12% tax, so $800 would mean around $100 tax, thus bumping the total price to 900, which is 230 more than what I paid ($670), and you only get 2G ram instead of 4G.

the good thing about the one that i bought:

http://www.imagedump.com/image.cgi?file=547022.jpg

is that, it comes with 4G ram, which is top of the line for laptops, also a descent CPU and one of the most advanced integrated graphic cards, which performs about the same level as some low end dedicated graphic cards. and most importantly it's only $670 including tax.

as sikyon mentioned here, WoW is the kind of 3-D game that relies on memory more than graphic cards.

as you can see here (quoting someone from the official World of Warcraft forums)

"For the heck of I tried WoW on my wifes Toshiba laptop. She has a dual core T3400 @ 2.16Ghz, 2GB of ram, the intergrated 4500 gpu being discussed. The game running at 1280x720 averaged around 20fps in Stormwind and the graphics looked fine so this might not too bad a choice if you wanna go that way.

here is a video showing wow's performance on an older generation of GMA(X3100) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhMOMQBvy0Y

the difference between 3100 and 4500 is that, quoting wikipedia:

Like the X3500, X4500 supports DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 features. Intel designed the GMA X4500 to be 200% faster than the GMA 3100 (G33 chipset) in 3DMark06 performance[20]

[glancealot]

apparently even my wife's one year old laptop can run WoW quite smoothly(although i have to turn explorer.exe off, disable audio, make all the video settings minimum)....

so what this guy said was right on money.

basically, all you need is a modern PC/laptop, but with lots of ram, to run WoW. my wife's laptop only has 1G, the one i ordered has 4G, i bet I can even run WoW on medium settings.

[glancealot]

bump for more fellow WoW players to see. I know that I needed a thread like this in the beginning.

[M Kapral]

I can play WoW on my Dell Mini 9 if I wanted to and it only cost me $200... lol

[glancealot]

I can play WoW on my Dell Mini 9 if I wanted to and it only cost me $200... lol

not really because WoW alone requires about 15 GB of hard drive space.

also, the intel GMA of mini 9 is probably not enough for WoW.

[glancealot]

I can play WoW on my Dell Mini 9 if I wanted to and it only cost me $200... lol

plus you probably need a bigger keyboard + normal mouse because you need to press a lot of buttons when you play WoW.(at least when you PvP)

heck, even with my newly bought 15.4 inch laptop i will need to use a desktop keyboard+mouse.(i pvp alot)