World Of Warcraft For Mac

If you’re interested in World of Warcraft Classic for Mac, these are the official system requirements: OS: OS X 10.12; Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5; Graphics card: Metal capable GPU with 1 GB VRAM; Memory: 2 GB RAM; Hard drive space: 5 GB; Clearly, if your Mac struggled with World of Warcraft, WoW Classic may be what you’re looking for. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for World of Warcraft: Legion (Windows/Mac, 2016) at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

1. World Of Warcraft 2 For Mac
2. World Of Warcraft For Mac Os X
3. World Of Warcraft Requirements For Mac
4. Download Wow For Mac
5. World Of Warcraft Addons For Mac

• 2World of Warcraft on Intel Macs
  • 2.3TeamSpeak
• 3Keyboard Issues
• 5Image and Video
  • 5.6Using Two Screens
• 8'Dual-Boxing' on one Mac

This article is about tips and functionalities that might come in handy when playing World of Warcraft on a Mac. Read the World of Warcraft on Mac article for general information about World of Warcraft on Mac.

Performance Tips

This thread on the Blizzard Mac Technical Support forum offers good information on how to optimise WoW both through tweaking options and upgrading graphics cards. Furthermore, Accelerate Your Mac has a page dedicated to user reports on WoW performance on individual Macs.
General Tips

• The more RAM you have, the better; 1.5 to 2 GB is a good baseline. Note that buying RAM from Apple is notoriously expensive, 3rd party sellers have been known to sell at 1/10th Apple's price.
• Multithreaded OpenGL is enabled by default, increasing performance on dual-core (or multi-CPU) Intel Macs. An experimental version of this technology can be enabled by typing /console GLFaster 2 in-game — it's even faster but can sometimes lead to noticeable mouse/UI lag. (Type /console GLFaster 1 to return to the normal setting, or /console GLFaster 0 to turn it off entirely.)

World of Warcraft on Intel Macs

On January 10, 2006, Apple announced the first of the Intel-based macs (Macbook Pro and iMac) which can still run older PowerPC programs in emulation mode with Rosetta. Intel-ready programs are usually available as Universal Binaries, programs that can run on PPC and Intel.

As of Patch 1.9.3.5059, WoW for Mac OS X supports the Intel Macintosh. Performance is generally considered very good.

Intel-based Macs

Note: Please beware that several old revisions of iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook and Mac mini use integrated graphics chipset (Intel GMA950 or GMA X3100) instead of a dedicated GPU+VRAM, which has very poor graphics performance. Owners of such models will benefit from running World of Warcraft under Microsoft Windows using Apple's Boot Camp utility, but requires a purchase of Windows.

Apple has stopped making such models in late 2008 (Mac mini was the last model to use Intel graphics and was updated in March 2009) and all new Macs come with dedicated GPU.

Ventrilo

• Ventrilo Mac Status, Ventrilo Download Page

The official Mac port of Ventrilo is currently in beta and missing some features. Ventrilo's developers promise full cross-platform feature parity for their upcoming 3.0 release. Unfortunately this didn't quite go as far as including a way to 'normalize' incoming communications, with the result that Mac users either have to go through a two-to-three program long workaround (involving taking the incoming voice comms through at least one other application before going through GarageBand and then out through the speakers), or to suffer the whims of the Ventrilo Volume gods.

Ventrilo servers use the GSM codec by default; the Mac client only supports the Speex codec, so usually a server will need to be reconfigured to support Mac clients. A common misconception among Ventrilo users is that using the Speex codec results in poor audio quality; this is actually an effect of the Ventrilo client/server architecture when mixed-version clients are connected. All clients, Windows included, must be updated to the latest version of Ventrilo or Speex audio quality will be reduced.

Using 'Push To Talk' functionality in Ventrilo requires turning on 'Enable access for assistive devices' in the Universal Access pane of System Preferences.

TeamSpeak

• TeamSpeex for Mac, TeamSpeex Download

TeamSpeex is a third-party client for TeamSpeak 2 servers. It supports only the Speex client (however, this is default on TS servers, so it's less likely to be an issue). 'Push To Talk' functionality is available without enabling Universal Access.

• TeamSpeak 3 officially supports Mac, Download

TeamSpeak 3 is not compatible with Version 2, use TeamSpeex in those cases.

Mighty Mouse

Until late 2009, desktop Macs came with Apple's (USB or wireless) Mighty Mouse, a 4 button mouse with a bidirectional scroll ball. It, too, has some caveats when it comes to WoW:

• Right-clicking is disabled by default. It can be enabled in the Keyboard & Mouse pane of System Preferences.
• The mouse uses a touch sensor to determine when to send a right click signal, and falls back to sending a left click signal if it's unsure. You may need to lift your finger away from the left side of the mouse while right clicking.
• The mouse cannot send a 'both left+right buttons down' signal, which in WoW makes you run forward while allowing you to steer your character with the mouse. This 'Move and Steer' action can be set to a different mouse button in WoW's Key Bindings window, however. (It uses Button 3 — pressing on the scroll ball — by default.)

Magic Mouse

Since December 2009, Apple has shipped Macs with a new model mouse, the Magic Mouse, which only works with OS X 10.5.8 or later. This is a single-button mouse with multi-touch capabilities; it supports right-clicking in the same way as the Mighty Mouse (that is, by pressing the right half of the mouse while there is no touch on the left side), except this is enabled by default.

The Magic Mouse has no scroll wheel or ball: swipe from front to back, or vice-versa, over the mouse to get the same effect as when using a scroll wheel on traditional mice. WoW recognises this and treats it like any normal use of the scroll wheel or ball on another mouse.

By default, the Magic Mouse is set up for 'momentum-scrolling' — that is, if swiping a finger over the mouse and lifting it off as part of the swipe, it will continue scrolling for a little bit (this does not happen when deliberately dragging a finger over the mouse and stopping it on the mouse, rather than lifting the finger off the mouse during the swipe). In WoW, this has the unfortunate effect that almost any accidental swipe over the mouse usually leads to zooming in or out completely. If your character appears to have become invisible, scroll out by dragging a finger across the mouse from front to back. Momentum-scrolling can be turned off on the Mouse pane of the System Preferences, but would have to be turned on again if you want to be able to use this when using other programs than WoW.

Although the standard settings for the Magic Mouse are to support two-finger swipes as well, WoW does not recognise these. However, by installing an extra program such as MagicPrefs or Better Touch Tool, the mouse can be programmed to act as if it has more buttons, some of which WoW will recognise. Using these, it is possible to, for example, make a 'middle click' (pressing the mouse button with one finger in the centerline of the mouse) equivalent to holding down both the left and right mouse buttons, which causes your character to run.

Swimming While Dead

Patch 1.10.1 added key bindings for pitch control, so one no longer needs to use the mouse to swim (or fly) upwards or downwards. However, these controls only change the orientation of your character, not that of the camera—swimming below the surface of water while water-walking (or while dead and in spirit form) requires making both your character and the camera point downward. This can only be done using the mouse: hold the right mouse button (or equivalent) and drag the mouse cursor down.

Alternatively, use the 'Mac Options' and 'Bindings' to remap the W key to 'Move and Steer.' Then face the camera down, and press W to get underwater. This works better on a Mac laptop with no spare mouse handy.

Mouse Acceleration

World of Warcraft’s mouse sensitivity controls seems to be more useful on a Windows based machine.

It looks like, it could be disabled with SET useDesktopMouseSpeed '1', found here.

People who regularly use a Mac may not have any problems with the OS’s mouse acceleration in-game, however people who switch between Mac and PC often will find two totally different mousing experiences.

There are a few tools available to fix acceleration in OS X since the operating system has no system options to do this on its own.

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USB Overdrive is a shareware (free) option. It offers a message upon boot, but has no restrictions, and the message can be removed with purchase.

Keyboard Issues

Help! My Function Keys Don't Work Like Normal Function Keys!

On laptop Macs, the function keys usually perform double duty. F1 and F2 control screen brightness, F3 and F4 control volume, etc. Pressing the Fn key will use them as function keys, but you can change them to work as function keys by default in System Preferences. Open System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Check 'Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys'.

On desktop Macs, screen brightness is controlled by F14 and F15. Their PC equivalents (Scroll Lock and Pause/Break) don't usually do anything.

Switching to Other Apps

On Windows, one can use Alt-Tab and related shortcuts to switch to other applications without quitting WoW. On the Mac, Command-Tab generally serves this purpose, but when an app 'captures' the display to go fullscreen on the Mac, it usurps such system keyboard shortcuts even if it doesn't do anything with them.

WoW (and older Blizzard games, since they've been nice and consistent about it) can be switched between fullscreen and windowed modes with Cmd-M. After switching to windowed, you can Cmd-Tab to another app, Cmd-H to hide WoW, etc.

You can also use 3rd-party software to be able to change apps without switching to windowed mode:

An alternative solution would be as follows:

• From within the game, enter the Options menu (ESC)
• Choose Video
• Check to enable Windowed Mode
• Check to enable Maximized

This will provide the feel of fullscreen while allowing the hotkeys to work for Spaces in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The only caveat with this configuration is that upon returning to the game screen, you must click within the game window to fully resume focus and you still can't use Cmd-Tab.

Exposé Keys

There is an — apparently — well-known issue of the WoW client overwriting the default Exposé configuration on exit; these keys get used within the client for various functions but not restored after exit.

A currently untested patch from a third party purportedly works around the issue:

In a thread on the Blizzard Mac Tech Support Forum an alternative work-around has been suggested: removing the Key Bindings for keys F9 to F12, and simply using Shift-B to open all of your bags. This has apparently met with a reasonable amount of success.

Another workaround: some have noticed that the loss of Exposé settings tends to occur when quitting the game while in full-screen mode; making a habit of switching to windowed mode before quitting (Cmd-M) seems to reduce the frequency of the problem.

Sound Issues

Q: HELP! I don't get any sound during the opening cinematic or the Wrathgate cut-scene!

A: Fear not, young Leetskilzninjaxx. This is caused by old version of DivX/Xvid codec installed on your system. You will need to find your Library/Quicktime folder (hint: there are two of them, one in your Macintosh HD root directory and one in your Users/Usernamehere directory — you want the first one iirc), and move or delete your DivX and/or Xvid codecs.^[1]

Image and Video

Screenshots

To take a screenshot in WoW, press the F13 key (or, since some Macs don't have an F13 key, go into WoW's Key Bindings menu and change it to something convenient. This saves the latest frame drawn to a Screenshots folder inside your World of Warcraft folder. (You can also use the Mac's builtin screenshot key shortcuts CMD-Shift-4, but these aren't synced with the game's graphics engine, so they may capture an incomplete or 'torn' image.)

Screenshots are saved in the JPEG format by default. This is a lossy compression format—it produces small files, but with reduced image quality. The format of screenshots can be changed via the screenshotFormat config variables. For example, to switch to a high-quality PNG format, type the following into the chat frame once logged into WoW:

For more details, see the [#Console Variables] section below. (The screenshotFormat control has been available on the Mac since Patch 1.11; it and screenshotQuality were made cross-platform in Patch 2.1.0.)

Updated for 4.3.3 :

• .tga is not a supported format for screenshots on Macs. This is due to the removal of the QuickTime APIs that was used for this.
• The screenshotQuality cvar is not supported on Mac.

Source : http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4366252520#5

Video Capture and Editing

Patch 2.2.0 brought a built-in video capture utility to WoW on the Mac.

Since this is a hugely complicated issue, it now has its own Wowpedia page at Mac Video Recording and Editing.

Examples of videos captured and edited on Macs:

Available Codecs

MJPEG
H.264

MPEG-4

Sneaky Faster Video Compression Process While You Make A Sandwich

See Mac Video Recording and Editing.

Changing Recording Location

See Mac Video Recording and Editing.

Using Two Screens

It is possible to play WoW on a Mac with two screens (also known as 'dual-head' configuration), playing the game on one and leaving the other usable for different programs (such as looking up things on Wowpedia).

This setup is possible on all Mac Pros, MacBooks and MacBook Pros and Intel-based iMacs, as well as certain models of Mac mini and many older models of Mac. It is necessary to hook up a second screen to the video-out port — on current models of Mac, this will most often be a mini DisplayPort or in some cases a mini-DVI port; older models of Mac laptop may have a full-size DVI or a mini-VGA port. In all cases except the full-size DVI port, you will need to buy an adapter to go between the port and the cable supplied with the monitor; these are available from Apple as well as some other manufacturers.

When the cable is plugged in, the screen should automatically be recognised by the computer. On laptops, the external screen can be switched between mirroring mode (in which the screen shows the exact same things as the built-in one) or as an actual second screen; on current desktop Macs, it is normally set to be a true second screen. The menu bar and Dock will be on the main screen, while the second screen has just a desktop background; to change which screen the menu bar and Dock appear on, go to System Preferences → Displays and on the Arrangement tab, drag the menu bar to the screen you want it on. You can also choose whether or not the screens mirror each other on this tab.

Issues

There is, however, a problem with playing WoW on a Mac with two screens: the game does not support this properly.

• When playing in full-screen mode, WoW always takes up the internal screen and switches the external one to black — which means that having the second screen is completely pointless;
• When playing in windowed mode on the main screen, the menu bar and Dock remain accessible, but the WoW window resizes to fit between them, making for a smaller viewing area — the main use for the secondary screen in this case would be to open other programs on like a web browser (this is probably most useful if your secondary screen is smaller than the main one);
• With WoW in windowed mode on the secondary screen, it is possible to drag the window to near-fullscreen size, but because the window's title bar automatically stays on the screen, 'unusable' strips of screen remain to the sides of the WoW window (this is probably best if both internal and external screens are the same size);
• When playing in windowed mode but selecting the option to play maximized in the interface options (press Esc → Video, and then check both the 'Windowed Mode' and 'Maximized' boxes), WoW again always uses the internal screen but leaves the external screen usable; however, because the menu bar and Dock are on the main screen, this is not much better than having the external screen turned to black.

A solution might seem to be to put the menu bar on the external screen and then setting WoW to maximized, windowed mode, so as to leave the menu bar and Dock accessible. Unfortunately, when WoW switches to maximized mode, it hides both Dock and menu bar, making the net result almost exactly the same as when the menu bar is displayed on the internal screen. As such, the best way to play WoW on a secondary screen is probably to use the windowed mode and put up with not being able to play completely fullscreen.

For a more complete solution, see the following section for a successful workaround.

Another issue is that in windows mode, the framerate drops to about half the rate it has in fullscreen mode (on the current author's mid-2008 iMac with an ATI Radeon HD2600 and 256 MB video memory). As mentioned in the Performance Tips, however, turning off the fullscreen glow appears to improve the framerate somewhat.

Using two screens with the WoW window maximised on the secondary monitor (Work around)

Using AppleScript it is possible to run WoW full screen on a 2nd monitor, leaving the Menubar and Dock on the primary monitor.

This script depends on:

• 'Enable Assistive Devices' being enabled in the Universal Access pane of System Preferences
• WoW pre configured to both 'Windowed' and 'Maximized' mode (correctly set for the monito you wish to use).

The position in the script is measured from the top left corner of the primary screen (the location of Apple menu). A positive value will move the window the right, a negative to the left.

Here's and example script (for dual monitors of Resolution 1680x1050, primary monitor on the right, WoW on the left):

For ease of use, a clickable application (launcher) can be created using /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor (or Automator), and the icon can be changed to something more suitable.

World Of Warcraft 2 For Mac

Known issues of this workaround:

• The menubar and dock both disappear whilst WoW is the active application. Activating any other application (or simply clicking anywhere on the desktop) will reveal them again.
• If you wish to launch WoW from the dock, this will result in an extra icon required for the script and the actual WoW application.
• If WoW is 'unmaximized' (Command-M), when maximized again it will return to the internal monitor, simply running the script again will fix this. WoW does not need to be relaunched.

Note: This has been untested on anything prior to 10.6

Mac-specific Console Variables

These can be set by typing /console variablename value while in WoW.

• GLFaster - Enables Multithreaded OpenGL on dual/multi-core Intel Macs.
  • 0 - Off
  • 1 - Default
  • 2 - Experimental faster option, may lead to UI/mouse lag
• maxfps - Caps framerate (useful to minimize CPU usage / temperature or extend notebook battery life). New in Patch 2.1.0
  • <number> - framerate not to exceed.
• maxfpsbk - Caps framerate while WoW is not the frontmost app. You must have maxfps also set in order for this value to work. New in Patch 2.1.0
  • <number> - framerate not to exceed.

NOTE: 'maxfpsbk' can be used in a bit of a convoluted process to maximize the speed at which WoW compresses player-recorded video. Details above or in WoW Mac Tech Support Forum.

• screenshotFormat - Controls which graphics file format is used for screenshots taken in-game.
  • jpg - JPEG, a widely-supported format using lossy compression. (Default)
  • png - PNG, a format using lossless compression, fairly well-supported on all platforms.
  • tga - Targa, a lossless format, but not supported by many cross-platform viewers.
• screenshotQuality - Controls compression level and image quality of screenshots taken in-game.
  • <number, 1-10> - Lower number: smaller file, lower quality image. Higher number: larger file, higher quality image.

Patch Mirrors

'Dual-Boxing' on one Mac

Dual boxing (being logged in on multiple characters at once) is possible on the Mac—in fact, with the abundance of multi-CPU/multi-core Macs, it works quite well—but requires some setup. You'll need to make a separate copy of the World of Warcraft application, as attempting to re-launch the same application will just refocus the already running copy. Depending on your goals, there are three common ways to go about doing this:

1. Using WoW-Multiboxer application:
   • The WoW-Multiboxer application enables you to run two or more WoW applications simultaneously.
   • The only requirement for using this application is to have your World of Warcraft installed in the default directory (Applications folder)
2. Copying the entire WoW folder:
   • Open the Applications folder (Command-Shift-A in the Finder).
   • Select your World of Warcraft folder.
   • Duplicate the folder by typing Command-D.
3. Copying just the WoW app:
   • Open your World of Warcraft folder.
   • Select the World of Warcraft.app Application Bundle.
   • Duplicate the Application by typing Command-D.
4. A hybrid approach:
   • Make a new folder outside your main WoW folder, and copy just the World of Warcraft app to it.
   • Make a symbolic link (not an alias as created by the Finder, but a Unix symlink; see A brief tutorial on symbolic links, Symbolic link or Hybrid Approach 'How-To' section below for info) in the new folder, named Data, pointing at the Data folder in your main WoW folder.
   • If you want both copies to share the same addons, make another symlink for the Interface folder.

Whichever approach you choose, you'll need to repeat some of you work when a WoW patch comes out. If you copied the entire folder, you can just run through the normal download/patch process for each (though you can skip the download process by copying the 'WoW-x.y.z.n-to-x.y.z.n-enUS-downloader' and 'WoW-x.y.z.n-to-x.y.z.n-enUS-patch' from one WoW folder to the other once the first copy is patched). If you copied just the WoW app, you'll need to re-copy it after patching your main WoW install.

And of course, any approach to multiboxing requires multiple separate WoW accounts (one for each simultaneously logged in character).

Pros and Cons

Hybrid Approach 'How-To'

Here is a shell script that greatly simplifies the Hybrid Approach for users who are not comfortable with creating symbolic links. This script allows you to run two clients, keep the cache separate between the two, and only uses about 17MB of additional hard disk space:

Optional: If you would like to share addons between the two installations, add the following line to the bottom of the shell script:

1. Copy/paste the script into a new TextEdit document, and save the file in your home directory as 'wowcopy.sh', i.e. the path to the script document should be something like:
2. Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app), type the following: and hit enter. This gives the operating system permission to execute the script, and then actually executes it.
3. Check your World of Warcraft folder for a new folder called WoWCopy. Inside should be three files: a Data folder, a realmlist.wtf text file, and a World of Warcraft.app. This application bundle can be launched completely independently from your main installation.

WARNING: Whenever a patch for WoW is released, patch your main installation and then copy the patched 'World of Warcraft.app' into your WoWCopy folder. Do NOT attempt to patch both installations as you may corrupt your Data folder and be forced to reinstall the game.

Command-line switches

You can add command-line switches by using the open command from Terminal:

Notes:

• You can either use the application name with the -a switch, or use the application's path.
• Works with both the launcher and the game executable.
• The --args switch has to come last.

Alternatively, you can run the binary executable directly from Terminal:

References

1. ^World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Wrathgate Cinematic - No Sound. Blizzard Entertainment. Retrieved on 2009-09-10.

See also

• Mac Video Recording and Editing - Wowpedia page with a focus on full-process Mac/WoW audio-visual production, recording, compression, re-compression (!), editing and post-production for dummies and the technologically challenged. Programs discussed: WoW, Quicktime Pro and Final Cut Express. iMovie, VLC Player and MPEG-Streamclip also reviewed.

External links

World of Warcraft shouldn’t need an introduction. Mostly known as WoW by fans, World of Warcraft isn’t only the most famous MMORPG ever created, it’s one of the most popular games in history.

WoW may have lost subscribers over the years, heck, some even claim its glory days are behind us, but make no mistake, WoW is still one of the best MMORPG Mac games available today.

In this review:

First released in 2004, WoW has been around forever. But the steady stream of immense patches and ambitious Expansions have kept it young and at the forefront of the MMO genre.

But how good is WoW on Mac? Like every other game from its developer, Blizzard, WoW has a terrific Mac version. So much so, it even runs great on older Macs. Read on for all the details.

What’s new with World of Warcraft on Mac? World of Warcraft has seen a lot of positive changes lately.

Battle for Azeroth, the game’s latest Expansion, continues to improve and every prior Expansion became free a few months ago. But all the headlines are focused on one thing and one thing only, the release of World of Warcraft Classic.

You can read more about it below.

First things first, is the game any good?

World of Warcraft tells the story of the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. Orcs vs. humans, undead vs. night elves and so on. As a new player, you’ll get to chose a side (Alliance for life!), select a race and begin your journey from level 1 to 120.

That journey will be full of quests, battlegrounds, dungeons, and raids. And it all takes place in a huge world that still looks great, a feat for a game that runs on an engine created more than a decade ago. That said, if you’re looking for the best looking MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online may be a better choice.

Competition has never been as fierce as today, SW: TOR and Final Fantasy 14 for Mac come to mind, but World of Warcraft remains the most solid and high-quality MMO in the market, with responsive gameplay, addicting leveling, and challenging Raids and PvP.

In spite of being an excellent MMO overall, Battle for Azeroth, the game’s current Expansion, was heavily criticized at launch:

To be fair, Blizzard has been working tirelessly to solve all of the issues gamers have complained about, with several patches and updates released so far.

As IGN puts it:

Battle for Azeroth isn’t the most ambitious expansion ever, but many of its memorable quests take place in beautiful new zones, and the Azerite armor and amulet hold a lot of promise.

Plus, all of the excellent systems introduced by Legion and every expansion before it are still there, keeping WoW fun and engaging.

What’s new with World of Warcraft on Mac?

Last summer, Blizzard introduced the biggest change WoW’s pricing-model has ever seen. Instead of having to buy a “battle chest” including the original World of Warcraft and its previous expansions, monthly subscribers now have access to all of that content for free.

The only Expansion you will need to buy is Battle for Azeroth, the current expansion, and that won’t be necessary until you hit Legion’s Level 110 cap.

This is a welcome change that newcomers will appreciate. Plus, paying $14.99 a month should be enough to have access to most of the game.

Battle for Azeroth, the latest Expansion

Battle for Azeroth, the game’s current Expansion, introduced new zones to explore, new World Bosses (taking a page from Guild Wars 2‘s book), new raids and dungeons, new races and a new level cap of 120. But much more noteworthy is the inclusion of a new game mode called Warfront.

In Warfront, you can take part in huge 20-player cooperative PvE battles that mimic real-time strategy games such as the old-school classic Warcraft 3.

World of Warcraft Classic, anyone?

World of Warcraft Classic, the faithful recreation of the original WoW, is currently getting all of the attention. WoW Classic seemed so simple at first: recreate the game as it was before the release The Burning Crusade. But for some reason, WoW Classic is a huge success, at least at launch. So much so that players are forced to wait in line to complete quests!

Into MMORPGs? These are our favorites:

World of Warcraft Mac requirements

These are the official World of Warcraft Mac system requirements (updated with the release of Battle for Azeroth):

• OS: OS X 10.12
• Processor: Intel Core i5-760
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M, ATI Radeon R9 M290 or Intel HD 530 or better
• A Metal capable GPU
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Hard drive space: 70 GB

Notice the requirements are higher than the previous vanilla World of Warcraft. If your Mac already struggled with WoW, you may want to upgrade to a new machine before jumping into Battle for Azeroth…

That said, the game does support older integrated graphics cards such as the Intel HD 530 which means Macs from 2013 onward should be able to handle it.

World of Warcraft Classic Mac requirements

If you’re interested in World of Warcraft Classic for Mac, these are the official system requirements:

• OS: OS X 10.12
• Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5
• Graphics card: Metal capable GPU with 1 GB VRAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Hard drive space: 5 GB

Clearly, if your Mac struggled with World of Warcraft, WoW Classic may be what you’re looking for.

Into MMOs? These are our favorites:

The Test: Can you play World of Warcraft on Mac?

World of Warcraft may be over 10 years old but the game has seen its fair share of graphical upgrades over the years. Plus, MMOs have always been surprisingly demanding, not because of the levels of detail required but because of the sheer size of their worlds.

To evaluate how demanding WoW on Mac really is, we tested it on the following machines:

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
• iMac (5K, 27-inch, Late 2014): 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X (2GB)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2013): 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)

Using our in-house FPS counter, we tested all machines using the following settings:

• 1280×800 or equivalent resolution
• Graphics Quality: Level 5
• V-Sync: Disabled

All benchmarks consisted of 5 minutes of real-time gameplay in an open area, running around and killing everything in sight. We prefer to test games outdoors because they tend to be more demanding and taxing than indoors.

World Of Warcraft For Mac Os X

For the record, Medium settings and 1280×800 resolution may seem low but it’s the best compromise when testing both high-end and low-end models. box.

PS: These are our favorite accessories for playing/testing games on Mac!

The Results: WoW can run on (almost) anything!

This graph shows you how our Macs performed:

As you can see, the game runs great on all three Macs, including our 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro.

PS: 35.5 FPS on a 6-year old machine with integrated graphics is respectable, especially for an MMO.

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

• Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
• 20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
• 30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
• 45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
• 60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

We usually aim for 30 FPS, because 30 FPS is enough to guarantee a smooth and fluid experience for most.

An improved Mac experience thanks to Metal

World of Warcraft has always offered good performance on Mac but the team over at Blizzard made a significant improvement when they moved the Mac version of the game to Metal with the release of the Legion expansion in 2016.

At the time, we compared both World of Warcraft running with OpenGL and World of Warcraft running with Metal:

World of Warcraft was the first game ever to support Apple’s then-new Metal graphics API and the results were incredible. The Metal version of the game was 61% faster than the older OpenGL version!

Can my Mac run World of Warcraft?

World of Warcraft is a forgiving game that should run on most modern Macs. If you have a high-end Mac, be it a 15-inch MacBook Pro, an iMac or any machine with dedicated graphics, you should be able to run the game on high settings and at least 1080p resolution.

Our iMac runs the game at an impressive 156.9 FPS (frames per second), leaving a lot of room to significantly increase the game’s settings while maintaining 60+ FPS.

Can you play World of Warcraft on a MacBook Pro?

If you happen to have a more “average” MacBook, say a 13-inch MacBook Pro with integrated graphics, you should still be able to easily run this game.

Our 2016 13-inch MBP can run the game at a comfortable 78.4 FPS. As long as your MBP is from 2015 or newer, rest assured it will run World of Warcraft without breaking a sweat.

But what if you have an older MacBook?

This section is usually where it gets tricky as older Macs offer a very limited gaming performance. In this case, however, even our older 2013 13-inch MBP runs World of Warcraft just fine at 35.5 FPS.

If you’re worried your Mac is too old to play this game, don’t worry. World of Warcraft on Mac is a well-optimized game that makes great use of MacOS’ latest technologies (Metal 2.0) and should run on virtually any Mac from 2012 onward.

Download World of Warcraft for Mac

World of Warcraft has always been one of the most expensive MMOs in the market. Yet that’s never been a problem, as WoW has always delivered a premium experience well-worth the $15 a month.

What was annoying was the need to also purchase the base game plus each Expansion as they came out. Luckily, that changed when World of Warcraft (and all previous Expansions) became free to all subscribers.

That said, you still have a couple of options when it comes to purchasing the game. You can either purchase the Battle for Azeroth Expansion including the base game plus all previous expansions or the Complete Collection, include everything Battle for Azeroth does, plus a Level 110 Character boost.

World Of Warcraft Requirements For Mac

World of Warcraft Mac Review

There's a reason no MMOs has managed to take its crown. 10 years later, World of Warcraft remains the best MMO on the market. And since the game was moved from OpenGL to Metal, performance has gone through the roof, allowing most modern Macs to run it without breaking a sweat.

Download Wow For Mac

World Of Warcraft Addons For Mac

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