New Mac Mini + WOW thought..?

[PePeNinja]

Hey.

For any1 using mac for work+games what do you think about the new Mac mini with this new M1 Chip..??

I dont even know if WOW is gonna run on this yet but a combination of mac mini with the new M1 chip and the 48'' LG CX OLED sound insane.

[lockblock]

Until games have native binaries for that machine they will run like ass.

[Kagthul]

Expect this to be the straw that broke the camels back, as it were.

Blizzard will use this excuse to drop Mac support.

Edit: and even then, the GPU in this M1-enabled Mini is about "4x faster" than the old Mini - which had an Intel Iris iGPU, so it will still suck. Its slower than the RX 5500. By a decent bit.

[Wries]

I'm hopeful it will perform ok. Not planning to be an early adopter here but I'm VERY interested to see how they work.

I think the posters above me are needlessly pessimistic and that it just might run ok. The GPU presented is in the flops-category of a PS4 so WoW level of graphics should in theory work. Remember that they have demonstrated Tomb Raider running on this thing. Question is if Rosetta 2 is as good in general of translating game binaries as they claim or if it's going to feel rough until Blizzard brings out an AS-binary.

[Blackmist]

Yeah, you can say goodbye to WoW on Macs.

[chazus]

I haven't actually looked at the specs, but it seems like you already think it's great, so not sure why you made a thread about it.

[Kagthul]

I'm hopeful it will perform ok. Not planning to be an early adopter here but I'm VERY interested to see how they work.

I think the posters above me are needlessly pessimistic and that it just might run ok.

It will only run OK if Blizzard supports Apple Silicon with a native client (and even then, itll be merely "OK"; ARM isnt magic. WoW is still massively single-thread performance bound, and this Mac only has 4 "Big" cores that top out somewhere in the 3ghz range. A nearly 2000mhz deficit in performance is not going to lead to amazing results)

The GPU presented is in the flops-category of a PS4 so WoW level of graphics should in theory work. Remember that they have demonstrated Tomb Raider running on this thing.

There are already benches out there showing that it does not, in fact, come anywhere close to the PS4. Its slower than the RX 5500 by a fair margin.

And its worth noting that they did NOT show Shadow of the Tomb Raider running on the new Mini. They showed it running on "Apple Silicon" (they NEVER said it was running on the dev kit Mini they had on stage) that had a dGPU. (You can tell if you watch the keynote, at one point they very briefly hit the "About this Mac" and it clearly shows a dGPU).

Question is if Rosetta 2 is as good in general of translating game binaries as they claim or if it's going to feel rough until Blizzard brings out an AS-binary.

Blizzard simply wont. They have wanted to jettison Mac support for quite a while (which is why there is no MacOS client for Overwatch.

They can use this as an excuse to just drop support entirely. The Mac-evangelists among the devs left YEARS ago, and one of the only things keeping WoW on Mac was the fact that it was also running Intel and therefore didn't require a lot of extra work.

Now theyll have to make a completely new Binary on an entirely different architecture. They just wont bother.

[jellmoo]

I mean, the Mac Mini was never made with gaming in mind. Running a completely different architecture and requiring a translation layer to get the game to run at all isn't going to improve matters, even if the kit has better graphical capability.

Don't get an Apple silicon Mac for gaming, unless it's iOS games you're looking to play. If you're set on it, wait until they put out an iMac or a Pro with some sort of discrete graphics. I don't see Blizzard looking at making an ARM version of WoW anytime soon. Though it would be tons of fun trying to get it to run on a raspberry pi.

[dope_danny]

I could honestly see it as Blizzard finally having an excuse to drop Macs entirely. I've been playing WoW on a Mac since Wrath of the Lich King and it used to be not just a 1:1 perfect duplication of the PC experience but also had neat extras like ingame notifications of what iTunes was playing and switching tracks and so on.

But at this point i can barely run WoW not because my mac is old, i got a new one just last year with the best specs possible through video work connections on the cheap, but BfA feels like either Blizzard was starting to give up, maybe since so many more games -including steam in general- came to mac in the last ten years that WoW's gone from being one of few totally like the PC version but running native options instead of "run a buggy wine emulation" to a drop in the water so it can't be as profitable as it once was OR in the layoffs over the years they just don't have the same team members working on the mac client anymore.

Nowadays you go to Boralus and it takes a solid 3 minutes to load everything in, the world constantly stops you at invisible walls to load in, landing at a flightmaster has you running at the spot forever unless you /reload and so on and so on. From what people who know a lot more about it than me have said its either a gross memory leak that was added in a patch/hotfix in January or something about the way the new zones are designed does not gel at all with the way macs internal graphics settings run. But the interesting thing is it only happens in BfA areas. Not in any previous content and in WoW classic it does not happen at all. But you risk a black screen and hard drive failure if you ever try to do the black empire stuff in the vale and uldum so you just can't.

Go look at either us or eu forums for hundreds of threads about it, each with hundreds of comments. The games been getting increasingly unplayable on Mac all year and the prepatch has made it worse not better.

Can this run it? technically it could. Will it run it well? no. Because no Mac version is running well right now and i think a total sunsetting of the client is more likely than expanding it to an ARM version.

[Gaidax]

I believe it will be fine.

From various benchmarks indications, it seems M1 performs well and it supports Metal API which is what WoW is using in MacOS.

I expect it to be good enough to keep up even in emulation mode if it comes to that and Blizz likely will do native too, because architecture is ARM, after all and there are benefits for getting that up and running for ARM native or at least similar to that architecture going forward.


The biggest thing out of it all is that if Apple will manage to fully and successfully transition to ARM as their machines' CPU architecture, it will start invading traditional PC space too, so it's a given Blizzard will adapt client for that anyway in the end.

[ldev]

I believe it will be fine.

From various benchmarks indications, it seems M1 performs well and it supports Metal API which is what WoW is using in MacOS.

I expect it to be good enough to keep up even in emulation mode if it comes to that and Blizz likely will do native too, because architecture is ARM, after all and there are benefits for getting that up and running for ARM native or at least similar to that architecture going forward.


The biggest thing out of it all is that if Apple will manage to fully and successfully transition to ARM as their machines' CPU architecture, it will start invading traditional PC space too, so it's a given Blizzard will adapt client for that anyway in the end.

M1 performs well CPU wise. GPU is underwhelming af.

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I don't see Blizzard looking at making an ARM version of WoW anytime soon.

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i think a total sunsetting of the client is more likely than expanding it to an ARM version.

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Blizzard will use this excuse to drop Mac support.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...ha-Build-34972

> An ARM64_BUILD string was added

Hmmmmm.

[nocturnus]

Wow runs fine on the 2018 mac mini which we use as our media center in the main living room. I would be surprised if it didn't run decently on a brand new one, so go for it if the mac mini is your thing!

[jellmoo]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...ha-Build-34972

> An ARM64_BUILD string was added

Hmmmmm.

Your link is busted. Regardless, if they are working on an ARM version, colour me super surprised. I would have thought they would wait to see how things play out with the new Apple silicon, possibly looking at development around a gen 2 of the product. I'm not sure how long it will take for consumers to adopt the new architecture for the development cost to be really worth it.

[dacoolist]

We will have to wait and see the direction blizz will want to go now that m1 requires their new rebuild of apps.

Number one though: if you are buying the new m1 chip a few things to keep in mind:

SoC or system on a chip has the ram built in, meaning you want to spend extra at least for the 16GB because it shares that ram with the system and GPU all directly on the 5NM chip. The early benchmarks are insane so we will have to see if these are real, but if it really is as fast as they are showing - the new chip destroys the intel stuff in the normal macs big time - BUT that compatibility part is something to keep in mind: Everything is the wild west until app developers decide to make apps for this arm chip.

For business people they likely wont have issues, but running wow on it through rosetta 2 should be fine, but overall - You really want your apps native and it may be some time until blizz decides to release it for the new silicon chipset.

[jellmoo]

Number one though: if you are buying the new m1 chip a few things to keep in mind:

SoC or system on a chip has the ram built in, meaning you want to spend extra at least for the 16GB because it shares that ram with the system and GPU all directly on the 5NM chip. The early benchmarks are insane so we will have to see if these are real, but if it really is as fast as they are showing - the new chip destroys the intel stuff in the normal macs big time - BUT that compatibility part is something to keep in mind: Everything is the wild west until app developers decide to make apps for this arm chip.

To tie in with that, if you are using a Mac mini for anything RAM intensive (while not typical, it isn't outside the realm of possibility) you absolutely want to go with the Intel version. The M1 model maxes out at 16gb of the stuff, and that costs you a pretty ridiculous amount. I've known graphic designers who used Mac Minis for their work, and I think they would be frustrated by the RAM bottleneck on these models.

[Moozart]

Hey.

For any1 using mac for work+games what do you think about the new Mac mini with this new M1 Chip..??

I dont even know if WOW is gonna run on this yet but a combination of mac mini with the new M1 chip and the 48'' LG CX OLED sound insane.

You aren't serious are you? With the new GPU requirements put in place for SL you would be lucky to log in and move around the main city to check mail and post auctions. The M1 chip will NOT be that good, its a glorified tablet chip, running it on a 1080p monitor will be a chore much less a 4k OLED. lay off the apple koolaid.

[ldev]

Your link is busted. Regardless, if they are working on an ARM version, colour me super surprised. I would have thought they would wait to see how things play out with the new Apple silicon, possibly looking at development around a gen 2 of the product. I'm not sure how long it will take for consumers to adopt the new architecture for the development cost to be really worth it.

Whoops - https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...ha-Build-34972

Well of course armchair windows expert is surprised, color me not surprised. Microsoft and Google cannot do shit, they cannot introduce anything, just follow. Apple is the only company that leads the industry. WoW was running on PowerPC. Got migrated to Intel. Why the fuck wouldn't it be migrated to ARM, when literally everyone is doing that?

I am also not surprised you gamers have zero idea about apple - I mean that's where the hate is coming from - people hate what they don't understand. Incels hate women, gamers hate apple, nazis hate biden, delightful people.

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You aren't serious are you? With the new GPU requirements put in place for SL you would be lucky to log in and move around the main city to check mail and post auctions. The M1 chip will NOT be that good, its a glorified tablet chip, running it on a 1080p monitor will be a chore much less a 4k OLED. lay off the apple koolaid.

M1 a bit faster than gtx 1050ti, shadowlands minimum requirement is gtx 760.

Hmmmmmmm.

[Thulvaso]

You aren't serious are you? With the new GPU requirements put in place for SL you would be lucky to log in and move around the main city to check mail and post auctions. The M1 chip will NOT be that good, its a glorified tablet chip, running it on a 1080p monitor will be a chore much less a 4k OLED. lay off the apple koolaid.

I think you need to do some actual research on the M1 chip first...

[Moozart]

I think you need to do some actual research on the M1 chip first...

I've done plenty of research considering I've worked for them for years. It does not change my statement, on a 4k it will run like shit. It will be laggy and jerky as hell nearly everywhere, just like a 1050 does now. On a 1080p on low settings you can run it but dont expect to do anything meaningful. Would also love to see how warm it gets.

[jellmoo]

Whoops - https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...ha-Build-34972

Well of course armchair windows expert is surprised, color me not surprised. Microsoft and Google cannot do shit, they cannot introduce anything, just follow. Apple is the only company that leads the industry. WoW was running on PowerPC. Got migrated to Intel. Why the fuck wouldn't it be migrated to ARM, when literally everyone is doing that?

I am also not surprised you gamers have zero idea about apple - I mean that's where the hate is coming from - people hate what they don't understand. Incels hate women, gamers hate apple, nazis hate biden, delightful people.

Er, dude, you're projecting something on me that isn't there. I'm more or less a platform agnostic guy. My desktop dual boots Windows and Linux, my laptop is a 12 inch Macbook. I literally just this month switched from an iPhone to an Android (I switch back and forth each gen) and use an iPad all the time. I'm an Apple user (as well as a user of multiple other brands and platforms).

Apple is very, bery good at what they do. Conversely, there are things they simply don't do, which is fine.

In this case, my surprise isn't on Apple's part, it's on Blizzard. The Apple silicon is so new, there's no metric available as to what the market share is and how quickly adopters will flock to it. Are people going to be hesitant and wait for Apple to work through compatibility? Are people going to wait for a second gen? Are people more interested in a 16 inch Macbook Pro and an iMac? I'm just surprised that Blizzard is jumping the gun on this so damn quickly.

Please don't project stuff at me that isn't there. That is not cool.