New warning about shader model of 5 minimum thoughts ?

[Deleted]

So i am wondering what are you thoughts of they requiring minimum shader model 5.3 from the looks of it for BfA.
That least i can read from the new warnings.
Thoughts ?

[Raugnaut]

About time I upgrade my toaster I guess.

[rogoth]

that if you are playing on a potato from last century you will no longer be able to do those entertaining and engaging world quests you love so much.

[thesmall001]

WoW has always run at a very low spec but there comes a point where that limits the graphical potential of your game. There are newer libraries you can plug into your engine and that look identical or better whilst running faster and smoother but only on hardware that can support it. Everything gotta deprecate eventually.

[HuxNeva]

As someone who often 'runs on a potato from last century', let me tell you that up to Anthorus those 'potatoes' ran just fine. The Argus fight however, when in the last phase the swirls get abundant, everything grinds to a halt, and I have to get down to 800x600 to even get 15 fps. It is just a technically very poorly designed encounter, completely out of line with any other.
Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't 'shader model 5' just DirectX11? Even potatoes like mine have been running that for years.

[Nevcairiel]

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't 'shader model 5' just DirectX11? Even potatoes like mine have been running that for years.

Basically, yes. This includes graphics cards from around ~2010 or so (for AMD/NVIDIA, around 2012 for Intel integrated graphics), so already 6 to 8 year old hardware.

[Lollis]

Shader model 5.0 is around 9 years old now, you can get a formerly $300 9 year old shader model 5 compatible graphics card for $60 off of ebay.
Even today's $100 entry level cards support dx12.

If you cannot afford $150 for a semi okay graphics card, you shouldn't be spending money on wow.

[Wildspirit]

Is there really people runing wow on more than 9 years old computers nowadays? seriously?

Blizzard has done enough to keep its game running on a wide range of machines but there comes a time when it's just not worth it anymore to keep game spec adapted to older systems (9 years is such a long time in the IT cycle).

Keeping wow up to speed with current technology (libraries mostly) should be the priority.