I have been playing WoW since shortly after Vanilla came out. Tuesday I had to cancel my subscription, less than 8 hours after I had renewed my 6 month subscription.
When I logged in after the patch, I got error messages saying my computer was no longer supported. Looking at the System requirements, it appears that a M1 processor is the minimum. The M1 was released in Nov 2020. So in one day the minimum requirements change wiped out 8.5 years worth of mac computers. This is a massive jump that probably affects millions of Mac users.
My 2012 MacBook Pro is a tool that I use for my own self-employment. It still runs everything I need it to for my business. Up until Tuesday it ran WoW and all my Add-ons without an issue. Since there is no business need to justify an upgrade, I can’t justify spending $1K to upgrade it to support a hobby.
Minimum CPU on a Mac for Dragonflight is either an M1 or a 4 Core 2.9 GHz Skylake. Most Intel based Macs from late 2015 or later would be able to satisfy that. A 10 year old laptop, even a MacBook Pro, was living on borrowed time for playing WOW. Windows machines fare a little better, but a 10 year old Intel CPU won’t make the grade there either.
M1 is not the minimum CPU required. Intel Macs past a certain set of models also work. Unfortunately that 2012 laptop may have a GPU/IGP no longer supported as of the current patch. What OS are you using and what exact model is your system? Your system should be able to run Catalina which is a supported OS (10.15.x). Your performance won’t be great unless you’re running from an SSD (internal or external), but your system techincally is capable of running WoW still.
Well, I have 2 Ghz, quad core, intel i5; intel iris plus graphics; Ventura 13 MacOS; and my game will not engage. Whatever Blizzard is doing, it is resulting in denying MAC computers from playing.
I may be with poster soon if they don’t get this remedied.
That last part may be why you aren’t able to play. Minimum required VRAM is now 3 GB, and none of the Intel IGPs can access that much. They top out at 1.5 GB. I’m curious as to what precisely you mean by “game will not engage”. Exactly what happens when you try to launch the game?
You can use your laptop to play other games besides WoW. Spending $1,000 on a hobby is really not that much. I’ve spent more on my aquarium and art hobbies than I have on WoW, and I’ve been playing WoW on and off for 16 years.
I really don’t know why you expect a 10 year old laptop to still run a game getting content and graphical updates. Like what did you expect?
Yes, which is why I posted what I did. I know what the current requirements are. I’m glad they finally updated the support article to match the Dragonflight page on the Blizzard Shop.
It’s possible that there is something in Metal 3 that prevents use of the nVidia GPUs, but that isn’t something Blizzard has actively tried to do. As long as a system can run 10.15 it should still function, at the very least using the Metal-Legacy API option (for Intel users). That’s why I asked for the exact OS he was using.
Again, what exactly is appearing or happening when you try to launch the game? At least with some info there is the possibility of finding a workaround or at least identifying what the core issue is. In your case I have my suspicions, but need more information to be certain.
Thanks for your help on these issues. I am not sophisticated on specs, so can you advise if my 27 iMac:
3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 (Late 2015) can cut the mustard?
Because I am thinking of trying the "external SSD installation’ solution before I toss a couple grand (Cdn) at a new 24iMac.
Your iMac technically falls just below the minimum requirements, primarily with regard to the GPU’s VRAM (you have only 2 GB VRAM, non-upgradeable). It should still be able to run WoW at reduced settings as it can be updated as far as Monterey (macOS 12). If you get the external SSD to try with, make sure to format it as HFS, not APFS. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. Your iMac has thunderbolt 2 ports, which while slower than TB3, are still the better ports to use for SSDs as those ports use the PCIe bus rather than the PCH bus that the USB ports would use. TB NVMe enclosures are a bit more expensive though, so do be aware of that.
Can you tell me how you did the SSD fix please? I have the same issues, and would like to try the SSD drive. After buying it, how do you do the reformatting? then, you just install WoW onto the SSD, and that’s it? play on?
Use Disk Utility to reformat your SSD. After that, you can install Battle.net directly to the SSD and then WOW - it will default to installing on your internal hard drive so you’ll need to tell it to install to your SSD instead.
Or you can let it install to your internal drive & then move it over to the SSD after, you’ll just have to change the settings in Battle.net to tell it the new location.