I finally got WoW running in native M1 mode on my new Mini. I set the quality settings to MAX, using the default 1680x1050 resolution, and went into a busy city with 100 people in sight, and the frame rate is generally at 59 FPS, with brief drops to 45 FPS for no apparent reason.
Then I upped the resolution to 3360x2100 (I think that is the max) which is a little under 4K resolution (my 20 year old monitor is not 4K, I think it’s just 1080P) and then the FPS dropped to 22 FPS, but when I changed the quality settings to MEDIUM the rate rose again to 37 FPS.
This is not bad at all. This is very good. The last numbers I provided show that this performance is not as good as a decent, discrete GPU, but wow, this is still really good. And it will probably improve as Blizzard improves its support over time.
I’ve never been fussy about getting high FPS rates for WoW, but I do care about resolution. I think this is enough to justify me going out to buy a 4K monitor for my Mini now. I’ll probably set the game’s quality to something that will get me between 40 and 50 FPS.
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Just like 8.3. Was months behind the rest.
I have half a terrabyte in my iPhone.
This is very welcome news. I’ve played Blizzard games on a Mac since Orcs and Humans was released. Thank you.
Zenimax’s stand is also what I had just read. To me it simply said we’re lazy and so goodbye Mac players. Now I don’t play on a Mac much but Zenimax’s stand is basically writing off a new platform that isn’t going to pop up one day and disappear the next. But there’s lots about them that is pure laziness.
Maybe their mac base isn’t big enough to bother with. You can still emulate. Idk. 
As promised from yesterday here is a little informal testing against my iMac Pro. Apologies for the long post but trying to include as much detail as possible.
Common:
- Wifi (5GHz AC, 80MHz channel width) – I put the iMac on wifi to remove a potential variable
- Verizon FiOS 1Gb/s
- On AC Power (obviously for iMac Pro)
- MacOS 11.0.1 (up-to-date as of November 19,2020)
Notes:
- GeekBench for the Macbook Air is running native
- All external drives disconnected
- All external monitors disconnected (except where noted, see below)
- External Monitor for Laptop Testing is a Dell U2719DC - 2560x1440 @ 60Hz (I don’t have a gaming Monitor)
- Running Battle.net on the Macbook Air required Rosetta2 (even though WoW is native)
For WoW Testing:
- Resolution Scale set to 100% (unless otherwise noted)
- Resolution manually set for both Display and Resolution Slider
- V-Sync disabled
- Testing done flying around Orgrimmar on US-Dalaran
iMac Pro (2017)
- 32GB RAM
- 1TB Storage
- AMD Radeon Vega Pro 56 8GB
GeekBench 5 –
CPU (Single Core): 1099
CPU (Multi-Core): 8297
Compute (Metal): 53632
Computer (OpenCL): 52709
WoW (No Addons) –
Windowed - 5106x2138 - Level 7 - 60FPS steady
Windowed - 5106x2138 - Level 10 - 30-45FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 5120x2880 - Level 10 - 35-41FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1440 - Level 10 - 60FPS steady
Macbook Air
GeekBench 5 –
CPU (Single Core): 1703
CPU (Multi-Core): 7308
Compute (Metal): 20342
Compute (OpenCL): 18123
WoW (No Addons) –
Laptop Screen
Windowed - 1440x900 - Level 7 - 60FPS steady
Windowed - 1440x900 - Level 10 - 60FPS steady
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 1440x900 - Level 7 - 60FPS steady
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 1440x900 - Level 10 - 60FPS steady
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1600 - Level 7 - 45-55FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1600 - Level 10 - 30-36FPS variable
External Monitor
Windowed - 2560x1440 - Level 7 - 52-60FPS variable
Windowed - 2560x1440 - Level 10 - 35-39FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1440 - Level 7 - 49-57FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1440 - Level 10 - 32-37FPS variable
These are mostly just for reference…certainly not playable.
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1440 - Level 5 (200%) - 16-18FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1440 - Level 7 (200%) - 15-16FPS variable
Windowed (Fullscreen) - 2560x1440 - Level 10 (200%) - 8-12FPS variable
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Thank you, Clexea. I’m sure that was time-consuming and the numbers are greatly appreciated!
No problem! I think I mentioned this in another thread but the one thing I did notice after some more extensive testing is that the Air did get quite warm (obviously no fans to help with cooling). I think anyone looking to game should consider either the Pro or the Mini.
Looking at memory usage during testing, and looking at some other threads/testing/reddit, I also think that the 16GB RAM models are going to be the sweet spot for gaming. I get the arguments against it and I wouldn’t hold it against anyone for getting the 8GB model but the extra RAM does give the system a little more room to breathe.
2 Likes
What is with all the lag Blizzard making millions of dollars a month and cant run the game lol buy better switches and servers
Thank you! I was worried that, once I was able to afford a new Mac running Metal, I wouldn’t be able to play WoW anymore. This is awesome news, and I hope to see continued support in the future. Especially since WoW is the one game I’m interested in or able to play anymore due to work hours.
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THANK YOU so much. I have got rid of all my other really really old computers and now have a M4 Mini and M4 Macbook Air. I migrated (copy and pasted) the old folder to the new machines and I believe they did a small update for ARM? I notice when I “get info” on the actual application it has an option to run in Rosetta (It’s not checked so I assume its running on native ARM). Wow - indeed - it’s so fast and responsive. There was an issue with the pet battles but I believe that is being fixed for M1. Otherwise I’m stunned. I really thought that WoW might not run or it would take YEARS to get the M1 version. But nope, it’s here and it’s beautiful. I thought Shadowlands was exciting but this, this is another world. Thank you! xxx <3
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I dunno why it changed to M4. M1 is what I meant.
Getting an existing macOS app to run on the M1 does nothing toward getting it to run iPads. They are different operating systems, with different code frameworks. That is changing going forward, so new macOS or iOS/iPadOS apps that are written in Apple’s new SwiftUI framework will be a lot easier to port between those platforms. But, any code using the older frameworks (on macOS or iOS) will still take a ton of work to port properly.