Mac User Here, Buy First PC?

I want to talk very specifically about Ardenweald. Because I’m overall pretty happy in the rest of the zones.

I’m using a fully loaded 2015 retina iMac. At 1660, with graphics at 8, and particle density at high I can get 18fps in Ardenweald. Which I find tolerable.

So that’s the context.

Should I buy an M1 Mac? Or a gaming PC? I like the idea of the M1 for resale value. Gaming PC’S don’t hold their value. But I’m worried an M1 Mac won’t be substantially better

There are major problems with 9.0.5 running a Mac M1. Blizzard advise that this is unlikely to be fixed until. 9.1. Buy a Win10 gaming rig if you want to play WOW.

I would like to remark that the performance issues introduced in 9.0.5 have also been extensively reported by Windows users. It is affecting Apple (both Intel and ARM) and Windows user alike.

Top OP: It is true PCs don’t hold resale value as much as Apple machines.
The question boils down to: if you’re getting a new system, would you be using it only for WoW? If that’s the case, it makes little sense to buy Apple. What PCs lack in resell value, they make up in upgradability.
If you need a new machine (a 2015 iMac is kinda dated at this point) and use macOS for your day to day, an M1 could be a viable option. I run with an M1 Mac mini, which use to provide absolutely outstanding performance before 9.0.5. Granted, I run the game at 1080p, but the machine allowed me to run at high settings (slider 8) and 60fps basically everywhere in the game. Now it’s a different story due to the 9.0.5 shenanigans. I get dips into the 30s and 40s in certain places in Ardenweald, Bastion and some dungeons.
Overall, however, even with those problems, the machine performs very well. We’re all hoping a fix is introduced with 9.1.

I would most certainly wait a bit if I were you though, at least if you decide to go with an Apple machine. The new ones are apparently going to be announced next week.

It’s certainly a rough time to think about upgrading your system. If you go with a PC, the GPU shortage will leave you looking at a pre-build or a laptop, both of which are non-optimal solutions in my opinion.

First of all, a computer is an appliance. It’s not bought with the notion that it has resale value. So whether it has resale value or not is rather moot.

Next up, if you are looking to buy a computer to play games with, then buy a PC. If you use your computer 98% of the time for other things and only 2% of the time for games, then buy a Mac.

Mac gaming isn’t a thing. It never has been. It likely will never be. Been 20 years now and it’s still not a thing.

Ardenweald and FPS drops are a sign of weak hardware and poor code. You can compensate for some stuff with overpowered architecture, but not everything. Reality is, WoW is not that taxing by today’s gaming standards, so if it’s having hiccups, it says more about the state of the game than anything.

You can always run WoW under bootcamp on your current machine to see how much difference there is running under DirectX versus Metal 2. The graphic drivers are what is different between the two. Since they have a massively larger PC development team than they do Mac (cough shall we say you can count the total of Mac developers on one hand assuming there was an accident involving some fingers), your chances of better play experience goes up on the PC side.

Yes, you could buy a new Mac. That’s throwing more architecture at a problem that is still a coding problem. It should improve… but then since it’s new hardware, which requires Mac developers, for which there are few, your odds of having more problems actually goes up because ARM didn’t exist so long ago.

Hell, you could say WoW is actually performing better on older Macs than newer ones in some instances.

So that’s the real context.

If you’re looking to buy a computer that your could sell again, that’s an entirely different usage than gaming. Gamers replace computers hourly for maximized performance. The resale value of their old system never enters their mind even once.

Which are you, a gamer, a Mac zealot, or someone who likes reselling old Mac hardware to justify buying new Mac hardware?

and currently you’ll pay through the nose for a PC with decent to sub-par graphics card or not able to afford one with a good graphics card.

Most replies here are useless. I run a imac 27" with a Radeon pro 5700 XT with 16gb ram. I run wow at 7 or 8 on the slider and adjust a few minor settings down. I normally get 100+fps. The game runs fine! I am also not a Mac Zealot… I simply use one for its superior quality User-interface and UNIX-like command line for programming purposes.

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Why are you running anything higher than 60 FPS on an iMac? Its display can’t show you more than that and you could put settings higher with a 60 FPS cap.

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Just adding in that the 9.0.5 performanc eissue isn’t mac specific. It’s globally. Even tech websites that thoroughly broke issue down confirm that. It may appear to affect mac more because they are generally lower end machines, even the new M1s. They are high end cpus but low end gpus at best so they are more affected by the issues 9.0.5 introduced.

Because I increased my maxFPS setting to see how high it would run. who cares?

Yeah I figured out the 9.0.5 bug is my problem. My Mac is pretty old, but I never noticed lag until recently. I’m gonna wait until 9.1 and see if my FPS goes back up. If not I’ll buy something new.

After shopping a lot, I think the iMacs are decent value. Whether you go with the 2020 27" or the new M1, they both represent pretty good value once you factor in the screen, Apple Care, and overall experience of Mac OS with iMessage and Airdrop goodness

If you left it on that setting, then you’re losing out on better settings is what I’m telling you. E-peen doesn’t mean jack squat over here on the TS fora.

With 9.1 now on the PTR is it fixed?

When I entered Ardenweald using an RTX2070, the gpu sounded like an airplane taking off. When I enter Ardenweald with my iMac 27” with the 5700xt, it sounds like an airplane taking off.

The issue is that Ardenweald is poorly coded. It’s not a system issue. I found that reducing particle effects from High to Good helps a lot.

9.1 will help more because it separates volumeFog from partcile setting. Currently it’s tied hand in hand. Turning particles down also turns down volume fog. volume fog is a massive resource on that zone because it’s used excessively by art and probably not in an efficient manor at all.

My M1 gets a rock solid 60 FPS with graphics set at 8 in Bastion.