Currently, I’m using a Mac Studio M1 Max with the 10 cpu / 24 gpu / 32gb RAM configuration. I raid and do some mythics, and generally keep my graphics set between 7-9 and enjoy 90-125 fps in all situations. Outside of WoW, I use my Mac to do some 3D modeling work, and occasional video/music editing. I am by no means maxing out my hardware with what I do, but I like the fact that I have absolutely no issues with lag.
Unfortunately, my job is transitioning to requiring me to travel quite often (as much as 3 weeks a month), and so I’m looking to trade-in my Mac Studio for a MacBook Pro. Since I’d like to keep playing WoW while on the road, I have a few questions to help me decide which model MBP to get. I’ve done some googling and searched these forums and I’m feeling a little inconclusive, so, here’s where I’m stuck:
What’s more important for running WoW on a Mac: CPU or GPU?
Are single core, multi core, or compute benchmarks more important for WoW?
If running just WoW and Discord at the same time when raiding, would I feel an appreciable FPS difference if I dropped down to 16 gigs of RAM instead of 32?
I’m going to sell the Mac Studio to soften the financial blow to buying a new MBP, so I’m trying to figure out what spec is kind of the baseline for maintaining at least a constant 60-80 FPS with no issues.
16" M2 Max MacBook Pro at graphics level 10 gets 60-80 FPS. For the most part WoW wants as much GPU as you can get and any reasonably-recent CPU will be enough.
16GB should be enough for WoW & Discord as that’s what I had on my 2015 MacBook Pro that was just replaced, and I kept open Safari with a lot of tabs that used memory.
Does that apply to raids and epic battlegrounds? My m2 Max 16" drops down to 40-50 fps in Valdrakken, raids, and epic battlegrounds sometimes. I want to know if it is defective.
I have it on all highest graphical settings and am playing on a 4k external monitor
Set your resolution scale to between 50% and 75% and turn FSR on. By default the scaler is set to Point mode. Set it to FSR and with the resolution scale change you’ll gain significant FPS for minimal quality loss.
I can run WOW at 150-200 FPS with high settings. But I lower the rendering to 80%. I also set the background FPS to the same limit as the non-background. That might be why yours is lower. I also have 96 megs of ram on my MacBook Pro m2 MAX. Also, because the FPS was so high I set the background max and foreground FPS to 100, and it’s stable and holds that level just fine.
If you want to compare some of my finer settings let me know. But I tell you this MacBook is better than my rig strix 3090 TI in my custom build.
Anyone reading this now, they’re literally announcing M3 in a few days. if looking to buy a mac now, hold. whether you buy the new M3 or an older M2, the prices will change after announcement.
Just for some context I bought an M2 Pro 19 core gpu 1tb and 16gb of ram and was not expecting amazing performance, but honestly, it runs wow retail pretty
darn well. It loads into the game blazing fast.
I can only imagine how about the M3 but not sure need a max chip for wow to get pretty amazing experiences.
(I am going to probably return mine and spend a bit more for the M3, we shall see.)
it depends. for raw core gains yes. but it’ll see bigger gains on games using mesh shaders, which includes just about ALL windows game running through whisky/crossover since apple uses mesh shaders to emulate geometry shaders.
I skipped M2 though cause I knew m3 would be better and m2 was only incremental over M1. so I’m going from m1 to M3, but yeah most M2 users should probably stay on M2 until M4 or even 5 if 4 is only incremental. BUT if you are an oil prince and can just go from m2 to m3, i will say that in wow it’ll be MAYBE 15% better but it absolutely will be better for games that leverage mesh shaders. RT cores is meh, even with RT cores there isn’t a single mac game that exists that has raytracing and even if there was it’d probably still tank FPS even with RT cores (just not AS much as it will on M1 and M2)
What I find fascinating is that my m2 pro max is beating my nvidia 3080TI rog strix custom build in WoW in terms of stable, smooth fps. I compared my m2 to 3 different nvidia gpu’s. All the Nvidia’s ran at lower FPS and suffered FPS drops during raid/m+. Not a massive difference but roughly about 30 FPS less in raid on the NVIDIA and 40 FPS lower at the peak. Some lighting even looks better on the apple. So, I sold the 3080ti and my other nvidia build. I can’t believe I went with apple over a custom build, but this is reality. Why would I use something that is slower? It was a tough choice. I love the lighting on my gaming PC. I love the look. I love that it was a custom build. But I’m a gamer and I’m going to play on what’s best.
Tbh, I think the main issue with nvidia GPUs is that they still rely on an outdated approach to architecture design, and thus need an external processor. For WoW I think how intel has handled the load, especially in WoW is less than ideal, so perhaps the wow performance issue is with intel and not nvidia. Hard to say, but let’s be honest. Nvidia really hasn’t made a GPU breakthrough for a long time. They decided on the “tiny improvement” approach that sucker us in year after year. But we keep paying them massive amounts for their cards. I’m going to try streaming on the apple next.
And crazy part is that the m2 is using a fraction of the power compared to the 3080 for better performance. And I’m running 3 monitors, multi tasking with work.
The mesh shaders are cool, but not 100% a requirement. The games still look fine. So, yep I’m waiting til m4 pro max. Mainly because apple hasn’t improved the cooling in the m3 pro, which sadly is really the only issue. Apple fix that please. LOL.
Your 3080 Ti build was almost certainly running at 100% resolution scale. There’s no way you’re running at 100% resolution scale and not using FSR and maintaining better FPS than a 3080 Ti. You have to sacrifice a lot on macOS to maintain equivalent FPS. The only way a 3080 Ti would struggle in WoW is if the CPU weren’t up to snuff. WoW is CPU bound. That’s why the M-series does fairly decently. The CPU side of the M-series SoCs is beast mode. The GPU is where the weaksauce lies.
If the M-series CPUs were able to be paired with that 3080 Ti, you’d see performance on a level you could only dream of otherwise. Apple has the lead in performance per watt, but not raw performance on the whole. What sucks for me is that I currently can’t even play WoW because of the UI changes in this expansion coupled with the fact that I also have to run in Windows because the macOS client requires 10.15 (Big Sur) or later and my previous GPU, my 1080 Ti, tops out at 10.13.6 because Apple hates nVidia and vice versa. My current GPU, a Strix 4090, would absolutely crush the M-series performance at native resolution scaling even with a 9900k as the CPU, and it wouldn’t require using FSR to maintain good framerates either. And make no mistake, FSR is propping up the performance in macOS currently. The M3 Max has Intel CPUs beat, but its IGP is still its Achilles’ Heel.
I wouldn’t mind an M-series Mac to play WoW again, but having to use FSR is a bit of a dealbreaker for me because any blurring at all causes issues with my eye since I have only one eye to see with. That’s why I built my hackintosh (at the time) for overkill. I was able to do ultra everything in WoW, something you can’t do even on an M3 without making sacrifices. It’s a shame Blizzard will likely never add FSR 2 or 3 to WoW, because that would likely be enough of a game changer to get even better stable FPS with fewer sacrifices.
I love the progress Apple is making with their SoCs, but let’s not kid ourselves here - your situation isn’t an apples to apples comparison given the sacrifices you have to make in order to achieve the stable framerates in macOS currently. And unless you’re gaming >8 hours per day every day, the savings per year isn’t going to be anywhere near what you paid extra for that Mac vs. what the PC cost. I won’t lie though and say Intel’s CPUs are astounding - they aren’t. But then again, when paired with a 3080 Ti or better GPU, even AMD’s top tier X3D CPUs can’t feed the GPU fast enough to avoid bottlenecking. I really wish Apple wasn’t so anti-consumer and had allowed GPUs in the M-series Mac Pro, because that setup would have given all but the extreme top end PCs a run for their money.
I run wow at a higher resolution than on my PC. @ 4k, but obviously, the default render scale for Macs is not reasonable for many games, so thus should be lowered to 83%'ish, which is still higher than the actual render scale of my high refresh gaming monitor.
And yep, the M2 Max pro will out perform. But you need lots of ram, which gets pricy.
Nvidia’s just aren’t that great for WoW. And in comparison for the CPU. I had a top of line i9 in the custom build. WoW is smoother and faster on the apple.
FidelityFX™ Super Resolution (FSR)
It’s one of the options in the graphic settings. I forget which one but it’s a drop down menu.
Just pick a render scale lower than 100% and choose FSR. You’ll get basically the same graphics but without the performance hit of 100% render scale. I do 75%.
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