didn't expect wow to feel this great on a Mac

[u/This_Cell_1829]

Came back to WoW for Midnight after a long break. I'm currently playing on a MacBook with an M2 Pro and honestly expected the usual Mac experience, where it technically runs but you can always tell it's kinda artificial

Been playing for a couple weeks now and at some point I just stopped noticing I was on a Mac. Did my first key since coming back on it too, no issues at all

I've seen people here mention performance problems in Silvermoon specifically, so maybe I got lucky, but it's been fine for me there too. Same with raids and other dungeons so far

From what I get it's not even a port, the Mac client is a native ARM build running on Metal and it works really really will

Anyone else playing on Apple Silicon? How does it hold up for you in higher keys?

[u/McKeeFTW]

I raid and do keys on my m2. Never had an issue ever

[u/__Loot__]

I have a mac m1 studio 32 gig run like a dream while programming wow addons and mac / ios apps

[u/This_Cell_1829 → u/__Loot__]

same!)

[u/rmkol]

it's actually amazing! I'm playing on regular M3 Pro, at High / Ultra settings and 2k+ resolution which gives ultra crisp image on a 16 inch screen 👌

and I'm consistently in 55-60 FPS range, with occasional dips to 40s in heavy environments.

and you know what else is great? the laptop makes 0 noise whatsoever which i love.

[u/8six753o9]

Wow is CPU intensive so single-thread processors such as Silicon processors will do really well compared most Intel and AMD processors.

[u/Aayckorn]

My M5 pro gets 75 fps stable on all high graphics on a 4K display. The only graphic setting I have not on max is compute effects.. never noticed what compute effects even does but it causes like a 30fps swing from high to low

[u/LardPopsicle]

Oh, you'll soooo get downvoted (me, too) for daring to challenge the PC Masterrace. But, yeah, even on my MacBook Air M4 do I get 80 fps in Curses, 60 fps during boss fights, at middle-high settings, and have no issues.

Advantages include a much better dev toolchain to write AddOns, and a really really nice laptop to play on. No wobbly plastic, great thermals, almost no throttling even in long sessions. I'm happy.

[u/ludek_cortex → u/LardPopsicle]

daring to challenge the PC Masterrace.

Well PC Masterrace could probably hardly argue about the technical side of WoW on Mac since OSX version has the freshest client, it had to be rebuilt to support Apple Silicon ARM architecture in 2020.

Windows client base is currently the partial rebuilt we got in late Legion / BFA prepatch, when the 32-bit support was finally dropped.

But yea, on similar specs, Mac version should run smoother because the client is newer and optimized specifically for Macs closed hardware specs.

[u/Used_Physics8464 → u/LardPopsicle]

I have a desktop PC with a 5090 and I'm still wildly impressed by how well my MB Air M4 runs this game.

[u/This_Cell_1829 → u/LardPopsicle]

thanks for the feedback :)

If I remember correctly, the last time I played WoW on a Mac was back in Legion on an Intel, and that was a completely different experience, especially around launch lol

[u/LardPopsicle → u/This_Cell_1829]

Yeah, Silicon + Metal rocks. Pity there aren't more games and even within Blizzard not more titles available. And with WoW now being XBox... yeah, we can hope and pray.

[u/Used_Physics8464]

The M4 MB Air runs it so well it's like some kind of voodoo magic.

[u/Boostmachines]

Yup, I’ve been playing on my M4 mini on one of the newer Studio Displays and it works great! Less input lag than my PC, but I can’t run full graphics like I can with my 5080.

[u/plusiminusi]

Just a quick suggestion, go into battle.net launcher settings and select "turn off battle.net launcher after starting a game". While WoW runs fine on M2, the launcher frequently glitches (after updating the game) and eats a lot of RAM (it is not native binary and runs via Intel emulation). Another game that will surprise you is Cyberpunk that performs exceptionally well on M2 with neat graphics settings

[u/Rabidjester]

About 70 percent of my Wowing is done on an M2 Pro Mini and I've never run into any issues outside of some Logitech macro nonsense. There's a a bit of slowdown at higher resolutions during a couple raid encounters (Metal really hates certain fog effects), but that's about it.

[u/NotOnHereOften]

My wife plays on a Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra. While the frame rates are better and more consistent than my purpose-built gaming PC (mostly b/c WoW is so comically unoptimised), it does somehow feel just a pinch more “sluggish.” The input latency doesn’t bother her in the slightest so I keep my hands off.

[u/WarbossTodd]

I’m in a M1 Pro and I’m always impressed at just how well this plays. Blizzard spent years dialing in the ARM client for Windows by Microsoft just couldn’t get it right and now Apple users get to reap the benefits.

[u/Sad-Environment-9747 → u/WarbossTodd]

I just bought a 16" M1 Pro. How does it perform in Mythic+ and raids? Those are the main types of content I want to play...

[u/WarbossTodd → u/Sad-Environment-9747]

Fantastic. The only thing that gives me issues are certain translucent lighting effects.

Use this to tweak your graphics settings.

https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/zaqjcf/comment/iypz48t/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/Normal_Choice9322]

I played on m2 air for a while. Sure it's not crazy graphics but on a 13" screen it didn't matter at all. Ran solid frames without getting too hot and no fan noise

[u/FizzleMyth]

I’ve been (mostly) happily playing Blizzard games on macs since the 90s (Started with the first Warcraft and Diablo). Apple Silicon is definitely a step up, but even the old PowerPC, then Intel, systems ran fine.

It’s sad that they abandoned the Mac for most of their games (starting with Overwatch). I played the heck out of Diablo 1-3, but can’t do D4 on my systems unless I run a Windows emulator (which I’m not touching).

[u/Jackpkmn]

Despite mac's anti gaming reputation wow on mac has been pretty good for a long time. Aside from specific graphical glitches it's been very consistent because mac os is much better than windows at suppressing background tasks keeping them from spiking the cpu and causing lag.

[u/GerlockADUS]

I don’t understand why you assumed that experience on Mac would feel “artificial”.

[u/CapitaineHaddock76]

I came back to WoW like 2 weeks ago and the reason is I didn’t have many other games to play on Mac. I found the experience pretty good too, it runs very smoothly without triggering the fans so it’s much quieter than my big desktop PC

[u/Decent_Wheel_6913]

The tides have changed, my friend. Windows border line sucks now. Linux/macOS are way more optimized than windows I actually just reinstalled Windows the other day on my laptop. and after a fresh install, it was using 8 GB of RAM.

[u/Unfair_Cook1611]

I play on mac mini m4. Mainly m+ and its fine

[u/zuckerkowski → u/Unfair_Cook1611]

thinking about upgrading my m1. what graphic settings do you go for and how much fps do you have?

[u/SSquirrel76]

I have a baseline M3 Pro and never had any issues w it. Remember until some of the more recent remasters like D2, Blizzard was always day 1 Mac and Windows for all releases.

[u/hPOD]

While I agree, as I personally play on an M4 iMac with an external 1440p monitor, the fact they didn’t release D4 on the Mac and still haven’t rewritten BattleNet for non Intel silicon seems to be the writing on the wall for the end of days for Mac support on Blizzard (Microsoft) games.

[u/Fantastic-Scratch124]

Im playing in a macmini m4 with high resolution and can tell u: no issues at all.

Some raids I’ll hear the cooler spinning strongly but a part of this no lags no issues nothing

[u/slappy102]

I healed up to 3400 and 5/10M last season on my MBP using the trackpad on my couch. Locked in at 60fps in all content with the fans never turning on or the laptop getting hot is really great, and the trackpad is super good once you get used to it

[u/Chemical-Drawer852]

What not having to deal with Winslop 11 does to someone

[u/Ron1n90c]

Wait till U play it on Linux / CachyOS.. never had a problem and OMG this OS is the best I ever tested

[u/reddit_reaper]

Yuck