Here are the World of Warcraft system requirements. However, what I’m not clear on is if the designation “notebook” means the OS, or other aspects of “notebooks” (for example, lack of requisite hardware), rule out playing WoW.
Here are some options I’m looking at.
DISCLAIMER: My understanding of computer jargon is obviously severely limited, so please forgive me for asking for help with something that should be painfully obvious.
Moved to the Game Room.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
All have a CPU more than capable. Having said that it’s not as obvious as it could be.
It’s not clear what their graphics card properties on these systems. They could use integrated Intel graphics or could have a dedicated graphics card, depending how they were built. If it uses Intel graphics it might not be good enough. If they have graphics cards they’re probably fine.
WOW generally makes an effort to ensure it can be played on most systems, though, even if you have to turn a few options off to make it flow nicely.
I play WOW on a laptop and it works fine. It’s not a terribly fancy laptop - it has the i5 processor featured in all your options - but the one area I did stick a few extra bucks was having an actual video card in it. For gaming, that’s the key.
Thanks friend. How much does a graphics card cost and can a layman install one?
Which is helped by the fact that the game is so old. It was able to run on most systems back in 2004, when it was released. And computers have advanced a lot in over a decade.
For desktop computers, they can be anywhere from $60 to $600, depending on how fancy you want them, what motherboard adapter is required, etc. Assuming everything fits and you have the appropriate power connector, it’s little more than plug it in and turn your computer on.
For laptops like your options, it’s a bit trickier. Usually there’s no installing one unless it was designed for it. Option 1 does have a Radeon 6470, which was a low/mid-range card 4 years ago, and will be enough to run WoW, but at rather low graphic options.
As Chisquirrel has noted,
People spend insane amounts on graphics cards but up to a certain point it is only a useful expenditure for super hi-res, 3D type games, and beyond a certain point it’s a waste of money.
If your game of choice is WoW, this is not necessary; a modest card will run the game very nicely. Installing a graphics card ina desktop computer is very easy; I can do it, and I am a fool. Installing one in a laptop can be hard and might not be possible at all. I would advise buying a laptop that already has one.
Can I play World of Warcraft on any of these devices?
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[li]iPod Nano[/li][li]Kindle Paperwhite[/li][li]Commodore VIC-20[/li][li]Atari 2600[/li][li]Nintendo GameBoy[/li][li]Merlin[/li][li]Swiss army knife[/li][/ul]
Seriously?
(Seriously, no, you can’t)
Although I’ve been playing WoW since January 2005 the game has changed sufficiently over time that a somewhat-adequate computer back then would no longer be able to play the game today. That said, the company does make an effort to make it playable on older machines.
Up until November I was playing it on a 6 year old desktop (that computer died) and am now playing it on a laptop. As noted, graphics capabilities are important BUT hard drive and memory capacity is equally important - the code and data for the game are huge, make sure you have sufficient memory to handle it.
I don’t play WoW, but I do play Star Wars: the Old Republic (another MMO). I agree with several other posters – the issue you’re going to run into with those laptops is that they aren’t likely to have a dedicated GPU / graphics card (or, the one in there may not be up to snuff).
When I first started playing SWTOR, three years ago, I was playing on a bog-standard Dell laptop (costing probably $400-$500). I could only play the game on the very lowest graphics settings, and even then, it was pretty sub-optimal – the game would get very laggy when in a graphics-heavy situation (such as a scene or combat where there are a lot of characters acting at once), and the time I’d spend in “load screens” was very long, compared to the friends with whom I’d be playing (a map which might take them 15 seconds to load took me 60 seconds or more).
I played with that machine for about a year and a half, before finally upgrading to a gaming laptop, with a dedicated GPU. It made a huge difference on the game’s performance, as well as letting me run the game on the highest graphics setting (and letting me see just how pretty the game’s graphics actually are).
As RickJay notes, installing upgraded gear (like a graphics card) in a desktop box is usually pretty straighforward. The inner workings of most laptops are tightly packed, and there may well not be room to put in a graphics card in most of them if it’s not an option offered by the manufacturer.
As others said, many PC games nowadays require specialized graphics hardware that your initial options all lack. You generally cannot purchase and install graphics chips into laptops after the fact.
Something like this (Amazon link) would work.
Generally, laptops have less computing power than equivalently-priced desktop systems. With gaming in particular, the graphics chip requirements can be an issue. Graphics chips of the type games require are generally high-performance and can run hot, so they are harder to implement in laptops successfully. This tends to add meaningfully to the cost.