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World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade looks good. It may not have all the advanced graphics effects, but it still looks great thanks to stunning artwork and a consistent design theme. You should be able to max out all of the settings without too much trouble on most midrange systems. We broke out an older card, a GeForce 6600 GT, to see how much each setting affected performance.

Draw distance reduced performance the most, shaving almost 30 percent off of the system's average frame rate. Disabling the shader settings will also garner you several frames at the expense of image quality. If you really want to reclaim some performance, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, by going easy on the resolution and antialiasing settings.

Burning Crusade - Image Quality

(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Terrain Draw Distance

Minimum Setting
97
Maximum Setting
70

Environmental Detail

Minimum Setting
97
Maximum Setting
95

Anisotropic Filtering

Minimum Setting
97
Maximum Setting
85

Terrain Texture

Minimum Setting
97
Maximum Setting
95

Terrain Detail

Minimum Setting
97
Maximum Setting
94

Weather Intensity

Minimum Setting
97
Maximum Setting
97

All Shader Effects

Disabled
97
Enabled
75

Vertex Shading and Smooth Shading

Disabled
97
Enabled
96

Weather Shaders

Disabled
97
Enabled
94

Trilinear Filtering

Disabled
97
Enabled
94
System Setup: Intel Core 2 X6800, Intel 975XBX2, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GB x 2), 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows XP Professional SP2. Graphics Cards: GeForce 6600 GT, Nvidia Forceware 93.71.



285 Comments

  • bredeyabo

    Posted Aug 6, 2008 9:10 am PT

    i dont think the graphics in wow matters much to me because it will always be fun no matter what

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  • Bytor60150

    Posted Jun 30, 2008 2:05 pm PT

    I'm running w/ a Core Duo E6300-1.87- 1 GB of RAM and a GeForce 7600 GT OC and it runs great at 1280x1024 with everything cranked. Out side of cities where I usually get @ 35-45 fps I usually get 60-65 fps.

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  • BrolyLSSJ3

    Posted Jun 24, 2008 3:33 pm PT

    lol im running this on a very low end comp and it still runs just fine

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  • Corey496

    Posted Apr 25, 2008 1:56 pm PT

    I'm running this with an AMD Phenom Quad-Core 9850, Nvidia Geforce 9800GX2, 4GB OCZ Platinum 800mhz RAM, Creative Soundblaster XF-I Xtreme Gamer and a pretty decent motherboard (not sure of exact spec) But I absolutely destroy this game! lol

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  • master_chief_MN

    Posted Apr 15, 2008 9:04 pm PT

    I'm running Wow+expansion just fine on a Dell Latitude D600 with 2Ghz Processor, 2GB ram, and a Radeon 9000 graphics card (32MB even!). I just bump down my resolution to 1024x768 to give it some extra kick when I need to. How is it that you are monitoring your frame rate?

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  • soccerguy93

    Posted Dec 31, 2007 10:39 am PT

    @rokkuman09: Thanks for clearing that up for me.

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  • gizmonix

    Posted Dec 28, 2007 2:38 pm PT

    to matt168, Thats what I am running my system with, and I have about a steady 30-45 fps in non-crowded areas. In, say, Orgrimmar, it drops to about 15. Btw I have my settings at max everything on 1028x700 res. p4 3.4, 2 gigs ram, and the 8500 gt gpu.

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  • franekKimo

    Posted Dec 27, 2007 1:43 am PT

    Plaing this on 2 laptops IBM ThinkPad T40 with 32MB graphic card (no problems at all) and on Toshiba P100-429 NVidia 7600 128MB - same thing.

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  • saywat11

    Posted Dec 23, 2007 4:32 pm PT

    this game is full of epic win

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  • rokkuman09

    Posted Dec 23, 2007 12:08 pm PT

    soccerguy93 in most notebooks it is impossible or near impossible to replace the graphics card. In some notebooks you could upgrade the processor (if you can find a processor that works with the notebook), but it might be hard to do.

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  • Crappio

    Posted Dec 22, 2007 1:13 pm PT

    I'm running at a super smooth 80fps alone and 30fps in Ironforge with my new system on all max at 1280 x 1024

    Intel Core 2 Duo E550 2GB 667mhz RAM
    2x nVidia 256mb 8600GT's in SLi Windows Vista Home Premium

    Thats well more than you need to play the game on max, I reckon this could easily do it:

    Intel Pentium 4 3.00ghz
    1GB 667mhz
    ATI X1650
    Windows XP

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  • Adam_the_Nerd

    Posted Dec 22, 2007 12:15 pm PT

    For those of you complaining, I'm running on AMD Athlong 1.1 GHZ, 512MB RAM and 64MB nVidia Geforce4 MX440.

    Who has it tough now fools haha.

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  • Doric6

    Posted Dec 22, 2007 6:04 am PT

    Im using Intel Core 2 Duo 6400, Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb and 2GB DDR2 RAM with max video settings and still hover between 50 and 75 FPS

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  • soccerguy93

    Posted Dec 21, 2007 7:33 pm PT

    I'm not sure but, you can't replace the processor or graphics card on a notebook, right?

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  • soccerguy93

    Posted Dec 21, 2007 7:26 pm PT

    I'm running a 1.59 GHz 1.2 gigs of ram with a 128mb graphics card...

    I need an update....

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  • matt168

    Posted Nov 22, 2007 6:18 pm PT

    could a 6150LE play this?

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  • matt168

    Posted Nov 22, 2007 6:15 pm PT

    could a 6150LE play this?

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  • mailbox2112

    Posted Sep 3, 2007 6:37 am PT

    matt168, get an 8600GT its a little more expensive but, definitly worth it

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  • matt168

    Posted Jul 30, 2007 5:10 pm PT

    how would a BFG 8500GT play this game at 1024x768 and 1280x1024. i havent bougth the card yet but it was on sale for $129

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  • Insanest6849

    Posted Jul 22, 2007 6:14 pm PT

    thats because its a notebook

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  • Leria

    Posted Jul 20, 2007 3:44 pm PT

    This is a fun game, but they REALLY need to start cutting back on the requirements to get the best performance. On the lowest settings for everything...... my new notebook computer with an inline graphics card can BARELY manage to get 30 fps. Activating everything..... it's basically unplayable, with 3-4 frames per second, max.
    Sometimes, it just crashes without warning.

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  • Specimen2501

    Posted Jul 10, 2007 3:21 am PT

    It was fun for about 2 months then.....SNOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!!

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  • suetracy

    Posted Jul 7, 2007 3:30 pm PT

    are these marks FPS? It just says performance not FPS so im not sure

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  • V4LENT1NE

    Posted Jun 26, 2007 5:43 am PT

    Skormm, no one needs to even answer that, you know how it will run. It just sounds like you are showing off.

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  • Trazac

    Posted Apr 16, 2007 5:47 pm PT

    Why not a performance guide?

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  • eoin-99

    Posted Apr 11, 2007 3:14 am PT

    why a performance guide?

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  • Trazac

    Posted Apr 3, 2007 6:00 am PT

    Go back to XP, thats a suggestion. @Geon106 that is laughable. Do a bit of homework next time instead of thinking all hardware is ahead of time because of the year. That and laptops suck for gaming.

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  • RTS-FPS-Gaming

    Posted Mar 31, 2007 3:07 pm PT

    yea am i have vista ultimate and am just wondering if it will work for this game? any suggestings

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  • Geon106

    Posted Mar 28, 2007 10:55 am PT

    Someone asked if they could play on Vista, yes, i beleive Blizzard released a patch for Vista. I wish GS had tested on older hardware, because i play on my laptop which is the following spec:
    AMD Sempron 2800+
    NVIDIA GeforceFX Go5200 64MB RAM
    512MB DDR RAM

    I got it in 2004 so I thought it would play WoW at relativly good graphics, but i have everything on low and a low resolution and it still runs fairly slow.

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  • Trazac

    Posted Mar 20, 2007 12:04 pm PT

    CPU has almost not pull in this game if you're just a moderate gamer

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  • shamarke

    Posted Mar 20, 2007 1:26 am PT

    (Noob question)I got AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ do you guys think its a good performance????

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  • Protocol_5

    Posted Mar 17, 2007 3:36 pm PT

    What about Mac users?

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  • rokkuman09

    Posted Mar 16, 2007 1:11 pm PT

    This was a good article. My graphics card will run 90fps at 1600 x 1200. But Gamespot really needs to include more hardware. Like older processors and graphics cards. People still use them and want to know how will they will work with newer games.

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  • matt168

    Posted Mar 8, 2007 7:02 pm PT

    is this game nvidia fav cause a 7900GS gets high frames then a 1950pro and i saw alot that the 1950 pro was a bit faster then the 7900GS

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  • Trazac

    Posted Feb 20, 2007 7:26 pm PT

    failure...

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  • MikeD213

    Posted Feb 20, 2007 3:39 pm PT

    i have vista. will i be able 2 play this on it

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  • Aureoloss

    Posted Feb 10, 2007 12:10 pm PT

    as always, you guys did not include older processors that people are still using.

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  • vitz3

    Posted Feb 7, 2007 5:13 pm PT

    Uhh you mean Burning "Crusade". Not Legion

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  • pauldarkside

    Posted Feb 6, 2007 6:16 am PT

    lolgubbe ... Your, and I quote "intel core 2 duo 1.9 ghz so total 3.8 ghz" is where you sorely mistaken. It looks like you have the E6300 core 2 duo, a good chip but it's a basic C2D chip, nothing fancy. You have 2 cores capable of factory default clock speeds of 1.9GHz each. Perhaps you could apply for a job in Intel's marketing department because even they don't make the mistake of advertising an E6300 as a 3.8GHz chip. Thanks for the entertainment though - it passed the time away whilst waiting for the Supreme Commander demo to be released.

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  • ldavidtw2000

    Posted Feb 5, 2007 8:39 pm PT

    To be honest, I'll really pay attention to extra clouds while fighting, yeah.
    or take a close look at ground or water and try to satisfy myself with some glow and tell everybody about it.

    after all it's a cartoonish game, super high quality is still a cartoonish game, it's designated as so.

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  • Trazac

    Posted Feb 5, 2007 12:12 pm PT

    Dude, shut up

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  • coolgames89

    Posted Feb 3, 2007 11:35 pm PT

    I got nothing to say, im happy about my pc, thank you gamespot for the article though would've liked to see how a 2 7600GT's would lol,

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  • saugh

    Posted Feb 2, 2007 4:17 pm PT

    Yeah I really need the extra memory, oh well, hopefully this week.

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  • ahrensy

    Posted Jan 30, 2007 5:26 pm PT

    There is talk about using old-spec'd PC's and having WoW run fine in most areas. This is true (in most areas), as long as you have 1G+ RAM, but start 40-man raiding in high level instances, and watch your framerate DROP... hehe

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  • LTomlinson21

    Posted Jan 28, 2007 1:32 pm PT

    Thanks for the info.

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  • Trazac

    Posted Jan 28, 2007 7:26 am PT

    asus en7900 gs TOP? Really nice card, cheap and fast, yet the 7950 GT is about the same price and a little faster

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  • chaoscougar1

    Posted Jan 27, 2007 8:51 pm PT

    im getting a new graphics card, the ASUS EN7900GS, its a cheap overclock of the original 7900GS and i have been hearing very good things about it

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