As you may know already, nVidia Ion platform is based on a GeForce 9400M GPU. It has been for a while and we know what it capable of in terms of running World of Warcraft. nVidia Ion should show itself in World of Warcraft similarly but not exactly the same, because Ion is not just GeForce 9400M – it also a chip-set and an Atom CPU. So running WoW on nVidia Ion is still an interesting question.
Fortunately, I have Lenovo S12 Ion based netbook to test WoW as thoroughly as I want. BTW, I’ve found out that the lowering resolution down from the native 1280*800 doesn’t really helps so all tests were taken on a native 1280*800 screen resolution. It’s enough for anything and looks really great. But the special effects settings better to turn down to the minimum.
My Lenovo S12 is built on the Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz CPU and had just 1Gb of RAM when I brought it home. So the first series of test I’ve made on a 1Gb RAM configuration:
- Vanilla WoW – Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and pre-lvl-60 dungeons – all these places are smooth and easy with the FPS jumping between 30 and 50 with up to maximum 60 in the deserted areas and down to 20 occasionally in the crowded areas of Azerothian capital cities.
- Outland and Northrend zones are pretty much ok with FPS from 25 to 40.
- 5-men lvl80 heroics put some load on nVidia Ion – FPS are floating between 15-25.
- And the last but not least – Dalaran – it won’t be your destination of choice on nVidia Ion machine with just 1Gb RAM – FPS are between 7 and 14. Way too laggy.
Adding 2Gb more RAM (for a total 3Gb) increases performance dramatically. You can expect 5-10 FPS increase depending on how much action is in scene. A little 5 FPS performance gain will make lvl 80 heroics playable even if you are warrior tank or paladin healer. Even in Dalaran, while FPS count is going not higher than 10-20 FPS, you will notice a huge improvement in overall smoothness when running around between daily quest givers and vendors.
With a 3Gb setup World of Warcraft performance on nVidia Ion based Lenovo S12 netbook could be described like “absolutely playable and enjoyable most of the time”:
- Almost anywhere in the Vanilla WoW content – 30-60 FPS (around 40 average).
- Outland and Northrend – 30-40 FPS.
- Lvl80 heroic dungeons – 20-30 FPS.
- Dalaran – 10-20 FPS.
If you are curious about how much nVidia Ion notebook could cost, check these links:
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