World of Warcraft on Mac

Mac is an abbreviation for "Macintosh", a brand of computers manufactured by Apple Inc. Mac OS is short for Macintosh Operating System; Mac OS X is the 10th major revision (hence the Roman numeral X). The current release of Mac OS X is version 10.6 "10.6.7 (10J869)" "Snow Leopard". The OS X client of World of Warcraft is the only client that has a built-in video capture utility.

Minimum system requirements (as of 20-Oct-2010)

 * Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.4, or newer
 * Intel Core Duo processor
 * 2 GB RAM
 * 25 GB free hard drive space
 * A keyboard and mouse are required. Input devices other than a mouse and keyboard are not supported.
 * You must have an active broadband Internet connection to play

Recommended system requirements (as of 20-Oct-2010)

 * Mac® OS X 10.6.4 or newer (10.6.5 recommended for new graphics engine)
 * Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor
 * NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT or ATI Radeon™ HD 4670 or better
 * 4 GB RAM
 * 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better
 * Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended
 * Magic Trackpad and Multi-touch trackpad supported

Warning PowerPC No Longer Supported as of Patch 4.0.1 "Cataclysm Systems" More info

User Interface Addons
Users are sometimes unsure if Macs are able to make use of User Interface Addons. In fact, all UI Addons are built on an XML/Lua scripting system built into WoW and cannot contain native code, so they will run on any platform World of Warcraft runs on —Windows or Mac. Simply place an addon in your World of Warcraft/Interface/AddOns/ folder and restart WoW. (Switching? You can copy that entire folder from a Windows box to get all your addons onto your new Mac. Copy the World of Warcraft/WTF/ folder too and you'll get all your macros, chat window settings, and addon saved data, too.)

Caveats:
 * Most addons are available in .zip files (which can be opened with Mac OS X built-in software). Some Addon authors like to package their products as self-extracting/installing .exe files; while the addon will work on a Mac, the .exe file will not. If you find an addon that is only available in an .exe, ask the author for a .zip version — most will be happy to oblige.
 * A few addons come with an external program — e.g. for uploading game info to database sites or downloading auction prices for viewing in-game. The addons themselves will work on the Mac, but you will need a Mac version of the external program to get the functionality it provides. (Note: use of third-party programs in conjunction with World of Warcraft may violate the Terms of Service.)
 * As a general rule, .exe files should only be trusted as much as you trust the person or entity it comes from. Very few people will click an .exe file that comes in an unsolicited email, but the same cannot be said for .exe files that purport to be self-extricating wow addons. Let the player beware, though this is less of a Mac issue and more about prudent personal security.

Technical Support
Blizzard offers a support forum for Macintosh-specific problems on WoW. The Mac team has proved highly responsive to known issues.
 * Official Blizzard Mac Technical Support forum

''NB: This forum is for players registered through the US servers only, and will not recognize login details for those on other servers. Mac users on the European servers should post Mac queries on Blizzard's European Technical Support forum.''

Right click
Older Macs came with one-button mice, and the built-in trackpad on Mac notebooks has only one hardware button. Since WoW's UI is designed for a 2+ button mouse, this can lead to some confusion.
 * The single mouse button corresponds to "Left click" in WoW's UI.
 * In WoW, holding the Command (Apple or ⌘) key while clicking is equivalent to a right-click. In the rest of OS X the same can be achieved by holding down CTRL.
 * Recent Mac notebooks include a feature where holding two fingers on the trackpad while clicking produces a right-click. This can be turned on in the Keyboard & Mouse pane of System Preferences.

Any standard multi-button USB mouse can be used with a Mac. (Macs with Bluetooth can also use any standard BT mouse.) No third-party software is necessary to make use of the secondary button or scroll wheel, or to be able to bind additional buttons to WoW actions. (Third-party software may be useful if you wish to customize extra-mouse-button actions outside of WoW, though.)

Ctrl + Mousewheel Up/Down
Mac OS X UI comes with a default setting that prebinds the keybind `ctrl + mousewheel up/down' under desktop control (it's used to zoom in/out while on desktop - useful when you need to zoom in and out in pictures etc while outside the game). When in the game pressing `ctrl+mousewheel' gets captured by the OS (instead of the game) and any macro binded to (or meant to handle) `ctrl+mousewheel up/down' will not work. To solve this remove the aforementioned keybind-combo from desktop-control, via Mac Os X settings. Go to:


 * System preferences
 * Universal Access
 * Tab: Seeing
 * Component: Zoom
 * Options
 * Go at the bottom of the new window that will pop and un-tick the option called: `Use scroll wheel with modifier keys to zoom'

And thats it. `Ctrl + Mousewheel up/down' will now work as intended.

Known issues with OS X

 * The new graphics engine is now supported by the latest available patch for OS X 10.6.5. The drivers which enable the use of the new effects introduced in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm are available on both ATI and nVidia chipsets. Although ATI's 4### series is still having problems with low FPS when either Sunshafts or the new water is turned on.

There is some crashes with Macs which have a NVIDIA card more of this crash Info