Blizzard has unveiled the system requirements for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Interestingly these requirements also apply to the base game as of version 4.0.1 and, by proxy, to all previous expansions. The end of days has come to WoW players with GeForce 2 MX cards all across... umm... anybody? In all seriousness, I think all those cards are already at the trash bin and while the new minimums may be an issue to some ancient computers somewhere, chances are such a system was already long overdue for a replacement.
In any case, the new minimum and recommended requirements for World of Warcraft are here.
Minimum System Requirements
Windows System XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64/7 OS (with the latest Service Packs or updates):
Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+1 GB or more of RAMNVIDIA GeForce FX or ATI Radeon 9500 video card or better25.0 GB available HD space4X DVD-ROM drive (Downloadable Installer also available)Broadband Internet connectionKeyboard/mouseRecommended Specifications
Windows System Vista64/Windows 7 OS:
Dual-core processor, such as the 21b7Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X22 GB RAM256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 or betterMulti-button mouse with scroll-wheel(Source: Blizzard knowledge base)
As usual, you can use the YouGamers Game-o-Meter to see how your system stacks up to these requirements.
Compared to Wrath of the Lich King, the minimums have been bumped up ever so slightly - you now need at least a Shader Model 2.0 card to play, disqualifying GeForce 2/3/4 series cards and all Radeon 7000 and 8000 series cards. It also means some truly ancient Intel Integrated video chipsets are no longer supported. On the recommended side, the CPU is still the same old but the video card requirement has moved up to midrange DX10 hardware and, more importantly, the recommended operating system is now Vista or Windows 7 and, as of 4.0.1 and Cataclysm, this allows the use DirectX 11 API. This seems, at first, a huge jump but it is understandable as there is a clear performance benefit moving from the DX9 mode to DirectX 11 (even on DX10 level hardware - you don't need a DX11 video card to use DirectX 11 API libraries, unlike when moving up from DX9 - DX10 hardware works too, minus some visual effects).
No, this doesn't mean you need Vista or Windows 7 to play World of Warcraft, but it sure is recommended unless you are otherwise playing with old DX9-level hardware. DirectX 11 is clearly catching on and unlike DX10 that mostly just added some visual effects at the cost of performance, there seems to be good performance-related reasons to move to the new API, even with a game like World of Warcraft that has decisively low tech visuals and minimum requirements.
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