MMO Games: World Of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic
World of Warcraft
Believe it or not, there was a time when World of Warcraft demanded more than an entry-level system (and even today, you can dial the game up to Ultra and hammer performance pretty hard). This title remains one of the most relevant names in the PC space, so we decided to give it a try as well.
I went with the DirectX 11 code path and WoW's Low detail preset with no anti-aliasing applied, which allowed us to play the game smoothly at the tablet's 1280x800 resolution. As with the strategy games on the previous page, MMOs aren't truly suited for anything other than keyboard and mouse controls.
The video shows us viewing a multiplayer PvP battle without any performance hitches. With a good Internet connection, you can have a respectable WoW experience on the road.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Star Wars: The Old Republic is built on a more sophisticated graphics engine than World of Warcraft, but it scales down detail levels for less-capable hardware fairly well. It's also free-to-play, and a textbook example of irritating nagware.
Regardles, to get the game running on Dell's Venue 8 Pro, we had to lower the detail levels as low as they'd go and switch to an 800x600 resolution. That probably sounds terrible to most of us, but it's not bad on an 8" screen. And remember, Sony's Vita is always limited to 960x544.
The game is playable, though frame rates drop noticeably on occasion. Strictly speaking, I'd call the performance playable, though I don't know how much of this you'd be willing to endure on an Atom-based tablet. Perhaps our configuration would suffice for a hardcore player looking to maintain a character on the road. It's not ideal as a viable platform for participating in demanding missions.
