You do not meet minimum system requirements

I play wow on a laptop, like many people. But unlike many people, my laptop is an Ibook G4. I have a respectable amount of RAM but no real intense graphic card to speak of and certainly not the required amount of Video RAM to play the game.

Before I added the extra ram to the computer, I was trying to play with the computer as it was, out of the box. I remember the first time that I flew into Ironforge and my computer showed the image of a gryphon... for 4 minutes, and then shut off. That was really fantastic. I remember thinking at that time, I should probably buy some ram. Fortunately a friend of mine, who also had a mac, had some spare ram that would fit my machine since he had just gotten more and better ram for his. Hooray for increased performance: and I've been able to play the game ever since.

I was really concerned when Blizzard was about to release TBC, because I fretted over whether the minimum system requirements would rise and therefore I would no longer be able to play with my computer. The TBC zones definitely tax the machine more than the azerothian world, with their large landscapes, fixtures and expansive views. Blades edge mountains are particularly silly on my computer as you can't really see what's going on at all with all the stupid spikes sticking up all over the place. As I fly around that zone, I am VERY likely to run into a spike because the area is rendering slower than I am moving.

With the coming of WRATH, I wonder again... will I finally have to retire my trusty laptop. And if so, what direction should I go? I've long thought that while I love MACs, since my wife and I both have one, they certainly are more expensive than a similarly geared PC. I could easily get a desktop that would run the game at a mediocre to good level without spending that much money. And of course, if I'm used to rolling with 16MB of VRAM, you know almost anything would be an improvement.

Another good question, is how much has the lack of performance ability of my computer hurt my performance in the game. The most obvious places I notice problems are in PvP. Large numbers of player characters make me sluggish, getting down to 4-8 fps and that can't be helpful for my uber OP pwnage, right?

I can blame my lack of success in PvP on the hardware, right?