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I purchased Starcraft 2 for my MacBook Air.......

DannyNguyener

DannyNguyener

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 13, 2010
117
0
AND IT WORKS GREAT!

I used another CD drive to install it. After installation, the CD was no longer needed; a Battle.net account was however, along with a CD key in order to even play campaign.

I have a 2.13Ghz/128SSD MBA. With the settings on low, it runs fine. Kinda suprised me. With the next update for the MacBook Air, you should at least be able to run it on standard settings, hopefully even high, especially if Apple uses the 320M in the next MBA.
 
Wow! That's a pleasant surprise. I had been wondering if the MBA's would be able to join in on the SC2 experience. :)
 
Wow that is interesting. My early '08 MBP sports the 8600 card that Blizzard puts as minimum requirement for SC2, and it certainly shows in play. Even just campaign scenarios don't run at a comfortable fps rate; it suggests I run at a lower resolution, but that's just a sad idea :(.

Cool for the MBA is that you can always download the game again once you have added the key to a b.net account ... even if that would be a several GB download!

So, surprised to hear that the 9400M runs it successfully, the 8600 performs around the same as the 320 in the new MBPs in fps tables - barefeats was nice enough to include a machine from exactly the generation of mine in recent tests; I guess I'll have to try running in low quality mode to see how much improvement it makes! But looking good for whatever if any update comes for the MBA, which should be a tempting machine especially in light of the mad pricing on the desirable new iMacs :).
 
MartiNZ said:
Wow that is interesting. My early '08 MBP sports the 8600 card that Blizzard puts as minimum requirement for SC2, and it certainly shows in play. Even just campaign scenarios don't run at a comfortable fps rate; it suggests I run at a lower resolution, but that's just a sad idea :(.

Cool for the MBA is that you can always download the game again once you have added the key to a b.net account ... even if that would be a several GB download!

So, surprised to hear that the 9400M runs it successfully, the 8600 performs around the same as the 320 in the new MBPs in fps tables - barefeats was nice enough to include a machine from exactly the generation of mine in recent tests; I guess I'll have to try running in low quality mode to see how much improvement it makes! But looking good for whatever if any update comes for the MBA, which should be a tempting machine especially in light of the mad pricing on the desirable new iMacs :).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm running the settings on low, wish I could go lower, as I don't mind, since it still looks incredibly good. The next MBA will be something worth the wait I hope. =)
 
I played the beta on my MBA it gets hot after a while but you can certainly play for a good half hour on low settings no lag or issues.
 
Was the game played in a multi-player match or campaign? I know that once the amount of players/units on the screen increases, it can start lagging quite a bit even with the 320M
 
Been playing the campaign on my 1.83/ssd air using low settings and 1152x720. It doesn't look great but not terrible either its totally playable. Not bad for an ultra-portable in my opinion.
 
MartiNZ said:
Wow that is interesting. My early '08 MBP sports the 8600 card that Blizzard puts as minimum requirement for SC2, and it certainly shows in play. Even just campaign scenarios don't run at a comfortable fps rate; it suggests I run at a lower resolution, but that's just a sad idea :(.

Cool for the MBA is that you can always download the game again once you have added the key to a b.net account ... even if that would be a several GB download!

So, surprised to hear that the 9400M runs it successfully, the 8600 performs around the same as the 320 in the new MBPs in fps tables - barefeats was nice enough to include a machine from exactly the generation of mine in recent tests; I guess I'll have to try running in low quality mode to see how much improvement it makes! But looking good for whatever if any update comes for the MBA, which should be a tempting machine especially in light of the mad pricing on the desirable new iMacs :).
Click to expand...

How much RAM do you have? I played a few games on medium settings but it lags in battles and I just can't make myself play on low. I have 2GB of RAM and was wondering if 2 more will improve things?
 
Mac-Michael said:
How much RAM do you have? I played a few games on medium settings but it lags in battles and I just can't make myself play on low. I have 2GB of RAM and was wondering if 2 more will improve things?
Click to expand...

I've 4GB, and wishing I could get more :).

Even running everything at lowest settings but highest resolution I get messages saying reduce settings or quit other apps to improve performance :(. And looking at top on Terminal shows SC II is one of the only things my machine ever does that runs it out of RAM.
 
MartiNZ said:
I've 4GB, and wishing I could get more :).

Even running everything at lowest settings but highest resolution I get messages saying reduce settings or quit other apps to improve performance :(. And looking at top on Terminal shows SC II is one of the only things my machine ever does that runs it out of RAM.
Click to expand...

Man, that's a downer. I guess two more GBs and BootCamp it is. See you guys on the battlefield.
 
hmmm

My 2.5 Ghz 8600 w/ 512 vRam plays SC on medium well when you turn off shaders and everything else with bugs, and performance will be increased as blizz patches some bugs in the coming 10 or so years.
cinematics are great too.
 
Eddyisgreat said:
hmmm

My 2.5 Ghz 8600 w/ 512 vRam plays SC on medium well when you turn off shaders and everything else with bugs, and performance will be increased as blizz patches some bugs in the coming 10 or so years.
cinematics are great too.
Click to expand...

Interesting - same exact spec as mine, with quite different results.
 
Did you buy sc2 mac version?

DannyNguyener said:
AND IT WORKS GREAT!

I used another CD drive to install it. After installation, the CD was no longer needed; a Battle.net account was however, along with a CD key in order to even play campaign.

I have a 2.13Ghz/128SSD MBA. With the settings on low, it runs fine. Kinda suprised me. With the next update for the MacBook Air, you should at least be able to run it on standard settings, hopefully even high, especially if Apple uses the 320M in the next MBA.
Click to expand...
 
Thats great, too bad I can hardly browse facebook my Rev A Macbook air. It's now a spare I keep in the parents house. The battery goes flat every couple does without use.. sigh.
 
I'm surprised it even really runs on the MBA. I have the late 2009 MB and it has issues running the game with everything at standard. I bought the 4GB RAM upgrade the other day though, so it should be coming soon, and then hopefully it'll run a little more smoothly. I'll probably have to switch to low when I go online :/
 
Well. Enabling vertical sync fixed my main issues, now need to play around with the frame rate display (ctrl-opt-f) to see how it goes back up on medium :).
 
Syncs frame rate to some fraction of your display's refresh rate - apparently known for reducing 'tearing', which I guess is what I was getting. It's in the video options.
 
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