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Mac Pro and Starcraft 2.

TheEvilZeppelin

TheEvilZeppelin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I just recently received my new Mac Pro just yesterday and I installed Starcraft II and it recommended the graphic settings to be set at medium...

I don't understand how this could be because I upgraded from a 27" iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz, ATI RADEON HD 4670 and 4GB RAM.

The Pro has a 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 3GB RAM.

Any ideas?
 
Probably because the code is

If Mac {
Recommend("Graphics Medium");
}

🙂

It is btw what it recommends for my Macbook Pro as well.
 
you can set them at whatever you want. Does it feel slower? As a last resort there is always Boot Camp but I am not sure what the performance difference is.
 
It will perform twice as good in Bootcamp than it will in OSX, but with those specs you posted you should be able to run it at high settings in OSX. My MBP actually recommended I play it on high settings by default and its worked fine. For online I tone it down though
 
thecarrot said:
It will perform twice as good in Bootcamp than it will in OSX, but with those specs you posted you should be able to run it at high settings in OSX. My MBP actually recommended I play it on high settings by default and its worked fine. For online I tone it down though
Click to expand...

I just don't understand how my old iMac recommended high and this recommends medium... just goofy but from what I read I guess SC2 has been giving a lot of problems for Mac Users with performance.
 
I ran it on high (update: make that Ultra settings) with my 2008 Mac Pro with an Radeon HD 4890.

Doubt you will have any problems running it at whatever settings you wish.
 
When I initially copied over my 'Blizzard' directory from my Macbook Pro, Starcraft II recommended Medium to me also. I moved the Blizzard directory in ~/Documents to start fresh, and I just copied in the '~/Documents/Blizzard.bak/Accounts' directory to the new empty directory.

Then when I started up SC2, it had all the settings on High.
 
jedijoe said:
When I initially copied over my 'Blizzard' directory from my Macbook Pro, Starcraft II recommended Medium to me also. I moved the Blizzard directory in ~/Documents to start fresh, and I just copied in the '~/Documents/Blizzard.bak/Accounts' directory to the new empty directory.

Then when I started up SC2, it had all the settings on High.
Click to expand...

See I copied everything from my iMac to my Mac Pro so I'm going to try a fresh install and delete the Blizzard folder in Documents.
 
Ick, Mac Starcraft 2, run it in Windows and you'll see your framerates more than double. Same scene on Mac gets me 30 fps in medium/high settings, and over 60 fps in Win in high/ultra settings (Mac Pro 1,1, 4x3 Ghz, Radeon 4870).
 
That's strange...I just bought the same machine a little while ago (albiet with the 5770) and I can run the game on Ultra settings with no problems at all; the settings were set there automagically for me. Maybe it's something with the game's detection of the 5870?
 
Seriously, don't worry about what it recommends. The 5870 will run it on Ultra at around 40-50 fps. Can't say if that improves on Windows, but I've had very nice performance on the Mac side.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that it put me at Medium as well after a fresh install. Just bump it up 🙂
 
dissolve said:
Seriously, don't worry about what it recommends. The 5870 will run it on Ultra at around 40-50 fps. Can't say if that improves on Windows, but I've had very nice performance on the Mac side.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that it put me at Medium as well after a fresh install. Just bump it up 🙂
Click to expand...

I'll bump everything up to ultra or high and see what happens.
 
My 8800 defaulted to medium but runs everything on ultra except for textures in (OS X). Just bump everything up to ultra.

Pretty sure everything defaults to medium. But the defaults are pretty meaningless. You should change them for every game you get. The game isn't benchmarking your hardware or anything, it has no idea how it will run. Blizzard only plugged a limited number of presets in, the 2010 Mac Pro probably isn't in there.

Seriously, you have a kick ass card, just turn everything up to Ultra. 😛
 
goMac said:
My 8800 defaulted to medium but runs everything on ultra except for textures in (OS X). Just bump everything up to ultra.

Pretty sure everything defaults to medium. But the defaults are pretty meaningless. You should change them for every game you get. The game isn't benchmarking your hardware or anything, it has no idea how it will run. Blizzard only plugged a limited number of presets in, the 2010 Mac Pro probably isn't in there.

Seriously, you have a kick ass card, just turn everything up to Ultra. 😛
Click to expand...

Thanks I took a loan out on this Mac Pro.... 😀 My next goal is to up the RAM then leave her alone for a bit.
 
goMac said:
My 8800 defaulted to medium but runs everything on ultra except for textures in (OS X). Just bump everything up to ultra. 😛
Click to expand...

Weird, my 8800 GT defaults to high. However, since playing SC2 my card has begun to overheat. I pretty much have to play with the door off. Apple is sending me a new 8800 this week... but I'm nervous about the card's ability to hold up in the long term.
 
I'm running at Ultra settings with everything at max on a Quad 2.8, HD 5870 and 8GB ram and it runs perfect for me.
 
Aljovido said:
Weird, my 8800 GT defaults to high. However, since playing SC2 my card has begun to overheat. I pretty much have to play with the door off. Apple is sending me a new 8800 this week... but I'm nervous about the card's ability to hold up in the long term.
Click to expand...

Mine defaults to high as well, and sadly, overheats too.

I doubt a replacement 8800 will help you. Google "starcraft 2 8800" and see for yourself. Let's just say the two don't have a good relationship.
 
You'll run in perfectly fine (60~ FPS) on Ultra in OS X with your machine, you'll likely get around 80-90 FPS with more RAM (6GB+).

All of the above FPS is sweet for Gaming. You would get over 100~ FPS in it's native Windows, however. And 120+ with more RAM.

If in the future you notice Games running slow, then playing them in Windows will solve a lot of your issues.


My old 1.1 Macbook Pro gets and unplayable 15 FPS on Sc2 in OS X, and a decent 35~ in Windows.
 
NickCG said:
You'll run in perfectly fine (60~ FPS) on Ultra in OS X with your machine, you'll likely get around 80-90 FPS with more RAM (6GB+).

All of the above FPS is sweet for Gaming. You would get over 100~ FPS in it's native Windows, however. And 120+ with more RAM.

If in the future you notice Games running slow, then playing them in Windows will solve a lot of your issues.
Click to expand...

OS X had severe performance issues until the latest GPU drivers. It's pretty well fixed now. Still not as fast as Windows, but only off by about 10 percent at most.

The Mac ATI drivers are in pretty good shape too.
 
goMac said:
OS X had severe performance issues until the latest GPU drivers. It's pretty well fixed now. Still not as fast as Windows, but only off by about 10 percent at most.

The Mac ATI drivers are in pretty good shape too.
Click to expand...

You are upgrading your windows drivers/firmware to the latest release before making these comparisons? If so, I don't see how you are only getting a 10% difference.

Mac GPU driver updates come so slow compared to Windows, over time it will fall further behind once more.
 
dissolve said:
Seriously, don't worry about what it recommends. The 5870 will run it on Ultra at around 40-50 fps. Can't say if that improves on Windows, but I've had very nice performance on the Mac side.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that it put me at Medium as well after a fresh install. Just bump it up 🙂
Click to expand...

will 5870 run everything on ultra even with my 30"ACD? 2560x1600?
 
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