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Starcraft 2 Lags

E

Ethosik

Contributor
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
8,357
7,416
Even when I have the game on Medium quality, the game seems to lag. Around every 10 seconds or so, my FPS will drop to about 12fps then go back up to 100. This is a brand new Mac Pro.

3.33 Ghz 6-Core
8GB 1333 MHz
ATI Radeon HD 5870

When I had Windows on here it could run on Ultra with no issues. I do not see how OS X would make this unplayable even on Medium/Low. Do you have any ideas?
 
Exact same system as you. No issues running SC2 on Ultra frame rates vary between 44-65fps consistently.
 
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What do you think could be wrong?
 
xWhiplash said:
Even when I have the game on Medium quality, the game seems to lag. Around every 10 seconds or so, my FPS will drop to about 12fps then go back up to 100. This is a brand new Mac Pro.

3.33 Ghz 6-Core
8GB 1333 MHz
ATI Radeon HD 5870

When I had Windows on here it could run on Ultra with no issues. I do not see how OS X would make this unplayable even on Medium/Low. Do you have any ideas?
Click to expand...

Are you running anything in the background that's hitting the disk hard (lotsa torrents, image/movie encoding, etc)?
 
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Nope nothing is running in the background.
 
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Just installed Win7 to see how it runs again. 150 fps on ultra and 200-220 fps on high. Why is it running bad on OS X? Are there any logs in the activity monitor or something that I can measure performance?
 
You could try running it in Windowed mode and have activity monitor or iStats available next to it and see if something is spiking the CPU or HDD. Windowed will cause an inherent performance hit on its own, but this way you can see what may be resulting in periodic lag. I'm running on Ultra with 2.8 quad at >45 fps in OS X so your system is certainly capable of lag-free play.
 
dissolve said:
You could try running it in Windowed mode and have activity monitor or iStats available next to it and see if something is spiking the CPU or HDD. Windowed will cause an inherent performance hit on its own, but this way you can see what may be resulting in periodic lag. I'm running on Ultra with 2.8 quad at >45 fps in OS X so your system is certainly capable of lag-free play.
Click to expand...

By the time I would look at iStat, the game would be back to normal. The drop in FPS is too fast for me to look at any activity monitor to see what is going on, but it is long enough for me to notice it in game. Sometimes it freezes for a second though.
 
xWhiplash said:
By the time I would look at iStat, the game would be back to normal. The drop in FPS is too fast for me to look at any activity monitor to see what is going on, but it is long enough for me to notice it in game. Sometimes it freezes for a second though.
Click to expand...

Try with Activity Monitor then. Have them both open next to each other so that the moment you notice lag, you can see if another process is spiking the CPU or Disk. If this issue is always happening, you may want to consider a reinstall.
 
After having graphics problems with 10.6.4 myself (although not games related), I've read the Apple supports forums for a while, and there are various people reporting issues with this OS version.

10.6.5 should be out soon, this is supposed to solve most graphics problems.
 
Transporteur said:
After having graphics problems with 10.6.4 myself (although not games related), I've read the Apple supports forums for a while, and there are various people reporting issues with this OS version.

10.6.5 should be out soon, this is supposed to solve most graphics problems.
Click to expand...

Oh? I hope so. That'd be really nice - I have much dislike for kernel panics >_>
 
Yep, wait until 10.6.5.

I've never used 10.6.5 with Starcraft 2, but a friend told me that it resolved this exact sort of issue on his Mac Pro, in addition to nearly doubling the frame rate.

But I'd have no idea myself.
 
goMac said:
Yep, wait until 10.6.5.

I've never used 10.6.5 with Starcraft 2, but a friend told me that it resolved this exact sort of issue on his Mac Pro, in addition to nearly doubling the frame rate.

But I'd have no idea myself.
Click to expand...

I hope your friend is right. I'm on a Mac Pro 1,1 with a 5770 and I get between 20 - 45 FPS on Ultra.
 
Last edited:
i'm on a mac pro 1,1 with radeon HD4870 1GB video and i have absolutely no issues with starcraft 2.

gets around 70 fps with everything on ultra. running native os x version. been playing it since the betas and never had any issues. occasional lag/hiccups in fps do occur due to network issues. make sure no one is leeching your wifi connection, no other comps in the house downloading/streaming stuff, and maybe do some googling about improving your router performance/opening ports for sc2.
 
pfjellman said:
i'm on a mac pro 1,1 with radeon HD4870 1GB video and i have absolutely no issues with starcraft 2.

gets around 70 fps with everything on ultra. running native os x version. been playing it since the betas and never had any issues. occasional lag/hiccups in fps do occur due to network issues. make sure no one is leeching your wifi connection, no other comps in the house downloading/streaming stuff, and maybe do some googling about improving your router performance/opening ports for sc2.
Click to expand...

That's a good point, but does network lag drop your fps too? I'd have thought it'd simply stutter without registering a fps decrease. But the OP's issue could very well be network instead of hardware if that's not the case.
 
dissolve said:
That's a good point, but does network lag drop your fps too? I'd have thought it'd simply stutter without registering a fps decrease. But the OP's issue could very well be network instead of hardware if that's not the case.
Click to expand...

My friend says he was getting around 30 fps on 10.6.4 on a GeForce 8800 with the graphics update, now he's getting around 47 fps on 10.6.5, with all stuttering gone. Zerg doesn't quite get that FPS, seems a little more graphics intensive. My friend is also very curious to see how the 5870 does with 10.6.5, but his 5870 hasn't shipped yet.
 
goMac said:
My friend says he was getting around 30 fps on 10.6.4 on a GeForce 8800 with the graphics update, now he's getting around 47 fps on 10.6.5, with all stuttering gone. Zerg doesn't quite get that FPS, seems a little more graphics intensive. My friend is also very curious to see how the 5870 does with 10.6.5, but his 5870 hasn't shipped yet.
Click to expand...

your "friend" is interesting lol. for what it's worth i play zerg (always have since sc1 before broodwar) and i routinely play 4v4s with other zerg all at max 200/200 armies and verrrry rarely do i ever experience any stutter in fps. i'm also on a fiber internet connection at 25Mbps though.

the only time i ever get drops in fps is when there's lag -- and yes, lag will cause a drop in fps. notice how when the game starts to chop up, if it doesn't get better within 1-2 seconds the screen pops up saying waiting for player xyz - this is the lag window that appears. however, if the lag issue gets resolved before that window pops up, you will still see a freeze or drop in fps for that second or two. it has nothing to do with how many units are on the screen or the graphics settings either.


EDIT: oh and i'm still on 10.6.3 because i never could get dual monitors to work on 10.6.4 with my flashed radeon card. so i don't even have the improved graphics update on my system.
 
pfjellman said:
i'm on a mac pro 1,1 with radeon HD4870 1GB video and i have absolutely no issues with starcraft 2.

gets around 70 fps with everything on ultra. running native os x version. been playing it since the betas and never had any issues. occasional lag/hiccups in fps do occur due to network issues. make sure no one is leeching your wifi connection, no other comps in the house downloading/streaming stuff, and maybe do some googling about improving your router performance/opening ports for sc2.
Click to expand...

What resolution are you running at?
 
pfjellman said:
i'm on a mac pro 1,1 with radeon HD4870 1GB video and i have absolutely no issues with starcraft 2.

gets around 70 fps with everything on ultra. running native os x version.
Click to expand...

Same here for me, no issues at all on my 4870.
 
OP, you're gaming on the wrong platform.

You really have little option to but to suck it up and bootcamp into Windows if gaming is your primary interest; save OSX for getting real work done.

Mac gaming will continue to be several steps behind the PC in terms of reliability, performance and selection for a long time to come.

Sure, I fully expect some of you to be nerd raging at me, but the truth is that only cloud computing will offer the kind of parity that Mac users keep asking for.
 
I suffer from something similar.

Mine's weird. It ONLY occurs when I run the game first time after a start up (regardless of when I run it). If i quit and run it again, it doesn't have the problem.

Also when my frame rate drops, it gives almost a rhythmic drop. the units will be moving fast, slow, fast, slow.

After 5 minutes or so, it goes away..It's very frustrating. Also I have literally nothing running in the background...
 
phaedarus said:
OP, you're gaming on the wrong platform.

You really have little option to but to suck it up and bootcamp into Windows if gaming is your primary interest; save OSX for getting real work done.

Mac gaming will continue to be several steps behind the PC in terms of reliability, performance and selection for a long time to come.

Sure, I fully expect some of you to be nerd raging at me, but the truth is that only cloud computing will offer the kind of parity that Mac users keep asking for.
Click to expand...

I know that OS X performance is just no where near Windows performance for most games. I guess I'm just shocked that a 15" MBP (i7, 330M 512MB) in bootcamp is about equal to a Mac Pro in OS X with a graphics card that is 10-15 times as powerful.
 
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