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Starcraft 2 - Will it run? megathread

Mac Model:

Operating System: OS X 10.6.4 (SL Graphics update installed)

Processor Speed:2.0GHz, 3MB L2, 1066MHz

RAM:3GB 1066MHz DDR3

Video card: GeForce 9400M GT 256 MB (shared memory)

Screen resolution:1280x800

Default settings: game sets me to all low settings, 1280x800 res

Modifications to default settings:put terrain up to high, put portraits on 3D, movies on HD, Texture up to High.

Playability:after adjusting to settings above, i pretty much got the same fps (30-40 depending on scene complexity) as before the tweaks. for integrated cards like the 9400m, im guessing the reasom putting textures up didnt give me a performance hit is because it uses shared memory so theoretically it has 3gb available (less because rest of system is using some). putting it down to 1024x768 gave me 35-45fps, but it was too ugly so i put it back to native 1280x800. i tried putting shaders on medium, and it seemed like my system just got punched in the stomach, because suddenly i was getting 10-15 fps on 1280x800, and 15-20 on 1024x768. by the way, all these figures are from when you first start a match, during an actual battle frames, im sure using medium shaders would be like watching a slideshow. although on low at 1280x800, i have never experienced considerable slowdown, except during 200 supply mega-battles with like 100 units. hope this helps someone, or whatever :)
 
ansl said:
Mac book pro 13" 2010
2,4 Ghz
4 GB ram
Nvidia 320M

- Most settings on medium
- Reflections off

Runs like a dream, except when pop limit reaches 500-600 in 2on2's/3on3's, then the lagging strikes!

When minimized OSX runs really slow - so I always close SC2 when in OSX.

I'm very impressed with my onboard gfx chip.

Unfortunately I have another problem (which luckily seems to be on the retreat) - my SC2 must have crashed around 20 / 150 games - thats 13.something% crashing, not awesome IMO.

oh btw, 1st post ;)!
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glad to hear the 320m is holding up! maybe i'll trade my aging 9400m alu book for a 320m model, cuz im getting crap fps. about the crashing, yes im having the same exact problem! but since Sl graphics update it hasnt crashed. apply that if you havn't already.
 
mat25 said:
I dont know if this to be expected but i have a 2.66GHz iMac, 2 GBs of ram and the 9400m and i get around 20-15 fps on Starcraft 2.
My graphics settings are:
- 1280 x 800
- medium texture quality
- low shaders, lighting and shadows
- medium terrain
- reflections on
- medium effects
- low post-processing
- high physics
- high models
- 3D unit portraits
- high movies

Is there anything i can do to improve my preformance under OS X? Also i got the graphics update and it did nothing.
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sorry dude, theres nothing you can do, were both stuck with the 9400m, and youre not getting any more fps anytime soon. whhyyyyyy did they put the 9400m into the imac?? such a stupid decision, seeing as it must drive a 1680x1050 display in your model...:mad: oh well, hey man, try turning everything to low, then slowly turning stuff up 1 at a time to see what gives you a fps hit. (use ctrl-option-f to display fps) keep the stuff that doesnt affect your fps and turn off everything that does. if you reallllly want the extra frames ( i would ) then tone the resolution down to 1024x768, that will give you fluid frames at your current settings.
 
tipman2000 said:
sorry dude, theres nothing you can do, were both stuck with the 9400m, and youre not getting any more fps anytime soon. whhyyyyyy did they put the 9400m into the imac?? such a stupid decision, seeing as it must drive a 1680x1050 display in your model...:mad: oh well, hey man, try turning everything to low, then slowly turning stuff up 1 at a time to see what gives you a fps hit. (use ctrl-option-f to display fps) keep the stuff that doesnt affect your fps and turn off everything that does. if you reallllly want the extra frames ( i would ) then tone the resolution down to 1024x768, that will give you fluid frames at your current settings.
Click to expand...

alright, thanks for the advice.
 
so it's still not worth playing sc2 on osx macbook 2010 2.53 ghz even with the graphics update?

Dell Desktop here i come...
 
Early '08 Penryn MacBook Pro
2.4 ghz
4gb ram
8600m gt
Windows 7 64-bit

^Anyone else have this set up? What version graphics driver are you guys using, and which one has the highest fps? (I'm using most current one nVidia lets me download, 258.96, but I know sometimes laptop2go has a faster one or something). Any help greatly appreciated!
 
yehgermeister said:
Early '08 Penryn MacBook Pro
2.4 ghz
4gb ram
8600m gt
Windows 7 64-bit

^Anyone else have this set up? What version graphics driver are you guys using, and which one has the highest fps? (I'm using most current one nVidia lets me download, 258.96, but I know sometimes laptop2go has a faster one or something). Any help greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

I'm running SC2 on my machine which is similar to yours: Early '08 MBP, 2.5 Ghz, 4GB RAM, 512MB 8600 GTM, XP Bootcamp.

No idea on the driver but I was getting 45-50 fps on the default medium settings and better ones using the "Performance Thread" settings but I've since capped them at 35 to avoid any issues.

Plays fine with no slowdowns and no crashes.
 
Running Fantastic

Mac Model: Macbook Pro 13" 2009 Model (more detail in my sig)

Operating System: Windows XP (Bootcamped)

Processor Speed:2.26 GHz

RAM:2GB

Video card: nVidia GeForce 9400m

Screen resolution:1280x800

Default settings:Everything on Low + 1156x620 (close to sth like this)

Modifications to default settings:Everything on High, except Shaders to low, Textures to medium, and screen resolution to 1280x800

Playability: Veeeery playable. Some might argue that the graphic looks bad, but as some of 'pro' gamers have complained, sometimes the graphics "does" bother playability. Running average of 60 FPS most of the time.
 
Mac Model: iMac 27" (Mid 2010)

OS: OSX 10.6.4

Processor: 2.93GHz i7

RAM: 4GB RAM

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 5750/ 5850M 1GB VRAM

Resolution: 2560x1440

Default Settings: Everything medium, 1280x720

Modifications: Everything set to as high as it can be (Ultra/ high on settings that cannot be set to ultra)

Plays really smooth 30+ FPS all the time, over 150 units on screen.
 
zViiPeR said:
Mac Model: iMac 27" (Mid 2010)

OS: OSX 10.6.4

Processor: 2.93GHz i7

RAM: 4GB RAM

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 5750/ 5850M 1GB VRAM

Resolution: 2560x1440

Default Settings: Everything medium, 1280x720

Modifications: Everything set to as high as it can be (Ultra/ high on settings that cannot be set to ultra)

Plays really smooth 30+ FPS all the time, over 150 units on screen.
Click to expand...

I have the same setup with 8GB of ram. Game is installing now, can't wait to see how it plays.
 
ecks618 said:
I have the same setup with 8GB of ram. Game is installing now, can't wait to see how it plays.
Click to expand...

It plays great, if anything yours should play slightly better than mine, games not as good as the first one but oh well. Have fun!
 
sc 2 on gma 950

so is there anyway to run sc2 on a macbook that meets all the requirements except the video card, i got a gma 950, would bootcaming work, i have 4gb ram idk if that helps
 
I booted into bootcamp win7 and installed it and this game SCREAMS at full res.

It's really sad that OSX is so crappy with this stuff. They really should adopt directx or do something.

I don't mind dual booting, but come on.
 
surprisingly runs alright

I play SC2 on two (working on 3) different setting changes so just bear with me
Mac Model: Macbook black 2008 (manufactured in july 2008)

Operating System:10.6.5

Processor Speed:2.4ghz

RAM:4

Video card:Intel display card GMA X3100

Screen resolution:1280X800 (not 100%sure)

Default settings:all low

Modifications to default settings: change avatars from 2d to 3d

Playability Uhmm surprisingly it ran ok during small parts it ran at 10-15 frames per second which didn't cause any problems for me everything was responsive for the most part i realize this isn't to great but i'm saying it is a workable framerate and if y0ur not hoping for alienware results your fine

(2nd changes)Modifications to default settings:Avatars 2d to 3d terrain: medium movies:high effects:medium textures:high:
Playability: well the fps went down to 9-12 it was very steady unlike the above and during battles that were huge frames went down like above but only to minimum of 5fps while this may seem bad it is actually really good for a computer not for gaming
(3rd changes)Modifications to default settings:same as above but models are now high i will update you about this one after i test it
*UPDATE* this is assuming all background applications with the exception of finder are closed
 
Wow, this games has seriously high production quality.
I'm not too much into rts, but this one was worth it.

Running smooth on a iMac 27" 2.8ghz i7 (previous model) with 16 gigs of ram.

2560x1440
Shadows on medium (not a big difference), the rest on high (gpu stuff) or ultra (processor stuff).

If I run it in 1920x1080 I can change one more option from high to ultra.

Anyway, best game available for mac. Now I'm looking forward to the new Diablo.

Any other noob up for a duel?
 
jeffy.dee-lux said:
What's the likely hood of playing this on a 2.2GHz 2007 MBP with 4GB RAM but an 8600M GT with only 128MB VRAM?
Click to expand...

Kind of a late response but I have the exact same model, upgraded to 4GB RAM too. The graphics are unreliable in the sense that they run fine sometimes. After playing a match performance seems to drop, it feels like they never fully fixed the memory leak problem. If I modify settings (up or down) performance drops. If I Quit and launch it again it's back to normal. But here's what I can do:

1920x1200 (external): High Textures, Low Shaders gets me fine fps, no noticable problems. And still looks really good, just no bump mapping, etc. Sometimes a hiccup will start to slow the game down, I just drop down to 1600x1000 and it's fine.

1400x900 (internal): High Textures, Medium Shaders gets me decent fps. Medium shaders looks 100 times better but seems to still cause problems over time.

I also encounter problems when I Cmd+M to windowed mode to check an email, etc. When I full screen again the game is noticably slower. I started to download the Windows installer to boot camp it, and the Mac Graphics Update came out so I stopped and never got to try it. Overall the game is by no means unplayable. I've clocked a lot of games (99 wins, a lot more losses I don't want to talk about)... Our video card is the minimum supported and it runs pretty great. If you're looking for the full experience you might want a different system. But if you just want to play a fun and deep RTS with decent graphics there's nothing stopping you.
 
My machine:

Late-2007 Macbook Pro 15"
2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
8600M GT 256MB
4GB RAM
Boot Camp with Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

Until this weekend, I had been playing SC2 in Windows XP using Boot Camp, with Leopard as my OS X version. I was getting around 40fps in Windows; never tried the game in OS X. The only game setting I changed was the resolution, which I set to 1440x900 so I could play at native resolution. Other settings defaulted to mostly medium.

Although I was happy with the Windows XP performance, I'm a big fan of Windows 7 and was curious how running a 64-bit OS would affect SC2. So, I upgraded to Snow Leopard and installed Windows 7. Loaded all the Boot Camp drivers and upgraded the nVidia driver to Verde 258.96 (latest from their site).

WOW. Windows 7 is just plain snappy in general, but SC2 performance has significantly improved. Gameplay is slightly faster (40-50 fps), but the overall experience is just smoother. The game boots faster, missions load quicker, the main menu is more fluid... and I think (but could be imagining) that things look better. Again, I left all settings default except resolution, which I set to 1440x900.

Very happy with the upgrade. There were a few quirks getting the Windows 7 ISO image to burn, and convincing the Boot Camp drivers to install, but more than worth the headache.
 
Mac Model: iMac i7

Operating System: Windows 7 (BootCamp)

Processor Speed: 2.93 GHz

RAM: 4 GB

Video card: ATI Radeon HD 5750

Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080

Default settings: Ultra

Modifications to default settings: High

Playability: Excellent 90fps when battle 70fps
 
dissdnt said:
I booted into bootcamp win7 and installed it and this game SCREAMS at full res.

It's really sad that OSX is so crappy with this stuff. They really should adopt directx or do something.

I don't mind dual booting, but come on.
Click to expand...

What Mac are you using?

It seems like Win7 and OS X have comparable performance (avg 30 fps) on my 2010 MBP 13"..
 
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