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StarCraft II Beta for Mac Now Available

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Apr 12, 2001
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With all of the recent excitement surrounding Valve's plans to bring Steam and its games to Mac OS X, it pays to remember that other game developers are still putting out Mac versions of their releases.


104506-starcraft_ii.jpg


As noted by Kotaku earlier this week, Blizzard has released a beta version of StarCraft II for Mac OS X. StarCraft II is a highly-anticipated sequel to the popular StarCraft title originally launched on Windows in 1998 and later brought to Mac and Nintendo 64.

Users with beta privileges can download StarCraft II through their Battle.net accounts.

Article Link: StarCraft II Beta for Mac Now Available
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/04/30/starcraft-ii-beta-for-mac-now-available/
I remember reading on Best Buy Canada's website that if you pre-order the game you get access to the Beta... I wonder if that goes for Mac too or just PC. But yeah, I can't wait to see how well it will end up running on the 13" MBP with the "killer graphics"!
 
TheNewDude said:
I remember reading on Best Buy Canada's website that if you pre-order the game you get access to the Beta... I wonder if that goes for Mac too or just PC. But yeah, I can't wait to see how well it will end up running on the 13" MBP with the "killer graphics"!
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Preorder the game from gamestop and you get a beta key also.
 
jrlcopy said:
Preorder the game from gamestop and you get a beta key also.
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So i guess everyone is giving out Beta Keys now... A friend of mine was saying he just downloaded the Beta and it was "ok", not as good as what he was expecting after countless delays.

Blizzard seems to be missing all it's deadlines with this game!
 
I downloaded and installed it last night. Ran great. The default settings set everything to "Medium" for my computer. Ran completely smooth. No lag or issues. That game is awesome.
 
3GB download. It's times like this I wish I lived in Hong Kong.
 
Repo said:
3GB download. It's times like this I wish I lived in Hong Kong.
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Why Hong Kong? I live in The Netherlands and got a 120Mbit/s download.
If the server is willing, I can download at 14MByte/s max.
 
TheNewDude said:
So i guess everyone is giving out Beta Keys now... A friend of mine was saying he just downloaded the Beta and it was "ok", not as good as what he was expecting after countless delays.

Blizzard seems to be missing all it's deadlines with this game!
Click to expand...

Really? I've been playing the beta for more than a month, and it's been phenomenal. Honestly, more than I expected. A problem can be some people aren't into RTS games, or they set their expectations too high for companies who are already raising the bar in gaming. The gameplay is amazing, the effects, the mass-army control, everything. I don't know why someone would say it's "ok." I downloaded the beta last night for Mac, and it does have performance issues compared to my Mac Pro running Windows 7 and SCII. That would be my only complain, other than that, pristine work.
 
zMudvayne said:
So, how long does GameStop take to send the beta code? I just preordered... wish I could start the download while I'm waiting for the code...
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Takes a day or so apparently. Maybe up to a week? Should be in your e-mail.


I've been playing the beta for over a month now under Windows 7 with bootcamp with no problems on low settings graphics/models wise and high settings for terrain and physics and effects. Shaders are the biggest resource in this game.

Anyways, it played/plays awesome on bootcamp - very smooth, no stuttering even in large battles. I can't say the same for the Mac version... yet. I hope they can optimize it more and that Apple/Nvidia put out new drivers to help out the problems but it just was not a pleasant experience for me. And when I minimize the game into windowed mode to go to my internet browser, my whole system lags and INSANE amount. Like to the point of being unusable.

Fairly disappointed. :( Hope it gets optimized!
 
zMudvayne said:
So, how long does GameStop take to send the beta code? I just preordered... wish I could start the download while I'm waiting for the code...
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Supposedly, according to Gamestop, within 1 business day, although some other posts I have come across seem less optimistic (maybe they're just trolls...)

Either way, I put in a pre-order, if I don't get my beta key before too long I might cancel, I might not... I'm more of a digital download fella anyway...
 
Aldaris said:
Supposedly, according to Gamestop, within 1 business day, although some other posts I have come across seem less optimistic (maybe they're just trolls...)

Either way, I put in a pre-order, if I don't get my beta key before too long I might cancel, I might not... I'm more of a digital download fella anyway...
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So what if I pre ordered this game a year or more ago.....
I'm pretty sure it's been at least a year. My buddy pre ordered me and him a copy. I'll see if he got the email.
 
Guess we could always cancel the order and preorder in store to get the code immediately. If I haven't gotten a code by tonight, then that is what i'll do. Can't do much till after my finals though, so... push it outta my mind.
 
reden said:
Really? I've been playing the beta for more than a month, and it's been phenomenal. Honestly, more than I expected. A problem can be some people aren't into RTS games, or they set their expectations too high for companies who are already raising the bar in gaming. The gameplay is amazing, the effects, the mass-army control, everything. I don't know why someone would say it's "ok." I downloaded the beta last night for Mac, and it does have performance issues compared to my Mac Pro running Windows 7 and SCII. That would be my only complain, other than that, pristine work.
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So you'd recommend the PC version over the MAC??
 
Kiwi Jones said:
So what if I pre ordered this game a year or more ago.....
I'm pretty sure it's been at least a year. My buddy pre ordered me and him a copy. I'll see if he got the email.
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I think this is a recent offering, it expires May 17th, and I have heard that Amazon (Europe?) expires May 16th, or when supply drops, whichever comes first.

You'll have to check out the fine print...
 
Has anybody ran it on an early 2008 MBP with 8600m gt? (look at my sig) What graphic levels did u guys set the game on?
 
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