Starcraft 2 GPU / CPU Scaling Graphs

[Udgnim]

apparently you can DL the Starcraft 2 Beta client and get replays to work by following these instructions: http://www.gamingnewslink.com/2010/02/20/how-to-watch-starcraft-2-beta-replays-tutorial/

going to see how it performs on my system

edit: used a 4 player FFA replay, replay speed "Faster," and set replay to use the winning player's camera

resolution is 1680*1050. AA doesn't seem to be working. not sure about AF. set Shaders to "Extreme." all other graphics settings are "Ultra" or "on." also have max sound quality and sound channels. not exactly sure why video memory was not logged but I believe it can exceed 512 vid RAM usage on my stated settings (definitely did exceed 512 vid RAM usage when I was running at max replay speed which is Faster x6). would not be surprised if this is the reason why my framerate dipped to 0 on the single instance.

CPU: E8500 @ 4.1
Video Card: 4870 512 stock, Cat 10.2
OS: Windows XP
RAM: 4 GB

 

[borisvodofsky]

apparently you can DL the Starcraft 2 Beta client and get replays to work by following these instructions: http://www.gamingnewslink.com/2010/02/20/how-to-watch-starcraft-2-beta-replays-tutorial/

going to see how it performs on my system

edit: used a 4 player FFA replay, replay speed "Faster," and set replay to use the winning player's camera

resolution is 1680*1050. AA doesn't seem to be working. not sure about AF. set Shaders to "Extreme." all other graphics settings are "Ultra" or "on." also have max sound quality and sound channels. not exactly sure why video memory was not logged but I believe it can exceed 512 vid RAM usage on my stated settings (definitely did exceed 512 vid RAM usage when I was running at max replay speed which is Faster x6). would not be surprised if this is the reason why my framerate dipped to 0 on the single instance.

CPU: E8500 @ 4.1
Video Card: 4870 512 stock, Cat 10.2
OS: Windows XP
RAM: 4 GB

:hmm::hmm: Hmmmm ...... On Ultra it says recommended for 1024 cards. Is Frame dipping to zerothe result, if it is loading from Desktop Ram?? I was under the impression that the PCIe Bus was high bandwidth-yy enough to cope for this sort of thing?? Or did the internet just lie to me as usual.

UGH,, I see you have a 1680x1050 Monitor. How I wish I still had one, then all my games would run at 60fps. haha.

Are there any cheaper 1680x1050 ips/s-ips panels nowadays? The wfp 2407-2408 lag shitless. I'm stuck with a wfp3007 that my Card can't push 60 on SCII. 4870 512.

 

[soccerballtux]

this game is in desperate need of bump mapping. I am disappoint.
If they added that in it would be completely win. Otherwise it looks like WoW to me.

 

[soccerballtux]

yikes, looking over the core scaling, this LOOKS like the wow engine too! One main thread, with a 2nd thread for sound and a few other things.

 

[Udgnim]

:hmm::hmm: Hmmmm ...... On Ultra it says recommended for 1024 cards. Is Frame dipping to zerothe result, if it is loading from Desktop Ram?? I was under the impression that the PCIe Bus was high bandwidth-yy enough to cope for this sort of thing?? Or did the internet just lie to me as usual.

UGH,, I see you have a 1680x1050 Monitor. How I wish I still had one, then all my games would run at 60fps. haha.

Are there any cheaper 1680x1050 ips/s-ips panels nowadays? The wfp 2407-2408 lag shitless. I'm stuck with a wfp3007 that my Card can't push 60 on SCII. 4870 512.

here's a log of a 2v2 replay

didn't reproduce the dip down to 0 FPS, but SC 2 can definitely exceed 512 vid RAM usage especially with AA and higher resolutions. also, the PCIe bus just helps with loading in data faster. if a game needs more RAM than a video card has to display what's on screen, it will have to use system RAM and will likely produce framerate stutter.

 

[invidia]

The SC2 engine is poorly designed. You need a powerhouse comp to play it at decent settings. I'm running at:

- OC'd to 3.8ghz Core2 Duo E8400
- 4 GB Geil High performance Ram
- EVGA Geforce 260
- Windows 7 64-bit
- Ultra settings in SC2 @ 1920x1080

My fans never go beyond medium speed in any other games I play with max settings (MW2, GTA4, WoW, etc.). Even 6+ hours of MW2 or GTA4 at maxed settings my temps and fans are just above average. About 1-2 games in SC2, my graphics and CPU fans hit max speed and temps hit a numbers that only occurred when I stressed test this comp.

Overall, it plays very smoothly with no skips and at consistent max FPS. I can fraps 1920x1080 games without any lag. It's just very resource hungry and puts your hardware to its limits.

 

[Fenixgoon]

:hmm::hmm: Hmmmm ...... On Ultra it says recommended for 1024 cards. Is Frame dipping to zerothe result, if it is loading from Desktop Ram?? I was under the impression that the PCIe Bus was high bandwidth-yy enough to cope for this sort of thing?? Or did the internet just lie to me as usual.

UGH,, I see you have a 1680x1050 Monitor. How I wish I still had one, then all my games would run at 60fps. haha.

Are there any cheaper 1680x1050 ips/s-ips panels nowadays? The wfp 2407-2408 lag shitless. I'm stuck with a wfp3007 that my Card can't push 60 on SCII. 4870 512.

i'm doing 1920x1080 maxed on a 3870 at decentframerates (i'd guess 30-40 range). seems reasonable to me.

 

[invidia]

Thank god for that! When i host my own games i can backstab my allies then

Random teams (if you ever played War3) is locked. You cannot backstab your team unless you deliberately attack them, since they are ranked games.

 

[mav451]

The SC2 engine is poorly designed. You need a powerhouse comp to play it at decent settings. I'm running at:

- OC'd to 3.8ghz Core2 Duo E8400
- 4 GB Geil High performance Ram
- EVGA Geforce 260
- Windows 7 64-bit
- Ultra settings in SC2 @ 1920x1080

My fans never go beyond medium speed in any other games I play with max settings (MW2, GTA4, WoW, etc.). Even 6+ hours of MW2 or GTA4 at maxed settings my temps and fans are just above average. About 1-2 games in SC2, my graphics and CPU fans hit max speed and temps hit a numbers that only occurred when I stressed test this comp.

Overall, it plays very smoothly with no skips and at consistent max FPS. I can fraps 1920x1080 games without any lag. It's just very resource hungry and puts your hardware to its limits.

Err I find this very hard to believe. Are you seriously saying that SC2 is more strenuous than LinX or IBT?

 

[rcpratt]

I wouldn't be surprised if the SC2 engine is poorly designed. After all, WoW's is terribly designed and it's probably similar.

 

[soccerballtux]

I wouldn't be surprised if the SC2 engine is poorly designed. After all, WoW's is terribly designed and it's probably similar.

as I posted earlier, only 2 threads looks EXACTLY like WoW to me. A Blizzard employee posted in the wow forums that breakup the main game code into multiple instances would take a heapton of work and will never be done. SO they just made a few threads for some extra things like the sound engine, etc.

 

[Kalmah]

The SC2 engine is poorly designed. You need a powerhouse comp to play it at decent settings. I'm running at:

- OC'd to 3.8ghz Core2 Duo E8400
- 4 GB Geil High performance Ram
- EVGA Geforce 260
- Windows 7 64-bit
- Ultra settings in SC2 @ 1920x1080

My fans never go beyond medium speed in any other games I play with max settings (MW2, GTA4, WoW, etc.). Even 6+ hours of MW2 or GTA4 at maxed settings my temps and fans are just above average. About 1-2 games in SC2, my graphics and CPU fans hit max speed and temps hit a numbers that only occurred when I stressed test this comp.

Overall, it plays very smoothly with no skips and at consistent max FPS. I can fraps 1920x1080 games without any lag. It's just very resource hungry and puts your hardware to its limits.

This is a beta.. certainly performance is going to improve drastically on final release?

 

[ChaoZ]

This is a beta.. certainly performance is going to improve drastically on final release?

Doubt it. Beta is mostly for finding bugs and balance issues.

 

[dguy6789]

This is a beta.. certainly performance is going to improve drastically on final release?

My friend with an Athlon 64 X2 5400+, 4GB of ram, and a Geforce 8800GTS 320MB runs the game perfectly fine. Don't know what the people who say the game is super demanding are talking about.

 

[Tookie123]

Anyone tested the 'Extreme' shader option?

 

[borisvodofsky]

SC2 is the death of Single Core Nonetheless,


WHY can't they make sup com fast Dame it..

If they ever do,, SCII can DIAF,,,, GPU accelerated stuff..

Commmonnnnnn....... I feel like I'm watching wallpaper dry whenever I play Supcom on my friend's q6800 xtreme. NOT the fastest, but pretty damee fast for a cpu.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

SC2 is the death of Single Core Nonetheless,


WHY can't they make sup com fast Dame it..

If they ever do,, SCII can DIAF,,,, GPU accelerated stuff..

Commmonnnnnn....... I feel like I'm watching wallpaper dry whenever I play Supcom on my friend's q6800 xtreme. NOT the fastest, but pretty damee fast for a cpu.

spaceman has a twin

 

[Fenixgoon]

Err I find this very hard to believe. Are you seriously saying that SC2 is more strenuous than LinX or IBT?

i also find it dubious. i'm running an E4300 w/ 3870 at 1080p maxed out, and my framerates are solid 30-40 i think.

i'd have to run fraps or something else to confirm.

 

[soccerballtux]

i also find it dubious. i'm running an E4300 w/ 3870 at 1080p maxed out, and my framerates are solid 30-40 i think.

i'd have to run fraps or something else to confirm.

It stressing my 9800GT like crazy, I was hitting 81-82C on my non-overclocked 8800GT.

I just got done watching some replays and I have to say I am not impressed with the direction the game has taken. The engine looks like World of Warcraft, especially the colors and shading.

Worst of all everything seems too big. I kept wanting to zoom out more-- but I couldn't, I could only zoom in. Some units take up a whole like...8th of the viewing area. The Terran Thor units for example.

I am completely over this game and will be happy to stick to Starcraft 1.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...CPU-benchmarks-x-Core-i5/i7-leading/Practice/

I don't see this posted anywhere...


I know everyone's excited for this game, but let's try and keep things organized in less than a dozen threads.

Anandtech PC Gaming Moderator
KeithTalent

 

[Qbah]

Those look very weird...

A E6600/Q6600 slower than a X2 6000? The Core architecture is a lot faster clock for clock than the old K8. So a 3.0GHz K8 > 2.4GHz Core2 - which would be a first, ever.

On the other side a Core i5 750 is faster than a Q9650. So... 2.6GHz "Nehalem" > 3.0GHz Core2.

The only conclusion is that for some reason the Core2 architecture is very weak in this game. Very weak.

Also, max two threads (E6600 ~ Q6600 and E8400 ~ Q9650). Hopefully that's just the beta.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Those look very weird...

A E6600/Q6600 slower than a X2 6000? The Core architecture is a lot faster clock for clock than the old K8. So a 3.0GHz K8 > 2.4GHz Core2 - which would be a first, ever.

On the other side a Core i5 750 is faster than a Q9650. So... 2.6GHz "Nehalem" > 3.0GHz Core2.

The only conclusion is that for some reason the Core2 architecture is very weak in this game. Very weak.

Also, max two threads (E6600 ~ Q6600 and E8400 ~ Q9650). Hopefully that's just the beta.

HAHA, You sounding like you leaning to become a fanboi. haha naw jk. IDK bout Very weak.

I think Blizzard really fucked up here. Barriers to Entry is VERY VERY high for this game. even little kids know what good vs bad graphics are these days, but MOST little kids are in no position to buy Hardware.

Xbox might have low res, but most games run very smoothly. and that is what the upcoming crowd is getting used to. The jutters would really kill the emersion. Blizzard should've coded the game for Far lesser hardware. When starcraft 1 came out, it RAN on EVERYTHING. :hmm::hmm:

 

[Kabob]

It stressing my 9800GT like crazy, I was hitting 81-82C on my non-overclocked 8800GT.

I just got done watching some replays and I have to say I am not impressed with the direction the game has taken. The engine looks like World of Warcraft, especially the colors and shading.

Worst of all everything seems too big. I kept wanting to zoom out more-- but I couldn't, I could only zoom in. Some units take up a whole like...8th of the viewing area. The Terran Thor units for example.

I am completely over this game and will be happy to stick to Starcraft 1.

Then please go to your bnet account and opt out of the beta...one more key for me to possibly nab!

 

[Kabob]

When starcraft 1 came out, it RAN on EVERYTHING. :hmm::hmm:

+1, I started playing SC1 on my parent's 90 MHz Pentium 1 with 16MB of RAM and it didn't look much worse than it does on my current machine...

 

[shortylickens]

Actually, StarCraft 1 didnt run on EVERYTHING. You needed Windows 95 and a pentium. At the time not EVERYBODY had that. But it ran on MOST things which is more than you can say for the average video game today.

This sucker (at debut) will run on more systems out there than any other current 3D game at debut. Dual core is very common right now and as they already pointed out, it was the particles that really stressed the CPU. It might not look super pretty on my Radeon X1550, but that wont affect the game play.