StarCraft II System Requirements

[roguo]

Below are the requirements of StarCraft II as of 12/2017, as listed by Blizzard. Be aware that due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements may change over time.

Although 32bit Windows OSes are currently supported, this might not be the case forever as part of a wider 64bit migration.

Windows Requirements

• Minimum System Requirements
  Operating System: Windows® 7 / Windows® 8 / Windows® 10
  Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 5600+
  Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® 7600 GT or ATI™ Radeon™ HD 2600 XT or Intel® HD Graphics 3000 or better
  Memory: 2 GB RAM
  Storage: 30 GB available HD space
  Internet: Broadband Internet connection
  Media: DVD-ROM drive (for retail partial install only)
  Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution

• Recommended System Requirements
  Operating System: Windows® 10 64-bit
  Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 or AMD FX Series Processor or better
  Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 650 or AMD Radeon™ HD 7790 or better
  Memory: 4 GB RAM
  Storage: 30 GB available HD space
  Internet: Broadband Internet connection
  Media: DVD-ROM drive (for retail partial install only)
  Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution

Mac Requirements

• Minimum System Requirements
  Operating System: OS X® 10.10 (Latest Version)
  Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo
  Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M or ATI™ Radeon™ HD 4670 or better
  Memory: 4 GB RAM
  Storage: 30 GB available HD space
  Internet: Broadband Internet connection
  Media: DVD-ROM drive (for retail partial install only)
  Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution

• Recommended System Requirements
  Operating System: macOS® 10.12 (Latest Version)
  Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 or better
  Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M or AMD Radeon™ HD 6970 or better
  Memory: 8 GB RAM
  Storage: 30 GB available HD space
  Internet: Broadband Internet connection
  Media: DVD-ROM drive (for retail partial install only)
  Resolution: 1024X768 minimum display resolution

Old requirements for retail WoL from 2010

PC Requirements

• PC Minimum System Requirements
  
  Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
  2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor 128 MB PCIe
  NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better
  12 GB available HD space1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)
  DVD-ROM drive
  Broadband Internet connection
  1024X720 minimum display resolution
  
  
• PC Recommended System Requirements
  
  Windows Vista®/Windows® 7
  Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
  2 GB RAM
  512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better
  *Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.

Mac Requirements

• Mac Minimum System Requirements
  
  Mac® OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
  Intel® Processor
  NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT or ATI Radeon® X1600 or better
  12 GB available HD space
  2 GB Ram
  DVD-ROM drive
  Broadband Internet connection
  1024X720 minimum display resolution
  
  
• Mac Recommended System Requirements
  
  Intel® Core 2 Duo processor
  4 GB system RAM
  NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT or ATI Radeon® HD 4670 or better

 

[Hiruty]

>.> lol i got 512mb NVIDIA GeForce 310m CUDA enabled gpu, 4gb ram, 200gb hdd room but a crappy 2.2 dual core Pentuim Processor ( P4400 ) a newer model of pentuim but from a high spec cpu ive gone to mid ._.

 

[Tails96]

Bah, 128mb, 512 ram, 1.1 ghz... Oh, and 60 gb hard disk space.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Why are you listting random specs people? Obviously the game can run with lower but the specs above are the minimum for the game to be classed as playable (above a certain FPS).

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Haha I have my Alienware with HD 3870. Funny how Blizzard never ever mentioned that one and now it's specially in the specs. I read the recommended ones.

So with my AW phase 1 I was playing with high grahpics and textures and it was running 100% smoothly. In the final phase I got lag using the same.. Im afraid those who were at certain settings during beta will have to step one level down, unless exceeding the specs very much :/

>.> lol i got 512mb NVIDIA GeForce 310m CUDA enabled gpu, 4gb ram, 200gb hdd room but a crappy 2.2 dual core Pentuim Processor ( P4400 ) a newer model of pentuim but from a high spec cpu ive gone to mid ._.

Proof

 

[Dr Super Good]

I think the graphics are easier to render so your GPU is loaded less now however your CPU gets loaded more. Most of you have the same problem, low clocked / slow processors and SC2 is a 2 thread monster of a game.

I am running an intel core I7 processor at 2.67 GHz so even if it is a lower clock than some core2duos or quads, it still performs better due to DDR3, tri channel memory and more cache. One person with lower perfomance was using a Pentium duo at 2.2 (which are slower than the same clocked core2duo), and the other person complaining has only a 1.1 GHz. Thus this supports my argument that your processes are bottleknecking the game and not your graphic cards.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Im at Intel core 2 duo 2.26 GHz, so it is probably the reason for the lag during battles, the 3 GB DDR3 memory should be fine. Im gonna soon try it at Windows 7, replacing Vista. Im only not sure whether I should use x64 or x32 bit Windows 7, Home premium, pro or ultimate. Again, I had no lag at these settings in phase 1, i had em in phase 2.

 

[Hiruty]

wait i have 4gb of ddr3 so will that help with reducing lag?

becuase i can have many units on the screen ( 200 supply worth of stalkers ) with minimal lag reduction on meduim but a 10 - 15 lag reduction on high

 

[Dr Super Good]

Im at Intel core 2 duo 2.26 GHz, so it is probably the reason for the lag during battles, the 3 GB DDR3 memory should be fine.

Ok um... that makes no sense considering the core 2 duo range only supports the use of DDR2 memory (I3,I5 and I7 support DDR3).

wait i have 4gb of ddr3 so will that help with reducing lag?

Like I said, it is how fast your processor can work. Low framerate in SC2 is seldomly caused by the graphic card if you have any gamming card but most likly is caused by your CPU. DDR3 memory purly has improved memory axcess times over DDR2 and will help increase framerate slightly if that is the bottlekneck but not as much as upping the clock rate of the CPU or getting a better CPU.

Also, again, only more recent ATI and Intel processors support DDR3, your dual core does not.

The difference between medium and high is a lot. Thus it is to be expected that framerate will reduce drastically (I take it you incorrectly were using lag to mean framerate as lag is purly an internet connection thing). Such a major reduction points towards you have a very noticable bottlekneck (your processor). On medium it still is not hitting the bottlekneck fully but at high you suddenly hit it causing major performance drops due to some piece of hardware being unable to cope. It is prety obvious your machine is made to handle medium cause that is nearly loading it 100%, high is just too much for it.

On optimum settings the game should have 60 FPS most of the time with reductions only at stressed times (the last protoss mission for example which hammered my frame rate before I won). If you melee play heavilly you need greater than 30 FPS at all times inorder to play properly. If your computer can not handle a setting level you will have to reduce the graphics to make it perform, there is no excuse grumbling about bad performance at high when you have medium or low to choose.

As for the best visuals. Well as you should know it is far better to manually taylor settings than choose a preset level. Thus you can adjust settings getting the best graphics while making sure your performance is optimum. For example if your CPU is the bottlekneck you can up textures or other non CPU dependant graphic settings to still improve visual quality while keeping performance the same as you will utalize other areas of your hardware more fully towards their bottleknecks (your GPU in this case). However the geforce 310m is not a gaming card so do not expect mirricle graphics eithor way and medium sounds about right.

Also come to think of it, why do your have a pentium dual core and a brand new geforce 300m card... Surly you mean a Core2duo processor (major difference and pentium dual cores seriously sucked and were suceeded years ago by core2duo)?

 

[Hiruty]

uhmmmm hmmm my laptop was 800 bucks at march. My big bro has the updated k501n asus with a Dual core 2 @ 2.2ghz while i have the older cheaper k501E. I just looked at computer specs i have a Pentuim(R) Dual Core-CPU @2.20 ghz.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Ok um... that makes no sense considering the core 2 duo range only supports the use of DDR2 memory (I3,I5 and I7 support DDR3).

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz (3MB Cache 1066MHz FSB)

Taken from my specs info. So if I have 11GB free space and install SC2 it will be ok and I will still have available HDD space?

 

[Dr Super Good]

That would be cutting it close. The lack of space will make defragmenting hard and also hammer system performance. I advise getting a new HDD, 2TB costs only 80£.

 

[Voidwalker]

Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual Core 2.80GHz [each core], 1.5 GB RAM and an ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 for GPU

Yeah, I'm fucked...

 

[I-am-murloc]

I have: 2x Radeon HD 5770 in crossfire, i7 cpu @ 3,33ghz and 6gb DDR3 memory.

When I play Sc2 maxed out at 1920x1080 res it runs fine most of the times, but as soon as there is water nearby I get a drastic framerate reduction and it gets very laggy. Is anyone else experiencing lag when playing maps with water in them?

I cant have water in any of my custom maps I make because then I have to reduce the settings to medium to make it lagfree, pretty annoying -.-

Also, Sc2 dosnt seem to have crossfire support yet so I am pretty much on one HD 5770 when playing it.

 

[kernelmode]

here is a little heads up:

The campaign has higher requirements.

For example I have a Macbook Pro 15" (the cheapest one, 2.4 i3 , 256 MB VRAM, 4 GB RAM), Starcraft 2 recommends Medium settings. On the campaign, it lags horribly, with medium. I need to set it to LOW settings. But on single player, I can even set it on ULTRA, if there won't be massive battles, but HIGH settings are guarantied to work.

EDIT: Maybe this is some how connected to OpenGL, but I'm pretty sure it's because of the detail of the campaign.
I tried running it on my gaming windows laptop, but it hardly works on low settings...because the laptop WAS a gaming computer.... 5 years ago....

 

[Dr Super Good]

This damn game keeps running my brothers 8800 GT too hot even on medium. I am considering under clocking it because he is only able to utalize like 1/3 or 1/9 of its power before it overheats with this game.

No the FPS cap does not help and no I just dusted it 2 days ago.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

I had hag during battles in 1v1 high grahpics&tex in final phase of beta, and i didnt have lag in first phase. those complaints here dont sound good. I may switch to medium, but I just wont play it on anything lower:


PC Recommended System Requirements:

Windows Vista®/Windows® 7
Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor - Im 2.26GHz
2 GB RAM - 3GB DDR3 far enough
512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better - Im ATI HD3870
So I exceed or match the recommended and it seems these recommended dont correspond well, cause i would be running smoothly at high grahpics (like i did in phase 1 of beta) if these were ok.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor - Im 2.26GHz

SC2 is very CPU demanding and even a reductin in clock of 1/24-1/12 will drasticlly affect performance. Keep in mind all the background stuff you are probably running which can lower that 2.2 to 2.1 or even 2 for the game.

 

[Hiruty]

how can i over clock a laptop processor ( will it get too hot ) yes my cpy ( eniter ) gets hot after 2-3 hrs.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You should not be playing brand new games on laptops. If you are you just have to axcept poor performance.

 

[Hiruty]

well my laptop can play anno 1404 on med - high ( lags on high when you fill up an entiner island ) my bro can play anno 1404 on low with a 7 year old cpu with a 2.4ghz single core amd anthlon 256mb card and 1.5gb of ram lols only good thing is the hard drive 7600 rpm 300gb. so i think i can play it my ram makes up for bad cpu apprently the nvdia graphivs card is the only bad thing about my computer :3

 

[jorderick]

i have:

pc: adm x4, memory ram 3gb, disc 500gb, video card xfx nvidia geforce 9500gt 1gb

 

[Dr Super Good]

jorderick, that should run the game. The graphic card might not support ultra at times but overall it is garunteed to get medium (probably high).

 

[warblazer]

my system has a 2.56 CPU, 6600 GeForce Nvidia graphics card, 512 MB ram, and 14 GB freespace, will this run it on lowest settings?

 

[Dr Super Good]

No, you need atleast 1 GB of RAM to run this game although the rest of your hardware does meet the system requirememnts.

Your performance would still be poor even with the minimum RAM.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

How big is SC2 in the current patch, will 13GB free be enough? I will be installing on partition that has that much free space for now.

 

[Dr Super Good]

8.1 GB with a 100 MB odd my documents folder.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

That's me: Alienware M17, 512MB ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870, Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz (3MB Cache 1066MHz FSB),3GB Dual Channel DDR3 SO-DIMM at 1067MHz - 1 x 2048MB + 1 x 1024MB,

In Beta I had no lag using high settings, now it is like spikes - from time to time for less than a second, in battles may get kinda of laggy.

I changed to Medium - it didnt have animated portraits in beta, you couldnt see the fire propulsion form moving terran buildings, now im medium you can see them. That's right they improved medium making it almost like high. I dont see any difference between High and Medium now with particles also appearing in Medium, so tell me if you see a difference other than the texture getting brighter in High. I run 100% smoothly on Medium and with lag from the to time on High,

And Low is so bad, that the graphics gotta be worse than even SC1. Blistering Sands is like 1 color sand. I just think it's pointless to use Low, that's no gaming.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Low = WC3 standard.

now it is like spikes - from time to time for less than a second, in battles may get kinda of laggy.

Thats cause your processor is probably overloaded. It can handle the preloading for battles on medium but at high the data is just too much. Additionally if your hard disk is slow (most laptops are) or is fragmented the larger texture sizes will cause a lockup while they are loaded.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

My HDD is 7200rpm. Maybe it's the processor because when I alt+tab, it takes maybe 20 seconds to restore back the SC2 screen, then it's fast but Alt+Tabbing is an annoying wait. Well, SC2 as a full game is more demanding in terms of specs, so it's understandable - battles would be laggy so I now prefer medium.

But the point is, what's the difference b-n Medium and High? In beta Medium = no animated portraits, no fire particles e,g to moving ships or terran buildings, that wasn't fun with lacking particles. Yet, here I changed several times and I barely see a difference. I think Medium is almost like High and very little difference, they definitely improved it compared to beta.

 

[Astrella]

So, installed Starcraft II on my laptop, and as expected it's not really running well. I can only reasonably play 1v1 games (at the lowest detail) on small maps without getting lag. I have

2,00 GB Ram
Duo Core P 8400 @ 2.27 GHz
nVidia Quadro NVS 160M

I'm almost completely sure it's my graphics card that is really insufficient, but just checking to make sure.

 

[D4RK_G4ND4LF]

So, installed Starcraft II on my laptop, and as expected it's not really running well. I can only reasonably play 1v1 games (at the lowest detail) on small maps without getting lag. I have

2,00 GB Ram
Duo Core P 8400 @ 2.27 GHz
nVidia Quadro NVS 160M

I'm almost completely sure it's my graphics card that is really insufficient, but just checking to make sure.

you are right
your card is pretty much like the GeForce 9300M
my system specs are simmilar to yours but since I got a Geforce 9800GT (it's a desktop pc so other things will affect this, too) things run fine

 

[masterofra]

-Windows Vista
-AMD Athlon Duel Core Processor 4450e - 2.30 GHz
-Memory (RAM) 3.00
-NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

I can run sc2, on lowest settings, and barely. I was going to upgrade my Video card, But I would like to know what would be most important to upgrade, before I do so.

 

[Hiruty]

WINDOWS VISTA get rif of windows vister and replace with windows 7 or xp

 

[Kuvion]

I'm thinking about buying an HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo laptop. The CPU is an AMD Phenom II Dual Core 2.8 Ghz. It has 6 GB DDR3 RAM and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card (1024 MB). Will it make Starcraft 2 on ultra?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Kuvion, it has more than enough memory and support to run the game on ultra. The real question however is how well will it run it...

Frankly, I would not get my hopes up of running it playably at everything ultra all the time, especially if it has a HD monitor. However you should be able to run with atleast some settings on ultra all the time (eg textures as those have low processor expense). Settings that are computationally or visually expensive might have to be turned down a bit (like shader, physics etc) inorder to maintain a stable playable framerate during the variety of maps available to you.

All in all, laptops will never perform as well as desktops and the graphic cards sold for them are nowhere near as strong as those for desktops.

Do be aware that it is near impossible to predict more obscure problems SC2 might have with the computer. For example it might overheat if playing on ultra (SC2 is known to cause this and laptops would be more prone due to reduced cooling potential) or the graphic drivers from ATI may have compatibility problems with that graphic card. I would advise using google to search incase people have reported problems with SC2 and that particualar laptop model or the hardware it contains just to be sure.

Sorry for the semi necro post 20 days late, but hopefully you may find this informative.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

The Medium in retail looks like the High in beta or im hallucinating. The Medium is just as good, I posted some time ago pics a difference between Medium High and Ultra, the biggest difference being the water. I miss the Zakhul'Das water, it's one of the things that mostly impressed me about the graphics but I dont want even little lag in ladder so I dont use High, while I was on high in beta. It was less memory costly.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Reduce texture quality, they are one of the main memory hoggers in the games graphics. Like wise if you have a lot of excess memory you should not be afraid to max textures out because they are almost always equally computationally expensive to use.

You can always turn up the visuals for non-ladder play, as who cares about the odd frame rate problems playing custom maps.

 

[Kuvion]

Thanks Dr super god.I've found a better one now though, an MSI GX740-238NE. It has ATI Radeon HD5870 Graphic Card (1GB GDDR5, DirectX11), Inter core i5 450M (2,4 GHz), 4GB DDR3 RAM. I've also become a bit doudtful about HP. They seem to have the worst quality issues of all laptops and my mum's HP isn't that good either. Some days ago I was playing and suddenly the screen got black. It started to work again but that made me change my mind about HP. If I remember correctly, her first HP started with that before it broke down completely.

Edit: I bought the MSI laptop. It runs the game with all graphics on ultra and highest resulution, I have about 30-50 FPS in meele game. The few custom maps I have played also work fine. I don't know how trigger heavy they were though.

 

[frostloh]

can i run it with this ancient rig online (bnet):
intel core 2 duo E8200 2.66ghz
2GB DDR2 RAM
windows XP
nvidia 8600 *GT 6492836482 or something*
noobie 1.0 MB broadband internet
off topic: lol dr super good has 1337 rep when i posted this

 

[Kuvion]

frostloh: I've been running starcraft 2 on my dads ancient computer. It has crappy 1.8 Ghz single core processor, win XP and a graphics card that is so old that the game complained about it when I installed it. It runs on low settings, lags a bit but I can play 1v1 and campaign. Playing FFA against 2 AI lags horribly but with your processor it should work.
You have enough RAM, the processor should also run it but I don't know much about graphics cards, let's hope Dr.super good can help you with that.
I doubt your internet is good enough though.

In fact I have a trial cd key. I could give it to you so that you can test it before you buy it.

EDIT: I can play 1v1 on SUPERnoobie 0.28 Mbit/s Internet connection.

 

[Dr Super Good]

frostloh, you should be able to run it as the system is not that ancient.

 

[Bloody_Turds]

Im curious as to the EDITORS requirements..., aka fairly laggy is fine.. and lowest settings...

because im looking into getting a tablet laptop, for it, and photoshop..

on a side note.. my backup computer sits perfectly on the requirements line for everything >.<, 2.6ghz, 1gb ram, xp, and da graphucs card..
although i havnt installed sc2 on it... or id post a vid of how well it runs with min..

 

[Dr Super Good]

You will need atleast 1 GB (2 GB ram recommended for publishing at ultra) and DX9 complient graphic accelerator (10 recommended for better publishing).

Processor should not really mater. Although you must make sure it supports the required instruction sets (check the instruction sets the minimum CPUs have).

 

[Bloody_Turds]

@dr supergood
you talkin to me?, so the editor requirements are exactly the same as the game... i would hope there not.. as the editor is far less demanding,,

 

[Dr Super Good]

Processor wise, as long as it supports the required instruction sets (for example an intel core I5/7 processor supports a lot more compared to a pentium 4) it will run the editor. With out the required instruction sets it will just crash when it reaches the instruction (invalid instruction op code).

You will need a lot of memory to run the editor as it still has to load all the ingame textures as well as cache all the editor data. Without enough memory the editor will eithor cause a huge number of page faults and take forever to do anything or it will just crash.

Graphic wise is the most demanding aspect of the editor. Unlike virtual memory where you can just add more via page files on your harddisk, you can not do something simlar with the graphic card. The editor will eithor work or not work graphically and although you do not need as many FPS compared to ingame, you will still need enough power to run the editor. Trying to run it on a horriably out of date or weak card will likly result in a crash.

When publishing, it can render the map image and when doing so uses the editor specs. If doing this you are advised to have verything at ultra (which needs over 512 MB of graphic memory for texutes) so as not to permatly scar our submission. If using a custom image ignore this.

 

[Bloody_Turds]

ok then i ask another question.. is there a way to hook a tablet pc, up to another computer, as to use the tablet function, similar to a stand alone tablet (which i know you can buy), and possibly use it as your monitor as well... basically running everything on your other comp..
(without just tearin the tablet apart, or some crazy hardware hack, and creating new software

 

[tagg1080]

A small note, nvidia cards seem to display the game smoother than ati cards.

A few friends and I were playing around with it, and using extremely similar cards, side by side, you can notice quite the difference with sc2.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Are you sure the game settings, display, and hardware render quality were all the same?

I could turn on optimized rendering stuff in my nvidia drivers and SC2 will start to look like crap. Further more the drivers never default to the best on, you need to manually tell it to use the best.

 

[tagg1080]

Are you sure the game settings, display, and hardware render quality were all the same?

I could turn on optimized rendering stuff in my nvidia drivers and SC2 will start to look like crap. Further more the drivers never default to the best on, you need to manually tell it to use the best.

We fiddled with the settings to get them as close as we could, and there is still quite the difference.

A friend and I bought almost the exact same laptop, but his with an nvidia and mine an ati, basically the same card just the different brands.

There is just an overall smoother look to the game, not really a definitive benchmark-able thing.