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The SC2 Beta system specs (unofficial)

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Level 22
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An HD 3100 will not run SC2 on High. Please, do not say anything unless you know what you're talking about. -.-

I know what Im talking about. I dont know what his ATI HD 3100 is but it says 892 MB?

MY card is ATI HD 3870, 512 MB 2.26 Ghz intel core 2 duo and it can run high texture and high graphics without lag and i play it at these settings, it starts laggin on ultra only but still not unplayable. Im judging based on similarities with mine.. It only doesnt detect the Video card the 1st time you run it but who cares, it runs perfectly. Even my brother's PC with also 512 MB video and Processor 3.0 GHz loads a little slower than mine (and Im using Alienware laptop remember?)
 
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Yes? They are great machines, they update their drivers for the new Windows 7, run pretty well, the new ones have Win 7 only, even if a little more pricy. I dont wanna start another discussion about it here, only those who have it can say if it is good or bad (never seen any1 complaining).
 
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The only complaint I've EVER had about Alienware was the pricy bit. But in the end it's worth it. I'd love an Alienware desktop.
But I just can't pull an instant thousand out of my pocket for computing alone.
 
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You realize that the Core 2 Duo is 4 1/2 years old, right? The latest revision of the Core 2 Duo was nearly 3 years ago. I don't need to own an Alienware to judge how good it is, i just need to know the specifications. And when you compare the price/performance ratio, you're getting ripped off, big time. I don't doubt the fact they run okay, it's just you could do much, much, MUCH better for that price.

For one, an HD 3870 is the pinnacle of the HD 3xxx series. The HD 3200 is a member of the ATi mobility family, and as such should not even be compared to a card such as the 3870. It's like comparing a GTX 285 to a 9400GTM, which is a ridiculous notion. (Please note, both the 285 and 9400GTM use the G92 GPU, so they are in the same "family" per se)

All in all Linaze, the specs of your laptop are decent, except for your graphics card. You may be able to run it on low in windowed mode, but don't be expecting much more. Don't feel too bad, i'm pretty sure your school didn't purchase those laptops intending them to be used for gaming. :p
 
lol actuly school laptops have to be partialy for gaming. I pay 6k for my private school but we dont get laptops your lucky so dont complain :3 if you cant play it

EDIT: Partly because they might need to run programs like sketch it, 3ds max, the other arcutecture autodesk thing, gaming engines for ict, tests for it ect. I know this because my big brother who is in uni for arcutecture needed to buy a Asus k501N (newer version than mine i got the k501 XD) becuase his old 1.8gh 4gb ram 256 graphic couldn't run even sketch it. so thats a pretty good school laptop ^^
 
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Nothing beats customizing a laptop. The reason why I have this is processor is I couldnt pay for more. 3GB DDR3 is the power of my nbook, no need more like ppl with 6GB and above. HD 3870 512MB video is pretty much enough, seeing how some ppl have old PCs with 256 MB or below :) Again, no money for CrossFire 512+512MB which is ofc uber performance. Their tech supp told me I could replace video card, HDD, processor in the future :)

So far the results for me are:
- I load faster than my bro's 3 GHz PC (lol), I can play High Texture and Grahpics without a problem, at Ultra Text and graph starts lagging. Maybe due to the processor if I alt+tab and then maximize SC2 again, it takes 20 seconds to restore SC2 \, but once it does it, it is fast at High settigns again :)
 
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I can play High Texture and Grahpics without a problem, at Ultra Text and graph starts lagging.

Graphics kills, textures does not. Keep graphics high and try textures on ultra, and maybe turn down shadows/lighting a bit (Not shading) and you'll be fine. Lighting isn't too noticeable, and nor is shadows, but shading is, and the texture quality of ultra... MMmmmmmm.
 
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By shading do you mean shaders?

But yes, textures are generally not that demanding, but shaders are. (Turning shaders to the highest setting in Crysis for example will bring your 30fps average to a screeching halt on most video cards with AA and AF enabled to their fullest.)
 

Dr Super Good

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Textures are not demanding in general as the same render process is used weather you have a low resolution texture, or a high resolution texture. The only difference is that more GRAM is used storing the textures (generally not a problem nowdays as games are aimed at the 256 MB range with 700 MB odd for ultra at ultra res) and there is more traffic from GRAM to the shaders (more texture data is shipped per frame).

Like AF, you can mostly max it nowdays and see only a few frame reduction. The problem is that shaders do a hell of a lot of calculations, especially with SC2s lighting model and effects. Especially if you are running it in DX9 mode you will probably quite quickly hit a cap one one or more types of shaders preventing it from being set to the higher end of the scale and still be playable. When running in DX10 mode however, shaders are universal, thus as a result you will literally hit the 100% utilization of your card before it starts to drop frames. I am aware that the texture shaders in DX10 more also do the other shading effects, however do remember that textures are a per pixel opperation, meaning even with ultra textures the number of texture opperations will generally remain simlar to that of low res textures.

Remember he is using a laptop with a rather slow processor. Thus any lag I would blame on his slow processor as it probably can not keep up with the physics and such. Additionally graphic cards for laptops are weaker than desktop ones, so he could be hitting a cap there as well although SC2 is far from graphically demanding.

Benchmarks showed that the most limiting factor for the game was eithor poor drivers (ATI DX11 cards) or processor. With graphic cards like the geforce 280, they were achieveing max with no AA at post HD resolutions at above 60 FPS. With slower cards lower FPS will be obtained but remember that you are almost definatly not playing it at post HD resolution if you have a slow graphic cards (those screens cost).
 
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I know but they wrote next to textures (512MB high), (1GB ultra), my video is 512MB. It's ok guys High is just awesome for me - but before that I was High Graphics and Medium textures. Medium textures means you won't see the fire particles from reactors and engines of units, also some others. The fact is High Graphics caused this difference in particles as the new patch suggests - fixing particles not showing correctly when using High. But im rather surprised this low processor makes it run very fast, my brother's 3 GHz run and load the game slower. Then it may also have to do with that I dont upload much things on my HDD and that makes the processor doing lighter task. Ok I dont have tech issues atm so im fine, go on :)
 
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so is SC2 HD or semi HD or not HD at all?

Well technically it's "HD" but the quality of said HD really depends on your settings. At low, it could be like WarCraft III, at Medium (especially with low shaders) it looks like Spore, at High it looks like World of WarCraft and at ultra it looks like Dawn of War II.
 
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On low settings I can manage around 35 FPS (system specifications copy and pasted from my beta profile scan):

My System Specifications:

* Operating system:Windows 2.6.1.7600 ()
* CPU type:pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU T4400 @ 2.20GHz
* CPU Speed (GHz):2.22
* System memory (GB):3.961
* Graphics card model:Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
* Graphics card driver:igdumdx32.dll
* Desktop resolution:1600x900
* Hard disk size (GB):283.403
* Hard disk free space (GB):215.508
 

Dr Super Good

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TheTerran, the fact you are compairing processors for loading is rather stupid. Most of the slowness in loading in modern games is due to bascking storage read rate restrictions. As you said, you have like 512 MB of video data to load before the game begins. Also if your brother is runnint it on ultra he has even more video data to load so the test is only valid at the same detail level. Secondly the major reason you are probably faster is because your on a laptop and using a reduced diameter hard disk. They might not store much but even laptop ones rotate faster than desktop ones due to less drag so there is less random axcess delay which is generally the major cause of slowness when loading. Finally the actual prepairing of the data is almost no load at all as you can write GBs of data to RAM a second without any problems and processors perform atleast 2 billion cycles worth of instructions per second (note instructions take more than one cycle in general). This means that the only cap is the hard disk transfer rate and interface bandwith and I seriously doubt a laptop with desktop comparision there is fair due to differences in random axcess times.

If this was the problem, why did 4 MB WC3 maps take so long to load? Well the first pieces of the bar moving were the loading of the models. The end piece before the game is loaded is the compiling of the jass script. The middle pieces are theparsing of the object data. Believe it or not, the whole JASS trigger compiler works via a massive case statement, meaning that each native parsed has about a O(n/2) efficency where n is the number of natives in total, however the actual delay is because of the initial evaluation of the script (setting up the units and stuff). Why do object editor data take so long to load? Well they for some reason perform a lot of O(n/2) searches when setting up internal relationships between types.

As SC2 is decently designed I hope, I seriously believe the loading map process is streamlined to be more efficent than WC3's.
 
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Dude my bro's desktop and many 2-3 year old have HDD running 5400 RPM or less, mine is 7200 RPM, that also matters. But seems you are more into such things than me :) What I hope is the specs for the full game like video, processor, won't be much higher. The fact taht I play High quality means, i will be able to play it for sure, but hopefully High in the full game as well w/o any freezes/lag.
 
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Made a thread for something similar. Didn't see this, so hopefully everyone notices the EDIT...

I would like to be able to run ultra high:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 @3.4Ghz 125w BE

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

4GB Corsair 1600Mhhz DDR3 RAM

ATI Sapphire Raedon HD5770 Vapor-X Overclocking edition
 
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I would like to be able to run ultra high:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 @3.4Ghz 125w BE
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
4GB Corsair 1600Mhhz DDR3 RAM
ATI Sapphire Raedon HD5770 Vapor-X Overclocking edition



You will be able to play at ultra, but at what resolution ;)

I have very slightly better PC than that and I'm able to play at 1920x1080 with ultra settings comfortably.
 
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Does anyone know if sc2 can run on 512mb of ram? I know it says 1gb of ram but so does League of Legends but my computer can run it.
 
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I'm in trouble when it comes to multiplayer custom maps, in the future.
I've been testing in small, singleplayer custom maps and I get huge spikes regularly, but I think they're when new models are being introduced to the game ect. Game starts from editor in about 30sec and the game gets generally a bit slow feeling when there are about 200-300 units in the map and simple spawn and counting triggers are running for every unit. Graphic settings are set to the Low preset from the dropmenu.

Motherboard: EPoX 8HEAI ATX
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 2800+ 1.8 GHz
GPU: 3dClub NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 256MB
RAM: 1GB
HDD: 150GB
OS: Windows XP SP3
Most used resolution: 1152x768

CPU model? Windows' Device Manager gives this: (dunno if it helps, though)
"ACPI/AUTHENICAMD_-_X86_FAMILY_15_MODEL_4\_0"

What is the most effective upgrade for me? I would just like to be able do custom maps and play them in multiplayer. Graphics are second priority only.
(I live in Finland (€) and don't have that much money to spend.)
 
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Just a heads up, I can play with the lowest settings I can set up in the nvidia control panel with the folloing specs:

Processor: Pentium 4 3GHZ 2 cores
Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce 6200 256mb ram
Ram: 1 GIG.
OS: Windows 7
Resolution: 1024 * 768 or the number close to this :wink:

It starts running slowly with more than 150 units.

Hope this helps a few people :grin:.
 
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Your biggest problem is your graphics card. Fortunetly for you that's prehaps the easiest component to upgrade. Also extra memory would do nicely, but that's secondary.

You talking to me?

I know the problems :D. Actually, my set up works fine like I said. I will however be getting a new computer in a couple of months. Custom build for the win.
 
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I know you weren't specifically asking for help, but I just wanted to point out that you're in a somewhat good situation.

Also grats for the upcoming new computer. Yeah, custom is always nice, if you know what you're doing. Well, people who get custom ones tend to know what they are doing. I'm slightly jealous of you atm, but maybe I'll catch up at some point, hehe.
 
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20-30 frames on ultra with 3.5 GHZ Dual Core and GeForce 9800 GT
but it's a Pentium D 805 so CPU power will most likely be the limiting resource
on my father's laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo P8400, GeForce 9300M with 256MB VRAM) it runs with 25-35 frames
it runs fluent on medium and low without any problems
zerg are much more demanding than any other race (maybe because of creep and the awesome organic models)
but 300 banelings don't drop more than 5 frames (SC2 seems to be much more optimized for huge numbers of units)

I'm looking forward to buy a laptop for like 600 € (which were like 900 $ last week, now it's just 760 -.-) I hope that someone will make a nice laptop with USB 3.0 and enough power within time

however the graphics are worth the money (at least a litte bit)
units reflect in water for example and for some weird reasons wireframe mode in editor has less frames than normal mode oO

edit: I HATE MONEY! it just becomes like 30% less worth without me doing anything o_O

PS: if there is anyone who is able to recommend a laptop which is rather cheap and works very well with sc2 (and the editor) it would be awesome if this person tells me about it :D
 
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I see how the water is made of games like Empire earth III, Age of Empires 9latest) etc. I think with shrinking things, they decided to have partially a look from those kind of games with smaller units, everything looking smaller, the water I'd say is the same idea.
 

Dr Super Good

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i have a geforce 440 NVIDIA
No you dont... There is no such card as a Geforce 440 from nvidia and certainly there are no drivers for one.
Anyway if you have any Geforce 400 graphic card, even a 460, you will be able to max the game on ultra without a problem if your processor is as insane.

If you meant to say that you have a Geforce 340, then you will probably still max the game graphically (if your processor is good enough) although you might suffer minor preformance dips on busy combat scenes.
 
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