Which OS for StarCraft 2?

[Bribe]

I am looking to run StarCraft 2 on the highest settings possible for my gaming rig, which will feature an i3, 8GB RAM and the AMD 6850 GPU.

From what I've seen WINE runs StarCraft 2 between 2-4 times slower than Windows 7.

Does anyone know if there is a cheaper operating system than Windows 7 for running StarCraft 2 at the same quality? I would be paying $99 for the OEM version which seems pretty extortionate.

I have looked at pay-based solutions like Crossover by CodeWeavers, which would allow it to run without Windows, but it doesn't fare any better for performance than WINE would.

Looks like Windows is pretty extortionate for their software but Apple is pretty extortionate with their hardware.

 

[Ironside]

Your only alternative is Windows XP, which is cheaper than Windows 7.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

If I have to get Windows 7 I will pay for it, simple as that. I was just wondering if there were cheaper, legal alternatives.

My AW laptop was with vista x32, luckily they made drivers for Win 7 x64. I bought Win7 x64 Home Premium for around 20$ from some reseller that seemed to be Chinese and legit reseller from online website - just the key, no manual, no disc, no extra $$ for a box, toilet paper (i.e manual) and other trashbin and toilet accessories. So how expensive is that?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Your only alternative is Windows XP, which is cheaper than Windows 7.

That cannot maximize StarCraft II due to the lack of support for Direct3D 10 and higher. It will only be able to maximize it within the restrictions placed by XP.

He will need to eithor get Vista, W7, W8 or a Mac alternative ( I assume they can max it at atleast equal visuals to Windows ).

for around 20$ from some reseller that seemed to be Chinese and legit reseller from online website

Something does not seem "legit" about that... The paper work is worth nothing compared to the value Microsoft places on the liscence itself.

Bribe, you will probably be able to pick up a cheap copy of W7 when W8 comes out. If I recall you said you will not be buying it right now so waiting till W8 comes seems a valid choice.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

It is totally legit... you can buy a key for ~20 USD, if you don't like random place try ebay. I was saying that I've seen Windows XP back 5 years ago with cost 400 USD what for? A piece of paper - i.e book/manual, some other useless things when all you need is the license? Win 7 is ~4 years old, such price for Home Prem is normal for online.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Windows 7 is not 4 years old. This year it is going to be 3 years old.

Using your logic, I should be able to pick up a virtual copy of Diablo III for like 10$. Too bad the virtual copy costs 60$ which is more than the physical copy costs. The price is the key itself, not any documentation that comes with it.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

In 2007 I bought a Win XP Pro key for 60 USD, I saw the same OS costing 400 USD in a a public Bookstore in the US, you do the math. Yes the key matters but some sell it cheaper, that's Chinese - they sell things cheap and they are still original. The site was legit and so is the key, there is nothing to argue about it.

 

[Troll-Brain]

Win7 for 20 $ seems too much cheap to be honest, even for China.

Link plz. (by pm or not)

 

[noob]

If you did not played starcraft before starcraft 2.
Get windows 98 and you will be able to play starcraft.

 

[Dr Super Good]

StarCraft 1 should work fine on Windows 7 64 as Diablo II does and they are about the same age. Never ever use Windows 98 as XP is superiour to it in every way.

He clearly wants to play StarCraft II though which there is no way in this universe that Windows 98 will run.

 

[Troll-Brain]

Successful troll.

I'm still interested for the link btw, i can't believe the site was legit.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

http://www.winsevenkey.com/windows-vista-home-premium-64-bit-product-key.html

for example, no installation or CD

 

[Troll-Brain]

Hmm, i didn't know we can buy just a key.
I'm still wondering if it's legal or not :s

Too bad i can't find any review of this website (with the plugin woot or not)

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Well I saw what it's like to use some custom starting of Windows which sucks and ofc I wanted to be w original afterall that's the OS, so I bought it (because my laptop's starting OS is Vista), I bought what the newer successor of my AW laptop has i.e Win7 Home Premium x64 and since August last year it's all good - no trial key. I only used a separate/my own Setup which I used a USB flash to start from.

Whether the reseller is authorized I don't care, as the copy is original, I was shooting blindly without knowing, but it was sent via email on time, so there was no scam - I had nothing to lose for such price anyway ;>. I'm NOT promoting this site, for me it is totally random one, so if you use it, do so at your own Risk. But some sites do offer you that, so just because smth is sold by just a key doesn't make it fake/scam.

 

[FockeWulf]

Starcraft 2 is both a CPU and a Memory hog. It memory leaks like no tomorrow.

StarCraft 2 is desinged for duel core CPUs so a duel core with a very high clock speed is a good way to go.

At least 8 GB of RAM is required as you will want to be used windows 7 Pro+ 64-bit. Windows 7 needs at least 2 GB to run smoothly.

Now if you want to map edit, play StarWars The Old Republic and have StarCraft 2 open at the same time you will need at least a quad core and 8 GB of RAM Preferably 16 though. The i7 is the best for this sort of job.

Also go with a Nvidia card for your graphics. StarCraft 2 was developed on Nvidia graphics cards and as such there are a few bugs with AMD cards that are hard to get rid of. Mostly camera issues.

 

[Dr Super Good]

At least 8 GB of RAM is required as you will want to be used windows 7 Pro+ 64-bit. Windows 7 needs at least 2 GB to run smoothly.

StarCraft II plays fine on 64 bit Windows 7 with 4 GB. Probably even 3 GB would be enough for smooth play.

8 GB is excessive as I use 6 GB and have more than enough memory for file cache and StarCraft II.

Now if you want to map edit, play StarWars The Old Republic and have StarCraft 2 open at the same time you will need at least a quad core and 8 GB of RAM Preferably 16 though. The i7 is the best for this sort of job.

16 GB of RAM is excessive. 8GB is more than enough to do this although with enough extra games open you will start to suffer from degraded file cache performance.

StarCraft II still benefits from quad cores as it can unload some other small threads onto the 2 idle CPUs giving almost exclusive use of 2 CPUs to the game's main threads.

 

[Bribe]

I plan to pop in 2 sticks of 4 or 2 sticks of 8, depending on the circumstances.

I haven't heard of any issues running AMD graphics with StarCraft 2. The 6850 is reported to have perfect FPS running SC2 Ultra at 1080p. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

 

[Magtheridon96]

I'd focus on the speed of the RAM modules rather than capacity.

I was able to run Warcraft III, NewGen, AutoDesk 3DS MAX 5, AutoDesk Mudbox, AutoDesk MotionBuilder and AutoDesk Maya with 4GB of RAM and had about 2GB remaining.
And I can assure you, all those AutoDesk programs were not idle.

8GB is for people who want to take a step forward to be on the safe side, and 16GB is pretty excessive.

It's not the amount of RAM that effectively speeds up your computer, it's the speed of memory reads/writes, allocation/deallocation.

The amount of RAM does play a role though. The more RAM you have, the less likely it is for your computer to use your hard-disk to cache data, and hard-disk read/writes are literally millions of times slower (milliseconds) than RAM read/writes (nanoseconds).

 

[Bribe]

I plan to use an ssd so pumping up the ram quantity is important. 1333mhz of ram speed is sufficient.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I plan to use an ssd so pumping up the ram quantity is important.

6-8 GB is more than enough. The only time I really get hard page faults with my 6 GB of memory is when I forcefully instruct the operating system to flush all soft pages to disk. With 8 GB and playing a game you will have over 4 GB worth of memory to act as a file cache which is more than ample for having no hard faults with programs.

With 16 GB you can load entire modern games into the file cache. Doing so will mitigate most advantages of having a SSD as you will not need to read anything from disk while playing. If you are interested in this check the thread I made in the tools forum where I demonstrate the principle on WarCraft III.

It's not the amount of RAM that effectively speeds up your computer, it's the speed of memory reads/writes, allocation/deallocation.

Memory speed only has a noticeable effect on high throughput processes such as video encoding. Out of order execution, which all modern x86-64 processors use, mitigates most of the problems of memory bandwidth bottlenecks. Processors with Hyper-Threading further reduce the problem because they allow a parallel thread to run in the unlikely situation of a processor blocking due to a memory read. Getting a processor with a larger on-chip cache will have a greater speed benefit than faster memory as cache is 10-100 times faster than RAM.

 

[Statharas]

StarCraft 1 should work fine on Windows 7 64 as Diablo II does and they are about the same age. Never ever use Windows 98 as XP is superiour to it in every way.

He clearly wants to play StarCraft II though which there is no way in this universe that Windows 98 will run.

I lol'd. I get 0.2 fps when playing D2. I get 20 fps on Starcraft, and 14 fps Sc2. 30 Wc3.

 

[Dr Super Good]

D2 has a graphic bug if you use Direct3D that results in stupidly poor performance on some Nvidia systems. The result is a Nvidia 275 GTX that can max SC2 and D3 having unplayable frame rate. The solution is to use DirectDraw instead which will give you maxed frame rate all the time.