Quick SCII Review

[Motliest Crue]

Hello,

I thought I would give a quick first impression and little review to help some people on the fence and also answer some "will it run on my MBP" questions.

I have the base model 2010 MBP 13''. I am running Starcraft from it to an older external monitor. In options I have the resolution set to lowest (all my monitor will allow) and graphics all set to blizzard defaults (medium). I have only played one game but had no lag or slow down with 8 players.

1 thing I did notice is if I were to minimize Starcraft (Command M) to look something up online my computer is really slow. Delayed typing and such but the game runs just fine and as soon as I exit the game my computer runs fine....anyone else notice this?

The game itself seemed great. I played 1 match last night with 3 AI allies against 4 AI opponents just to get a feel for the game. I really like the graphics and the smooth game play. I can't give an in-depth review since I have not played long enough but some things I really liked:

Not sure if its my new mouse but scrolling seems smoother (Logitech marathon mouse)
3d maps are great
Zoom in and out of map using scroll wheel
Maybe just me but I like how you can upgrade your command centers (I play Terran)
Choose your color before start of game
Friends list
Sound effects and music are great

That’s all I can think of at this point, if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

 

[Motliest Crue]

Edit review

Hello,

I thought I would give a quick first impression and little review to help some people on the fence and also answer some "will it run on my MBP" questions.

I have the base model 2010 MBP 13''. I am running Starcraft from it to an older external monitor. In options I have the resolution set to lowest (all my monitor will allow) and graphics all set to blizzard defaults (medium). I have only played one game but had no lag or slow down with 8 players.

1 thing I did notice is if I were to minimize Starcraft (Command M) to look something up online my computer is really slow. Delayed typing and such but the game runs just fine and as soon as I exit the game my computer runs fine....anyone else notice this?

The game itself seemed great. I played 1 match last night with 3 AI allies against 4 AI opponents just to get a feel for the game. I really like the graphics and the smooth game play. I can't give an in-depth review since I have not played long enough but some things I really liked:

Not sure if its my new mouse but scrolling seems smoother (Logitech marathon mouse)
3d maps are great
Zoom in and out of map using scroll wheel
Maybe just me but I like how you can upgrade your command centers (I play Terran)
Choose your color before start of game
Friends list
Sound effects and music are great

That’s all I can think of at this point, if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

Okay a quick edit to my review yesterday....I went home and tried playing SCII Wednesday (after having no issues Tuesday) and the game crashed on me 3 times including 1 time freezing for 10 minutes with an unresponsive system.

I have since read that there is something wrong with the drivers for the graphics card. I am going to try SCII on my 3 year old Dell desktop later tonight - not sure if it will work and I may have to replace the graphics card but worth a shot.

 

[aki]

This may be entirely irrelevant to your issues or even factually incorrect , however -

I have read on some SC2 threads that it runs on the hot side. Specifically, there isn't any framerate limiting in the game at the moment, so it will max out your GPU/CPU pushing out frames (you can see this if you display the FPS using alt-ctrl-F on Windows and opt-ctrl-F (I think) on OSX). This can be an issue for machines with less cooling (eg., I'm guessing, laptops).

There is of course no reason to run SC2 at 200 fps or whatever. You can limit this by setting active the V-Sync preference under Options in SC2. This will limit your frame rate to match the refresh rate of your monitor (which ends up being erm 60 fps I think? I forget now).

Or you can add these two lines:

frameratecap=30
frameratecapGlue=30

to the text file in documents/SC2/variables.txt

It limits your frame rate to 30 fps (or whatever you choose).

 

[Block]

If you dual boot to Windows you will get SIGNIFICANTLY better performance if you have an NVIDIA card.

 

[0009382]

I'm using early 2010 MacBook Pro 15, and can max it out if I have nothing in the background and it will run smooth like a new car!

 

[Block]

I'm using early 2010 MacBook Pro 15, and can max it out if I have nothing in the background and it will run smooth like a new car!

I like your last name. (Not meaning to sound stalkerish or anything, I just read your guide and smiled when it popped up.)

 

[Motliest Crue]

This may be entirely irrelevant to your issues or even factually incorrect , however -

I have read on some SC2 threads that it runs on the hot side. Specifically, there isn't any framerate limiting in the game at the moment, so it will max out your GPU/CPU pushing out frames (you can see this if you display the FPS using alt-ctrl-F on Windows and opt-ctrl-F (I think) on OSX). This can be an issue for machines with less cooling (eg., I'm guessing, laptops).

There is of course no reason to run SC2 at 200 fps or whatever. You can limit this by setting active the V-Sync preference under Options in SC2. This will limit your frame rate to match the refresh rate of your monitor (which ends up being erm 60 fps I think? I forget now).

Or you can add these two lines:

frameratecap=30
frameratecapGlue=30

to the text file in documents/SC2/variables.txt

It limits your frame rate to 30 fps (or whatever you choose).

Thank you for the heads up. I actually hooked up my desktop PC and play SC2 without any issues on it. It's about 3 years old and I had "retired" it when I got my new MBP but it works just fine.

 

[Meever]

I'm using early 2010 MacBook Pro 15, and can max it out if I have nothing in the background and it will run smooth like a new car!

Are you bootcamping that sucker? I thought in OSX land we'd be lucky to get 30+ fps on medium with the 15".


And yeah, SC2 constantly crashes. Really pisses me off! I lost my chance at a winstreak because of a crash.