Starcraft 2 + iMac 27 i7

[senc01a]

Hi mates,
Has anyone tried SC2 on the iMac 27 i7 with ATI HD 4850 at 2550x1400 with max detail settings?
Does it run smoothly even in crowded battles? Is there a big performance leap between windows & mac?

Thanks in advance!

[UPDATED]
It runs slow at 2550x1440 with high or max details.
Good framerate no drops at 1920x1080 with mid-high details

 

[DoFoT9]

id suggest that performance would be highly laggy not much performs well at those Res

 

[kyleh613]

Sadly Blizzard was not really able to optimize Starcraft II for Mac. If you are going to play then you really want to install Windows on Bootcamp and play in Windows 7. If you do that then you can play the game at max settings without any issues.

 

[senc01a]

Just tried it on OSX.
It runs slow at 2550x1440 with high or max details.
It runs pretty smooth at 1920 x 1080 with mid - high custom details.
I'm installing it on Windows, I'll let you know how it runs in a while.

At 1920x1200 I get two black bands on the side.

iMac Quad core i7, ATI Radeon HD 47=850.
4 GB Retail RAM

 

[DoFoT9]

You have a 4850

Thanks very much for posting the results! I'm excited. The iMac has a pretty decent card in it.

 

[spencers]

Just tried it on OSX.
It runs slow at 2550x1440 with high or max details.
It runs pretty smooth at 1920 x 1080 with mid - high custom details.
I'm installing it on Windows, I'll let you know how it runs in a while.

At 1920x1200 I get two black bands on the side.

iMac Quad core i7, ATI Radeon HD 4750.
4 GB Retail RAM

Let us know!

 

[senc01a]

Hi,
I've been playing for a while on Windows 7 x64 with the latest ATI drivers.
It runs slightly better than on OSX but the different is not really that much.

At 2550x1440 runs better on Windows but it feels like at 1920x1080 it runs more less as fast (slightly faster on win7), very smooth.
I've played the single player mode and also a few battle.net matches and it runs smooth even in very crowdy moments

 

[senc01a]

I've been playing a bit more on OSX at 1920x1080 with pretty high settings on battle.net and I must say that it runs very smooth no matter the amount of units or how crowded the battle is. I suppose that the FPS remain above 60 but I don't know how to actually have SC2 to show them.

You can check the level of detail on the screenshot attached.

 

[Kelmon]

Hi,
I've been playing for a while on Windows 7 x64 with the latest ATI drivers.
It runs slightly better than on OSX but the different is not really that much.

At 2550x1440 runs better on Windows but it feels like at 1920x1080 it runs more less as fast (slightly faster on win7), very smooth.
I've played the single player mode and also a few battle.net matches and it runs smooth even in very crowdy moments

Cheers for the information. My copy should be in the post now and I have exactly the same iMac (sorry, I broke in). It's good to know that I don't need to muck about with Boot Camp and I can support the Mac side of things. Perhaps patches will help matters out in the future.

 

[senc01a]

Cheers for the information. My copy should be in the post now and I have exactly the same iMac (sorry, I broke in). It's good to know that I don't need to muck about with Boot Camp and I can support the Mac side of things. Perhaps patches will help matters out in the future.

I think the patches will indeed probably improve this, as it did happen in WoW.

 

[dexthageek]

I've been playing a bit more on OSX at 1920x1080 with pretty high settings on battle.net and I must say that it runs very smooth no matter the amount of units or how crowded the battle is. I suppose that the FPS remain above 60 but I don't know how to actually have SC2 to show them.

You can check the level of detail on the screenshot attached.

I am running SC2 in OSX (1920x1080) with settings on High I am getting around 35 FPS, If I bump the res up to 2550x1440 my FPS drops down to around 20.

You can view the FPS by pressing Crtl + Option + F while playing the game.

 

[OasisNYK]

So what's the consensus? It doesnt sound like doing it through Win 7 adds much which is not what I would expect.

I havent purchased yet an am waiting to get a conclusive review on OSX vs Win 7 on the 27 inch iMac.

I would actually prefer to use OSX since I don't want to go through the trouble of installing bootcamp etc.

 

[TMRaven]

On my 4850 model, I run sc2 at max resolution and max graphics, and get 30fps on windows. The same preferences get 15fps under osx. The difference in performance is huge.

 

[PsyD4Me]

that's why i have a mac pro

 

[henrikrox]

I think the patches will indeed probably improve this, as it did happen in WoW.

What are you talking about, starcraft 2 runs 10-20% better in windows then in osx... blizzard has officialy said this. so i dont know what you have done, but starcraft 2 is not better in osx.

Also people who are playing sc2, should turn down shadows, it doesnt do much and you will notice a huge gain in fps.

also you can do ctrl + alt + f to display fps

 

[senc01a]

What are you talking about, starcraft 2 runs 10-20% better in windows then in osx... blizzard has officialy said this. so i dont know what you have done, but starcraft 2 is not better in osx.

Also people who are playing sc2, should turn down shadows, it doesnt do much and you will notice a huge gain in fps.

also you can do ctrl + alt + f to display fps

I never said SC2 runs better on Mac. I didn't even say that it runs equally fast.
Please do read the post again ....

 

[Meever]

I'm getting all sorts of inconsistant reports. I think it's because it's windows. If you download the latest drivers and optimize then obviously the performance gain will improve substantially (on top of the already prevalent advantage of directx over opengl)

 

[senc01a]

After playing many more times on both platforms I must say that although in Mac it runs ok and it is definitely playable, the reboot to windows is also definitely worth it.
With slightly higher details it runs at an average of 10 - 15 fps higher, the loads are faster I think and for sure the in game small loads are smoother.