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Starcraft II Beta Has Begun!
- Thread starter BradenG
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I'm running SC2 on the newest 17" MBP 2.66 i7, 500 GB 7200 RPM, 4GB RAM.
I lose no frames at all with most set to HIGH and a few set to ULTRA... and that's running at 1920x1200x32. The game looks absolutely beautiful even on medium, but the newest MBPs can run well above that.
I definitely do not know what's going wrong with the guy that had better performance in Win7 than OSX... I couldn't run ANY ULTRA at all in Win7, but when I switched to OSX I kicked 3-4 settings up to ULTRA and my fans were blowing much slower also under OSX even with higher graphics.
Win7: All HIGH settings = fans blowing at 5500 RPM
OSX: Mostly HIGH + a few at ULTRA = fans blowing at 4500.
Sorry I can't remember which settings I bumped to ULTRA atm, but it wasn't shaders... ULTRA shaders is killer and doesn't even look that much different anyways.
My only complaint is that lowering the settings even all down to medium/low doesn't really reduce the fan RPM... I really don't like spending hours playing a game that makes my computer sound like it's a 747 mid flight... I'm working on finding the ideal settings to run the game without blowing the hell out of my fans.
I lose no frames at all with most set to HIGH and a few set to ULTRA... and that's running at 1920x1200x32. The game looks absolutely beautiful even on medium, but the newest MBPs can run well above that.
I definitely do not know what's going wrong with the guy that had better performance in Win7 than OSX... I couldn't run ANY ULTRA at all in Win7, but when I switched to OSX I kicked 3-4 settings up to ULTRA and my fans were blowing much slower also under OSX even with higher graphics.
Win7: All HIGH settings = fans blowing at 5500 RPM
OSX: Mostly HIGH + a few at ULTRA = fans blowing at 4500.
Sorry I can't remember which settings I bumped to ULTRA atm, but it wasn't shaders... ULTRA shaders is killer and doesn't even look that much different anyways.
My only complaint is that lowering the settings even all down to medium/low doesn't really reduce the fan RPM... I really don't like spending hours playing a game that makes my computer sound like it's a 747 mid flight... I'm working on finding the ideal settings to run the game without blowing the hell out of my fans.
I'm running on a dual 3.0 with 8 GB and an HD4870 under 10.6.3 and I get constant "microfreezes". It's pretty much unplayable 
From what Blizzard is saying Apple needs to refine the OpenGL drivers thats why the low FPS under OSX
I'm running on a dual 3.0 with 8 GB and an HD4870 under 10.6.3 and I get constant "microfreezes". It's pretty much unplayable
From what I'm reading on the Blizzard forums it takes a while for the Shaders to cache and should clear up after a few games.
I don't know why they would lie but I find that hard to believe. 10.6.3 just had that OpenGL update.
I guess we'll see when Steam hits to see how well those games run...
Yes there was an OpenGL update with 10.6.3 but it doesn't mean they are refined enough like you might see on win7 or xp since ATI and Nvidia haven't had to really refine the code for this type of task, but this will help Apple get more of the games.
But OS X runs so much smoother than my Vista. And I only have 32-bit in Vista so I effectively have 25% extra RAM in OS X. I can't believe those two things don't make up for it.
Not only does it run worse at equivalent settings, but even though they're supposedly equal, it looks worse. Pretty disappointed.
Well the OS code is very refined just not the OpenGL for the tasks that Blizzard is using them.
Guess so. But if this is true I'll be irritated if there isn't a big patch shortly after Steam or SCII to fix these issues... I'm more worried about Steam games though.
If Apple and Steam do have a big deal going then I'm pretty sure Apple will hammer out any details that is required to get things up and running to a good level and as things age only things can get better
I mean Valve said they worked directly with Apple on this so they better have their **** together on this one. Steam could be huge and really open the Mac as a legitimate gaming platform and apple should support it.
Hell, I know tons of people (including myself) who refused to get a Mac until they could game on it. I was willing to make the Boot Camp sacrifice, some weren't.
It might be because it's a beta? Blizzard games normally run pretty close performance wise, across OS X and Windows. Hopefully it is fixed by release.
Blizzard said on their forums that the massive speed difference is due to Apple's poor OpenGL drivers, but they are doing everything they can to improve performance.
Well 10.6.4 focuses on graphics drivers, so hopefully that improves performance.
I finally got my key and played 6 rounds so far. On my 15" MBP with the 9600m, I can play the game at medium at 1920x1200 with decent enough framerate to be enjoyable. However, sometimes when the round starts, there is a glitch that causes the game to run at 10fps until I scout around my base, or until I scan the enemies base. But assuming Blizzard and Apple can work on improving the OpenGL code, the game should be great.
I just bought my key on eBay!! Since the pre-order action of gamestop (which we don't have in the Netherlands) the value for it has dropped significantly.
I tried 4 sales at the same time, Won 3 of those!! (of very trusted (100%) e-bay members, so I'm sure the keys work).
6, 8 and 15,50 euros. Won 2 of those for some of my friends and we devide the costs.
So if you like a key I'd recommend this route, you should be quick of course. After the first wave of keys has sold out the prices our bound to go up again...
I got a beta key from a friend and Im playing the game on parallels win7. It runs pretty good or at least its playable. Im running it a macbook 2ghz, 2gb and 9400m.
Cheers..
This is definitely good news.
oh you can sell them on ebay? i got a beta key but i dont want to spoil SC2, been waiting a long time for this game!.
played on my mbp on high settings just fine in osx didnt try it on windows. tried on my desktop maxed out though ran pretty good.
in osx didnt try it on windows. tried on my desktop maxed out though ran pretty good.