Starcraft 2 - Read Post #2 for a useful beginner guide

[shortylickens]

does anyone have a guest pass so i can try the game before buying?

Yup, every retail box gets at least two, and two WoW passes. Maybe the Collectors Edition has more, I dunno.

You still want one? Or did you already get it?

 

[tydas]

amazing, just logged on this morning and it said about 1,000,000 players on battle.net with 33,000 games...

 

[gorcorps]

This kind of gives you an idea of what the memory use is like for me...

http://www.aikouka.com/sc2memory.jpg

I was running fine at about 1.58GB but then I had an in-game cutscene with Raynor and another character (I won't say who ) and now it won't drop back down even though I'm essentially at the same part.

EDIT:

Heh, I just exited out of the campaign and the game actually started using a little bit more RAM .

Dear god... they need to get AA working pronto

 

[RapidSnail]

Hey guys I have a few questions concerning performance.

My friend has a laptop that is 2-3 years old and he just bought SC2 the other day. However, his framerates drop to near 0 when he plays the game, even on the lowest graphics settings and resolution (1024x768). His specs are:

Some Core 2 @ 2.2GHz
nVidia 8400M GS
2 GB RAM

Now I would expect the game to scale very well, being a Blizzard product, but such low framerates seem strange to me. I know his GPU is the limiting factor here (at least it seems), but is it really so bad as to warrant such low framerates?

Also my PC is the following:

Core 2 Due 8500 @ 3.15GHz
4GB RAM
ATI 4870 512MB

I have everything on ultra right now at 1920x1200 and it runs pretty smoothly accept in intense situations. My GPU is the bottleneck here, but I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading for. The game looks pretty good on lower settings, but when shaders are medium or lower, it starts to look a bit funky.

 

[ramj70]

Hey guys I have a few questions concerning performance.

My friend has a laptop that is 2-3 years old and he just bought SC2 the other day. However, his framerates drop to near 0 when he plays the game, even on the lowest graphics settings and resolution (1024x768). His specs are:

Some Core 2 @ 2.2GHz
nVidia 8400M GS
2 GB RAM

Now I would expect the game to scale very well, being a Blizzard product, but such low framerates seem strange to me. I know his GPU is the limiting factor here (at least it seems), but is it really so bad as to warrant such low framerates?

Also my PC is the following:

Core 2 Due 8500 @ 3.15GHz
4GB RAM
ATI 4870 512MB

I have everything on ultra right now at 1920x1200 and it runs pretty smoothly accept in intense situations. My GPU is the bottleneck here, but I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading for. The game looks pretty good on lower settings, but when shaders are medium or lower, it starts to look a bit funky.

This is from the SCII website. It looks like that 8400 is below requirements.


StarCraft II system requirements:



Required (PC):

* Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c


* 2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor


* 128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better


* 12 GB available HD space


* 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)


* DVD-ROM drive


* Broadband Internet connection


* 1024X720 minimum display resolution




Recommended PC System Requirements:



* Windows Vista®/Windows® 7


* Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor


* 2 GB RAM


* 512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GT/GTS or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better



Processors

These are more of generalizations.

* Athlon processors do not meet the system requirements. They're the old Thunderbird models and go up to 1.2 GHz.

* Athlon XP processors with a rating of 2200+ and above will meet it.

* Athlon 64 processors tend to meet it. The very low-end Athlon 64 models (energy efficient models ending in e) may not. Check your clock speeds. Anything at or higher than 2.2GHz is a safe bet.

* For Sempron types, you'll want a higher clock speed to make up for it lacking in other areas. Sempron processors exists across Socket 478-AM2 so you may want to see what type you have using CPU-Z. http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

* First generation AMD Phenom processors (ending in 00) will work but you need to be aware of the TLB fix. It has a pretty substantial performance drop so you might see choppiness. We have a pretty large writeup on the World of Warcraft forum with a bit more information about it. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10971909544&sid=1

* Phenom processors ending in 50 do not have this problem. All but the slowest models will meet the system requirements

* Athlon II and Phenom II should all be faster than the minimum requirements.

* Pentium III processors do not meet the requirements

* Pentium IV/D processors at 2.6GHz and above meet it.

* Intel Core 2 around 1.8GHz is a rough area but should be able to play it at low settings. 2.4GHz is the recommended number.

* Intel Celeron processors fall under a lot of different families of chips and sockets. There are those based off of the Pentium 4 of different types and those based off of Core 2. You may want to check what type you have using CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

* Intel i3/i5/i7 exceed the minimum requirements.





Video card

We require a GeForce 6600 or Radeon 9800 video card in terms of performance. Keep in mind that there are higher-numbered video cards that fall under what we need. Probably the best chart you can look at is available on Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-geforce-gtx-480,2598-6.html

The GeForce 6600 and Radeon 9800 are towards the lower half of the chart. If your video card is under it, that's not a good thing. If your video card is above it, that's good.

Some of the more common ones that are under the system requirements:

NVIDIA GeForce 6150, 6200, 7150, 8300, 8400, 9100, 9300

ATI Radeon Xpress 200, 1150, 1250, X1050, 8500-9600, X300-600

All Intel GMA adapters minus the one in the i3/i5 chips. Those tend to run better but we don't know how much.

 

[RapidSnail]

Thank you! Looks like he's out of luck.

 

[Anubis]

Game came today, install went flawlessly, and it wasn't nearly as slow as some of you were making it out to be. I think i was at 80% or so when the voice over background stuff stopped. patch DLed in about 2 minutes

 

[frozentundra123456]

Several missions into the single player campaign, and not overly impressed. I never played SC at all before, so I dont really compare it to the first games. For a Blizzard game that was so long in development, it doesnt seem very polished. Two patches already, WTF??? And there is the AA problem which I would blame on Blizzard and not ATI. And the problem with uncontrolled framerates on the loading screen. Not to mention that I have gotten disconnected from Battle.net a couple of times during single palyer.

I like the cutscenes and going back to the lab, armory, whatever between missions. The missions themselves seem very much like any other RTS so far.

And what about the ore gathering mission on that lava planet. That mission is really annoying. I mean really annoying like you want to throw the mouse through the screen. And what is the point of the mission?? Seems like they just sat around one day and said, "what can we do to make the player really frustrated and add some pointless playtime to the game??" Hope there are not many more missions like that or I am going to switch to casual just to get the damn game overwith.

Anyway, not a terrible game, but somewhat disappointed. Maybe I expected too much. Overall I would prefer Supreme Commander or CoH, I think.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Game came today, install went flawlessly, and it wasn't nearly as slow as some of you were making it out to be. I think i was at 80% or so when the voice over background stuff stopped. patch DLed in about 2 minutes

Yea I dont know what other people were talking about. Mine installed in about 5 min and patch took like an extra min.

 

[MikeyLSU]

One thing I would like to see is maybe a ladder for each race you play.

For instance, I'm now in platinum league. But I only play as Terran. I would like to try playing as Protoss and try to get good. But I want to be in copper league to do it, it is a waste to even try being a new race against platinum players.

 

[Molondo]

And what about the ore gathering mission on that lava planet. That mission is really annoying. I mean really annoying like you want to throw the mouse through the screen. And what is the point of the mission??
.

Is to teach you how to use reapers. The fact that they are a kiting unit.

 

[shortylickens]

Alright guys, no more guest passes for Starcraft 2, so quit asking.

I do have two passes for WoW, but I think those are easy enough to find, am I right?

 

[Aikouka]

And what about the ore gathering mission on that lava planet. That mission is really annoying. I mean really annoying like you want to throw the mouse through the screen. And what is the point of the mission?? Seems like they just sat around one day and said, "what can we do to make the player really frustrated and add some pointless playtime to the game??" Hope there are not many more missions like that or I am going to switch to casual just to get the damn game overwith.

What exactly was frustrating about that mission? I may've played on Normal, but it was easy as pie. Maybe if they didn't give you a timer for the lava surges... well, they don't for the first one, but it just requires you to move your SCVs.

You can also load SCVs into Command Centers too. I ended up nabbing the extra guys which gave me an extra Command Center, so I just had multiple bases... and I believe I got bored enough to wipe the zerg out of the southern portion of the map.

 

[Bryf50]

Thank you! Looks like he's out of luck.

I'm not so sure about that. My laptop(dell m1330) has the same gpu with a slightly better 2.4ghz processor and 3gbs of ram. I have no problem playing on lowest settings 1280x800 with at least 30 fps. I felt like I could possibly raise some settings a bit as well.
Maybe the extra gb of memory makes the difference but if so adding another gb of ram should be pretty easy.

 

[deanx0r]

Anyone got the built-in voice chat feature to work? The game detects my mic, but no one seems to be able to hear me in game.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Wow wtf I got put into gold league for 2s? Imma get raped

 

[JJChicken]

One thing I would like to see is maybe a ladder for each race you play.

For instance, I'm now in platinum league. But I only play as Terran. I would like to try playing as Protoss and try to get good. But I want to be in copper league to do it, it is a waste to even try being a new race against platinum players.

Play random 2v2s, 3v3s etc - you get to play against noobs and learn the race.

With protoss, I normally go

8 Supply
13 Gate
17 Cyber (pros go 15 but I'm noob lol)
25 Gas

Once cyber is finish, immediately research Warp Technology. Get 4 gates per expansion and convert them all to warpgates. Stalkers are an awesome unit, I use zealots mostly as a mineral sink (but they become effective once you get the charge upgrade).

Void ray openings are also quite common - the trick is to distract them so that the void ray doesn't get damaged - its weak, but if it can attack enough it will do heaps of damage.

I'm a gold league toss player (though probably should be silver/bronze, I lucked out in my placement matches lol).

 

[MikeyLSU]

Play random 2v2s, 3v3s etc - you get to play against noobs and learn the race.

With protoss, I normally go

8 Supply
13 Gate
17 Cyber (pros go 15 but I'm noob lol)
25 Gas

Once cyber is finish, immediately research Warp Technology. Get 4 gates per expansion and convert them all to warpgates. Stalkers are an awesome unit, I use zealots mostly as a mineral sink (but they become effective once you get the charge upgrade).

Void ray openings are also quite common - the trick is to distract them so that the void ray doesn't get damaged - its weak, but if it can attack enough it will do heaps of damage.

I'm a gold league toss player (though probably should be silver/bronze, I lucked out in my placement matches lol).

thanks for the advice. I have been a terran player since SC first came out. So it should be fun to try to do well with another race.

 

[JJChicken]

thanks for the advice. I have been a terran player since SC first came out. So it should be fun to try to do well with another race.

Yeah I reckon it would be fun to play the fourth race (Random). The openings get boring after a while if you only play one race. That's why I'm trying to learn Zerg now.

Below is a funny youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiauaGbxipA

 

[Aikouka]

I think the worst aspect of the new Battle.Net is the horrible chat interface. I found some interesting bug in it. If someone is playing a B.Net game (i.e. WoW) and switches to another one (i.e. SC2) and you attempt to whisper them using the same name as before (when they were on the first game), it will fail to whisper them. But from that point on, you will not be able to talk to them using the text box.

Also, why the hell does it always default to "All" as the recipient when I hit enter? Why the hell would I want to talk to everyone each time? I need add-ons available for SC2 so someone can port Prat (a WoW chat add-on) over .

 

[Fenixgoon]

Yeah I reckon it would be fun to play the fourth race (Random). The openings get boring after a while if you only play one race. That's why I'm trying to learn Zerg now.

Below is a funny youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiauaGbxipA

priceless. the best part is that that particular video can be used for damn near anything if you script it right

 

[Pia]

And what about the ore gathering mission on that lava planet. That mission is really annoying. I mean really annoying like you want to throw the mouse through the screen. And what is the point of the mission?? Seems like they just sat around one day and said, "what can we do to make the player really frustrated and add some pointless playtime to the game??"

I thought it was a decently fun mission, played it at brutal difficulty. The most straightforward way to win is to ignore the goal of gathering resources and just kill the zerg. I recommend using reapers initially, building medic/marine/marauder at home (they also defend), upgrading infantry weapons and armor, and eventually taking that MMM ball of yours and going to wipe the zerg bases. To do this you only need to mine from the 2-3 closest mineral spots, which makes your mining operation easy to defend. After that it's just lava and you can't really fail.

As for the lava and your mining operations:
If you have five SCVs or less at a command center, just select the CC and press O and L (order doesn't matter). It lifts, loads up all the SCVs and everything is perfectly safe. You can also use this when zerglings hit and your troops are elsewhere. When the danger goes away you land the CC exactly where it was, set rally point to minerals and press D to eject all the SCVs. Piece of cake.

 

[Molondo]

i didn't even bother with the zerg, just spent my time killing the optional unit with reapers while i gathered

 

[frozentundra123456]

What exactly was frustrating about that mission? I may've played on Normal, but it was easy as pie. Maybe if they didn't give you a timer for the lava surges... well, they don't for the first one, but it just requires you to move your SCVs.

You can also load SCVs into Command Centers too. I ended up nabbing the extra guys which gave me an extra Command Center, so I just had multiple bases... and I believe I got bored enough to wipe the zerg out of the southern portion of the map.

It just seemed so "artificial". I know it is a game and everything is "artificial", but I mean that it just seemed so contrived and you were constantly running back and forth from the lava and moving from one ore field to the other. And I hated balancing building troops to defend with using up the ore I had collected. And why did it have to be 8000. Another contrived constraint. If you gather 7999 you fail and one more and you succeed???
And after you got the ore, so what?? The goal seemed so anticlimatic.

I wish now I had just built up an army and wiped everybody out like someone else suggested. It would have been much more satisfying.

 

[RapidSnail]

I'm not so sure about that. My laptop(dell m1330) has the same gpu with a slightly better 2.4ghz processor and 3gbs of ram. I have no problem playing on lowest settings 1280x800 with at least 30 fps. I felt like I could possibly raise some settings a bit as well.
Maybe the extra gb of memory makes the difference but if so adding another gb of ram should be pretty easy.

Is there anything I could be overlooking to help performance? Maybe Vista settings or tweaks that could help it run faster. I mean his computer is 203 years old, which is not that bad, and I know there are people with older hardware running it fine. I'd like to figure this out because he will not be able to on his own and I like playing with friends.