Starcraft 2 Performance Tip for Native Resolution+ or High AA

Hi all.

I have been looking at the performance bottlenecks of SC2 to see just how much graphical detail we can squeeze out of out M17xR2's.

Firstly, Starcraft 2 uses the "Texture Detail" setting to choose what other settings you have access to. If this is set to "ultra" then you get access to all settings to tweak with (everything else allows ultra where applicable).
So start with switching this on.

Now, if you have anti-aliasing switched on, or you max out everything at native resolution, or you use an external monitor with higher resolution, you are going to run out of VRAM on your cards. Seeing this is extremely rare and surprised me quite a bit.
Amazingly, for an RTS, Starcraft 2 uses crazy high texture resolution.

So, I found that switching everything to ULTRA first, setting AA to 4x using the 10.7 a catalyst beta's, and THEN:
1: Switching Physics to OFF (we only have laptop CPU's and we dont have physx)
2: Setting shadows down to HIGH (again, CPU)
3: Turning down shader detail 1 notch (or we get terrain bugs/rainbows)
4: Turning down post processing (not crossfire/sli friendly)
5: Then, switching the "Texture Detail" back down to HIGH.
I think a few other settings I turned down to "high" as well, but cant remember which right now.

Gave me 60fps+ the whole time EXCEPT for whenever a stealthed unit came on screen.

It seems that cloaked/stealthed units use a shader that isnt very ATI friendly. Not sure really how to deal with that.

But basically, it seems that the biggest problem we will get with SC2 is the video ram limit when running in High Res or High AA.
I cant play games without AA - it just seems sloppy on the developers behalf, so 60FPS with 4xAA is pretty darn good at 2560x1440 resolution I think - for a laptop!

-Ash

 

Thanks for the tips! BTW, could you provide the specs of your system?

 

With these settings I have:

M17x R2 with:
i7 720qm
crossfire hd5870m
8gb ram

-Ash

 

Hm...

I still have the dell drivers.

For Sc2 I have everything maxed. And then from CCC I set everything to max (AA to max or else game will bug out) except AF is set to lowest setting.

This ensures perfect performance even in 4v4 zerg.

 

What resolution are you running?

-Ash

 

I don't know about turning the physics down, you may lose some eye candy. SC2 uses the Havok engine, and even though we lack a physics coprocessor ala PhysX, the physics of the game are an enjoyable part for me.

 

Im running native res, 1920 x 1200.

I have everything in CC set to max (except AF) and everything set to Ultra.

I play 100% 1v1 and get very high fps.

I tested using 4v4 zvz and still high fps as far as I can tell.

Dell stock drivers.

Very happy with sc2 fps.

 

Ah right, but does "very high" mean 60fps?

FPS is very subjective. My definition of Very High is, literally, Very High. I have a $10k gaming desktop sitting on my desk at home and it has caused me to have very high standards in gaming. What I coinsider Very High FPS is above 60fps.

With the settings you suggest, its more like 30-45 on our machines. This is definately NOT very high.

This is more like medium to very low.

60fps is the minimum required in a game for smooth motion. If you could provide a fraps of your game running with all settings on "ultra" with "very high" fps, then we would appreciate it, because it appears you have magic graphics cards in your laptop.

Thanks

-Ash

 

I noticed that when you switch your display to window mode before I start a game, I dont get the issue with the disappearing units. When I see my two vespean and all the minerals looks normal I just switch back to full screen mode. Im not sure if it actually does anything.

 

Just did a quick test.

Im getting 80-90 fps in the start of a 4v4 ZvZ. Didnt play past start game as I HATE Zerg, so might be unplayable later.

I tried to take a screen shot, but was unable to. Just came as a black screen in paint when I print screen.

Just try the settings I suggested man, Im telling u it plays perfectly fine! I have not changed anything on the machine since I got it.

You will have to go into CCC and set AA to Max (16x I believe) for this issue to be fixed.



EDIT:

I dont know how to make a movie using FRAPS, but I will copy and past average min max fps and the FPS of a few mins of a zvz 4v4 game:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
32473, 467771, 38, 104, 69.421

The average was about 70 fps.

It might dip lower. Not sure.

All I know is I play 95% 1v1 with Terran, and therefore I am fine with this fps.

Feel free to ask for anything else.

 

Hmm, I'm also running stock Dell drivers and everything on Max and getting 60+ FPS. The only time it dropped was when I was playing the last Zeratul mission and had 20 carriers and all the little interceptors going nuts. Surprisingly, I also tried turning off Crossfire because of the disappearing units problem and a single 5870 can still run SC2 on Ultra + native rez very well.

 

Try setting AA to max with CF on, this will fix the issue.

GL HF

 

Seeing that there is still these problems is actually rather upsetting. Blizzard had previously stated that they *knew* about problems with graphical glitches (ie units, minerals not rendering etc) back in BETA. I'm surprised they didn't do anything about it...

They also said these problems were more or less specific to ATI cards, especially the CX setups.

 

Sorry every 1.

For some reason last few games I have been playing been getting fps on 1v1. About 35 fps.

wow

 

Running 10.7 cat driver, only 4G RAM but I did install twin Intel SSD drives in this thing. All drivers are kept 100% up to date. I only have a single 4970 card in my m17xR2 though. I usually play on an external display at 1920x1080 (I also have a second external display running at 1920x1200 in this configuration, but SC is only on the first monitor), but this week I am in a hotel using native 1920x1200.

I have every setting I could find turned up to max. I haven't used fraps to confirm, but I am pretty sure the framerate is easily above 60fps. I have played a few rounds in 3v3 as well as a lot of the campaign with very large army sizes in both - and have yet to see any glitches or noticeable framerate drops.

For comparison, on this same setup I get over 200fps in World of Warcraft, and 60 to 90 fps during 25-man heroic raids.

I have properly configured my process cpu affinity, but even still if I run fraps to capture full-screen video my framerates reliably drop to half of normal... so frapsing isnt a great way to prove that someone gets good framerates.

 

I'm locked at 60 fps (vertical sync) on M17x R1, with no OC required. Dual gtx260ms. Do the ATI cards seriously have that big of a problem with this game?

 

If you drop Vsync you may go even higher

 

I know. And what would that do besides make the coils squeal on my graphics card, exactly? You won't notice it unless it's 120+ fps, and that really doesn't matter anyways.

Edit: for further reading on the subject, go to http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm

 

I wonder if it is just a Crossfire only issue? Is it a problem with a single ATI GPU?

 

Yeah BatBoy, as I stated previously, I was playing the beta, and got a response from Blizz stating that ATI cards are known to have such issues, and that it is more or less relegated just to ATI cards.

EDIT: Also, I just tried running SC2 for the first time, units in the first campaign didn't even render, so already the game is unplayable for me.

 

Hi mate - does that include a largish battle? Please see below:

It seems like sometimes when you enter a game the ACTUAL settings dont always preserve from previous.

Make sure you have everything set to ultra, then play a 2v2 game and start a battle, check your fps.

Dual 260m does not physically have the shader count or throughput OR vram to actually render sc2 with all settings ultra and show a battle at 60fps - its just mathematically impossible.

Same with the 5870m's. as Maedhros found out.

-Ash

 

Anyone saying "zomg i get full fps at max details" please check that.
They use the same resolution, and all details at ultra.
If you are getting full fps with your dual HD5870m or dual gtx 260m... you should really call ati/nvidia as some alien has abducted your card and done magic tech upgrades on it!
For reference, a HD5870m is between a desktop HD5770 and HD5750.

Also look at:


Of particular note is that CPU severely effects performance, as I suspected.
A quick SetFSB should help a lot.

Also of note is that a desktop HD5870 totally annihilates a gtx260m sli config so... yeah.

Coming in and saying "zomg i get 999999 fps on max detail!" doesnt help ANYONE, especially when it is clearly untrue. It will in fact make people think they have something WRONG with their systems when they dont.
Starcraft 2 is the latest greatest most graphically taxing game out, and naturally there will be weaknesses for either platform (nvidia or ati).

Thus, the purpose of this thread. In future, anyone who is thinking about posting how "awesome" their fps is on max detail, check out that pic, do the numbers, and think again before posting non-factual information.

Thanks!

-Ash

 

Yeah, I'm stuck at 59 FPS (refresh rate on my R1's screen), I just checked it out with FRAPS. I'm on the highest for every setting as well (AFAIK, I don't think there is any AA). I took a few screenshots, and then realized that the fraps number obviously wasn't going to be in them, but whatever . It'll dip to around 55 (during some REALLY heavy battles) or so in a 1v1, but usually no further than that (just did a quick gold league match, void ray rush is no match for mutalisks ). This game is MUCH more CPU intensive than GPU intensive...I don't really see how people are getting such low performance numbers with high end graphics cards.

Edit: Here's some pictures (using FRAPS' built in feature).






This is with two gtx260ms in SLI and a t9600; no OC on the graphics cards, the processor is at 3.40 GHz (1300 FSB).

 

I am enjoying SC2, and yes, it's of course better than 1, but it makes me appreciate how they did SC1 with no 3D acceleration and the fact it ran on any pc. I am running a supercomputer here just to run a RTS!

 

Theres definately something wrong with your setup because those screenshots look like they are running on medium or low detail.

For a start, there is no ambient occlusion whatsoever in those screenshots. Good example is bottom screenshot, bottom left corner of your bottom left gateway has no ambient occlusion on it.

Also, your 2d textures are all in low resolutions (including map and icons) and your unit portraits are in low quality mode.

It looks like either your nvidia drivers are "pretending" to be in ultra quality and are reducing the graphics on you without you know, OR your graphics settings arent actually DOING anything.
Probably the latter.

Looks to me that you are stuck in medium settings TBH.
When I get home Ill make a screenshot of what ultra quality actually looks like.

-Ash

 

...It's because they're jpegs that I saved in paint (I just reformatted, I'm in the process of getting an R2 replacement b/c of stuttering). If you want me to post a 7 megabyte BMP, I will.

 

jpegs dont make ambient occlusion go away.



Thats what ambient occlusion does - its a feature of starcraft 2 and makes the connecting edges of objects shadow eachother.
There is none of that in your screenshot, which leads me to believe you are running in DX9 mode or some other sneaky thing that nvidia or blizzard is doing to you.

-Ash

 

i hate how tomhw always make nvidia look beter on my m17-r1 i can max sc2 at 60 fps but in 7 min my cards overheat and shutdown
high is insta crash

i had to set seting to medium use the fix and set vsinc to stop from overheatin but i'm deinitly runing higher then tom'shw review state the 5870 to

 

For reference.

You can clearly see the ambient occlusion around the building in the real 'ultra quality' settings on the left. Best way to explain it is an edged shadow.

In the 260m screenshot, its just not there.

I would like you to change your preset to "custom", then set everything to ultra and see if you can make it look like the above image.

I have a feeling the "ultra" preset means ultra "for your system" whereas custom means "all settings unlocked".

-Ash

 

Look in the upper right corner of my picture--you can see ambient occlusion on that building. It's a graphical glitch on the gateway (probably uneven ground)

Edit: Also, that isn't how Ultra works. At all. If you played WoW, you'd know that (not saying that's a good thing, I don't anymore either )

 

Thats really strange, because AO should be running on everything, uneven ground or not.

Also, please try my suggesting about setting the preset to custom, and all the other settings to ultra.

According to all the benchmarks on the net, your dual 260m with an old core 2 duo is beating an i7 920 with GTX 285.

For reference, a gtx260m has 112 shaders, and runs at a lower clock speed than a gtx 285.

Two of them together gives a total of 224 shaders at a lower clockspeed, plus SLI penalty.

The GTX 285 has a total of 240 shaders at a higher clockspeed without the SLI penalty.

Its physically impossible for you to be running at ultra quality and beating a GTX 285, that was paired with an I7 920 as well.

Something weird is going on with your SC2. Post processing, lighting, shaders, SOMETHING is not running.

-Ash

 

Hey ash,

So are you saying that something is wrong with our cards performance, or that our cards cant run this at ultra?

Also since our card is about equivalent to a desktop 5750, shouldn't our XF 5870s get AT LEAST 50 fps?

 

Hey guys, I installed the 10.7a drivers and I couldn't get CCC to open. Has anyone experienced this before? Am I doing something wrong?
I uninstalled the stock drivers and went into safe mode to do a driver sweep, but it doesn't help

 

I think he's just trying to say that no92stallion shouldn't be getting quite those framerates on Ultra detail on nVidia 260M SLI. There are a few graphics details that probably should be there that don't look like they're appearing, which may indicate that the game is running at less detail than is expected.

On that matter... Is it possible that ambient occlusion has only been enabled if the cards are running in DX11 mode? Perhaps Blizzard have decided to turn it off with DX9/10 cards in order to improve performance. Just guessing here.

 

This was my thinking nzgeek.

Normally I would pursue it further in order to help determine a 'fix' for it, as it seems a little unfair on the geforce 2xx users if they arent getting the full settings they are asking for.

This thread is about HD5870m's however, so if those 2xx users want to start a new thread to discuss it, they are more than welcome to.

-Ash

 

No Maedhros, nothing is wrong with our cards.

Either the ati cards altogether have driver issues that result in all ati cards having low performance, or our cards are running ALL the details that we specify in ultra mode, and running perfectly normal.

As stated in the above post, it appears that certain nvidia cards, while having settings selected, are not running all settings thus resulting in higher performance (because they are running in low detail).

This is especially noticable because SC2 is heavily CPU dependent. Heavily. It is the single most important factor in performance once you pass a certain minimum graphics card level.

The GTX2xxm sli users with their Core 2 cpus should not be getting higher fps than us, even if we only had one hd5870m, purely because of our much faster cpu's.

Thats a discussion for another thread however.

-Ash

 

I'd hazard a guess that Starcraft 2 doesn't use more than two threads. In that case, a highly-clocked dual core (core 2 duo or core i7) should give performance that's on par with some of the higher end processors.

 

Unless that system has turbo boost.

A core i7 720qm has turbo boost up to 2.8ghz. Runs at about 2.6ghz with 2 cores at load.

This utterly blows the mobile core 2 duo out of the water at any speed.

-Ash

 

I agree with this. I had a t9800 in my r1 that I could oc to 3.66 on both cores so It is faster than some corei proc. even with the turbo.

 

So a core i7 at 2.6 ghz is faster than a core 2 duo at 3.6 ghz in this situation?

 

I would say about even. But a Core i7 720qm at 3.2 (when I was using setfsb, as stated in a few posts back) it beats the hell out of it.

Again, though, this is all off topic.

-Ash

 

Hey guys

Just trying to run SC2.
When in full screen mode the mouse is always stuck I can't seem to move it, however when I am in window mode the mouse cursor works perfectly fine again in SC2. Any suggestions ideas fixes? Cheers.

In window mode im only allowed to run the game at 1280X720 or something it has locked me too.
Also the Video scenes lag for me, they run around 5fps or sometimes go up to 20fps however in game it seems to run smooth enough to play.


I'm running on the R1 260GTX SLi

 

Starcraft 2 - Patch 1.0.2 - Campaign Fixes

 

Starcraft 2 CPU benchmarks: Intel on top, quads without performance benefit - - PC Games Hardware

 

Okay I've managed to fix the mouse issue.
I had to right click on the game exe and disable DPI scaling. Now its all good.

Game seems to run pretty well on Ultra maxed out all settings. Although the vids do lag from time to time and also in massive intense battles the FPS drops super low. Overall though plays quite nicely.

 

The only way to play this game properly is on the beta catalyst drivers? I get like 3 out of 4 games where i cant see the minerals properly!? very frustrating!

 

Well what i did to fix the units appearing disappearing is that you just need to run the game with crossfire disabled. Worked for me 100%. The problem im getting is that the game seems to believe that my computer is only capable of "low" detail. how is it that i only have a 256mb graphics card lol? ( i have 920xm, 8gb ram, xf5870 2.6drivers ) im not fussed as i finished the game as all im interested in is the story. anyone else having similar issue? PS. on the last planet i had to turn the settings to high not ultra as it basically froze trying to run the background animation. and i wouldnt say im getting very high fps im probably bridging 30ish to 45ish no more than that. -

 

For my system (and I get the impression from the ATI forums that I am not the only one) the 10.7 drivers are very unstable. My system was rock-solid on 10.4, but since updating to 10.7 I get GPU resets every couple hours, even while not gaming. I edited the sc variables file to throttle my framerates and enabled vsync in WoW for now, which reduces the frequency of the graphics driver restarts, but it does not fully solve the problem.

ATI hasn't said a word about the problem - at least nothing that I have seen in the forum threads I have read through.

I am considering rolling back to earlier releases to get my system stabilized again - but SC2 had graphics glitching with the 10.4 drivers which is what prompted me to update them in the first place.

 

I dont have any issues with 10.7/10.7a/10.8 save for the sleep/resume and the inability to use an external monitor.

You shouldnt be crashing with them at all.

Check temps or get a tech out there to fix it.

-Ash

 

Temps are low (under 65c after playing for hours). It does not happen only when gaming - it has happened when sitting at an idle desktop once and again when working inside a virtual machine. If I am at the windows desktop then I get the tray tooltip that says my graphics processor had an error and has been reset. If I am in a game then I don't see that tooltip (doesn't show while in a fullscreen directx view), but I can see the evidence in the event log.

The crash is clearly in the ati driver. I have crash dump files. Every one of them is the same. Here is the relevant output from WinDbg "!analyze -v" command:

Code:

atikmpag.sys ( atikmpag+6c80 )

VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED (117)
The display driver failed to respond in timely fashion.

1: kd> lmvm atikmpag
start             end                 module name
fffff880`02e09000 fffff880`02e4f000   atikmpag T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: atikmpag.sys
    Image path: atikmpag.sys
    Image name: atikmpag.sys
    Timestamp:        Tue Jul 06 21:15:42 2010 (4C33D53E)
    CheckSum:         0004D227
    ImageSize:        00046000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

That file is part of the AMD/ATI driver package:

Code:

File description: AMD multi-vendor Miniport Driver
File version: 8.14.1.6126
Product name: AMD driver
Product version: 8.14.01.6126
Copyright: Copyright (C) 2007 Advanced Micro Devices
Size: 259 KB
Date modified: 7/6/2010 9:15 PM
Language: English (United States)
Original filename: atikmpag.sys