SC2 terrible framerates

Hey all,

First - I use the alienware in my sig (m11x r2).

I haven't played SC2 in maybe a month or so, and there was just a major update to it. I started it up, and it was lagging terribly, and almost unplayable at the settings I normally use. I run it at 1080p, and I dropped all the settings down to the lowest possible, and my framerate was jumping between 80-90 fps ... and 1 fps. Usually closer to the 1 fps.

Is this something inherent to this new sc2 update, or are there hardware issues I should be looking into in my alienware? And if there are hardware issues, how should I be testing them? I haven't used it for anything too graphically intense in about a month, so something could've gone bad, I suppose.

The laptop is still under warranty, so that isn't a concern if I need something fixed.

*edit* I should mention, I have all the latest updates and drivers installed, and I did verify it was whitelisted.

 

By "drop all the settings" does that include lowering the resolution? And by "all the latest drivers" do you mean the ones from the manufacturer website or from Dell's website?

 

Drop all the settings save resolution. I used to run it at mostly medium settings at 1080p and get acceptable framerates. Now I have to run it at all low settings at 1080p and still have issues.

And the latest driver's from nVidia's website - which I've never had an issue with before (including in SC2).

 

Sure its running on the 540M GT? Is the fan kicking in? Sounds like its on the integrated card.

You might need to go and whitelist the SC2.exe file again as it would have been replaced by the update.

 

335m*.

And it is definitely whitelisted - I made sure to check again after the update. I don't remember if the fan kicked in .. will do more testing tonight.

 

I use the fan as a sign of the dedicated GPU kicking in after a couple of minutes unless you live in the arctic circle Might be an idea to flush your drivers if not may not be switching correctly. Reinstall em from scratch.

 

The long and complicated issue of M11x and SC2 framerates aside (there have been a few long threads about it, and basically it comes down to the fact that the M11x's processor is too weak to really handle the mid/late game), patch 1.5 in SC2 has indeed resulted in some significant issues, which are summarized in this thread on battle.net: StarCraft II - Patch 1.5.1 - Known Issues (Updated 8/13) - Forums - StarCraft II

At the top of the list is the fact that many people have reported stuttering and/or significant framerate drops since updating to patch 1.5. There are a couple of reported fixes around the internet, if you want to google for them.

Hope this helps!

 

I am playing Starcraft 2 on my I5 ULV and it runs no different to how it did when it was first released so unless this is specific to Gen 1 CPU's with the 335m I cannot see that being the case. Worth a try reinstalling and only updating to 1.4 however and then just block the SC2.exe in your firewall from updating further.

 

UberJason - thanks for pointing out the thread! I'm well aware of the deficiencies of the 640um in terms of raw processing power, I've run into those limits quite a bit. But the noticeable drop after 1.5 had me worrying that something may have gotten messed up with my computer.

I'll test out some other games to make sure its just sc2 when I have a chance - if not, I'll take your advice Yiddo and try reinstalling things.

Thanks all!

 

Last week my friend wanted to play some sc2 before he had to leave the U.S. for a while and I had a similar problem. I hadn't played in months and when I tried this time I found it almost unplayable where I used to play semi competitively (made it to platinum). This was on my desktop which is similar to my m11x power-wise (worse cpu but better graphics than my m11x). The issue actually is with the latest patch on sc2 from what I've read. It seems for some people that there is lag the first time an animation is loaded so basically the first time anything is built. I heard some people had a work around by watching the entire length of a replay on 8x speed to load all the animations, but I was too lazy to try. I would suggest either trying that or waiting for blizzard to fix their mess.

 

The only problem there is, I don't think you can play on the ladder if you're not fully updated. I have no proof of this so I could be totally wrong, but that's the feeling I have!