Starcraft II on M11x - General Discussion

I'm using the 259.12 drivers.

And no the gpu tells me it is active by default, but it does weird in starcraft II, like I said, it could just be the transparentshadows setting but something made a change.

And I would NEVER disable shadows.. doing that and claiming sc2 runs great is just plain fooling yourself this laptop should be able to handle this game on medium pretty decent. all those insane tweaks is just a band aid on a bigger problem.

 

i beg to differ on shadows not playing a part in fps. Heres a screengrab comparison with soft shadows/ shadows enabled/disabled. We are looking at an average 25FPS boost here between the varied settings. This is on campaign btw which has been reported to run much slower than its skirmish counterparts.

The following printscreens are taken from my settings in my previous post. Eye candy and all, i would prefer to disable for that performance boost

Soft Shadow / Shadows enabled from variables.txt @ 34FPS
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting


Soft Shadow / Shadows disables from variables.txt @ 58FPS
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

 

Shadows on low makes sense.. but turning them off is just sad if you ask me and should never be needed on this laptop anyway.

makes air units even harder to target and I do not think its a performance boost really. FPS is not all that matters

 

Agreed and turning shadows completely off just makes the game look weird.

 

i'll try to get a screengrab of low shadows enabled tonight High shader seems to set shadows on medium by default, probably would need to tweak around with the variables.

Again, imo, theres a difference between improving performance from 15fps to 35fps with comparison to 35fps to 55~60fps. The lack of shadows would probably benefit owners who are facing low fps issues (which i suspect is really in fact the GT355 not kicking in via optimus)

lack of shadow is really all about personal preference. Owners who are having low fps and forced to play in low shader mode could probably make do with medium shaders and disabling shadows , making sc2 less uglier =)

 

low shader, low shadows and ultra textures is actually not that bad if you want something decent for competitive play

 

How ever yes, high settings with forced shadows on "low" that circle you get with low shaders would be great.

 

Well, I got a chance to do some brief testing with that "e sports mode" yesterday, and results were not very promising. I will try to get some numbers for you guys tonight.

As for the variable.txt transparent shadows tweak:

From my testing, transparent shadows = 1 only if you use the ultra settings to begin with. If you use low/med/high preset settings then transparent shadows should already = 0. So I don't know see how that tweak can help those of us with the low fps in medium/low settings.

 

It should be yes... but its not added by the game itself so who knows!

if you delete variable.txt and open sc2 fresh, set your settings and look in it, it will only appear after picking ultra shaders.

thats why makings sure its off probably wont hurt.

 

crazyJ, can you do a test with high or medium shaders and then forcing shadow to low? (so you get that circle underneath units instead of realtime shadows.)

I think low shadows are only present if you pick low shaders. thanks

 

Thomaskc:

I am not sure what which variable(s) would need to be changed to force those blob shadows with medium shaders, or if thats even possible.

My knowledge of the variable.txt file is based on StarCraft 2 Graphics and Performance Tweak Guide | SegmentNext

and

StarCraft II

It looks like you can lower the quality of the shadows, but I dont see anything that can force those blob shadows.

I am at work right now, but if you got some time:

1) Go into SCII options and change shaders to low, and then shadows to low so that you get the blob shadows. Exit SCII and save a seperate copy of that variable file.
2) Go back into SCII options and changed shaders/shadows to medium. Exit SCII and save a seperate copy of that variable file.
3) If you compare the two variable text files maybe you can isolate what settings changed. Perhaps one/some of those variables will let us force blob shadows.

 

i believe the setting we are looking for is shadowmapsize (default at 2048)

lowering this down to 1024 or 512 will reduce shadow quality. Tested with high shaders and 256 on shadowmapsize gave me a drop of 12 fps

 

Anyone having problems with sc2 not recognizing your graphics card? I've tried latest Dell and nvidia drivers to no avail??

Turning shadows to off give me a huge fps boost but I can stomach it...!!

Thnx for help in advance (R1)

 

Nope, no problems.
I have used both the dell and the 258.96 drivers, and it recognizes it.

 

shadowmapsize does adjust the quality of the shadows, but does not change the shadows to those blob shadows that thomaskc was talking about. I changed that variable yesterday from 2048 to 512 and the shadows were still those real time shadows that mirror the units/buildings.

 

Noah were there any SCII performance differences between those drivers or was it identical?

 

I admit, I actually didn't check the performance on the dell drivers. Though it did "feel" faster with the newer drivers. I admit that really doesn't cut it, but it is the best I can say.

P.S. I average around 40 or so FPS in campaign with the 258.96 drivers.

 

You know what's funny though, is that i was playing this mission before char, getting the last piece of the the artifact, and i changed my variables, and then changed the details to ultra in game, and i still had shadows, but i had 40+ to 50+ fps, but i have to check that one out..

 

Sc2 is not recognising the 335m with any of the drivers. It might seem so if you have started it already and then change drivers, since variable.txt is already there it won't tell you again. If you delete it and let it reset it will say it can't on all the drivers out right now. Doesn't make a huge difference though. Shadows off is simply not an option for me, but the blop would be awesome with higher shaders. However medium settings seems to run pretty well with transparentshadows=0 ( not sure if it really does something on medium shaders) and right clicking on the shortcut telling it to run with the nvidia gpu ( not the same slowdowns as before mid / end game).

 

finally got blob shadows to work, best part being there is no significant fps loss by doing so
High shaders + blob shadows seem to be the way to go from now.

Here are the key settings to enable blob shadow

GraphicsOptionShadowQuality=0
shadowmapsize=2048
shadows=0
softshadows=0
transparentshadows=0

Screenies of how it would look like

Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

if anyone wants i'll post my modified variables.txt later on in the evening

 

Perfect! thanks.

however is the shadows=0 needed? isnt that the one that turns them off? or is that actually realtime shadows it turns off....

 

Hi, guys. Everytime i played my starcraft 2 with 3v3 or above with mass units on the map, i sure facing serious lagging fps during the gameplay although fps still showing 15~20.
The current settings in bios were
Speedstep: Disabled
Turbo mode: Enabled
Overclock: 160mhz ~ 166mhz (I kept tweak but still same)

So next, i changed my setting in bios again to
Speedstep: Enabled
Turbo mode: Enabled
Overclock: 160mhz

This time the whole gameplay become really smooth and steady. I was really happy abou it. However, Starcraft will start crashing at random point. Last
night i encounter 4 times in just 1.5 hours only. 1 time crashed when i just finished loading into one game and last time said my Starcraft 2 installation is corrupted.

The setting in game are mostly Medium~High which same in both setting above,
Texture, Terrain & Shader = High
Shadow: Medium (No low option for me, weird)
Lightning: Medium
Post: Medium

Anyone mind to share me with their settings on m11x R2?
My spec of m11x R2 are:

Intel® Core™ i5-520UM Processor(1.06GHz, 4 Threads, turbo Boost up to 1.86GHz, 3M cache) | 4GB Dual Channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M | 11.6" WideHD 720p WLED (1366x768) Display with Integrated 1.3 mp Webcam
500GB 7200RPM HD |

Thanks.

 

Alright I ran my first benchmark tonight. I used a replay and followed the same player's point of view for each test. I must say that the results are massively inflated due to the replay. The replay never had any big battles, even when armies reached 100+. Also, the player camera hardly watched the battles, because the guy was microing all over the place. The skill of the player was quite good, as instead of big battles he was literally attacking on 2 or 3 fronts at a time. So realize that when I play a game or replay and am watching a big battle myself (big battles are fun to watch), Fps are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay lower. Even so, I think it would be EXTREMELY helpful if someone claiming high fps (say "averages in the 40s+" "no slowdown at all" - you guys know who you are!) with high settings could run the same replay from the same players point of view (green terran) and give results, it would still be AWESOME. I'd expect people making such claims to still get higher FPS in my test. Please use fraps to calculate FPS results.

Replay can be downloaded here: http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/admin/a_replays.php?dl=35227

Watch from high settings, high textures using Player Cam on green terran. Start benchmark ASAP and end it ASAP after game ends.

My results high settings:
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
25496, 860194, 8, 41, 29.640

Ran same replay following same rules but using the "Esports settings:"
Change options to ultra - left textures at high
Then change variable.txt in the following ways:

hdr = 0
parallaxshadow=0
shadowmapsize=512
softshadows=0
softshadowTaps=6
transparentshadows=0

My results "e-sport settings"
Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
19259, 860879, 13, 32, 22.371

I have to call BUSTED on the transparent shadows = 0 FPS boost claim, as it definitely didn't work in my test!! Even combined with lowering all those other variables, e sports mode runs significantly WORSE than high settings. The only way that disabling transparent shadows could even possibly give you a boost is if you were using some ultra settings in the first place (which is straight foolishness).

If you think these results somehow prove SCII plays well (despite my explanation of the replay), remember this is just a 1on1 game, and SCII plays significantly worse in 2v2.

Ill try to do some better tests soon.

 

Oh and resolution is 1360x768.

 

probably the latter... Regardless, as long as it works

 

try using ctrl+alt+f instead to display fps. (unless of course it doesnt work on replay)I believe transparent shadow only works with soft shadows enabled. That being, with soft shadows on, disabling transparent shadows will give a slight fps boost.

 

Transparent shadows isnt ever on unless you set some of your settings to ultra. People were claming bad performance on medium/high settings and then saying that turning transparent shadows = 0 off fix their performance issues. I just wanted to show that's not possible. I feel there is alot of misinformation out about this games performance, and just would like people to prove their results. I bought this laptop based on people making statements like "it runs perfect on high." I haven't found such statements to be true in my personal experience.

Also, use fraps instead of the in game fps counter, because then you can record min/max/avg fps to a txt file. Otherwise people start to give ranges for an average (40-50 fps average) which is total nonsense because then it just becomes their opinion what the average is. An average is a very specific number, based on other very specific numbers, not an opinion.

And sorry if im coming across like a hard@$$. I just want to play SC2 in medium settings at 30 fps in battle. People are claiming performance better than that, but I am skeptical. Please prove it!

 

How good is it running on your system?

 

When running system recommended settings 1280x720, med/low everything, I spend most of my time in the 20s with frequent dips into the teens in both 1v1s and (definitely) 2v2s. If you want I can run a benchmark next time i play a game and give you the results.

 

I ran your test Crazy J and I got an average test of 42.331 with the same settings I have posted. I haven't tweaked my variables.txt at all. Been using the same settings since I first applied them and for me, while not perfect amazing enough for me on this laptop while on the go.

 

It has to be there otherwise you get both realistic shadows and blop

 

I take everything back, all the tweaking and does nothing, starcraft II still runs ing on this laptop. So disappointed in this piece of crap.


with everything on Low it runs even worse which makes no sense. its just crap. I dont what to blame, nvidia, the small ty cpu in the R2 or blizzard.

I did update to the new bios... could that have changed anything?

 

totally random thought, have any of you tried to run games with windows 7 32bit + 32bit drivers instead of 64bit?

 

Anyone mind to help mine

 

IMO, only 2 possiblities.

1 - Optimus not kicking in thus running the game on intel mode (even though it states otherwise)

2 - Turbo-boost not kicking in for i7 running the game at 1.2ghz constantly.



that being said, it runs silky smooth (after tweaking of course) on my R1. Definately not an M11x issue. In fact if you've observed from all the posts out there, seems that they are all coming from R2.

*edit* Warcraft 3 as well

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ce-wc3-r2-does-wow-like-adjustments-work.html

 

crashing might be due to overclock. try disabling and see if it still occurs. For low shadows, you'll have to force it via variables.txt. Look back a few pages

 

Hyper, yeah thats also my concern... new technology is always such a .

im pretty sure the cramped i7 is not using its potential in sc2 and the whole optimus thing just drives me crazy.

 

the same issue is happening for most R2 users on the WOW board. i will not rule out the possiblility of the same scenario otherwise as both games are under blizzard

 

which just makes everything worse!

Hmm my problem is im running out of ideas and patience and slowly start to regret spending any money on this glowing brick...

 

i just saw a topic where even warcraft 3 affected. Might this is a blizzard programming issue?

Not trying to pinpoint any faults here, commonly, seems like most of the highlighted games having issues belong to blizzard with R2 sets.

 

I dont have WC3 so I cant test anything about that portion. But honestly I have seen enuf ppl having problem with wow which I personally dont encounter any. Lately done a couple of 25m and even in heavy situation I dont see a problem staying avg 20+ fps min. I dont run frap that is just to minimize any possible wasted CPU resource. I purely monitor them via the in game fps indicator. Same to SC2. I havent gone really huge battle yet. But at least in 2v2 up till the end of game my machine still manage a close 30fps min and not dipping below that. On games that are known to be cpu intensive I tend to make sure I dont have any extras running. That include stuffs like MSN and etcs. I think only thing I did not disable is the anti virus which is Mcafee that I am using that came with the laptop. With all these being said, still everything from CPU and GPU is running stock clock no powermizer tweaking done either. My only concern left now are games that rely on 3rd party anti cheat programs like PB, Nprotect and etcs. With newer drivers it's giving issue as those thing tend to take it as we are doing something non legit and throw us out of the game which is only what that annoys me atm. And this is something that I am purely working on to see if there is a proper way to get around it

 

I just had both good old flatout2 and starcraft 2 running at the same time. Using Evega tool thingy to both OC the gpu, monitor temperature but also GPU actiivty... and even with both games running the gpu activity never raises above 22%

In windows just normally playing around I sometimes see it go to 80% and above as you can have different things where it kicks in. but not with those games... wonder if that really is the case or if its just a bad monitor.

Its temping to do a clean install, NO OC and a 32bit platform...

 

@kopicha

did you do a clean install when you got your r2? and if so did you install all of the driver crap from Dells site? or did you only do like minimum, alienware CP and such?

 

I just discovered something disturbing ! but it does explain the current situation with SC2 for me.

I monitored the GPU while running different games and found that the gpu activity turned out to be very different.

here is a screenshot while running Settlers 7:
http://thomaskc.dk/sc2/settlers7_.jpg

As you can see the gpu activity is up around the 98%

I haven't got a screenshot of the same while running starcraft II BUT!
It never raised above 21% activity, ever!

that fits perfect to why the game starts off by running amazing with 2 buildings and 12 units on the map and why it runs worse and slower as the game moves on since the 21% gpu use will end up not being enough to keep the fps.

Now the big question... to do about it?

 

Wait for Nvidia to improve Optimus?

 

nope i never do a clean install. personally i havent found too much crap running from the default image so I just leave it as it is. As of yesterday I did a full restore. Nothing is wrong that trigger me to do that. But just wanted to go back to stock image and mingle with some stuffs like I said earlier. testing out stuffs that related to 3rd party anti cheat program.

 

Hey, my problem kinda exact like urs.
Not sure but when i disable the speed step, the game runs smooth at first, but getting worse and worse after having more units on the map.

However, when enable the speed step, the game runs really smooth and will support all units on the map even more than 200 units produced. BUT it will crash =.=ll

 

xijulezix: would you mind re running the test on high presets/textures? I think your settings were low shaders/shadows (although on my comp that still isnt great performance). I would assume your laptop should still beat my settings on high, but would just like to keep all the variables the same.

thomaskc: lol! Not to turn this into a group therapy session, but i feel your pain. I've had the same thoughts cross my mind. At this point, I am hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

pspknightx: Are you sure your overclock is stable? Load you system to the max for an hour or two and see if it doesn't crash. Personally I haven't had problems with SCII crashing much, so I would start with ensuring that OC is completely stable before screwing around with SCII.

 

Hehe I wish I didn't have to, but unfortunately we are all in the same boat (R2 users). So we might as well try and solve this together because if we don't all of us will be sitting with a VERY expensive brick for a long time...

 

just finish a 1 v 1 game vs CPU. i have full 200 units. not sure about the total that opposition have created but at the end of game still I dont dip below 30fps. I have in game fps counter running from start. fps simply range between 30 to 50+ from start till end.

btw I am running a different set of drivers atm which is not the 258.89 set that I have posted. As I am doing some driver testing so I am trying out different stuffs atm. I see how it goes if things works well I will share out the drivers. Not anything great or new thou. But so far I manage to get all my games running fine with Nvidia kicking in.