Starcraft II on M11x - General Discussion

Here's the problem with Starcraft 2 (and this applies to WoW as well)... they are so consumed with programming for the lowest common denominator that they overlook things like optimizing their games for modern CPUs (which get their power from multiple cores and hyperthreading). Instead their games favor low-cost chips that may have less sophisticated architecture but have the raw Mhz on the 1-2 cores they have.

Thats really what SC2 needs - raw Mhz... and the ultra low voltage chips in the M11x aren't designed like that.

Take for example my desktop pc which has a core i7 920 overclocked to 4Ghz. This 8 thread behemoth only runs at 10-15% utilization in WoW, yet fps in a crowded dalaran is still lower than it should be. It's just not using the juice that is available. If it actually used the full CPU the perfomance would be absurd. It's the same case with Starcraft 2 (although my desktop has no issues with SC2 at ultra obviously)

I've seen this first hand on my friends M11x R2 (i7) - it's not running SC2 nearly as good as it should. If someone with a m11x r2 gets a chance do the following:

Set your textures and all settings to High at 1360x768

Under Single player challenges pick the first medium difficulty one (it's the one where you have to kill 125 enemies in 3 mins). Once you start it, take a cloaked Ghost forward and nuke a couple groups of enemies keeping your camera on the nuke. What kind of fps do you get here, and how far does it drop when the nuke goes off? I'd like to compare it to my laptop which has lower but similar specs but has a different cpu type.

It's CTRL+ALT+F to show fps by the way.

 

Guys I am pretty upset right now.

Blizzard kinda turned their back on us IMO. I just wrote a small novel to blizzard explaining my feelings. You can see what I am talking about here:

StarCraft II

If you want to show some support and attempt to get them to pay us m11x owners some attention, please consider posting your thoughts in my bnet thread...

 

sorry guys had internet issue last night had lots of problem trying to open the site so could not post the stuff i promise. will try again tonight as i am at work now again!

 

I'm running Starcraft II on low right now, because medium give me a choppy framerate. I pretty much maxed out my m11x's spec when I bought it, how can I get it running in ultra?

 

low gives worse frames due to it not utilizing the dedicated GPU from what i can tell..

 

No. It just sucks on m11x. If you want to play decent settings on starcraft 2.

1) return m11x
2) buy something else

 

not everyone can just "return" their m11x..

 

Can you not even run it well on medium? this sucks. It was either between the
M11x or the MBP 13". I am not going to cancel my order as the MBP wont give me much performance boost anyways.

 

Well that sucks, I thought there was some way to "tweak" it or something to get it on ultra.

 

What driver are you using/ Did you OC?

 

Yeah I know, I cant return mine either. But the fact is that it doesn't run very well on the m11x. Blizzard couldn't care less. If you want it to run better than complain to blizzard... as kabes said above, SCII doesn't even attempt to get good performance out of this system.

 

At which setting (if any) have you have experienced a steady fps of 25-30?

 

medium settings for me, running campaign just fine also.

 

high setting with overclock till 150mhz runs fine with me. But haven't tried the challenge mode which kills 125 enemies in 3 minutes using nuke.

When i first got m11x on my hand, i faster tried Full Ultra setting on it and it runs fine without even overclock it. However, day by day, it become choppy and after 1.02 patch, i have to set it down to high setting >.< sigh ...

P.s. I using the latest video driver from Dell homepage: 257.30 WHQL

 

No settings have i received fps of 25-30. Even in 1v1 on low, it can drop into lower 20s and teens.

 

thats pretty bad...how can some others run it somewhat stable on medium-high settings?

 

Honestly, I have no idea. We have 36 pages trying to figure it out. I am probably about just to quit trying. I chalk up the different reports to being some people have different standards. 15 fps might not totally suck for some people, but I am not very happy with it. Maybe some people think 15 fps is 30 fps and are accidentally misreporting. I really have no idea.

I think the m11x should run SCII better than it does, but blizzards official stance is the m11x doesn't meet the minimum requirements. Since that's the case i don't see how anyone can recommend it. I certainly can't based on my own experience. Don't want to sound like I am bashing it but... well it is what it is.

 

Crazy J im unfortunately on your Boat. Im going to give Dell a call and give them a go for their money, because not only with SC2 I don't believe the R2 delivers what is "promoted" or "believed". Your best chance of getting some kind of refund at the moment is blaming the Optimus state, how ever I fear that our chances are small and that ill be stuck with a $2000 AUD laptop I have NO use for. man I regret this buy.

 

I hear you thomaskc; it is very frustrating because if SCII would utilize the GPU 95% like any other game, I bet performance would be good enough to make everyone happy. The only thing I can think of is to post on Nvidia forums and maybe its something they can fix in a driver. But I don't even feel like doing that right now cause I am so sick of SCII and M11x.

 

In flatout 2 my gpu didn't utilize 100% either. I don't think it does in any game. Prove me wrong if that is the case though!

 

sigh... it sounded really bad... but i really dont know what your problem is. first of all base on my knowledge and understandings. i dont know how Alienware/Dell have promoted this machine to you or in your country. But in where I am anyone techy enough would have known that we cant use this machine to compete against standard laptops. one of the main reason being that its running on ULV processor. So technically it can easily get own by most full blown mobile processors out there while this is simply due to technology limitation but not anyone's fault. For example Asus N82 with a proper mobile i7 and similar GT335M setup can easily own M11x any configuration period. So if anyone were to make such comparison expecting this machine to rock that way or match those performance is plain wrong to start with. Not trying to side anyone but being also one of the owner of M11xR2 myself I would honestly feel that Alienware has not lie about this machine. It's indeed the "smallest" package available that is capable of gaming at some decent gfx settings/fps at least at the point of time it was being introduce in CES2010. I personally think that this machine is still very capable in some sense. As I dont think this machine is being design to replace any standard gaming laptops out there or even a desktop entertainment system. Its more like some addon and gives additional option or luxury to ppl who have extra cash and like to have something that is capable to keep them entertain in some ways while on the move. there are more i can talk about but i dont see the point since I dont work for Alienware. I dont want to make it sound like I am trying to help them to convince anyone. But in this brief post I just hope ppl are aware of what they are buying and not being blinded by the name just because its Alienware. As for my experience with this machine so far. There is no deny that Optimus still need some work. But I do see improvements base on their last driver release. Things will never get perfect and just simply take time to iron out. I own this thing for about a month plus, I think when looking back and compare today I personally find that the improvements done so far is still at a reasonable rate. This machine may cost you some, but think again no Alienware product come cheap anyway, if this makes sense to anyone. In terms of Optimus wise, I strongly believe other laptops out there that also uses Optimus should share fairly about the same amount of issues as us R2 owners. So on this point I still dont see the fault being on Alienware. Its not like an Nvidia thing, but its known anyway that Nvidia has never really perfect stuffs. Not even ATI does. What's important is I do see they did attempt to improve it which is enough to me. How its being improve or what's being improve will be another matter which I wont want to put them together. Also I personally have not experience too much issues gaming on this machine. Some may need certain work around and such which yes not very convenience for a 2k system. But I think I mostly still get decent performance. Nothing spectacular. I will never expect this thing to dish out 100-200fps in my fav games. As long as its playable I am cool with it. I dont set too high expectation since when I choose to buy this machine I kinda already know what can be the set back on this thing. But I simply like the size of it. Allow me to easily carry it anywhere and play when I want to. This is just my personal take on this machine. No one needs to agree with me. Just sharing my personal thoughts. It's your money your decision so you do the final decision how you wish to look at it for your own M11x. Peace....

 

kopicha: do you really think SCII on medium/low settings is an unreasonable expectation? The thing has reqs of a 2.6 p4... certainty the i7 wipes the floor with that processor?

Also, while the CPU is stronger in the asus, in many cases the asus doesn't really own the m11x. Check this out:

Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M

Bad Company 2:

m11x R2 i5 medium settings: 32.4 fps
m11x R2 i5 high settings: 24.4 fps

Asus N82jv medium settings: 35.4
Asus N82jv high settings: 24.3

Results are similar in COD MW 2 and a bunch of other games.

These games are probably GPU bottlenecked, but at the same time those games have higher CPU reqs than SCII. I just played a SCII match and my GPU load percent was 35%... I can't imagine that's the best this little laptop can do!

List all the games current games this laptop can play, and then list the ones it can't I dont think any of us want ultra settings 1980x1080 resolution but medium/low and 1280x720 in starcraft II at a constant clip of 25 fps in a 1v1 or 2v2 game? That sounds reasonable doesnt it?

 

i had a friend who own N82jv. I would ask him to do a test with his machine playing SC2 and make a comparison. and I will come back with that. But let's be honest about one thing. Most dev dont directly support laptop gaming. Thou laptops these days are mostly more than capable of doing so. If you check out those retail boxes. Quite a number of games out there actually do specifically state that whatever they listed is only base on desktop specification, however they do not directly support similar configured laptops. See if I can find a chance to take some picture of those and show.

 

Kopicha, I totally agree with you, how ever I didn't expect it to be this bad! seeing that people have played crisis and like on the m11x r1.

the ULV i7 is simply just the biggest joke of a CPU and put together with the faulty optimus its just a nightmare if you ask me.

 

I am starting to regret ordering the M11x R2 now a little bit. I was really looking forward to playing SC2 but it seems like it can barely run it.

 

My m11x R2 runs starcraft II just fine. I have settings on medium to high at max resolution of 1360x768. I am getting smooth framerates.

My desktop is a core 2 duo wolfdale @3GHz with ATI 5870 so I know what smooth REALLY looks like.

If your starcraft 2 is slow on the m11x, you are most likley using the integrated intel GMA HD video.

 

i've been playing the campaign for the past 4+ hours with more than stable gameplay over 25 fps.. i did 3v3 fine also no stutters or anything, haven't done an online game yet but i don't see how it would be any different as long as it's under 3v3? all this on medium settings.. i don't see how it's "unplayable" but yes i definitely think drivers could use a bit more improving or some tweaks but it is definitely playable..

 

yeah hopefully i am one of the lucky ppl who can run the game fine. BTW what driver are you using (so I know which one to DL in a few days)?

 

when you say medium settings is that the medium preset? and not touching anything else? or do you put effects on low for instance?

 

nope, preset medium max res i7 152 FSB 4GB ram

 

sorry for a random post, but this seems like a huge problem. I haven't ordered my m11x yet but this might have a big impact on the version I buy. One thing though, when I go on the alienware site to order it, it doesn't specify if it's R1 or R2. Is the difference assumed based on the processor? As in, if I order the Core2Duo model it will be an R1 and it won't have Optimus graphics switching will it? Because from the sounds of it the Optimus is what's causing all the problems...

 

Correct. If you buy the model with C2D then it's an R1 with manual gfx switching. i7 and i5 processors are the R2 model with Optimus gfx switching.

A small tip though if you're buying the R1: if you don't care about the nameplate, goto the outlet section and buy an R1. It's a LOT cheaper.

 

outlet section? where is that? I couldn't find it (on the Canadian site at least)

 

The Canadian site probably doesn't have an outlet section then

 

oh dang. well I'll try to find it! thanks anyways =)

 

Just finished a 1v1 started at around 50-60 fps and ended with 34-50 (depending on if i was at my base, their base, following squads). Settings and junk: 189.79modded stock settings, CPU set to 166mhz OC(core i5 model) with turbo boost on, Starcraft 2 on preset medium with textures also set to medium, full-screen mode.

That's about it, very playable and still looks great.

 

Interesting.. Im getting far from that on the same settings, the very first minutes I get around 40-50 fps and then after 10minutes I get between 26 and 32 fps more or less the rest of the game, and even less if there is massive battles. The base Ghz is lower on the i5 than the i7 isn't it? unlike the "real" i5 and i7 cpu's.

 

The i5 stock is 1.07ghz, 1.33ghz with over-clock and 2.0-2.1 with turbo on(checked all those numbers with CPU-Z), do you have yours over-clocked turbo'd and all the other settings the same?

 

Yeah Mine is OC'ed to 160 so around 1.5 ghz base and 2.8 turbo, but it does all haha

 

That's interesting you have the same modded drivers that Ko posted? Not sure what else is different umm i downloaded the latest bios drivers and that's about it other then what i posted before.

 

What's your speedstep setting? Disable or Enable ?

 

Stock, so enabled i am pretty sure. Pretty sure this doesn't make a difference but i do have power charger off in Bios since i am at full battery.

 

Sigh, mine if overclock till 166mhz with speedstep stock setting: Enable. + Turbo mode enable, the game will randomly crashed >.< Even same setting with yours. Not sure why, but windows no crashed.

 

It's because it can't handle the 166Mhz OC, that's why mine is running 160.

 

sorry, forgot to mention it's from 160~166mhz

 

Use the new modified 258.96 driver that everyone is talking about.
Follow the instructions very carefully.

See my thread here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/509089-company-heroes-m11x-r2-problem-solved.html

It has nothing to do with being lucky. Alienware is just waiting for Nvidia to fix the bugs out of the Optimus drivers. The modded beta 258.96 drivers work great.
Get the drivers and instructions here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...er-258-96-beta-discussion-relating-11xr2.html

 

From what i read those drivers have problems with pbbuster and that, so another member tried an older version before stock 189.79modded and apparently it works the best.

 

Thomas... sorry for the delay but this is what I use in SC2

 

Kopicha which drivers do you use? Also is there a reason your not playing at 1366x768, doesn't it not look as good?

 

i use this setting across all drivers. so far only drivers i would use is either 189.79 or 258.89. both are modded drivers that I posted in this forum. As for resolution I choose, imo I dont see much degrade in gfx quality. In fact even the highest you could go in SC2 is not native either. I know ppl have been debating over that 3 pixel difference but that is really subjective. imo they dont make much a difference on such a small screen. I take 720 but some slight possible performance increase over that extra pixels which to me dont make much of a difference on the small screen of M11x

Current driver is 189.79