Screen tearing Macbook pro 15 i5 2.4 in starcraft 2

Been playing starcraft 2 in my new macbook pro 15 i5 2.4 in low-medium settings. I noticed screen tearing when navigating the map. it bothers me a lot.

i tried to enable vsync and it got worst- i got low fps with screen tearing.

anyone know hot to fix it?

the problem persists even if i play sc2 in windows 7.

 

hmm that's weird, I have a 15" i5 MBP also, and am able to play on "High" without issue's. are you running 1440X900?

 

yes am running on 1440x900. it's weir coz i never experience this when i had the macbook pro 13 2010.

 

Maybe hte 15" screen is too slow.

 

have you run the os updater and picked up the optional nvidia update? that helped my performance a fair bit.

 

I would try exchange it with the high res.

 

Yes i did.

 

I can't explain that. your issue should simply not be happening. if your OS is up to date and the game is up to date, it should be smooth as butter.

 

I know. That is why am worried coz i just have this mac for a week. Am going to genius bar tomorow and let them check on it.

 

Found this: Massive Screen Tearing in SC2 & WOW on both OSX and windows 7. - NVIDIA Forums

Seems like am not the only one having this issue.

 

hm. i have the same macbook model, and i'll fire it up here -- the recent mac patch changed some thing with the gl compiler and libraries. will report inna few. (i played vanilla four months ago, haven't touched it since)

 

i wouldn't rule out some other program your running interfering.

 

hm, no problems. :-( runs smooth (30+ fps) on medium settings with portrait animations off. vsync works; no tearing. i'd talk to the apple folks.

 

i already tried closing all open apps before playing starcraft2, problem still persist.

played sc2 after fresh reboot, problem still there.

 

Will be going to genius bar tomorrow. keep you guys updated!

 

theres a lot of stuff running that you can install that you don't see as an open app... not what I'm talking about. Just open Activity Monitor sometime and look at the list of things running

 

hit alt-f in the game to check and see what the reported frame rate is, also note the frame rate during the screen tearing.

i don't think this is a 3rd party compatibility problem - but just to be safe you could do a clean install of os x, and bootcamp.

this might be a stupid question - but you did insert your operating system disc to install the bootcamp windows drivers, right?

also - after installing those drivers, you need to go to nvidia.com, download the latest drivers for your graphics card, and install those, because the apple supplied drivers are far behind.

 

In System Preferences -> Energy Saver: Do you have "automatic graphics switching enabled" Make sure that is enabled, and everything else is default, if that doesn't work:
You could backup all your music, pics, movies, etc. Then do a fresh OSX install, once installed, run software update to get all the updates. After that Install Starcraft II and see how it runs. If it's good, then just copy your documents back. don't use time machine, because it'll just copy whatever file/setting is causing the slow down.

 

actually, you may want to try disabling that. it should force the machine to use the dedicated graphics.

 

tried to play again today. it's weird but every time i lower the graphic setting to medium-low, the screen tearing gets worst! same in bootcamp.

probably a refresh rate problem?

 

with or without dynamic switching, screen tearing still there.

 

in both osx and bootcamp, screen tearing is present.

its weird coz i notice that everytime my fps goes up, the tearing will get worst!

am getting disappointed with this....

 

just re-install OSX, get updates, and install just the game. That way you can see if it's hardware or software related.

 

with it both OSX and Windows im going to guess its hardware related

 

can you go ahead and do the alt-f to check your framerate?

in windows, there is a v-sync option both in the game and in the driver control panel. how are they set?

 

medium - low 30-50 fps

medium- high 20-40 fps

vsync is off since it lowers my fps. even if it is on, i can still see the screen tearing.

 

i did a hardware test but it detected no problems on the hardware.

i was supposed to go to genuis bar today but had to cancel it coz of an emergency. be going there on tuesday on my day off.

 

be trying this but i doubt its os related since sc2 in bootcamp has the same issue.

 

I'm not sure what is happening in os x.

I think in windows you may have conflicting settings between the game and the driver as far as v-sync being enabled.

 

i installed the new graphics driver for 330m from nvidia and the screen tearing seems to be gone. the graphics driver in bootcamp is 50 or so version old. can't believe they're that old!

my windows experience index for gaming graphics went up from 5.3 to 6.4!

osx screen tearing on sc2 is still present.

 

after hearing that, it seems like it's a software/driver issue in OSX. I would formate the drive, and do a fresh OSX install using the restore cd that came with your MBP. Once it's all freshly installed, run software update, get all the updates, reboot. Then install just starcraft and see how it plays.

 

If you are content running the game in windows, I'd call this problem solved. I personally have so many issues with the mac version of this game that I wouldn't even bother if you already have it working well in windows.

 

I would really love to play sc2 in osx with no prob. Sometimes am too lazy to reboot and go to windows to play sc2. I will try to reinstall my osx and see if it solves the prob.

Side question though, am planning to upgrade my display to high res. Will it affect the performance of sc2 on both windows and mac? Will it lower my fps?

 

if you run at the higher resolution, yes.

also, you can't upgrade your display to a high res display. you would need to replace the entire machine.

 

Surprisingly, SC2 scales very well when going to a higher resolution. You should only see the higher resolution knocking off a few FPS. SC2 runs at an average of 40-45 FPS on my 1366x768 screen on med-high. When I put it on a 1080p screen, it gets around 38-43. I think this is because my graphics card isn't the one being maxed out. It's my CPU that's being maxed out regardless of the resolution.

 

certainly possible. depends on your hardware setup and graphics settings. on the macbook pro i5 at about medium settings or higher, you will definitely see a performance hit going from 1440x900 to 1680x1050. It uses a 330m for graphics.

 

No need to bother, since in OSX you'll be hit a substantial frame rate loss, even if all the bugs were squashed.

Bootcamp to Windows for games definitely.

 

Mines fine on full res.. but I'm running it on an iMac in OS X

 

If you ran the game in Windows, you'd get like 15% more FPS at least.

 

I get a ~100% framerate increase in windows in sc2...

 

not 100%.

I'd say about 30%. quite significant, but you're not going to double your framerate.

 

I go from about 30 frames (osx) per second to 60 (windows) on some maps. It depends on the map. Medium settings, medium textures, i5 macbook pro, 1440x900.

 

ah. perhaps related to the memory?

my i7 17" @ 1920x1200 sees about a 15-20fps bump in Windows. and a 20C hotter CPU. :-/