Starcraft II weakest GPU for ultra graphics mode

Hi,

I haven't bought my laptop yet. What is the minimal graphic card that I have to get in order to run Starcraft II with all the effects and no lag at a normal resolution of 1366 x 768?

On this benchmark...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

What is the breaking point between a good graphic card for my purpose or a bad one?

Is it something like

Mobility Radeon HD 3870 (#48)
GeForce GT 220M (#80)
GeForce G 210M (#106)


I have no damn idea.

I suppose any i5 or i7 processor can do the job.

 

I wouldn't consider anything less than a 260M, or a 4670 or higher. Any CPU should theoretically do, though. SC2 will scale well, but "all the effects" will need a very beefy machine.

If you look at this list, don't consider anything much below a Class 1 GPU: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

 

In my experience it is very cpu bound, with my 9700m gts and 2.0ghz c2d i can play all high in 1440x900 but ultra makes me lag considerably

 

A 9700M GTS is a little way down the charts from the 260M and company. Are you sure it's CPU bound? A higher detail level shouldn't affect the CPU much at all, unless it's some kind of particle physics simulations or something that's added in, but not graphical enhancements. I don't know enough about SC2 to be sure though.

 

RTS games such as Starcraft II and Supreme Commander, tend to rely a lot more on the CPU than most other games. Though I'd wager the i5-540M would still be sufficient to play (though if you have the money, you'd notice a benefit from the 820QM - assuming SC2 can take advantage of the extra cores).

As for the GPU, the minimum I'd consider would be the upper end of the mid range cards (128-bit GDDR3), for example HD 5830. Though again if you want a boost in performance, I'd look into a low to middle end of the high range cards (128-bit GDDR5), such as the GTS 360M.

 

I have starcraft 2 beta and I've installed on many different computers (family members and friends).

Pretty much any modern computer can run SC2 on low graphics.

And regarding ultra, my laptop can run ultra as long as there arent 100 vs 100 battles (but of course there are many). So I put my settings on high and I can hardly tell the difference but I get zero FPS issues in big battles.

So if you are looking to be in huge battles on ultra...you'd better get a kick arse computer.

My friend has this new Asus laptop and he even gets a huge FPS drop in large scale battles on Ultra Settings.

My laptop can play SC2 on ultra and it is seamless most of the time. But like I said, I do take a bit of a hit in large scale battles (not much but I am very picky about FPS lag).


btw: we should play together =P

 

A 4500mhd GPU can run it on low BUT expect for frame drops below 30 even with low. My current rig cannot even have 30 FPS in intense fights in ULTRA setting.

 

Well with my current system and my GTX260M clocked at 540/800/1350 I can do 1360x768 res all ultra enabled at 30-50fps all the time, even when fighting with like a hundred units. Mostly around 30fps with is quite playable.

I imagine you will need something around this power to enjoy the game then. Keep in mind I use a Core i7 720 and it does use all 4 processors, though it seems to mostly use 1 and rely a bit on the others. Any Core i5 should be sufficient.

 

Depends on which 260M one is referring to.
The chart is not exactly too accurate if you ask me.
If a 260M has a 128bit bus and GDDR3, it will likely be lousier compared to 9700m GTS (which has a 256bit bus and GDDR3).
If a 260M has a 128bit bus and GDDR5, then it's a different story.

RTS games are usually more cpu dependant than on the gpu.
An i5 would be a good choice indeed, but if it's within your price range the i7 would be better of course.
One thing to keep in mind though is that Blizzard games scale quite well and work nicely on even older systems.

210M is barely considered to be a dedicated/entry gpu (has a 64bit bus).
220M is much more along the lines of a mid-range gpu though as it seems to have same clocks/specs and bus as 9600m GT (but it's placed much lower on the list for some reason).

The list is rather inaccurate.

Mobility Radeon HD 3870 would essentially wipe the floor with 210M, 220M, 9700m GT and likely 9700m GTS in games that are more gpu dependant.

 

I believe "Ultra" settings in Starcraft 2 require 1 GB of VRAM to function properly due to a very high textures requirement primarily. If you don't have that amount of memory on your GPU, try toning down the textures a bit.

Hope it helps!

 

I thought I read from a beta user saying that as long as you have a 8600/8700, with dual core, you can play Starcraft II on maximum everything.

I wouldn't sweat it, just get what you like, and it will run SC2 with the details you want.

 

Yes, but the question here is whether or not he can run Ultra settings, which is a very GPU dependent thing. The game will use the same amount of CPU power in low as in ultra settings, it's all down to GPU horsepower.

 

So many answer in such a short time... Thanks guys.

1) I'll be careful with the benchmark since it doesn't seem always reliable.
2) I'll go for a i5/i7 (though, I'd like to know how Starcraft II can benefit from i7 since i5 seem very powerful (and less powerconsumming ))
3) I'll stick to high end graphic cards or upper mid class range.

One more question : do you expect that eventually (In maximum 3 months, I'll buy a new laptop) I'd be able to find a switchable graphic card (optimus or something with ATI) that would allow me to play in ultra?

 

2) I'm happy with my i5. It's very fast, and faster in many things than an i7 because it's got a higher clockspeed. 90% of games really don't take advantage of more than 2 cores effectively. And those that do, it's an uneven loading so the 4 threads an i5 can process is still a boon. I wouldn't do an i7 unless you're doing 3D modeling/video encoding/major photography batch processing, or something along those lines. Gaming, an i5 is still probably your best bet.

Wish I could help with the question... I have no idea when switchable GPUs will become popular. It's not terribly likely that they'll happen much with beefy GPUs anyway though... they usually put that stuff in 13" or smaller style machines so it's more mobile.

 

i just bought the laptop below but have 15 days to see if i want to open it or return it, how will it perform in sc2 in high settings? and ultra?

 

OCZ WHitebook (M17 Alienware) with Dual Core P9500 2.6mhz and 3870x2 Crossfire

I play at 1900x1200x32 all Medium settings for fluid fps
Ultra settings the frame rates drop and not very playable at a competitive level

I believe with a quad core the bottleneck will be lifted from the gpu and can probably play at Ultra

 

it will do high at 1366X768 but ultra is out of the question.. CPU is quite crap and the GPU only has 512Mb memory... return it , get ur money back and get Asus G73... its about $1499 and will have no problems playing any game and even this game on high-ultra.. has core i7 quad , ATI 5870 , fastest mobile card , 8GB RAM , which is expandable to 16GB , full HD screen etc...

 

Its hard to know yet how the game is gona be upon release, but it seems its optimized for 2 cores ( Beta performance), but at the end they recommend a quad still but this in desktops where the quads are much higher clocked than i7-720QM, but at least go for a high clocked i5 (540/520).

 

Could a M11x run SCII at high graphics (not ultra)?

Seems to me like the CPU is crap :/

 

yes it is crap... it can be overclocked to 1.7GHz but that doesn't help much... in some laptops , it can be overclocked to 2.1GHz when it is as good as a P8400 but alas in this case , 1.7 is the most... epic fail.

 

Check on YouTube for M11x playing Starcraft 2 beta. Users run the BETA on Ultra without problem and WITHOUT OVERCLOCK. No worries people. I wish everyone would stop slamming the CPU choice. No it's not an i5, but for good reason. Show me one game the M11x can't run decently that makes it crap. It even runs Supreme Commander 2 reasonably well.

 

Agreed well put, the M11x CPU is nothing short, regardless of the relatively low numbers, but as the game also matures, you should also see nice performance gains.

 

Wow, if the m11x can run this game on ultra, I guess that proves that this particular RTS isn't very CPU bound. Cool to know.

 

An m11x can run it on ULTRA??? I can run it on Ultra with my sig comp BUT if i with more than 100+ units and use them to attack the base of my enemies it will already dip below 30FPS!!

 

Well the GPU in the m11x is pretty good, and the lower resolution seems to help quite a bit.

 

Starcraft 2 is absolutely CPU bound. Heavily.

 

Yeah, it can run on ultra when there's a handful of workers mining on the base and two Zelots and exchanging blows. I have run the game on a laptop with the exact same CPU and resolution with a Nvidia G210 and I can tell you there's no way the m11x cannont run SC2 on Ultra mid/late game when there are multiple expansions, small skirmishes and so forth going on. Maybe Mostly mid/high with some GPU dependent options set to ultra but no way ultra everything.

 

He's got to be joking. I've got a T8300 and a 8600M GT and just playing on high lags a bit (scrolling isn't smooth, maybe about 20 fps) Playing on ultra would be too much. I usually play on Medium instead.

 

Maybe he meant a desktop 8600.

 

same 10 char

 

I won't be able to run SC2 at 1600x900 smoothly on a HP Elitebook (8540w - with Core i7 620M, NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M)?

 

u do have the processor power but GPU power ... 128bit GDDR3 GPU's struggle to play ususally on anything higher than 1366X768... if u really want the elitebook , get the ATI M7820 or whatever is the new best ATI GPU... no problems with that even on full HD

 

Or perhaps the new Dell Precisions will have a decent GPU? I really just want an i7 620M, ~1600x900, ~15" laptop with a matte screen capable of playing SC2 ...

 

I don't think it makes much of a difference. They're almost similar. Only the clock speed is higher. The bus width and the number of stream processors are the same.

 

Yeah, like the only similar characteristic is their name...

Actually the desktop 8600GT basically the same to the 8700m GT.

 

I have 2 questions
1) Does this game utilize quad core processors
2) How will ATI RADEON HD4350 (Desktop version) with a quad cpu do with SC2??

 

Sorry, I didn't quite structure my sentence properly so I think you probably read it differently from the way I meant it. I edited my post to rephrase it.

 

I have 2 questions
1) Does this game utilize quad core processors
2) How will an ATI RADEON HD4350 (Desktop version) with a quad cpu do with SC2??

 

Check some beta benchmarks ( starcraft II wings of liberty beta performance and Starcraft 2 Beta: CPU benchmarks – Core i5/i7 leading)

 

I should excuse myself for reading so fast. In any case the 8600m GT is so crippled in performance in comparison to the 8600 GT. So crippled that the 8700m GT was way a better card (I mean, not just a minor boost in performance) than the 8600m GT (with DDR2 or GDDR3 VRAM).

 

The GDDR3 8600M is only clocked a bit slower the the desktop 8600 GT. There wouldn't be a big difference in performance, just like there isn't between the 8700M GT vs 8600M GT GDDR3. The 8600M GT can just be overclocked to 8700 speeds anyway.

 

I can play SCII Beta with medium settings at native resolution fine (1366x768), around 30fps. Man, it looks beautiful even on medium settings. There's some amazing artwork in there, props to Blizzard.
But running it on max settings would require a high-class graphics card and probably at least an core i5.

 

I wonder how the ASUS Ul30JT (330m nvidia optimus, probably) will perform...

Thing is I haven't bought my laptop yet and the only game I'm going to play will certainly be Starcraft II (or maybe if they make an elder scroll 5...).

 

I doubt the ul30jt will come with a 330m, it probably gona come with 310m. But even the ul30vt does decently at medium settings, Starcraft 2 BETA on Asus UL30VT-A1

 

If ~30% difference is not a big difference, then yes, they are about the same.

 

What? The 8700M is nowhere near 30% faster than the GDDR3 version. It's basically the same chip.

 

Basically the same is not like the exactly same. Check the clock speeds. Do you have any source showing they both perform on the same level?

 

8600M = 475/950/700
8700M = 625/1250/800


Diff. % = +24 / +24 / +12.5

Same core, same transistor count, same bus width, same # of stream processors. Can't be 30% faster.

The burden of proof is on you sir.

 

Funny, but it depends from which point of view you are taking it. If you use the 8600M values to normalize then you are right, if I use the 8700M I am right.... which should we take?

 

8700M GT is basically an overclocked 8600M GT... also very similar to 9600M GT and 9700M GT...