Would an Athlon x2 @ 2.1GHz and an AMD Radeon 4250 be able to play sc2?

At 1024x768, all details off, textures slow, aa and af off, or if not, what it will do.

Its a friends PC specs

 

these are the min requirements:

PC: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 (Latest Service Packs) with DirectX 9.0c
2.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card or better

Mac: Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
Intel Processor
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon X1600 or better

PC/Mac: 12 GB available HD space
1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista/Windows 7 users, 2 GB for Mac users)
DVD-ROM drive
Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

I think it will be a slideshow on an amd 4250...definitely not playable @ 1024

 

don't think it will.. that GPU is not able to run PES 2012 on medium settings @ 1024x768 (streched)

 

I think you should be OK. The processor is completely fine and the graphics card is basically equivalent to the min spec. It won't look super pretty, but I think it'll run with decent performance. Make sure your drivers are up to date. I think since your resolution and settings expectations are realistic, you could maybe hope for 35-40 frames per second.

 

Would be nice if there was a demo available for you to try it and find out if it runs alright. Quick google showed there is!

https://us.battle.net/account/sc2/s...B444AD40BE4400C2DF51F510.blade35_07_bnet-mgmt

Try the demo and find out if it runs.

 

good one. totally forgot about that. Update your drivers to the latest, and try the demo for free. It's not even a timed demo iirc, just feature limited.

 

nvm, page didn't refresh. Will try it, and maybe post results.

notebookcheck says ~40 fps with 800x600 everything off...

 

Given how PC Gaming and Gaming is in general, I assumed there wasn't a demo until I searched for it.

I feel game developers know the games they release now a days are beta quality at best and not worth the $60 they charge now. So they don't offer a demo to trap players into spending the $60 if they want to play it before 6 months the price drops The demo may show the flaws of the game, deterring sales?

 

Definitely true in general. Not in the case of starcraft 2, since the game is insanely polished. That's probably why they are an exception and offer a demo. I think this is what you're saying anyway. It's also sometimes a little bit difficult logistically for companies to offer a demo. If they release the whole game but limit it to time, they have to worry that people will hack the software and break the time limit. If they release a separate application that doesn't have all of the content, they have to worry about if and how to keep it up to date. If they decide to patch the demo as well as the main game, they have to invest more resources into maintaining a demo. If they are extremely well organized, it can work.

There is also the fact that game programs are getting pretty big and it can be a long wait to download. That's usually not an issue for people who bought a game, they're willing to wait, they're more invested. But for people who might be interested, a long wait time for a demo might not be acceptable. Some companies like EA are starting to offer timed streaming demos that don't require a large download (through origin) but still give you a sense of the game. That also allows them to maintain a single version of the game and just give you timed access to that.

Starcraft is a giant AAA title with a massive amount of support and a huge momentum behind it in terms of e-sports and all that nonsense. Blizzard is banking and can afford to maintain a separate demo version easily.