optimal setup for starcraft 2

[IorakeWarhammer]

possibly weening off the GS/message board and moving towards a starcraft 2 obsession

i have an HP slimline with 3 gigs of ram, atheon dual core, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE graphics card

game, on low settings, is running a little slow, even with virtual memory optimized

thinking of upgrading the video card to something HD capable since i have a DVI port on my monitor

or should i get a newer model computer? i can still take it back
hoping to enjoy SC graphics but i'm really not a gaming freak, only gonna be playing SC

advice would be appreciated!

~Drew

[Parkbandit]

possibly weening off the GS/message board and moving towards a starcraft 2 obsession

i have an HP slimline with 3 gigs of ram, atheon dual core, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE graphics card

game, on low settings, is running a little slow, even with virtual memory optimized

thinking of upgrading the video card to something HD capable since i have a DVI port on my monitor

or should i get a newer model computer? i can still take it back
hoping to enjoy SC graphics but i'm really not a gaming freak, only gonna be playing SC

advice would be appreciated!

~Drew

http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.com/CYRI/

Run this program on your computer.. Select Starcraft 2 from the drop down menu and see if your computer is up to the task.

[IorakeWarhammer]

after optimizing settings on virtual memory, battle net runs ok - i don't get the "your comp is slowing down the game" message until about 1 minute in, vs the instant message before.

thinking of going with this one..

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive/9964106.p?skuId=9964106&id=1218202473164

it has an HD video card, so I can use the DVI input on my monitor.

great tip thanks!

[Tilnam]

graphics card in the best buy one is lame. Also, if geek squad tries to sell you anything in addition to the computer, don't do it. They are huge scammers. Their optimization package has been proven to actually slow down the computer lol.

Sc2 takes a crapload of memory. Just by running windows 7 and sc2, it takes 3gb of memory up. If you run out of memory and have to write to hard drive for memory instead, your pc will run slow as fuck.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

There is a list of the top video cards. If you are serious about playing a new graphical game, you will want to get one of those. Normally getting something like a radeon 5850 or a gtx 460 is the best if you are on a budget, but they are still pretty expensive.

Also, if you want to use it for any kind of future gaming, id get at LEAST 6-8gb of ram. Or at least have the possibility of being able to upgrade in the future. which it looks like that has.


Oh and thats one downside of buying a prebuilt computer. You can't really customize it very much. So if you want a better card you usually have to upgrade everything else also. Another option though is to purchase one that simply comes with onboard accelerated graphics. Make sure the motherboard has a PCI X16 slot and just purchase a card yourself. They are stupid easy to install. Put it in the slots it fits in, install drivers which are downloaded off a website.

Also, my geforce 8800 GT was able to run sc2 without many problems. Couldn't jack it up to ultra, but i think it ran perfect on medium settings.

[IorakeWarhammer]

planning on usin this comp for SC2 for the next 10 years or so, wanna get it right.

this is the one i currently got and yeah it's pretty slow:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Slimline+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Dual-Core+Processor+/+3GB+Memory+/+640GB+Hard+Drive/9974673.p?id=1218205379770&skuId=9974673

thinking either wal mart or best buy to get the base unit. dont wanna spend too much, thats the thing, and i already have the monitor/sound system. hoping to utilize DVI port on my monitor.

do you see any reasonable computers that i could build from?

right now with the current one in the link in this post, even on ALL LOW settings, its still lagging me on bnet and im getting the "your comp sux" message about a minute in to the game

[Tilnam]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227274

That one doesn't seem that bad for a pre-built. Never ordered a prebuilt so im not sure about the company. But 3 out of 3 ratings are all 5 stars, doesn't seem that bad.

[Parkbandit]

after optimizing settings on virtual memory, battle net runs ok - i don't get the "your comp is slowing down the game" message until about 1 minute in, vs the instant message before.

thinking of going with this one..

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive/9964106.p?skuId=9964106&id=1218202473164

it has an HD video card, so I can use the DVI input on my monitor.

great tip thanks!

I would be a little concerned about the CPU speed.. otherwise it looks fine.

[IorakeWarhammer]

I would be a little concerned about the CPU speed.. otherwise it looks fine.

suggestions on souping this thing up? definitely wanna go for the HD - but i'll tell ya, when I used ultra settings at 1024 x 768 resolution on the campaign, its slow as hell.

might go for the Gforce 480

[Mogonis]

What's your budget, anyway?

[IorakeWarhammer]

i think i have about 400$ more.

now, I have an old computer which I bought for about 1500$ in 2003. It has a lot of ram in there I don't use.. could I possily take the extra ram stick out and pop it into this one?!

[Mogonis]

Only if the systems are about the same age. I don't know how old your HP Slimline is, but the 2003 system probably uses DDR, whereas any recent system should be using DDR2. They aren't backwards compatible (unless your motherboard has DDR and DDR2 slots, which very few do).

[IorakeWarhammer]

any labelling on there? the one from 2003 was fairly advanced for its time and came with 2 gigs of ram

[Mogonis]

Only you can look at it. It should be labeled though. Gotta open the case and look at the memory sticks.

[Bobmuhthol]

DDR2 was slower than DDR in 2003 so I would strongly recommend not using that RAM even if it is DDR2. Looking for a GPU with a DVI port should not really be a goal; if it doesn't have DVI or HDMI it's a piece of shit.


I would be a little concerned about the CPU speed.. otherwise it looks fine.

What? It's a 2.8 GHz quad core. How fucking fast do you feel comfortable with?

[Mogonis]

So your budget is $400 to build a gaming rig for StarCraft II?

:confused:

[IorakeWarhammer]

ok guys this is what i ended up getting

HP quad core processor 8GB ram - 700$
ATI Radeon 4550 video card (self installed - has its own fan ! ^^) 90$
HD monitor - had it for a while
connecting to video card with DVI
just maxed my performance settings in virtual memory
before optimizing, high graphic setting ran on bnet with no lag, ultra was a SLIGHT delay..

checking now after optimization..

also optimized windows 7 for performance (it looks like XP after you do that)

went for the gusto and did ultra settings in HD with highest res, it was just SLIGHTLY slow, but i dont like how it looks in ultra, so toned some of the shadings n stuff down to high, and it still owns ;p

[Mogonis]

Good thing you're only running 1024x768.

[Bobmuhthol]

Other than the retarded choice to go with a 4000 series GPU I don't see how you can really talk shit about that machine (particularly because there are no real specs.)

[Tilnam]

I run 2560 x 1600 on ultra with my 5870 :D

It also has its own fan!!

[Parkbandit]

What? It's a 2.8 GHz quad core. How fucking fast do you feel comfortable with?

You've never played Starcraft 2 I take it. It's a complete resource hog, especially when you get into some of the custom maps.

I mostly play with 3 other people.. 2 of which have 2.8 GHz quads.. and I continuously get the message "Chimar is slowing down the game".

I run a 3.4 GHz, 8G Ram with dual video cards and I still get lag.

[Bobmuhthol]

No, I haven't played SC2. That's pretty crazy.

[Mogonis]

That tends to happen with RTS games. SupCom especially. Most genres heavily favor GPU power, but the RTS genre is one of the few that needs both.

Gaming at 1024x768 isn't gaming.

[Bobmuhthol]

Nor is it HD by just about anyone's definition.

[IorakeWarhammer]

yeah i dont even like higher resolutions, so its a perfect setup and it didnt run me higher than a grand so im happy.. ;p

[Mogonis]

You don't like higher resolutions? You just wanna live in the ten-years-ago?

[IorakeWarhammer]

everything seems so small to me, all the menu options.. i dunno. ill play with it and see how it goes..

[Bobmuhthol]

That's because you need a larger screen.

[AnticorRifling]

This is like teaching an asian woman to drive. Sure the tools are there, the instruction is good, but in the end he's going to fuck it up and crash.

[IorakeWarhammer]

father in law just popped in and said: "oh btw i have an LCD monitor just chillin in the closet waiting

alhamduliLah :)

[septus]

I'm running SC2 on a alienware M11x right now. nvidia 335M and a SU7300 1.7GHz processor (Overclocked). I've done some 4v4 games without an issue, although I'm running it at 720p and I have any setting cpu related set to low. I don't think I've slowed the game down any, but I've seen that happen occasionally. I should check and see what my FPS is. (I think it's ctrl-alt-F to see)

[AnticorRifling]

father in law just popped in and said: "oh btw i have an LCD monitor just chillin in the closet waiting

alhamduliLah :)

Man that's awesome! AN LCD MONITOR "YOU MUST BE FROM THE FUTURE

rammallamadingdong :)

[Mogonis]

I'm not sure why you spent $90 for a Radeon 4550 either. They're like $35-50 at Newegg.