273 replies to this topic

[Wumpus]

Hansi, on 16 July 2010 - 05:23 PM, said:

Specs are out:

Interesting that both my laptop and my iMac meet those graphic and processor requirements exactly. That is to say, the recommended one's.

[dojoboy]

I was just invited today to join the SC2 beta.  Thaaaanks.  

[johntravers]

sorry i know im being thick but ive been away from the mac games scene for a long time and i get confused by graphic card numbers.


will this run on my mini 2ghz 9400 ?

[Mister Mumbles]

johntravers, on 17 July 2010 - 09:51 AM, said:

will this run on my mini 2ghz 9400 ?

It should, but expect to run it on low settings for it to play smoothly. That's what I had to do.

[Wumpus]

I just got a beta invite as well. With the game out in 10 days I didn't think the beta was still happening. Lol.

[dojoboy]

Wumpus, on 17 July 2010 - 04:00 PM, said:

I just got a beta invite as well. With the game out in 10 days I didn't think the beta was still happening. Lol.

I'll see ya in the beginner lobby.    I'm...dojoboy.

[devSin]

It looks like they're taking the beta servers down on Monday, so don't bother to actually download it if you haven't already.

[Wumpus]

dojoboy, on 17 July 2010 - 04:04 PM, said:

I'll see ya in the beginner lobby. I'm...dojoboy.

Cool, I'm Baz in there

[johntravers]

Pegasus, on 17 July 2010 - 10:30 AM, said:

It should, but expect to run it on low settings for it to play smoothly. That's what I had to do.

cool cheers

[Wumpus]

Ah boo, Beta's over. (as someone said it would be.) I got it for like a day and a half? Still gave me a taste.

[Ranger_Joe]

If the game it going to ship in a week, it must have gone to press by now. How big will the first day patch be? =]

[badger2d]

July 27, 2010

Blizzard Entertainment's day one patch for Starcraft 2 surprised fans and reviewers alike
today when it was revealed that the Protoss race is being eliminated from the game.

"From the start, this game was supposed to be a man-vs-beast bloodbath" said Blizzard
CEO Mike Morhaime. "But halfway through development (Lead Designer) Dustin Browder
had this totally gay idea about some stupid space elves casting magic spells and he just
wouldn't shut up about it.  We had to give him his toys just to keep the project moving."

"What the hell does he think this is," Morhaime added, "Warhammer or something?"

[jackdawsson]

Cougar, on 17 May 2010 - 04:41 PM, said:

I thought this too, then I played it in Bootcamp. Soooo much smoother.

I'm reading similar comments on MacRumors, some stating that you'll see about 15% better performance in Windows.  That's quite a difference. So what gives?  Anyone know why the performance in Windows is so much better when using the same hardware?  Thanks in advance.

[teflon]

The usual... Just having less developed drivers, combined with the myriad different ways that OSX handles graphics.

I'd hope that (but after the Source engine driver debacle, I'm not too hopeful) Apple will dish out a decent graphics update that has some SC2 specific optimisations, much like drivers on the Windows side of things will have.

[Diablofett]

Seeing as how you are talking about Starcraft 2's performance, a friend of mine has had the beta for quite some time now. He has played it on both Windows and Mac, on his iMac. He told me that he noticed a major difference in performance on Windows vs OS X. For now, Starcraft 2 for OS X does not perform nearly as well. He told me that you really notice it during unit-heavy battles too, the frame rate can grind to a near-hault at times on OS X, but windows runs things smoothly. He is running an iMac with a Radeon HD 4850 512mb card using OS X 10.6.x and Windows XP SP2 via Bootcamp. I am sure that Blizzard will fix this issue eventually, they have been quite kind to their mac users over the years and I doubt that they will leave OS X in the cold this time.

-- On a side note, does the lack of LAN playability in Starcraft 2 bother anyone else?

[jackdawsson]

Many thanks for the clarifications to both of you!  Frankly, as interesting as it's disappointing. - BTW, had hoped to vote both of your answers up, but forum software doesn't allow more than one vote per user a day.

teflon, on 25 July 2010 - 06:06 AM, said:

I'd hope that (but after the Source engine driver debacle, I'm not too hopeful) Apple will dish out a decent graphics update that has some SC2 specific optimisations, much like drivers on the Windows side of things will have.

Diablofett, on 25 July 2010 - 06:31 AM, said:

Seeing as how you are talking about Starcraft 2's performance, a friend of mine has had the beta for quite some time now. He has played it on both Windows and Mac, on his iMac. He told me that he noticed a major difference in performance on Windows vs OS X. For now, Starcraft 2 for OS X does not perform nearly as well. He told me that you really notice it during unit-heavy battles too, the frame rate can grind to a near-hault at times on OS X, but windows runs things smoothly. He is running an iMac with a Radeon HD 4850 512mb card using OS X 10.6.x and Windows XP SP2 via Bootcamp. I am sure that Blizzard will fix this issue eventually, they have been quite kind to their mac users over the years and I doubt that they will leave OS X in the cold this time.

I should hope so!  For now, I'm delaying buying a copy until we have more info on fixes from Blizzard or, though less likely, specific updates from Apple.

[teflon]

It's nothing more than we've seen in any port out there... So there's no real reason to hold off buying it.
WoW has a big deficit from Win to OSX too.

Over the next few weeks, Blizzard will either nudge Apple into improving their drivers, and/or, given their previous support levels, likely get cracking on the work arounds.

[jackdawsson]

teflon, on 25 July 2010 - 07:59 AM, said:

It's nothing more than we've seen in any port out there... So there's no real reason to hold off buying it.
WoW has a big deficit from Win to OSX too.

Over the next few weeks, Blizzard will either nudge Apple into improving their drivers, and/or, given their previous support levels, likely get cracking on the work arounds.

Thanks, but I'll wait.  

I don't play WoW, but maybe we have different games in our collections. I don't see ANY difference between performance or graphics in OS X & Windows versions of games like "Rome: TW", all "Age of Empires" games, besides a good few more. Granted they're much older games, but it's still a valid benchmark.

IMO, not unreasonable to expect Apple with all their finances & resources these days to be much more proactive in dealing with these issues.

[Diablofett]

badger2d, on 11 May 2010 - 05:12 PM, said:

The Queen can make a creep tumor, which expands creep, and which can generate more creep tumors as well.

Oh now that just sounds nasty. I have not played Starcraft 2 yet myself, but it sure sounds like they made the Zerg even nastier than before! Of course, that is not a bad thing... one would imagine that such a species would have many vulgar aspects to it I guess.

[teflon]

jackdawsson, on 25 July 2010 - 09:31 AM, said:

I don't play WoW, but maybe we have different games in our collections. I don't see ANY difference between performance or graphics in OS X & Windows versions of games like "Rome: TW", all "Age of Empires" games, besides a good few more. Granted they're much older games, but it's still a valid benchmark.

So old that any difference is completely immaterial. Having said that, the performance drop is still there, it's just that instead of dropping from 30 to 25 frames, it's dropping from 100 to 80 frames and so somewhat less noticeable.
It's just how it is, and there's no real way around it.

Rome TW will have a drop, as will AoE3, but both are several years old, so that your machine can just breeze through them.

The last games that performed about level with both OSX and Windows were Quake 3 (after several years of post release optimisations for OSX and PPC), and Close Combat First to Fight, which was lead on Mac and also had specific optimisations for the G4 and G5 processor...

There's no point in waiting, because I guarantee there will be a performance deficit in a few months time too, it just might not be quite so pronounced. The only benefit to waiting is that you'll save a little money because it will have come down in price.