Both 5870 and 480 unable to handle Starcraft II official campaign at 30 fps

[sniper_sung]

One campaign called "In Utter Darkness" in Wings of Liberty could cause a single 5870 to drop below 30 fps easily. With a mothership cloaking a large group of carriers while being consumed by a large Zerg army, the fps dropped down to 20.

Config: 980X@4GHz + Single 5870@850/1200 (non-fullscreen, 1920x1200 max settings, Catalyst 10.3) + 12G DDR3@1866 7-9-8-25-80-2T + 2.7GHz Uncore

It is confirmed that the same thing also happens to GTX 480. It looks like this is due to the cloaking effect from the mothership. Many players suffer from 20 fps unable to do micro control in complicated battle situations.

Source (Chinese): http://www.chiphell.com/thread-112270-1-1.html

I don't know what you guys are complaining about showing the min fps in game. The scene I mentioned here doesn't even qualify as a stress test yet. If you know special maps like 1v7 in old Starcraft 1, or 3C maps in Warcraft 3, you should have an idea how 5870 and 480 will be owned soon in special maps in Starcraft 2.



Also, another website reported fps as low as 20 as well:



Source (German): http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,76...giespiel/Test/

To those who claims 30 fps is enough for RTS: can you do at least 60 APM effective? If not, then you probably don't qualify saying so.

[Pontos]

10.3? Couldn't they AT THE LEAST test it with 10.6?

There are 10.7 and even 10.7a (Enabling AA for this game) out there...

[rogueagent6]

Not only that, they are not running fullscreen which is adding Windows GUI processing on top of that...

[Sparky]

Not only that, they are not running fullscreen which is adding Windows GUI processing on top of that...

WHAT?

What's the point in running in windowed mode? I mean, really, who games in a window?!

[Gramner]

WHAT?

What's the point in running in windowed mode? I mean, really, who games in a window?!

I always run games in borderless windowed mode if possible (which looks exactly like fullscreen), being able to tab in and out of the game without any delay is useful, if I lose a few fps to be able to do so then so be it.

[RaZz!]

...and no comparison to other gpus? does it happen to nvidia gpus as well?

window mode? catalyst 10.3? lol, seriously, wtf

[lowfat]

I always run games in borderless windowed mode if possible (which looks exactly like fullscreen), being able to tab in and out of the game without any delay is useful, if I lose a few fps to be able to do so then so be it.

Besides SC2 I can tab in and bout of a game w/ next to no lag. SC2 is just buggy and generally doesn't respond afterwards.

[Kallenator]

Most games I have played are like that. No difference there for me.
The best alt-tab game though is probably Crysis, excellent response, right in right out again!

[PatRaceTin]

Hmmmmmmm need some comparison or group test

[zerazax]

no issues with a 4850... but with no comparison benchmarks and basically cherry picked situation, i'm going to deem this review an epic fail

[SquiZZ]

I have a 5870 and still running 10.3's. I'll try and remember to fraps bench that mission when I get to it. Kinda busy this weekend though. I won't be playing in a windowed mode though

[mAJORD]

/end thread?

[aintz]

i wish i still had 10.3 installed 10.7 and my screen goes black sometimes playing sc2

[Jowy Atreides]

Processor bottleneck

It's starcraft, not crysis.

[Loque]

Processor bottleneck

It's starcraft, not crysis.

eh... I see tops 8% cpu usage while both of my cards are on load 100%

[zalbard]

It's the old driver. Well, and the crappy engine. No news here.

[Manicdan]

for those who are curious. if you play WoW in windowed mode, certain effects from your desktop will lock your framerate at 30fps.

with WoW i can understand windowed, for SC2 its just wtf testing methods

[Nintendork]

Seem nvidia is in panic mode with this tricks.

[Soultaker52]

Haven't had a problem with my rig at all. Smooth frame rates, all the time. This is with 4xAA at 1920x1200 too.
I mean, a new CPU might do me good, but I'm trying to hold off till 2011 on that. This little Q6600 has served me quite well.

Edit: Forgot to say, I'm on 10.7a drivers. Though that should be obvious with the "4xAA" part.

[zanzabar]

eh... I see tops 8% cpu usage while both of my cards are on load 100%

the game is single threaded, it dose the same on my 1090 it rocks low usage but thats the bottleneck with all rts games as its a matter of dice calculations

[lowfat]

10.7a (Enabling AA for this game) out there...

These drivers really aren't all that good. Turning on AA cripples performance. I tried 8x AA w/ an HD5970 and I was getting 1-2 FPS @ the menu.

Even 2x AA performed horribly.

[BeepBeep2]

This article ticks me off.

[Lmui]

This annoys me as well. You're lucky to get 30 fps in that mission, especially with ~8 carriers, a crapload of zealots/stalkers/colossi when the mothership comes around. The cloaking animation dropping it down that far doesn't surprise me, especially since there's usually ~50 units being cloaked by the mothership and dropping in and out of cloak due to moving around to take down the hundreds of zerg marching in at you.

[SKYMTL]

A complete joke and not even properly researched.

I JUST finished that mission not 30 minutes ago on my gaming rig (HD 5870 + i5 750) without a single hitch or hiccup.

[SKYMTL]

A complete joke and not even properly researched.

I JUST finished that mission not 30 minutes ago on my gaming rig (HD 5870 + i5 750) without a single hitch or hiccup.