Starcraft 2 System Requirements

[img width=630 height=137]http://www.starcraft2forums.org/img/starcraft-2-system-requirements.jpg[/img]​

Originally posted by Joneagle_X in this thread

Starcraft II System Requirements

I've noticed on this forum, and a number of others, "predictions" about what Starcraft II is going to require of your computer when you play it. I decided that we could do better than "guessing" and move up to a "hypothesis". So I decided to use my knowledge of computer hardware and software, my recreational knowledge of graphics processing and rendering, and give you guys a little more detailed account and estimation of what you're going to need (especially since I'm sure a lot of us are going to be buying new computers to meet the requirements of this game).

*NOTE: If you aren't interested in how I came to this conclusion, just scroll down to the requirements.

(Graphic Designers, bear with me on the laments description)
The basic premise of game design is that you're creating a 3D world. Older games used to be in 2D (Mario, Sonic, etc...). Actually, Sonic was one of the first, and very rudimentary 3D games (they released Sonic 3D for Sega). Anyway, the basic concept of these 3D games is the use of polygons to create characters. Without going too deeply into its explanation, the relevance this has to Starcraft II is that each of the units you will see in gameplay can take up anywhere from, say, 700 polygons(Marine) to possibly 10,000 polygons(Ultralisk, Carrier, Mothership). Each one of these polygons must be rendered continuously by a combination of your processor and graphics card. This will lead us to the eventual requirements needed to run a game like this.

There's two basic assumptions I'm going to make before going further into my "research" on the subject:

1. I'm assuming that each of the maps playable in SCII (being 3D) will consist of different rendering techniques including texture mapping, mipmapping, and other current 3D rendering techniques that were applied in Warcraft III. This considered, and based on the fact that large levels in Doom 3 and other more advanced 3D games contain about 60,000 polygons per level (given their 3D nature) then a level in SCII should be equivalent to about 50,000 polygons total. This is the roughest estimate that I will give in this entire article as it is nearly impossible to determine the true size of the background and the number of polygons within it, or where those polygons might be. That is totally up to Blizzard.

2. The second assumption I'm going to be making is that the graphics of SCII is going to be close to what it is now. They're not going to change graphics engines on me or anything .

3. Now, if a level on SCII is going to be made up of the equivalent of about 50,000 polygons, then it would be reasonable to assume that at any one time a player will be looking at about 5,000 polygons of background at any one time, due to the size of the screen. This may vary based upon the zoom feature that we've seen in gameplay demos.

4. On top of that base number of around 5,000, you would need to add any buildings and/or units that you'll be seeing on that map as well, not to mention the ones you're NOT looking at and their movement. But we're just talking about graphics rendering in this thread. I've said that units could be anything from 700 polygons to around 10,000 depending on the complexity of the model. For instance, a Thor will actually be a relatively low number of polygons compared to its size just because of its blocky shape.

5. So assuming you have a fairly large army and a decent-sized base, you're going to have around 100,000 polygons being generated on your screen at any one time. We'll use this as a base number and assumption. Although I can't properly express the algorithms that go with the rendering of a video game like this, as that is way beyond me, it does give you a decent idea of how much is actually being computed in order to give you a fps rate of around 30. That would be 3,000,000 polygons being processed per second.

6. Notice I said a BASE number. There are also techniques that game developers use to reduce the number of polygons and surfaces being used at any one time. One of these techniques is Progressive Meshing, where a unit that is further away from your sight is rendered with a less detailed shape than one closer to your view. So a smaller unit, like a Marine, might lose a little detail when you're in the full-out zoom, but it doesn't matter anyway because he's at a distance and you can't see it.

7. But, even with a reduced amount of polygons, Starcraft II will definitely be a game that demands a lot of your computer's computational ability.

Now, on to the real hardcore data analysis that would lead to the eventual prediction of Starcraft II's system requirements.

8. I read up on a few sites and found one site in particular that seemed to give a scientific approach to its analysis of different games and their 3D graphics rendering and its effects on computers.

9. For a basic foresight without reading their entire setup for their experiment, they used a basic Athlon dual-core processor, about 2.0 GhZ, a 256 MB GeForce 7800GTX video card, and a number of different RAM settings, 512 MB, 2 GB, and 4 GB.

Their findings were interesting to say the least. I'll pick a graph to show you the basis of their findings and leave it up to you if you want to explore it more.

[img width=467 height=594]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/bf2result.jpg[/img]

These are the results for BF2, an FPS game that requires quite a lot of memory. If its not the latest high-requlirement 3D game out, it's close enough. The first set of Bars is with 512 RAM. The second is 2GB, and the last is 4 GB.

10. While you can't see the entire test as you can here, you get the idea of the experiment.

11. Overall, their basic finding was that when running a game that is as demanding as BF2, or another high-end game, the optimum configuration, without increasing processor speed, was to use 2 GB of RAM (Two 1GB DIMMs), rather than 4GB. 4GB certainly did improve performance, but not to the degree that the extra cost would warrant. However, the larger the RAM, the faster the load time.

12. As far as the video card goes, of course you're going to want top of the line, but quite obviously their video card did fine with this high-end of a game, and will probably do quite well in SC2.

13. Don't forget that your RAM isn't the entire memory equation. When your RAM is all used up, your computer turns to your "page" file to transfer unneeded information from the RAM temporarily to the HD. Having a fast HD speed is also important.

As to actually computing out which video card/processor combination would be best on top of 2 GB of RAM for playing SC2 I came to a pretty standard conclusion:

Minimum:
Windows XP or Vista
Dual-Core processor with a speed of at LEAST 1.8 GhZ
256 MB Video Card (try to get anti-aliasing and HDR rendering) that is about equivalent to a Geforce 7800
1-1.5 GB RAM
5400ish RPM SATA HD

*Note: Minimum requirements are what I perceive as being required to avoid lag at most times.

Recommended:
Windows Vista
Dual-Core processor 2.0 GhZ+
512 MB Video Card (Anti-aliasing, HDR, Shader Model) Geforce 7800 GTX
2 GB (4GB if you have the money to spend) RAM
7200 RPM SATA HD

Of course, you can go WAY more pricey than this and ensure that your Marine ALWAYS goes where you want him to go when you want him to. But from what I can tell, this is the most cost-effective way to do it. Don't overbuy if you're buying for this game!!!

Good luck!

Originally posted by Joneagle_X in this thread

 

Do you know if the Windows and Mac versions of the game will be put out simultaneously or will one be released before the other?

For the original SC, the Windows was released like 6 months before the Mac came out.

 

nice analysis man , now let's just hope i'll up my computer ,video card especially

 

Looks like i'll be needing that new imac next year

EDIT: Assuming it's out next year, of course...

 

Oh my god I have to buy a new video card!

 

By the time sc2 comes out in stores, I'll be having a new iMac, so can anybody tell me what the differences from the windows to the mac version of sc2 might be???

 

there hasnt been any info about it, but i doubt there will be any differences

 

Assuming that the game will be released until 2009 the costs of that recommended SC2 sistem will be much lower than this days so all of us will be able to play SC2 with decent fps.

 

What about Macs?? You only listed windows!

 

Blizzard said that theid make it so that you could easily play it if you'd recently bot a computer in the last year or two so i'm not scaired.

 

Nice analysis. Thank God I just built a new computer. This thing should have no problems running SCII now.

 

However, on most new macs, you can install Windows Vista natively so that you have both operating systems and can just switch over. (Eats up a lot of memory though). You can just use the mac as a windows machine if there's a problem.

However... I don't want to have to do that. I want them both out at the same time ::crosses fingers::

 

Haha, sorry fellas. I didn't realize there were so many posts on the thread on the front page.

Macs aren't really any different from PCs. The hardware is the same. The graphics cards are slightly different as is the OS but it won't really affect gameplay, so long as Blizzard codes correctly, which they did for Starcraft.

Of course, if you ask me you shouldn't be on a Mac if you want to play games

From what I see on their website, you can't even BUY a desktop witha 512 MB video card stock. So just go with their 256 MB and upgrade later if you want. Forget getting a laptop with it. Only 256MB and most don't come with a video card (that doesn't suprise me, though).

Not very customizable....

OS X or XP/Vista > Linux

BTW, I usually don't recommend Macs simply because they're so much more expensive. You can get a PC(desktop) for about 3/4 the price.

Just buy a nice computer and have it dual-boot with Linux on there if you like OSX so much.

 

/\
I personally happen to like them. I grew up on them. Also most come with a one click mouse instead of the right+left click mouse.

Also the mac SC came out like 6 months after the PC debut. I was in no way shape or form a happy camper about that. So I hope blizzard codes them both and releases them at the same time.

 

Well... Macs aren't very game friendly. And Mac users definitely make up a minority of computer game users..... If the Mac version looks like it's going to hold up production, they might delay it.

 

Then I killz them. I killz them good for not letting me have my starcraft2! Seriously, they delay the mac version (which has been gaining market share!) then I will be seriously pissed off and disappointed. I really want to play this game, not watch other people play it for months before I can get it.

 

Don't get me wrong. It's a relatively easy task to simply code for a different operating system. But they ARE going to be putting the Windows development first. I hope they make it Linux compatible (YEAH RIGHT!).

So as of now assume it will come out for Mac at the same time, but good luck getting a distributed copy if you don't pre-order! *Hint, pre-order!*

 

The sys reqs seem rather high for this game. I'm sure my "main" computer can handle this, but I dunno about my second comp (7900 GS, 1.8 Ghz Dual Core (very easily OC'able) 2 GB ram). Any thoughts?

 

You'll be fine. You won't need the Overclock.

I'm suggesting 2.0 just as a precaution. I wouldn't count on being able to run it even decently with anything under 1.6 GhZ on the Dual Core scale.

Minimum for a regular processor: 2.8 GhZ

 

Okay, thanks. I'll give you a owerup: for that.