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On March 19 2010 07:45 FragKrag wrote:Your laptop will not be able to play SC2  ! Not only is your GPU weak, your CPU is also below the safe threshold. Xaanix, the E8500 does not bottleneck your machine. You have a bottleneck elsewhere because the E8500 is still an amazingly capable machine.
My rig is:
E8500 @ 3.8ghz
GTX 285 OC @ 725Mhz
8GB RAM
Windows 7 64bit
Samsung 2233RZ (120hz) 1680x1050 monitor
When using all ultra settings, i get between 40-50Fps in most situations.
While livestreaming, and during Some massive battles (for example, 2v2 late game, with massive armies) my framerates drop below 30, and this is what i hope to fix. I'm incredibly interested in stressing the starcraft 2 engine for benchmarks for extreme situations like this.
As far as I've seen online, there are only 2 sites which have posted any benchmarks (legionhardware and pcgameshardware and both of their benchmarks have less than ~100 supply worth of units fighting it out.
I have a friend with an I7-920, and a worse video card, and he reports he gets better framerates than me.
My interest in the 6 core cpu mostly comes from these pages/charts:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/starcraft_ii_wings_of_liberty_beta_performance,7.html
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/starcraft_ii_wings_of_liberty_beta_performance,6.html
Clearly from this data, CPU Cores, Hyperthreading, and clock speed all increase performance linearly even when running a very powerful graphics card. The benchmarking test setup used here already has a far more powerful CPU than mine, and increasing clock speed on that cpu clearly shows significant increases in performance, even when going above stock speeds for that chip. The implication here is that at stock speeds, with that GPU, the CPU IS the bottleneck. My GTX 285 is similar power to the GPU they used, and obviously an e8500 is not nearly as powerful as an i7-965 EE, even with my modest overclock @ 3.8ghz.
They also show in that review that even though the game is optimized for 2 cores, that additional cores and hyperthreading do improve performance.
This leads me to believe that SC2 is almost always CPU bottlenecked instead of GPU bottlenecked, as it seems to scale linearly with both additional cpu cores/threads and clock speed.
Given this information, its hard to believe that gulftown wouldn't benefit starcraft 2 signficiantly.
A 32nm chip which can reach 4.6ghz on air with 6 cores/12 threads AND 12mb cache is a huge upgrade from a e8500, and if anything can handle large late-game battles without bogging down on ultra settings this would probably be it. The final argument in favor of Gulftown would be that the i7-980x is likely to remain top of the line for a long time to come.
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3763&p=16&cp=10#comments
Anandtech
If you're the type of user who always buys the Extreme Edition knowing that you can get better bang for your buck further down the lineup, this time you're actually getting your money's worth. On the desktop, the next 12 months are fairly stagnant in terms of CPU performance improvements. We'll see a clock bump to the 980X at the beginning of 2011, but it'll be even longer before we get a replacement.
I'd love if people could do some testing or post numbers with i7's running near or above 4Ghz. I'm interested in MINIMUM frames.
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The 6 core CPU offers 0 benefit for any gaming. I'm sorry to be the one who has to break this to you, but almost all games are GPU bottlenecked, and SC2 does not seem to be an exception. Your GTX 285 does NOT perform near the level that the 5870 performs, but obviously you should be getting more than 40-50 FPS.
You also interpreted the results a bit wrong! With 4 cores and hyperthreading, the 4 hyperthreaded cores were doing absolutely nothing, which means that you can conclude that 4 cores can work at max. Even when quad core + hyper threading is enabled, 2 threads are doing minimal work, while 1 thread is doing most of the work along with 1 other thread doing a less.
Also, even considering the single core + hyperthreading at 3.2GHz (which should be either equal to or an underestimate of your CPU's capability), your FPS of 40-50 is far too low to even reach the minimum FPS of 53 which leads me to believe that it isn't actually a hardware related problem!
Then you must also consider that this is the beta stage of the game where everything is not optimized. Things will change, and oddities corrected.
The PC games hardware benchmark is a smoldering piece of shit, and really isn't worth looking at.
What card is your friend using?
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@ Xaanix
wow you 're seriously considering buying an 1000$ to run an pc game made for rigs over 2 years old.
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The only justification for the i7 980x at the moment is for encoding.
Nothing else at all.
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On March 20 2010 07:48 FragKrag wrote:
The only justification for the i7 980x at the moment is for encoding.
Nothing else at all.
I think only professionals would encode that much and they 're better off getting a 2 processor system.
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Indeed, they would be better off with the Xeon system, but keep in mind a Xeon system will probably be a bit more expensive than that i7 980x
and less power efficient as well.
Though of course the Xeon system would be the better bet anyways
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Sweet Thread.
So my 8600 GT was crapping out (or so I thought - apparently it was just the PSU), and decided to replace it with a GeForce GTS 250 1GB (along with a functional PSU) after reading it was 10th on the top 10 nvidia card on these teamliquid/overclocked rankings.
Thought it'd be able to run Ultra as it was ranked pretty well but found that it's pretty choppy when scrolling across the map, and even when I'm not doing anything, intermittently you'll see it slow down for a second and then go back to normal speed (watching scv's harvest minerals).
So I guess I'm wondering if it's the card, or something else that might be bottlenecking the card. My processor isn't the greatest but I hear Dual Cores should be fine with ultra. Currently I'm running on Medium settings with Reflections Off, Low Lighting, Low Physics, and High Models which seems to be relatively smooth (of course not as smooth as all low settings).
Here's some of my system info, I hope some kind souls out there can help steer me in the right direction! Thanks guys.
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System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 3/19/2010, 16:09:03
Machine name: JESSIE
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.091207-1941)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: INTEL_
System Model: D946GZIS
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 3072MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3068MB RAM
Page File: 1490MB used, 4645MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTS 250
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0615&SUBSYS_11583842&REV_A2
Display Memory: 2286 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1007 MB
Shared Memory: 1278 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor Model: V91LCD
Monitor Id: MEL470E
Native Mode: 1280 x 1024(p) (60.020Hz)
Output Type: HD15
Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver File Version: 8.17.0011.9621 (English)
Driver Version: 8.17.11.9621
DDI Version: 10
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 1/11/2010 22:03:33, 9388648 byte
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I think both your cpu and gpu are lacking for ultra
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Only thing i can think of is the Drivers may not be the newest version, until FragKrag replies i'd try that. haha hope it helps :D if not, sorry.
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Hmm well I tried the latest drivers for the 200 series on the EVGA's driver download page.
Here's more detail on the current settings that are relatively smooth but could be smoother when scrolling across the map:
Displaymode: Fullscreen
Res: 1280x1024x32bits
Texture quality: Medium
Post-processing: Medium
Reflections: Off
Effects: Medium
Shaders: Medium
Lighting: Low
Shadows: Medium
Terrain: Medium
Physics: Low
Models: High
Unit portraits: 2D
Movies: Low
I know my CPU isn't the greatest but I've seen posts from people with Pentium D's and they say they can run Ultra smoothly. Hence the confusion. Also if the card rankings mean anything then I thought I'd be in good shape.
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Yeah, I'm not sure why you aren't able to run at ultra. There just seems to be a bunch of problems and oddities in the beta. People with 5850s getting low FPS, the poor performance of the ATi 48xx series, and just weird stuff.
If you can access the battle.net forums, I think that would be your best bet.
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Since this is a computer thread i have a quick question.
If in the future i want to OC more than i can with my fan, how do you take a CPU fan off of a CPU?
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Ahh hoping I wouldn't be one of those cases haha..
But from what you can see everything should be okay right? Reading your post above about most games being GPU bottlenecked I just wanted to post specs to make sure there wasn't anything glaring on my system.
I was considering mayyybe trying a higher card but figured that the GTS 250 should've been enough if not (a little) more than enough to run SC2 smoothly.
I'm trying the battle.net forums already as well, thanks FragKrag!
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The GTS 250 is indeed more than enough to run SC2 smoothly at higher resolutions at higher quality levels! I'm not sure what it causing the trouble, but it could be your CPU. 2.8Ghz might be impressive, but the Pentium D series was notorious for having high Ghz but relatively low performance. It is the most likely candidate for a bottleneck, but I'm not sure if there is one D:
Jlab, what kind of Heatsink do you have? With Intel it's just pushing the push pins a different way, but AMD has a different way of doing it that involves some lever.
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I have a COOLER MASTER RR-H101-22FK-RA 80mm Long life sleeve bearing CPU Cooler on an AMD Athlon II Quad Core, i kept the stock CPU Fan too for it. But it's kinda pathetic.
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Hm, I have no experience with that heatsink
Is there a lever though?
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lever as in to hold it down to the mounting plate thing on the Mobo?
Yes it does have that. haha
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On March 20 2010 07:36 FragKrag wrote:
The 6 core CPU offers 0 benefit for any gaming. I'm sorry to be the one who has to break this to you, but almost all games are GPU bottlenecked, and SC2 does not seem to be an exception. Your GTX 285 does NOT perform near the level that the 5870 performs, but obviously you should be getting more than 40-50 FPS.
You also interpreted the results a bit wrong! With 4 cores and hyperthreading, the 4 hyperthreaded cores were doing absolutely nothing, which means that you can conclude that 4 cores can work at max. Even when quad core + hyper threading is enabled, 2 threads are doing minimal work, while 1 thread is doing most of the work along with 1 other thread doing a less.
Also, even considering the single core + hyperthreading at 3.2GHz (which should be either equal to or an underestimate of your CPU's capability), your FPS of 40-50 is far too low to even reach the minimum FPS of 53 which leads me to believe that it isn't actually a hardware related problem!
Then you must also consider that this is the beta stage of the game where everything is not optimized. Things will change, and oddities corrected.
The PC games hardware benchmark is a smoldering piece of shit, and really isn't worth looking at.
What card is your friend using?
He's using a GTX280 i believe, i'll have to ask him tonight. It was either that or a GTX 260, i kinda forget.
Also tonight i sold an old card I posted on craigslist, a 8800 GTS 512 (g92)
The guy thought i might be selling him a non-functioning card, so i plugged it back into my system and ran some replays of SC2. While i was at it, i loaded up fraps and watched closely the framerates... and they're nearly identical to my GTX285.
Now, normally you'd expect going from a GTX285 to a 8800GTS that you'd see a significant hit in frames... but in SC2, the framerates were nearly identical. This to me reaffirms the fact that CPU and not GPU is the bottleneck for SC2 on the high end.
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Have you tried running any other games? (Left 4 Dead would be a great way to check your CPU). There are plenty of people running SC2 at ultra with the E8xxx series, and at higher resolutions as well. I don't see why your overclocked E8500 would perform under a GTX 280 and E8500!
No matter how you see it, 40-50 FPS is far too low for an E8500.
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What type of lever did u mean FragKrag, is it the one i described? (post prolly got overlooked, no biggie)
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EPT
