**The purpose of this guide is to Boost your fps but also, somewhat overclock your starcraft 2 if I can call it that. This guide is intended for people with lower end machines that want to enjoy Starcraft 2 on higher settings, at the cost of minimal ones.**
So i have 1g ram, AMD Athlon 64-FX55 processor, and a Nvidia 6800 Ultra. Yet i REFUSE to play sc2 on low, it looks like wc3 and thats not what i want for this game. So let me give you my full sc2 current settings.
Textures-Medium Shader-Medium Post Processing-Medium Reflections-Off Effects-Ultra Lighting-Low Shadows-Off (I will get to this) Terrian-Medium Physic-Ultra Models-High Unit Portraits-Off Resolution-1280x1028 Window Mode FPS:24-45 average, hardly ever goes below 24 Stuttering-Only when a mother ship pops(all that cloaking does a number on my comp) Crashes- Zero Zero Zero
Now my game runs great, looks great, and i love it.
*General Breakdown*
Textures- Not an fps whore, relies on VRAM. Mine is set accordingly.
*Shader-This is the major one, this from Low--->Medium makes sc2 from looking like wc3 to an actual 2010 game. This relies heavily on your GPU, not usage, but capability. My poor 6800 does not support high/ultra in the slightest bit. Set this accordingly or try going 1 setting up on it after using this guide.
Post-Processing-Relies on your gpu ability. Either enables displacements, halos, and depth of field depending on what your gpu supports. Set this accordingly, as it is the best setting for fps.
Effects-Relies on your CPU, a cause in stuttering. Does not effect FPS hardly at all.
*Lighting-Major FPS whore but seriously unneeded.
*******Shadows*******- This thing sells itself on the streets, this is the biggest fps whore.
*Terrain- The general look of the terrain and other doodads.
Physics-Relies on the CPU. Minimal stuttering causer. does not affect fps really at all.
Models- Honestly, set this to high unless you have a graphics card worse than mine.
***Unit portraits- Seriously a big fps whore surprisingly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ The * settings]
Shader- This is by far the most important setting their is in SC2 to change your game from looking god awful, into something spectacular. This is HUGE this is the main setting. Honestly, i am sorry about this one, as for me going from low-medium was no significant fps loss. I do not know about going up from, High-Ultra, some gpu do not support all of its functions and this controls how everything looks and can be for the worse. The only reason low-medium is so so so crucial, is that its a small fps hit, for a 100x better looking game.***EVERY OTHER SETTING CORRESPONDS WITH THIS ONE*** --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lighting- Mine is set to low, why you ask? Setting this to high is hardly noticeable, and to be honest, i dont think you are admiring the lighting when playing sc2. Yet this is a MAJOR fps hit. Setting it to low boosted my fps +5, with hardly no graphics hit at all. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Shadows- Here it is, this is leading cause in FPS. Mine is set to off, how you ask? I will explain all that shortly at the bottom. Setting this to off was at least a 10-15+ fps gain. Never when im playing ever even noticed shadows before. This is actually a main FPS drain in many games today, some shadows are really needed, starcraft 2, is not one of those games. Your too focused on playing that I bet shadows never even come to mind. It does not affect gameplay at all, or anything really. Its like a free FPS gain. I strongly suggest turning this off. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terrian-Another example of being heavy on fps, yet this one is more noticeable. The true difference, yet again, is only from low-medium, after that, it only adds more foliage, and better looking water. For a nice FPS gain with no real graphics loss, set this to Medium. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Unit Portraits- This one i have to be honest, i wish i could have it on, yet i cannot as this is another major, yet surprisingly fps drain. Now being honest again, not once do i ever take into account looking at my unit portraits and it isnt very important in the slightest. Setting it from 3d-->2d is suggested for higher end gpu. I STRONGLY suggest turning this off otherwise. This is a great FPS boost at the cost of nothing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [How to turn off the *] First before you go any further, go set all your graphics accordingly after following this guide, it is crucial!
Alright now that you have done that, go to MyDocuments\Starcraft 2 Beta\
You should see the replays folder, gamelogs, and maps. Along with Variable.txt
Open variables, you should see all these words and what not. Here are the ones to look for and the settings for an FPS gain. These ones can only be turned off using this method so far.
Remember, IT IS SO important to do this after you set your graphics ingame.
GraphicsOptionLightingQuality=0 (Lighting to its lowest) GraphicsOptionPortraits=0 (Unit portraits off) lightingLevel=0 (further lowers some light settings) shadows=0 (turns off shadows) softshadows=0 (turns off soft shadows) portraits3d=0 (no 3d portraits) portraitsOff=1 (Portraits off)
Now you should have a 25-30+ fps gain when playing and can enjoy sc2 on slightly higher settings than your computer allowed. This works for me, and i hope it works for you also, and i hope this guide helped.
(To reset all this, just go back in game, change the light/shadow/unit settings INGAME, click accept, and now its back to normal)
On April 22 2010 21:26 Dankmids wrote: Alright now that you have done that, go to MyDocuments\Starcraft 2 Beta\
You should see the replays folder, gamelogs, and maps. Along with Variable.txt
Open variables, you should see all these words and what not. Here are the ones to look for and the settings for an FPS gain. These ones can only be turned off using this method so far.
Frameratecapglue=30 Frameratecap=60
The frameratecapglue controls the maximum framerate at the menu screens. The frameratecap controls the maximum framerate on all other screens.
You may adjust these numbers to your liking so that SC2 will not to render more frames then necessary. This should fix some overheating problems sssualy with laptops.
Would it not be better to have it higher so you can see glimpses of cloaked units? Or is that part of Effects? See the 3rd video on this page for what I mean: http://eu.starcraft2.com/features/terran/banshee.xml
which one of these settings is responsible for displaying force fields or scanner sweeps in game? because if the settings are set to low, force fields can hardly be dstinguished on the map o_O
btw: really nice guide. i don't have a beta account but with my rig i'm somwhere in between good and evil so this is exactly what i need to get optimized settings.
I sure as hell wouldn't recommend anyone playing with 25-35 fps. If you want to play starcraft then you'll need a higher fps than this. If you just want your units to look cool.. ya this might be the guide for you.
I play on my laptop at 100% lowest settings everywhere. I've tried putting it on medium and it works fps wise but the problem is there is a delay on the mouse i.e. when you make a box for example with your mouse, theres a little delay. Do you know what causes this?
On April 22 2010 22:03 nedsat wrote: I sure as hell wouldn't recommend anyone playing with 25-35 fps. If you want to play starcraft then you'll need a higher fps than this. If you just want your units to look cool.. ya this might be the guide for you.
If you read carefully, the OP states a 25-35 fps increase.
On April 22 2010 21:47 jhNz wrote: which one of these settings is responsible for displaying force fields or scanner sweeps in game? because if the settings are set to low, force fields can hardly be dstinguished on the map o_O
Open Documents\Starcraft II Beta\Variables.txt make these changes:
simplifiedCloaking=0 simplifiedShaders=0
That should do it, at least for the scanner sweeps
On April 22 2010 22:03 nedsat wrote: I sure as hell wouldn't recommend anyone playing with 25-35 fps. If you want to play starcraft then you'll need a higher fps than this. If you just want your units to look cool.. ya this might be the guide for you.
reading fail...
anyways I fixed my problems it's working now. Very good guide, thanks.
On April 22 2010 22:13 omninmo wrote: yea, everytime i restart the game and load up the variables.txt i get my shadows back to =1
t.t
Hm it only did this once for me. Now it's working.
If it still wont work maybe make the txt.file write-protected/read only (whatever its called in english windows) ? That's what one would do to prevent counterstrike from changing your config.txt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Shadows- Here it is, this is leading cause in FPS. Mine is set to off, how you ask? I will explain all that shortly at the bottom. Setting this to off was at least a 10-15+ fps gain. Never when im playing ever even noticed shadows before. This is actually a main FPS drain in many games today, some shadows are really needed, starcraft 2, is not one of those games. Your too focused on playing that I bet shadows never even come to mind. It does not affect gameplay at all, or anything really. Its like a free FPS gain. I strongly suggest turning this off.
First thanks for the guide i'll use it too because I too have shaders on low and indeed it looks like WC3. But I have an objection here, I found shadows useful some times when scouting and going around with my probe sometimes I see the shadow of an overlord and I can tell where it was coming from and where my enemy is. It's a small second chance of spotting the scouting overlord. But I think that's it as far as shadows are useful.
On April 22 2010 22:15 7mk wrote:By looking at the shadows you get to see where exactly flying units are. It shows you where to storm those mutas, where to emp those void rays etc... That's a serious disadvantage of turning off shadows.
Are you certain that the area of effect is based on ground position rather than graphical? I'd have guessed that mutas are hit by storm if they coincide with the graphic rather than based on their ground position. Especially seeing as medium+ shadows don't give this information as they are displaced.
On April 22 2010 22:13 omninmo wrote: yea, everytime i restart the game and load up the variables.txt i get my shadows back to =1
t.t
Try setting the file variables.txt to read only. And when you run the game make sure you dont do it with administrator privileges(admin gets full access hence they overrule the read only limit imposed on the file).
For the people having trouble with the variables, that happened to me at first like the first time. After that i just exited the game, reedit it, and then load up. So i dont know an exact fix.
Also for the shadow disadvantage, i never really notice shadows when they are on so personally i never used them to my advantage as the way stated, but its mainly your preference.
Thanks for all these hints mate! I can't wait to see SC2 running just a little bit nicer. I feel so deprived watching banelings and hellions cause units to vanish from existence, not melt/burn to death
On April 22 2010 22:15 7mk wrote:By looking at the shadows you get to see where exactly flying units are. It shows you where to storm those mutas, where to emp those void rays etc... That's a serious disadvantage of turning off shadows.
Are you certain that the area of effect is based on ground position rather than graphical? I'd have guessed that mutas are hit by storm if they coincide with the graphic rather than based on their ground position. Especially seeing as medium+ shadows don't give this information as they are displaced.
It's based on the ground position, this is easily noted when storming against mutalisks.
On April 22 2010 22:03 nedsat wrote: I sure as hell wouldn't recommend anyone playing with 25-35 fps. If you want to play starcraft then you'll need a higher fps than this. If you just want your units to look cool.. ya this might be the guide for you.
reading fail...
anyways I fixed my problems it's working now. Very good guide, thanks.
However, I realised there is one big problem with turning of shadows: By looking at the shadows you get to see where exactly flying units are. It shows you where to storm those mutas, where to emp those void rays etc... That's a serious disadvantage of turning off shadows.
I don't think that's how it works. If you click on an air unit, there's a line that leads to the ground. That should be the actual position.
On April 22 2010 21:47 jhNz wrote: which one of these settings is responsible for displaying force fields or scanner sweeps in game? because if the settings are set to low, force fields can hardly be dstinguished on the map o_O
btw: really nice guide. i don't have a beta account but with my rig i'm somwhere in between good and evil so this is exactly what i need to get optimized settings.
thanks!
As far as I know, you have to set the shaders higher, at least to medium or something.
On April 22 2010 22:04 FortuneSyn wrote: I play on my laptop at 100% lowest settings everywhere. I've tried putting it on medium and it works fps wise but the problem is there is a delay on the mouse i.e. when you make a box for example with your mouse, theres a little delay. Do you know what causes this?
Likely an issue with your drivers and/or video card. Look around to see if others are having similar issues on the same hardware.
Can anyone tell me whats wrong with my computer? I have a sufficient setup computer with these specs: 3.2 dual core intel 2.5gb of ram ddr2 ATI 4670 vid card
The default settings is set to high for everything, but when i play i get like 40 fps and usually 5-10 fps when things start getting outta hand (more buildings/pumping units/battles). It's only playable on low settings. Also, earlier it said my computer was running low on virtual memory which i just tried doubling which should work (8gb of virtual ram from 4gb). Anyone know why my computer is running horrible even on this boosting fps guide?
hummm did anything significant change with patch 9? performance is down the gutter... yes, i do have a very shitty radeon x550 (what... my real one melted recently...) but i used to get "fluent" 20-30frames before patch 9.
but now, showfps insists it is giving me ~30fps but the game is unplayable, more like 5-10 fps
Sorry for not updating this with anything i found, i had major major MAJOR computer issues that caused me to reformat(Mother board battery plastic that holds it in broke, so it reset bios, also messing with windows, causing it to lock because of the 30 days because i have a fake windows but i got it all sorted out again)
I am reinstalling SC2 right now.
Alright, so far with patch 9 i cannot turn off portraits. And yes, i am also experiencing a performance hit, i am guessing to all the new content and some optimization issues added with new animations and what not.
After i get SC2 back installed, ill see if i can mess with some other settings and things to improve fps in the new patch.
Is "frameratecap=X" bugged for anyone else? For me it doesn't work to set it between 50-100.
If I set it to any number between 50 and 100, such as 75, it will still lock the FPS in game to 50. If I set it to between 100-200, it locks the FPS to 100. If set it to 200, then it locks the FPS to 120.
If I set it to 0 I do get the full fps however (but then the GFX card gets a bit too hot for my liking).
On April 26 2010 02:55 Paladia wrote: Is "frameratecap=X" bugged for anyone else? For me it doesn't work to set it between 50-100.
If I set it to any number between 50 and 100, such as 75, it will still lock the FPS in game to 50. If I set it to between 100-200, it locks the FPS to 100. If set it to 200, then it locks the FPS to 120.
If I set it to 0 I do get the full fps however (but then the GFX card gets a bit too hot for my liking).
Yea it's pretty weird, I set it to 100 and it caps it at 65.
does anyone know how to switch off portraits on patch 9/10 ? i had them switched off in patch 8 and it worked by changing it in the way that the topic crateor said.
On April 26 2010 04:34 JeepAss wrote: does anyone know how to switch off portraits on patch 9/10 ? i had them switched off in patch 8 and it worked by changing it in the way that the topic crateor said.
anyone knows how to switch off it now ?
Hmmm, I just applied some of his tactics today, with the latest patch, and everything worked fine. Maybe you just need to go back into the .txt file and do it again since the new patch was applied?
Argh, I wanted this to work so much. I wanted Shaders higher. Unfortunetely, I can't have shaders on medium =(. It litterally devours my fps. I have everything set to low or off expect for: Models which are set to high, textures are set to high, and unit portraits which are 3D. Like this I get around 90-120 fps and around 60-70 in big late game battles.
When I turn portraits off and put shaders on medium my fps pummels to 30-40 LOL =(. Anyway, with shaders set to medium, the whole thing looks soooo much more grainy, like a bad movie. I already got used to seeing crystal clear with shaders set to low.
There is an option in the variables folder called preBlendedCreep, that if you set to 1, changes creep with medium shaders to look like it does with low, not moving or shiny, and makes it a bit shadowy and darker. This added about 15 FPS for me in zerg bases when on medium shaders, putting me from about 30FPS to 45. It's also less distracting to look at, so I like it a lot.
The problem I have when I try to go up to medium shaders (cause I mean, I do want stuff to look cool) the first time I see something, the game slows down a lot, but then it seems able to handle stuff ok. Like I sent a scout into a terran base, and the instant I got vision on 4 buildings and a marine shooting at me I dropped to about 5 fps for 2 seconds or so, then went back. Then I alt-tabbed to type this, when I went back to sc2 window, when I moused over the fogged terran base, I lagged again seeing the buildings, but then could scroll back to the buildings and be fine. It's not playable though, I guess my machine is just not playable on medium shaders, sigh.
so im trying to get portraits off for my friend who wants to run on old laptop, was there any discovery in how to turn off the portrait in the new patch?
well a lot of the entrys you talk about do not exist in my txt. like preblendedcreep, portraitsOff, or the framerate stuff... maybe its only in the us version.
i actually had the same thing werezerg, i had the options, and then i told my friend to reinstall and with new patch many of the lines do not exist any more
Can someone please clarify how to do these settings with the new patch. As far as I see a lot of these entrys are not there anymore. It is possible to put them in manually like go4it claims? Has anyone tried this before and it worked fine? I tried the settings from the OP but with shaders on my FPS are too low (~30) with a 2010 MBP. So I did some very low setting profile and now my FPS are around 80 to 100. Way too much lol. The entry for capping the FPS is not there anymore so I can't optimize it for 60 FPS
I think we should update this thread regularly in the first post - it has huge potential. Thanks to the OP.
On April 28 2010 21:50 Tiler wrote: Guys, if you want to change 'Video options' from Variables.txt you can use SC2Tools v0.98.5 program Download
It looks very complicated at first look, so someone who could understand what does what (All those extra stuff u dont see in the regular options) would be so kind to help?
On April 29 2010 08:41 Marksman wrote: It looks very complicated at first look, so someone who could understand what does what (All those extra stuff u dont see in the regular options) would be so kind to help?
Okay how it works. I make video about it.
When changing options in the game you can see what parameters are changing in 'Variables.txt'. Variables in the program does not linked like in game (they just a variables from file) and they can be changed separately. Variables are grouped into groups, you can verify this yourself by changing the game options and watch what happens. Variables changes only when you click 'Apply'. If the variable is not in the file the program will not create it, it works only with those variables that exist in the file. Well anyway, i did it for myself, so if someone is not comfortable - sorry.
PS: sorry for bad english (blame translate.google.com)
Does anyone have any experience with the Shaders set on Extreme? It's a setting that only shows up on high-end cards as it has the SSAO technology. I understand this is heavily reliant on the GPU, and I noticed that in the main menu the FPS drops form 62 to 42 when I use this.
Can anyone explain what this does? I am not really noticing the difference between Ultra and Extreme, other than the depth being represented somewhat better (i know this sound silly but I don't know how else to explain myself).
Same problem as others have mentioned, no longer able to turn portraits off. Also, the framerate variables don't seem to be having any effect... anyone with success turning portraits off and capping FR in the latest patch?
I'm on a tablet PC and I dip down to the teens sometimes because I play zerg haha. 2v2 can get quite hectic sometimes but in 1v1 I don't notice it too much and I get mid 30s. It has to be a GPU bottleneck because I'm on 4GB Ram and a decent 2.4Ghz dual core.
I got it all on ultra and it runs fine. But that might be because I bought a new comp a few weeks ago^^ my old one only ran it on low and looked very crappy
Followed your guide and it worked great! I still get a bit of lag because of a gpu bottleneck with the shaders, but it was a lot better than before. I'm sure I can get it to a really smooth playability if I could just turn off portraits altogether, does anyone know how to do that?
Also, turning models up to high seem to really affect my performance. This hasn't happened before, is it because of the new patch?
i am using all setting on max, though i would love to have low shadow, since they show the position of the air units which changes i have to do, so i get low shadow but still have ultra at all other setting? i tried some but all that happened was that the shadow just diappeared ...
i hope it is possible to have ultra setting with low shadow
On May 09 2010 18:52 Art_of_Kill wrote: i am using all setting on max, though i would love to have low shadow, since they show the position of the air units which changes i have to do, so i get low shadow but still have ultra at all other setting? i tried some but all that happened was that the shadow just diappeared ...
i hope it is possible to have ultra setting with low shadow
Try it out and read through the thread...experiment around..?
yes it's possible and if you read even one single page you'd see...So tired of people not even trying before asking for help...
There's also an option called "Flyer unit helper"...will let you see exactly where air is, keep shadows off for max performance...
But if you truly prefer shadows then...yes, it's easy to do that...
Here's ur proof...Click spoiler to see the image. look at the areas highlighted in bright-ass-yellow (100 hours in M$Paint) + Show Spoiler +
It works. Note that the textures and shaders are at ultra/extreme and the shadows are on low, but enabled...
Read through the rest of this thread (there's even a VIDEO on this thread, on this PAGE...) to figure out how.
damn,I cant turn off the portraits either Is there any chance they will let us turn that off later? Its really giving me a headache at a 200 vs 200 fight.
Hi i got some issue with fps in game, I got: core2duo 2,4ghz radeon hd4670 512mb memory 4gb of ram windows 7 ultimate
I play sc2 on all settings set to low expect of: shaders medium shadows medium models high terrain medium textures medium portraits 2d 1280x720x32 resolution (cant set lower resolution coz i got 16 display in notebook)
I probably could play sc2 on all settings on high, but I dont like to play on 40-50fps.
With these settings I usually got ~80 fps. I tried to make my game work faster, because in bigger fights such as 200/200 vs 200/200 my fps is drastically gettin down to 20fps?! or less
I tried turn off the portraits but it doesnt work for me so 2d is my only option i guess. I tried turn off the shadows in variables.txt, its working but if I turn them off then I got LESS fps. This is strange for me. With shadows turned off Im losing about 20fps :ASD I also tried to set terrain to LOW, this makes my creep black, and looks really awesome, BUT when I do it, my fps is gettin down very much, like -20fps (wtf!?)
Could someone tell me what did I do wrong? I want more fps and this awesome black creep in game, but it looks like, if my game looks worse then I losing fps, but if my game looks pretty well my fps is normally :-D
Dont understand that really. Is setting terrain to low is so much fps `hungry`? I should get +fps not -fps when changing to low isnt it?
I also got little `problem` i guess when I play sc2 my notebook's cooler is working pretty fast and loud. Its strange to me too, because sc2 should not apply so much pressure on my notebook.
Im playing Risen which has got much more system requirements, and my cooler is fine. But when I launching sc2 cooler is getting crazy :D Its not a problem at all but its damn LOUD.
Please help me!
This is my first post here so sorry for my bad grammar. I guess im quite understandable hehe ;]
Haaz, it might help if you could copy paste the contents of your variables.txt in a new reply in this thread.
Just make sure to use the spoiler tags so it doesn't make the page super long. (You might already know how, just seeing that you're a new member maybe you don't! ^^)
Like this... [spoiler=Jamaican me krazy?]Dis be sum text mahn, ya rastafari[/spoiler]
Yeah this is a good topic, two questions: Has anyone messed around with simplified cloaking? And is there a setting that makes it easier to see cloaked units? I have have trouble finding observers sometimes and it has screwed me over a few games.
Physic-Ultra, people might want to set this to low/off. This function would depend on your CPU, so if your CPU is not upto scale, then it will try to be doing physics instead of other things. Good example is BC2, where the Dual to Quad is a massive difference due to the large amount of physics in the game from destruction, and thus more FPS as ure GPU is not tied up waiting for the CPU to finish calculating the physics..
You may not notice any difference in fps with this setting, it will only kick in when your in the battle.
On April 22 2010 21:26 Dankmids wrote:[/B --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Shadows- Here it is, this is leading cause in FPS. Mine is set to off, how you ask? I will explain all that shortly at the bottom. Setting this to off was at least a 10-15+ fps gain. Never when im playing ever even noticed shadows before. This is actually a main FPS drain in many games today, some shadows are really needed, starcraft 2, is not one of those games. Your too focused on playing that I bet shadows never even come to mind. It does not affect gameplay at all, or anything really. Its like a free FPS gain. I strongly suggest turning this off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I strongly disagree with what you say here (Despite this being a very old post), in regards to the use of shadows.
Due to the new 3D and the fact that we watch the game from an angle makes it so that the air units which occupy a space let's say, 2 cells from each direction from Cell A, are infront of those same cells, displaced a few cells up.
[b]In other words, air units float and their models are not accurate depictions of where they are.
This has become incredibly annoying to deal with on ledges and cliffs where it's very hard to target the ground the mutas are over as it is ambiguous. But when would I target the ground? Wouldn't I just attack the muta's by right clicking on the models?
Well, what is the strongest way to deal with mutas, cost effectively. Infestor.
Now here is why shadows on low, at least, is essential. Fast flying units like mutalisks and phoenix are pretty much always in one control group and can be a real pain in the butt to handle. But as Zerg, fungal growthing this instantly shuts it down, 100%. When the game first came out, I found myself using Psi Storm and aiming it at the model of the unit, only to see that it missed completely. The aoe circle has to be under the cell that the unit is flying over.
Shadows present a small blob under the unit which accurately show you exactly where to cast your aoe spell.
Missing these things in a game can easily cost them and make you look like a total dweeb. Honestly, missing a storm?
On April 22 2010 21:26 Dankmids wrote:[/B --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Shadows- Here it is, this is leading cause in FPS. Mine is set to off, how you ask? I will explain all that shortly at the bottom. Setting this to off was at least a 10-15+ fps gain. Never when im playing ever even noticed shadows before. This is actually a main FPS drain in many games today, some shadows are really needed, starcraft 2, is not one of those games. Your too focused on playing that I bet shadows never even come to mind. It does not affect gameplay at all, or anything really. Its like a free FPS gain. I strongly suggest turning this off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I strongly disagree with what you say here (Despite this being a very old post), in regards to the use of shadows.
Due to the new 3D and the fact that we watch the game from an angle makes it so that the air units which occupy a space let's say, 2 cells from each direction from Cell A, are infront of those same cells, displaced a few cells up.
[b]In other words, air units float and their models are not accurate depictions of where they are.
This has become incredibly annoying to deal with on ledges and cliffs where it's very hard to target the ground the mutas are over as it is ambiguous. But when would I target the ground? Wouldn't I just attack the muta's by right clicking on the models?
Well, what is the strongest way to deal with mutas, cost effectively. Infestor.
Now here is why shadows on low, at least, is essential. Fast flying units like mutalisks and phoenix are pretty much always in one control group and can be a real pain in the butt to handle. But as Zerg, fungal growthing this instantly shuts it down, 100%. When the game first came out, I found myself using Psi Storm and aiming it at the model of the unit, only to see that it missed completely. The aoe circle has to be under the cell that the unit is flying over.
Shadows present a small blob under the unit which accurately show you exactly where to cast your aoe spell.
Missing these things in a game can easily cost them and make you look like a total dweeb. Honestly, missing a storm?
Or, you know, just turn on that helper that shows a small circle under the air units.
i think the shadow command also got changed to graphicoptionsshadowquality
also, anybody able to turn off the shadows entirely? setting the shadowquality to 0 made it into the blob under the unit but theres still a real time shadow being casted, any thoughts?
You can't find the portraitsOff=1 because it doesn't exist. You have to input it manually it seems. I put it below the other Portrait thingy and it worked ingame. Got a small FPS increase.
I also noticed that on the contrary to what the game says, changing the game mode from Fullscreen to Windowed actually boosts my FPS. The only problem I have now is that I can't scroll ingame with my mouse. Can anybody help me with this? How to make the mouse not go "out of bounds" of the game window?
On July 28 2010 22:37 ProjectVirtue wrote: i think the shadow command also got changed to graphicoptionsshadowquality
also, anybody able to turn off the shadows entirely? setting the shadowquality to 0 made it into the blob under the unit but theres still a real time shadow being casted, any thoughts?
Try adding shadows=0, that only disables real time shadows not the blob shadows.
hmm, adding portraitsOff=1 doesn't seem to work. (I put it after portraits3d=0) It's supposed to make the portrait rectangle black right? I restarted SC2 after saving the text file.
also, putting GraphicsOptionPortraits on 0 actually decreases my FPS I think. It's standard on 1 even at everything lowest in option settings.
I did all what OP recommended and so far so good BUT i just played 1st game with it and had some terrible freezes (like FPS 0 for 5 seconds ) at the beginning of the game mostly ,it happened at least 3 times. What caused this? Any tips?
On March 23 2011 02:07 Elvin wrote: Sorry for bumping old thread
I did all what OP recommended and so far so good BUT i just played 1st game with it and had some terrible freezes (like FPS 0 for 5 seconds ) at the beginning of the game mostly ,it happened at least 3 times. What caused this? Any tips?
' Is this working for you on the full game or are you running the beta client?
Hello, I play sc2 on a pretty bad laptop. In order to be able to play with decent fps, I have changed the following variable in my variables.txt file I changed TerrainTextureSize=480 to TerrainTextureSize=6
Before the patch preparing hots to legacy, my gameplay graphics looked like this:
After the Patch, my gameplay graphics now look quasi normal with small patches of low quality squares, (as if TextureSize was never changed to 480). Also, these patches disappear and are replaced with normal quality textures with time.
In the above image, the yellow high-lighted area are the squares as I wish for them to appear, while the red-highlighted area are squares that are not low enough in quality.
Given sufficient time, the blurred squares (the type I want all squares to be) are replaced by normal ones, as seen in the image below.
My question: is there anything that I can change to make it so that my Terrain Texture Size actually effects, and effects permanently every single square block on my map?
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i40.tinypic.com/15pljtl.jpg)
display in notebook)![[image loading]](http://i28.tinypic.com/v5lj53.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/plbLg30.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ymLf3t2.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/caT4NOB.png)
