I have recently purchased a new ASUS laptop, and I can't run SC2 on anything higher than low without graphics lag in the game, even in early game with few units and buildings, also all the recommended settings are either medium or low, I don't understand why this is as my specs should be able to handle high with no issues.

Here are my specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
2.2 GHz Performance Rated at: 6.05 GHz
7.0 GB of RAM
GeForce GT 540M

Boblhead

United States2577 Posts

January 19 2012 19:09 GMT

the gt 540m isnt that great of a GPU in the first place so im not suprised you can't run anything higher than low. If you wanted to have a decent gaming laptop I would of recommended a 6770m or a gtx460/560m.

Waterflow

Sweden1550 Posts

January 19 2012 19:11 GMT

low-end graphics card.

ForJungSooYeon

Canada63 Posts

January 19 2012 19:11 GMT

On January 20 2012 04:09 Boblhead wrote:
the gt 540m isnt that great of a GPU in the first place so im not suprised you can't run anything higher than low. If you wanted to have a decent gaming laptop I would of recommended a 6770m or a gtx460/560m.

Really? o.o

I can run both COD MW3 and Battlefield 3 on high without any issues though, or does SC2 require a better GPU than those games?

ZerGuy

Poland204 Posts

January 19 2012 19:13 GMT

Maybe NVidia Optimus doesn't recognise SCII as CPU demanding on your computer?

Alryk

United States2718 Posts

January 19 2012 19:14 GMT

...no you can't. The 540 is a midrange laptop card - it will get bf3 on low
and sc2 on medium at nine 1080p resolutions.

ZwuckeL

Germany563 Posts

January 19 2012 19:42 GMT

On January 20 2012 04:13 ZerGuy wrote:
Maybe NVidia Optimus doesn't recognise SCII as CPU demanding on your computer?

yea. make sure the GF540 acutally runs when you play sc2. my laptop also first tried to play sc2 on the i7 graphics card and i got 15 fps on low :D

jacosajh

2919 Posts

January 19 2012 19:50 GMT

Optimus is for your GPU, not CPU?

Make sure your laptop is using the GT 540M for SC2. Go into NVIDIA Control Panel, and you can find settings to fix this.

Also, a GT 540M is not very good so if you're playing on a high resolution like 1920x1080, the GT 540M might have issues even at Low. A GT 540M has issues on Medium even at 1366x768. For a GT 540M, I would play on a low resolution (~720p) on Low-Medium settings).

I don't know what you define as playing MW3 and BF3 without any issues, but I highly doubt it's very smooth. Those two games are miles away from SC2 in terms of graphics requirements. They make even great dedicated desktop cards cry. Unless you play on low resolution / settings.

liberal

1116 Posts

January 19 2012 19:55 GMT

I highly recommend the site notebookcheck.net for comparing integrated graphics cards. Here's the page for the GT540m:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-540M.41715.0.html

According to this the GPU has been rated to play SC2 on high with average 37fps, and BF3 on low with 36fps. This GPU shouldn't be able to play BF3 on high without lag, and it should be able to play SC2 on high with no problem. I'm not sure what's wrong with the information you are providing here... In any case the specs you provided should handle SC2 just fine so there's probably a different problem with your computer.

ISighZ

United States270 Posts

January 19 2012 20:12 GMT

#10

I have Dell XPS L502X with same CPU, with 2GB GT540M and I can play High fine. Make sure you set your laptop powerplan to High performance.

jacosajh

2919 Posts

January 19 2012 20:43 GMT

#11

notebookcheck is helpful but doesn't list some important factors like resolution. I highly doubt those are for 1080p, despite some laptops being capable of it. So, if he's playing on 1080p, it'll be that much more demanding.

Also, 37 fps average is not playable to a lot of people even if it was consistent. And it's probably not. There will probably be dips in there lower than 20 fps. I would just play on Low-Medium to ensure consistency.

Soap

Brazil1546 Posts

January 19 2012 21:09 GMT

#12

On January 20 2012 05:43 jacosajh wrote:
notebookcheck is helpful but doesn't list some important factors like resolution. I highly doubt those are for 1080p, despite some laptops being capable of it. So, if he's playing on 1080p, it'll be that much more demanding.

Hover the mouse over the quality options to see what they mean.

jacosajh

2919 Posts

January 19 2012 21:15 GMT

#13

Still doesn't show resolution. Which is very important for graphics assessment. Only thing you can do is look at the individual laptops with the FPS shown and see what resolution they are using. But this gets confusing some for some "medium-range" laptop graphic cards, it can be in a laptop between 1920x1080 to 1366x768.

phisku

Belgium864 Posts

January 19 2012 21:21 GMT

#14

I have the exact same problem. and from what i've understand the GPU isn't recognized so the computer use the intel HD one. I tried everything i could find on internet and nothing.

Also do you have 1/2 sec freeze from time to time or is it just me?

scudst0rm

Canada1149 Posts

January 19 2012 21:34 GMT

#15

2.2 GHz Performance Rated at: 6.05 GHz

Lol, I'm really curious how they're coming up with this "performance rating"

Netto.

Poland523 Posts

January 19 2012 21:36 GMT

#16

On January 20 2012 05:12 ISighZ wrote:
Make sure you set your laptop powerplan to High performance.

This. I had similar problem (not with such a comp tho).

jacosajh

2919 Posts

January 19 2012 21:38 GMT

#17

Make sure you do the following:

1. Right on your desktop and go to NVIDIA Control Panel
+ Show Spoiler +

2. Once you're there, make sure you're under Manage 3D Settings (left hand side menu). Then go to "Program Settings" tab.
+ Show Spoiler +

3. Select the program you want to use the NVIDIA graphics card (in this case, Starcraft 2).
+ Show Spoiler +

4. Select the "preferred graphics card" to be the NVIDIA one, and not integrated graphics. Hit Apply and close.
+ Show Spoiler +

NVIDIA Optimus should be smart enough to do this on its own, but sometimes it slips for whatever reason.

Other things to do.
1. Make sure your Graphics Card is on. Sometimes there is a manual button on your laptop that you have to turn on. This happened to me on a Lenovo Y570.
2. Make sure your CPU isn't being throttled. This is a bit more complicated and shouldn't happen often, but this also happened to me. My Core i5 2410m was being throttled to 800mhz (stuck at 8x multi) for whatever reason. I reset bios and it went away.

FeiLing

Germany428 Posts

January 19 2012 21:39 GMT

#18

On January 20 2012 03:13 ForJungSooYeon wrote:
2.2 GHz Performance Rated at: 6.05 GHz
7.0 GB of RAM

What the... is this? Who/which program shows you these numbers? Where did you buy that thing?

carloselcoco

United States2302 Posts

January 19 2012 21:46 GMT

#19

I think I know what your problem is mate. Back a few months ago i had the exact same problem with my laptop where I had to switch to playing SCII in low. What I think is happening to you is that your GPU might have been somehow disabled and now you are probably running on the integrated card. To fix that you are going to have to enable your graphics card again. Do you know how to do that?