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Hey there,
After just running on the default settings and playing mostly on Low Quality SC2 settings for ages, I thought I would try looking into optimizing my graphics card for the best possible performance in HotS. Basically I'm just looking for anyone with the knowledge/experience of overclocking or otherwise futzing around with the settings on this card or a similar one in order to get better performance on higher settings (while still maintaining a reasonable amount of safety in regards to frying the thing, of course). If possible, I'd like to see if I can resolve any FPS-dropping/stuttering in high-unit-count situations in team games, etc.
I use an Intel i5-2320 @ 3.00 GHz and, as I said in the title, my graphics card is an AMD ATI Radeon 6700 HD. If it's necessary to get the details on my power supply, fan, etc. I can do so. Thanks.
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FPS drops in high-unit count situations is largely related to the CPU.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
Indeed
If you want to post a replay and tell me your FPS at a certain part like a lategame battle (and physics, effects, reflections settings) i can match them on my stronger CPU and shitty graphics card and show performance difference. it should be pretty big
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The HD6700 doesn't need any optimizations as its a very fast card and can easily run HOTS. Any lower frame rates are likely due to CPU or memory if you have say 2GB or lower.
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yea what they said, sc2(hots) is a cpu intensive game. i have an amd athlon 2 x2 3.2ghz and i get 90+ all setting maxed with my radeon 6770. so you should definitely be able to handle sc2 maxed out with no problem.
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On June 10 2013 12:09 JohnnyRebb wrote:
yea what they said, sc2(hots) is a cpu intensive game. i have an amd athlon 2 x2 3.2ghz and i get 90+ all setting maxed with my radeon 6770. so you should definitely be able to handle sc2 maxed out with no problem.
Wow I wish my overclocked 2500k could get that kind of framerate, given it's twice as fast!
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
People are quick to state FPS numbers in sc2 when they are meaningless without a point of comparison. My FPS minimums were and still are more than an order of magnitude lower than max fps at the start of the game, though raising graphics settings masks that some.
If CPU A can make 100fps at the start of game and CPU B can make 600fps but the graphics card can only do 120, they look pretty similar because your fps is 100 on the weaker cpu and 120 on the stronger one and it's a pretty irrelevant comparison, when that drops to 1/10'th and it's 10fps vs 60 with the graphics card no longer being anywhere close to a performance bottleneck, it becomes hilarious
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Toms hardware benchmark suggests minimum for a Athlon X3 is about 10 FPS min. I5-2500k is 24 FPS min. In regards to CPU I would A- overclock it as much as a 2320 can go. Then turn off physics and reflection, and turn down effects.
In regards to a video card I would get a HD 7870 or a GTX 660 . Both are about twice as fast as our current card and should see you though for a few years. I just bought a 7870 today. If you have more money to burn a 7950 is good too. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7870-review-benchmark,3148-14.html
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon HD 6700
If you don't want to spend money on a new card, you can always overclock slightly by using AMD overdrive in the performance tab of Catalyst Control Center. If you want to spend more time reading about what your doing you can use a free program called Afterburner to increase voltage and the size of your overclock.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
GPU overclock, stronger GPU etc wouldn't help in situations described in OP
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On June 10 2013 14:39 maddogmcgee wrote:
Toms hardware benchmark suggests minimum for a Athlon X3 is about 10 FPS min. I5-2500k is 24 FPS min. In regards to CPU I would A- overclock it as much as a 2320 can go. Then turn off physics and reflection, and turn down effects.
The 2320 is a locked CPU and won't allow for overclocking (other than perhaps a tiny bit of fiddling with turbo-frequencies, but that's hardly worth the effort). In addition, he most likely doesn't have a motherboard that has overclocking features (because why would you with a locked CPU).
In the rare event that he does use a Z67 motherboard, buying an i5-2500k (or i5 3570k) and a third party cooler and OCing it to somewhere around 4.5 GHz should be a good performance boost. With no Z67 motherboard, it would require a new motherboard as well (and then you might as well go for a Haswell chip).
Like Cyro said, no point in boosting GPU performance for SC2 lategame scenarios.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
Honestly it's hard to justify Haswell over sandy bridge. I just wrote like a thousand words but i'm not gonna post that; SB was amazing and haswell simply is not. It's two and a half years of development and a price hike up, but it's really hard to justify it over sandy for a low end overclocker. Sandy you can buy a 212 or a macho and ride it to it's voltage limits and you are laughing, haswell, lol no. 1.2v = not making 4.5ghz for many people, yet 90c on a h100i with hyperthreading and avx instructions. I doubt Sandy Bridge would reach the 60's - is it really worth it?
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Didn't think about the motherboard issue, but if he does have a z67 motherboard turbo frequency being upped plus a few CPU heavy changes in settings should make a discernible difference. Surely lag during big battles with hundreds of units dying (and the physics and effects turned down) etc is partially due to the GPU? I would be interested to see a late game replay with the 6700 or similar and a fast CPU. Of course, if his case has bad cooling, that could also cause the slow down late game.
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On June 10 2013 18:24 maddogmcgee wrote:
Didn't think about the motherboard issue, but if he does have a z67 motherboard turbo frequency being upped plus a few CPU heavy changes in settings should make a discernible difference. Surely lag during big battles with hundreds of units dying (and the physics and effects turned down) etc is partially due to the GPU? I would be interested to see a late game replay with the 6700 or similar and a fast CPU. Of course, if his case has bad cooling, that could also cause the slow down late game.
The main scaling factors are pathfinding and a projectile calculations. The gpu just renders the results of all these calculations. Motherships and creep can increase gpu load somewhat, lots of units are trivial for gpu usage though.
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EPT
