[Guide] Tuning SC2's performance on ultra

XiaN

Germany162 Posts

August 14 2010 08:55 GMT

Even though these changes may also work on lower settings, i've only tested them on ultra.
If they work on lower settings for you too, please report it here in the thread.

I've recently looked a bit into the QQ-Threads about SC2's bad performance on ultra high system and stumbled upon some points i'd like to share in this thread.

I'M ONLY USING SETTINGS THAT HAVE NO OR MINIMAL IMPACT ON THE ULTRA SETTINGS INGAME GRAPHIC APPEARANCE !

I've tested all these stuff on an 3v3 replay of mine, where it comes to a big fight between 5 200 supply armies.

My average FPS on ultra 1920x1200 in this fight : 25 fps

You can press "Ctrl + Alt + F" in SC2 to show your FPS at the top left.

My specs

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
DirectX 11

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
4096MB RAM

GeForce GTX 260
896 MB Video RAM

Driver version : 258.96

22 and 23" DualMonitor Setup

SC2 settings

The following steps are necessary, because SC2 sometimes does not save the settings correctly to the variables.txt.

To be save that you really start with ultra settings at this point do the following.

Start SC2
Set the "graphics quality" setting in the SC2 options to "low"
Save and restart SC2
Set the "graphics quality" setting in the SC2 options to "ultra"
Save and restart SC2

Step 1 : Forcing vsync

1.)

Check "vertical sync" in the SC2 grapics options
Press "Ok"

2.)

Open the nvidia control panel
Go to "Manage 3D settings" -> "Global settings"
Scroll down to "Vertical sync"
Set it to "Force On"
Press Apply
[image loading]

3.)

Open the folder "My Documents/Starcraft II"
Open the variables.txt
Add the following lines to the bottom and save

frameratecap=60
frameratecapGlue=30

4.) After restarting SC2 you are ready to go for the next steps

Step 2 : Enable triple buffering

That was the first big surprise for me. This was actually mentioned by someone in the off. blizz forums in an QQ thread about the performance on someones 10000$ pc.

Open the nvidia control panel
Go to "Manage 3D settings" -> "Global settings"
Scroll down to "Triple Buffering"
Set it to "Force On"
Press Apply
[image loading]

After restarting SC2 this gave me an performance boost of 10 FPS in my "reference scene " mentioned earlier. Whoot o_O
This setting is bound to the vsync steps before and might not work without it.

My average FPS on ultra 1920x1200 in this fight : 35 fps ( +10 from untuned )

Step 3 - Disable transparent shadows

THIS WILL ONLY WORK ON ULTRA SETTINGS !

I found this tweak in this article about tweaking SC2 performance on ultra.

Open the folder "My Documents/Starcraft II"
Open the variables.txt

Search for "transparentshadows"

If the setting is allready there change it from

transparentshadows=1

to

transparentshadows=0

If its not there, simply add

transparentshadows=0

to the end of this file

Save and close the variables.txt

After restarting SC2 this gave me an performance boost of 5 FPS in my "reference scene " mentioned earlier.

My average FPS on ultra 1920x1200 in this fight : 40 fps ( +15 from untuned )

Here is an comparison ( images from pcgameshardware.de )

Transparent Shadows On
[image loading]

Transparent Shadows Off
[image loading]

As you can see the effect is hardly noticeable, but worth 5 additional FPS. Pretty good.

The end

So far so, so good.

Does anyone know if there are other tricks like this out there and please report if these settings work on your machine as well.

jamesltl

Malaysia159 Posts

August 14 2010 10:51 GMT

does graphic card with 512mb works?

dbcooper

United States1 Post

May 02 2011 02:27 GMT

Thanks for writing this up.

I found this SC2 performance guide from a pretty general Google search, but I can't remember the actual search terms.

I took a baseline test and went through this guide, step-by-step, changed one thing at a time, took notes and kept loading the same test game each time. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any real improvement.

There was something obvious I missed and others might as well. I had to go into Control Panel >> System and Security >> Power Options and switch from "Power Saver" to "High Performance".

That meant a jump from 10-13 FPS to a stable 33-35 FPS (w/ peaks of 40-50) once I had enabled all your recommended settings.

My setup:

Intel i5-750 (Quad core at 2.66GHz)
4GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Radeon HD 5850 graphics
1920x1080 fullscreen

Golgotha

Korea (South)8418 Posts

May 02 2011 02:33 GMT

On May 02 2011 11:27 dbcooper wrote:
Thanks for writing this up.

I found this SC2 performance guide from a pretty general Google search, but I can't remember the actual search terms.

I took a baseline test and went through this guide, step-by-step, changed one thing at a time, took notes and kept loading the same test game each time. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any real improvement.

There was something obvious I missed and others might as well. I had to go into Control Panel >> System and Security >> Power Options and switch from "Power Saver" to "High Performance".

That meant a jump from 10-13 FPS to a stable 33-35 FPS (w/ peaks of 40-50) once I had enabled all your recommended settings.

My setup:

Intel i5-750 (Quad core at 2.66GHz)
4GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Radeon HD 5850 graphics
1920x1080 fullscreen

35 fps is still too low. nearly have of 60. i would just play at high settings if i were ya.

zylog

Canada943 Posts

May 02 2011 02:56 GMT

I'm wondering why you recommend to turn v-sync on? From what I understand, it eliminates tearing when your frame rate is higher than your monitor refresh, but can often reduce performance and introduce some input delay. The usual solution is to use triple buffering, which you recommend, but why use it at all when your frame rate isn't that high?

Zombo Joe

Canada850 Posts

May 02 2011 05:43 GMT

My FPS improved by 3-5 but not enough to get me over my 16 FPS problems. My specs are nearly the same.

~~Do you have more than 2 GB of RAM~~ and could you supply the replay?

I really want to be able to micro during 200/200 battles.

Just noticed you have double my RAM, that might be it. :p

Golgotha

Korea (South)8418 Posts

May 13 2011 02:58 GMT

Thank you very much for this guide. gave me quite a boost!

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