4870 not good enough for SC2 on high/ultra?

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited September 2010 in Hardware
I've been playing SC2, and the graphics are fine in 1v1. But when I play 4v4 teams, my graphics can't keep up in big fights. I'll go from 50+ fps to 1, yes, ONE, or even 0, according to the on screen counter if you hit Ctrl-Alt-F.

System specs:

XP Home SP3
E7300 dual core @ 2.66 Ghz
4 GB ram
4870, 770/950 speeds when the stock 750/900 wasn't doing it.
Syncmaster 204B 20" LCD 4:3

I started off playing on all Ultra settings, but was not getting over 20 fps even when nothing was happening. So I very begrudgingly turn the video settings down to High, which improved 1V1 games.

But 4V4s still are too much for the 4870, when there's a few hundred things flying all over the screen in a fight.:grr:

Any ideas what to do for improvement? According to the published specs a 4870 should be plenty of GPU for SC2.

Radeon 5700-5800 series card? GTX 460?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    Does it run WoW okay?
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    I'd guess you're both cpu and gpu limited.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    It runs WoW very well.

    I could OC the E7300, take it up around 3.0-3.2 and see if that helps any. And maybe push the OC on the 4870 a bit further, but I doubt I'll see the improvement I need.

    From what I read, SC2 is supposed to be optimized for dual core CPUs, but not quad core.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    SC2 should play fairly well on that card. But would obviously run better on current gen cards.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    SC2 is optimized for DX10 isn't it? 4870 can run DX10.

    Would a quad core Phenom 2 9650 be any better than the E7300 dual core? From what I've read, I don't think having more than 2 cores will help in SC2. My folding PC has the 9650, so it would be free for me to try it.
  • JingallsJingalls Eugene, OR
    edited August 2010
    It wouldn't ever hurt to try it. I have a slower phenom 1 tri-core and a radeon hd 4890 that runs the game fine.
  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    From what I have read Star Craft II scales really well with more cores. Its definately multi threaded. Still, your CPU should run four threads, not dedicated like a true quad, but still, I would not expect you to grind to a halt like that.

    Are you forcing AA in the graphics driver? I know there was a big to do about that recently. That might be grinding you to a halt in some spots?
  • RootWyrmRootWyrm Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    If you've updated to the Catalyst 10.7a's, you need to go into CCC and make sure that Anti-Aliasing and Anistropic are set to Application Controlled, Catalyst AI to Advanced. If you let CCC control AA, it's forcing it to on, and that will destroy your performance.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    Catalyst AI was on Standard, I switched it to Advanced. Well see how this does.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    It seems to be doing better now. I overclocked the cpu from 2.66 to 3.20, raised the cpu and memory voltages a little bit, and changed the 4870s clocks to 780/1000.
  • FragsideFragside Australia
    edited August 2010
    4870's are still mid class cards. Yeah you might find your CPU is providing a bottleneck. Also SC2 is a very new came and ATi cards have never been known to be good at pre-process tesselation of which SC2 has a heap of. That might be causing the lower framerates. Most likely during those framerate drops you are going into a heavily tesselated section. You might find overclocking your memory a little can help improve the FPS a little as delays can be caused during the memory leakage process during tesselation. If you are having any more problems, PM if you like.
  • JingallsJingalls Eugene, OR
    edited August 2010
    4870 has no problem running starcraft 2, my friend runs it on that card on ultra at 1920x1080 with stock clocks with absolutely no problems. The difference in his system is a quadcore Phenom-II at 3 GHz.
  • FragsideFragside Australia
    edited August 2010
    Jingalls wrote:
    4870 has no problem running starcraft 2, my friend runs it on that card on ultra at 1920x1080 with stock clocks with absolutely no problems. The difference in his system is a quadcore Phenom-II at 3 GHz.



    Then this would lead to the thought that the CPU is providing the bottleneck. Try a higher overclock if possible. :bigggrin:
  • custompcmaxcustompcmax Minnesota
    edited August 2010
    Tim wrote:
    I've been playing SC2, and the graphics are fine in 1v1. But when I play 4v4 teams, my graphics can't keep up in big fights. I'll go from 50+ fps to 1, yes, ONE, or even 0, according to the on screen counter if you hit Ctrl-Alt-F.

    System specs:

    XP Home SP3
    E7300 dual core @ 2.66 Ghz
    4 GB ram
    4870, 770/950 speeds when the stock 750/900 wasn't doing it.
    Syncmaster 204B 20" LCD 4:3

    I started off playing on all Ultra settings, but was not getting over 20 fps even when nothing was happening. So I very begrudgingly turn the video settings down to High, which improved 1V1 games.

    But 4V4s still are too much for the 4870, when there's a few hundred things flying all over the screen in a fight.:grr:

    Any ideas what to do for improvement? According to the published specs a 4870 should be plenty of GPU for SC2.

    Radeon 5700-5800 series card? GTX 460?

    I could be wrong (I didn't play much SC2 yet), but it might be a limited by your CPU more than the GPU. I tried the beta, I have the same GPU with a i7 920, and I didn't get hit with any lag ever. That said, I don't know that I ever got in any battles like you are describing.

    Have you updated drivers? What about turning down just the AA/AF a notch or two.
  • reelbigfishreelbigfish Boston, MA Member
    edited August 2010
    I've been playing SC2 and haven't noticed much performance issues on high. I have a quad core Phenom II X4 9850 and an ATI Radeon 4850. Since SC2 can use multiple cores, it could be the fact that I'm running two more cores which makes my performance better.
  • overbeeeoverbeee
    edited September 2010
    I am having the exact same issue.

    XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
    G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
    OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
    AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ940XCGIBOX
    GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

    As you can see, my CPU is a quad core and my comp can not handle 3v3 and up. It drops from 60 FPS to 1. I have tried just about every driver update and it makes no difference. I've posted on multiple forums about this issue and haven't had any luck.

    I built my computer, but that's about as far as my computer knowledge goes.
    However, there are a couple things on this thread that I haven't tried.

    First, I am not sure if I am running the most recent Direct x 10. Also, this whole AA thing confuses me. What I'm going to do when I get home is listen to Rootwyrm's advice about CCC "If you've updated to the Catalyst 10.7a's, you need to go into CCC and make sure that Anti-Aliasing and Anistropic are set to Application Controlled, Catalyst AI to Advanced. If you let CCC control AA, it's forcing it to on, and that will destroy your performance". I will let you know how that goes. Hopefully it helps. This has been driving me crazy for about a month.

    Thanks,

    Overbeee

    custompcmax wrote:
    I could be wrong (I didn't play much SC2 yet), but it might be a limited by your CPU more than the GPU. I tried the beta, I have the same GPU with a i7 920, and I didn't get hit with any lag ever. That said, I don't know that I ever got in any battles like you are describing.

    Have you updated drivers? What about turning down just the AA/AF a notch or two.
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