Want to Run Starcraft II on Older Computer?
July 29th, 2010 | Published in Games, Technology
Starcraft II looks beautiful with all graphics settings at high, but many people have computers that are a few years old and cannot handle these higher graphics settings. While I was messing around earlier today I decided to get a screenshot of the same scene with high graphics settings and then low graphics settings.
Starcraft II with High Graphics Settings
Starcraft II with Low Graphics Settings
Even at the lowest graphics settings, the games was easily playable. In some ways, the lower settings were easier use because everything was very basic and it was easier to see many of the units against the background. At times, I have found myself distracted by all of the extra details and colors in both the background and the units of Starcraft II. I plan to play with my settings until I find those which give me the best gameplay.
A friend has been successful in playing Starcraft II on Windows XP with just a 2GHz AMD Athlon processor. His computer does meet the bare minimum for video card and RAM. I do not know his exact graphics settings, but they were a mixture of low and medium. According to him, the gameplay was smooth and he had no issues. So, if you have a computer that is close to, but not quite, the stated “minimum requirements,” you may be surprised at just how playable the game is without having to shell out $100s for a new computer right now!
As a final note, to those that look at the difference between high settings and low settings and think, “the low settings look horrible,” how many times did you play (and possible recently played) using the graphics settings shown below?
Screenshot from Original Starcraft