Starcraft 2 Gets Slower as a Match Progresses

[Hayte]

I'm running Windows 7 (64) with the following
Intel Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
6 GB of RAM (DDR2)
Radeon HD6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
2 TB WDC drive with 3.0gbs (that starcraft installation is located on)

My mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188026

My main issue is that I'll be playing Starcraft 2 on extreme settings, and everything will go swimmingly, but as each 5-10 minutes go by performance (and frames start going down severely. I keep the graphics card fairly cool, and I don't think it ever goes above 65 degrees C tops.

I also feel like a few months back SC2 was running fine, but for whatever reason it isn't now. Most of the time I have to play on low shader settings to get good FPS.

Any comments / ideas? I've reinstalled my drivers several times, and have the most recent drivers on my computer. It would seem that after reinstalling the driver SC2 will run better for a short while, but will quickly return to its previous state.

I appreciate any help!

 

[13thmonkey]

how does memory change over time, and what is peak CPU temp.
power supply.

 

[Hayte]

how does memory change over time, and what is peak CPU temp.
power supply.

Memory and CPU usage stay at about 70%, CPU peaks don't exceed 60C

Here's my Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189008

 

[13thmonkey]

online yes? whats network traffic like, desktop widget might help, you could be saturating internet connection, the further into the game the more units there are the more information has to be sent back and forth.
What happens if you play a game for the required period to get the slow down but do nothing, no unit creation etc. same on the opposition.

Or is SCII not a strategy game?

 

[Hayte]

I don't think its a network issue because I was watching a replay as a test a few moments ago, and because the replay was pre patch I had to watch it offline. Once it hits around 300 units total on the map everything starts slowing down to around 20 FPS, and then progressively lower to around 15 FPS.

 

[Hayte]

I'd also like to mention I can run other games like Skyrim (granted I decrease the range a little lower than max), Dead Space 2, and Deus Ex at the highest settings without any problems.

 

[13thmonkey]

cpu utilisation?

 

[Hayte]

I had mentioned its around 70% earlier, same with my ram. (If you're still talking about SC2)

 

[13thmonkey]

patches? driver versions? Gut feel is that the cpu is bottlenecking you.

Can you run the test of gaming for a long time but doing nothing.

I think that the cpu load is related to the square (or higher power of the number of units), with 2 units on each side, each unit has to check for each of the other units which they can see/impact, so 4 units probably requires 8 checks, 5 units probably requires 50 checks 10 requires 200, so it ramps very quickly as unit numbers increase, 300 units aside might mean 180,000 checks vs 8 for 2 units aside.

the only prove is a test of a long game with no/low units,

 

[AntiZig]

what's your vram usage looking like? and gpu utilization and temps over time?

sc2 is pretty darn heavy on the CPU, so even though it might not be topping out, it might be bottlenecking your gpu, you need to compare these things side by side looking at cpu alone when you're having fps issues isn't helpful.

also may I stress this once again, OVER TIME. so get a graph or log the readings and then make a graph.

 

[Hayte]

what's your vram usage looking like? and gpu utilization and temps over time?

sc2 is pretty darn heavy on the CPU, so even though it might not be topping out, it might be bottlenecking your gpu, you need to compare these things side by side looking at cpu alone when you're having fps issues isn't helpful.

also may I stress this once again, OVER TIME. so get a graph or log the readings and then make a graph.

Any recommendations on how I could do this? I've been looking at the Process Monitor for the RAM and CPU Usage and they're pretty steady throughout the game (I check it on my second monitor.

Whenever I have catalyst control center up it doesn't look like it's being used at all (@ 0%) but the card is heating up to similar temps for Skyrim. I also have it overclocked to 900 and 1200 (I think for the GPU and GPU memory clock settings).

 

[Hayte]

blizzard made some changes that do effect your FPS also realize the longer you play, the more units are in the play, the more calculations your CPU does and at stock the Q6600 is only average at best in SC2.

http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/305/bench/CPU.png

That's lame. Is there any work around to get SC2 use whatever it was using before to make it perform better?

 

[13thmonkey]

Last time, have you run on an empty map for long enough that it would normally trigger the slowdown.

 

[Hayte]

Last time, have you run on an empty map for long enough that it would normally trigger the slowdown.

No, because I don't suspect that is the problem.

Dirty I overclocked it last night and the results were slightly better, thanks. I still find it pretty stupid that they change something to make my computer less efficient at playing the game without providing me any way of having the previous performance.

 

[Hayte]

13thmonkey, to expand on why I dont believe this is the problem... If I play a long game vs someone and it lags horrendously, but start a new game afterwards, the new game will go along the same timeline. Starts great, ends awful.

 

[13thmonkey]

Its your CPU, that test would have confirmed it. I'm not sure what problem you are referring to, but it would have shown that every other part of your system is more than happy until you hit high unit numbers, and if you never hit high unit numbers then you will always be quick.

Reading dirty's comment I believe that you are missing the point.
quote:
blizzard made some changes that do effect your FPS also realize the longer you play, the more units are in the play, the more calculations your CPU does and at stock the Q6600 is only average at best in SC2.
end quote
What he is saying is that the patch may have generally slowed it down at bit. But that also your cpu is middle of the cpu on a game that scales very well with cpu, because as the number of units increase the cpu calcs increase. Which was the point i'd already made.

He did not say that it was patched so that as the number of units increase so does the complexity and hence a slow down. That is not what he said.

 

[Hayte]

The reason that I can't blame it entirely on the CPU is because before I had absolutely no problem playing games that had many more units (3v3s, a possibility of 1200 units on the map) at max graphics and extended periods of time. Whatever that patch introduced, it has severely limited the capability of my computer, and its frustrating.

 

[Hayte]

Best answer selected by Hayte.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey