Starcraft 2 System Requirements

[Freelancer]

MAJOR UPDATE:
(look at bottom of news item)

The Spanish magazine Micromania has had the privilege to visit the Blizzard offices and apart from a preview also managed to digg up the current (*unofficial until verified by Blizzard) system requirements for the game:

Minumum Requirements
GFX: GeForce 7/8 Series or Radeon 1000/2000 with 256 MB RAM
CPU: Pentium 4
RAM: 1 GB
Internet: ADSL 1 Mbit

Recommended Requirements
GFX: GeForce 8000 or Radeon 2000 series with 512 MB RAM
CPU: Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2.
RAM: 2 GB
Internet: ADSL 3 Mbit

Optimal Requirements
GFX: Geforce 9000er or Radeon 3000er Series
CPU: Core 2 Duo 3 GHz or Athlon X2
RAM: 2GB with DualChannel mode

These specifications not as light as one might expect from Blizzard but do remember that this is just for the Alpha. Are these to high or a Blizzard product or are they up to par with other games?


* Xordiah contacted us to clarify that the ONLY thing Blizzard given out or shown ANYONE is that the game will require pixel shader 2.0.


MAJOR UPDATE:
While the above System Requirements have been confirmed by Blizzard to be fake/made up, there are specs that are CONFIRMED through a tech sheet made by AMD/Blizzard. The known information is available at StarcraftWire.net with probable minimum, recommended, and "sure" StarCraft 2 system requirements.

Go check it out!

[Leord]

1 Mbit for bloody playing it?

That sounds crazy!

The other numbers seem alright...

[Troglodyte]

I agree, the Internet requirements sound a bit rich.

From memory Hellgate required a 512kpbs connection, which I would have estimated Starcraft II to require as well.

[Freelancer]

Originally Posted by Troglodyte

I agree, the Internet requirements sound a bit rich.

From memory Hellgate required a 512kpbs connection, which I would have estimated Starcraft II to require as well.

An RTS requires quite alot more bandwith then most RPGs such as Hellgate. Its not unlikely that the 1Mbit part is actually true although it probably still works perfectly well with the smaller game types such as 2v2 and 3v3.

[Weird Food & Devastation]

Well on the up side, going by past experience, it takes blizzard so long to perfect a game we’ll probably be sitting at new computers by the time SC2 is release. But either way, internet aside, I'm good for recommended and the inner dork smiles.

[Leord]

Just gonan mention that even though GameInformer claims the specs are fake (which they, in all honesty, probably are), that doesn't mean a thing. Blizzard claimed they were interested in the starCraft universe, but were not going to announce anything just now 5 days before WWI 2007....

There are ups and downs about being the industry's best company at keeping secrets. People don't really believe them when they say "no that's not it".

[Troglodyte]

Originally Posted by Freelancer

An RTS requires quite alot more bandwith then most RPGs such as Hellgate. Its not unlikely that the 1Mbit part is actually true although it probably still works perfectly well with the smaller game types such as 2v2 and 3v3.

True, but I would also put Hellgate half and half into the FPS category (I played a Marksman quite heavily).

The developers have said that they "aim to have a vast majority of PC owners to be able to run StarCraft II", so I think these requirements are being quite generous. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Kalos]

The one gig of ram and the Pentium 4 CPU seem alright to me, but the 1 meg internet connection and the graphics cards are all wrong, out of whack with what Blizzard usually does. I expect to see Geforce 7/8 series cards flying through this, and Geforce FX/6 series to be doing acceptably. Having the 6 series below minimum spec is unbelieable, thus I'd say these are faked as well. I expect to see antiques like the Geforce 4 Ti classes still being able to run this game albiet poorly, and some onboard chipsets. I know many people who are still clunking around on the FX 5500/5700 cards, or worse, and Blizzard would have a harder time reaching thier famed mass markets to exclude so many people. Considering these old things mostly have Pixel Shader 2, that shouldn't run them out at least, so I'm wondering if these are supposed to be accurate, what would.

As for the one meg thind, well there goes most of the UK's rural areas for being able to play the game online

[Freelancer]

I am pretty sure they will be higher then the ones for World of Warcraft. These are:

PC System Requirements
OS: Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4) or Windows XP (Service Pack 2)
Processor: Intel Pentium3 800MHz or AMD Athlon 800MHz
Memory:
Minimum: 512 MB RAM
Recommended: 1GB RAM
Video:

Minimum: 32MB 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as an NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or above

Recommended: 64MB VRAM 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability, such as an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 class card or above
Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card

All Platforms
Controls: A keyboard and mouse are required. Input devices other than a mouse and keyboard are not supported.
Connectivity: You must have an active broadband Internet connection to play.
Mouse: Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended.

Judgeing by these requirements its likely they final minimum reqs will be quite a bit lower then stated. However: These might also the the system requirements for someone playing the game on Windows Vista.

Another option would be to look at more recent competition Command and Conquer 3:

The following are the official minimum system requirements for C&C 3: Tiberium Wars.

OS:

Windows XP, or
Windows Vista (32-bit; 64-bit versions of Vista are not supported)
CPU:

2.0GHz or higher, or AMD equivalent
RAM:

512 MB or more
Disk Drive:

8x or faster DVD drive for retail SKUs
Not required for digitally downloaded version
Hard Drive:

8.0 GB or more of free space
Video:

GeForce4, ATI Radeon 8500 or greater
Note: ATI Radeon 9200 and 9250 PCI, NVIDIA Geforce 4 MX cards are not supported.
Sound:

DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Network, Internet Multiplayer:

2 players (no voice support):
56 Kbps Internet connection
2-8 players (with voice transmission):
Broadband-class connection

To be perfectly honest: you can play WoW on a dailup but it aint pretty. Same goes for the Geforce 2 listed for World of Warcraft: its unplayable.

Looking at the requirements for C&C we see that multiplayer does require broadband (unspecified) and probably a faster pc with more ram.

All in All I think they might lower a bit but not all that much.

[Leord]

Sounds about right =)