Starcraft 2 slow on GTX 460?

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Wed May 25, 2011 9:05 pm

CPU: AMD 9850 Black (no OC)
RAM: 4GB DDR2 (800)
GPU: MSI GTX 460 Hawk (Factory OC)

With everything maxed out I'm getting 10-11 FPS while on Windows XP I'm getting 30-35+. Is there a way to speed up SCII?

Note: I have GLSL disabled.

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Wed May 25, 2011 9:06 pm

On top of the RAM I have 3.3GB swap space.

Post by **DanKegel** » Wed May 25, 2011 9:39 pm

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... &iId=20882
has a number of suggestions.

mrhurricane · Post by **mrhurricane** » Thu May 26, 2011 12:10 am

DanKegel wrote:http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... &iId=20882
has a number of suggestions.

Thanks for the link.

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Thu May 26, 2011 10:45 am

Tried all of those there and they didn't help. I'm still getting like 10-11.

What I tried:
Turning CPU to max, Turning CPU "affinity" to 1, 2, 4, and 7.

Adding OffScreenRender to pbuffer (the rest that was suggest was already the same).

I am already using the very latest nvidia drivers and version of wine (-20).

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Thu May 26, 2011 10:58 am

There must be something seriously wrong with wine or something because even when I turn EVERYTHING to low (texture and graphics mode) I'm only getting 20FPS (both are at the campaign menu). This is utterly insane.

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Thu May 26, 2011 11:09 am

My bad, what I said about low is incorrect I had 3 SC processes going because it didn't close properly. After closing them I am getting 45 which is still really horrible for a GTX 460. If anyone can suggest something more to me it'd be helpful. I don't really want to boot into Windows XP to play Starcraft 2.

Post by **DanKegel** » Thu May 26, 2011 11:25 am

See also
http://wiki.winehq.org/Performance

Wine has not yet been optimized for performance, so
a lower framerate is expected for many games.

tparker · Post by **tparker** » Thu May 26, 2011 11:35 am

On 05/26/2011 12:09 PM, LinuxUser wrote:

My bad, what I said about low is incorrect I had 3 SC processes going because it didn't close properly.

Just sharing info - keep an eye out for this, it has been happening to
me regularly playing WoW this last week. When I close the game it looks
(visually) like it has closed, but if I check running processes on the
computer the game launcher and wine server are still running. Just
mentioning it since they are both Blizzard games so there is a chance
you could run into the same issue.

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Fri May 27, 2011 1:11 pm

DanKegel wrote:See also
http://wiki.winehq.org/Performance

Wine has not yet been optimized for performance, so
a lower framerate is expected for many games.

So in other words, I'm screwed?

John Drescher · Post by **John Drescher** » Fri May 27, 2011 1:16 pm

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 2:11 PM, LinuxUser <[email protected]> wrote:

DanKegel wrote:
See also
http://wiki.winehq.org/Performance

Wine has not yet been optimized for performance, so
a lower framerate is expected for many games.
So in other words, I'm screwed?

I believe without upgrading your CPU you are not going to get good
performance in SC2 in wine.

John

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Fri May 27, 2011 1:43 pm

Isn't GPU far more important then CPU for gaming?

Thunderbird · Post by **Thunderbird** » Sat May 28, 2011 12:17 am

In general you need both an adequate CPU and GPU. Depending on the game engine, either one of the two is more important. Typically either the game is CPU limited or GPU limited. If it is mostly CPU limited, it barely matters what resolution you use (you will notice a roughly constant framerate).

StarCraft II for instance is quite CPU intensive due to its AI (it may have to render hundreds of units). Shooters and other games tend to depend more on a fast GPU. Frequently in case of Wine we see that display drivers can also be holding back games a lot (a lot of time tends to be spent inside drivers) holding back the GPU.

LinuxUser · Post by **LinuxUser** » Sat May 28, 2011 6:07 pm

Thunderbird wrote:In general you need both an adequate CPU and GPU. Depending on the game engine, either one of the two is more important. Typically either the game is CPU limited or GPU limited. If it is mostly CPU limited, it barely matters what resolution you use (you will notice a roughly constant framerate).

StarCraft II for instance is quite CPU intensive due to its AI (it may have to render hundreds of units). Shooters and other games tend to depend more on a fast GPU. Frequently in case of Wine we see that display drivers can also be holding back games a lot (a lot of time tends to be spent inside drivers) holding back the GPU.

Like I said above, in windows I'm getting 35-45+ in the menu and in WINE I'm getting 10-11 in the same menu. I'm getting like 30-35+ on the first mission in SCII campaign and I'm getting >10 in WINE. It's clear this is a WINE issue not my hardware.

jjmckenzie · Post by **jjmckenzie** » Sat May 28, 2011 7:04 pm

On 5/28/11, LinuxUser <[email protected]> wrote:

Thunderbird wrote:
In general you need both an adequate CPU and GPU. Depending on the game
engine, either one of the two is more important. Typically either the game
is CPU limited or GPU limited. If it is mostly CPU limited, it barely
matters what resolution you use (you will notice a roughly constant
framerate).

StarCraft II for instance is quite CPU intensive due to its AI (it may
have to render hundreds of units). Shooters and other games tend to depend
more on a fast GPU. Frequently in case of Wine we see that display drivers
can also be holding back games a lot (a lot of time tends to be spent
inside drivers) holding back the GPU.
Like I said above, in windows I'm getting 35-45+ in the menu and in WINE I'm
getting 10-11 in the same menu. I'm getting like 30-35+ on the first mission
in SCII campaign and I'm getting >10 in WINE. It's clear this is a WINE
issue not my hardware.

It COULD be your hardware. The difference between Windows and Linux
drivers and their completeness can explain a lot. Also Windows uses
DirectX, Linux, for many reasons, does and cannot. Thus, there are
many conversions between DirectX and OpenGL. This can and does cause
a difference. Some programs that were written with OpenGL code in
them actually run BETTER in Wine than in Windows because Windows has
to do OpenGL -> DirectX conversions.

Also, having the latest/greatest hardware helps. Video card vendors
CANNOT support old video cards. It is not financially viable to have
a team of developers working on hardware that no longer occupies a
space on the sale shelf, no matter what WE want. One of my Mac
systems made in 2008 with an AMD/ATI X1600 video card is not supported
by their Catalyst drivers. That system WAS state of the art when it
was build and released. Am I going to get rid of it, no. I have to
be aware of the limitations of the card and work within them. That is
why there are FOSS drivers and proprietary drivers for just about all
video cards, excepting those just recently released where the 'blob'
information is not available.

One thing I have noticed is that video has improved greatly with Wine
in the last three years. When I started using it, Wine barely
supported some 2D games. Now it supports the latest games and
productivity software. It now supports .NET 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 from
Microsoft and much has been done to add in Mono.

Lastly, even in Windows, the faster your CPU and the more powerful
your GPU, the better the game play. And for now, some games will be
hard to play, except at the lowest settings until much is done to
streamline and improve Wine's video code. The more coordinated hands
on this part, the faster it will go.

James McKenzie

DL · Post by DL » Sat May 28, 2011 10:47 pm

LinuxUser wrote: Like I said above, in windows I'm getting 35-45+ in the menu and in WINE I'm getting 10-11 in the same menu. I'm getting like 30-35+ on the first mission in SCII campaign and I'm getting >10 in WINE. It's clear this is a WINE issue not my hardware.

It's a wine issue, but you can workaround it by throwing better hardware at it. You can either buy a i2500k system and (preferably) overclock it. Or wait until AMD's Bulldozer comes out and see if it's better than Intel's current offerings.

Otherwise, you'll just have to deal. Hopefully wine will get more optimised over time but it's a slow process.