Starcraft 2 Armory - Unofficial Starcraft 2 Fansite

What a fun contest this has been! We had a total of 17 entrants in our Win an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 Heart of the Swarm storyline contest! I would like to start off by thanking NVIDIA for providing the video card as a prize and secondly would like to thank all of you participants (and readers) for entering. We had a lot of fun reading all the storylines and possible scenarios for Starcraft 2; and for all you know, the SC2 dev team might of seen some of them! But lets get down to business shall we. It was really hard to pick a finalist, but it finally came down to the entry score (more on the point system below). The entry with the highest score and the winner for the grand prize is...

XFoXBoRX with his story Race against time for a total 30 points! Congratulations!

For a user whos secondary language is English, he did a superb job on his entry! With an extremely detailed outline for missions, objectives, campaign elements and a wonderfully logical and reasonable story to boot, this entry deserved the grand prize. It has also got some tasty dialogue and cinematics!

Point System
Each entry was judged with a point system in the categories below. The highest total of points an entry could earn is 35. We wanted the storyline and creativeness to be worth more, so the possible points in those categories are higher than the rest; the other categories simply acted like bonus points.

• Creativity - 10 points
  Was the story creative and original? Was it logically possible and not too random? Was it boring or intriguing?
• Storyline - 10 points
  How well does the storyline mesh with WoL and LotV? Was it logic and reasonable?
• Characters - 5 points
  Where the characters interesting, unique, etc. Did they add new chars, or re-work old ones?
• Campaign Elements - 5 points
  How well thought out were the mercenary, lab, research, etc replacements. Did they add their own mechanic?
• Mission Elements - 5 points
  Did they create missions and objectives? If so, how thorough were they designed.

Runner Ups
The following users made it to the finals (each staff member had a different top 5).

0JesPol0a, kerberos_39, Orloth, Cr4zyJeff, Aedus, MEDEVAS

Fun Facts
Some interesting things we noticed within each story.

• About 85% of entries used the SC1 special units as the SC2 mercenaries.
• More than 30% of entries killed Jim Raynor.
• More than 60% of entries included Duran.
• More than 50% of entries used the Leviathan or Hive as a campaign lobby.
• Cr4zyJeff brought back Tychus as an infested bad guy.
• MEDEVAS was the only entry to kill Matt Horner.
• Aedus was the only entry to earn bonus points for artwork.
• A few entries infested Valerian Mengsk.

I highly recommend everyone else read the stories... there was a ton of great writing and ideas!

It has come to our attention that a couple of you failed to follow the Nvidia contest instructions thoroughly -- merely creating a thread in the forum is not submitting it. We are giving all entrants who did not submit their story another 24 hours. To submit your story into the contest, follow the instructions on the contest page.

If you fail to submit your story again after the 31st, your entry is disqualified. We are being lenient this time around and hopefully it doesn't happen again with our next contest!

Blizzard mentions some balance changes that will be in patch 1.1, which will come out in the middle of September. Some of them help zerg's early game.

Balance Changes
We have several balance changes in store. One general change we're making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let's break down the additional balance changes we're implementing.

Maps
We're going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.

Protoss
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby "proxy" gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.

Terran
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.

Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we're changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.

Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We're aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.

Zerg
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.

And Beyond...
We are reading your posts on the forums and creating lists of features and bugs to address in future patches. We have mid- to long-term plans to further evolve the Custom Game experience, and soon, enhance our social features with the addition of chat channels. We will be sharing more specific information in the coming weeks. As with all of our previous games, we will support StarCraft II for many years to come. Your feedback and participation is critical in making this not only the best game it can be, but also the most engaged gaming community in the world. We look forward to the implementation of patch 1.1, as well as sharing our plans for our future gameplay and Battle.net features.

We'll see you online!

Source: Battle.net

This is the last call for our wonderful contest "Win an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460". All entrants will have until tomorrow, Wed 25th at 12:00am PDT (midnight) to submit their final story. All submissions must be entered within the contests forum and must have [Nvidia] within the title. Once your submission is ready, be sure to submit the story within the contest page (it is located at the bottom). If your submission was not submitted into the contest it will be disqualified.

Good luck to everyone and we look forward to reading your submissions!

With the recent announcement of our contest, "Win an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460", it only makes sense to write up a review on this specific video card. I myself am currently using the GTX video card in my machine (however, using the 1GB instead of the 756MB). This review will be written from the perspective of using it for SC2. I will be using examples against my current computer setup and my previous, as well as comparing it with Team Fortress 2 along side Starcraft 2. Before I get into the review, lets preface with some specifications:

Current Setup
OS: Windows 7 32-bit
Mobo: EVGA P55 SLI
CPU: Intel i7 870 quad-core 2.93 GHz
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3 2200MHz
HDD: 300 GB
Power: 650 watt
Video: GeForce GTX 460

Previous Setup
OS: Windows 7 32-bit
Mobo: ASUS M2N AM2
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core 2.6 GHz
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR2 800MHz
HDD: 300 GB (same HDD between both setups)
Power: 350 watt
Video: GeForce 9500 GT

In regards to gaming, it's a good idea to monitor the FPS (frames per second). Below are the averages I received from both my setups for both of these games. To view your FPS in Starcraft 2 just press ctrl + alt + f, and in Team Fortress 2 you need to open up your console (~) and type in net_graph 3. Also note that some FPS is restricted by your monitors refresh rate.

Current FPS
Starcraft 2 (Ultra)
Average: 65
In action: 45 (lowest 25 in a 4v4)

Team Fortress 2
Average: 150
In action: 100

Previous FPS
Starcraft 2 (Medium)
Average: 45
In action: 25 (lowest 10)

Team Fortress 2
Average: 85
In action: 50

At a quick glance my current setup runs with about 40% more FPS. In comparison to my old computer setup, the major two differences are my CPU and my video card (you could also mention the DDR3 vs DDR2 memory). However, Starcraft 2 only utilizes 2 cores of the CPU which renders the additional 2 cores of my i7 unused. The differences between the two CPUs listed (besides the amount of cores), is the caching and frequency. Both the CPU frequencies are within a 0.3 GHz range, so I will disregard the speed of these CPUs as a major benefit to my review. In regards to caching, the i7 supports a L3 8MB cache while the AMD supports a L1 256KB and a L2 1MB. Now that is a huge difference, but how beneficial is the CPU to the game compared to the graphics card? It really depends on how much of the CPU is used within the game; you can usually find this information by researching a specific game. For reference, Starcraft 2 uses the CPU mainly for physics rendering and special effects, where as the rest is rendered with the GPU (video card).

So what does that leave us? The video card. The GTX is basically double, and sometimes triple the specifications of the 9500 GT. It has a higher memory/graphics/processor clock, memory config, interface width, bandwidth and texture fill rate, just to list out a few. To say the GTX isn't a beast is a lie, this thing destroys any video card I have ever used. I have successfully been able to play all my games on the highest settings, with full 3D and OpenGL capabilities, anti-aliasing, and all the while enabling all physics and real-time rendering.

AA (anti-aliasing) and AF (anisotropic filtering)
I took the liberty of taking some in-game screenshots to compare these settings. I began by turning both AA and AF completely off. You will notice the jaggedness of certain areas (the TV, units and characters for example) and the blurriness of some specific textures.

In Campaign #1
In Campaign #2
In Game #1
In Game #2



In the next test I re-enabled both AA and AF. I set my AA setting to 4x (I tried 8x, 16x and 32x but could not see any differences) and my AF setting to 8x (again, I tried 16x but could not see a difference). Here are the results:

In Campaign #1
In Campaign #2
In Game #1
In Game #2



Now you may be thinking to yourself "I really don't see much of a difference", and you're right, I thought the same exact thing. I tried multiple types of AA/AF settings but it seems most of them did not make much of a noticeable difference (visually). Regardless, I could see some slight differences between completely disabled and enabled, but at that point, who cares? But the big question is, how much did it affect your FPS? Noticeably. When I was running with AA at 8x and higher, I would notice a loss of about 10-15 FPS and a small delay between my clicks and commands. It's best to set your video card into balanced mode to allow it to choose the best option for you. Or you can take it to the extreme and turn AA/AF completely off so that it does not effect your competitive experience.

Would I recommend this card?
Hells yes! This card is beautiful. It runs smoothly, it's quiet, it's at a constant temperature (be sure you have good fans and circulation!) and it has to be one of the best priced cards for its abilities within its category. One caveat though, is that it is really big, I mean big. It takes up a lot of room within your desktop case so be sure you have a full ATX tower case with enough room around the video card slot.

Furthermore, I would recommend getting at minimum a dual-core CPU (since SC2 only utilizes 2 cores); a perfect choice would be the Intel Core i5 (which is reasonably priced for its power). Alongside the CPU you will need a motherboard that supports the specific CPU socket as well as the video card. I have no suggestions besides the board I am currently using (for my i7 however), the EVGA P55 SLI. As for memory, a minimum of 4GB would be a good choice (32-bit only uses 3/3.25 GB).

Related Reviews
Now my review isn't as thorough and detailed as I would like it to be, but don't worry, the internet has you covered. The following links are more articles related to Starcraft 2 performance and benchmarking.

- PCGamesHardware - SC2 CPU Benchmarks
- TomsHardware - SC2 Benchmarks
- LegionHardware - SC2 Beta Performance
- SC2Blog - GeForce GTX 460 Benchmarks
- VileGaming - GeForce GTX Review

Feel free to ask me any questions and I will answer them the best I can!

(P.S. I would of made some awesome benchmark and graph artwork, but I currently do not have Photoshop or any image editing applications, sorry!)