Higher GFX IMO

I'm not sure why all developers don't do this, but why don't Blizzard have higher settings for SC2?

Right now my PC can handle max/extreme everything at 1920x1080 and the game looks great, but why not have real "extreme" settings that are just plain ridiculous that modern cards/cpus can't handle.

I'm not sure how they could go about it, but perhaps have more detailed models, or higher resolution textures or more dynamic effects?

Blizzard go out of their way to make their games accessible to a wide range of lower-end PCs which is great, but they never really have true "extreme" or "insane" settings for graphics (especially with WoW.)

Does anyone know why they don't allow this?

I'm thinking they would have to keel haul the engine in order to do so.

Not to mention how pressured the servers would be just to sync a low-end PC's game with an uber PC's game (of your description)...

I assume that part of the explanation is just that Blizzard spends so long developing their games (according to Wikipedia, Blizzard began working on SC2 way back in 2003) that they are inevitably somewhat behind the curve graphics-wise by the time they hit the stores.

BUT, the results are great. We are too demanding as a community, esp the SC2 comm. We need to layoff and actually appreciate the beauty of the game as is, and TBH, this is the multiplayer aspect only so far. The SP campaign will be gorgeous and will r0x0r everyone's B0x0rz! ;)

The graphics looks great at Ultra right now so why go any higher? They also have to invest even more time and money into something they already have decent high settings graphics for. Games are made to be played for the gameplay not the visual beauty. If a game looks phenomenal but blows in the gameplay department it won't sell. If it's got semi-old graphics(sc2) but awesome gameplay then it will sell.

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Originally Posted by Maul

I'm not sure why all developers don't do this, but why don't Blizzard have higher settings for SC2?

Right now my PC can handle max/extreme everything at 1920x1080 and the game looks great, but why not have real "extreme" settings that are just plain ridiculous that modern cards/cpus can't handle.

I'm not sure how they could go about it, but perhaps have more detailed models, or higher resolution textures or more dynamic effects?

Blizzard go out of their way to make their games accessible to a wide range of lower-end PCs which is great, but they never really have true "extreme" or "insane" settings for graphics (especially with WoW.)

Does anyone know why they don't allow this?

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It's more complicated.. increasing size of textures would increase client size(for everyone).. which is not needed, creating more detailed models is just more work for artist department.. .Making effects more dynamic or even better physics need a lot of work for implementation AND optimizing. If you want support DX10 or even 11, they would have to rewrite shitloads lines of engine code or come with some weird work-arounds.. I think.. at this point.. there is no way they will do something from these options.. maybe some tweaks in effects, some cleaning in textures.. but game is almost complete graphic-wise..

Also..there is another thing.. when you put something like "extreme" settings which could be handled only by few % of computers, players may be dissatisfied that their rig can't handle max settings.. remember Crysis with their extreme settings? Whole community was divided to normal players group and to elitist group which was like "I CAN RUN THIS ON MAX SETTINGS YOU NOOOOOB LOLOLOLO".. Imo, its not good thing

When you keep max settings a bit lower in level that majority.. or at least many players can play game on max settings, most people will be happy..because you know... they can play their favorite game on max..

Of course.. it's good when they have something fresh and new graphic-wise for expansions.. (and when hardware will move forward again), but keep in mind.. putting something like extreme settings have some drawbacks and it can easily turn against you.. (against blizzard)

We can't expect to have astounding graphic zoomed in and in fps zoomed-out... We can't demand the level of graphic of a first person shooter.

ProtosWarrior is right, we are really demanding...

it would mean that all the optimizations they did over the 5 years of SC2 development on the engine have to be scraped, and brake the engine, so its unoptimized, buggy, broken and slow.

So yeah, great frame rates does not mean bad graphics.

I would love to have a 20gb game on my computer for graphics i won't even be able to run. And all these High graphic settings would take time to make, and obviously, they are also made at start, not as addons, or it looks crap.