Requirements for StarCraft II

StarCraft is one of the most successful computer games in history, and Blizzard is now seeking to expand the franchise with the sequel StarCraft II. StarCraft II continues the story from the original StarCraft game as well as the expansion pack Brood Wars, and will be released as three separate games because of its massive scale. There is no current release date, but faithful fans hope that it will be released in early 2010.

History

StarCraft II is the sequel to one of most highly regarded real-time strategy (RTS) computer games ever released. The original game was released in 1998, and fans have been clamoring for a sequel ever since. The original game has sold over 11 million copies worldwide according to blizzard.com, the developer behind the game.

Operating System

StarCraft II will be released simultaneously for Mac and PC. The game will run natively on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X Leopard, and Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Graphics

StarCraft II features a brand-new graphics engine built from the ground up. It will be compatible with DirectX 10, which is Microsoft's bundle of video drivers and applications, as well as the Mac equivalents. Blizzard has stated that the engine will be scalable, so that it will work across a wide variety of systems. Based on current RTS games, a requirement of a 128 MB RAM video card capable of Hardware TnL is expected.

CPU

The minimum requirements for the processor speed are currently expected to be, at a minimum, 1.4 GHz. This is the bench line for most current processors, and should not pose a problem for most systems.

Memory

512 megabytes of RAM (Random Access Memory) is the industry standard for computer games, and it is the same for StarCraft II. The more RAM a computer has, the faster applications such as StarCraft II will run.

Connection

Multi-player capability is a huge part of the StarCraft experience, over Blizzard's online gaming service Battle.net. Battle.net requires an Internet connection with speeds in excess of 28.8 Kbps in order to allow games to be hosted. Games played over a LAN (Local Area Network) require only a TCP/IP connection.