Probably the most anticipated PC game launch of the year, Starcraft II has been welcomed by gamers worldwide and received tons of favorable reviews from all over the world. However, despite being an almost flawless game, Starcraft II is, for some a real pain in the arse, with constant crashes, freezes and other issues like low framerate. In this article, we’ll try to find solutions for your problems and help you get the most of your game experience. So if you’re trying to find out how to fix Starcraft II Crashes, Freezes or Low Framerate issues, you’re probably at the right place!

First of all, before trying any of the suggestions below, you’ll have to make sure that your computer meets the minimum Starcraft II system requirements and also that all your drivers are updated. If you meet these requirements and you still have problems, here are some possible solutions to fix Starcraft II crashes and freezes:

1. If you have a multi-core processor, after you start the game, press ctrl+alt+delete and go to SC2 process. Right click on it, go down to Set affinity and uncheck some of the cores – that fixed the problem of some users and made the game run faster than before

2. One battle.net forum user followed the steps quoted below and that fixed his Starcraft II crashes:

– Update everything. Windows stuff, drivers, game patches… everything.
– Registry clean-up. You can try Piriform’s CCleaner (which is free)
Resolution match-up. Make sure the game resolution matches your native resolution.
– Windows Vista/7: Run as Admin. After all the work with defrag and clean up and downloads, Run as Administrator made the game actually work. It didn’t the first time around, but after I finished the aforementioned steps, it worked.
– Also, it helps to have all background programs turned off. No matter how small it may be, unless it’s critical to the function/security of your machine, turn it off.

3. Another battle.net forum user suggests tweaking the Nvidia cards: Go into your Nvidia Control Panel by simply right clicking on your desktop and selecting nvidia control panel. When you’re in make sure you are in advanced settings view. Here are the changes to make:

– set PhysX configuration to disabled
– under manage 3D settings here are the settings:
Ambient Occlusion on
Anisotropic Filtering Application-controlled
antialiasing – gamma correction off
antialiasing – mode application-controlled
Antialiasing – setting application-controlled (grayed out)
antialiasing – transparency off
conformant texture clamp use openGL specification
Error reporting Off
Extension limit off
Force mipmaps none
maximum prerendered frames 8
multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration single display performance mode
texture filtering- anisotropic sample optimization on
texture filtering – negative lod bias allow
texture filtering – quality Performance
texture filtering – trilinear optimization on
threded optimization Auto
Triple buffering Off
Vertical sync Use the 3d application setting

4. According to Starcraft II customer support Martyt, some crashes and black screens can be caused by software installed on the computer: “There have been multiple reports of black screen issues being related to the use of a Quick Cam webcam. In some cases exiting out of the software has resolved the issue but others have reported a need to uninstall the software for the camera in order to resolve the problem. There are also reports where some security programs like Comodo firewall can cause the game to start and stay on a black screen.”

5. You can also try lowering the game’s settings to the minimum and see how the game moves from now on. Also, disabling SLI and crossfire might help, as well as lowering your shaders until you have a better framerate and the game no longer crashes or freezes.

Did any of the possible solutions listed above helped you fix your Starcraft 2 problems? Or maybe you have some extra advice for our players to help them fix their game? Please comment below!

10 COMMENTS

  1. I finally found my problem and maybe yours….
    LIMIT FPS if you’re using quad core (multi cpu) I tried everything over and over. Even making a batch file to set the affinity to only 2 or 1 processor(s), but it didnt fix it. These are my settings..

    Go the the actual executable file “starcraft ii.exe” NOT A SHORTCUT on your desktop (or where ever you have it). C:\program files (x86)\starcraft ii\starcraft ii.exe
    Right click on it go to PROPERTIES.
    Click on COMPATIBILITY tab.
    then “run this program in compatibility mode for” Check box and then choose Windows XP (service pack 3) and then click OK.

    Then go to documents\starcraft ii\variables.txt

    open it in notepad

    copy and paist

    frameratecap=60
    frameratecapGlue=30

    exit and click SAVE.. i haven’t froze up one time since this played 10 games online. I have all cores running and no problems at 1900×1200 everything on ULTRA settings. :D

    Windows 7 Ult 64bit
    i7 920 ~3.93 GHz
    6 GB RAM
    ATI HD 5870 1GB

  2. hey i made the changes on my laptop. got a toshiba a660 i5 intel wit 2.4 ghz n 512mb nvidia 310m graphics. i saw better performance but some how now it says suggested graphics at low. before i made any changes it was suggested i should keep it medium. did you have the same problem?

  3. Starcraft 2 is such a pain, iv had every single conceivable problem with it. And now it start crashing on me 5 minutes in. The pain to awesomeness levels are rather steep I must say, but i found a solution to all my other problems with it and I shall find one here, the list here didn’t help though.

  4. AMD Phenom II x2 555 be unlocked in quad core @ 3.8 Ghz
    Powercolor hd 6850 1 gb 820 Mhz
    Windows 7 32 bit version 6.1.7600.16385 non fully updated

    I had 30 fps, if not lower, with game settings on ultra and 1360×768 native resolution. I only had to check run in administrator mode on starcraft2.exe properties to reach a constant 60 fps during menus and cinematics (sometimes its 40 max, i dont know why), when playing its a little bit slower but i think my config isnt powerfull enough.

    But i still have 5-15 fps and major graphic glitches on some cinematics and 3d campain menus when i activate x8 anti alaising via cataclyst but it works quite fine in game.

    The major problem im still having is that it slows down a lot for half a second when the game has to load online content in the main menu, 3d objets during cinematics and gaming. I think that the biggest problem of that game is that its exe is way too heavy and has to read much of the game data in a single 8gb file.

  5. YOU ARE A LEGEND I BOW DOWN TO YOU THANK YOU VERY MUCH IT HAS WORK, I WAS PATIENT =] WHEN IT SAID INITIALISNG MAPS =]=]=] I GOT PARANOID IT STOP…. CHECKED TASK MANAGER IT SAID NOT RESPONDING =[. pushed myself to be more patient, to my suprise IT WORKS INTO LOGIN SCREEEEN now to see if it plays

  6. I recently bought the new 560 ti graphics card and got so many mid game freeze ups…but my friend with same card no problems.So i finally read about setting the game exe. affinity to one core for the game and to my surprise IT WORKED!!!!!!!! Guess the old processor and 5 generations newer video card got some problems working together idk. Wish i read about this earlier would have saved me weeks of frustration and i wouldn’t have reinstalled windows.

  7. My computer is an iMac and when I try to open the application, the icon appears in the dock, the login screen flashes in and out once and the application closes with no error message. Can anyone tell me what is going on?

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