By: Loren
Specific features regarding the system requirements will be made available closer to the games release date. In the meantime, here are the details that are known:
- As with previous game releases by Blizzard, Starcraft 2 will be fully compatable with both PC and Mac computers and the game will be released simultaneously for both of these platforms.
- Starcraft 2 will be fully compatable with both Windows Vista and XP versions.
- There are currently no plans to release Starcraft 2 on console systems such as PS3, XBOX 360 or the Nintendo Wii.
- StarCraft 2 will support the DirectX 9 (Pixel Shader 2.0) software and will be fully compatible with DirectX 10 as well, although the development team has not yet decided whether to add exclusive DirectX 10 graphic effects. The Mac client will instead use OpenGL.
The new Havok pysics engine allows for stunning visual effects such as smoke, explosions with realistic falling debris, and rag-doll physics. For example, when killing an aerial unit the debris will fall to earth and if it falls on an inclined surface such as a ramp it will slide down the ramp.