Diablo 3 and M14x...

I've seen this question QUITE A BIT on this forum... Will my M14x run D3 on med/max/ultra... Heck will it be able to run it all?

The easy response to that question... is YES! (obviously how well... depends on the specs of ur alienware product) Most Blizz games aren't really that Video/CPU demanding anyway.

But while I was browsing today... I stumbled upon this IGN Video... About what? You guessed it... D3! It mainly talks about how difficult Inferno mode will be... and what not... But while all that info is good and all... I couldn't help but notice... Something behind the Director's seat... !

Blizzard's Top Tips for Inferno Mode - Diablo 3 (PC) - IGN Video

Maybe seeing this will put an end to this worried frenzy... a lot of M14x owners have about their machine and D3...

2 more days mate!


**Edit***

Added a screenshot for those who don't really want to watch the whole vid...

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa252/VV1LLC/screen.png

 

Pre ordered it, cant wait.

 

Haha nice spot! ...i bet that's an m17x though?

I pre-ordered D3 (just the normal version - but this still looks awesome with a fold out cover and full colour instructions etc) and it turned up in the post two days ago. Sadly though I can't install it until tomorrow as it won't let you do it early (comes up with some weird error about the fire in the sky?) ...doh! ..plus I'm away on holiday for a week from tomorrow afternoon so I'll have to wait again to play it now anyway! lol

 

Are you sure it's an error??? My Version says exactly the same thing when I'm about to install

"The fire from the sky still falls, Diablo has not launched yet"

I just thought... well... I hasn't launched Lol...

 

Yeah I guess that's the case. I was just hoping i might have at least been able to install it before launch even if i can't play it straight away.

I never got to play the beta but from youtube vids this game looks lush!

 

It's not an error as such just Blizzards way of saying you gotta wait till launch to play

 

I have no doubt that D3 will play on the M14X maxed out (low shadows).

I wasn't going to get the game, but my good friend wants to play and is heading to the midnight release.

Will report back with a performance report.

 

very excited for this game. I had my repaste done so my play would not be interrupted. I played the beta maxed with low shadows and I was getting 40+fps throughout the game. The environments are dark anyways so shadows aren't that noticeable. Even if you go low settings you won't be missing much either.

 

I don't wanna say that I bought my R2 just for D3... But let's just say it sure influenced my decision A LOT... hahahahaha

So hopefully I won't be dissapointed...

 

That is exactly what I bought my R2 for!

 

even the beta ran on my rig on max settings (high shadows) and thats the beta, just make sure you have the 296.10 drivers.

So i hope the Retail will even run smoother will be getting D3 in a couple of Hours so excited about it

 

I do reviews of games on the m14x all the time. Here's a link to a vid I made of D3 on my m14x. I have both an i5 and i7 m14x and it plays great on both.

Diablo III on the Alienware m14x - Beta - YouTube

 

Bit of a noob question as far as the forums go - what is the optimal way to install the latest NVIDIA drivers? is it remove the current ones - reboot and install the new ones fresh? or boot into safe mode ?

want to make sure its done right

 

I was running it on max with shadows off perfectly fine, although never got to test our intense it would be with multiple people casting really big visual aoe spells at once.

 

I must be the only one ever! but i never understood the craze for diablo 3? what is so amazing that making EVERYONE play it? if i can find out chances are ill get it?!? but at the moment i have no idea whats so ever?

 

Download and install it over the old one.

@Sethers
Diablo 2 was a huge success 10+ years ago, so people assume D3 will be the same.

Personally, I'm more excited about the Civilizatoin V expansion pack with spies/religion over anything else this year

 

i played diablo 2 so long its a fantastic game and blizzard only makes fantastic games so thats the reason d3 will be also an amazing game

 

Bit of a newb question myself...

I attempted to see if my 650m had any new drivers... (automatically through Windows) But as of now... Everything says it's up to date... Have they released anything new?

I wan't to be ready for tonight!

PS: Anyone having problems with their avatar? All the images I tried Uploading are invalid... even if they meet the requirements...


***UPDATE****
If you bought the digital copy (pre-order) you can already install the game! Installing mine as we speak!

 

@720p and ultra settings on the R1 during beta I was hitting over 90fps easy. Don't know why everyone is worried. It will play fine.

 

I just ordered D2 Battlechest from Amazon.com, third time i've purchased this game.

 

Hahah! They should make special t-shirts for people like us.

 

Im not worried... more like Psyched!

Oh yeah... Guys... If you run into installing problems... Like error 108 or .part files

1)Run the D/L client again...
2)Select the folder where your D3 files are... Even though it says its finished... It really hasn't.
3)Let it sit idle... If you wish to verify... Keep refreshing the folder and you will notice the .part files are still being modified.

You will know when the game has finished D/L b/c it will automatically prompt you for Installation...

I ran into a few hiccups during my installation... So I just thought I'd share those simple fixes... If there's anything else I can help ya with... Please let me know!

Hope this Helps!

**UPDATE**
After installing... Game automatically configured visuals to... High Quality except for Shadows (those were on Medium settings default)

 

That's so awesome.
I'll stop at Wallmart tomorrow and pick it up.

Welcome back Old Friend!

 

Servers go live tonight at 12:01 e/t...

I'll be sure to post a full review on how the M14x R2 handles this bad boy! But from the looks, there won't be any problems!


" Stay a while and listen! " -D. Cain Lol

 

Really? I heard they go up at 3EST (12Pacific)

Edit: Confirmed, it's 3:01 EST according to MMO-Champion. Have to wait for the damn people on the West coast

I don't have anything to do tomorrow, so I'm going to stay up until 5-6AM ..maybe later if it's keeping me entertained, but as of right now, I'm exhausted from my 5-6KM jog.

 

Awww 3:01.... T_T! Bah!

***UPDATE***

Playing on Everything Maxed... (Yes Shadows 2 ) Smooth Sailings so far... temps don't spike with D3 at all...

I did notice an occasional Skip... But I'm almost 98% sure it has to do with the constant Internet connection and not the overall PC Performance...

 

There's an issue with Diablo 3 affecting alot of people -

Whenever you alt/tab and return to the game, your FPS/performance drops down significantly (around 50%) and your character moves in slow motion.

If you're one of those people, don't alt/tab if you can prevent it. You have to reboot the game to fix this.

It's incredibly annoying because I hate ignoring my MSN messages

---

As for the performance, the R1 is handling it with everything maxed at native resolution with 0 lag/freezes/slows.

Currently half way in Act 2 as a Monk (tank set-up).

 

If you save(quit like in D2?) the game after the Alt/Tab and load that save later, does it still lag?

 

There's no save option in D3. It's 100% online and everything is automatically saved server side.

Some people will require a complete game reboot no matter what if they alt/tab (not everyone, though!).

 

hmm
My r1 seems to lag in fights with many monsters at native res, had to lower it all the way down to 1200 or something in that range.

Any ideas?

 

R1 gets (without oc) 75-100 fps at all times. No issues except for the server mess like everyone else. Runs like butter.

 

The lag is caused by what I described.

I have it maxed at native res with 0 issues and a generous amount of FPS.

Alt/tabing is the major cause of this. If you are in-fact alt/tabing, you'll have to reboot the game completely.

Also, make sure your nVidia drivers are up to date.

R1/2 has absolutely 0 issues - it's the game causing this to some people.

 

BLIZZARD - we make games people want to play,,,, but can't.

Servers are down yet again.

 

anyone care to share guest pass codes? i'm not getting my game till tomorrow.. It would be sweet if i could i could just give it a try on my m14 before i get my code. i'll be waiting for it on my inbox. thanks!

 

I have a laptop with a gf116 555m, what settings net you 75-100 fps? will disabling the ingame fps limiters do that? I seem to get 40fps but then drops down to 20 in fights

 

yeah i don' remember hitting 100 fps either. And you OC pretty heavily too. try turning shadows off completely and res to 720p instead of 900p. And lend me guest pass so i can try myself.

 

Decrease/Disable shadows & Unclick AA... They take up GPU memory unnecessarily since the game its pretty dark and foggy anyway.

**UPDATE**

When I logged in today, the game was extremely slow! Really weird b/c Ive been playing on max settings for 2 days now w/o any problems at all...
Just to be clear, I did not hit ALT + TAB or do anything different... Just logged on...

How did I fix it? Well, what I did was, I unplugged my A/C adapter... That was all...Surprisingly that fixed the problem... I plugged it right back after a few seconds and kept playing normally. Also I tested the alleged ALT + Tab problem... SEVERAL times... and never experienced any slowing or decrease in performance what so ever. So apparently this bug is not affecting R2's. It surely didn't affect mine.

Any other problems or hiccups I'll post immediately...

Feel free to ask...

Hope this helps!

 

How are you not hitting over 80fps? Every setting (including shadows) on high, i don't have AA enabled but i see no need on a little 720p screen. Native rez, in dungeons ACT I i hit 100 all the time. No overclocking necessary. Optimize your machines, turn off non-essentials, Diablo 3 plays fine. I can also play it on the intel hd 3000 (integrated) with everything on low and shadows disabled. 30-40fps.

 

I realized that bobuy has i3 in his sig and blizzard games have been known to be quite cpu intensive.
i3 < i5 < i7.
Ambient occlusion is also a big fps hog which can be truned off on nvidia control panel.

Im still looking for guest pass. )

 

A couple questions....how do you check your FPS in D3? Is it built into the game? What is "AA"?

I have run into the run at half speed thing. Had no way to check FPS to see if that got cut by 50%. I was definitely doing the alt-tabbing thing. Have to try that when I get home from work.

 

For FPS (Frames Per Second) You need a program, it is not a feature that is built onto the game itself.

Most Commonly used programs to measure FPS:
-Beepa Fraps
-MSI Afterburner (more commonly known as a OverClocking program)

AA stands for Anti Aliasing (Its a visual option to smooth edges and improve visuals on games)

Alt+Tab Bug: I've tried it myself countless times and never have gotten a single problem. But then again Im running D3 from a R2...

Hope that helps

 

asked on the D3 forums and all you do is it Ctrl + r. Appears in top left corner. Built into game client.

Ty for the info on the other stuf!

 

wow didn't know that. i use fraps to check.

@VV1LLC no wonder you're getting 100 fps XD.

 

Played for quite a bit today. Temperatures didn't even hit 70 C!

 

Servers are back down... Yet again... :\

Anybody else as frustrated as I am with this whole ordeal?

I don't wan't to sound like a cry baby... But the down time has been almost equal to the up time... It's been ridiculous. I dunno... I just expected a more polished experience. :\

 

hey guys.. im using external monitor with res 1680x1050 with all high settings.. i get around 30-40fps.. put shadow at med - can get 50-60fps.. played at laptop monitor res around 70-80 .. i guess it should be ok rite?

 

Sounds ok...

Im hitting 50-60 FPS on my R2 with everything maxed... If I want 100FPS I would have to disable AA and Turn Off Shadows...

 

really? nice.. gonna try that later after work... btw is there any visual difference if you turn off those settings?

 

With the shadows off... Not at all! With the AA off... I mean you loose the smoothness... But its barely noticeable... I notice it just b/c Ive been playing maxed. But trust me the game still looks awesome!

 

Game flies. If you overclock the R1 it never stays under 99fps. Even on bosses or screen full of hordes. Im using driver 295.73 serious guys, if you are not getting the frames you want, remember to remove win7 network bandwidth limits with the registry (search it you will find it), optimize the OS (set win7 to performance, turn off aero and all that mess), make sure your antivirus is off (but stay careful and renable if you see or detect anything abnormal), when your notebook is idle you cpu utilization should stay zero. Anything above it means you need to optimize more. Just basic stuff really.

BTW, i played tethered via sprint wifi hotspot on my cell phone tonight for an hour. Worked just fine. Latency around 250-310ms (not great but still ranked green for the most part).

Good luck!