Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac for Diablo 3

R

rleezy

macrumors newbie
Apr 18, 2012
5
0
California
Thanks for all the tips guys. Played D3 over the weekend. There was a little lag, but manageable, just don't really know how it'll run when I have a public game. I really do hope when I upgrade to 8gb of RAM that D3 will be real smooth.

So, does playing games in Bootcamp W7 generally have a higher FPS? or is it for just certain games?
 
M

manPrime

macrumors newbie
Apr 21, 2012
21
0
I found that my base model 2011 iMac played the beta really well on high settings apart from shadow detail which was on medium, on OS X not in bootcamp. From reading the posts on here though the performance seemed to vary, with some mac's not running it well at all.
 
Sedulous

Sedulous

macrumors 68030
Dec 10, 2002
2,530
2,577
I was honestly surprised how well D3 beta ran on my MBP using the 9600M GT card.
 
estrides

estrides

macrumors regular
Apr 8, 2012
158
0
New York
Its not very graphics intensive. Its nothing in comparison to the massive unit obliteration you see in star craft 2.
 
the8thark

the8thark

macrumors 601
Apr 18, 2011
4,628
1,735
And1ss said:
Mmm I think the 21.5 iMac using bootcamp should be able to play games moderately well.

Check out what Blizzard think is the recommended requirements.
http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-system-requirements
Click to expand...

I am in the closed beta for Diablo 3. And I own a 21.5 i7 iMac. And it plays Diablo 3 very well. There is an issue with windowed mode. You need to edit a prefrence file to change your windowed mode resolution. Blizzard refuse to accept the issue. But in every other game you can change your windowed mode resolution with a simple drop down menu.

Apart from that I'm getting decent lag (200-350) (Australia) and decent fps. 40ish fps with everything in mid-high except for shadows at low. And Blizzard say the game will be more optimised in the retail version. The cpu usage is around 115% though. But Blizzard is trying to lower this.

This is playing the OS X client in OS X. Windowed mode.

*****************

And as a comparison I have finished the StarCraft 2 campaign and done every hard mode achievement. And I noticed about the same performance from SC2. Though in SC2 I had pretty much every video setting on mid.
 
C

Caviar

macrumors member
Mar 14, 2009
50
0
I tried out the open beta on my Late 2011 Macbook Pro on OS 10.7.3 and the performance was horrible compared to the windows version client running on Bootcamp.

Right after booting up the client on Mac OS X,
its around 20% CPU usage, but right after you successfully login,
the CPU usage jumps up to 110%+. And of course the fan starts sounding like a vacuum cleaner.

The game hasn't even started yet.
Only the toon i made was being displayed.
Looks something like the toon selection screen in World of Warcraft.
I have rebooted and also have Automatic graphic switching turned off.
And even if i select the lowest settings, the CPU usage wouldn't change.

So there is definitely something wrong with the Mac version of the client.
I quit playing the open beta immediately after I noticed I couldn't do anything about it.

And it seems like multiple Mac users are experiencing this problem.
This thread was made a while back. Sad that Blizzard still hasn't fixed this issue.
ttp://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4079619194

Hope they fix it or I'll just have to switch to Bootcamp every time I want to play Diablo 3 =/

I've read that for some people, it runs smoothly.
So I'm guessing the Mac client may have issues with certain Macs with certain chipsets.
Just my personal guess.
Sorry for the long post.
 
antonis

antonis

macrumors 68020
Jun 10, 2011
2,085
1,009
Caviar said:
I tried out the open beta on my Late 2011 Macbook Pro on OS 10.7.3 and the performance was horrible compared to the windows version client running on Bootcamp.

Right after booting up the client on Mac OS X,
its around 20% CPU usage, but right after you successfully login,
the CPU usage jumps up to 110%+. And of course the fan starts sounding like a vacuum cleaner.

The game hasn't even started yet.
Only the toon i made was being displayed.
Looks something like the toon selection screen in World of Warcraft.
I have rebooted and also have Automatic graphic switching turned off.
And even if i select the lowest settings, the CPU usage wouldn't change.

So there is definitely something wrong with the Mac version of the client.
I quit playing the open beta immediately after I noticed I couldn't do anything about it.

And it seems like multiple Mac users are experiencing this problem.
This thread was made a while back. Sad that Blizzard still hasn't fixed this issue.
ttp://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4079619194

Hope they fix it or I'll just have to switch to Bootcamp every time I want to play Diablo 3 =/

I've read that for some people, it runs smoothly.
So I'm guessing the Mac client may have issues with certain Macs with certain chipsets.
Just my personal guess.
Sorry for the long post.
Click to expand...

There's definitely something screwed up by blizzard since your machine is more than capable of playing D3. On my iMac 2010 model, it runs full maxed settings on native 27" resolution without any single problem.

My guess is something is wrong with the gpu performance. The 110% cpu utilization is normal. It just means that it occupies fully one of the cpu cores and just 10% of a second core.
 
M

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
rleezy said:
Thanks for all the tips guys. Played D3 over the weekend. There was a little lag, but manageable, just don't really know how it'll run when I have a public game. I really do hope when I upgrade to 8gb of RAM that D3 will be real smooth.

So, does playing games in Bootcamp W7 generally have a higher FPS? or is it for just certain games?
Click to expand...

It's not the main RAM that's important but the VRAM on the GPU. I've got 8GB of RAM but because my GPU only has 256MB of VRAM I can't run at the highest settings and have to use medium to low with a mid level resolution to even get 30FPS.
 
C

Caviar

macrumors member
Mar 14, 2009
50
0
antonis said:
There's definitely something screwed up by blizzard since your machine is more than capable of playing D3. On my iMac 2010 model, it runs full maxed settings on native 27" resolution without any single problem.

My guess is something is wrong with the gpu performance. The 110% cpu utilization is normal. It just means that it occupies fully one of the cpu cores and just 10% of a second core.
Click to expand...


Well, I do feel that Diablo 3 isn't that much of a graphically intense game,
compared to games like World of Warcraft. You can't really see the environment 360 degrees, so theres not much to render like in WoW.
So it using 110% before even entering the game is somewhat, a resource hog.
And it occupying 110% of the CPU is making my CPU temp skyrocket, which makes the fans really noisy (which makes me not want to play the game =( )
BTW, my MBP runs World of Warcraft at around 50% CPU usage with all settings at Ultra, but Diablo 3 hogging 110% CPU with all the settings lowest as possible...
 
G

-Ghost

macrumors newbie
Dec 11, 2010
20
0
Just wanna poke my head in here real quick.

I'm still running Leopard on my 08 iMac, 3gb ram, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT.

I'd only be purchasing Snow Leopard so I could play D3; could my machine even handle it?
 
M

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
Caviar said:
Well, I do feel that Diablo 3 isn't that much of a graphically intense game,
compared to games like World of Warcraft. You can't really see the environment 360 degrees, so theres not much to render like in WoW.
So it using 110% before even entering the game is somewhat, a resource hog.
And it occupying 110% of the CPU is making my CPU temp skyrocket, which makes the fans really noisy (which makes me not want to play the game =( )
BTW, my MBP runs World of Warcraft at around 50% CPU usage with all settings at Ultra, but Diablo 3 hogging 110% CPU with all the settings lowest as possible...
Click to expand...

World Of Warcraft is a seven or eight year old game so was developed to run on hardware available back then. That said it has also probably been optimised a lot over those years too. You can't really compare it to Diablo III. Whilst graphically it may not be up to par with a lot of today's games there is also the issue of how many resources are needed when there is a lot going on the screen at once. However CPU usage of that nature does seem way too much. When I played the game on my Mini over the weekend the fans were running at full speed an I was afraid it was going to break down.
 
antonis

antonis

macrumors 68020
Jun 10, 2011
2,085
1,009
According to D3 forum posts from people playing for some time now in closed beta, the game took a huge performance hit on both windows and mac after a recent patch. The next patches followed didn't seem to fix this. So it is definitely a screw up from blizzard. It makes sense, though, that D3 will be more demanding than WoW, graphics are better and the effects more complex, even if the camera is not as free as WoW's.

If you play on a laptop you should definitely check the temperatures, but 110% of cpu usage on a multi-core cpu is something normal in general.

Let's just hope the final release will have this issue solved, though, so D3 is playable on weaker machines too. I know many people with MBAs are expecting to play this.
 
A

ARK

macrumors 6502a
Jul 20, 2008
535
95
Indianapolis, IN
Mac Mini??

I played on my late 2008 MBP with 9600 and it was laggy at times. I set everything to low as thats where it was right after I installed. The fan was running constantly. Question.. did anyone try it with a mini? Im considering getting one soon and wondered how it did with the beta.
 
M

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
F

Forever.Lost

macrumors newbie
Apr 25, 2012
2
0
It is the 13 inch i know the screen is kinda small to be playing Diablo 3 so i got another 22 inch monitor
 
bobr1952

bobr1952

macrumors 68020
Jan 21, 2008
2,040
39
Melbourne, FL
I opted in to the 12-month WOW subscription to get D3--unfortunately it is not for lazy people like myself who have not bothered to upgrade thier 2008 iMac from Leopard--needs 10.6. At least it needs 10.6 to use their setup program. Oh well, I am upgrading soon anyway--and the mount is kind of cool. :)
 
M

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
Forever.Lost said:
It is the 13 inch i know the screen is kinda small to be playing Diablo 3 so i got another 22 inch monitor
Click to expand...

The reason I was asking is not because of the screen size but because the 13" only has an integrated GPU that uses shared memory and no separate GPU with dedicate VRAM. The 15" and 17" have both of those. The integrated GPU of the 13" isn't going to give you very good performance. I suspect you will have to have all the settings on low plus a lower then ideal resolution. Even then im not sure if it will be playable. I don't have a Mac with that integrated GPU as my Mac Mini has a dedicated GPU so I can't speak from experience. Hopefully some who does can chime in.
 
A

aleXXXps

macrumors member
May 4, 2011
79
1
I have a 2010 Macbook White with 4gb of Ram and the Nvidia 320m chip. I didn't see anyone post about performance with the 320m yet... Any luck?
 
M

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
ARK said:
Was your mini running hot or the fan running constantly?
Click to expand...

Yes to both. It had me quite concerned actually. I thought my Mini was going to die on me. I resorted to pointing a fan towards it at its highest setting in order to try and keep it cooler. The Mini is essentially a laptop in a small compact casing so it's likely to behave the same as a laptop in that respect. Also the new Mini's have a faster CPU and dedicated GPU which are likely to tax them a lot more then the old Mini's.
 
Fraaaa

Fraaaa

macrumors 65816
Mar 22, 2010
1,081
0
London, UK
jgz said:
Diablo 3 Beta running on a Macbook Air

....
Click to expand...

Yes that is on a macbook air but check what setting he has!

Macbook Air 2011 HD3000
1440x900
Texture Quality: high
Shadow Quality: medium
Physycs: high
Clutter Density: medium
Anti-Aliasing: no
Low FX: no

Macbook Air 2010 320M
1440x900
Texture Quality: low
Shadow Quality: low
Physycs: low
Clutter Density: low
Anti-Aliasing: no
Low FX: no?

I asked him as well:
No AA and I think low FX was on. FPS is around 25-30 most of the time, with some drops when a lot of physics is being used (the barricade before jondar being smashed drops me to about 10 fps for a couple of seconds.
Click to expand...


If you check the second one is much smoother.
 
Last edited:
Ice Dragon

Ice Dragon

macrumors 6502a
Jun 16, 2009
989
20
I was not impressed with how it ran on the base Mini though I didn't expect it run extremely well. An upgrade will be needed in the future.

Having said that, I don't intend on buying D3 at launch. I want them to make a few patches before I jump on it. By that time, the Ivy Bridge mini will have long been out.
 
S

sgarora

macrumors newbie
Jul 9, 2011
4
0
From from what I've gathered, it seems that d3 runs better on boot camp?

I have an early 15 2011 mbp, wondering how it'll run - cant wait!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom