30 fps on diablo??

[sk8r1230]

Hey guys so I have a bto high end 27 inch iMac running latest lion. When playing diablo 3 with all settings high except shadows (medium) and running native resolution im only getting 30 fps while walking around. Battles drop it a bit lower. I'm running the cinema display as well as 2 gig video card and 16 gig of ram. I'm curious how this seemingly non intensive game is running with such few frames. Is it game design and resource usage or is the video card really just not that strong. Thanks

Also any chance the cinema display has something to do with it even though the second screen goes black while gaming.

 

[leman]

Hey guys so I have a bto high end 27 inch iMac running latest lion. When playing diablo 3 with all settings high except shadows (medium) and running native resolution im only getting 30 fps while walking around. Battles drop it a bit lower. I'm running the cinema display as well as 2 gig video card and 16 gig of ram. I'm curious how this seemingly non intensive game is running with such few frames. Is it game design and resource usage or is the video card really just not that strong. Thanks

Also any chance the cinema display has something to do with it even though the second screen goes black while gaming.

You are playing on native resolution + Apple's OpenGL drivers aren't exactly known for their gaming performance. And I think there might be some problems regarding the shadows, they really drop the framerate quite a bit.

 

[Mister Bumbo]

It's probably not in your end. Blizzard have been failing more and more lately with the performance on OS X. For example - SC2 used to run much better with higher FPS until a patch that severely brought the performance down for all OS X users down, compared to Windows on the same hardware. This was also the case in the Diablo 3 beta, prior to patch 16 (I think it was, not sure) the game ran much better and had much higher fps across the board on all Mac machines running OS X. Blizzard promised that the "retail version" would fix this - alas, this is not the case.

Blizzard have promised that these "issues" as they refer to them as, are indeed under investigation, but then again, nothing did ever happen with SC2, so don't expect better performance with the same hardware unless you run in boot camp.

However - this could also be Vertical Sync, have you tried to enable/disable it and see if there's any difference?

 

[sk8r1230]

I have not adjusted vertical sync. It was enabled upon install. Any graphic degradation if disabled? I'm feeling like this really does need to be on their end. I understand macs arent gaming machines but I have mine pretty beefed up and this game is minimal

 

[Mister Bumbo]

I have not adjusted vertical sync. It was enabled upon install. Any graphic degradation if disabled? I'm feeling like this really does need to be on their end. I understand macs arent gaming machines but I have mine pretty beefed up and this game is minimal

All VSync really does is that it caps the game's framerate to the screen's frequency. But if the game detects this information wrong and caps it lower than possible, it limits the FPS, disabling would only turn the FPS up, if anything. Should not affect the graphics in any way with your specs.

And yeah it's on Blizzard's end alright, there's alot of shady coding going on it seems to be alot of bloat-data being loaded and not used from what I've read around the forums. I guess we should just be glad it runs at all. >_>

 

[sk8r1230]

Cool thanks for the info man. Ill try that when I get home

 

[DeF46]

Exceptionally, I tried the OS X version of Diablo III during the last beta weekend and the performance on my 4850M was terrible. And I mean terrible, because even Skyrim at native runs better. Path of Exile (a much truer successor to Diablo 2) runs close to 60 FPS at native with soft shadows (and vsync is ON). I think Diablo III barely hit 20 FPS with AA off.

That said, as others mentionned, there was tons of negative feedback on the Mac performance, on the Blizz forums. The windows version certainly runs better, and I think you get both OS X and Windows installables on the retail DVD.

Play under Windows if you can and turn Anti-Alias off.

 

[iMacFarlane]

It is wrong to say that a Mac is not a gaming machine. The observation of reality is this: Said Blizzard software runs poorly on a certain Mac OS X computer. User installs software on Bootcamp, sees dramatic improvement in performance. IT'S THE SAME MACHINE!!! So, it's not that the Mac is not capable, it's the disparity between OS X (OpenGL) and Windows (DirectX), or Blizzard's OS X and Windows game clients, or a combination of these factors. The fact is, the HARDWARE proves itself more than capable when the game is spoon-fed a Windows environment. The game is being hamstrung on the software side, be it Apple's or Blizzard's doing, who can say.

This guy thinks Apple would be wise to throw a couple hundred million dollars at figuring this out and getting over it, so it can dispel the whole "Mac's are inferior to PC's" thing.

 

[WilliamG]

Exceptionally, I tried the OS X version of Diablo III during the last beta weekend and the performance on my 4850M was terrible. And I mean terrible, because even Skyrim at native runs better. Path of Exile (a much truer successor to Diablo 2) runs close to 60 FPS at native with soft shadows (and vsync is ON). I think Diablo III barely hit 20 FPS with AA off.

That said, as others mentionned, there was tons of negative feedback on the Mac performance, on the Blizz forums. The windows version certainly runs better, and I think you get both OS X and Windows installables on the retail DVD.

Play under Windows if you can and turn Anti-Alias off.

On my i7/4850M, I can't play native res either. 1920x1080 with low shadows and AA off works fine for the most part. Definitively some dips here and there, though, but mostly good. The BETA ran much worse, so I'm glad the retail version was adjusted.

 

[JaHull]

I am running on a iMac 11,1 2.8GHz i7 with an ATI 4850m and 8GB of RAM.
I can play Diablo 3 with a constant 30FPS with these settings
Resolution: 1920x1080
Vertical Sync: Enabled
Max Foreground and Background FPS: Disabled
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Medium
Physics: High
Clutter Density: High
Anti-Aliasing: Enabled
Low FX: Disabled
I am running at 1920x1080 rather than the native 2560x1440 since upping the resolution drops FPS around 14 so its rather a significant hit also upping the Shadow Quality to high drops FPS around 10 at 1080p.
This is all while having a second display connected running at 1920x1200

While playing the game all the way through I did not notice any FPS drops, there may have well been some but nothing which took my attention.

Anybody who is running a newer high end iMac or MacBook Pro with 6770 should be able to play with these settings since the cards are better or similar to mine.

 

[Unfair]

Don't feel bad folks, I'm running the game on a Mac Pro w/ 5870 and getting trash performance as well.

I get better performance in the game running through parallels off my Boot Camp drive over the 'native' OS X client...

Has anybody noticed the way the launcher loads up in OS X? Is it possible that Blizzard is using some kind of "wrapper" to emulate the game vs a true native client. (kind of like Eve online does..)

I'll have to look at that when I get home...

 

[sk8r1230]

Have noticed the weird launch. Have never played a game that did that before. And in saying the iMac is not a gaming machine...well it really isn't. If u consider the stereotypical gaming machine it really doesnt touch it in that aspect. Will never ever own a pc but can be realistic. (much rather take that short coming then having a thousand others with a pc)

 

[JaHull]

Has anybody noticed the way the launcher loads up in OS X? Is it possible that Blizzard is using some kind of "wrapper" to emulate the game vs a true native client. (kind of like Eve online does..)

If you mean it comes up with a Diablo III Setup Box first saying Launching Blizzard Launcher, this also happens in the World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria Beta so I doubt it is something to do with a wrapper. It is more likely to do with the fact it does not have the standard bar along the top with the red, yellow, green buttons and full screen.

 

[WilliamG]

I am running on a iMac 11,1 2.8GHz i7 with an ATI 4850m and 8GB of RAM.
I can play Diablo 3 with a constant 30FPS with these settings
Resolution: 1920x1080
Vertical Sync: Enabled
Max Foreground and Background FPS: Disabled
Texture Quality: High
Shadow Quality: Medium
Physics: High
Clutter Density: High
Anti-Aliasing: Enabled
Low FX: Disabled
I am running at 1920x1080 rather than the native 2560x1440 since upping the resolution drops FPS around 14 so its rather a significant hit also upping the Shadow Quality to high drops FPS around 10 at 1080p.
This is all while having a second display connected running at 1920x1200

While playing the game all the way through I did not notice any FPS drops, there may have well been some but nothing which took my attention.

Anybody who is running a newer high end iMac or MacBook Pro with 6770 should be able to play with these settings since the cards are better or similar to mine.

Thanks for posting what specs you run at. I have the same system with you (but with 16GB RAM), and if I run (in Lion) those same specs, it runs "OK" with random bouts of slowdown at times. Certainly not what I'd consider acceptable.

But this shows that what one person finds to run "fine" is what someone else would consider "not fine."

 

[DOlsson]

I've played it a bit on my mid 2011 iMac 27inch and it seems to run fine IF I turn off shadows. Leaving shadows on (and maybe set to low) with everything else HIGH and at native res seems to run poorly.

It was disabling shadows that seems to make this game run the way it "should", perhaps not perfect, but good enough.

Alas, I have refrained from gaming on the iMac because I'm worried the heat is going to kill it...

My iMac specs:

i5 3.1ghz
12GB ram
1GB 6970

 

[therivenman]

I agree with DOlsson. I have also been playing on the high end 2011 27" iMac and was getting a constant 30FPS until I turned OFF shadows.

If I ran with shadows on high, medium, or low I would only get 30FPS, but with them off I'm getting 60FPS. Same thing with AA. Once I turn them on, back to 30FPS constant. Almost feels like the game is limiting the FPS with certain options turned on.

Currently I'm running at native resolution with everything on high except AA is turned off and shadows are turned off. I hope that helps.

 

[henrikrox]

I would not worry guys, in the faq section on battle.net there is a paragraph on osx peformance, it sucks. really bad.

everything on high, i get 100+fps on windows 7.

but have it capped to 60fps.

the imac is actually a decent gaming machine (hardware wise) but osx is just plain bad for games.

 

[EricT43]

I am not picky, and I get what I consider to be acceptable performance with settings on high and shadows on medium. Although I will try tonight with shadows turned off.

I agree that iMac is not *great* for gaming, but unless you demand very high FPS, I think it's good enough for most people. For me, 30 FPS is OK. It's a higher framerate than a movie. Again, I'm not that picky, because once I start playing, I don't really notice any of that stuff anyway.

I think the Mac hardware is just fine. The problem is a) nobody is developing games optimized for OS X, they do it for Windows and then OS X on the side, and b) the native resolution on a 27" iMac is so high that it creates a graphics handicap right from the beginning - it's like entering a 5k race and having to wear a 50lb pack.

 

[thestickman]

Been playing D3 at 1920x1080 with everything on high. Game plays great, looks great. Not fooled with checking FPS cuz' to be honest, I don't care cuz like I said; "...plays great, looks great".

 

[DeF46]

Hey guys so I have a bto high end 27 inch iMac running latest lion. When playing diablo 3 with all settings high except shadows (medium) and running native resolution im only getting 30 fps while walking around. Battles drop it a bit lower. I'm running the cinema display as well as 2 gig video card and 16 gig of ram. I'm curious how this seemingly non intensive game is running with such few frames. Is it game design and resource usage or is the video card really just not that strong. Thanks

Also any chance the cinema display has something to do with it even though the second screen goes black while gaming.

For what it's worth I finally tried the Windows version and I'm getting 30 FPS also on the old 4850M iMac.

High Textures, High Clutter, Low Shadows, High Physics (edit: and overclocked GPU 625/990 MHz instead of 503/850)

At native 2560 the FPS dropped to 22-25 in the first minute of the game, as you go down the road through lots of fog. But after playing the cathedral and and joining a multiplayer game it was fairly stable at 30 FPS, go figure.

Disabling shadows altogether can go up to 50 ish in a building but it will go back to 30 FPS elsewhere so no use.

Surprisingly, enabling Anti Alias doesn't affect FPS much. In fact I played with 2560 + AA option in multiplayer at 30 FPS, however it may go down to 25 during animations (ie. explosions).

 

[zulkiflim]

Heya

Check this out..

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1928/2/

Comparison between intel Ivy Bridge HD 4000 and AMD trinity.

AMD trinity has 50% more FPS..

with lower power.....and lower cost..

But for iMac i still want an I7 with AMD laters discrete GPU.

Unless Apple has fine-tuned Grandcentral and AMD VIsion platform is finally able to create API to make use of the GPU

 

[sk8r1230]

Heya

Check this out..

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1928/2/

Comparison between intel Ivy Bridge HD 4000 and AMD trinity.

AMD trinity has 50% more FPS..

with lower power.....and lower cost..

But for iMac i still want an I7 with AMD laters discrete GPU.

Unless Apple has fine-tuned Grandcentral and AMD VIsion platform is finally able to create API to make use of the GPU

Wtf!? Thank u for your lack of contribution.

 

[EricT43]

I did some testing last night. My machine seems to MAX OUT at 30 FPS. Not sure why, changing settings never seem to get me any higher than that. Maybe the in-game FPS reading is not terribly accurate. Although I will say that to me it looks pretty good at 30.

I originally had all settings max, with Shadows medium, and AA turned on. I was dropping below 30 when there was a lot of stuff on the screen, for example when approaching the town at the very beginning of the game, when all the dead zombies and fires come into view, it would drop to 20-25 fps.

I tested with Shadows low and got the same result.

With Shadows off, it stayed at 30 FPS for the whole scene, and was noticably smoother. However, I didn't like the look with Shadows off.

With Shadows back at medium, and AA turned off, I got the same performance improvement, stable 30 FPS. And honestly the AA is not that noticeable with such a high resolution. So I am going to continue with these settings.

Anyone know if there is some kind of cap at 30 FPS, or is it just coincidental that it runs at such a nice, round number?

 

[lixuelai]

Don't feel bad folks, I'm running the game on a Mac Pro w/ 5870 and getting trash performance as well.

I get better performance in the game running through parallels off my Boot Camp drive over the 'native' OS X client...

Has anybody noticed the way the launcher loads up in OS X? Is it possible that Blizzard is using some kind of "wrapper" to emulate the game vs a true native client. (kind of like Eve online does..)

I'll have to look at that when I get home...

Something is wrong with your install. I can runs D3 with max settings on my HD5870 at 2560x1600. Didn't check the actual fps since I didn't feel the need to. Had to be over 40 (anything lower I would have noticed) even with a ton of spell effects flying around.

 

[DeF46]

@lixuelai People really need to specify if they play the OS X or Windows version. The OS X version is botched up.

D3DOverrider might be worth trying?