[darcybaston]

I don't get this. Diablo II LOD plays slower and lower for me, despite all my efforts to upgrade/switch computers, get more ram, etc. Here's the trend:

iMac DV SE 400MHz OS 9 128 MB RAM.
Diablo II LOD was FAAAAAAST! No slowdowns except a slight sluggishness with huge groups of bad guys on the screen.

Same as above but on OS X (any version)
The later the version of OS X the slower DII LOD became (with carbon version app of course, not running through the emulator).

Same iMac but with 256 MB RAM
Still slower. No speed increase.

So I figured I'd get a new computer to speed things along.

iBook 933MHz 14" 256 MB RAM
Still slower than the iMac ever was.

Same iBook, but with 640MB of RAM
No speed increase, and by this time I had Panther, which slowed DII speed even more.

Same iBook but with Tiger
Hopeless. 3 enemies come on the screen and the game dives to near pausing, which never happened once on the iMac, even in networked play with a bunch of other players on screen. I've tried to "renice" the main application thread to get it to hog the computer more, but no go. I even manually killed any background process I could without breaking OS useability and while that helped a bit, still no iMacesque gaming experience.

I just don't get it. Why is the latest software and my newer hardware killing the performance in this game? Is it the patches maybe? I'm on 1.11.

Other games play better/faster as I follow an upgrade path. Quake III plays great on the iBook and so does Warcraft III, which were either too slow or impossible on the iMac.

[a2daj]

Sounds like you're using OpenGL mode. OpenGL mode is sloooooow. Do not use it unless you have a G5. Even then, I'd recommend just using software rendering for the most consistent performance.

[darcybaston]

You know what? That may be it. I think I remember seeing that displayed on the launch dialog last time I played. I'll let you know tonight.

Thanks!

[Thinine]

I played Diablo 2 on my iBook 500 and it was great in software mode. OpenGL was fixed in one version a while ago (for Quartz Extreme capable machines) but it broke in an OS X update some time ago.

[darcybaston]

That's encouraging!

[darcybaston]

I didn't get to try it last night. I hope to tonight (again).

[kick52]

wow. i'm using my imac (signature) 333mhz!!!! and it runs ok. and ok on 800x600 aswell. (but a bit slow) i'm running on software mode.

btw: Level 28, 4th world. necromancer.

[darcybaston]

I got to try. Sorry for being so late!

It was OpenGL. In software mode, it CRUISES! Even on a dual core 2GHz it feels a bit slow in opengl mode. Softare mode is, of course, instantaneous hehe.