[Rob Barris]

www.MacNN.com reports that Apple is now shipping MacOS 9.2.2 - it contains updated NVIDIA and ATI video drivers along with other enhancements. Our testing has shown a nice boost in frame rates on both ATI and NVIDIA hardware in OpenGL mode.
The update should be available by the Software Update control panel under MacOS 9.2, if MacNN's information is correct.

late edit - it appears that the NVIDIA drivers are not measuring up here in speed comparisons with earlier beta versions - we are looking into this. More on this as soon as I find out.

Rob (rbarris "at" blizzard.com)

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: Rob Barris ]

[G Barnett]

Dagnabit, now I gotta go reboot into OS 9, and I just got things configured the way I like in OS X!

G Barnett

[SmileyDude]

Hmmm... didn't help much with plain D2 (no LOD) on my 400mhz iMac w/192megs of RAM.

I've been really disappointed in D2. When I move my player around the screen, you can tell the screen has a bit of jerkiness to it. Very much unlike D1 where it was smooth as can be even on the lower end machines (like my Performa 6400).

I realise that D2 is a much more intensive game, but my iMac is a much better machine than my 6400 was. It's also just as jerky, if not more, on my 366mhz iBook w/320megs of RAM.

I've been really impressed with everything else Blizzard has done, especially the OS X port of Starcraft. One can only help that D2 gets an OS X update that finally makes it as smooth as D1 was.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by SmileyDude:
<STRONG>Hmmm... didn't help much with plain D2 (no LOD) on my 400mhz iMac w/192megs of RAM.

I've been really disappointed in D2. When I move my player around the screen, you can tell the screen has a bit of jerkiness to it. Very much unlike D1 where it was smooth as can be even on the lower end machines (like my Performa 6400).

I realise that D2 is a much more intensive game, but my iMac is a much better machine than my 6400 was. It's also just as jerky, if not more, on my 366mhz iBook w/320megs of RAM.

I've been really impressed with everything else Blizzard has done, especially the OS X port of Starcraft. One can only help that D2 gets an OS X update that finally makes it as smooth as D1 was.</STRONG>

Are you using RAVE or OpenGL? Try both to see if there's a major change in performance with the new drivers.

Rob -

Aaaargh! There's some minimal improvement (I think) in just walking around on my Dual 533/Nvidia machine, but as soon as a few Fallen Ones appear on the screen, frame rate drops through the floor And I was so hoping that this was the answer we've been waiting for...

BTW, thanks for your recent help with Starcraft X and all the support you provide via these forums. Was this latest Nvidia driver supposed to make improvements to the wasted-cycle problem you described?

JASON

Originally posted by Rob Barris:
<STRONG>www.MacNN.com reports that Apple is now shipping MacOS 9.2.2 - it contains updated NVIDIA and ATI video drivers along with other enhancements. Our testing has shown a nice boost in frame rates on both ATI and NVIDIA hardware in OpenGL mode.
The update should be available by the Software Update control panel under MacOS 9.2, if MacNN's information is correct.

late edit - it appears that the NVIDIA drivers are not measuring up here in speed comparisons with earlier beta versions - we are looking into this. More on this as soon as I find out.

Rob (rbarris "at" blizzard.com)

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: Rob Barris ]</STRONG>

[Osirisis]

Yes, it fixed my problem. I'm so happy, I updated my sig

[Tominator]

After updating my G4/450 I did some playing to see how it worked. I definitely noticed an improvement. Usually after going back to town through a portal I would experience a lot of lag for four or five seconds. Now it just barely misses a step when I go back to town. Also saw improvement with lots of monsters on the screen trying to beat my ass down. No lag there either.

[davidflas]

I installed 9.2.2 last night and I'm getting a steady 25fps on my G4/466 with the rage pro card installed. That's what I got in 9.1, but I had 3fps in 9.2.1, so this works for me! I'm running LOD in Rave mode, Millions of colors, and 800x600 screen size.

[motoyen]

Hmm, I installed 9.2.2 on my 867 G4 and my frame rates dropped to 2-3. Under 9.2.1 I was playing around 25 fps but now once again this game is unplayable.

[BigMark]

Running a PB G3/333 MHz, using Mac OS 9.2

Just downloaded the Open GL 1.2.1 installer and tried to install. It said it will only install on 9.1 or earlier.

HUH?

[Sam I Am]

Since i installed 9.2.2 LOD will no longer run, I get into the program fine but when i choose a character and it's about to go into the actual game, it quits on me and produces a diablo (not macos) debug message saying about memory problems... I'm at work right now and I don't have the screen infront of me and i can't quote it directly, but yeah not cool...

and as for starcraft X, it's the only program that i have used that managed to totally crash OS X... that's not something to brag about either...

argh.

[Archangel]

Originally posted by Sam I Am:
<STRONG>
and as for starcraft X, it's the only program that i have used that managed to totally crash OS X... that's not something to brag about either...

argh.</STRONG>

Man, you must be cursed. I haven't even have SCX crash on me, let alone the entire system.

[motoyen]

I switched from RAVE to OpenGL and my fps are between 15-20. I am running 9.2.2 on a 867 G4.

[Sam I Am]

well it's not OS 9.2.2 it's the LOD 1.9d update that's screwy... i just did a clean reinstall of the system and no luck... That sucks...

[Osirisis]

Rob,

just curious as to whether or not this is normal. When in hardware mode when there are very few people online, everything is great, low pings and high fps. As more and more people get online, my ping stays low, but the fps drops and the frames skipped shoot through the roof. Makes hardware rendering unplayable. I've been using software rendering during those times.

Just curious as to whether the hardware rendering requires more information from the server and that's why it slows down. BTW, I didn't realize how much I was missing with the hardware rendering turned off. Now I can see all the fire guys and the poison guys before I get to this. The game looks much better with the hardware turned on.

On another note, is a carbon version of the game still on the books? Not sure if you're allowed to answer that or not, but I'm dying to use this permanently in X. Missing my right mouse button Command click doesn't cut it when you're surrounded

[a2daj]

If you're playing with Druids, Necros, or Sorcs, prepare for lots of lag as the spells and minions slow games down to a crawl, even 'mighty' PCs feel the wrath of too many effects.

[Osirisis]

Originally posted by a2daj:
<STRONG>If you're playing with Druids, Necros, or Sorcs, prepare for lots of lag as the spells and minions slow games down to a crawl, even 'mighty' PCs feel the wrath of too many effects.</STRONG>

Trust me I understand that part, but I've had this happen with my paladin also. He's not much of a spell caster I made sure to turn off all the video effects and turn off the music. I also reduced the video to thousands of colors to no effect. I refuse to play in 640*480. It's just unplayable at that resolution. I guess I should send Rob my System Profiler information. I read that he wanted that info from problem machine over at one of the gaming sites.

I guess another point is that the hardware dropped frames are so much more than with software regardless of character class. My druid has lag in software mode, but not to the degree that the hardware mode has. My only guess is that it requires more info from the server, but until someone from blizzrd tells me that, I'll just never know.

[a2daj]

Hardware mode doesn't need any more information from the server. It wouldn't make sense that it would.
There are more than a few reasons why DII in hardware mode may be slower than in software mode on you setup. These are all based on my experience from playing the game and reading articles about the game over the last few years.
First, the engine. The engine is a 2D engine which can use hardware acceleration to improve lighting effects, ie, shadows, spells, etc. So the 2D engine had to be built with the ability to be hardware accelerated. The '3D' effects were optimized for the Glide API, and thus 3dfx cards. Other 3D APIs, such as Direct3D, OpenGL, and RAVE were secondary. Unlike standard 3D games, which usually load the textures for a level into memory during level loading, Diablo II (and probably Baldur's Gate) load textures from the disk as needed. So, when entering new areas, framerates tend to plummet as DII is loading new textures. Once the textures are loaded, gameplay should be fairly smooth. Try running around the Barbarian town in Act 5 to see what I mean.

Second, the card you're using. The cards, and thus the drivers themselves, can directly affect performance for DII. I have many of the more common Mac video cards at my disposal, an ATI Rage 128 Pro, ATI Radeon AGP and PCI, Voodoo2-5 (heh, gave my Voodoo1 away) and a GeForce2MX. (Damn.. maybe I should apply for some Mac beta testing jobs... I have enough cards and computers to do testing for a number of differen configs ) When playing, I usually play at 800x600 with perspective and music off. Turning both of those off should help performance a lot. Disabling lighting and blended shadows helps as well, but I like the rain and snow
My DII test suite, usually consists of a few tests, which I use with an old hacked Barbarian with 32000 hp, all running in a hosted TCP/IP game.
1. Pandemonium Fortress (or whatever homebase is called in Act 4. I usually load my character up and stand there without moving from my initial spot. Watch the framerates with various settings enabled/disabled.

2. River of Fire. Run around like a crazy madman and watch your
FPS.

3. Act 5 Barb city. Run around and watch the FPS plummet as all the textures load. Once you've run to all corners of the city, continue running around and check out your FPS.

4. Kill Shrek (yeah, yeah, I know his real name). This one is a killer! Once Shrek is dead, I stand in the middle as all the fireballs and ice storms rain down on my new friends


The Voodoo5 is THE best card available on the Mac for use with DII. Using Glide, with and without 2xFSAA, my framerates are limited to my monitor's refresh rate (120) on my G4 867 and actually hovers around 100 and usually only drops below 50 when loading a number of new textures and crazy lighting effects, like those in my Test 4. With 4xFSAA, the game looks incredible, however framerates plummet (max around 60, hovers around 40) and there's a noticeable mouse lag.

The two ATI cards I have work fairly well using RAVE, or at least use to before Mac OS 9.2.1. OpenGL mode has actually been largely limited by the drivers, more so than the DII engine itself. The latest ATI drivers included with Mac OS 9.2.2 seems to have improved OpenGL performance on games not called Quake, particularly in the texture loading area. It's still not on par with RAVE, but it seems better in my limited gameplay comparisions (I'm hoping to do somemore testing this weekend). These cards are hit pretty hard in Test4

The GeForce users, for the most part, have been screwed. The RAVE drivers were horrible (they're much better now! Even Unreal
Tournament is playable in RAVE) and the OpenGL drivers seem to have been so focused on Quake performance that many other games suffered, especially DII. From my testing on Mac OS 9.2.2 on my G4 400 (which has my GF2 installed) DII performance seemd to be much improved. This card dies in Test 4. Still, I'll probably stick with my Voodoo2 12MB card, since I'd get more consistent framerates. BTW, back when I was paying attention to the PC side of things, PC GeForce users of all types (1, 2, MX, 3) were flocking to eBay to get Voodoo2s so they could run Diablo II better.

Some other tips,
Do not increase the default memory partition. I've played the game on 4 different computers and have never had to touch that setting. After the initial game setup, the game uses available system memory for dynamic memory allocation rathern the memory from the applications heap. If you increase the default memory partition, there's a chance that you won't have enough system memory available.
Although I have 768 MB of RAM, I still use VM because when it is enabled memory management is much better, so games which use available system memory for dynamic memory allocation won't fragment my memory.
Play with music off and copy files off of the play CDs onto your harddrive. Diablo II has one file on the play CD, the music file, while LoD has two files, the music file and move file.
Play with a barebones Extension set if you want to squeeze every once of speed from your system.
NVIDIA users, make sure to disable all of the ATI drivers, including the OpenGL ATI library. ATI users, disable the NVIDIA drivers.

[a2daj]

Holy crap. That was about 10 times longer than I expecting. Oops!

[joe]

Originally posted by a2daj:
<STRONG>The Voodoo5 is THE best card available on the Mac for use with DII. Using Glide, with and without 2xFSAA, my framerates are limited </STRONG>

Those are incredible frame rates! I'll have to agree it's the best card for D2 and by a HUGE margin! But given the current state of 3DFX, that places the majority of current and future Mac owners in a very difficult position when it comes to D2. I'm at the point where I don't care why D2 doesn't run that well on the majory of Mac systems which use ATi and NVidia. I just wish Blizzard, NVidia, and ATi could find a way to work it out so at least the high end cards could get the same performance.........joe

[a2daj]

Originally posted by joe:
<STRONG>

Those are incredible frame rates! I'll have to agree it's the best card for D2 and by a HUGE margin! But given the current state of 3DFX, that places the majority of current and future Mac owners in a very difficult position when it comes to D2. I'm at the point where I don't care why D2 doesn't run that well on the majory of Mac systems which use ATi and NVidia. I just wish Blizzard, NVidia, and ATi could find a way to work it out so at least the high end cards could get the same performance.........joe</STRONG>

I agree. I would like to see the game run better on the other cards especially since I want to eventually switch over to OS X as my main OS. I'm guessing it's one of those things that will eventually happen. The ATI and NVIDIA engineers are probably pretty busy with all kinds of other issues so it may still be awhile before we get "Mac OS 9.1 ATI RAVE" performance out of OpenGL Diablo II on any cards. And I can only assume that the Mac Blizzard guys are working on other projects as well.

[Camelot]

How do you tell your frame rate.

I'm generally happy with performance (TiBook/500 Mac OS X 10.1.1, Mac OS 9.2.2, 512mb ram) except with lots of characters on screen, when there's a noticeable lag.

I can't tell much difference between RAVE and OpenGL, although OpenGL seems to have a slight edge. Neither comes close to software, though, despite the fact it pales in comparison to the others.

[tojo]

Originally posted by Camelot:
<STRONG>How do you tell your frame rate.

I'm generally happy with performance (TiBook/500 Mac OS X 10.1.1, Mac OS 9.2.2, 512mb ram) except with lots of characters on screen, when there's a noticeable lag.

I can't tell much difference between RAVE and OpenGL, although OpenGL seems to have a slight edge. Neither comes close to software, though, despite the fact it pales in comparison to the others.</STRONG>

Hit whatever key you have bound to send a chat message in game. (The default is the enter key) and type "fps" and hit enter. That will display your frame-rate.

And to add to the conversation -- I have a pismo G3/500 with 1GB of ram and D2 and/or LOD sucks in all video modes. It always has, and didn't improve with 9.2.2

I have no idea why this is the case, but when I play in Window mode -- I actually get a little (not a lot) better performance. That seems odd to me, but shrug....

-tojo

[Osirisis]

Originally posted by a2daj:
<STRONG>

I agree. I would like to see the game run better on the other cards especially since I want to eventually switch over to OS X as my main OS. I'm guessing it's one of those things that will eventually happen. The ATI and NVIDIA engineers are probably pretty busy with all kinds of other issues so it may still be awhile before we get "Mac OS 9.1 ATI RAVE" performance out of OpenGL Diablo II on any cards. And I can only assume that the Mac Blizzard guys are working on other projects as well.</STRONG>

Well, I missed the OpenGL ATI extension, but turning it off made no difference. When We talk loading and bad frames. I had my paladin walking around harrogath whcih I had explored with half the frames dropped. I switched over to rave and got much better performance, even with everything turned on. Go figure. Granted the performance on that is not as good as the software, so back to the software I go. It just feel real disappointing to have a GeForce3 which blows most cards away, having difficulty handling something my processor can do better. Hopefully someone at Nvidia is listening. After all, it's not like I had a choice of getting an ATI card with my quicksilver, even if I wanted one.

[Zoom]

Well, so far I haven't noticed any improvement. It's still jerky. I don't play online, so I can't get my framerate (right?). That sucks. But I can tell you that it's very jerky. I'm really bummed. I was hoping this would fix the problems.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by Zoom:
<STRONG>Well, so far I haven't noticed any improvement. It's still jerky. I don't play online, so I can't get my framerate (right?). That sucks. But I can tell you that it's very jerky. I'm really bummed. I was hoping this would fix the problems.</STRONG>

I'm guessing you haven't even tried viewing your framerates in single player mode... Well, you can but it'll be limited to a max of 25 FPS.

You don't have to be online to start a multiplayer game. As long as your Mac has an IP address you can start a MP game.

[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: a2daj ]

[Zoom]

Okay, I just realized I can in fact show the frame rate in single player mode. I swear I tried it before and it didn't work.... but, oh, well.

Why are the frame rates limited to 25fps in single player mode?? Is the real rate actually hard limited, or just the value that's displayed?

With OpenGL @ thousands of colors and 600x800, I was getting down into the teens when a lot was happening. But man, unless the rate was over 20, I thought it was unacceptable. It didn't seem to be much different than software mode at the lower resolution (though SW mode was horrible in hi res mode). I also tried RAVE mode, but it didn't seem any better. It almost seemed worse. Even having the frame rate info available, it's hard to really quantify things. That value doesn't refresh as often when things are getting slow, and usually when things are slow is when I'm gettnig my ass kicked and I can't afford to study the frame rate.

What are the other two values, "ping" and "skip" for?

I was thinking of getting a Radeon AGP card, now that they're (sorta) going on sale. How much will that improve things for LOD?

Rob, can you give us some insight into optimizing the video options? Shading, perspective, resolution, and ... I think one other option. Which of these would help the most with a stock Rage 128 Pro card?

[Hi I'm Ben]

Originally posted by Zoom:
<STRONG>Okay, I just realized I can in fact show the frame rate in single player mode. I swear I tried it before and it didn't work.... but, oh, well.

Why are the frame rates limited to 25fps in single player mode?? Is the real rate actually hard limited, or just the value that's displayed?

With OpenGL @ thousands of colors and 600x800, I was getting down into the teens when a lot was happening. But man, unless the rate was over 20, I thought it was unacceptable. It didn't seem to be much different than software mode at the lower resolution (though SW mode was horrible in hi res mode). I also tried RAVE mode, but it didn't seem any better. It almost seemed worse. Even having the frame rate info available, it's hard to really quantify things. That value doesn't refresh as often when things are getting slow, and usually when things are slow is when I'm gettnig my ass kicked and I can't afford to study the frame rate.

What are the other two values, "ping" and "skip" for?

I was thinking of getting a Radeon AGP card, now that they're (sorta) going on sale. How much will that improve things for LOD?

Rob, can you give us some insight into optimizing the video options? Shading, perspective, resolution, and ... I think one other option. Which of these would help the most with a stock Rage 128 Pro card?</STRONG>

god the dreaded rage 128... what a terrible card on D2, where are you getting that radeon "on sale" I could use one.

[Zoom]

Here's a question. Why the hell is the PC version of the Radeon card cheaper than the Mac version?? Maybe it's not Apples and Oranges (so to speak), but check this out.

If you go to www.circuitcity.com and search on "radeon", you'll find a Radeon AGP card for a PC for $80! The best deal I can find on a Mac AGP Radeon card is $180! WTF? This has been true for months now. Everytime I see the damn Radeon card in the store, it's about half the price of the Mac version. How can that be? Aren't they the same card with a different ROM image??

[Zoom]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Ben:
<STRONG>
god the dreaded rage 128... what a terrible card on D2, where are you getting that radeon "on sale" I could use one.</STRONG>

The best deal I can find is $180, which is all over. Try buy.com, for instance. There's also a $20 rebate on it right now, which gets you to $160. But if I'm seeing the right thing, you can get a 4xAGP 32MB DDR Radeon card for the PC for half that. WHY??

[a2daj]

There's a new version of the Lag Reduce mod, which is a version of the Diablo II Patch file with many of the 'extra' graphical features disabled, like the mob shadows, certain spell effects are turned down. I used the old version for a long time and thought it was great but the people working on the Mod switched to an application based version (IOW, Windows only). However, they have made a mod version available. IMO, I think Blizzard should add more options for things to turn off. Do we really need to see the monsters shadows? And some of the sorc spell effects are too much.

http://www.planetdiablo.com/theforge/lagreduce/

Unfortunately, it's on FilePlanet, so it may be pretty tough to get. I was able to download it and it works fine. Just make sure to not overwrite the original Diablo II Patch file.

BTW, I believe it's LoD only.

[ 12-17-2001: Message edited by: a2daj ]

[Zoom]

[bump]

ATi just released a bevy of new drivers . What improvements can I expect with D2:LOD with these new drivers? The Radeon card I just bought (the old 32MB one) has helped quite a bit keeping the FPS up during fight scenes, but there's still an obvious slow-down whenever you traverse new territory. Can this be improved?

[mac freak]

The update seemed to have a negative effect!
I used to get framerates ranging from 20 in heavy battles to 70 while walking around (in my 9.0.4 system I held onto for oh-so-long), but now they seem to be capped at 45, with the heavy battle framerates down to 10-15...

Oh well, I'm pretty much done with D2 anyway!

450DP/Radeon/RAVE/Thousands of colors