Hey all,

Just wanted to let ya'll know who may be wondering... I do not have the beta, but managed to get the "semi-cracked" version that's being discussed in several of the recent threads working.

While you obviously can't do much in this "sandbox" mode as people are calling it, it seems to be a great way to test how your machine will generally handle the various graphics settings in-game...

For some background on supported video cards for the game, see the following info on the official blizzard page:

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=40659&pageNumber=1&searchQuery=video+card

For those of you curious, I have a GeForce GTS 240, which as you can all see is towards the BOTTOM of the "Medium Performance" list. And, even with this, I cranked texture detail, shadows, and physics to HIGH, with COMPLETELY SMOOTH performance in-game.

And just to point out, though it's harder to tell from all the youtube videos and live streams we've all been watching: there is in fact a considerable noticeable difference between the lowest and highest settings...

Anyway, thought this would be good news for some people concerned about running this thing on older rigs.

What about when you have a few monsters and some effects going? I'm sure you'll see some lag.

well even in the "sandbox" mode, you can run outside of town to the south east where all these dead villagers are laying about and there's a swinging lantern glowing and casting its own shadows, etc.... not a SINGLE dip in framerate.

On the one hand, yes, it will pobably be a bit more taxing with a whole crap-load of mobs on screen, but at the same time, if it all runs so nice and smooth in this hap-hazzardly emulated beta format, there will probably be a much more "fine-tuned" and efficient optimization in the full game...

What about when you have a few monsters and some effects going? I'm sure you'll see some lag.

He will; player spells/rune effects, monsters, monster deaths including champions, cutscenes, etc. And he's not using FSAA, AFx16 or anything like that to boot.

Blizzard games are usually pretty well optimized. I just want to be able to force AA on my Nvidia card.

And on what resolution are you playing ? Because there is big diffrence between 1280×720 and 1920×1080.

My Game Runs PERFECTLY all MAX settings as well,cheers to that. Also running it as 8800x1600, but currenly Blizzard doesn't support tri-monitor surround game setup, and i understand their way to prevent FOV cheating, like i could play League of Legends on 8800x1600, and i see 3x more FOV than other players,its so cheap :P

Current sandbox is NOT a good test for your system. It's a test to see what settings you can run around in town at, nothing more.

If you get 60 fps with 0 mobs on your screen expect a lot less when there's 20+ mobs and you're using a lot of attacks on them. (unless of course you got a really good graphics card with vsync enabled)
If you get 20 fps with 0 mobs on your screen with the lowest possible settings...don't expect to be able to play.

Current sandbox is NOT a good test for your system. It's a test to see what settings you can run around in town at, nothing more.

If you get 60 fps with 0 mobs on your screen expect a lot less when there's 20+ mobs and you're using a lot of attacks on them. (unless of course you got a really good graphics card with vsync enabled)
If you get 20 fps with 0 mobs on your screen with the lowest possible settings...don't expect to be able to play.

Ya that's true. But then again the game's optimization requirement is no match for SC2, i'd say medium is a good equivalent. Don't worry most will be able to play with 30+ fps.

Even beta isn't the best test as things like AA aren't even in. I imagine we'll get even more robust options than what we currently see.

Agreed. But who uses anti-aliasing in an isometrical game, hardly noticible on them far edges (despite some shimmering that may have occured in some games such as Tropico 4, but hasn't seen ANY so far in D3)? I prefer soft edge AA over anything else in high isometric. But if you MUST use AA, 4x AA is more than enough in most games, and it doesn't eat FPS as much, hardly any on moderate configrations, only beyond 8xx MSAA will it start to eat away FPS with no improved visuals whatsoever. 16x AA and 16xQ are for development and experimental only i believe.

So far most of the models in D3 are seen either as backdrop paint-on's that's mesh combined as part of the ground plane itself or stand alone immobile statues and not as high poly that's floaty, resulted in fast camera movement and the apparent screen tearing and aliasing. Not sure if improved variety of graphic tweak options in the future would ever produce said aliasing. If they stick to it, personally i think it's fine as it is.

Having just run around Tristram myself, I think the lack of AA is much, much more noticeable in static screenshots. In motion I can hardly tell at all, and I'm really looking.

Also, the game looks absolutely, incredibly gorgeous.

I don't see any aliasing in my game, maybe high resolution helps.

second that gorgeous there mate, cheers

Talking about low fps...
Lowest possible settings in a window with my laptop (C2D T7200 with Mobility X1300) I get 12 fps standing still in town :D

Which is a bit strange because it's listed as Unsupported.... in the sticky thread :o

I bet the final game will have higher res textures.
One indicator would be SC2: Some textures got dramatically improved in the final game.
Another reason would be, that the game pretty much looks the same on medium and high.

It's beta. You will get fps drops when there is loads of monsters around.

Also, right now we don't have an opportunity to test DX11. It will be available at release.

Also, right now we don't have an opportunity to test DX11. It will be available at release.

Source?

Should I be able to run the game decently (pretty good settings) on my 8800GT? Seems it's in the lower tier of the medium cards but i'm not too certain of how to translate it into actual performance.

Source?

The source was Bashiok, but I can't find his post. He said that they will support DX11 to enable AA among other things.

EDIT: Here's the quote:
We're hoping to have time to get some DX11 support, mainly to allow us to get FSAA in.
Source: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3123315259#11

Please do tell OP what resolution are you running it on I have a friend with a 9600 that basically a bit low 230, he'd be very happy to hear if you can run it at 1920×1080

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I've got a 560 ti - running it at 1920x1080 on high settings and I'm getting 60fps.

I've got an Athlon II x2 running at 2.9ghz, 4gb 1333mhz DDR3 RAM and a Radeon 5750. I ran it in 1920x1080 in a maximized window at max settings with V-Sync and triple buffering enabled and got 40-52 FPS. Perfectly playable, but I may have to lower the settings (shadow and physics) to keep this frame rate when lots of enemies will be on the screen. All in all, I'm positively surprised by D3's performance, especially since my PC is far from the high-end by today's standards.

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I've got a 560 ti - running it at 1920x1080 on high settings and I'm getting 60fps.

I'm pretty sure even a 460 will run the full game with max FSAA on full settings.

I'm pretty sure even a 460 will run the full game with max FSAA on full settings.

I'm running a MSI GeForce GTX 460 (granted it's overclocked about 30% from stock settings), on a Phenom II X4 955 (4 cores @ 3.2Ghz), and 4GB of 1066Mhz RAM, runs game at 2048x1536 at a constant 60 fps. Nothing I try can dip the FPS.

I'm running a MSI GeForce GTX 460 (granted it's overclocked about 30% from stock settings), on a Phenom II X4 955 (4 cores @ 3.2Ghz), and 4GB of 1066Mhz RAM, runs game at 2048x1536 at a constant 60 fps. Nothing I try can dip the FPS.
How do you see your fps?

I have fraps installed. Google it, it'll just run in the background of your game, even if you're not recording.

K with this program I'm getting 85 fps without vsync on at highest settings @ 1920x1080. At the lowest settings at the same resolutions FPS were pretty much the same. My computer is a i5-2500k @ 4.6ghz 8gb ram and gtx460. Thing is, I have a 120hz screen but when I have vsync on it caps the fps at 60. I dunno. It's only beta.

i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz with HD5850 I'm running it at 1920x1080 all settings maxed and getting 97 fps with one client open, 85-87 with two clients open on both monitors (one fullscreen windowed, one big window)

That's a great news, i must change my elder MAC!!!

Ok i had to test this so i have tried and the result:

Config:
Core 2 Duo E6600 @2.4ghz, nvidia GTX 260 (driver v260.99), Win7 x64, RAM 4Gb@800Mhz, 1920x1080. Game video settings on max.

Result:
- Without mobs, the only setting that affected FPS was shadows: about 60fps with high shadows, about 100fps with shadows disabled.

- The only area of map that dropped FPS by about -20 was near the bridge over a river to the east of New Tristram. Any other area on the map didn't change fps at all.

Conclusion:
- Unless surprisingly mobs and skills effects have 0 impact on FPS (very much doubt it), i'll be playing with no shadows.

Ok i had to test this so i have tried and the result:

Config:
Core 2 Duo E6600 @2.4ghz, nvidia GTX 260 (driver v260.99), Win7 x64, RAM 4Gb@800Mhz, 1920x1080. Game video settings on max.

Result:
- Without mobs, the only setting that affected FPS was shadows: about 60fps with high shadows, about 100fps with shadows disabled.

- The only area of map that dropped FPS by about -20 was near the bridge over a river to the east of New Tristram. Any other area on the map didn't change fps at all.

Conclusion:
- Unless surprisingly mobs and skills effects have 0 impact on FPS (very much doubt it), i'll be playing with no shadows.

Great thanks for the info, my 460 with a E6700 should run it even better even with FSAA on :smug:

Anybody tested 2560x1440? I'm wondering if a single 560 ti 2gb will run max settings with a good frame rate

Has anyone tested how low-medium-high shadows look in comparison to eachother? In some games, low and medium shadows are very pixelated, while in other games it seems to be the sharpness and intensity of the shadows rather than the pixel count (Meaning that low shadow setting doesn't look horrible, just abit blurry).

Has anyone tested how low-medium-high shadows look in comparison to eachother? In some games, low and medium shadows are very pixelated, while in other games it seems to be the sharpness and intensity of the shadows rather than the pixel count (Meaning that low shadow setting doesn't look horrible, just abit blurry).

I did test them and in D3 the latter is true for shadow quality, at least on ATi cards. There can be huge differences between shadows with different vendors.

I did test them and in D3 the latter is true for shadow quality.

Great news!

If it does turn out to be slightly more than my machine can handle, I'll just tune down the shadows! (I can't play WITHOUT shadows, it makes the world look weird)

Alot of people seem to think that D3 looks "bad" for our time.. I think it looks absolutely awesome to be honest :)

EDIT: I didn't see my GFX card on the list that was posted a while ago.. I've got ATI Radeon HD 4770, now the non-HD version of 4770 was listed as medium, and then HD 4800 was listed as high. Not sure what to think (Not a computer wiz :()

Heres a link to the list in case someone would want to take a look: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=809792

Alot of people seem to think that D3 looks "bad" for our time.. I think it looks absolutely awesome to be honest :)

I think those who think it looks bad are just a bit obsessed with realistic textures, normal maps, occlusion, parallax bump mapping, good rays and all the shiny effects from games like Crysis and so on. I like good graphics like anyone else, but only when they fit in the game and are well done.

On the other hand, honestly seeing a screenshot of diablo 3 doesn't make the game any justice whatsoever.

And it goes beyond that, graphics are there and are nicely done, the UI looks gorgeous in my opinion and the art style, even it is not as dark as i expected at first, is very nice. There's also lighting variations from dungeon to dungeon, the environments and how part of them react to your attacks not just for visual impact but also gameplay, the diversity of the areas, and a lot of content we surely don't even know about yet.

All of that counts, and makes the game look very nice, it's not just about having the last graphics effects to make the game look good.

I've got ATI Radeon HD 4770, now the non-HD version of 4770 was listed as medium

They're the same.