Hi fellow players,
It’s my first time writing a forum post in Blizzard ever.
I wanted to share my method and confirmation that D2R can run on these specs:
MacBook Air 2017
i5, dual core
Intel HD Graphics
If you are looking for a solution on how this can be done, read on.
Firstly, I was motivated to want to run D2R on my MacBook because my i7, MX150 graphics card laptop is dying and I do not want to purchase another PC just to play D2R.
I googled and found out that no one has proven or successfully showed that they can play D2R on a 2017 MacBook Air with way below min. requirements for D2R. Nonetheless, I decided to try.
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First, you need to make sure your MacBook Air 2017 (mine is i5, 8gb ram, 128gb storage, Intel HD Graphics) has a windows partition. This can be done using Bootcamp assistance. My setup is 80gb = Mac, 40gb = Windows.
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Once Windows partition is created, you will notice that about 16gb is used up as system files in the Windows partition in your MacBook, how can the remaining 24gb run Battlenet and D2R? The answer lies in thumbdrive.
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I installed Battlenet on the Windows partition, about 300mb. Once you have installed Bnet, choose to download D2R (assuming you already own it) into the thumbdrive that you insert into your MacBook. The thumbdrive that I used is 32gb, free space 31gb, just enough for D2R.
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Once D2R is installed in your thumbdrive, you have to go to Bnet and choose to scan for games in the drive that your thumbdrive is assigned to. D2R will be detected.
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Now run D2R from Bnet → click on ‘Play’.
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Immediately, the game will crash. Reason is that the Intel Graphics card is too weak to run D2R.
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Solution is to go to google and search for ‘Intel Graphics Update’. The intel website will detect your system and automatically suggest a driver for you to install and update.
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After installing the updated drivers, run D2R again. This time, the game will launch, but a system error will pop up, stating that you need to update your intel drivers. Just ignore it, because D2R can run already. It’s just annoying to keep ignoring the error every time you launch D2R.
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If you are wondering about the D2R settings on this Macbook Air 2017, i5, 8gb ram, 40gb windows partition, Intel HD graphics → everything is set to low / off. I even play in windows mode with low resolution even though I can play in full screen. It’s your choice. I tried moving around and killing monsters and it works. I didn’t try 8-men baal. I believe you will experience lag, but if you really just want to level up a bit, mf at your own pace, play mostly in 1-man game, it’s totally possible.
Hope other MacBook users find this useful. Your MacBook Air 2017 works for D2R! Not sure about M1 chip (I read that it’s impossible due to no Bootcamp).
I didn’t use Parallels or other streaming services.
Enjoy the playable D2R, guys!