One thing you can do is download a PC performance benchmark and that will give you a percentage score for each component in your system. It will show you relative performance of CPU, GPU, memory, HDs, SSD, etc.
So for example, hypothetically, your graphics card might be a weak link.
As Shadow mentioned GeForce GTX 1080 Ti earlier, using that for the heck of it as a comparison, that card is at a +2143% relative performance to AMD Radeon R7 Graphics for example on one of the benchmark sites.
Anyway - you could run a benchmark just to get a feel for how your components stack up on a relative basis so you get some bang for the buck.
Other thing would be to just do a quick search on the right commodity volume price points for any components you buy. There’s almost always a sweet spot for good buys on volume components, those currently being mass-produced in qty, but if you go above that sweet spot you start paying quite a bit more for performance gains.
OP you can keep the SSD, but everything else will need to be replaced with more modern specs if you wish to have a smooth experience.
A good system does not need to cost an arm and a leg, some prebuilds have decent specs for the money. Look for something with a 6+ core CPU and don’t go below a GTX 1660 Super.
The only thing that most prebuilds get wrong is that they come with single RAM configs which chokes the CPU in many modern games, so be on the lookout for a dual channel RAM config if you go the prebuilt route.
I really hope they will offer a “lite” installation option with just the old D2 graphics.
A lot of D2 players use rigs that are considered ancient by today’s standards and in the current situation not everyone can afford a new GPU just to be able to play a remaster.
I’d be willing to bet that the tech alpha had some debug code running in order to help facilitate data gathering. Drothvader had to essentially shut everything else down on his computer before he could get a stable framerate going. Most of his software is development related, which tells me that there were conflicts going on, as a debug client would definitely slow down when development software was running background daemons.
The other issue is the concurrent dual engine running in the game. It’s very neat from a demonstration perspective, but hardly practical from a final product perspective. I suspect that ultimately they’re going to have to switch to a system that lets you swap graphics engines, but only with a client restart like WoW would when switching between legacy DX11 and its default DX12 hybrid mode. Blizzard needed concurrent engines running during the alpha to showcase the side by side differences in real time, but practicality has to win here and that’s one feature that doesn’t need to be there “just to be there”. Eliminating nonessential systems running in the game is paramount if they want to be able to cast the widest net for playable framerates on various hardware. It shouldn’t take a GTX 980 Ti to do that with this game, but it did.
Your CPU isn’t so much an issue, but the GPU is. However, Blizzard/VV could make use of the hybrid tech that Overwatch uses where the game world is rendered with the dGPU (discrete GPU) and game’s HUD and menu system are rendered with the IGP, in your case the Intel HD 4000. That would make even more hardware viable for D2R.
x264 has been on the hardware encoder for GPUs for years now. It isn’t as efficient as the HEVC encoders, but it shouldn’t be enough to bring down D2R’s framerates that badly. This was just a horribly optimized alpha, which is to be expected given it was a tech alpha and likely running with some debug flags set for data collection. One super interesting thing Drothvader discovered was that the PC UI stuttered like mad, but the controller based UI was butter smooth. That’s definitely an oddity that needs to be addressed as the majority of players will be using the PC UI setup.
If you are using the built in display and it is not capable of >60 Hz refresh, why are you running uncapped? There is literally zero benefit to running higher framerates than your display can show. In fact, all that does is cause your CPU and GPU to needlessly spend cycles rendering data that will never be seen, genearing significantly more heat than necessary. Cap your FPS and/or use VSync. “I can run 180 FPS in other games lulz” mindsets are the real issue in many cases. Sure, you can run 180 FPS, but if your display is limited to 60 Hz, you’re doing the equivalent of forcing a single GPU to drive three 60 Hz displays simultaneously. Optimize your settings for the display you’re using and suddenly you stop thermal throttling.
This is an especially aggravating mindset from Mac users that don’t realize their displays can only go to 60 Hz, yet they keep their framerates uncapped, wasting CPU and GPU cycles and generating enough heat to cook their machines (Apple’s firmware defaults will keep the fans at low RPM or even off until the CPU or GPU reaches north of 90° C, which is just freaking stupid for the lifespan of hardware).
For the OP, I looked at the specs of both CPUs, and it may be that his CPU really is below the minimum, but not so much due to clock rate as it might be due to the game utilizing instruction sets not present in the slightly older CPU he has, such as AVX, etc. Granted, older AMD CPUs have very inefficient cores relative to what they offer with their Ryzen 5000 and later series that are now capable of absolutely curbstomping Intel’s best CPUs in many games. If I didn’t need Intel for hackintosh compatibility, I’d be building a sweet, sweet PCIe 4.0 AMD 5950X system.
I’d hang tight until the second multiplayer tech alpha is released. It should have better optimized code by then. I really do think that making the graphics switchable and not concurrent would free up a ton of CPU/GPU though. There’s no reason other than comparison videos to have such a system running.
why did you assume my Screen only has 60hz range in the first place
here is one of my quote from another thread:
The laptop I was referring to was outputting 120 fps into a 120 native refresh rate screen, my current laptop has a 300 refresh rate screen although I don’t use it, I use a 65 inch 4k tv for gaming, it might not be as a good, but I prefer to play games on my main screen instead of my laptop, it is capable of 60hz refresh rate at 4k which is all I need to expect from a game running something as tasking as 4k
my current setup is:
AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800H Processor 3.2 GHz (16M Cache, up to 4.4 GHz)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 mobile
32GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM (RAM)
1TB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 3.0 SSD
Was not planning on flexing with my specs but you were making a lot of assumptions about why my rig was Heat throttling
edit: ill add that the issue the previous laptop with the heat throttling was the way it was designed, the mother board was replaced 2 times with the same issue recurring and nothing to do with how I used it, which is why they supplied me with my new laptop as compensation
What model laptop do you have? I’ve not heard of any with that high a refresh rate. Haven’t even seen desktop displays that go that high.
No, H.265 (HEVC) specifically. nVidia did implement that into NVENC, but it’s supported at the hardware level on all mid-tier and high end GPUs from ~2017 onward. Not sure why he was using software encoding since that eats CPU cycles. That’s really only a viable option on systems with ≥8 cores and games that use no more than four cores, or on HEDT systems that have lots of cores and bandwidth.
ROG Strix SCAR 15, it’s cooling is very efficient compared to the Zephyrus I feel, they just didn’t build it right, Zephyrus looks elegant and slick but it’s too compact to handle these kind of cooling
Drothvader was a forum MVP back when D3 started. He left the position many many years ago. He does not stream or anything. He does keep in touch with some of the folks here.
So basically they pulled an Apple when they designed your older laptop. Not surprised, really.
OK, so OBS has two x264 encoding paths then (NVENC includes hardware x264 as well as h.265/HEVC on Kepler and later GPUs). QuickSync should work too, but only if he’s got enough spare cores for the CPU cycles. Sure would be nice for streamers, especially those that want to get into streaming, if there were more elegant solutions than the most commonly used methods these days. Few people can afford the current best option, which is a second box for capture/streaming and the first box is the gaming computer.
My whole rig is a week link, really, when it comes to gaming. But then again, she wasn’t really built with gaming in mind. She runs D3 well enough…
I don’t really want to spend too much on her right now with regards to upping the specs to work with D2R. My whole intention is to get a completely new PC around about the time when Diablo IV will be released.
This is what I had in mind:
RYZEN 7 5800X(8x4.7GHz+)
64GB DDR4
512GB NVME SSD
GEFORCE GT 710 2GB DX12
This is what GPU-Z gave me: http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/21/05/31/q74.png
That’s a sound decision, but by then you will probably have at least the new generations of GPUs so don’t set it in stone because you might have better hardware to choose from, that being said if you just want an SSD so your windows will sit in it without putting anything else I would say 512GB is enough, but if you want to utilize the speed of an SSD to faster loading times and intensive design work(if that’s what you’re into) ill suggest to get at least another SSD where you could operate on separately without affecting you operation system performance
Yep. Juggling all the games gets to be a giant pain. At least Blizzard games can be transferred to any drive you want and you just point the launcher at them. No actual install/uninstall.
Indeed. My steam library + WoW/D3 on the PC side is now 1.4 TB. My SSD is 2 TB, but the build I’ve yet to make due to my back just being a jerk has only 1 TB NVMe drives (one each for macOS/Windows games). So I’m going to need that 2 TB SSD to hold games that don’t need ultra fast reads from NVMe. I mean, hell, D2R is what, 20 GB vs. the old being 1.8 GB?
Yeah D2R size is insane for all the graphics. I only have a 512 on my laptop which has not been in issue…and it can’t play D2R so there is that. I think the Franken-puter has multiple drives including partitioned SSD or something.
A 512GB SSD will serve me well, really. My existing rig has a SATA-based SSD for nearly 2 years now for the primary and has 310GB free space. Most of my work data is stored on old-school high capacity HDDs, and doesn’t really need the boost of an SSD.
Although as I understand it correctly, I’ll get an ever greater boost to bootup and program startup times if I switch from a SATA-based SSD to an NVME based drive?
indeed, it will usually help with intense loading times as well if you play games like Totalwar warhammer and the like which can make a difference of 10-15 minutes loading times to a few minutes
and as you said it helps for a smoother experience at general, you might notice it or you might not depending on your activities but it should definitely load your operation system faster if it is installed on your SSD
