"Solution" for Diablo 3 on 9400M

[Mister Bumbo]

Hi all!

I know there's been loads of problems with Diablo 3 on the 9400M and this thread is not the place for people to tell all of us how much this card sucks - trust me... we know...

As some of you might have realized, the game is completely unplayable running in OS X, and not all of us have boot camp, want to use boot camp or etc as it does run better in windows.

I just installed the Trial Version of Parallels 7, and then installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Version on it, and then installed Diablo 3. WOW. The DPS is tripled and in some areas better, there's low fps spikes - yes, but there isn't any "lag" in response really as there is on OS X.

For those unexperienced with Parallels: How this works is that Parallels is an ordinary application that lets you install a Windows OS inside of it, it doesn't require boot camp, nor disk partitioning or anything, not even a restart! It's like downloading an application and then you just throw in a windows-installation file, then you will have an OS X window with windows inside of it, there you can install Diablo 3 and run it. It's like running it in ordinary windowed mode (if you run it fullscren in Windows).

This will all in all take around 18-20 GB of space, but as I said - the game is perfectly playable (though, still at almost lowest specs, but it can handle a tad better resolution than 800x600). I have monitored my computer's temperature and it's not going crazy - not any worse than running games natively on OS X.

Please note that the Parallels trial is just that - a trial, and that Windows 8 Consumer Preview at the moment is free, but probably won't be once Windows 8 is released. However, this works NOW and the Parallels trial is good for 2 weeks.

The links you will need:
Parallels, need a valid e-mail for CD key to the trial version.
https://nct.parallels.com/fulfill/0285.011

Windows 8, I used the 64-bit version.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download
Note that there's 2 codes on this site. You will need both.

So the procedure is pretty much this: Download Parallels and Windows 8, start Parallels and activate it as a trial version with the code in your e-mail. Then install with the Windows 8 -.iso file. Then install Diablo 3 and fire it up!

Hope this can help some other 9400M users out there!
Happy demonslaying!

 

[mikeo007]

Everyone has bootcamp. If you're installing windows 8, you may as well bootcamp it.all performance will be better in bootcamp. Virtualization with parallels will always be slower.

 

[cerote]

I am with the other guy and might as well just bootcamp it than use more resources to run it in virtualization.

Also cheaper since Parallel is like 50-70$ depending on if they are having special or not.

 

[throAU]

Everyone has bootcamp. If you're installing windows 8, you may as well bootcamp it.all performance will be better in bootcamp. Virtualization with parallels will always be slower.

Boot camp needs to pre-allocate all teh disk for your windows install.

VM uses files, which are allocated on demand. If you have limited space, you might not have enough for boot camp.

 

[Mister Bumbo]

Everyone has bootcamp. If you're installing windows 8, you may as well bootcamp it.all performance will be better in bootcamp. Virtualization with parallels will always be slower.

I did state that not everyone wants to use boot camp and reboot the computer just to use one application. This is a workaround for those people. I don't see why it's so hard to respect that.

I am with the other guy and might as well just bootcamp it than use more resources to run it in virtualization.

Also cheaper since Parallel is like 50-70$ depending on if they are having special or not.

Where did I say you had to buy Parallels? I said there was a free trial that is good for 2 weeks. Perhaps read a bit more carefully the next time before you post?

 

[mikeo007]

I did state that not everyone wants to use boot camp and reboot the computer just to use one application. This is a workaround for those people. I don't see why it's so hard to respect that.



Where did I say you had to buy Parallels? I said there was a free trial that is good for 2 weeks. Perhaps read a bit more carefully the next time before you post?

I'm not arguing that what you proposed works, i'm just saying it's silly. Heck, Diablo 3 will run better native in OSX than it will running virtualized on a beta operating system.

Also, VMs allocate more of the disk than you think. If you partition bootcamp to just the right size, you don't have to worry about overuse of space.

 

[R1PPER]

i had a 9400m model imac...gave it away it was that rubbish. Do yourself a favour and sell it and by a refurbished 2011 model. The graphics card is 10x better.

 

[Mister Bumbo]

I'm not arguing that what you proposed works, i'm just saying it's silly. Heck, Diablo 3 will run better native in OSX than it will running virtualized on a beta operating system.

Also, VMs allocate more of the disk than you think. If you partition bootcamp to just the right size, you don't have to worry about overuse of space.

Yes... because I would go to the trouble to make a thread about this if it runs better native? The thing is, with this solution, the FPS in the game is tripled and is almost lag-free, where as it's unplayable native on OS X. Probably due to the DirextX/OpenGL-difference. In OS X I get overall FPS 5-14, whereas in Windows 8 via Parallels I get around 15-40.

And the boot camp thing, yes, it would take almost as much space, but the game won't install if there isn't 15.1 GB free (although the installed is 7.6 and the game itself takes 7.7) then you would need space for the installer upon that, = 15.1 + 7.7, then add the space the actual OS takes which is around 12-14 GB. That's well over 35 GB and would need the partition to be 40 GB to be on the safe side, almost double the space compared to using Parallels.

Perhaps get your facts straight before you start assuming things and speak your mind about how things work you haven't even tried? I don't mean to be rude, but it's kinda tiresome when you do a helpful thread and people waltz in and speak their mind about something they obviously have, in this particular case, no experience with.

i had a 9400m model imac...gave it away it was that rubbish. Do yourself a favour and sell it and by a refurbished 2011 model. The graphics card is 10x better.

Re-read the first paragraph of the first post.

 

[Alexwithad]

I have a 9400m and as you said it was unbearable with OSX and I used windows 7/bootcamp and it was better for a while but now I just get random lag spikes. Maybe I'll try it with windows 8 or even parallels but I don't see how parallels would be better than windows 7 on bootcamp.

 

[err404]

I'm impressed that Parallels is running that well with a game. Has anybody done a comparison of bootcamp vs parallels for D3? If it's only a slight hit, it would be worth it for the added convenience.

 

[Alexwithad]

I found an real solution that works flawlessly on the battle.net forums. I'll make a post to it later. It involves bootcamp + windows 7 + nvidia drivers and overclocking your GPU to a little higher juice and it really works amazing now on low settings always 25-30 FPS.

 

[cerote]

Where did I say you had to buy Parallels? I said there was a free trial that is good for 2 weeks. Perhaps read a bit more carefully the next time before you post?

I did read that and then what after that 2 weeks?

 

[Aquaporin]

The game runs fine on my 9400M except in most of Act II, but I was able to finish the game without any hiccups.

To me this is more hardcore than a hardcore character.

 

[MRU]

Just a tip. Use Bootcamp to install the OS even for Parallels.

If you install windows via Bootcamp, you can always get parallels to utilise your bootcamped partition too. Save you the hassle of installing windows twice, and should you decide to get rid of parallels and keep Bootcamp, you won't need to go installing the OS yet again.

 

[Scrapula]

The game runs fine on my 9400M except in most of Act II, but I was able to finish the game without any hiccups.

To me this is more hardcore than a hardcore character.

I'm running find on a 9400M w/512. My FPS is around 15-20 but I've set my detail to high and running widescreen 16:9 on 22" monitor.

 

[Heilage]

Exactly how did your damage per second (DPS) triple by running it in Parallels?

 

[ljonesj]

with parallels just go back to the site and reinput your email get a new trail code put in again and go for another 2 weeks

 

[Ruahrc]

I don't really see the sense in using Parallels vs. bootcamp here. Undoubtedly you are going to get better performance on bootcamp than parallels, and when you're dealing with a very marginal computer setup like a 9400M machine, you will want to maximize your performance using whatever means possible.

D3 runs better than I thought it would on my 2009 MBP13 when playing in Win7 bootcamp. I can get pretty usable performance at native resolution (1280x800) with everything on the lowest possible setting, and when it slows down too much I can revert to 800x600 and it goes along okay. It looks terrible at 800x600, but at least it's usable. It seems strange though that I get additional resolution options in the OSX client vs. the Windows client. For example in OSX I can choose 1024x640 or other really low-res but still widescreen options, whereas in windows all I get is 1280x800 and 1280x768 for widescreen, and below that is 1024x768 and 800x600 (both 4:3) for lower res. It's ironic and a little sad that 13 years later, some people still run D3 at the same archaic 800x600 resolution that D2 used .

Running natively in OSX it did not run very well even in 800x600 mode.

Encouraged by these results, I think I might upgrade from the starter edition to the real game, so that I can play something when I go on vacation soon and will only have my laptop and not my gaming PC. I was thinking about holding off until after I got back from vacation but if I can get a passable experience on my laptop it may be enough.

The ironic thing is that the visual difference between ultra low and ultra high on D3 is not actually that large. I actually wish you could turn some of the graphic options down even more, to get better performance on low end systems. Fog/mist/smoke seem to be the real killer on my laptop. If you could disable that entirely I think it would help matters quite a bit.

 

[cerote]

with parallels just go back to the site and reinput your email get a new trail code put in again and go for another 2 weeks

But if you are using the program that much then why not show your support for the app instead of leeching off the trials.

 

[derekamoss]

The game runs fine on my 9400M except in most of Act II, but I was able to finish the game without any hiccups.

To me this is more hardcore than a hardcore character.

same here, act two gets sluggish for some reason but other then that the game runs fine

 

[definitive]

Having just tried the game on Lion with a 2.13ghz c2d macbook with 9400m and 4gigs of RAM, I honestly don't see how Blizzard will pull off getting the game to run at 30fps or more. Having all the settings low, in windowed mode at 800x600, and trilinear filtering disabled, I only get 15-17fps in Act 1 town, about 11-15fps in somewhat crowded areas, and maybe 20-25fps in very small caves.

 

[shardey]

I'm pretty sure this game is just poorly written, since I usually have 50-60fps and then some areas will get down to 4fps.. 4!!!

There is also no way that Diablo will run better on the method that was proposed by the OP, as running it through OS X would provide better results.

 

[definitive]

I'm pretty sure this game is just poorly written, since I usually have 50-60fps and then some areas will get down to 4fps.. 4!!!

There is also no way that Diablo will run better on the method that was proposed by the OP, as running it through OS X would provide better results.

windows generally has better performance when it comes to games, so a 9400m will provide a better gaming experience under windows, but who wants to bother with that if you don't have any use for windows besides diablo3?

it seems like a lot of the maps are not well optimized (act 1 spider cave for example, and the maps before butcher all drop to 8-10fps, while the others are 15-18, which is still very bad), and i hope they don't take a long time fixing this issue.

 

[apollo1444]

lots of poor optimization bashing towards Blizzard...

I think Apple does a lazy job when it comes to support gaming on the mac and OS X

imagine 15 kilometers of anal wastes and down there below all of that, the gaming priorities from Apple for their macs.

 

[shardey]

lots of poor optimization bashing towards Blizzard...

I think Apple does a lazy job when it comes to support gaming on the mac and OS X

imagine 15 kilometers of anal wastes and down there below all of that, the gaming priorities from Apple for their macs.

No when you have a game on both platform have significant low fps spikes in certain maps, then it most certainly is the developer and not the OS.

I know a lot of people with strong gaming rigs, and still experience a lot of lag within the first few minutes of a epic battle.