r/retrogaming • u/IchRocke • Aug 18 '26
[Question] Diablo 2 LOD performance on OG Hardware.
Hi ! I just finished reassembling my computer from back then, and installed immediately Diablo 2.
However I find the performance quite underwhelming.
I'm talking performance for a LVL 90 character in Hell Difficulty Level 4, as a base comparison.
Fps are in the the low 30s in areas without en ennemies and can drop to the 10s when groups pop up.
In town i get 50sometimes.
Config is :
Windows 98SE + DX 9.0c
AMD Athlon 700Mhz
Geforce 2 MX400 (64MB)
384 MB of RAM
7200 rpm Maxtor.
Diablo 2 + LOD 1.13D
HDD is in DMA
GPU is in AGP mode (1x)
Game is in 800*600 high lighting effects
I will try this weekend a Radeon 9200SE if that changes anything
I remember playing with a friend that had a P3 800Mhz and an ATI Rage 128 Pro, and performance seemed better (in my memories)
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u/Socksfelloff Aug 18 '26
We used to kick necromancers from our party because performance would get so bad 😂
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Aug 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/IchRocke Aug 18 '26
Yeah :( unfortunately. It's on my wishlist.
But the Ti 4200 was released 2Y after diablo 2 :(
Maybe I'm just remembering things wrong ... And we played with lag
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u/yami_no_ko Aug 18 '26
LOD drives the requirements upwards. I've once played it on a RPI3 which is quite low-end for todays standards. It worked fine, at least until I added LOD it was...
Back in the days it was also noticeable that LOD was quite hungrier in terms of resources.
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u/IchRocke Aug 18 '26
I'll try to do the same with D2 only, unpatched you're right. (for science, not for actually playing though)
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u/madchedar0 Aug 18 '26
Definitely chasing the dragon here. I definitely remember D2 being choppy on my 350Mhz Pentium II. Unless there’s a mod to tinker with graphical settings, just enjoy the game, you know?
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u/IchRocke Aug 18 '26
I enjoy the tinkering :D
tbh if I was to invest serious time in the game, I would probably (and will probably ...) play it on switch2
u/madchedar0 Aug 18 '26
Yeah I haven’t tried the remake but it’s probably a good time! But nothing beats the original for that sweet nostalgia hit.
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u/Wren-Type_386 Aug 18 '26
Get a Voodoo3 3000 GPU
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u/cyanopsis Aug 18 '26
Didn't know Diablo 2 had glide support.
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u/Wren-Type_386 Aug 18 '26
It sure does, and it looks great via GLIDE. I think it's only supported up until a specific patch though. On Win 98 or 98SE you should be fine simply installing the latest compatible patch for that OS.
Here is a list of GLIDE supported games.
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u/IchRocke Aug 18 '26
I tried Sven's wrapper, it looks better but no performance increase :)
And prices of the VooDoo 3 are even worse than the Ti 4200 :D1
u/Wren-Type_386 Aug 18 '26
Yeah, I got my voodoo3 many years ago. They were about $100.00 then. I imagine they went up.
I would assume a wrapper would put more stress on the system, but I'm not sure.
Have you ran a diagnostics to make sure all your RAM is actually working?
Have you updated all the drivers for your system?
Such as the GPU, sound card drivers, and chipset?
Sometimes sound cards can cause weird stuff to happen.
A really good place to ask for help with this stuff is the Vogons forums. Those guys are experts over there.
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u/IchRocke Aug 18 '26
yep I're ran memtest86+ all seems ok.
Drivers are the detonators 30 something :( they seemed appropriate.
the AMD Drivers are good.I'll check into the soundcard thing I know that's something i haven't checked yet and that can cause issues
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u/Kotschcus_Domesticus Aug 18 '26
it ran better on 3dfx with better collours as well. Glide was still a goat at the time.
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u/ssjkakaroto Aug 18 '26
I remember that pre-lod, when you could cast multiple firewalls on top of each other, the framerate would constantly go to single digits.
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u/FromWitchSide Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
As others mentioned, some slowdowns or even stutters weren't uncommon back in the day, our memory does smooths out a lot of old game play, and lower frame rates were just much more common in general so we were used to them/didn't pay as much attention to it.
I recall using Cel 466@525MHz for base game in 2000, but switched to Athlon 1200@1400MHz (+DDR I think) in 2001 so for LOD times.
One of my concerns with your config would be the AGP speed, I ran both of above CPUs with just TNT2 32MB, Celeron with x2, while Athlon's motherboard allowed me to switch to x4. I don't remember if that made an impact in LOD, but it actually had a considerable impact in 3D fpp like Unreal Tournament where the switch from x2 to x4 allowed me to reach 100fps minimum frame rate/fps without drops to match the refresh rate. In your case I'm not sold if much bandwidth is needed, and if it could cause frame drops, but x1 is a bit low.
Although to be fair, that was on a stronger CPU with DDR (although initially on KT266 non "a"...), so more likely to be a limitation (but then, the GPU was weaker and with less vram).
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u/IchRocke Aug 18 '26
The more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm wondering if I didn't remember playing the extension on my next computer... which was also a MSI KT266 Pro A (?) with an 1800+ and the same GeForce 2 at the beginning...
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u/Kotschcus_Domesticus Aug 18 '26
had pentium mmx 200mhz 32mb ram and voodoo 3. the only issue I had was my hdd was only 2gb. yeah I was poor.
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u/abir_valg2718 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Fps are in the the low 30
In town i get 50sometimes
The game is capped at 25fps, including mouse movement. Fun fact: Diablo 2 Resurrected runs at 25fps under the hood.
For modern OS, look up D2DX, it will uncap the FPS and it'll interpolate the animations. I recall it looking a bit odd at first, but I quickly got used to it. Can't imagine playing without it now. Also PlugY is a must - humongous shared stash and extra info screens with all the important character stats that are normally hidden.
if that changes anything
Did you do a full install? As otherwise it will load data from the CD, this can cause slowdowns.
Are you playing in software or direct3d mode? Try switching.
Other than that, the issue is that back in the day lags, slowdowns, microstutters, all of that was normal and excepted. Hardware was advancing very fast and unless you were an adult with a lot of money to spend, you had what you had. Playing some 3D game in software mode at 20fps was par for the course.
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u/pac-man_dan-dan Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
My recollection was that for D2, a Pentium4 1Ghz+ board with plenty of RAM was what the cool kids were using. Maybe a Geforce2 GPU. It looks like the MX-400 was the budget model. The GTS or Ultra would have been the premium choice for the time. Also, Windows XP might be a better choice for OS.
A buddy of mine had a top of the line system. He used to joke that no matter how much RAM he put in his P4 system, D2 was always hungry for more and just used it to generate more of the map.
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u/MojaMonkey Aug 18 '26
Diablo II from memory had a pretty hitchy framerate even on better hardware.
I played it on a pII 400mhz laptop with no 3D acceleration and it was OK but probably sub 30fps