One of the most epic games in the new millenium, Diablo 2 has gained great acclaim to the series. Critics loved it. The Guiness Book of World Records awarded it with the Fastest Selling Computer Game Ever Sold. The game still regularly wins awards when it comes to “Best Games” prizes.
This is what Darth Vader looks like without the mask
A memorable game of the early millenium, Diablo 2 still has a big following around the world, and its renaissance has been particularly prevalent with the introduction of netbooks.
If you don’t really know what the game is about, here’s the lowdown. Diablo 2 is a point-and-click, hack and slash RPG game where you are able to choose five classes (seven with LoD) to conquer four Acts. In each act, you will fight a major boss at the end.
As you go through the stages in the Acts, you’ll encounter more and more loot with powerful items. You’ll do quests and you’ll gain experience to level-up, with which you’ll gain greater magic powers.
However, the game has little replayablity after you finish the first round, and the graphics are outdated so much so they look quite ugly. The game might have dated graphics, but just like Terraria and Gangsters 2, a game with a good concept is not likely to lose its shine just because of obsolete graphics. The game is in fact still one of the best RPGs out there.
Getting el Diablo to Work
To experience the joy you had in the last decade, Diablo 2 can be easily installed onto a netbook without any problems.
In fact, a great service brought by Blizzard allows you to register your CD-Key with them and they’ll allow you to download the ISO. That means that they’re allowing you to run the game without the need for a CD drive. Proceed on here to find out more.
Alternatively, you could also just crack the game.
The first order of the day after installation is to get the latest patch. And then, to run the game in 1024×600 or any widescreen resolution, you must get the D2MultiRes tool.
Like
Great mindless hack-and-slash game
Lots of levels, lots of items to collect
Sick bloody massacre
Great levelling up experience
Dislike
Graphics dated
Verdict
You’ll be amazed by this game if you can get past the graphics. Although the game has little replayability after you’ve gone through it once.
Gameplay: Excellent
Graphics: Excellent (30+ fps)
Work needed to get game to play: Moderate (30-min)
Screenshots: RPGamer
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Hi, if you’re reading this post and thinking that maybe the graphics should be faster, given how old Diablo 2 is. I mean, if your netbook can run Terraria at the same speed of Diablo 2, then I’m sure Diablo 2 can be fixed for you.
First I’d like to say that this worked on my netbook, which is an Eee PC, N550 processor, and GMA 3150 as a gpu.
The solution is pretty simple. The problem with the low fps (~30) is because of the Direct3D renderer for the GMAs. Since Diablo 2 is an old game, the renderer is ran in legacy mode, which limits and slows down the interpretations of the Direct3D calls. That, however, is not the same case with DirectDraw.
Just open your D2/D2LOD directory in windows explorer and find the D2VidTst.exe, that is the program you are going to run to change the render settings. It will run a few tests on your secreen (blinking it and coming back in a few seconds) and then let you choose which renderer you want.
Choose the DirectDraw (top) option. Now you can run D2 again and enjoy solid 60fps.
Note: Doing this also messed up the colors on my screen. There are some solutions out there on google for the messed up colors, but the solution I liked the most was just putting the game into windowed mode. You can do this by editing the shortcut to your D2 and adding -w to the end of its destiny like this:
“D:\games\Diablo II\Diablo II.exe”
becomes
“D:\games\Diablo II\Diablo II.exe” -w
And that is all.
I’ve played Diablo II on my HP mini, and the only thing I have to do is to install the game, nothing more