Should I buy a new video card for Diablo II?

[ndelgro]

I've got an overclocked Celeron 566 (to 850) with a Matrox G200. I plan to play only Diablo II in the near future and am wondering if I should upgrade the video card. I know that Diablo II is 2D and that the Matrox is a good 2D video card (3D really sucks), but I was thinking of buying a Geforce SDR. Would it help any or should I wait for prices to come down?

What do you think?

 

[Skitzer]

If I'm not mistaken Diablo II will run on Glide. An inexpensive alternative for you would be a VooDoo 3 2000 or 3000. You can pick them up for around 70 to 85 bucks on the for sale forum. A Geforce would work well too but cost a lot more.
Regards, Skitzer.

 

[evilkirk]

You should be fine in Direct 3D with the G200. I've been playing the stress test on a G400 and it looks great. The resolution is limited to 640X480 so no need to upgrade your video just for Diablo II. If you have at least 64MB of system RAM you should be fine.

 

[Zoe]

The G200 should be fine. In 3D mode, D2 seems to run best in Glide over Direct3d. It's Direct3d implementation isn't bad at all, but it reminds me of those games like Unreal/Tribes that were initially designed with Glide only; the later D3d add-on could never match the level of Glide performance. If you do decide to upgrade, you would do well with a G400 or a Voodoo3/5, but avoid TNT cards. I went from 50 frames in DirectDraw, to 35 frames in Diablo 2 using D3d on my Creative TNT. Honestly though, I think it looks much better in 2d.

 

[JellyBaby]

Diablo 2 only does 640x480 so if you have a 17"+ montor you might consider a card that can do FSAA (V5500, GeForce2). FSAA should make it look much better.

 

[sheltem]

Hmm thats a interesting thought, using FSAA on Diablo II, I never thought of that. Don't forget about the 22-bit filter on the voodoo3/5 which will increase the image quality of 16-bit.

 

[Ardennes]

Okay
1. I hear d3d looks alot better than glide in d2 , something about colors
2. fsaa YOU NUTS? The game is 2d! God damn it you people are fried over fssa?
I guess i need some fsaa for starcraft and planescape : torment since fsaa roxors!!!
3. Oh yea pick up some of that dithered 22bit for me it's almost as good as 16bit........

 

[JellyBaby]

Ardennes, nice attidude.

Here's the deal with fsaa: I recall reading from a .plan file or some web news that "Diablo 2 using fsaa is lookin' pretty spiffy". That was many months ago. Then just yesterday a columnist from CGO, Jason Cross, made a post in another forum saying he still didn't know if fsaa was supported in D2. So that legitimized it in my mind.

Anywho, looks like it's a 100% 2D rendered game stuck in 640x480. On my 19" monitor that's just too small/jaggy. May need to skip over this one.

 

[Zoe]

I think Ardennes is right about D3d; many testers have said that it looks slightly better than Glide in D2. As for FSAA in a 2d game; just keep in mind that at E3 2000, many ppl including Blizzard employees made off-hand statements that D2 on the Voodoo5's FSAA looked better than the non-FSAA version(which was running on a Geforce2 in Creative's booth). Maybe someone should do a test when the game comes out...

 

[Jedi Mike]

It should rine fine because I run 533 Celeron on 810e and in directx it runs kool.