Diablo III – PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Year of construction: 2012
Genre:RPG
developer: Blizzards
Publishing house: Blizzards

 

Diablo III is a computer game of the Hack and slash genre, published by Blizzard Entertainment in the Action-RPG and Hack and slash genres for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms; It is also planned to release the game for consoles, but a little later. 

 The game is part of the Diablo series of games and a direct sequel to Diablo II. The game, like in the previous parts of the series, takes place in a dark fantasy world called Sanctuary, and events develop around the struggle between the army of Heaven and the armies of the Underworld for the world of Sanctuary. The player characters are not direct followers of these factions, but gravitate toward the forces of Heaven as the armies of the Underworld seek to enslave and destroy Sanctuary, their homeworld.

THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

Supported OS and graphics API

This game is supported by the current major Windows operating systems, which include Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OS X, so that all PC users will be able to enjoy the much-anticipated product.

 

Diablo III only supports DirectX 9 for systems based on Windows и OpenGL for systems based on Mac OS X

Game engine

The game engine is a product of Blizzard’s own development. There is practically no information on the network about the structure and development of this engine. Rather, the engine is a further development of the product line for games based on Blizzard’s own intellectual property.

 

We were unable to find detailed information other than our own visual observations.

Advanced Graphics Settings

Diablo III has advanced graphics quality settings. Users can flexibly manipulate graphics settings to achieve smoother playability on their system configurations and systems. 

Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between minimum, medium, high and maximum graphics quality settings. 

Low quality settings

Medium quality settings

High quality settings

Ambient Occlusion Shadowing

 As we can see, the difference between the different quality settings is almost minimal. And only upon closer examination can you notice the difference. Inclusion Ambient Occlusion Shadowing makes shadows more realistic and clear.

General visual design and game physics

As we described in the review of the beta version of the game, Diablo III is not the most technological product of our time. This is especially noticeable when zoomed in closely. However, the design idea has its power and the levels look quite well and beautifully, even despite the fact that sometimes déjà vu pops up…

 

The physics engine used is Havok Physics, better known simply as Havok, a physics engine developed by the Irish company Havok. The engine creates a real-time simulation of physical interaction, which makes the game world more alive and realistic, similar to Ragdoll physics. Havok Physics is a multi-platform engine.

 

Well, then we will move directly to gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware.

TEST PART

GPU test

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The minimum and average FPS were taken as performance indicators.  Тeats video cards and CPUs were produced in the place shown in the video below. 

Our video cards were tested at different screen sizes of 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by the game. SLI and Cross Fire is currently fully optimized for Diablo III and allows video cards to reveal their full potential. Teats produced

 

Testing at high quality settings 1680×1050 

 

At a resolution of 1680×1050 at maximum settings, the minimum and acceptable level of performance was shown by all of our video cards, and for comfortable gaming, cards of the Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTS 450 level will be sufficient.

Testing at high quality settings 1920×1080

At a resolution of 1920×1080 at maximum In the settings, the minimum and acceptable performance levels were again shown by cards of the Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTS 450 level. 

Testing at high quality settings 2560×1600

 

At a resolution of 2560×1600 at maximum Settings  The minimum level of acceptable performance was again shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTS 450 level. At the moment, most of the cards Radeons are the most preferred in terms of price/performance in Diablo III. However, there is one pleasant exception, and this is the GE FORCE GTX 680, which creates worthy competition for all, second only to the dual-chip AMD flagship Radeon HD 6990. Kepler architecture reveals itself in full force, showing advanced  performance for its class of single-chip top solutions.

Test Ambient Occlusion Shadowing

NVIDIA has a solid ace up its sleeve for Diablo III, called Ambient Occlusion Shadowing, which is only activated from the NVIDIA control panel. The indicator was taken only from the results of NVIDIA video cards with different screen sizes 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 2560×1600. You can see how the same picture looks with Ambient Occlusion ON and OFF here.

Testing at high quality settings 1680×1050 

 

At a resolution of 1680×1050 at maximum settings, a GeForce GTS 450 level card will be sufficient for comfortable gaming.

Testing at high quality settings 1920×1080

At a resolution of 1920×1080 at maximum settings, the minimum level of performance will be shown by a card of the GeForce GTS 450 level. Comfortable playability will be ensured GeForce GTX 550 Ti and higher.

Testing at high quality settings 2560×1600

 

At a resolution of 2560×1600 at maximum settings, the minimum level of performance will be shown by a card of the GeForce GTX 560 level. Comfortable playability will be ensured GeForce GTX 560 Ti and higher.

VRAM test

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on the results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes of 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

Testing at high memory GPU quality settings

 

Testing at high memory GPU quality settings Ambient Occlusion Shadowing

The optimal amount of video memory usage at maximum settings for Diablo III is about 512 MB for NVIDIA and AMD video cards. For technology Ambient Occlusion Shadowing may need up to 1024 MB. video memory.

CPU test

We tested processor dependence on 15 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the value of video cards for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1024×768.  

Testing at high quality settings 1024×768

Diablo III in this testing location is slightly different from the beta version of the game. Scalability when moving from two to four cores is minimal, but the game is still quite comfortable.

RAM test

Testing of the RAM consumed by the game was carried out by monitoring directly through the Windows task manager. The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 [email protected] GHz with 8GB DDR3 2400 MGz pre-installed memory.

Testing at various quality settings 

At any quality setting, Diablo III consumes just 700 megabytes of RAM. 2 gigabytes of RAM in the system will be quite enough.