What do I need (PC hardware wise) to play Diablo III

[Rucksinator]

So I downloaded Diablo 3 onto my HP desktop PC that I bought a few years ago. It is (was) definitely not a top of the line PC when I bought it. It was probably the cheapest decent PC on sale at Best Buy at the time. When I check My Computer properties here is what it says:

Hewlett-Packard
Model: p6654y
Rating: 4.1 Windows Experience Index
Processor: AMD Athlon II X 4 630 Processor 2.80 GHz
RAM: 4.00 GB (3.75 GB usable)

Actually, here is all the info about this PC: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...reg_r1002_usen


Here are the D3 system requirements: http://us.battle.net/support/en/arti...m-requirements


BTW, I have an ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro video card with 356MB of DDR2 Ram apparently built in. (I believe I bought it so that I could use 2 monitors with my previous desktop, but this HP has the capability of using 2 monitors built in, so I didn't need it.)
I'm guessing that my current ATI 4200 is better than the 2400, but I'm not sure if you can just look at the numbers like that. I'm not sure how much RAM my current, integrated video card has, but from this, above, I'm inferring it's also 256 MB: "RAM: 4.00 GB (3.75 GB usable)"


How far away am I from being able to play D3 normally? Right now it is extremely slow, so much that it is practically unplayable. There is even lag when I type in my password. I have gotten to level 5, but any remotely tough monster requires dying several times and respawning with all of my health and his is still down to where it was when I last died. So, it will play, there are no error messages, it's just so slow that I'm not getting the real experience at all. How much more am I going to have to spend? New PC, or just new video card?

[Mahaloth]

This thread on building a Diablo 3 ready computer may help.

[Kinthalis]

New PC only if you plan on doing some more PC gaming after Diablo 3, (and you should. Free to play games alone are worth the investment) and you like modern, demanding 3D games.

Otherwise a new, cheap video card should do you fine.

The resolution of your monitor is important, but an $89:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161395

6750 will run the game flawlessly at up to 1080p.

Frankly that setup is probably decent for most other gaming at 1680x1050 or less at medium settings too.

The CPU is a bit of a bottleneck and I would do a mobo + CPU + RAM upgrade as your next step when you get the gaming itch down the line.

[Rucksinator]

I don't plan on doing any gaming down the line. D2 is the only PC gaming I've done in the past 10 years. I'm a big fan of the Diablo games, but not a big gamer. I bought a low end PC because it would run Office, various browsers, and various Blizzard games from the 1990s, which is (was, before D3) all that I needed. 3 digits is about all I'm willing to spend. To be honest, I really shouldn't get into something like this at this time.

[Kiros]

Your video card is definitely what's killing you; in fact, I had this same conversation with a RL friend of mine last week. Very similar HP box and everything, heck it might have been the same exact one. My response to him was this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125403

$47 (shipped) after rebate, should play D3 just fine at 1080p or under.

[Rucksinator]

Thanks, Kiros and Kinthalis. So my processor is OK?

Originally Posted by HP

•Operating speed: Up to 2.8 GHz


•Number of cores: 4


•Socket: AM3


•Bus speed: 4000 MHz

Originally Posted by Kiros

Your video card is definitely what's killing you; in fact, I had this same conversation with a RL friend of mine last week. Very similar HP box and everything, heck it might have been the same exact one. My response to him was this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125403

$47 (shipped) after rebate, should play D3 just fine at 1080p or under.

Your link says that it's $64, but that's still $25 cheaper than the one that Kinthalis linked to. They seem to have similar specs, but I don't know what numbers are significant and what are not. (For example, are the 2400 and 4800 in my current options useful for comparison with the 6750 and the 6670 in the 2 suggestions that have been made? Or are the "1GB" and "128-bit" all I need to worry about?

[Kiros]

Tom's Hardware is my go to for quick comparisons on stuff like this. In particular, these monthly articles are great:

Best Gaming CPUs for the Money - May 2012

Best Graphics Cards for the Money - May 2012

Those links are directly to the 'current hierarchy'/summary portion of each article. Your AMD X4 630 is right about in the middle on the AMD side. For reference, my fiancee's computer running a Phenom II X3 Black (same tier) runs D3 at near-max settings at 1680x1050, and I have no doubt it would play relatively nice at 1080p.

For graphics cards, it looks like the 6750 is a few tiers higher than the 6670 (DDR3). For $25 I'd probably get the 6750, but somewhere hidden on that Newegg product page is an additional $25 rebate if you purchase by 5/31. What resolution is your primary monitor? That's really the biggest piece of information we don't have, as to how much power you might actually need for this. In any case, even the 6670 is literally about a dozen tiers higher than your integrated 4200 or discrete 2400 Pro.

[Rucksinator]

I'm currently using a 21" Acer monitor whose resolution is currently set to 1680 x 1050, which it says is recommended, and appears to be the highest option. [I had to swap monitors with my parents when I got a different computer desk. They are currently using my 24" Dell monitor.]

I just went by Best Buy to see what they had. The had a couple with 2GB of RAM for $69. (One that I have in the ad in front of me is a Galaxy (?off brand?) GeForce GT 520 2GB DDR3 Graphics card. Looking at the chart, it seems to be far below the 2 that were recommended, so I guess that's out. Does 2GB of RAM vs. 1GB make much of a difference?

The guy at Best Buy told me that I would need at least a 300W power supply for any of the video cards that would run D3. Mine has 250W, but he said more important than the wattage was having 12v rails (?), which he was sure that mine didn't have. Will I need a new power supply as well?

As soon as I post this I'm going to shut my PC down and look inside.

BTW, I used to work on computers, but that was 3 years ago, and I only replaced the parts that were sent to me. It's been several years since I ever had to interpret specs, and usually it was a straight Hz to Hz or MB to MB comparison.

[Kinthalis]

Yeah take a peek inside and tell us what the power supply says on it's side label.

And the video RAM is where all of the current textures and geometry the card is rendering needs to fit. For most games anything 512 Mb and over is fine. But 1 Gig + is what's recommended for higher texture settings and higher resolutions.

What some manufacturers like to do is put in a ton of VRAM on a crappy little non-gaming card in order to try and fool people into thinking it's better than the much more powerful card with "only" 1 GB.

[Kiros]

Yup, what he said. I would *expect* that you are probably fine with the power supply you have for a low end card, but I'd hate to guarantee that sort of thing without all the info.

Another good link: Diablo 3 Benchmarks - Maximum Settings. Looks like even up to 1080p, a 6670 is fine as your 'minimum'. Anything up from there is, well, better.

Video cards at Best Buy are unfortunately going to be 75-100% more expensive than online for similar specs. If you are lucky enough have a Fry's or a Microcenter nearby, you are likely to fare much better there (maybe a 10-20% B&M premium, which is often worth it so you can play RIGHT NOW!!!!).

[Rucksinator]

It's a Bestec Model ATX-250-12Z. Do you need all of the different v's and A's?

[Rucksinator]

NewEgg also has power supplies pretty cheap. I thought they normally started around $50, but there they start at $12.... $15 for one with more than 250W.
Sorted by price.

Should I go ahead and throw down $15 more for a PS? If so, what do I need to make sure that it has?

[Rucksinator]

Looking at these power supplies closer, the 4 cheapest ones all say "+12V Rails ________ Single". Is this what he was talking about? If so, how do I know if my current one has it. Why wouldn't it if the cheapest power supplies at new egg all do?

[jacobsta811]

You don't want to buy a cheap power supply. Most obviously, they aren't 80 plus certified, which means they will cost you more in the long run in extra power consumption. Less obviously, they have poor quality components and can kill your motherboard or components when they fail.
Probably the cheapest power supply I see on newegg worth buying right now is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139026 (Corsair 430w 80plus) $27, and even that isn't a great power supply.
Definitely will run a 6750 or a 6670.
Pay absolutely no attention to the amount of RAM on the card, and all attention to the tomshardware charts linked above - for example, the GT 520 is probably the slowest current generation card available, but it has 1gb ram. Of course, it sells for as low as $20 after rebate at newegg sometimes, too.

[Rucksinator]

While I appreciate the input jacobsta811, the point is that I don't even know if I need another power supply. The one I've got might work just fine. I was thinking that, worse case scenario, I spend $15 on a PS I don't need and I end up with a backup PS.

[SenorBeef]

Don't worry about the number of rails. Generally worry about any of that sort of thing is irrelevant - except when you're using a very weak PSU and you have to figure out if you can run what you've got. The total output of the power supply is the combined output of several different rails. If one rail is overburdened, you could have an unstable system even if the total number of watts otherwise seems like it would work.

Prebuilt computers like HP generally use just barely enough power supply to run what's there, with no attention given to upgrades, so to add something as major as a video card usually requires a new power supply. The 6670 is a low power card (and that version that Kinthalis linked doesn't require PCI-E 6 pin power connectors, which is good because your current PSU doesn't have any) ... the X4 630 is a 90w part, and the 6670 is somewhere around a 70w part at max... considering that you have a low quality power supply that's likely not very stable maxed out, it'd be iffy if you could run your system with the new card.

On the other hand, you're unlikely to hurt anything by giving it a try - plug the card into your current system and see if it runs without crashing. If it crashes, you'll want a new PSU. (Edit: I suppose it's possible that a super low end PSU may be damaged by this - I would guess generally not, but I can't rule it out)

This would be a good bet - $44 with a $20 mail in rebate.

Just to be safe, I'd get both the video card and PSU, but you could try to skimp and see if your PSU can handle adding the video card. Otherwise your hardware is more than adequate for the game. And after rebates, that 6670 and PSU would run under $75, so not very expensive really. That's what I would recommend, so you don't have to worry about overburdening a crappy PSU and the problems that can come with it.