Diablo 3] Stuttering Issue Solutions: Ramdisk / Flash Drives

Channel:

Nessly

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Published on May 23, 2012 5:41:53 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqLQkqBzsZ4

Game:

Diablo III (2012)

Duration: 20:38

22,232 views

41

Here are some temporary solutions which should alleviate the stutter for you until Blizzard corrects the issue for everyone.

There are 2 popular causes for the stutter. One is graphics and 2nd is hard drive access time. I suggest trying the graphic stutter solution first, because it's simple and requires you to only change 1 number in a text file. If that doesn't work, try the hard drive stutter solution.

Everyone has a different computer configuration. These solutions are not guaranteed to help you.

UNUSUALLY LOW FRAMERATE? Graphics Soltuion
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You can try changing the HardwareClass "X" value in the "D3Prefs.txt" text file to one of the following:
0 means unsupported hardware (don't use this)
1-2 for low-end hardware
3-4 for med hardware
5-6 for high-end hardware

Using 1 should result in the best performance on all systems, but try which one works best for yours. Each value has a very subtle difference in graphics affecting things such as shadow quality for objects/enemies.

The D3Prefs.txt file is located here for Windows 7 users:
C:\ Users \ WINDOWS_USERNAME \ Documents \ Diablo III

for Windows XP/Vista users I THINK it's located here:
C:\ Documents and Settings \ WINDOWS_USERNAME \ Diablo III

for Mac users, I have no idea.

If you need a video guide to do this, please see guitarman2134568's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6hwTPhjA6I
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SOLUTIONS FOR HARD DRIVE STUTTER?
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【1】
Placing the game entirely in ram using a ramdisk can eliminate practically all of the stuttering. Stuttering still occurs occasionally during battle for me, but it's now greatly reduced.

For help putting the game or parts of the game in a ramdisk, please see Edstroyer's post here. It's filled with useful information:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149178443?page=1

If you don't want to use a command prompt for creating symbolic links, you can use this free software:
http://code.google.com/p/symlinker/

Freeware ImDisk (you can use to create a Ramdisk)
http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/


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or 【2】
Placing the game on a USB flash drive / "thumbdrive" gives results very similar to playing from a ramdisk. A comparison video between hard drive and thumb drive can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S15239fj8o8

If you have a usb flash drive with a capacity of 16GB or more (NOTE: An 8GB flash drive only has enough capacity to hold parts of the game, not the ENTIRE game), just copy the game folder to your flash drive and execute the Diablo3.exe file from the flash drive.

I haven't tested an SSD drive.

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or 【3】
If you don't have either of the above then you can try moving your game folder to a hard drive which has a faster access time than the hard drive you currently use (lower is better). It may not help as well as the other two previous options, but it's the simplest and cheapest way.

You can find out the access times or performance of your hardrives using HD Tune, which you can download FREE:
http://www.hdtune.com/index.html

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For general troubleshooting and performance tips, check out this awesome FAQ / guide created by minuteZERO and others at the Diablo forums:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149619611

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In the video are 5 clips, each one being played from a different hard drive, 2 of which are played from the same ramdisk. For all the clips, the following settings were used:
□ 1680x1050 resolution full-screen
□ max foreground framerate locked to 150
□ max background framerate locked to 8
□ Vsync off
□ all detail settings low
□ antialiasing off
□ low FX disabled

The video recorder, Fraps, limited the max framerate to 60.

The PC specs are:
i5-2500K, 3.3 GHZ quadcore processor
12GB DDR3 1333 ram
GeForce GTS 250 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 video card

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