1) I know the cinematics refuse to work, but I can live with that. What will happen when the game wants to play one automatically (eg. at the end of an act)? Will it skip it and load the next act, or will it crash?
2) What's the deal with the colour depth also? I've heard people recommending windowed mode as it 'improves the colour', and it does look a little better to me. Diablo II uses 16 bit colours normally, doesn't it? If my desktop is at 32 bit, how is Diablo II displayed correctly?
3) And most importantly, Diablo II uses 3D acceleration for things like perspective and spell effects, right? I couldn't care less about perspective - it looks terrible, and I usually have it disabled anyway, but I'm not keen on losing any lighting effects for spells etc. What exactly is effected by NOT using 3D acceleration (as a result of running the game in windowed mode)?
2. The game runs at a maximum resolution of 800x600 and when you're running a 22" monitor or so at 1680x1050 or higher, that 800x600 looks really ugly because it gets stretched a lot. I found that playing in windowed mode improved my enjoyment of the game.
I don't have any issues with stretching in normal ('fullscreen') mode as my monitor supports '1:1 Pixel Mapping'. This means it only uses 800x600 of its pixels to display the game and puts a black border around it (a very thick border in this case - the monitor's native res is 1920x1200!).
My monitor also has a 'Stretch, But Maintain Aspect Ratio' mode, so it can enlarge the game to fill the screen vertically, but puts pillarboxing on either side to prevent horizontal stretching. This looks terrible though, because LCD's are poor scalers.
Needless to say, if I decided not to use windowed mode, I'd be using 1:1 Pixel Mapping.
Quote from "Diablo-Fiend" »
The game is almost 9 years old now so whether it makes much of an improvement on the visual quality or not, it shouldn't be that much of a problem.
Well I see that as all the more reason to make the most of what little eye candy the game does have.
I've just spent 15 minutes popping off various spells in windowed and normal modes - I can't see any difference either. I'm just sure I read somewhere that the 3D acceleration was supposed to improve the look of spells...
Let me start off by saying I MF(ed) a ton, so this was a valuable tool for me when I wanted to have some websites open, MSN, and some other stuff all at once so I could take an instantaneous break every now and then and quickly resume without having to wait for the screen to reload. I also use this when I run Baals, Chaoses, Trists, Cows, etc.
Quote from "Snarf" »
What exactly are the tradeoffs?
You can't run the game in the advanced "3D" mode. You don't watch any cinematics. The screen is smaller. You can sometimes accidentally click out at a crucial moment.
1) I know the cinematics refuse to work, but I can live with that. What will happen when the game wants to play one automatically (eg. at the end of an act)? Will it skip it and load the next act, or will it crash?
Yes, it completely skips it and loads the next act. This is great for when you've been through the game a thousand times and don't feel like watching them again. Besides, you can watch them from the main menu, anyway. Saves time and effort.
2) What's the deal with the colour depth also? I've heard people recommending windowed mode as it 'improves the colour', and it does look a little better to me. Diablo II uses 16 bit colours normally, doesn't it? If my desktop is at 32 bit, how is Diablo II displayed correctly?
I guess I can't offer the brainchild explanations of those above, but I would guess it's because everything is displayed smaller, and so things look more defined. Like when you scrunch down a big picture.
3) And most importantly, Diablo II uses 3D acceleration for things like perspective and spell effects, right? I couldn't care less about perspective - it looks terrible, and I usually have it disabled anyway, but I'm not keen on losing any lighting effects for spells etc. What exactly is effected by NOT using 3D acceleration (as a result of running the game in windowed mode)?
The only things you can't see in window mode are those explicitly on "3D" mode or whatever it's called. If you switch and run the game on regular mode, that would be exactly what you'd see in windowed mode. Skills and stuff don't look any different unless you run the game on its lowest settings, which applies to full screen or windowed mode, anyway.
Basically, when I want to run through the whole game the slow way, I run full screen in the advanced 3D mode. When I want to do runs, I run it in windowed mode. The former provides more depth, the latter more convenience.
Certain programs, mostly Instant messenger ones, minimise Diablo II when someone types a message to you. Often it will minimise it at the worst possible time, also there is a delay in the minimising, depending if your computer has a lot of ram and/or a decent CPU.
If you are playing in Windowed form, you can quickly hit the Diablo 2 bar in the task bar, restoring Diablo II to the top.
Depending on your Computer than can also be a delay in restoring Diablo II after say AIM has minimised your game.
This mostly occurs with AIM, MSN doesn't seem to do it. I've had AIM minimise my games when people messaged me, even though AIM is set up not to minimise stuff.
That and the strecthing i guess is the difference I've noticed.
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I guess I can't offer the brainchild explanations of those above, but I would guess it's because everything is displayed smaller, and so things look more defined. Like when you scrunch down a big picture.
No, it's something else. As I said, I already view the game at it's actual size of 800x600 using 1.1 Pixel Mapping - it's no larger in 'fullscreen' mode than it is in windowed mode.
There is just something different about the colours in windowed mode... They seem warmer.
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1) I know the cinematics refuse to work, but I can live with that. What will happen when the game wants to play one automatically (eg. at the end of an act)? Will it skip it and load the next act, or will it crash?
2) What's the deal with the colour depth also? I've heard people recommending windowed mode as it 'improves the colour', and it does look a little better to me. Diablo II uses 16 bit colours normally, doesn't it? If my desktop is at 32 bit, how is Diablo II displayed correctly?
3) And most importantly, Diablo II uses 3D acceleration for things like perspective and spell effects, right? I couldn't care less about perspective - it looks terrible, and I usually have it disabled anyway, but I'm not keen on losing any lighting effects for spells etc. What exactly is effected by NOT using 3D acceleration (as a result of running the game in windowed mode)?
I don't have any issues with stretching in normal ('fullscreen') mode as my monitor supports '1:1 Pixel Mapping'. This means it only uses 800x600 of its pixels to display the game and puts a black border around it (a very thick border in this case - the monitor's native res is 1920x1200!).
My monitor also has a 'Stretch, But Maintain Aspect Ratio' mode, so it can enlarge the game to fill the screen vertically, but puts pillarboxing on either side to prevent horizontal stretching. This looks terrible though, because LCD's are poor scalers.
Needless to say, if I decided not to use windowed mode, I'd be using 1:1 Pixel Mapping.
Well I see that as all the more reason to make the most of what little eye candy the game does have.
I've just spent 15 minutes popping off various spells in windowed and normal modes - I can't see any difference either. I'm just sure I read somewhere that the 3D acceleration was supposed to improve the look of spells...
You can't run the game in the advanced "3D" mode. You don't watch any cinematics. The screen is smaller. You can sometimes accidentally click out at a crucial moment.
Yes, it completely skips it and loads the next act. This is great for when you've been through the game a thousand times and don't feel like watching them again. Besides, you can watch them from the main menu, anyway. Saves time and effort.
I guess I can't offer the brainchild explanations of those above, but I would guess it's because everything is displayed smaller, and so things look more defined. Like when you scrunch down a big picture.
The only things you can't see in window mode are those explicitly on "3D" mode or whatever it's called. If you switch and run the game on regular mode, that would be exactly what you'd see in windowed mode. Skills and stuff don't look any different unless you run the game on its lowest settings, which applies to full screen or windowed mode, anyway.
Basically, when I want to run through the whole game the slow way, I run full screen in the advanced 3D mode. When I want to do runs, I run it in windowed mode. The former provides more depth, the latter more convenience.
If you are playing in Windowed form, you can quickly hit the Diablo 2 bar in the task bar, restoring Diablo II to the top.
Depending on your Computer than can also be a delay in restoring Diablo II after say AIM has minimised your game.
This mostly occurs with AIM, MSN doesn't seem to do it. I've had AIM minimise my games when people messaged me, even though AIM is set up not to minimise stuff.
That and the strecthing i guess is the difference I've noticed.
No, it's something else. As I said, I already view the game at it's actual size of 800x600 using 1.1 Pixel Mapping - it's no larger in 'fullscreen' mode than it is in windowed mode.
There is just something different about the colours in windowed mode... They seem warmer.