DiabloFans

Three pieces of information are needed if you're looking to upgrade the GPU of a commerical desktop PC:

1. Power output from the PSU.
2. Whether the PSU offers any spare PCI express or molex power connections.
3. Number of inches (or millimeters) of length available for the new GPU.

You'll have to open up the box to get this information.

460 is newer (the 4) and the same speed rating within its generation (the 6). Being a newer design, it's safe to say the 460 is faster.

There are benchmarking sites out there that can help provide a direct comparison: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/318?vs=313

Quote from AKLT

Noted, so even if i proceed further into the story and Act's in co-op, my single player progress remains? (in the event i do not want to start fresh from a certain checkpoint)

to be precise i guess will my character be at the same place when i was on co-op?

Progress is associated with the character, regardless of whether you do it in single-player or co-operative.

If you'd like to replay an earlier part of the story, you can do so at any time. Your character's development (equipment, levels, etc) is not reversed, though, so you might find it a little too easy

Diablo 3 is light on CPU need; it seems like as long as it's a Core-i-anything, it runs fine. GPU is, by far, the biggest influencer of performance and the 560Ti is well known to be good.

Your build plan is actually very well balanced, I think it'll do good things for you

You can't upgrade the graphics card in a laptop, unfortunately. You either have to lower the quality / resolution until it's acceptably fast, or get a new system.

The game is optimized for wide screen, 16:9, to be exact. If you already have a 16:9 monitor, it does nothing, but if you don't, it letterboxes the game. At any other aspect ratio (like 16:10, for a 1920x1200 screen) without letterboxing, the game chops off the sides, which keeps the screen full but reduces how far you scan see.

Hmm. Can you take a photo of your monitor and share it? http://imgur.com/ will host it for free...

Blizzard doesn't consider Diablo 2 keys to be secure, so you can't do much with them. Judging by the amount of bots and spammers in Diablo 2, I think they may be right.

Enty is right about the aspect ratio. All modern games, D3 included, are optimized for 16:9; anything else and it'll cut off the sides of the view to make up the difference, putting you at a tactical disadvantage. For monitors, this means your best options are 2560x1440, 1920x1080 (aka 1080p), 1600x900, 1366x768, and 1280x720 (aka 720p).

1080p monitors are very common these days, so I think you can find one in your price range.

Dell U2711, 27", 2560x1440 resolution, high-quality IPS panel. Read about it here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2922

I'm using this monitor and it's really a pleasure ot use

There are two ways you can improve the upload speed:

1. Get a faster internet connection, with an emphasis on upload performance. DSL and cable typically have fast download but relatively slow upload.
2. Compress the video to a smaller size. Unfortunately, you'll lose a lot of quality if you do this...

If you're encoding in WMV, switching to a good H.264 encoder will allow you to get the same quality at about half the bit rate.

Your laptop is overheating. It's underclocking itself to cool down, then goes back to normal speed until it overheats again, repeating the cycle. A lot of older gaming laptops don't have enough cooling to play modern games like Diablo 3, so this problem is rather common...

The easiest way to fix this is to use Diablo 3's FPS limiter to cap your frame rate at 30. Or cap it at 55 and turn on VSync (which will also act as a 30 FPS cap, but no image tearing).

Quote from snared04drummer

3. You're a fool if you think you're going to succeed in HC without experiencing the game first. Have fun re-rolling a dozen characters while I'm steaming through Inferno on my first one.

The danger is what makes it exciting People can enjoy the game in different ways; not everyone has the goal of reaching Inferno as fast as possible

Quote from ElKapitan

Never played HC properly before, didn't like the notion of losing everything I'd worked hard for, so I haven't followed the news about it very closely.

You won't lose your gold, your stash, or your vendor progression. Dying still sucks, but it's not a total loss.

Quote from ElKapitan

A quick question; once you hit level 10 can you convert your character to HC or do you have to start a HC char from scratch? Seems weird if you have to create a new character if your sole intention is to play HC. Either the SC level 10 will be deleted straight away or neglected and collect cobwebs

You can't convert SC to HC. You must create a new HC character, and everyone will know that you risked it all from level 1.

I expect a lot of hardcore purists will delete their only softcore character within 1 hour of getting the game

Quote from Daniel417

Okay, so does my video card seem to be the only thing holding me back?

It's the only problem I can see. My (current) system is similar to yours, with the video card being the key difference.

Like I said, if it runs well at 800x600, you'll know with absolute certainty that the GPU is the problem. A modern $150-$200 card will fix it

Quote from Daniel417

Thanks Jael and Kardax. Been reading some other threads and it seems like a problem a lot of people are having. I'll try reducing my res to 800x600, hopefully it's something that will be fixed on release though.

Don't count on it. May 15 is approaching fast, so Blizzard's #1 priority is making launch day as smooth as possible. There's not enough time left to thoroughly test updates to the rendering engine, so it's a risk I don't think they'll take.

If dropping to 800x600 makes it run smooth, plan on upgrading your video card by May 15th... or playing at 800x600...