Lil PC game woe

Alrighty... My brother finally joined this century and got a new computer and the internet. He's trying to run an older game, Diablo II, and its expansion pack, Lord of Destruction. It opens and lets him into a game, but then it goes all horrifying, slow framerate and is unplayable from all the choppy chop.

He has an Inspiron Desktop 531S and he said his graphics-whatever is Geforce 6150SE nForce 430.

He also has Windows Vista, which I'm going to guess is the problem. I scooped around the internet, and other Diablo II players on Vista find you have to right-click and then click on Run as Administrator. Which he did, but it didn't work :(

Can anyone help us out? I really want to play with him and such.

I think you'll find that the problem is the graphics chip. It's integrated into the motherboard, so (almost) by definition is not really adequate for gaming. This is probably compounded (and maybe cause completely) by the fact that the chip is below the minimum requirements for Vista, unfortunately.

Both of those games run fine for me in Vista, so I don't think the OS is inherently incompatible. XP has far lower system requirements, so if he's comfortable downgrading to a better OS (and wants to play that badly too :p) he could try getting rid of Vista and installing XP.

Honestly, you could grab a really cheap graphics card that'll do the trick for Vista and Diablo II. I'm sure 6600GT's or whatever are fairly cheap, hell I can give you my Radeon 9800 PRO if you are really desperate (though, there's a bolt broken on it, still works).

Try setting it to run in 98/2000 compatibility mode and if in the compatibility mode options it gives you the option to turn off Vista's graphical effects, tick that box. Even with an onBoard something as old as DiabloII should run fine.

I've run Diablo II on XP on a card less powerful than that and it was fine.
Has to be something in Vista that's causing the issue.
Try the above solutions :)
Just adding a confirmation that your video card should be fine for D2, but maybe not D2 and Vista.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ValiantKnight

I've run Diablo II on XP on a card less powerful than that and it was fine.
Has to be something in Vista that's causing the issue.
Try the above solutions :)
Just adding a confirmation that your video card should be fine for D2, but maybe not D2 and Vista.

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It'll be fine on Vista, it's just a setting somewhere or your not emulating it in an old enough mode of Windows, try the Compatibilty settings and get back to us with the results :)

In the process of trying to do anything, my brother has gotten exceptions, parameters, deleted his recycling bin, had the computer restart itself twice, gotten a blank screen a few times, and been told the game is simultaneously installed and uninstalled while the icons disappeared. All I know is I have a headache from trying to help him and I'm never getting Vista.

Thanks for trying to help me fellas, but this is just a lost cause. I dunno what to do for the situation anymore, so I'm giving up. :jess:

Not allow your brother to touch a computer :p?

Just ask somebody you know to exchange the cards. It's not really that hard.:)

I would think its a graphic driver problem(directx maybe?), a vista compatibility problem, or simply the 6150SE doesn't have the muscle to handle vista and D2.

But I could be wrong.
However if normal windows operation is fine, then I doubt it would be the 6150 not having the strength, but I'm not sure.

Oh wait a minute.. Vista comes with directx 10 I believe, have you put directx 9 on the machine? I recall alot of gamers having DirectX issues with Vista and games.

Maybe it was included in a later patch, but I remember Vista gamers having to get some kind of fix or download DirectX9 to be able to play some of their older games.