Diablo IV Time to Play! Clan Name: DarkMattters -> Clan Tag: DarK

[Timotheus 416]

I don't think there's any benefit special to the beta. When you pre-purchase the game, beta access is included in all tiers.

[gogoblender 3,068]

1 hour ago, Sirius said:

But, but.. what if playing beta gives you something special, exclusive even. Like a funny hat, or a medal, or a super-rare weapon.

Have you played a game where they offered you this for playing beta ?

gogo

[Sirius 16]

8 minutes ago, gogoblender said:

Have you played a game where they offered you this for playing beta ?

gogo

A couple that comes to mind right now, yes. 
World of tanks and battlefield heroes (closed 10 years ago)
Most single player games won't really have this, but lately a lot of games insist on being online, where this might appear more and more. 
All I'm saying is: Keep a look out of exclusive stuff.

[gogoblender 3,068]

I'll keep an eye out. But I also have to put together funds for the pc for this game...lol last time i upgraded was when I got Diablo 3!

gogo

[Sirius 16]

Hmm. What are your current specs?

[gogoblender 3,068]

15 3470 cpu  @ 3.2 gz 

8.00 GB

Windows 10 Home

Yeeks

gogo

[lujate 575]

22 hours ago, Timotheus said:

Are you guys planning to take some time off upon release? The 6th Will be a difficult one for me but I'm feeling tempted to arrange a long weekend - fri/sat/sun/mon.

I'm thinking about taking off Tuesday the 6th.

[Timotheus 416]

What are you running for a gpu @gogoblender?

Seems like we all will be having different times off then by what I see. My long weekend would be 9-12 as there is no way for me swapping "shifts" at the 6th. But in other weeks it might be possible as well. Which week are you aiming for gogo?

[gogoblender 3,068]

1 hour ago, Timotheus said:

What are you running for a gpu @gogoblender?

Seems like we all will be having different times off then by what I see. My long weekend would be 9-12 as there is no way for me swapping "shifts" at the 6th. But in other weeks it might be possible as well. Which week are you aiming for gogo?

 I just looked up properties on my computer

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz   3.20 GHz

does that answer okay ? I think Schots gonna give me his computer for Diablo 4.. he says he needs more engine power than ,me

Pfft...

gogo

 

@lujate @Timotheus   let me see about days.. i think i have some mobile and overtimehours i can stretch around

[Rotluchs 82]

Can't wait for Diablo 4 release, open world sounds good to me, blizzard/Diablo immortal controversies don't...

Mixed feelings.. afraid of getting too hyped.. but d2res on the other hand wasn't bad at all (btw currently on sale ~10-14bucks til feb27)

 

For d4, I expect the worst but hope for the best! Definitely will try out 2nd open beta weekend if servers will let me,

But not going to pre-order yet.

Think its wise to wait at least a few weeks after release, both for buying but especially for taking some days off..

See first what review ratings will be like, see if/when servers will be stable without disco/endless waiting lines..

tho it can be so hard to resist, I know.....

 

Ps: also regarding upgrading PC's I'd rather recommend waiting till it's out (more hw to choose from like perhaps amd/nvidia new middle class,  see what you need from benchmarks, dropping prices hopefully, etc)

 

Besides, we don't even have official min requ Specs from blizz .. wonder why, with open beta right around the corner...

 

Since I upgraded recently a few months ago, I won't upgrade just for d4 personally again, but sure hope my new setup will do.. in theory it should but its quite exotic: amd 5600 + intel arc a770 LE !

Edited February 23, 2023 by Rotluchs

[gogoblender 3,068]

7 minutes ago, Rotluchs said:

Can't wait for Diablo 4 release, open world sounds good to me, blizzard/Diablo immortal controversies don't...

 

tho it can be so hard to resist, I know.....

lol dude... dooooooooooooooooont resist! 

if we can all cross platform together thatll be awesome

Diablo .. is like a lifestyle

once it bites... no going back

gogo

[Timotheus 416]

11 minutes ago, Rotluchs said:

...

Since I upgraded recently a few months ago, I won't upgrade just for d4 personally again, but sure hope my new setup will do.. in theory it should but its quite exotic: amd 5600 + intel arc a770 LE !

Generally Blizzard games are quite good with sysreqs right... You'll be fine.

How's the A770 treating you? Since I currently play a lot of older games, I am hesitant to give the new contender a shot. But it's interesting seeing Intel in the GPU game again.

[Rotluchs 82]

14 hours ago, Timotheus said:

 

How's the A770 treating you? Since I currently play a lot of older games, I am hesitant to give the new contender a shot. But it's interesting seeing Intel in the GPU game again.

I already had the RTX 3060 Ti before which replaced the older gtx 1050 Ti I had several years before that..

 

I was quite happy with the 3060 Ti, (especially since  I got it for the initial "RRP" on launch day which was something like 420€ here in germany/austria for the reference design)

but for some reason all those 'new' games that came out back then were disappointing, and since I wasn't playing much anway I sold it a work colleague.

 

then came the time where I needed something new to play with, and I don't mean any specific games here,

 

but rather the hardware itself.

I'm always curious regarding new HW stuff, especially the more exotic / unique stuff,

 

so I grabbed the Intel Arc A770 16GB LE when it came out, also for like 420€ (it's cheaper now) .. clearly, a downgrade from the rtx 3060Ti,

 

+ but still fast enough / especially if you play  max 1440p / happy with stable 60fps / use current drivers :

+ since launch they've improved performance for older DX9 games a lot throughout various patches, it's a lot closer to a RX 6700 or rtx 3060 (non-ti) now.

(and I mean, I thought at launch: so arc might be a lot slower in dx9 games? but why should I care that much, if those old games run lets say @ 300 fps or 'only' 150 fps.. like I said, my 4K monitor only does 60Hz anway, I never noticed much difference if fps was faster, best way to go with was enabling vsync )

+ and with Ray Tracing on, it's even faster than comparable counterparts from AMD at least... (still slower than nvidia tho)

 

old/initial benchmarks/reviews are non-representative now, a lot has changed.

You need to look at "post-test-tests" (no idea what to call it) that use current drivers.

 

- some things also won't change unfortunately, like the problematic physical dimensions of the card,

which I only found out recently, a long time after initial purchase - it's a thing nowhere mentioned, and the usual sites doing GPU reviews also never look at it in detail:

just like most cards it's 'only' dual slot, (I think with latest gen from nvidia we get to see even more triple? slot designs)

okay,

 

- but the cooler is so close to the 'pin-side' of the card facing the motherboard,

it will block the next pcie slot below it, just like other cards from amd/nvidia, right,

but even if you try to use a simple riser/extender cable in order to not loose that slot under the gpu, it won't fit in, the gap is too narrow

 

- if low idle power draw is important for you, it's only possible for 1st gen Arc cards if your mainboard supports PCIe ASPM L1 power saving mode, and you need to set it in windows power plan as well accordingly

 

- not many designs to choose from, basically only the reference design from Intel itself (which looks great imho), or one Asrock and one Acer Model.

 

 

€: also need to say, there's the official Intel support community forum and they appear to really try to help and are actively working on problem solving.

I had very vew crashes so far, not more than on any other card I had before (more like even less crashes with the arc than with some other amd/nvidia cards I had in the past 20 years)

 

I encountered some gfx glitches here and there, but there was no way to verify if it was because of Arc or the game itself

(it's not like you never get glitches on amd/nvidia every now and then)

 

I'd say non-RT performance is pretty close in current games to a amd RX 6600 XT / 6700 maybe, or RTX 3060, depending on the game & and with our without RT.

 

if a game has XeSS support btw (still rare), I always found it to perform noticeable better than FSR2 from AMD in most cases,

while also XeSS  results in better image quality imho.

 

I can play most old & current games, sometimes even in 4K @ 60 fps and quite high quality settings, if it has AMD FSR or Intel XeSS..

if it hasn't, I have to drop quality or resolution to 1440p in games that are hardware hungry / are poorly optimized.

 

feel free to ask for a specific game / benchmark if you don't find it on the net, if it's  in my library I could check it out for you.

 

I'm happy with my Intel Arc, it has little worse price-performance value compared to amd/nvidia , but it looks nice, and performance is still sufficient.

And, as I said, I have a faible for newcomers,underdogs,outsiders,exotic,rare,unique stuff..  just had to have it, but ofc if you leave all that aside a RX 6700 XT might be your best choice in that price range currently

Edited February 24, 2023 by Rotluchs

[Timotheus 416]

You kind of laid out all the info that I have more or less heard confirmed through various sources but no real data to show for it. A major Dutch tech website just published an in depth article showing the performance with the driver updates. (link - you might need to throw some google translate at the text but the various graphs speak for themselves) However, they basically ignored performance on older titles with DX9/DX10, the known sore spot in the Intel cards performance. So I was wondering how you are feeling about the card in that regard.

I know Linus Tech Tips (Youtube) did an Arc challenge, where two of the hosts ditched the GPU's in their own gaming setup(s) for a month to fully live through the Arc experience, and published quite a few videos on the ARC performance. But ever since then, I've been wondering about the new drivers and how much they have improved.

Do you have any experience with CS:GO, Overwatch, or D3?

[Timotheus 416]

So just a little update, after our bi-weekly meeting yesterday I have confirmation I will be unable to take time off on the 6th of June. So launch day is out.

My pref remains June 9-June 12, however I expect June 29-July 2 should be no trouble either. Any updates with you @lujate and @gogoblender ?

[lujate 575]

3 hours ago, Timotheus said:

So just a little update, after our bi-weekly meeting yesterday I have confirmation I will be unable to take time off on the 6th of June. So launch day is out.

My pref remains June 9-June 12, however I expect June 29-July 2 should be no trouble either. Any updates with you @lujate and @gogoblender ?

June 6th is confirmed.  Barring a catastrophe, I'll have the day off.

[Rotluchs 82]

@Timotheus regarding my experience with Arc & older DX9/10 games.. oofh..

well, I'm not sure which one's of those games I played recently were still based on DX9/10 . perhaps none. I see Half Life 2 is on that slideshow chart Intel published, I could try that one out ( still installed) is that one DX9/10 still?

have you seen this video ?

it's pretty detailed, regarding those games they picked out to check how much they improved and if intel's claims on their slideshow chart were correct.. it at least covers CS:GO which you're interested in..

Quote

Do you have any experience with CS:GO, Overwatch, or D3?

D3 I got also still installed, don't see why that should be a problem for the Arc (btw D3 runs on DX11 currently afaik, was updated somewhere in between)

here's also another article, on Computerbase.de , it's a well known german computer/hardware/tech platform (reviews,tests,news & big community forum-board)

it's also one of the rare sites I know that cared for a re-visit/re-test

https://www.computerbase.de/2022-12/arc-a770-a750-benchmark-test/

One of the games I've checked recently, is one they have still in they list of games with 'known/unsolved problems' .. it's not DX9/10 tho:

D2:Resurrected.. and, funny thing, it runs without issues here, no crashes so far, no artifacts/corruptions,  none of the graphical type at least, just evil itself ;) playing it smoothly in 4K@60fps with adjusted settings, but I'm still in Act2 with a level 20 noobish pet/minion druid char (solo)

other games that ran with settings between medium&ultra @ 4K 60+ fps:

LastEpoch, Undecember, Torchlight:Infinite, Stray, Redout2, CoD:MWII, Grid:Legends, Forza Horizon:4&5, TheCrew2, Gotham Knights,The Settlers:New Alliances, Sims4... (etc.. will add more later maybe)

the only thing I couldn't launch/start, was the latest Tech-Demo of the Unity gfx game Engine.

Intel Support seems to be really trying to help,

eg. I reported a graphics glitch probably related to AMD FSR in Forza Horizon 5 & Need for Speed Unbound, they were both fixed a few weeks later by driver (and maybe also game) updates.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Rotluchs

[Rotluchs 82]

oh and regarding Diablo 4:

we now have official minimum system recommendations from blizzard,

released in todays most recent dev live stream:

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo4/23916446/watch-the-latest-diablo-iv-developer-update-livestream

updated beta blog:

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo4/23916442/your-guide-to-the-diablo-iv-open-beta?blzcmp=blizzard-news

[Rotluchs 82]

please, in case you care at least for a little teeny tiny bit:

support my case over here on official blizz forum boards !

maybe link it somewhere on their facebook/twitter whatever channel as well, I ain't gonna make an account just for that purpose, I'm not that desperate.. but still..

anyway, here you go - just two clicks or so

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/diablo-iv-please-make-couch-co-op-happen-on-pc-too/57815

Vote for "making them couch-co-op happen on PC' too, not only consoles.."

feel free to add something more as well If you like,

post why you think it would be cool & aweseome nice to have it on PC too ...

 

personally, it would not be only about saving money & space, and I see no issue why you can't connect your PC to the big screen TV these days, works flawlessly like a charm, with controllers too.

I don't have 2nd PC anymore, and no console either...

but a girlfriend & a little son, willing to give D4 a try in co-op just like she did with D3 for a short while at least.. but it was hell of a fun, while it lasted.

D3 was the one and only 'computer' game she ever touched & that we played together (on 2 PCs, next to each other but still uncomfortable)

sitting together on a couch experiencing D4 together would be awesome..

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Rotluchs

[lujate 575]

New beta info.  Yes, there will be bling.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo4/23916442/your-guide-to-the-diablo-iv-open-beta

 

[lujate 575]

13 hours ago, Rotluchs said:

please, in case you care at least for a little teeny tiny bit:

support my case over here on official blizz forum boards !

maybe link it somewhere on their facebook/twitter whatever channel as well, I ain't gonna make an account just for that purpose, I'm not that desperate.. but still..

anyway, here you go - just two clicks or so

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/diablo-iv-please-make-couch-co-op-happen-on-pc-too/57815

Vote for "making them couch-co-op happen on PC' too, not only consoles.."

feel free to add something more as well If you like,

post why you think it would be cool & aweseome nice to have it on PC too ...

 

personally, it would not be only about saving money & space, and I see no issue why you can't connect your PC to the big screen TV these days, works flawlessly like a charm, with controllers too.

I don't have 2nd PC anymore, and no console either...

but a girlfriend & a little son, willing to give D4 a try in co-op just like she did with D3 for a short while at least.. but it was hell of a fun, while it lasted.

D3 was the one and only 'computer' game she ever touched & that we played together (on 2 PCs, next to each other but still uncomfortable)

sitting together on a couch experiencing D4 together would be awesome..

 

I'd wager that's just like 4 player console coop (that they already axed), there just isn't enough demand.  Sorry

[Timotheus 416]

I love how Steve the tech Jesus can go full technical for 20 minutes on driver-to-driver performance and dismiss it as a quick update.

Awesome news on the specs, no new system for me. Curious how my CPU will hold out though.

[masteff 64]

Anyone doing the beta sessions this coming weekend or the one after? At least in the USA, if you buy a sandwich at KFC via the web or app then you can get a free early beta code for this weekend so I've got mine (it was rough having to eat a couple of chicken tender sliders so I could play a game for free).

[gogoblender 3,068]

10 hours ago, masteff said:

Anyone doing the beta sessions this coming weekend or the one after? At least in the USA, if you buy a sandwich at KFC via the web or app then you can get a free early beta code for this weekend so I've got mine (it was rough having to eat a couple of chicken tender sliders so I could play a game for free).

My CPU is not up to par yet Masteff and delighted to hear you're gonna play!

really... four whole sliders??

 

you r a good strong man for the game!

gogo

[lujate 575]

I'm at least going to fire it up and make sure it runs (this is my first PS4 pre-order, and I have my doubts).  Not sure if I'll actually play.