Diablo® III

Overall, frame rates have improved. IMO, the 9400M is now the most viable option if given a choice between it and the 9600M. The 9600M, while obviously more powerful than the 9400M, still suffers from a frame-rate cycling bug, which destroys gameplay.

Below are my observations as well as the machine specs and game settings I used while testing both graphics options.

Observations:

9400M:
- The frame rate has greatly improved. ~12-19fps at native resolution.
- Given the issues apparent while using the 9600M, this card seems to be the best option at the moment.

9600M:
- Initial frame rate has greatly improved. ~32-55fps. This lasts for 3-5 minutes if the system was freshly rebooted prior to launching the game.
- Just as before the patch, within 5 minutes of playing, the frame rate begins to cycle through three distinct frequency ranges. While observing the frame rate, a typical 2-second interval looks something like this:

• Low frequency range: 8-11fps (lasts for ~1.2s)
• Middle frequency range: 18-25fps (lasts for ~0.1s)
• High frequency range: 32-55fps (lasts for ~0.7s)

Machine specs:
Mac OS X v10.7.4
2.6GHz Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
2009 MacBook Pro 15"

Game settings:
1440x900
Texture quality: Low
Shadow quality: Off
Physics: Low
Clutter Density: Off
Low FX: On
Vsync: off
AA: off

Hello, I'm playing on the EU server, but I tried the patch on the US, and as far I can tell that there's a significant difference in the max FPS I can get, but the game is still choppy. I've noticed that in period of 1-2 secs there's a FPS drop as Dardan have stated. So I have 30-35 FPS and in the next moment I have 7-9 and it's repeating regularly. My specs:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,5
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.26 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP55.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.47f2
Serial Number (system): WQ929A3A66D
Hardware UUID: A9276F32-715C-5AFF-95FF-98C923CE019C
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0863
Revision ID: 0x00b1
ROM Revision: 3427
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes

Improved on my 9400 but got worst on the 9600M GT.

9400 integrated

800 X 600 Everything Low

No enemies 40 FPS
Small group of enemies 35 FPS
Medium group of enemies 25 FPS
large group of enemies 8-15 FPS

9600M GT 512mb discrete

FPS 8-20 But jumps to 57 or 80 constantly. Regardless of settings.

Laptop doesn't burn when using 9600M GT but still gets hot.

These results are with an NPC currently playing with me in Act 1

i have a macbook white 6.1, 9400m 256mb, 4gb ram, core 2 duo 2.26 GHz , and with native resolution the game has now become playable, around 17- 26 FPS, but some times the frame rate drops suddenly to 8-10.

It was great to be able to play in the oasis in act II with a good resolution and frame rate, but that cycle that was mentioned before is damaging the good of that fix/patch ( those drops of performance doesnt happen that much, arround 10% of the game, but it would be nice that it could be completely fixed)

PS: im sorry for my bad english , is not my first language

06/06/2012 05:01 PMPosted by Machkhan

Can you try some of the troubleshooting steps [url="http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5575474873"]here[/url] and see if it helps? Our team is looking into this now and see what we can find out. If other users have this same experience, please post here. If you don't have this same experience, please create a new post, as it may be a different issue.

As requested, I tried resetting the SMC, resetting PRAM, rebuilding the D3 Cache, and Repairing Disk Permissions, but to no avail.

More feedback, in case it is useful:

I have just the 9400m. I too experience the rapid FPS cycling. However, I observed it before this patch as well, and created a thread suggesting that quitting Agent would fix it. Several people reported that this helped them as well, while others said it had no effect.

Post patch, I am experiencing the FPS cycling more commonly. However, by quitting every background process I possibly can, I have so far been able to make it stop every time, and enjoy the game.

Thus, so far, I'm very pleased with this patch! I am able to have higher graphic settings and higher FPS. Thank you for the hard work!

Doesn't seem any better for me. I've been using the 9600M GT and it seems to have gotten worse. Looks like I'm back to Bootcamp :(

Did you try the basics?

-Reboot
-Close any other applications (In window mode, you can watch the Activity Monitor if anything else is above 5%)
-Use the power adapter, not the battery
-Unplug anything else, even the mouse, just to test.

My tests were performed on a freshly-restarted system. I also restarted after switching graphic options. The power cable was connected, and there were no connected peripherals.

Same here. Framerates have improved on my 2008 MBP using the 9600. Native 1440x900 runs great now, even 1080p res is (mostly) playable. Default 1280x800 pegged between 40-60fps. On par with win7 results on bootcamp partition.

But as before, this is only temporary. Within 30mins of play, the constant periodic spikes down to sub-20fps started happening just the same.

PRAM/SMC resets, cache rebuilds, trashing D3Prefs.txt, quitting Agent, and all the reboots in the world only temporarily alleviate the symptom.

GPU temperatures observed with SMC are at or below 80 C and no different than temps observed during long hours of SC2 or WoW or other games which exhibit no signs of GPU throttling.

9400M. sad to say there isn't much significant difference if at all. At The Great Span, i spike back and forth between 12fps to 40fps and have, yet again, reverted to 800x600 window.

Regardless of running it at 800x600 window, in some places I have seen the FPS drop back to 5-9FPS. For example;
Silver spire level 2, walking along the pathway: 9FPS
Bastion Keep: spikes to 5FPS

very frustrating and yes, have jumped through all the hoops, restart/reset etc etc

9600M GT here, there's a significant improvement. Most areas that were unplayable at max resolution gained 5 to 10 FPS. They're now playable. I can almost run the game at max settings, though I still have to choose between anti-aliasing or medium shadows.

I also have these issues. I think it's heat related. While the machine is still cool, it seems to run smoothly, but I think the 9600 heats the machine up to the point where the CPU tries to throttle down to mitigate the heat. This is just my theory at least. Using the 9600, I'm seeing temps hit 95 degC.

06/06/2012 05:01 PMPosted by Machkhan

Can you try some of the troubleshooting steps [url="http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5575474873"]here[/url] and see if it helps? Our team is looking into this now and see what we can find out. If other users have this same experience, please post here. If you don't have this same experience, please create a new post, as it may be a different issue.

This is exactly the same problem with the 9600M GT that lots of us have been posting about since long before the patch. My experience is identical to the OP - I'm resorting to the 9400M as it's much more playable than the 9600. None of the troubleshooting tips resolve the issue.

9400m user here. I had the frequent cycling lag after patch, but it cleared up entirely after I deleted the cache folder and agent.db file as per Blizz's instructions. Everything is basically smooth as silk now at native resolution with everything set to low except resolution, texture quality, physics and FX, which are set to high. I'm running it on my 2009 13-inch MBP with 8 gb ram.

Before the patch, I used bootcamp to run the windows client at 1024x768 and everything set to low. The updated Mac OS X now client looks and performs better than the windows side on my machine--Specifically, the os x client runs faster at higher resolutions with more options turned up than the windows client did for me.

Hopefully, anyone left experiencing performance issues will be able to ameliorate their game experience soon!

06/07/2012 07:46 AMPosted by mikedeaven

I also have these issues. I think it's heat related. While the machine is still cool, it seems to run smoothly, but I think the 9600 heats the machine up to the point where the CPU tries to throttle down to mitigate the heat. This is just my theory at least. Using the 9600, I'm seeing temps hit 95 degC.

95° is not really normal I think* . You should use fan control or smc fan control. If that doesn't work, well, it's apple's fault. I suspect these MBP models have a faulty motherboard - I was lucky to have mine changed and the temps dropped from 95 to 80 while gaming.
I really wish there was a really efficient laptop cooling solution on the market, but it doesn't seem so.

*even though the 2,8 ghz intel core 2 duo is supposed to withstand 105° C

95° is not really normal I think* . You should use fan control or smc fan control. If that doesn't work, well, it's apple's fault. I suspect these MBP models have a faulty motherboard - I was lucky to have mine changed and the temps dropped from 95 to 80 while gaming.
I really wish there was a really efficient laptop cooling solution on the market, but it doesn't seem so.

*even though the 2,8 ghz intel core 2 duo is supposed to withstand 105° C

Yeah, this has always been an issue for me. I cleaned my fans as well, and the fans are basically running full bore the whole time. Considering just switching to the 9400.

The game seems more choppy for me than it was before the patch. Certainly it seems like there is a gain in FPS, but strangely all is very choppy/Unstable. If I remove VSync, the screen tearing is just annoying. I find that the game was running better when I was playing the beta.

Specs:
MacBook Pro
15-inch, Early 2011
Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)