Stay a while and listen! Like many other users, I have suffered from unplayable FPS on my Mac. Although Blizzard has accepted the problem and promised to publish a patch in the upcoming weeks, they seem to be busy with the recent hack incident. Therefore, I decided to publish a temporary solution.
The trick is to find the D3PREFS.TXT file, which contains some settings which are unavailable in the normal user interface. This file is hidden in /users/[YOUR_USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/Blizzard/Diablo III . Easiest way to access this folder is to open Finder and click Go –> Go To Folder… . There, you can enter /users/[YOUR_USERNAME]/Library and start browsing from there.
What you have to do is to open & edit this file manually. Here are the settings I made to increase my FPS to a playable degree. Some of those settings might also be setup through the user interface, but not all:
- DisplayModeWindowMode “1”
- DisplayModeUIOptWidth “800”
- DisplayModeUIOptHeight “600”
- DisplayModeWidth “896”
- DisplayModeHeight “656”
- DisplayModeRefreshRate “60”
- DisplayModeBitDepth “32”
- ShadowQuality “0”
- PhysicsQuality “0”
- ClutterQuality “0”
- Vsync “0”
- Letterbox “0”
- Antialiasing “0”
- LowFX “1”
- LimitForegroundFPS “1”
- MaxForegroundFPS “25”
- LimitBackgroundFPS “1”
- MaxBackgroundFPS “1”
- DisableTrilinearFiltering “1”
- ColorCorrection “0”
- ReflectionQuality “0”
- HardwareClass “1”
- ChannelsToUse “16”
- ReverseSpeakers “0”
After doing this setup and restarting the game, my FPS increased from 5-10 to around 20, which made the game at least playable.
Alternatively; if you want to play in a readable full-screen mode so that you can read things on the screen, you can try the following configuration enduring a cost of 2-3 FPS:
- DisplayModeFlags “8”
- DisplayModeWindowMode “0”
- DisplayModeWinLeft “552”
- DisplayModeWinTop “482”
- DisplayModeWinWidth “800”
- DisplayModeWinHeight “600”
- DisplayModeUIOptWidth “832”
- DisplayModeUIOptHeight “624”
- DisplayModeWidth “832”
- DisplayModeHeight “624”
- DisplayModeRefreshRate “60”
- DisplayModeBitDepth “32”
- MipOffset “1”
- ShadowQuality “0”
- PhysicsQuality “0”
- ClutterQuality “0”
- Vsync “0”
- Letterbox “0”
- Antialiasing “0”
- LowFX “1”
- LimitForegroundFPS “0”
- MaxForegroundFPS “27”
- LimitBackgroundFPS “1”
- MaxBackgroundFPS “1”
- DisableTrilinearFiltering “1”
- ReflectionQuality “0”
- ChannelsToUse “32”
- ReverseSpeakers “0”
I have also heard that Bootcamping into Windows made also a difference of 5 FPS, and that playing on the built-in laptop screen (instead of an external display) helps as well. But the solution above was good enough for me while I wait for Blizzard’s official fix.
Here is the totally useless Blizzard post to improve Mac performance; I think they released it to buy some time: http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-running-slow-or-choppy-mac .
Here are the specs of my Mac:
- Model Name: MacBook Pro
- Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4
- Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
- Processor Speed: 2,53 GHz
- Number of Processors: 1
- Total Number of Cores: 2
- L2 Cache: 3 MB
- Memory: 8 GB
- Bus Speed: 1,07 GHz
- Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
- Type: GPU
- Bus: PCI
- VRAM (Total): 256 MB
I still cant find this file. Only D3debug.txt
nvm I found it lol
When the new patch comes out will I have to go back and edit these settings again? Thanks in advance for the help!
Yes, I would suggest so. Depending on the quality of Blizzard’s upcoming patch, I might attempt tweaking the file again if I need to. But I would keep the initial version of the file initially.
My mac doesn’t have this folder…
I have Mac OS X Lion and this folder is approved to exist by other users too. If you have Lion as well, make sure that you search the folder through the Finder menu Go -> Go To Folder; it can’t be browsed through usual Finder windows. Otherwise, you have to search the file elsewhere. I can’t tell where, but D3PREFS.TXT must exist somewhere; otherwise the game wouldn’t run 😉
Thank you very much, i noticed unplayable areas are now playable.
oh man. since some day i realized the game is slow, even though i set up the options, the setting has changed in the file. I guess the auto launcher makes it. any solutions?
After patch 1.0.2b, Blizzard fixed the Mac performance problem. You shouldn’t be experiencing any difficulties now – even without file modification.