Laptop Graphics Face Off: Diablo III Performance
by Jarred Walton on May 26, 2012 4:25 AM ESTDetailed FRAPS Runs and Closing Thoughts
For those of you that want a different view of the gaming action, we’ve selected the highest quality but still playable result for each GPU. In general, that means we wanted average frame rates of 25 or higher, with minimum frame rates always above 15 FPS. Obviously you could tweak settings in other ways and still get playable results (e.g. by dropping the resolution, you might be able to run our Enthusiast settings at 1366x768 instead of Mainstream 1600x900), but we’ve stuck with our three basic categories for the following charts. We’ve ordered them in terms of increasing performance/quality.
Given what we’ve said already, your best results will generally come by keeping minimum frame rates above 20. Assuming there are other segments of the game that will be more taxing than our benchmark sequence, you might still drop into the upper teens, but as long as you’re above 15 FPS you shouldn’t “lose sync”. Even at our Value settings, HD 3000 is already dangerously close to dropping below 15 FPS at times; you might have to give up on Shadows altogether to get acceptable performance. HD 4000 at our Mainstream settings ends up staying above 20 FPS for the most part but rarely gets above 25 FPS; by comparison, Llano’s HD 6620G ranges from around 22 FPS to nearly 30 FPS. For a smoother experience, though, you’ll still want 30 FPS or more, and that’s where the HD 6630M and Trinity’s HD 7660G fall, with Trinity averaging just slightly better performance despite one large dip to the low 20s.
As shown in our earlier charts, the real winner in terms of gaming performance looks like NVIDIA, though the use of Ivy Bridge CPUs for our two fastest test laptops leaves room for debate. The Acer doesn't appear to have any real issues with throttling in this game, however, despite my earlier fears; it looks like Diablo III (at least early on) just doesn't tax the CPU enough to routinely need more than a moderate 1.2-1.6GHz on the i5-2410M. The 15~20% performance advantage of the N56VM over the 3830TG instead comes from a higher clocked GPU, despite earlier indications that the opposite was the case.
Closing Thoughts
Wrapping up, while Diablo III isn’t the most demanding new release, it can still bring basic laptops to their knees. Unfortunately, unlike desktops it’s often not possible (or at least not practical) to upgrade a laptop’s graphics capabilities. I’ve had a couple friends ask for help with running Diablo III on their old Core 2 Duo laptops, and they’re basically out of luck unless they want to purchase a new system. That’s something we’ve tried to explain in our laptop reviews, and Diablo III drives the point home: buying at the bottom of the barrel in terms of GPU capabilities may not matter for you right now, but kids and/or future applications may eventually make your IGP-only laptop insufficient.
In the case of Diablo III, even a moderate HD 3650 or GT 330M should still be able to handle the game in single player on Normal difficulty, but IGP solutions from two or more years back are likely going to come up short. Naturally, anything faster than the GPUs we’re testing here will allow you to increase details/resolution, and it’s nice to see “mainstream” mobile GPUs like the GT 540M/GT 630M able to handle 1080p gaming for a change.
And again, in case you missed it, the later stages of the game, particularly on Hell difficulty level, are said to be quite a bit more strenuous. If you're the type of player that intends to defeat Diablo not once but three or more times at increasingly difficult settings, our results from early in the game are probably not representative of what you'll experience later. Performance does appear to stay relatively consistent among the various GPUs, though, so if you take half of our performance results as a baseline of what to expect, you're probably not far off the mark.
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CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link
Thanks for that bit of info, ignore the fanboy, and continue your observations please - as we have already been told in the last card reviews by so many users here they have 1900X1200 monitors and they are by no means rare and "all real enthusiasts" have sought them.So the information you have there is very valuable to all the amd fans that own their 1900X1200 here that only lost to the new nVidia flagship by 9% at that resolution instead of 14% overall loss at 1920X1080, which anand doesn't show.
Please ignore the sniping, cursing rude person and continue the observations as that one surprised me.
Sabresiberian - Sunday, May 27, 2012 - link
"What that means is cutting edge technologies like DirectX 11 aren’t part of the game plan; in fact, just like StarCraft II and World of WarCraft, DirectX 10 isn’t in the picture either. Diablo III is a DirectX 9 title, and there should be plenty of GPUs that can handle the game at low to moderate detail settings."WoW got a major graphics upgrade for the expansion pack Cataclysm, and it is now one of the few DX11 capable MMOGs released. You're overall point is valid in that Blizzard makes games so that people with lower priced systems can play them, but a bit out-of-date when it comes to WoW.
;)
iwod - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Anyone old enough would have remember those article about Mobile Graphics, How they sucks, how every year we were suppose to get 50 - 100% performance improvement. How Quake 3 didn't work, we could only play SimCity 2000.And by todays standard, Diablo 3 isn't even ground breaking in terms of Graphics. And yet, most of these laptop dont even play the game at acceptable frame rate ( 30fps ), ( And we are already excluding ANY of the ACT 3 / 4 loads in the game )
And we even have Retina Display resolution coming. We are talking about 2 - 4x Pixel Density.
I really do hope Haswell will provide 3x the performance of Top HD4000 numbers. This way we could push and ensure that everytime i select a discrete graphics in Notebook, i am guarantee to get at least decent graphics performance numbers.
Zingam - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
Ever heard about heat and battery life. Laptops are not for games! They actually do run games good when they are 5+ years older than the laptop itself. :)So play old games and be happy and they are mostly better than the current breed of graphic intensive crap.
Zingam - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
BTW That's the reason why consoles are better than PCs for gaming. You invest once and it guarantees you (unless it is XBOX 360 and rings red of death) that you will be able to play all available games until you have it. For the price of a console you cannot even buy a good graphics card.iwod - Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - link
Yes, but Diablo 3 is exactly like a game 3 - 5 years older then my current laptop ( 6 months old ) with 6630M.We have Laptop as Desktop Replacement. But most of those dont even run the game well.
And exactly like you said consoles are MUCH better for gaming. Which leads me to think we are getting less efficient in extracting performance out of GPU.
Computex - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
I would use it for school since I can afford something like this on my own.........amanstay - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
i wanna play D3 with laptop, what suitable laptop and what is the requirements that i need? pls help me..JarredWalton - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
What's your intended resolution and what level of detail are you willing to run at? If you're okay with 1366x768 and Low Shadow Quality, you should be able to play through at least Normal and Nightmare difficulty on any Llano, Trinity, or possibly (if you're tolerant) HD 4000 laptop. If you want higher quality settings or a higher resolution, you'll want probably something with at least a GT 630M level GPU.Best bang for the buck right now, I'd go with the Acer AS4830TG: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....
It's a bit larger (and should therefor run a bit cooler/better) than the 3830TG used in the benchmarks for this article. At a price of $600, I don't see Trinity A10 surpassing it any time soon, though I do suspect the number of 4830TG units currently available is all that's left, so they might go out of stock in the next month or so.
Dark_Archonis - Monday, May 28, 2012 - link
First thing is first, Acers are horrible laptops.Secondly, many gamers now are on laptops, not by choice, but some by necessity. There are quite a few gamers that are, in fact, space-limited and simply don't have the space for a full desktop setup. I am actually one of those at the moment. I will have more space in the future, where I will then get a desktop, but I don't have enough space right now. That is why a laptop is ideal for me. Secondly, a laptop has almost everything integrated and makes it easy to be mobile; speakers, trackpad, keyboard, screen are all in one unit. You can't be lugging around a desktop everywhere. If you're going to a friend's house or visiting somewhere, a laptop allows you to game on the go.
Lastly, laptops are all about cooling. An Acer that's throttling is not going to cut it. The Act 1 benchmarks are not realistic. In Act 3 or 4 with tons of mobs on screen, that will stress both the CPU and GPU a lot more. A properly cooled and properly designed laptop should be hitting max turbo speeds almost always, and should not be throttling at all. Properly cooled the laptop should be running at minimum on base clocks when hooked to the A/C adapter. If you're gaming on the battery, than that's a bad idea. Gaming should be done hooked up the adapter when possible.
With an i5 or i7 hitting max turbo clocks, combined with a 540M or 630M Geforce, D3 should run smoothly at medium/high settings even in Act 3 or 4. If your laptop is throttling, then of course that's a different story. So in the end, it is possible to game pretty well on a laptop, as long as the laptop has strong cooling.