Blizzard further optimizing 'Diablo III' for MacBook Pro Retina display

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Though the blockbuster game "Diablo III" currently runs on the new MacBook Pro at the native resolution of its Retina display, developer Blizzard has indicated it is working on further improvements to the title specific to Apple's latest notebook.

In an official statement given to AppleInsider, Blizzard said it was "pleased" that Apple decided to include Diablo III in its keynote presentation at the Worldwide Developers Conference last week.

"While we can confirm that the game runs natively on and takes full advantage of the full screen resolution for the new MacBook Pro, we need to do some work to optimize it for windowed mode on the new system," the developer said. "We will provide our Mac players with an update when we have further details to share."

AppleInsider tested Diablo III on the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, and the results were detailed in the official review published this week. It found that the title consistently ran around 30 frames per second when playing at the highest possible resolution of 2,880 by 1,800 pixels with all settings on high and anti-aliasing disabled.

At last week's WWDC keynote, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, highlighted Diablo III as one application that would benefit from the new Retina display on the next-generation MacBook Pro.

"You're going to see a gaming experience with this resolution unlike any you have ever seen before," Schiller told the audience.

Diablo III


He also revealed that Apple had been working with "key developers" prior to the announcement to help ensure that their software looks up to standard on the new Retina display. While Blizzard's game was shown off on stage, Schiller never specifically said that Apple had worked with the developer regarding Diablo III's performance on the new MacBook Pro, and Blizzard did not answer a question about how closely it worked with Apple.

Also highlighted by Schiller last week were new Retina display-compatible versions of Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk's AutoCAD. Schiller said that the development team at Adobe is doing "amazing work" on a version of Photoshop that will be "jaw dropping," while the updated AutoCAD will allow "a level of detailed work and design never possible on a notebook before."

Apple's native applications in OS X already take advantage of the Retina display of the new MacBook Pro, and separate updates are also available for iMovie, iPhoto, Final Cut Pro and Aperture.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26


    This is good news.


     


    I wonder if Blizzard will go back and mess with some of their other game engines like SC2 and WoW.  Especially that both games have expansions coming out this fall.

  • Reply 2 of 26
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member


    It's such a shame that Apple insists on shipping the crud Intel Graphics on so many of their newest machines, forget anything like this on those.

  • Reply 3 of 26
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member


    Meh.  I'd much rather play with Diablo Cody.

  • Reply 4 of 26
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by saarek View Post


    It's such a shame that Apple insists on shipping the crud Intel Graphics on so many of their newest machines, forget anything like this on those.





    The pro's use Nvidia chipsets and has been shown running on four displays without any real noticeable performance issues.  What the heck more do you want?



    If you want a Macbook Air with Macbook Pro features, hold your breath.

  • Reply 5 of 26
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member


    The 15" MacBook Pro's do indeed feature Nvidia Graphics, the 13" model however does not. Considering the starting price of a 13" MacBook Pro is £1000 I find it, frankly, insulting that they sell a "professional" machine, with a price tag to match, that features such cheap graphics.


     


    Before you say, well don't buy one then, I won't. My 13" MacBook Pro is still chugging along nicely and although I'd have upgraded it by now I'm holding off on principal.


     


    Don't get me wrong, I love Apple and own many of their products, heck I could almost open a mini Apple Store with the amount of hardware that I have from them, but when I pay a premium price I expect Apple to supply a premium product in all aspects.

  • Reply 6 of 26
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    saarek wrote: »
    The 15" MacBook Pro's do indeed feature Nvidia Graphics, the 13" model however does not. Considering the starting price of a 13" MacBook Pro is £1000 I find it, frankly, insulting that they sell a "professional" machine, with a price tag to match, that features such cheap graphics.

    Okay, so buy something from someone else that fits your bill better. Fact of the matter is, the Intel 4000 powers the built-in display and two externals at 2560x1440, so it probably has some decent oomph. Take a gander at benchmarks for it before making your decision.
  • Reply 7 of 26
    rokradrokrad Posts: 143member


    Finally got my retina mac today and can't wait to play! This is good news!

  • Reply 8 of 26
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post





    Okay, so buy something from someone else that fits your bill better. Fact of the matter is, the Intel 4000 powers the built-in display and two externals at 2560x1440, so it probably has some decent oomph. Take a gander at benchmarks for it before making your decision.




     I would suggest that AMD is a better option at the lower end. It won't win any races if you're drag racing cache loads, but it is more balanced in terms of integrated gpu performance.

  • Reply 9 of 26
    tipootipoo Posts: 1,141member


    It was running at a threshold framerate at native on the MBPR, so I doubt it will be higher res textures or anything like that, probably just better text scaling and whatnot. 





    Hopefully it doesn't go the other way like N.O.V.A 3 where the retina version had significantly cut back effects. 

  • Reply 10 of 26
    ekeefe41ekeefe41 Posts: 36member


    Do you guys seriously buy this "Retina display" marketing BS?

     


     


    FYI... it is just a screen with a higher resolution, Nothing new or exciting there....


     


     


    They re-brand something as simple as higher resolution and you guys piss yourself with excitement.

  • Reply 11 of 26

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ekeefe41 View Post


    Do you guys seriously buy this "Retina display" marketing BS?

     


    FYI... it is just a screen with a higher resolution, Nothing new or exciting there....



     


    No, it isn't. Sure, you can pump up the resolution, but the attraction is the extremely high DPI.

  • Reply 12 of 26
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    ekeefe41 wrote: »
    FYI… it is just a screen with a higher resolution, Nothing new or exciting there….

    WHOOOOOP! WHOOOOOP! WHOOOOOP! WHOOOOOP! WHOOOOOP! WHOOOOOP!

    That's the "Doesn't Get It" alarm. Goes off every once in a while. Hang on, we'll get it fixed.
  • Reply 13 of 26

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ekeefe41 View Post


    Do you guys seriously buy this "Retina display" marketing BS?

     


     


    FYI... it is just a screen with a higher resolution, Nothing new or exciting there....


     


     


    They re-brand something as simple as higher resolution and you guys piss yourself with excitement.



     


    Nothing new? Please point to any other laptop that has a 2880x1800 resolution. Oh right, you can't because there are no other laptops that can do this. Yet you say dumb things like "Nothing new"

  • Reply 14 of 26
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post





    Okay, so buy something from someone else that fits your bill better. Fact of the matter is, the Intel 4000 powers the built-in display and two externals at 2560x1440, so it probably has some decent oomph. Take a gander at benchmarks for it before making your decision.


     


    Displaying desktops isn't very taxing at all. Virtually any dedicated graphics card from the last five years is capable of outputting that kind of resolution to three monitors. 


     


    The Nvidia 650M has around four times the processing power of the Intel 4000.

  • Reply 15 of 26
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    saarek wrote: »
    It's such a shame that Apple insists on shipping the crud Intel Graphics on so many of their newest machines, forget anything like this on those.
    it's a rock and a hard place and it's squarely Intel's fault. Intel blocked others from making chipsets with better iGPUs thus putting OEMs in the position of using Intel solution of adding cost, space, power and cooling needs to any machine that doesn't want to rely on Intel for graphics. We know Intel paid Nvidia $1.5 billion but I think Intel still won, and by a wide margin.

    ekeefe41 wrote: »
    Do you guys seriously buy this "Retina display" marketing BS?

    FYI... it is just a screen with a higher resolution, Nothing new or exciting there....

    They re-brand something as simple as higher resolution and you guys piss yourself with excitement.

    So where are all these original brandings of 2800x1800 IPS displays for notebooks?
  • Reply 16 of 26
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    sflocal wrote: »

    What the heck more do you want?

    If you want a Macbook Air with Macbook Pro features, hold your breath.

    It's not an unreasonable request. An 11-inch MacBook air with a 1 GB dedicated graphics chip would be my ideal machine. Ultra portable but a decent gaming machine when paired with a montor, mouse and keyboard. I realise heat dissapation is one barrier but the real issue is that apple leverages graphics performance to create tension between their low end and high end lines to encourage up sell. It would be nice to have an apple computer where individual components could be swapped out for a newer model without having to opt for a rediculously cumbersome box. On the other hand I also realise the future of computing will be won by those with a sustainable business model, and the appliancification of computing is the best model to sustain the industry in the long term.

    I guarantee you that Jony Ive looked at ifixit's 1/10 repairability score for the new MacBook Pro with a huge grin on his face.
  • Reply 17 of 26
    bluefish86bluefish86 Posts: 115member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dunks View Post





    An 11-inch MacBook air with a 1 GB dedicated graphics chip would be my ideal machine....


    ...I realise heat dissapation is one barrier....


     


    It would be mine too, but sadly it'll never happen for exactly that reason. If you read the spec sheets for these chips they just pump out way too much heat. An 11" would have to be WAY thicker than Apple would ever think of making.  Now *maybe* the 13" retina pro could have dedicated graphics, albeit slower and cooler than that in the 15" pro, but like you say the whole upselling thing could demotivate them from solving the technical issues it would bring.


     


    Back to the article, Diablo III looks absolutely stunning on my new retina MacBook Pro.  Even after hours of playing, I still can't get over.  What really surprised me is that even at full retina resolution, I haven't seen the GPU stutter once.  Anyone who thinks the retina display is marketing BS hasn't really used one, and playing with a retina MBP for 2 minutes at the Apple store doesn't count.  Even just looking at my personal photo album, it's like having vivid 15" prints of every photo.  Again looking at the stock demo photos in the Apple store really doesn't convey the beauty... seeing your own personal photos like that is just amazing.


     


    I use AutoCAD on Windows every day at work... I'd love to see how it looks on the retina display but sadly due to licensing issues that's not going to happen.

  • Reply 18 of 26


    Can I ask how many FPS you get in the game when there's a lot of action going on?


    To show the FPS in Diablo 3, press Ctrl R (will come up in upper left corner).


     


    Personally I think this: "You're going to see a gaming experience with this resolution unlike any you have ever seen before" isn't true untill you have a GPU to mach the resolution and give some proper frames per second. Around 60 FPS is needed for things to feel really smooth I think. Untill Apple starts shipping up to date graphics options and pushes more updates of the graphics drivers I'm afraid Windows still is the better choice. It might look OK ”at the surface” when playing a game, but when there's a lot of action (much going on) the frame rates goes quite a bit lower in OS X than on Windows on the sam hardware. I've quite a lot of testing with this, and it's sad but true.

  • Reply 19 of 26


    You get that resolution and DPI are directly related?


     


    Higher Resolution on the same size screen= smaller DPI....


     


    The natural evolution in Monitor/display technology are higher resolutions... Only Apple will take the next natural step and call it some kind of special innovation.


     


     


    NEC MultiSync MD301C4 OMG retna displayz!!!


     


    You guys are Apple sheep, Cut the cord, i did and i am happier for it. (and so is my wallet)

  • Reply 20 of 26
    ekeefe41 wrote: »
    You get that resolution and DPI are directly related?

    Higher Resolution on the same size screen= smaller DPI....

    The natural evolution in Monitor/display technology are higher resolutions... Only Apple will take the next natural step and call it some kind of special innovation.


    NEC MultiSync MD301C4 OMG retna displayz!!!

    You guys are Apple sheep, Cut the cord, i did and i am happier for it. (and so is my wallet)

    That monitor has less pixels and is twice the size, therefore it has less than half the dpi...
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