Mestro's Question about the D2 accelerator in the inn (Tested) -- PofL Security Backup

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Date Posted: 11:10:06 08/28/01 Tue
Author: Trecklar-Pol
Author Host/IP: adsl-64-123-144-229.dsl.okcyok.swbell.net / 64.123.144.229
Subject: Mestro's Question about the D2 accelerator in the inn (Tested)

I decided to take a look at this program as i'm sure a few other members will be asking about it when they see his post. I've downloaded the program and took it to a friends this morning and tested it out. This was done because he is formating his computer this afternoon and we won't have to worry about "trojans" and such. His setup 300mhz ibm clone. 64 mb ram 15 GB hd 16 mb tnt pci video card.

I downloaded a couple of characters that are concidered very graphically (sp) intensive. I.E. A lvl 15 necro that can summon 19 skellies and a lvl 71 sorc.

Stage 1 before intsall ran necro through to end of act 1 and kill andy. Lag was fairly bad. Unfortunatly you cannot use /Fps to get frame rates in single player.

The sorc had a bunch if unused skill points we put them in things like Glatial Spike and Fire Wall and headed to travincal in nm. Again lag was fairly bad. Then we went to open battle.net and did the same runs. Sorc averaged 19 fps and 8 skip the necro averaged 22 fps and 2 skip both had pings of 100-150 during all tests.

Installed D2accelerator, and repeated the tests with both characters. In single the characters were much easier to use though the program makes D2 look terrible with the reduced graphics.

In open Battle.Net we first ran them in private games. We averaged 35 fps and 0 skip with both characters, which was great when you concider D2 runs at 25 fps. Pings remained the same.

We looked through the program and found no trojans or key hooks.

In my opinion this is a great program for people with slower machines.

I have but one major problem with it and thats that you can run txt based mods with the program and that could be used with the program and we would never know.

Note: I joined an open game from my house and ran an open character for a bit while he was running the accelerator. I noticed no changes on my end. So this only affects the graphics of the machine running it.

Here is the readme.txt file copied here for you to read over.

D2Accelerator v 1.0 by FoxBat
for Diablo II & Lord of Destruction 1.09

Diablo II often slows or stutters on machines well above Blizzard's "recommended" system specifications. High-level characters can quickly
re-cast spells over and over bringing your computer to a grinding halt, or a huge army of monsters and minions can make the game unplayable.
In many places the programmers could have been more efficicent with CPU usage but it was simply not a priority.

This utility improves performance and framerates for a wide range of computers by offering additional graphic detail options. It also includes
a few system settings to improve loading and hard drive performance. The changes are visual only and are completely compatible with
Diablo II and Lord of Destruction 1.09, realms and open. It can even work on "-direct -txt" mods.

To use, start up the D2Accelerator utility. In the box beneath the text "current configuration", choose a configuration that matches your
processor. Then click the Apply button. You can now click "Run Diablo II" to run with the changes. You can also run Diablo II without
starting up D2Accelerator by clicking on the "Diablo II Accelerated" icon on your desktop or in the D2Accelerator folder in the start menu.

To turn off all changes, select the Off configuration and click Apply. If you want to uninstall D2Accelerator, go to the Control
Panel and look in Add/Remove Programs.

D2Accelerator offers many detail options that you can customize. To create a custom configuration, select one of the current configuration
choices, click the Add button below the list, and enter a name for your new configuration. Up to 10 configurations can be stored.

To modify, check or un-check the various checkboxes. The Remove checkboxes, when checked, will remove the specified component. The Fix
checkboxes will modify the selected components to make them less processor intensive. Click Apply to save your changes and apply them to
Diablo II.

Most are self explanitory, but a few can be slightly confusing.

Fire: this will modify all "burning-ground" fire spells. This includes firewall, immolation arrow, meteor, and blaze.
Lightning: this will modify all lightning-bolt spells. This includes lightning, chain lightning, lightning strike, and the gloam's lightning attack.
Plague Javelin: this will reduce not only the poison clouds of plague javelin but also the clouds from poision potions, poison explosion, and many
monsters' poison cloud attacks.
Diablo: this will modify diablo's lightning inferno and fire nova/snake attacks.
Baal: this will modify baal's fire nova.
Monster Light: a few monsters have a light radius around them, most notably necromages. This will remove that radius (but it won't affect the
light that bosses and champions give off)
Translucency: checking this box will make many translucent (see-through) spell effects opaque (can't see-through) This can improve
performance but a black outline will appear around many spell effects.

Click the Remove button below the Configuration list to remove a configuration.

Some system enhancements are avaliable by clicking the System... button. This will bring up a box with a few options.

Optimise Disk Cache- the disk cache is a place in your system memory that acts as a buffer for reading from the hard drive. This setting can
make a very noticable difference in how long it takes to load new graphics in Diablo II. A few computers may experience crashes with this
setting, so disable if that happens to you.

Optimise Swap File- the swap file is the space for your Virtual Memory. These settings can be accesed from the Preformance tab in the
System section of the Control Panel. Choosing this option will make a fixed swap file of 300 megs on drive C:, so only use this if you have
the space.

Converve Swap File- if you have 196 megs of memory or more, then you don't really need to use the swap file at all for Diablo II. Using this
option will force Diablo II to rely more on your ample faster RAM. Use this setting if you have 196 or more megs of memory, however if you
have less you may suffer a decrease in performance.

Click the apply button in the system settings box to apply these changes. You must restart your computer before any of these settings will take
effect. If you don't want to change anything then click cancel.

(If anything does goes horribly wrong, you can find your previous cache and virtual memory settings in C:\windows\d2asysbak.ini. This isn't a
backup of the entire system.INI file, just a few setings that you can copy over. But you should usually be able to recover these settings simply
by unchecking the boxes in D2Accelerator)

D2Accelerator also works on some mods. It only works on mods using the "-direct -txt" paradigm. These mods are distributed as folders
containing text and other data files rather than a modified MPQ file.

D2Accelerator can apply to any "-direct -txt" mod, but it will not take into account visual changes to skills in the mod. This will not modify
gameplay, but for example if a modder changes lightning nova to a fire nova, and you check the "nova" checkbox with this mod, it will make this
nova look just like it would if you clicked the checkbox in standard Diablo II. Fortunately it will still deal fire damage however. Modmakers
can provide custom definitions to change the appearance of skills to something more fitting for their mod. These are distributed as files called
"d2adef.txt" and should be placed in the appropriate mod folder.

To add a new mod, find the small text box under Current Mod. Click on the arrow to the right of the box, and scroll down the list to
Enter the name of your mod, then you must select the directory of the mod.

The configurations for different mods are kept seperate. So you can have another 10 custom configurations for each mod.

To remove D2Accelerator modifications from a mod, select the mod to remove and click the Remove button next to the mod textbox. If you
plan on uninstalling D2Accelerator, you should first use this button to remove modifications from all your mods.

Some mods may use special batch files, script files, or executables to run. The Run Diablo II button will not execute this, so it is recommended
that you run your mod as you usually do.

Other things that may improve system performance:

Defragment your hard drive.
Set all the .mpq's in your DiabloII directory to read-only, except for patch_d2.mpq.
Make sure you have no programs running in the background.
Use DirectDraw or Glide instead of Direct3D.
Use 640x480 resolution instead of 800x600. For some computers 800x600 may not lag too bad in most areas, but it does bog down in places
with many translucent walls, such as the catacombs, kurast, etc.
Changing lighting options and turning off music will make a minor improvement.
On some systems, turning off sound completely will make a noticable difference. If you like sound and are using enviornmental/3d audio,
turning those off can improve performance. Make sure that it is turned off both in Diablo II and in your general sound card settings.

Send questions, comments, and complaints to: FoxBat_Stargazer@yahoo.com

Or just go to http://www.planetdiablo.com/phrozenkeep and make a post in the Mods by Rana Loreus forum.

ModMakers: See ModNotes.txt to learn how and why to make a definition file for your own mod.

Legal:

This program is copyrighted material produced in 2001 with Borland C++ Builder 3.0.
It is freeware, so it can be freely distributed and used as long as it isn't modified or sold for profit.
This program is not supported or affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment in any way, and all Blizzard games including Diablo II and Lord of
Destruction and names and images from those games are respectively copyrighted by Blizzard Entertainment.

Thanks to:

Rana Loreus for giving this utility a home.
The Phrozenkeep for general modmaking advice.
Tontus314 for his SpeedEnhance mod, Tossy for his SunnyWeather mod, and Ka'Shel for his LowCPU mod.
Fusman for detailing the -direct -txt format and it's potential.
Blizzard for making an incredibly laggy, but incredibly fun game.

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