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How to Play Diablo II on Windows 10 (Update)

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Running Diablo II on Windows 10 can be a little problematic so here is a quick guide to help smooth things out. This is an update to an earlier post that showed how to run Diablo II on Windows 8. Most of the the information here should carry over to Windows 10 quite well. If you run into any issues, please comment below so that the community or myself can help you out.

DII LOD Cover Art Diablo II Lord Of Destruction
Diablo II Lord of Destruction Cover Art (Blizzard Entertainment®)

This quick “how to” assumes that you have already installed and patched the latest version of Diablo II LOD on your system. If you need patch information you can obtain it through Blizzard’s official patch site.

Here are the steps to take to remove lag and other strange issues with Diablo II LOD on Windows 10.

Before launching the game, right click on the game’s shortcut and select “Properties”, then select the “Compatibility” tab.

Once on the Compatibility tab, select the following options:

  • Check “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and set the value to “Windows XP SP 2/3”
  • Check “Reduced Color Mode” and set to “16-bit (65536) Color”
  • Check “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”
  • Optional “Run this program as administrator”

Once you dial in these settings click Apply and then OK.

The next step is crucial if you want to reduce or eliminate all of the glitching and lagging that is known to plague Diablo II LOD on Windows 10.

Obtain a 3DFX Glide Wrapper, this is a little application that will allow you to use the Glide interface with Diablo II LOD. I have found that GLIDE3-to-OpenGL Wrapper by Sven Labusch seems to work the best out of any I have tried so far.

Download the files from Sven’s site and read the “ReadMe.txt” file. This will contain the most current instructions for installing and setting up the wrapper. Be sure to re-run the video test after the wrapper is installed and set it to use Glide.

** Note: You Will Also Need to apply compatibility settings to run the Diablo II Video Test (D2VidTst.exe) * *

 

That’s it! Hopefully you will be successful in your attempts to get Diablo running smooth. Just follow the directions closely and have fun!

 

(UPDATE (3-15-21)

 Great news! It appears that in the most recent versions of Windows 10, you may not need to follow this guide. Also, Blizzard is getting ready to release a remastered version of this incredible game. More details from Blizzard.

How To Install Telnet on Windows 8 and 8.1

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Telnet is a very useful text-based tool for those who need to access other computers and devices on a network and manage them accordingly. However, many Windows 8 users have tried to run the program only to find it’s not there.  Instead, users are met with an error message stating, ‘not recognized as an internal or external command’.

There’s no need to worry as this application is available in Windows 8 but it does need to be installed and enabled.

To install Telnet on Windows 8 / 8.1,

  • Open the Control Panel
  • In the top right corner of the menu change the “View by” option to “Programs“.
  • Under Programs and Features select “Turn Windows features on or off“
  • In the dialog box that pops up, look for “Telnet Client” in the list and then put a check next to it.
  • Press “OK” and the installation of the client will begin.
  • Now you can use the command just as you did before!

How Much does a Cloud Weigh?

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How much does a cloud weigh? How about a Hurricane? I have spent a fair amount of time looking into the sky and watching clouds pass and trying to figure out which ones look like unicorns and which ones look like t-rex, but have you ever thought about how big they are? Sometimes, we see thunderstorms build up into massive towers that flatten out as they push up miles into the sky, and I have always wondered how much water is really up there.

Have you ever wondered how much all of that water weighs? Well, whether you have or not, NPR helps answer that very question in this great video.

How to View FPS in Heroes of the Storm

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Heroes of the Storm Logo for How to Display FPS

In order to monitor your FPS, Network Spikes and GPU temperature in Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm, simply press Ctrl+Alt+F for both Mac and PC. The information will be displayed in the top left corner of the screen.

Showing the FPS, Network Spike and GPU temperature information in Heroes of the Storm can help you diagnose many issues. After certain patches you may find that your game performance isn’t quite what it used to be. Make sure you check your graphics settings closely as Blizzard has a tendency to reset everything to their default values after an update.

If you are looking for solutions to performance issues or just any other problems related to Heroes of the Storm, you can always check Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm forum for more information.

Where is the Network Utility in OS X Mavericks?

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OS X Network Utility icon

In OS X the network utility has been a efficient and convenient way to perform basic tests on your network like ping , trace route, netstat, whois, finger, and port scan. The utility provides all of these tools with the benefit of having a nice graphical user interface to work with (GUI).

The Network Utility has always been included with the installation of OS X and it still is with Mavericks, but it’s no longer in your main applications folder. It has been moved to (/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications).

  • You can easily find the Network Utility in OS X Mavericks by Using Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen) and Typing “Network Utility”.