Diablo 3 video problem

[Traab]

On a lark I decided to patch up my blizzard games and play some diablo 3. When I went to start it up though, the game's graphics are so blurred I cant even see the options clearly to try and fix it. Any experts on here have any clue how to fix this? On a possibly related note, the same thing just started happening with diablo 2. I had played several games of diablo 2 for nostalgia's sake, then a week later I go to play again and blam, blurry graphics.

[Psyren]

No real advice here other than "update your graphics drivers." You may have to open a ticket with Blizzard Support, I've never heard of this.

[Traab]

How do I go about updating my graphic drivers? I have zero clue what they are or how to do that.

[Psyren]

You're in luck, Blizzard themselves have a helpful guide.

A driver is basically a file that tells your hardware how to do whatever the game is asking it to do. (In the case of a graphics driver, it tells your graphics card how to make the pretty pictures that the game is trying to display.) Newer games have different requirements/ways of communicating, so the manufacturers who make your hardware routinely release updated drivers. Occasionally, these are caught automatically by your operating system, but very frequently they are not and you have to go get them yourself.

This is unfortunately a reality of gaming on PC and definitely something you will have to learn how to do routinely, even for some older games. The link above should tell you everything you need to know.

[Traab]

Ugh, i dont know wtf is going on, it keeps telling me that I need an up to date version of java to run the search for updates for my driver, so I install the latest java and it tells me my version of java is out of date! Screw it, I didnt want to play diablo 3 THAT much.

[The_Jackal]

You really shouldn't need to upgrade java in order to update your video drivers. What kind of vid card ate you using?

[Traab]

The NVIDIA smart scan requires the latest version of java to work. I cant seem to find my driver in the list of products so I do the smart scan and thats the message that pops up. Its a GeForce 9600 GT

[Ailurus]

The NVIDIA smart scan requires the latest version of java to work. I cant seem to find my driver in the list of products so I do the smart scan and thats the message that pops up. Its a GeForce 9600 GT

No clue what's up with the smart scan (its telling me I have no driver installed for my card), but in your case go to http://www.geforce.com/drivers, select GeForce 9 Series (google suggests the 9600GT is part of that family) and then your OS.

On a larger note, though, do you have NVIDIA GeForce Experience and control panel installed? That should automatically update your driver every time a new driver is released, saving you the trouble of having to do it yourself.

[Traab]

Bleh, installed latest update, did no good, the game almost looks like im looking at it through ripples that dont move. It gives me a headache just trying. Its so bad I cant even read the options to try and mess with the settings to make it work better. I dont know why its doing that, but I am not happy. Its strange though that not all my games are having the same issue. My diablo games are messed up, facebook and armor games are not. Wizard 101 is fine, but a PopCap game called chuzzle is screwy. Call of duty black ops is slightly messed up, but not even close to as badly.

[The_Jackal]

Bleh, installed latest update, did no good, the game almost looks like im looking at it through ripples that dont move. It gives me a headache just trying. Its so bad I cant even read the options to try and mess with the settings to make it work better. I dont know why its doing that, but I am not happy. Its strange though that not all my games are having the same issue. My diablo games are messed up, facebook and armor games are not. Wizard 101 is fine, but a PopCap game called chuzzle is screwy. Call of duty black ops is slightly messed up, but not even close to as badly.

It's time to upgrade, my friend. That card is 4 generations behind current, and probably has some hardware damage that's screwing up shader rendering, based on your report. My advice is to measure the tolerances in your case and see what size of GeForce 9XX series card it will fit. Even a bottom-of-the-line GeForce 960 should crush anything your current card struggles to render, though IMO the more expensive cards tend to have a lower failure rate.

[Traab]

It's time to upgrade, my friend. That card is 4 generations behind current, and probably has some hardware damage that's screwing up shader rendering, based on your report. My advice is to measure the tolerances in your case and see what size of GeForce 9XX series card it will fit. Even a bottom-of-the-line GeForce 960 should crush anything your current card struggles to render, though IMO the more expensive cards tend to have a lower failure rate.

Ah, now that makes sense. I have had this computer for a few years. See, what happens is, my uncle and his family are all computer nuts. They buy the bleeding edge stuff that tends to be stupidly expensive for minimal improvements to the point where there arent even games that suggest levels that high to use on maximum settings. Then, a year later they scrap it and build a new one. (it must be nice to be so wealthy) Anyways, every now and then they offer it at a super discounted deal to family or friends, and by that time it is still generally beyond even the most demanding game system requirements, so I get a high end (but not THE high end) computer for cheap, it lasts me a few years, then the cycle repeats itself.

As for hardware damage, thats. . . thats actually quite likely. See, I was really really really stupid and never scheduled myself to do regular computer cleanings. I kept forgetting, or delaying, or putting it off, It eventually got so bad my computer wouldnt boot up properly anymore, so I took the case off, and removed god knows how much muck and nastiness from every corner of the device. The fans were caked solid, there were dustballs everywhere, it was a mess. After I did that the computer started working more or less fine again. It still has problems but like 90% fine. So I may have damaged something both from the dirt itself, or from the cleaning of such, since diablo 2 was playing fine before I had to clean it.