Blizzard doesn't announce their system requirements or recommendations until shortly before a game is finished. They don't know before then, since the final stages of programming include lots of optimizations to lower the machine load and streamline the program. Their goal is to keep their games playable on reasonable systems, without sacrificing performance or graphics.
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Diablo III's Technology
Diablo III is made completely in 3D, using custom in-house physics and graphics engines. The game is currently native to DirectX 9, and will not require DirectX 10 to run. The game will probably use a slightly higher level of system requirements than StarCraft II, which also uses Havok & DirectX 9, and is the closest thing we can compare the game to.
You can read more on StarCraft II's requirements and DirectX compatibilities as well as shader info here:
- Graphics Requirements Confirmed - The most prominent part of the system requirements, the graphics requirements released from Blizzard document.
- StarCraft II System Requirements - System requirements analyse from available information.
- Kalos' Chronicles - Technical articles for StarCraft II.
Here is a Blizzard quote on the system specs: [1]
Jay Wilson: Currently we have no plans for specific DirectX 10 support. Right now are running a DirectX 9, and we run on a pretty broad range of systems, really fast. Overall, across-the-board Blizzard's goal is that all of our games support a broad range of systems. We don't jump up the system specs in any grand way. We have no intentions of being a high-end game, and certainly no intentions of being an exclusive DirectX 10 game at this time.
We don't exactly know what the system specs are yet, but we'll try to keep them pretty low. We make a lot of decisions about what we do and do not put into our graphics, in order to keep the game running fast. One of the reasons why we talk a lot about art style, and how we focus a lot on art style, stylization of art over... when we do that it allows us to have a good looking game about falling back on technology, our technology does not have to carry us when we have such great art in the game.
Starcraft 2 System Requirements
SC2 logo.
Fans often ask about Diablo 3's system requirements. While Blizzard won't make those known until much closer to the game's launch, we can look at the SC2 minimm requirements for some insight. Here's what Blizzard says, on their B.net support page. [2]
PC Minimum System Requirements
Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time. Mac Requirements
- Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
- 2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor
- 128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better
- 12 GB available HD space
- 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)
- DVD-ROM drive
- Broadband Internet connection
- 1024X720 minimum display resolution
PC Recommended Specifications:
- Windows Vista®/Windows® 7
- Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
- 2 GB RAM
- 512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better
Mac Minimum System Requirements:
- Mac® OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
- Intel® Processor
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT or ATI Radeon® X1600 or better
- 12 GB available HD space
- 2 GB Ram
- DVD-ROM drive
- Broadband Internet connection
- 1024X720 minimum display resolution
Mac Recommended Specifications:
- Intel® Core 2 Duo processor
- 4 GB system RAM
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT or ATI Radeon® HD 4670 or better
Compatible Operating Systems
- Windows XP compatible
- Windows Vista compatible
- Mac OSX compatible