How To: Playing Diablo 2 on a modern PC

orangecat · May 24, 2015

Before continuing...

I only tested this on my PC running Windows 7 with a GTX 970 so your mileage may vary.

I figured someone out there is probably trying to play Diablo 2 but they have a modern graphics card and can't launch the game so here is my solution to this...

First install the game and patch it to the latest version (1.13d). Next download the latest version of GLIDE-wrapper and extract the files to you main Diablo 2 folder. After extracting the files to your game folder copy glide3x.dll to "C:\Windows\system". Once the files are where they need to be you need to run the video test and "3dfx Glide: 3dfx Glide" should be available under the Direct3D options, select 3dfx Glide.

At this point you should be ready to play the game but if you'd like to weak some settings of the wrapper you can launch the "glide-init.exe" and it will bring up a small program you can use to configure the wrapper.

There are some options here you can change but you don't need to change anything unless you want a slightly better looking game.

For best appearance use my settings (but feel free to experiment on your own)...

Notes on Compatibility

For some reason there is an option called "keep desktop composition" do not select this or the game will fail to launch correctly. Also "texture for videos" needs to be on or ingame videos won't play.

I hope this helped you fix Diablo 2 on your modern PC.

Nineshadow · May 24, 2015

I have no problems running it without doing anything so...

orangecat · May 25, 2015

I have no problems running it without doing anything so...

On a GTX 970 the game doesn't work and I think it has to do with Delta Colour Compression that the older cards don't have. Works fine on my GTX 460 but crashes on my GTX 970.