Best retro laptop for D2 Median

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ixvid_
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I am looking to buy old-school Diablo II median only laptop. I found out, that there are some problems running D2 with median on modern pc/laptops with windows 8 or 10. I want to buy old hardware specific for playing Median and Median ONLY! What are you suggestions, what kind of specification/hardware I should look toget maximum efficiency and framerate and less technical difficulties. Cheers!
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Dreamhunter
Grubber
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You can play it on washing machine literally
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HechtHeftig
I paid 10$ for this.
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Windows XP/7 is probably still the best option, but I don't think they sell any new laptops with windows 7 anymore and windows XP is probably too dangerous because windows stopped supporting it. Windows 8 is quite problematic in general for gaming since it's not meant for that (I bought 1 custom, self-composed gaming PC with window 8. Not a single game worked, so I sent it back.). And windows 10 regularly gets updates that specifically fuck up something with Diablo 2. I know that much from experience. Windows 10 has the other problem of "letter counting" whenever there is something to load (game start up, game creating, video sequences). I'm talking about all the ascii signs appearing in the top left corner when using Glide. It's a strange problem I only ever got with windows 10, so yeah. Win 10 is the cause that Glide doesn't work nearly as well anymore. And the other video modes either lagg or are distorted. At least it's that way on my pc.

The best thing you could possibly do is get any laptop with a SSD as a harddrive (in order to start up the pc faster :D ). I bought my 2nd-hand laptop with 500 GB SSD for 160€ about 1,5 years ago. Then install windows 7 if you have a copy of that lying around. If not, try ebay for a laptop with windows 7.

But to be honest, hardware doesn't matter. The software is the only crucial thing.

EDIT: just googled for windows 7. There are cheap licenses you can buy online. 10 € or less.
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Anonymous:
Memelistas
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Hello,
i am using (STILL!) Dell Inspiron e1505 laptop (1Gb ram, 1.83GHz proc, NVidia GeFOrce Go7300 video card - integrated? ). Bought around 2003-2004. Never reinstalled, never formatted. Windows xp services pack 3. Runs Diablo 2 Median like a glove. With plugy, D2SE, bandicamp and other ancient things. When i open youtube in 480 resolution + Diablo 2 mod + winamp - i get this sublimal message "hey man slow down a bit". But overall, still very satisfied with it.

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aerial
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A Median XL guru... a true book of knowledge
I'd narrow it down to machines with 4:3 screen, you can truly full screen d2 then, no streching no black bars.
Thinkpad t61 or x61, 14 and 12'' would be my choice.
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ixvid_
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I found cheap refurbished Laptop Dell Vostro 1015 : Intel Core 2 (2.1 ghz) 4 GB ram, integrated graphics; 15" screen., Win 7 pro. ~100$
Josko_91
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Forgive me but how can you play median on a laptop? Dosn't it lag like hell? Even on my computer with intel 3.5ghz, 16gb memory, geforce 980gtx it lags a little bit sometimes, so many enemies shooting tons of projectiles :D

Im new to median but I love it!
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Wasp
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If that computer lags it's most likely due to poor d2Vid configuration. Have you tried playing with settings in glide or maybe use d3d?
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Somnus
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Lag doesnt come from a ''bad pc'' . You gonna have lag even with the best end game pc you can get atm. Why? Because d2 Engine :brevik:, there are a lot of factors like sprite limit, tons of sounds playing at same time because of mob density, shit engine (again, cant stress this enough). etc.

Just turn -ns on and it will go away as long as you have a semi-normal average pc. Also, doing your graphic configuration properly, selecting mode, etc, is really mandatory.
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Somnus wrote:Because d2 Engine :brevik:, there are a lot of factors like sprite limit, tons of sounds playing at same time because of mob density, shit engine (again, cant stress this enough). etc.


I would never call that engine shit, we all was able to play on our potato machines from start of d2 day1, also I cant say bad word even with early multiplayer days on dial-up connection (who cares about black walls). Classic and LoD wasnt as intense as MedianXL and mobs density/skill spam was much lower.

Please stop calling it shit engine, term "old engine" is more accurate.