Diablo IV PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Conclusion

After so many low quality PC releases in 2023, it is refreshing to see that Blizzard has delivered Diablo IV in such a solid state. Diablo IV runs well on modern PCs, and even users of older graphics hardware should be able to achieve 60+ FPS framerates with only a few settings tweaks.

CPU-wise, Diablo IV is not a demanding game. We had to disable all but four of the cores on our i9-13900K to see performance notably dip, and even then the game’s average framerate was over 300 FPS in our Kyovashad test scene. We also saw few VRAM related issues, even when using 8GB graphics cards at 4K Ultra settings. We also did not experience many of the shader stutters that have plagued many modern releases, though after changing graphics cards the first minute of so of gameplay is a little choppy at times.

Overall, Diablo IV is a great looking game that gives us nothing major to complain about in performance terms. Even users of older graphics cards like AMD’s Radeon RX 480 and Nvidia’s GTX 1060 will be able to play this game at 1080p 60+ FPS with a few settings tweaks. Those are mid-range graphics cards from 2016, and if those GPUs can run Diablo VI well, you can expect great things from more modern graphics cards.

Visually, Diablo IV is a huge step up from Diablo III, offering gamers a more detailed and more realistic visual style. In-game lighting is fantastic, and Sanctuary is now filled with a huge amount of detail. While this game is not pushing any graphical boundaries, Diablo IV’s visuals are pleasing and it is clear that Blizzard’s artists have put a lot of effort into the game’s world and effects. This is a well made game, and it runs great on modern systems.

Like most modern games, Diablo IV has launched on PC with XeSS, FideltyFX Super Resolution, and DLSS 3. These technologies allow Diablo IV to run at exceptionally high framerates on PC through high fidelity resolution upscaling, and for Nvidia’s RTX 40 series GPU users, DLSS Frame Generation is also available.

Overall, I’d say that DLSS delivers better upscaling results than FidelityFX Super Resolution, but at 4K both upscales deliver high quality results. It is only at lower resolutions that FSR 2 looks notably worse than DLSS, and both are great options for gamers who want more performance from their graphics cards.

Through upscaling solutions like DLSS and FSR 2, Diablo IV is able to be played at 4K 60 FPS on surprisingly low-end hardware. With an RTX 2060 at High settings with DLSS set to Balanced, 4K 60+ FPS framerates can be achieved under most circumstances, which is a crazy feat given how old this GPU now is. Nvidia’s RTX 2060 is now over four years old, and it was not considered a 4K graphics card at launch.

If you are not using a VRR compatible monitor, it may be worthwhile to run Diablo IV with the game’s cinematics running with a 30 FPS framerate limit. Cutscenes are much more demanding than gameplay, and a solid 60+ FPS framerate during gameplay does not guarantee a solid framerate during cutscenes. There’s a reason why these scenes are capped at 30 FPS on consoles, though a sufficiently powerful PC will be able to play these scenes at high framerates.

Optimisation Tips

On page 4 of this performance analysis, we tested most of Diablo IV’s graphics settings to uncover which settings had the largest performance impact, and which settings could be safely lowered without having a huge impact on Diablo IV’s visuals. With this in mind, we recommend setting SSAO to Medium, Shadows to High, and Fog Detail to Medium, as these settings can net players significant performance gains without a noticeable loss in image quality (at least outside of side-by-side comparisons).

We tested these optimised settings at 4K using AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, with the former seeing average framerates increase by over 20%, while the latter saw an almost 30% increase in average framerate. If you add DLSS or FSR on top of these settings tweaks, gamers can easily achieve 50+% performance gains with only a minor loss in overall image quality.

Overall, Diablo IV is a PC game that runs well across a variety of systems and hardware configurations. Most PC gamers should have no issues running this game, even at Ultra settings, and gamers who need more performance can easily utilise upscaling and our optimised settings to achieve a smoother gameplay experience.

Ray Tracing is Coming

Blizzard and Nvidia have confirmed that there are plans to add ray tracing to the PC version of Diablo IV, improving the game’s graphical fidelity further while giving users of high-end GPUs something to use their system’s resources on. With Diablo IV running so well on high-end gaming systems, it is probable that the game will continue to run well even with ray tracing enabled, as today’s high-end GPUs have headroom to spare with this game.

Sadly, it has not been confirmed how ray tracing will be utilised within Diablo IV. Perhaps the feature will be used to improve Diablo IV’s lighting further, or to add more accurate shadows or ambient occlusion to the game. I guess we will find out more about this soon.

You can join the discussion on Diablo IV’s PC version on the OC3D Forums.