Diablo 3 graphics card is missing required features error

[bigmets31]

My brother's computer is getting this message when trying to open the Diablo 3 Beta client. "Diablo 3 cannot run because your graphics card is missing required features.

His specifications are:
OPERATING SYSTEM:
Windows 2.6.1.7601 (Service Pack 1)
CPU TYPE:
AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 2850e
CPU SPEED:
1.82 GHz
SYSTEM MEMORY:
2.75 GB
VIDEO CARD MODEL:
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
VIDEO CARD MEMORY:
1.41 GB
VIDEO CARD DRIVER:
nvd3dum.dll
DESKTOP RESOLUTION:
1440x900
HARD DISK SIZE:
283.99 GB
HARD DISK FREE SPACE:
199.65 GB (70%)
DOWNLOAD SPEED:
1.11 MB/s (9.3 mbps)

Why is he getting this message? Does he need to install something or is the card that awful? If upgrading his graphics card is a necessity to run D3 what cheap graphics card would he need to get? Thank you in advance.

 

[Supernova1138]

Your brother is running a rather old nvidia integrated graphics chipset, I highly doubt it meets the minimum system requirements for Diablo 3. If he wants to play that game he is definitely going to need to get a graphics card. Which card to get is going to depend on what slots are available on his motherboard, and his power supply. If you can provide a motherboard model number and the make and model number of the computer's power supply; that would help in making a recommendation. Case dimensions are also going to be a factor, is it a normal sized computer case or is it slim? If it is slim that is going to limit your options to low profile cards.

 

[Herr_Koos]

That chipset is four to five years out of date; I have an Asus board with exactly the same one. No modern games will run on it. The board should have a PCI Express slot, so you can add a low-to-midrange card quite easily, power supply permitting.

Keep in mind though that the CPU is also very much out of date, hence even if you get the game working, the CPU will bottleneck you quite severely. Bottom line, he needs major upgrades or an entirely new PC.

 

[Auroram]

It is a beta client. To opt in for this beta, you have to let a piece of Blizzard software scan your computer. This helps Blizzard determine if your computer is capable of running the client before sending a beta key.

Therefore I highly doubt that his system doesn't meet the minimum requirements. I am no expert in how to solve these things, but I thought I'd just put this piece of info here. Something else must be causing this.

 

[Supernova1138]

He can try a driver update, but I don't think it will help. My only guess is maybe Blizzard is using the beta testers to try to determine what the minimum spec for the game might be, or the Blizzard software did not properly detect his video hardware. Honestly a Geforce 6150 SE probably won't be able to run the game unless Diablo 3 is going to have extremely low minimum specs, like World of Warcraft.

 

[Auroram]

Blizzard has indeed stated before that they wanted Diablo 3 to be able to run on a wide variety of computers. Their other recent game, Starcraft 2, can also run on very old systems, although this is on very low settings.

Still, this system seems awefully limited indeed. =/

To compare, here are the minimum requirements for Starcraft 2. I'd expect something similar for Diablo 3 in the end.

PC Minimum System 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