I hope I'm not too late! But recently I have discovered that newer graphics cards (including your card) can sometimes have driver issues with Diablo (as you've already figured out.
In order to circumvent this, instead of downgrading your drivers, I have developed a new compatibility solution (just today infact, while I was building a computer as a family members christmas present! I experienced this on an R9 280X)
As far as I can tell this also works with Hellfire, and probably works alright for mods as well:
Step1: download the "Diablo1 win vista/7" patch here:
http://strangebytes.com/index.php?option...&Itemid=60
Its not really a patch, more of a wrapper, but in anycase it gets the job done.
the above patch also allows Diablo to be run in windowed mode, and in non-native resolutions! So if you ever wanted to multitask, or for whatever reason, run Diablo in higher resolutions, you can do that as well.
Just make sure to edit the diablopatch.ini, and to turn vsync off if you plan on running the game fullscreen, as it can make the menu's not display properly(though they are still functional)
you will alsohave to adjust the settings based on whether you want to run the game in windowed or fullscreen mode.
Alternatively, if you run the game in a widescreen resolution fullscreen, you will get alot of screen tearing, and in that case it may be in your best interests to turn on vsync and just deal with the messy menu's.
I recommend a hi-res 4:3 resolution, like 800x600, 1024x768, or the like. EDIT: Athough I suppose you could use 1920x1080 as your chosen resolution if you really wanted to - I've been doing so successfully for the last few hours with vsync turned on. from what i can tell about the menu's, sometimes they may flicker a little, and animations on them seem to slowdown/stop when you move the mouse (the cursor still moves however) so all of the menu's themselves are still functional. there was a little bit nastier flickering on my other computers which had driver issues though (but no crashes or anything) and it subsided when i left the menu's and got into the game anyways, and on those computers, the flickering seemed to be explicitly vsync related. however, its not like it damages the playability of the game however - infact this type of menu error is almost like a watered down version of the menu rendering error you get with linux after running wine with a direct draw hack - difference being the menu doesnt totally freeze until you move, and the menu always recovers when it flickers out, whereas on linux you pretty much have to alt tab out and back in.
Step2: Navigate to your Diablo directory, and create a new batch file, called "Diablo.bat"
edit your batch file, and place the following line of code into it:
Code:
start /affinity 1 Diablo.exe
or
start /affinity 1 Hellfire.exe
or
start /affinity 1 *name of mod executable*.exe
after which you may also add the following line just to keep the cmd prompt open, should you need to read an error or the like:
pause
in essence the entire file should look like the following example:
start /affinity 1 Diablo.exe
pause
The reason for this batch file is when modifying the resolution or draw surface of diablo, if you dont force the game to run on a single core(which you should anyways) it causes the game to crash very frequently, and otherwise be unstable.
You may want to make a desktop shortcut for this file as well for the sake of convenience.
Step3: Insert your DiabloCD, and run your batch file. Diablo should now play perfectly without any errors!
although as far as I could tell, I couldnt get this to work exactly right over battlenet, and I couldnt read the error pertaining to why. HOWEVER, the game runs perfectly 100% compatible over hamachi, tunngle, and even local LAN with vanilla unwrapped diablo (although this requires that you also put ipxwrapper in the directory.
-----------
I will test it more thoroughly tomorrow morning, but as of now this is a very good solution, possibly one of the best compatibility solutions yet. I am actually curious to see if it works with Windows8.
Once that is done, I will add it to the compatibility guide.
In anycase, I hope this was of some help to you!
EDIT: this solution seems to trigger a battlenet versions error. However, the strange thing is that it is completely compatible with the vanilla game in multiplayer. I suppose that is just one more additional reason to be making the shit to hamachi, tunngle and other such programs?
EDIT: also if you initially encounter an issue where your mouse wont show up at first after booting the game, all you really have to do is move it around alot and click in random places (or at least thats what i did) and it will reappear after a few seconds.
EDIT: also when alt+tabbing out of the game and then going back in, you may notice you get a black screen. this black screen is also recoverable - just simply press ESC or bring up a menu, and the screen automatically redraws itself and displays properly again.
