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Doom 3 Alpha Leaked

Alex_Ionescu writes "The Doom 3 E3 Demo Alpha has leaked to the public. It looks promising, altough I'm only getting 12FPS on a Radeon 7500. Did anyone else have the chance to play it and could post their FPS? Here are some sites with more information and screenshots: here , here, here, and finally here. "

60 of 628 comments (clear)

  1. what do you mean by leaked? by IoQuaTiX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    is this a 'bad' leak? or was it done on purpose or what?

    1. Re:what do you mean by leaked? by Magila · · Score: 5, Informative

      It was most definatly not on purpose. It is the demo that was shown at e3 and it most likely was leaked by someone at ATI. Id seems to have gone the silent route with it, they will probably never publicly discuss this incident.

    2. Re:what do you mean by leaked? by einer · · Score: 4, Informative

      The leak wasn't a very serious leak, despite the Drudge Report's alarmist headline, which reads "The most anticipated game in history: Doom III by ID Software has been compromised after an Alpha version was leaked... " [The link on their page actually points to this thread.]

      Basically, an alpha version containing 3 levels, got out. This is far from the whole game, and the game certainly wasn't 'compromised.' Now, on to my point... ;) I think this leak is a 'good' leak that was not done on purpose. It serves as a great demo and is certainly no more harmful than the full blown warezed copies that are sure to follow.

  2. Slashdot... by Chester+K · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...News for Nerds, 0-Day Warez!

    --

    NO CARRIER
    1. Re:Slashdot... by isorox · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...News for Nerds, 0-Day Warez!

      Nah, more like: News for Nerds, 3-Day Warez

    2. Re:Slashdot... by azaroth42 · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...News for Nerds, 0-Day Warez!

      Nah, more like: News for Nerds, 3-Day Warez


      Nah, more like: News for Nerds, 3-Day Warez, 5-Day Warez and 8-Day Warez.
      with all those repeat stories...

      --Azaroth

  3. Leaked by ATI? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to this site, the demo was leaked by an ATI employee.

    Shame on them...

  4. QUAID by D4Vr4nt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Start the reactor!

    Um.. Crap, I can't play it, I only have a Matrox G400. :P

    Maybe they leaked the alpha on purpose because they knew practically no one can play it. Well unless of course you just stare at the ground the entire game.

    Looks really cool though, do we get a chainsaw again?

    --
    R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
    1. Re:QUAID by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Informative

      it's pretty playable(as what comes to speed) .. and very non-dukenukemware. that is, it looks like they'll get it done quite fast. and it's scary as fuck.

      besides, part of the horror of the doom1 was for me that when too many moonsters came i couldnt possibly shoot em all because my comp slowed down

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. I got a copy by Aztek · · Score: 5, Informative

    I got a copy from other places and trust me you guys arnt missing much. When id says 'alpha' they mean it.

    --
    AZTEK
  6. You have to love ad placement by Speedy8 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if this story has anything to do with the ad at the top of it for a Radeon 9700...

    1. Re:You have to love ad placement by aussersterne · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why is this modded as funny? It's insightful and informative, if anything.

      It's also so obvious as to be unseemly, even for Slashdot.

      --
      STOP . AMERICA . NOW
  7. newsgroup downloads by MoceanWorker · · Score: 4, Informative

    for those who don't want to bother with the mirror site and just download from newsgroups..

    alt.binaries.games.worms is offering the Doom III Alpha copy..

    there will be plenty of reposts.. so take your time :-)

    --


    "The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
  8. My FPS... by sailor420 · · Score: 5, Informative

    My machine is a p4 2.4 w/ a 64mb Radeon 8500. I have 512 megs DDR. Running at 800x600, medium detail, with bumpmapping enable, I am averaging around 20-25 FPS.

    Try killing any and all non essential processes running in the background. Also, try killing and multiple monitors (just unclick the "extend my desktop...", you dont have to pull other cards out).

  9. Re:FP by LordKaT · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How the heck can you complain about poor FPS on a leaked program that is only in its Alpha stages?

    Some fo you /.ers make no sence at all.

    --LordKaT

  10. It's Too Bad by MBCook · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I don't like these software "leaks". They mess things up, IMHO. Let's take this program for example (I'll point out I haven't played it, I have a GeForce 2 Go and I'm not a masochist).

    One possibility of what will happen is what seems common to me when things are leaked. People play it, and they like/dislike a certain feature. Then when it's taken out/changed, they complain, when they never would have seen it (or missed it) otherwise. When people get to play something like this, they seem to think that it's their game.

    Another possibility is that people play it and think it's the best game ever (and when it changes, complain, as above). If this doesn't happen, then the other extreme does, and that one seems a bit common to me. People play it, it's got lots of problems (it's an internal alpha, what do you expect) and so they say it's terrible, etc when the work on it is no where near complete. So when it DOES come out, alot of these people have already made up their minds.

    I do think that this is news, and I'm glad it made it onto slashdot, but I DON'T think that slashdot should be posting mirrors to the leaked alpha (I know they'd show up in the comments but still...)

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    1. Re:It's Too Bad by isorox · · Score: 5, Funny

      I DON'T think that slashdot should be posting mirrors to the leaked alpha

      iD was worried about the leak, so they submitted to slashdot to stop people downloading. If a server cant take a 50kb page being slashdotted, what about an xxxMB file?

  11. And in other news.. by wahgnube · · Score: 5, Funny

    And in other news (TOTALLY UNRELATED) today, sales of high end Nvidia and ATI cards goes up by 1000%.

  12. leaked on purpose? by thopo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    since this alpha seems to be heavily optimized for the R300 aka ATI9700 (or more precisely: not optimized AT ALL for any other card) it might have been leaked on purpose so the FramesPerSecond-Whores (hello Kyle Bennett) out there run to the shops to get theit 9700 to play the shiny new Doom3.

    or maybe it was leaked just in time for the NV30 to demonstrate that it does kick the 9700's butt in Doom3. sure it was leaked by an ATI employee?

    --
    keep it simple.
  13. toilets in the game by npongratz · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.thegameclans.com/doom3pics/high%20res/s hot0054.jpg

    Do those urinals have CAMERAS strategically attached to them????? Creepy...

  14. Um... by Have+Blue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Has anyone noticed that the links in this article are ILLEGAL? And not just controversial, civil-disobedience, megacoprs-bought-the-law-to-oppress-us "illegal", but violation-of-NDA and warez-illegal? I thought at least the Slashdot editors were smarter and more ethical than this.

    1. Re:Um... by inkswamp · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Has anyone noticed that the links in this article are ILLEGAL?

      I don't totally agree with your point, but I do agree that it is very poor judgment on the part of Slashdot's editors to post those links. Linking to leaked software is very close to linking to warez, IMO.

      I wonder if the same thing would have been done with a leaked pre-release version of Photoshop or MS Office? Probably not.

      --
      --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
    2. Re:Um... by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 5, Funny

      This shows a serious lack of respect. For the first time, my opinion of slashdot/taco has dropped severely.

      So... you're new here, then?

      --

      I write in my journal
    3. Re:Um... by |<amikaze · · Score: 3, Interesting

      violation-of-NDA and warez-illegal

      OK, so what NDA did CmdrTaco et al sign that prevents them from spreading this around? What EULA did they agree to? They aren't breaking a contract, since they didn't SIGN a contract.

    4. Re:Um... by inkswamp · · Score: 3, Insightful
      From a couple different posts:

      Yeah, why should I buy the full version of Doom III now, when I have a bug-ridden alpha demo that runs at a crappy frame rate?

      1. This isn't a complete software, it's a three level demo

      Oh I see. So stealing someone's work and distributing on the Internet is okay as long as it's not completely functional. I know Slashdot is really heavily slanted toward the open source/free software crowd, but one shouldn't take lightly the fact that this is someone's property and work and that it was distributed without that person's permission. In this case, one of those people is John Carmack, someone whose work has given me countless hours of fun, so it seems slightly worse to me. I don't see any justification for stealing his work and distributing it before he says it's time. I find it even worse that Slashdot editors (who supposedly run a place filled with those who understand and respect this kind of work) don't see the problem with pointing its readership toward this stuff.

      Justify your own lack of ethics however you see fit, but I think it's wrong to distribute it as well as point others in the direction of it. Slashdot is wrong to have done so and should be embarrassed.

      --
      --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
  15. Re:FP by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 5, Funny

    What? Run. Run. Run. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Kill. Kill. Grab ammo. Grab ammo. Change weapons. Shoot. Shoot. Feel Asshole go from O to . after going down a dark and lonely hall way to find a million imps waiting on the other side.

    This isn't good gameplay?

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  16. Possible response from iD by zaffir · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Taken from HTGK, no word on it's validity, but still interesting:

    "Xian> ATI leaked it
    Xian> oh we will. We are hoping our rep gets fired.
    Xian> John sent them a flame mail yesterday basically saying "This has hurt our relationship"
    Xian> haha, no
    Xian> not really
    Xian> they sent us a development laptop with a full build of Unreal Warfare on it
    Xian> yep
    Xian> Well, we deleted it
    Xian> that's a whole can of worms we don't want to get into
    Xian> yeah, well, ATI has clearly violated our NDA
    Xian> we thought about that.
    Xian> but, no
    Xian> ATI is on our shitlist right now
    Xian> we are not dealing with them until further notice
    Xian> no, it's not public chiQ
    Xian> We know ATI leaked it. We watermark all releases
    Xian> Squiggle: ATI has a relaxed policy about pre-release software. Remeber, they gave us a laptop that had Unreal Warfare loaded on it 3 months ago
    Xian> They don't seem to care about strict enforcement of NDA's
    Xian> on a positive note, people seem to *REALLY LIKE* the leaked shit"

    --
    "Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
    1. Re:Possible response from iD by Daleks · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Xian> They don't seem to care about strict enforcement of NDA's

      ATI does seem to habitually violate NDA, or at least confidentiality agreements. A year ago at MWNY ATI made a press release about how their new graphics chip would be used in the yet to be released new iMac. This PR came out two days before Steve Jobs was supposed to officially announce the machines. He got so pissed off he cancelled all ATI demonstrations for his keynote speech and even had ATI's built-to-order options removed on all of the new machines. This probably made NVidia very happy.

    2. Re:Possible response from iD by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny
      Xian> on a positive note, people seem to *REALLY LIKE* the leaked shit"

      This reminds me of when I was talking about reaganomics and I said "trickle down? trickle down my ass. uh, wait."

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. do not buy a geforce 4mx for doom by sfraggle · · Score: 5, Informative

    > I have a GF4 MX on a duron 800 and I was getting 7 FPS

    I'm not surprised. Carmack has already stated that you should not buy a GeForce 4MX for doom.

    --
    were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
  18. Uh, this is SO wrong by dw3ll · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't believe slashdot posted this. Isn't it considered piracy in the worst form? Now EVERYONE on the planet will be after a copy (as ever 1/2 the world was not after it already). Sucked that JC's labor of love is exposed to the world in such an incomplete state.

    I will get off my moral high horse now and look for a copy :)

  19. Re:How? by NineNine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're right. A link is a link, right? Maybe I should consider some links to kiddie porn on my site. After all, they'd just be links, right?

    Nope, this is wrong. There's no way Slashdot should be linking to warez.

  20. Unreal alpha by Dexter77 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unreal alpha also leaked before it was released. It also required twice as much memory and processor power than the final version.

    I wouldn't draw any conclusions about the 3D-engine efficiency before the final version is released.

  21. See Yesterday's Post! by simetra · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Why Do Games and Game Studios Fail?


    Yesterday we cried because games and game studios fail. Today we rejoice because an up-coming game has been leaked. We want to have our cake and eat it too. This mentality is a good part of the reason our types aren't taken seriously.

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
    1. Re:See Yesterday's Post! by Rew190 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, this is a test of a gaming engine, not a full-fledged game.

      This is by far not a finished product, and shouldn't be treated as such. The folks who are downloading this are mostly interested in getting a rough idea of how the finished product is going to run on their computer and what this engine is capable of doing.

      All this does is pique interest in the finished product. This is not it. Make the distinction.

  22. what I wanna know by abe+ferlman · · Score: 3, Funny

    Will winex run it?

    Or am I going to have to install that leaked version of Longhorn after all?

    --
    microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
  23. Just say no... by JensR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a shame that Slashdot actually links to this software. Id software and John Carmack have been very supportive of the community, ignoring reverse engineering even though their licenses don't allow it and giving a lot of information about the technologies. All you should NEED until the game is released are screenshots and the movies. So don't spoil it for you and others.

  24. Alpha Test != actual game by Cornelius+the+Great · · Score: 3, Informative

    Keep in mind that this version is the same version used at the E3 presentation, which means it was optimized for a Radeon 9700, which has been boasting some pretty impressive fps scores. I get only about 20 fps on my Geforce4ti/4200 (128mb version), and my framerate drops below 5 when more than 1 monster is on the screen.

    If you want the demo, don't use filesharing apps...they've been too unreliable for the file. Try doin a search on packetnews for IRC channels that host the file (I got mine at addictz.net #datavault).

    --
    Sigs are for losers
  25. My framerates and impressions. by dnaumov · · Score: 3, Interesting

    System:

    AMD T-Bird 1400, 512 mb ddr, Creative GF4 Ti4200.
    Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3.
    30.82 NVIDIA Detonator Drivers.

    Running at 640x480x32, I average at 30 fps when using low quality settings. When there's heavy action on screen, the framerates drop below 5. The intro "map e3\intro" is absolutely jaw dropping, albeit beit pretty slow on my machine. After watching the intro and playing around with the 3 included maps, I have no wonders that people at E3 were complaining that "Stop showing us the pre-rendered stuff, show us the engine" to which ID employees responded with something along the lines of "Well, this *IS* the engine". My knowledge of English is not good enough to be able to express how impressive this thing is. The scary atmosphere, lighting, shadows, creepy noises. ID did it all right. This is far from the "real thing", as it's only an Alpha of the engine that was shown months ago and the full game is still months off. Still. Two Words: My GOD.

    P.S: I hear that this thing also has Multiplayer and the Editor included as well, but you have to hack around to get them to work.

  26. Re:SWEET!!!! by furballphat · · Score: 3, Funny

    What do you think distributed computing is for?

  27. more like 4-day :P by dirtsurfer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was wondering when this was finally gunna show up on slashdot.
    Doom 2 is probably my favorite game EVER in terms of hours spent enjoying it, and I've been looking forward to Doom 3 ever since John Carmack mentioned the idea in his .plan. Like A lot of people, I even forked over the money for a total system upgrade just so I'll be able to get decent framerates (Althon2000, Geforce4 Ti4400, 512mb ddr2700)

    Anyway, of course I was really excited when people on efnet started mentioning an alpha being leaked, and I managed to get ahold of it that night. So I loaded it up, and played it for a few minutes.. and closed it and deleted it. Yes, it looks great. Very promising. But really, it's not worth the download. There are only 3 levels, and you can tell that even those aren't polished yet. From playing it, I learned that it's a beautiful game and awesome engine, and it's going to be fun as hell. But anyone can see that just by looking at the screenshots that have been around forever. This alpha is more of a spoiler than anything else. Instead of going out and trying to get your hands on it, you'd be better off to just wait for the real game to come out.

    1. Re:more like 4-day :P by Herkum01 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can just see the John Carmack and his stock broker meeting,

      Stock Broker: John, you stocks have been tanking lately, and the whole IT has been hit hard. Your portfolio is starting to get a little weak.

      John Carmack: (jumps in a telephone booth, ripes off his shirt to reveal his costume, with an "IT" on his chest) The computer industry is hurting, must get it to rebound. I will create a new game, Doom 3 to save the Industry! They will all have to buy new computers to play it! That will improve my portfolio right?

      Stock Broker: Yes!

      John Carmack I am on it(leaps out the window flying to his Cubicle of Productivity)!

    2. Re:more like 4-day :P by Nogami_Saeko · · Score: 3, Funny

      Let me put it like this...

      I got ahold of the alpha demo at around 10am on Friday.

      I played it on my GeForce2GTS at around 10:05am on Friday.

      I picked up an ATI Radeon 9700 at 5pm on Friday. Thank dawg for leaked Alphas on payday :P :)

      --
      "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
  28. ATI leak by smallstepforman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can imagine the atmosphere at iD headquarters near Dallas right now;
    John - "Damn bastards, the ATI folk. They leaked the alpha."
    Xian - "We've got to punish ATI somehow for this."
    John - "I know, I'll cripple performance on ATI cards. I'll just insert a sleep() function call here and half the framerate when I detect an ATI card. That will teach them."
    Xian - "Excellent."

    --
    Revolution = Evolution
  29. Re:150FPS on ASCII White by packeteer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actualyl i doubt ASCII White could go over 50 fps. Doom 3 requires video card power NOT CPU/RAM bandwidth. Super computers are mad for crunching large numbers quickly but are not designed for real-time creation of frames for a game. Maybe if you had one machine with a Radeon 9K it would work but even tthen still probably not because the latency to get the calculations back from the other comps would be too much.

    --
    unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
  30. It is a Debug Build by Paladine97 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I checked it out and it is easily a debug build. There debug symbols are intact as well as linking to OutputDebugString. Therefore, it is HIGHLY unoptimized, so don't even count on getting any decent FPS.

  31. Some performance tweaks..... by Chicane-UK · · Score: 5, Informative

    These are linked on some of the many different threads relating to this story, but for those of you in a rush and not wanting to look around.

    Admittedly this will make the game look nowhere as amazing as it currently does, but these two tweaks (which you can enter on the console) worked wonders for me...

    r_useStandardGL 1 - the default is set to '0' - using this toggle will disable the bump mapping.

    r_shadows 0 - the default is set to '1' - using this toggle will disable the dynamic shadows which, whilst looking amazing, melt your computer.

    Some other things worth noting that I have discovered... if you edit the 'runact.cfg' (which if you have downloaded this leaked copy, you will know you have to exec - and it takes about 5 minutes loading up textures and stuff) - if you comment out the bottom three of the top 4 'exec' statements to read like :


    exec activate_demo1
    #exec activate_demo2
    #exec activate_demo3
    #exec activate_intro


    That 'exec runact.cfg' takes a hella lot less time and the game seems to run as normal.

    One last thing.. should we even be talking about this? I know that John Carmack reads /. - I am sure it must be reassuring for him and the id team to see how much people are wanting (and enjoying) this game but he must be pretty pissed about the whole affair!

    --
    "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
    1. Re:Some performance tweaks..... by epukinsk · · Score: 3, Funny

      I found the r_enableDoomIII 0 command worked wonders on my machine. Of course, the game looks a lot like a Windows desktop with that setting disabled. Still, I got like 80 fps on my Neomagic 128 card on my laptop. Can't beat that.

      Erik

  32. a few minutes later..... by nebenfun · · Score: 4, Funny

    John- "One more thing..."
    Xian- "Yes?"
    John- "I've got missles."
    Xian- "Oh really...."
    John- "The aerospace tests are going
    better than planned."
    Xian- "Excellent! I'll get ATI's address."

  33. Whether or not by JayFlatland · · Score: 3, Insightful

    posting this story was a moral thing for slashdot to do, it's still the biggest news event in gaming for quite a while. Can't expect the press to not spread the news.

    --
    Badgers? Badgers! We don't need no stinkin' Badgers!
  34. Hmmm by tunabomber · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe, before he leaked it, he patched the game so that it was artificially crippled to only run at 12 FPS so that it will spur demand for ridiculously fast video cards.

    Hey, I can wear my tinfoil conspiracy hat once in a while, can't I?

    --

    pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
  35. Slashdot slashdotted? by ThesQuid · · Score: 3, Informative

    This just in! Slashdot has made the Drudgereport! I wonder if the barrage of new traffic will be too much for the new servers to bear....

  36. Games showing too much? by yorgasor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now I enjoy FPS as much as the next guy. I was hooked on Doom I/II more than anyone else I knew at the time. And when I first looked at the screenshots of this game I was shocked at the quality of the rendering, how much more realistic the scenes were than other 3D FPS games I've seen. It looked like it would be a fantastic game. But then I saw a few other screenshots of guys getting blown away, with their intestines hanging out, the various bullet wounds and blood splatter on the wall, and I felt a little uncomfortable. Everyone wants to see their games look more realistic, but where do we draw the line? Do we want to see every bullet hole? Every organ? Fingers, partial heads, various limbs and appendagest all being blown off? There seems like there's a point where this begins to be unhealthy.

    Now I'm not saying everyone playing this game will turn into serial killers, or anything like that. I'm not saying it's going to be the downfall of our generation. Blowing up monsters, aliens, various creatures, 'bad guys' etc has been a big part of my life, and those games have all been fun without needing highly detailed portions of their remains scattered around the level.

    I guess my question is, are other people turned off by more realistic, graphic gore? Will FPS games quest for more realistic games turn to be their downfall, or will they start to modify them so, although the texture & enemies look more realistic, the actual shooting will be less intense? Or will they include an option where the user can choose to play ultra-graphic violent mode, or a more toned down version appropriate for younger players?

    --
    Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
  37. Damnit. by John+Carmack · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, this was not leaked on purpose.

    Yes, we are upset about it, and it will have some impact on how we deal with some companies in the future, but nothing drastic is going to change in terms of what support is going to be available.

    Making any judgements from a snapshot intended for a non-interactive demo is ill advised.

    John Carmack

    1. re: Damnit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why don't you guys act positively then in this situation?

      The leak is out, and known about it. Instead of having websites that are desperate to cater to id's wish (eg, Shacknews.com) by buying their heads in the sand and pretending this doesn't exist, or sending Christian around like a good little stormtrooper to cease and desist sites hosting pictures....

      Why not officially release some pictures? Why not just make an official announcement thats somethings been leaked?

    2. Re:Damnit. by ShooterNeo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Maybe this is begging the question, but WHY are you mad? It seems rather unlikely that this leak will hurt you in the slightest way in terms of sales of the future game. The people who have the hardware capable of trying it and are savvy enough to download it mostly know what "alpha" means. Anyway, if you were really worried about fans losing interest because of buggy demos, why release tech demos? I recall some of the Quake tech demos were extremely buggy and almost unplayable on some computers, yet it didn't seem to dampen fan enthusiasm.

      The only thing I see that might be irritating is that ATI seems to have broken trust with you.

    3. Re:Damnit. by tcc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Maybe this is begging the question, but WHY are you mad?

      You're working on a project for over a year

      You want gamers and other end-people to see and experience the FINAL result, maybe create some noise by having CONTROLLED (i.e. being very precise about what you want and don't want to show yet) demos.

      You do some deals with some Hardware companies because hardware/drivers development is getting more and more complex and at some point in the development, it's easier to send an alpha build for the hardware company to do the QA on their drivers or reproduce specific bugs that you don't want to explain or make a little application to reproduce it (especially when it's getting to a point where it's a pile of little bugs left and right).

      This is a good thing for the Game dev team and a good thing for the hardware team: they get to demo their technology in closed doors and the Game dev team gets better feedback and optimizations from the vendors where it can get optimized at the driver level. Also having more people on the QA testing of the engine doesn't hurt.

      Naturally, all of this is confined with NDAs and closed environment, and I am sure the Vendors are in the obligation to make any investors or customers viewing anything more than what was shown publicly at E3 or any other demos to sign NDAs.

      Now, every users can download UNFINISHED work, probably a RUSHED build so that they could make the demo on time, and have first hand EXPERIENCE with this build, while having first hand experience with a final build would be even better, now it will be only an "evolution" instead of a bigger bang that what people experienced with this leaked build.

      While everyone here LOVES John's work, I don't want to speak for him, but personally I'd be seriously pissed at the person/company ruining the momentum I wanted to bring with a FINAL POLISHED product, in such a fashion. Of course the final will rock and people will love it, but until then, this shouldn't have happened and some head will fall for this. The people responsible for this leak will obviously have their head chopped off and better be looking for a job outside the graphics/game industry.

      Anyways, we'll probably never know the whole truth on this but early reports seems to point at ATI... I'll wait for the official confirmation but if it would be them, as a (small) shareholder of ATI in my RSPs, I sure would be VERY disapointed at them.

      I wouldn't be surprised for this to come from a hardware vendor, expecially after seeing some Drivers QA labs, When you hire "kids" to play games and do a bit of work, pay them a "kid" salary, and have more or less supervision, you can't ask them for being highly professionnal people and act like if they were CEOs with the same responsiblities and engagement, like one of my friend says (working at another company), you get what you pay for. Still, it's a shame if it would be ATI.

      --
      --- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
  38. Re:How? by theLOUDroom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree that the intent is different. It's just my opinion that intent shouldn't matter. (obviusly not the judge's in the decss case)
    Take the google example, chances are someone there has though at the fact that their search engine indexes some things that are illegal. one might even be able to find an internal email on the subject. With that email, one could allege that since they know some of the things they index are illegal and didn't do anything about it, they willfully aided copyright infringement. One could make this argument, but I don't think one could win. But it gives and example of why I think intent should not matter.
    I think arguing over intent is silly. It should be either okay to link to something or illegal. Anything else leaves too much ambiguity.
    I understand the state the law is in currently, I just think it's a lousy state to be in.

    --
    Life is too short to proofread.
  39. Re:150FPS on ASCII White by Have+Blue · · Score: 3, Informative

    What Doom 3 really requires is what 3D cards give it: Very, very fast basic operations like matrix multiply and floating-point table interpolation, memory fast enough to move the textures and various color, Z, stencil, etc buffers around, the relatively simple shader execution engine, and a bit of general-purpose CPU for running the game logic and GL control code.

    ASCI White is good at none of those things. It is a massively parallel computer designed for tasks that require very large amounts of general-purpose CPU. Running a single program thread on a single node is not very impressive; running a few thousand threads on all of its nodes at once makes it the fastest computer in the world.

    I suppose that if someone bothered to make a version of Doom 3 that replicated itself across all of White's processors, rendered 3072 16x16 tiles at once, and recombined them into a 1024x768 frame, it would run pretty fast. But there still probably wouldn't be enough memory bandwidth between the nodes to run much faster than a decent desktop CPU connected to a Radeon 9700 over AGP 8x.