Doom 3 System Requirements Revealed

The Llama King writes "The Houston Chronicle's Computing column has got the Doom 3 minimum system requirements. Biggest eye-opener: 384 MB of memory. Lots of mainstream PCs have been sold with 256 MB of RAM, so upgrades will be in order. RAM chip manufacturers should be salivating about now. You'll also need a 1.5-GHz processor and a GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500 graphics card or better."

Comments

thats it?

[inf0c0m]

is it just me or is anyone else suprised?

even the desktops i order at work come with more than the minimum requirements (1gb ram, 2.4+ processor, geforce 4 (or equiv)).

but i suppose this is minimum requirements...recommended will be much more.

Re:thats it?

[mirko]

At least this is decent, so this mean this might even run on some of the high-end G4 MacIntosh, once ported.

Re:thats it?

[Mysticode]

Although most (all?) new machines are going to meet these specs. There are a number of people out there (me for one) that will have to upgrade to meet the minimum specs. I have Duron 1.3 with 384MB RAM. Atleast I don't need to upgrade my video card - Radion 9600

Re:thats it?

[Threni]

I'm surprised it got an article on Slashdot in it's own right, given that the information was posted as a comment to the last Doom3 story here. I guess we're going to see lots more exciting Doom3 facts and figures here.

Re:thats it?

[JawFunk]

I'm surprised at the desktops your "work" uses. Many small businesses rely on dumb terminals, some loaded with windows 98. I think the biggest upset here is the graphics card. Gamers will have to expend an additional $200 just to run the game in 'OK' mode?

Re:thats it?

[halowolf]

At least I don't need to upgrade my video card - Rad(e)on 9600

I don't want to burst your bubble, but a Radeon 9600, isn't going to give you the best graphical performance for D3. Of course if you will settle for the revolutionary ground breaking gameplay of D3 and its new original storyline and all, then you should be satisfied.

Please insert the correct use of sarcasm and sense of humor as appropriate.

Re:thats it?

[gmhowell]

but i suppose this is minimum requirements...recommended will be much more.

Also:
People with strange combinations will less than minimum that get 493 frames per second.
People with 64 bit processors, $500 video cards, and a terabyte of ram that call the game 'unplayable'.
People who have those crappy GeForce4 value cards that are actually worse than a GF3 bitching and moaning (while those of us with the GF3 Ti500 laugh at their stupidity)

Re:thats it?

[ScottGant]

But once again they have to cater to the lowest common denominator. There are always those people out there that have the computer they bought 15 years ago and want it to last a lifetime and then go:

"back in my day we could program everything in 640k of RAM, that's all you need and we were THANKFULL to get it! And we loved it! We didn't need more than 4 colors on our CGA displays. Why doesn't Doom 3 work on that? Guess they don't know how to program! Oh...have to go, Matlock is on..."

Re:thats it?

[B.Hoover]

No! Doom3 supports four different rendering paths, depending on what hardware you use. This means that they are able to get very closely comparable graphics with the different styles of hardware pipelines that are supported. Each will be slightly different, but id promised that the game will keep most of the visual effect throughout a broad spectrum of hardware setups. If anyone can do it right, it's id. John Carmack virtually pioneered the technology that drove the desktop 3d graphics cards.

Re:thats it?

[Albanach]

geforce 4 (or equiv)

You have geforce 4 cards in your work desktops? What are folk doing in your office that they need 3D accellaration? Most office desktops I see have Intel 810 chipsets or similar, and why the heck not... these are for running Excel, not playing Doom III. A quick trip over to Dell.com shows their Office desktops - the Optiplex range all come with ether Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900) or Embedded Intel Extreme Graphics 2. I suspect neither of those would be up to running Doom III

Re:thats it?

[mirko]

I just wish the game included all the revised maps of the original doom1 and 2 games. :)

Re:thats it?

[strictnein]

People who have those crappy GeForce4 value cards that are actually worse than a GF3 bitching and moaning (while those of us with the GF3 Ti500 laugh at their stupidity)

According to benchmarks that I ran, a Geforce4mx 440 is about equivalent to a Geforce 2 Ultra. They're worthless video cards. Better than stock intel integrated cards, but still just plain worthless for most games.

Re:thats it?

[inf0c0m]

We do image manipulation, and require that certain specs (such as the video card) are needed. a lot of the 'dumb' terminals are the intel built onboard video cards. but a majority of the workstations require the higher end in video displays

Re:thats it?

[Squishy Eyeball Jeff]

If it did, everyone and his brother would be complaining that it's nothing more than a rehash of old games underpinned by a new engine. Today's focus is more on content than ever before, so id had to ante up. A simple rehash would kill them.

Now, if they included the old levels as a bonus, that'd be another story.

Re:thats it?

[mirko]

This is the "other story" that I was refering too.

Re:thats it?

[drinkypoo]

The purpose of the GF4MX cards, to me, is that they are readily and inexpensively available in PCI. If you need a really inexpensive PCI card with well-supported [windows] drivers, then you are hard-pressed to do better than a GF4MX. It's usually hard to find GF3 in PCI.

Re:thats it?

[HungSquirrel]

The system specs for Doom3 aren't ancient. They were pretty standard two and a half years ago when I built my machine. Developers have to keep these things in mind when releasing their games, as most people expect their current hardware to last them a few years. Aside from a RAM boost, I haven't really upgraded my system from two and a half years ago and I don't intend to until Microsoft releases a stable AMD64 version of Windows.

Re:thats it?

[$t3phan]

This doesn't surprise me much, those minimum requirements usually don't mean a thing. You can run the game with those specs with all GFX details at a minimum, but that's about it. You probably need to have at least 2 gigs of RAM, a 3.4GHz CPU and one of those new Nvideo or ATI GFX cards to play the game as it is meant to be.

Re:thats it?

[dalamarian]

Thats pretty pricey for a work environment computer unless it is research/education/graphics/heavy programming. I just saw admins moving to 512mb over this summer.

Re:thats it?

[bstone]

Well, back in my day, the mainframe had 32K, and the tube was black and green. And we were happy to have it!! ('course, the only game we had was sorting a tray full of punched cards ... but it was FUN and we LOVED it)

What? Matlock's on ... gotta go...

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux, or rather, Xfree sucks on normal desktop graphics card. When you have been running w2k for a while, the gui is just so slow on the dists I tried. So I installed a HP Geforce addon to my desktop and it runs fast again.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Tomb Raider drove it, it was the first large game to support 3D accelerator cards

Re:thats it?

[Tim C]

We recently bought a bunch of new Dells, and they all come with Quadro FX 500 cards. Not that we need them - but to get the other specs we need (gig of RAM, 3GHz proc - we do server-side Java, and run every locally while developing, including the server), that's what comes in the machine.

It's really not worth our while getting them swapped out, though; our IT dept seems to have a fear of non-standard configurations. At least this way, if a machine dies, we can have an exact replacement here within hours (theoretically, at least).

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boohoo. My main system (that I do use use for casual gaming, incidently), is a Duron 700Mhz, with 192MB of RAM and a Geforce2 GTX

Re:thats it?

[Kyosuke77]

But it's also easy to find a GeForce FX 5200 in a PCI card. "Cinematic graphics for everyone" as nVidia puts it, but only at the lowest common denominator. The FX 5200 actually has a slower clock speed than a GF4MX, but OTOH, it does have the CineFX engine.

Re:thats it?

[timeOday]

Geforce 4 isn't real special anymore. We're talking about an $80 add-on card. In fact some decent motherboards come with Geforce 4 onboard graphics, although that's the "MX" variant which may not count.

It might not be a bad idea to shell out a few extra bucks even for "typical desktop PCs" because of the liklihood of accelerated GUIs (ala Mac).

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

even the desktops i order at work come with more than the minimum requirements (1gb ram, 2.4+ processor, geforce 4 (or equiv))

Where the hell do you work? Are they taking resumes?

Come on! 1G of RAM and a Geforce 4 graphics card? For a business machine?

Re:thats it?

[Ryan Huddleston]

This is exactly the reason I bought my GeForce 4 MX440. My computer is a 3 year old Compaq, and I bought it about a year ago, because I absolutely had to play WarCraft III. I can play it on medium graphics with my Pentium III 933 and 384 MB of RAM.
It works well under WineX as well.

well-supported [windows] drivers

They're well supported in Linux too! NVidia makes great Linux drivers, and though they're technically closed source, they are compiled on your machine, and you can get to the code. It's just that you are not licensed to modify or redistribute the code like you are under an OSS license.

Re:thats it?

[dasmegabyte]

Ahem. A Geforce 4 MX is less than $60 and the least powerful card offered on many non-Optiplex Dell setups. Sorry he isn't hand building the machines and thus able to remove the functionality that he, a lowly IT guy, thinks other people shouldn't need.

I guess I should also point out that as of next year and Longhorn, Windows will be pumped through the GPU and thus any machine you order today with a non-GPU graphics card will need an upgrade before it can run Longhorn. And if Avalon is anything like Quartz Extreme, it will make a BIG and NOTICABLE difference in the user interface, even on fast machines. I suppose you may not need fluid graphics or modern technology at the office, but it's also not worth the savings over the life of the machine to skimp on this sort of thing.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when I custom configured my autoexec.bat and config.sys to run the original doom better .. guess I won't be doing that with doom 3 .. I even remember pulling 8MB of ram out of my computer and putting it in my parents system and playing doom on a ram drive. It ran so smooth .. god I feel old .. I bet so few here even know what those 2 files were ..

Re:thats it?

[lowmagnet]

MacIntosh? You have to be kidding. That's an apple, but not an Apple.

Re:thats it?

[athakur999]

Doom III's "Okay" mode will probably look just as good as the "High Quality" mode on the games that were popular a year or two ago. If you want the new eye candy that Doom III's "High Quality" mode will provide, then you need a card capable of handling all that eye candy. OTOH, if you're happy with the quality you're used to seeing, then you should be fine using the card you already have.

Re:thats it?

[Soul-Burn666]

When Doom3 was first announced, I know a very large group of people that said: "please! make the game like the original games, but with better graphics! we want all our favorite monsters and weapons... don't make it a sluggish boring game!"

Sure, the old maps are horribly undetailed and unrealistic, but I do hope someone makes a new version, with maps and mosters that RESEMBLE the old ones, but with today's technology.

The earthly maps can sure be remade to look more realistic, but the HELL maps were really nice in their complete awkwardness.

Buuuuuuut... why am I ranting before I play the new game. It's supposed to come on 4-5 CDs, that's enough content that will surely have areas which aren't only indoors but rather outdoors or hellish.

Re:thats it?

[hikerhat]

Most people aren't constantly ordering new computers, so there are a lot, probably most, home systems that don't meet those specs. You're surprised the requirements for Doom don't exceed the specs of new computers? They wouldn't sell many games if they did that.

Re:thats it?

[chrismcdirty]

That's nothing. I work at a University electrical engineering department. In one of our labs, we installed 30 3.2GHz P4s with 1GB RAM and Radeon 9800 Pros. I kid you not. An electrical engineering class where most of the work is done with external peripherals (serial/parallel/USB) definitely does not need that, but it makes me happy if one happens to go down and we scavenge it for parts.

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

Although most (all?) new machines are going to meet these specs.

Yeah, but that leaves a lot of us in the dust. I'm still running a custom built PIII 733 w/512MB RAM, 80 gigs of disk, and a GeForce2 GTS from three years ago. I haven't bothered to upgrade, because the machine is still a strong contender against modern machines.

The real secret here is that I don't think Id is planning for everyone to run out and buy Doom III now. I think he's releasing it as a technology demo (as Quake III was) and then will market it to gaming companies as the ultimate way to create their games. Since the lead time on new games is at least a year, "common" computing should pretty much catch up in the interim.

It's too bad, because all those Quake III based games were still running fine on my little 'ol machine. I guess I'll eventually have to upgrade or miss out on all the upcoming Gaming Goodness(TM). Elite Force III would be awesome...

Re:thats it?

[Soul-Burn666]

The did state the minimum is a GeForce3 card. The GeForce3 came only in a high end version, whereas GeForce4 comes in high end Ti version and low end MX which is infact WEAKER than the GeForce3 in terms of performance.

This is the case with many models that come in high and low end versions.
High end versions of the older generation card can give more performance than the low end versions of the newer generation, however the newer generation card has more features.

This is because low end cards have less memory, less pixel pipelines and running at slower frequencies.

Re:thats it?

[CFBMoo1]

You have geforce 4 cards in your work desktops? What are folk doing in your office that they need 3D accellaration?...

Why thats easy, even I know what they're doing. Group therapy sessions for work tension. Doom 3 fits in perfectly when you have to break up in to small groups of 4 and express the pressures of work in a meaningful and constructive fasion.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about GL Quake you insensitive clod?

Re:thats it?

[megarich]

nope no surprise whatsoever. and to add to that, those who are drooling for this game to come out i somehow think have a little more than 256 ram in their system......

Re:thats it?

[Soulslayer]

There are actually 3 variants of the GeForce 3. There is the GeForce 3 reference card which was the first one to market. Some time later they came out with the GeForce 3 Ti 200 which was slower than the reference card and the Ti 500 which was equivalent too or slight faster than the reference card.

The GeForce 4 MX actually has a GeForce 2 based core and is substantially slower than the rest of the GeForce 4 line (and much of the GeForce 3 line).

Re:thats it?

[hunterx11]

Isn't Xbox a Pentium 3 733? :)

Re:thats it?

[jp10558]

So this is competing with the crytec engine? How do you think it will stack up?

Not that I care really as I haven't played a FPS since Quake 2 with any real zeal.

You go through one level shooting anything that moves with various weapons, you've gone through them all.

Re:thats it?

[aldoman]

You'll actually find that most businesses now have stupidly high CPUs (2.4GHz-3.2GHz) because that's all on the market.

A friend which works at a small company building and servicing PCs for businesses said their lowest model they sell is a 2400+ Athlon/512MB/60GB HDD and Geforce 4MX (the motherboards don't have integrated graphics). They are also dropping 60GB HDDs soon because they are getting really hard to source in quantity - 80GB are only 5 UKP more.

Re:thats it?

[Afrosheen]

4 or 5 cd's is retarded for a game this size. Anyone reminded of the old-school VGA games days where you had a handful of floppies to install something?

In this day and age, they should offer 2 boxes on shelves; one with the DVD, one with the requisite number of CDs. That's just too much CD swapping to play a game or install it.

Re:thats it?

[Jugalator]

Who cares?

A GeForce 4 MX is next to being given away these days, especially in special deals I suspect many companies buy their computers as. I wouldn't be surprised if it could be more expensive to say "no, we don't want that chip, we want a Intel 810 instead" in some cases. It's not like everyone buys Dell's Optiplex desktops, but other ones that just happen to have their cheapest systems come with a GF 4 MX since it's very budget as well.

Re:thats it?

[Afrosheen]

Awesome. So the latest Windows, which may be released in 2010, will require a video card upgrade?

What's next, requiring you to upgrade your sound card for the new whiz-bang InterAudialTactic 3D interface? Give me a break. I expect 3d games to require this, but not the operating system, whose main job is to handle apps and draw 2d windows to the screen.

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

So this is competing with the crytec engine? How do you think it will stack up?

To be precise, Cryptec is competing with the Doom III engine. Id has a reputation in the gaming industry as being THE place to go for 3D engines. Their only true competitor has been the Unreal engine, which has had a relatively poor showing in the market. If anyone wants to unseat Id, they're going to have to try very hard.

Not that I care really as I haven't played a FPS since Quake 2 with any real zeal.

You go through one level shooting anything that moves with various weapons, you've gone through them all.

That's how I felt about FPS until games like Elite Force came out. Elite Force and Elite Force II provide you with more than just a game, they provide you with a story-line and deep immersion in the fictional environment. There's nothing quite like opening the shuttle bay doors of the Enterprise-E, then loading onto an assault shuttle for a mission. Similarly, spy missions bring a new dimension to the gameplay that have often been strived for, but never previously executed with any degree of success.

Re:thats it?

[0111 1110]

No! Doom3 supports four different rendering paths

Define "closely comparable". If wireframe looks the same to you as ray tracing, then you should be fine.

[There should be a mod option for -1 uninformative.]

Re:thats it?

[HAKdragon]

Their only true competitor has been the Unreal engine, which has had a relatively poor showing in the market.

This list [udn.epicgames.com] tells a different story

Re:thats it?

[13Echo]

Yeah... And a Mobile Celeron at that.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but id will know exactly what the system specs. are and will tweak the game engine to fit that particular hardware. Not to mention the resolution will be set to something like 640x400. This is what make consoles great for games. New game comes out, I don't have to worry about upgrading or installing the lastest drivers.

Re:thats it?

[Cat_Byte]

Many companies are starting to do that now. Most computers (even servers) come with DVD ROMs now. I forget which one but one of the more popular server apps comes on DVD only.

Re:thats it?

[13Echo]

The nVidia drivers aren't compiled on your machine. The installer compiles a wrapper to glue the binary-only driver to your kernel.

A lot of people seem to think that it compiles *the driver*, but this is not the case.

And you don't "get the code" either. You get the wrapper code. That's it.

Re:thats it?

[JaxGator75]

***dusts off GF3Ti500 and begins laughing***

...and to think my wife has been loading web pages and Word DOCs with a GF4 value card...

Re:thats it?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

According to the current issue of PC Gamer the game will ship with at least one remake of a popular DM map. I only glanced at the article to avoid spoilers, but I'm pretty sure it was the Edge map remade as Edge2. And if the game ships with a functioning editor you can bet that every other popular map from the last 10 years will be converted *really* quickly.

Re:thats it?

[bastion_xx]

Wasn't Aces Over the Pacific (c. 1993) something like 30+ floppies (40+ springs to mind, but those brain cells are LONG gone)?

I'd love to see DVD and CD versions of games to save on the swapping and storage.

Re:thats it?

[RalphBinaca]

You have geforce 4 cards in your work desktops? What are folk doing in your office that they need 3D accellaration?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_nview.html Putting dual-desktops in front of our powerusers helps ease the stress levels during those busy multiple document edit/copy/paste sessions. Besides, they think it's cool and the cards are pretty cheap these days.

Re:thats it?

[Gr8Apes]

I'm running 3 machines at home at 2 @ 1GB, and 1 at 1.5GB. At work, I have a 2GB machine, and am wishing for a 4GB machine.

In case you're wondering - DBs, multiple appserver instances, Eclipse (the bomb!), and multiple other stuff. General memory load is over 1GB without me actively doing anything....

I'm looking at getting a dual Opteron starting w/ 4GB for home. There's just no substitute for RAM.

Re:thats it?

[Gr8Apes]

Custom configured autoexec.bat and config.sys. Wow, that takes me back, to Pool of Radiance, the original monochrome version.

I believe the first game I had to use a ramdisk for was Humans, a fun little action/puzzle type game sort of along the lines of lemmings.

I wouldn't make any bets like that, lots of old timers here. Now, if I could only recall what my original /. userid or email address used was.... ;)

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

Everything is relative. Look at that list and note that a large number of items are Unreal games or technology platforms rather than third party licenses. Of the remaining items, only a few were ever market hits. In addition, this list appears to intentionally confuse the Unreal and Unreal II engines, thus increasing the number of games that have been licensed. Compare that to Quake III. While I can't find a full list, here's a few Quake III based hit titles from memory:

- Quake III Arena
- Elite Force
- Elite Force II
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead
- Soldier of Fortune II
- Jedi Knights II
- Alice
- (More I'm forgetting)

Re:thats it?

[mattyrobinson69]

the nvidia drivers have a binary module and a small bit of OSS code which is used to make the binary module compatible with any linux kernel.

Its the OSS code which is recompiled, the actual (binary) driver is not recompiled.

Re:thats it?

[Merk]

Not quite. Particularly in an atmospheric (aka dark) game like Doom 3, I bet most of the levels will be designed for a certain level of graphics performance. Although the game may play ok at the minimum settings, it will be really hard to get through these sections because you won't be seeing what the level designer saw.

It's like trying to play a modern flight sim at 320x240. The framerate might be OK, but your instruments would be unuseable, and because the designers assumed the instruments would be useable, it may not be possible to play it.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"640K ought to be enough for anybody"

Re:thats it?

[niteice]

It comes with Radiant, which is a very functional (and novice-firendly) editor.

Re:thats it?

[airjrdn]

It might be "confusing" at first glance but in reality it's due to the fact that the Unreal Engine is in constant enhancement mode. John (Carmack) typically recodes large portions and considers them new engines. Tim (Sweeney) tends to keep enhancing the existing engine and licensee's reap the benefits.

You'd have a hard time selling the fact that id engines are more popular than Epic ones anymore.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kharma? You have to be kidding. That's a something, but not a Karma.

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

You'd have a hard time selling the fact that id engines are more popular than Epic ones anymore.

Unlikely. If you lumped all the games based on Id's engines together, and then lumped all the games based on Unreal's engines together, Id would easily win on shear numbers. Remember, there are companies based almost entirely on making use of Id's latest and greatest engine, chief among them being Raven Software.

Re:thats it?

[JVert]

Funny thing, Arn't Geforce 4 mx's slower then then a gf3?

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yours will prolly play it, the difference between a GF2 GTS and the GF3 was very superficial. Streamline ur system, optimize cache usage, and ensure your DX is properly tuned. It may not be the prettiest or smoothest but they are not requiring HT or and specific new instruction sets for proc level that I can see.

Re:thats it?

[jazmataz23]

You rapscallions with your fancy digital systems! I remember when Tom brought in that fancy new abacus with an extra row of beads. He was all "you can't calculate four digit numbers! nyeh nyeh!". Well, we showed him. Tied a tin can to his sister's kitty's tail, we did. I got a laugh outta that. We laughed and laughed. Funny times. Don't think I had a time like that until we were out of short pants.

Dagnabbit, you whippersnappers made me miss Mr. Matlock's Vaudeville Review at the Nickelodeon! Wait'll I get my switch...

Re:thats it?

[paganizer]

Strike Commander, I think.
Huh. can't find my copy; Pacific Strike, which is basically the same game, has 17 floppies, so I might be wrong.

Re:thats it?

[admdrew]

In this day and age, they should offer 2 boxes on shelves; one with the DVD, one with the requisite number of CDs.

id said (in a PC Gamer article) that they felt a DVD version of Doom 3 wouldn't be cost effective to do.

That's just too much CD swapping to play a game or install it.

While it'd certainly be cool to have a DVD of Doom 3 (I love the UT2004 DVD), you're only swapping discs once for installation. Despite many/most new games coming on multiple CDs, we haven't seen games requiring CD-swapping in some time. Needing the CD to play is primarily an anti-piracy move now.

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

Actually, I was able to get the "demo" running. It was pretty cool, but the controls lagged horribly. Granted, it wasn't final code, but I have few doubts that my machine would be able to produce more than 20 FPS. Whether that's "playable" or not is a topic for debate.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that Gf4MX Gf3TI, and about equivalent to an overlocked Gf2MX.
From what I have read, Gf4MX doesn't have pixel shading to cut displaying Doom3 on your screen. That means no Doom3 for me until I get a new gfx card.
Stupid $70 card from 2 years ago....
Wait, that's almost 2 years I've been playing the latest games with a $70 card while schmo's spend $500, I feel good :).
Time to go spend $500 on a new card!
(Yes yes, I understand you see something a bit prettier than I do, but the gameplay man it's the gameplay)

Re:thats it?

[admdrew]

It's like trying to play a modern flight sim at 320x240. The framerate might be OK, but your instruments would be unuseable, and because the designers assumed the instruments would be useable, it may not be possible to play it.

Hopefully the game designer would've tested all video modes they make available prior to releasing the game. *Never* have I found a game where a resolution was so low it wasn't possible to play. If one existed, the designers simply didn't allow that as an option.

Slightly offtopic, but 10 - 15fps in MS Flight Simulator is considered acceptable, primarily because it's so slow-paced. Heh, and us gamers complain when our FPS dips below 30 frames/sec.

Re:thats it?

[imr]

remember that the geforce4mx that you often see in cheap PC is equivalent to a geforce2 and sucks big time. Yes, you knew it already, but I see so many people buying that piece of crap that it cant hurt to be said over and over again.

Re:thats it?

[Moofie]

Revolutionary ground breaking gameplay? Wow, that would be a switch for id.

They make great engines, but revolutionary GAMES? Not for a while...

Re:thats it?

[superpulpsicle]

That is true, the MX series are a complete joke. A GEforce 3 Ti500 will blow Geforce 4MX out of the water. It's bad marketing like this that put geforce4 on everyone's desk. And everyone complained, thus ATI jumped ahead for a while. Though let's be honest people should be using Matrox 2D cards in the office.

Re:thats it?

[admdrew]

The system specs for Doom3 aren't ancient. They were pretty standard two and a half years ago when I built my machine.

Two years ago I got an Athlon 1.4GHz with 512MB of ram. This was not top of the line, but was certainly above mid-range. So you're correct in saying these required specs were 'standard' then, but Doom 3 is coming out now, not two and a half years ago. Considering gaming (especially of the Doom variety) is a bit of a niche market, it's fair for developers to target mid to high range systems when writing their games.

As a lot of geeks know, the life of a gaming machine is significantly shorter than that of a home PC; often times it's about two years long. Some things last longer than others, but if you haven't upgraded your machine with anything other than RAM in over two years, you can't expect to play today's newest games extremely well.

Doom 3 or Half Life 2 are not for average crowd who's only played The Sims. They're gamers' games, and given their capability, it's not surprising the amount of horsepower they're require.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that leaves a lot of us in the dust. I'm still running a custom built PIII 733 w/512MB RAM, 80 gigs of disk, and a GeForce2 GTS from three years ago. I haven't bothered to upgrade, because the machine is still a strong contender against modern machines.

Built in 2000-2001? Probably running PC-133 memory? Video card is probably 32MB (maybe 64MB)? The only saving grace is that you have 512MB of RAM (which is at least respectable).

Yeah, it's time for you to upgrade. Figure that an AthlonXP 3000+ or a Pentium 2.4Ghz is going to be around 3x faster for the CPU. Memory speeds are about 3-4x faster (PC-2700 or PC-3200). And a 128MB or 256MB video card is going to help a lot (especially on texture heavy games... being able to load textures onto the video card without overflowing makes a big difference).

You won't even have to buy bleeding edge to get that 3-4x boost. With a bit of smart shopping, you can probably do the MB/CPU/RAM for $350-$400 and the video card for another $100-$150.

Of course, I'm still running a 1GB PC2700 AthlonXP 2600+ system with a GeForce4 Ti4200. I'm able to play Call of Duty at 1600x1200, 30-90fps, depending on the number of players (40+ players and I'm down in the 30-45fps). Also have to turn textures and model detail down to normal (instead of high or maximum). This box is about 2-years old now and starting to show it's age.

I'm kinda waiting for the 64-bit chips to come down in price a bit. The 2.0GHz Opteron chips are still around $300. The fastest AthlonXP chip is only 23% faster then my CPU, and RAM is only 20% faster. I may punt this year and go for a faster video card (if I can find a decent one that isn't a jet engine).

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The did state the minimum is a GeForce3 card. The GeForce3 came only in a high end version, whereas GeForce4 comes in high end Ti version and low end MX which is infact WEAKER than the GeForce3 in terms of performance.

(hugs his GF4 Ti4200, glares at his GF4 MX400)

Yeah, I was a sucker an bought a 64MB GF4 MX400. That lasted about 6 months until I went out and bought a GF4 Ti4200 128MB. *Much* nicer.

Now I'm looking for a card to replace my Ti4200... need to hit the review sites and find somewhere that shows the Ti4200 score next to newer cards.

Re:thats it?

[mnmn]

I expected the bare minimum to be much higher. Given the trailers and screenshots, no way this bare system could produce that at 10fps.

But then again, the people at id can really produce optimized code. Remember the BSPs in quake2 or the basic system requirements of even doom?

Theres still no PC that can respectably run Giants, citizen Kabuto at full settings on, because they shipped the product before optimizations, but I'd expect ID to allow more fans to play this game. If the minimum CPU was 3.5GHz and minimum ram was 1GB for instance, their sales would be much lower.

Re:thats it?

[OrangeTide]

I thought I was going to have to buy a new computer. I guess my 2 year old system will do fine.

Re:thats it?

[OrangeTide]

maybe in India or if you work at a video store.

Re:thats it?

[Moofie]

Strike Commander was about 34 floppies, if I remember correctly.

Somewhere, I've got a copy of Office 4.2 for Macintosh on 42 floppies. That install was a BEE-YOTCH.

Re:thats it?

[drinkypoo]

you don't have to worry about playing first person shooters on the xbox with a mouse and keyboard either - you can't. you get to play with the game pad! now I only hope that we see more xbox FPS games with PCConsole interoperability, so I can kill more people from my PC while they're still trying to figure out where I went.

I'll start buying console FPS games when consoles start having keyboard and mouse. Dreamcast was the first and only system to ever really make the keyboard and mouse readily available and then Sega was crushed by their own stupidity. I do have a beta "release" of Quake 1 for the DC with keyboard and mouse support. I dunno if it has BBA support, I can't afford a DC BBA.

Re:thats it?

[drinkypoo]

I really thought that half-life was the first FPS with an immersive story. Of course, a lot of the puzzles are amazingly wanky and wading through hordes of soldiers gets really old really rapidly. What I really hate is people hiding stuff behind bushes in current FPSes; Even the most powerful computers don't seem to have the power to render that kind of thing such that you can get the kind of visual cues that you would get in a real life analogue of such a situation. People keep acting like a FPS is the real world and it makes the game less immersive because the technology isn't there. I was hoping that UT2004 would have grass effects that improved the situation but that doesn't seem to have happened.

Maybe that's why I like racing games so much, the point has come where they look fantastic and the visual clues you get are actually useful.

Re:thats it?

[zonker]

the real genius of id's games since wolf3d has not been that the games themselves are amazing (which they often are) it is that they have been able to push hardware to do things that folks haven't been able to do with it since.

as i mentioned with wolf3d, you could run that game on a 286 computer and it ran pretty fast (i used to play it in highschool on our fastest pc, a 286-12mhz (ibm model 30 all-in-one unit, i think it was)...

doom3 is the same here, they are pushing pixels with essentially "ordinary" hardware.

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

I really thought that half-life was the first FPS with an immersive story.

It was. Sort of. CyberMage actually beat it out by several years, but no one ever played CyberMage. I just happened to find Elite Force more immersive than Half-life (which I STILL haven't beat. Doesn't this game ever END?) ;-)

Re:thats it?

[dewke]

I'm not trying to be mean, nor is this intended as a flame, but a strong conternder against what? If you don't game a lot that PC is fine (I have a dual p3-700 with a gf2 gts that I use every day), but it's going to struggle to play most current games, let alone next gen ones.

I don't really equate Doom3 to Quake3 as much as the jump from doom2 to quake1 when you had to have a pentium to run the game.

Re:thats it?

[steeef]

Quadro is Nvidia's 3D card for businesses that do graphics work, but don't necessarily need all the horsepower of a gaming 3D card. I figured this out when I tried playing UT2004 on a Dell at work. They're cheaper, but for a reason.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

how can u manage to squeeze 2 years out of a system? mine barely last a year!

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The QUADRO FX 500 runs Far Cry very well, at work ;)

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

I'm not trying to be mean, nor is this intended as a flame, but a strong conternder against what? If you don't game a lot that PC is fine (I have a dual p3-700 with a gf2 gts that I use every day), but it's going to struggle to play most current games, let alone next gen ones.

It has played every game I've wanted it to play. That's good enough for me. And I rarely fall below the "minimum" requirements. There are still a lot of GeForce 2s out there, so I think game developers have focused on making their games work with them. Not to mention that the Quake III engine (still in popular use) is practically designed for the GeForce 2. Unreal 2 was a bit slow, but I wasn't overly impressed anyway.

I don't really equate Doom3 to Quake3 as much as the jump from doom2 to quake1 when you had to have a pentium to run the game.

Agreed. The release of the Doom 3 engine will mark the transition from one era of gaming to another. It is very much the paradigm shift that will force me to finally upgrade. But in the meantime, you can expect me to get the most milage possible out of my existing machine. I built it for capacity, and it has held up well.

Re:thats it?

[EvilAlien]

Which modern games are you referring to? Modern in the "its not Quake 1" sense? Surely you don't mean recently released games like Far Cry... because Far Cry won't run on your system anywhere close to how well Quake 3 does.

Quite honestly, unless you are throwing a new CPU and/or graphics card at games, you can't stay current. I've got an Athlon XP 2500+ and a gig of RAM, and I consider that box to be barely capable of running modern games well. "Modern" needs to be defined... unfortunately, that'll likely result in "modern" being within 6 months, largely due to the technology release cycle of the graphics chipset industry.

id Software makes buckets of money from licensing their engines (as does Valve), but don't expect them to not expect to make a boatload with Doom 3. It may require relatively high system specs, but people will use it as an excuse to upgrade ;)

Re:thats it?

[Armando_Mcgillicutty]

_More_ games with interoperability? Are there games that have it already? I'd love to put some smack down on some console players

Re:thats it?

[Dehumanizer]

I don't intend to until Microsoft releases a stable AMD64 version of Windows.

Microsoft will never release a stable version of Windows. It's beyond them.

Re:thats it?

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

Only if you consider 3 something like 30+.

Three more for the 1.2 version sitting in my box as well. This was back in the day when you actually mailed in registration cards, and they mailed you updates.

AotP was one of the buggiest games I've ever seen out of box. It wasn't like the bugs were hard to spot, literally a few seconds in to my first flight, starting out on the carrier, and there were graphic glitches galore.

One of the greatest "just push it out now, the quarter is ending" incidents there ever was.

Microsoft Office 4.3 came on 27 floppies, maybe that's what you're thinking of. I still have that sitting on my shelf as well. Remember the days when you got 15 pounds of manuals with expensive business software? I do.

Re:thats it?

[wolrahnaes]

I've seen one. Need For Speed: Underground had PS2-PC LAN play. Xbox-PC would have made more sense (easier to code), but at the time EA was refusing to do anything involving network or online play on Xbox.

Re:thats it?

[wolrahnaes]

the difference between a GF2 GTS and the GF3 was very superficial.

Umm....wrong...

GF2GTS is a NV1x card, with no programmable shaders. DX7 class gear. Hardware T&L was the extent of the "high end graphics" capability of this chip. Later nVidia confusingly renamed these Geforce4MX, as compared to the real GF4Ti, which was a tweaked GF3.

GF3 was an entirely new generation of chip, the NV2x (using x as a variable, not to be confused with NV2X which is the GF3/nForce hybrid used in the Xbox)
NV2x was the first generation of DX8 hardware with programmable shaders.

Re:thats it?

[screwballicus]

Indeed, and Geforce 4 MX owners and buyers should be aware: even though the game's supposed to run satisfactorily on a GF3, don't be surprised if it does NOT run satisfactorily on a GF4 MX series card. The GF4 MX does NOT provide hardware pixel and vertex shader support and has more in common with the Geforce 2 from a performance/features standpoint than the Geforce 3.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why bad marketing has given me a good card for the last few years, while waiting for Doom3 / HL2, and upgrade...

Re:thats it?

[DownloadTHIS]

While CyberMage was did beat out Half-Life by several years, Marathon (1994) was a year earlier, and the storyline is still being discussed today.

Re:thats it?

[AKAImBatman]

Not quite. CyberMage had an in-game story-line like Half-life. Marathon was more like System Shock in that it used "terminals" outside of the action to advance the plot.

Re:thats it?

[sparkster812]

Wrong, sort of. Mcintosh is the apple. The spelling of it asMacintosh was actually a typographical error, but Apple Computer decided to go with it.

Tada, there's your history lesson for the day.

Re:thats it?

[HFXPro]

Um, last time I checked GF4 MX does support hardware pixel and vertex shader support. The support just happens to be really crappy at Pixel Shader 1.0.

Re:thats it?

[ADRenalyn]

It's pretty shallow to assume that anyone in an "office" wouldn't need 3D acelleration for their work. In our office, we buy high-end Dell PC's with Quadro FX cards, take those out, and replace them with 3d Labs Wildcat cards (512MB) so we can run our 3d modelling software.

It takes a lot of power to have Multigen Creator (3d modeller), our custom OpenGL viewer, and sometimes another intermediate modeller such as Max or Polytrans running at the same time. I am usually running Outlook, Photoshop, and one or two small apps as well, which use up a lot of the system memory.

In case you were wondering, those Quadro FX cards get put into our test machines to see how our application will run on a consumer level PC. Oh, and we always play a couple rounds of Quake or UT during lunch on the office lan. =)

Re:thats it?

[GFLPraxis]

A high-end G4 would be dual processor, and RISC, so the ghz requirement will likely be less and if its multithreaded, it should run fine.

Re:thats it?

[Sentry21]

I'm genuinely surprised.

I was in the market for a laptop and priced out a Dell jobbie for around $1900 CDN before tax (it comes to about $1700 USD for the same model with the same options, for reference), reasoning that what it had would probably be enough for the games I play (Final Fantasy XI mostly).

Let's compare their statistics:

- A 1.5-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500.
- 384 megabytes of memory.
- Two gigabytes of hard drive space.
- An nVidia GeForce 3 graphics card or better; or an ATI Technologies 8500 or better.

To what my laptop had equipped:

- A 2.4 GHz Pentium Mobile
- 512 megs of memory (in Canada, the Inspiron 5150 comes with 512 minimum, which surprised me; I updated the US model with this as well for better price comparisons)
- A 60 gig HD (this was a free update at the time, it's only 40 gig normally).
- A 64 meg nVidia Geforce FX Go5200

This kind of gives an idea of how out of date I am in terms of computer technology - I accidentally priced out a laptop that has the specs to run Doom3, when all I wanted was a little T&L and some HD space for Atlantis rips. Wow. Not bad for a programming-and-also-some-gaming rig.

--Dan

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why they are called 'minimum' specs.Your top spec system also makes sense for playing with eveything maxed out, it gives the game more longevity. Those games can be great to revisit in the future, as average hardware will run them spectacularly in the future.

It disgusts me when people complain about how their five year old system can't run their new game like quicksilver with everything turned up. Is it unfair? Yes, but life isn't fair. And most people can't figure out that their once-$2000 system is now worth about $200.

Gaming is a very significant factor that drives the industry. Incidentally, its drive is also slowing down. A few years ago, I bought an xp2100 to replace my 1400 tbird. Results almost zero performance gain. The 6 month video card cycle has changed too. The cards still come out, but its not very hard to skip a generation.

Still, the old maxim holds true. You get what you pay for. There is a lot to be sid for coding continuing to get sloppier, but its a fact of life. I'm not upset that my economy pickup can't beat a Ferarri, even with gas quality decreasing, don't be upset that your basic
HP can't beat the top of the line Alienware.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

How 'bout an app that writes ISO images to different sessions of a DVD-R and another app, or maybe just a feature to Daemon Tools that picks the session you want to mount as a CD-ROM? Do it with a hotkey a la X Windows resolution change so even the games that pop on Alt-tab won't break.

Re:thats it?

[Simon Garlick]

A working install of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction requires four CDs -- the three Diablo 2 discs and one extra for the expansion content.

Re:thats it?

[chiph]

BEA is telling us we need dual-processor Opteron or Xeon machines with 2gb RAM and striped hard drives. The boss is choking over the $4000-$5000 pricetag (and that price doesn't include buying monitor(s)!)

Chip H.

Re:thats it?

[AbRASiON]

Actually it's often the other way round in FPS games.

You see more light because the nice shading is turned off and it's easier to see - you don't get scared when you should because monsters are walking around in wireframe (virtually)

Same problem with games on the internet, gamers disable all the options so it runs faster AND the bad guys can't hide behind things anymore (example grass in SOF2)

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm surprised it got an article on Slashdot in it's own right"

and i'm surprised at how many of you dumb motherfuckers still don't know the difference between "its" (possessive) and "it's" ("it is").

you wrote:

"I'm surprised it got an article on Slashdot in it is own right"

retard!

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you should try your own experiment, starting with the Quake 3 engine. You'll find that during the past 4 or 5 years id has been screwing around developing Doom 3, Epic has licensed Unreal tech to about 70 games. id has gotten 3 or 4 licensees in that time.

Re:thats it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well boo freekin' hoo.
My main system is a Pentium II 300Mhz with 128 MB RAM and a Permedia 2 graphics card.

I figger, tho, if I run it under Bochs, I'll be able to run Doom III.
It may be a mite slow, tho, what with all the thrashing due to page faults and all.

Re:thats it?

[davFr]

You are right. There is a Doom3 video on the net, where an ID manager says Doom3 does not use all the power of its 3D engine, and the manager then states it will soon be used more efficiently in forthcoming games. Doom3 is just a kind of technical demo for ID's engine.

Re:thats it?

[HuguesT]

There is a range of Quadro cards, they all do hardware 3D relatively well. The low end performs like a GF2, and the high-end better than the FX5900.

Re:thats it?

[HuguesT]

No, the GF4-MX is a rebadge GF2, I know, I'm using one right now. It does have HW T&L.

It's a good cheap card but it doesn't do pixel or vertex shading. The GF4 non-MX does.

mmm

[relluf]

Soo.. would a GF FX 5200 not be good enough?

Re:mmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably as it performs about the same as a GeForce3 ti200 only it can support hardware directx9

Re:mmm

[mollymoo]

Soo.. would a GF FX 5200 not be good enough?

Enough? You have 5197 to spare!

Progress?

[Anonymous Coward]

Original Doom version would run on anything that could run Solitaire. This is progress?

People don't care

[FJ]

When the first DOOM was released I had a few friends who said that needing a 486 PC just for a game was insane.

They upgraded after playing the game on someone else's PC.

Re:People don't care

[kneecarrot]

I must admit that my upgrade to a 486 was suspiciously close to the release of Doom. I remember paying CAN$2000 (US$1600) for a 486-33Mhz with a 100 Meg HD and plain jane Soundblaster. If I remember correctly, I think it had a ATI Rage 2 or something like that (4 megs memory). I do know that was the last Intel CPU I ever bought.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

When the first DOOM was released I had a few friends who said that needing a 486 PC just for a game was insane.

They upgraded after playing the game on someone else's PC.

Doom played fine full-screen on a 386/40 with 8 megs of ram (if you had more than 8 megs, you had to disable hidden refresh, so it actually played slower on machines with more memory).

Don't you think that upgrading hardware just for a game sort of says "I need a life"? Wait 6 months. After the initial surge, everyone will be overstock, and prices for better hardware will fall.

Re:People don't care

[cozziewozzie]

A 386DX 40 could run Doom, but barely. The kids with the 486DX2 machines had a much much better experience. Really, a 386 back then was the minimum requirement.

Re:People don't care

[dasmegabyte]

Don't you think that upgrading hardware just for a game sort of says "I need a life"?

Not really. Some people don't upgrade as long as their computer is "Good Enough." When something comes along and proves their machine isn't "Good Enough" anymore, they upgrade. It's because the machine is old -- the game is just a catalyst. I had a buddy in college who upgraded his machine for Wing Commander Prophecy and again for Mechwarrier 4 -- compared to that, upgrading to Doom 3 (which will be undoubtedly a social success) doesn't seem like such a big deal.

(Incidentally, my upgrade cycle is based on how dirty my keyboard is. When the keyboard gets so dirty I don't want to touch it, I replace the whole thing. This usually takes about 2 years or so).

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

Actually, the 386/40 ran it faster than the 486/66.

don't forget that a 486-66 was really a 486/33 that only executed instructions in the cache at 66 mhz., and that a LOT of those 486 DXs were really crippleware (Cyrix chips) that couldn't load the game no matter what you did. The AMD 386-40, with hidden refresh enabled, ran rings around any 486-66 that I came across. The 486/120 was a different story ... that was FAST.

I had the same experience when I bought my 286/20 way back when - it beat the hell out of any 386/25 and was $500 less, but people kept insisting that just couldn't be - after all, the numbers were less..

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaming on a _PC_ is what drives the cpu/gpu industries nowadays... not Microsoft Office.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

dasmegabyte wrote:

Incidentally, my upgrade cycle is based on how dirty my keyboard is. When the keyboard gets so dirty I don't want to touch it, I replace the whole thing. This usually takes about 2 years or so

So you could save money by buying black keyboards - hides the grotty stuff better :-)

My upgrade cycle is probably more typical of the average /.er - I upgrade various pieces of hardware (hard disk, burner, etc.) Then, when I have enough spare parts to make a new box, I buy a case and slap it all in, then start over.

Eventually, the oldest parts/boxes sort of fall off the face of the earth ... but this way it doesn't hurt so much $$$-wise, and I've always got a spare box handy.

Re:People don't care

[PitaBred]

What's with the "wait 6 months"? It's not as though hardware is ever doing anything but getting cheaper and faster. As long as you buy next-to-top-of-the-line, you'll get about the best bang for your buck. And next-to-top-of-the-line should run Doom3 admirably.
Secondly, if gaming is important to you, I don't think it really says "I need a life". Getting a new set of golf clubs costs more than a computer upgrade... do golfers also need a life?

Re:People don't care

[cozziewozzie]

I had a different experience. The guys with 486 DX2 (Intel, not Cyrix or anything else) were actually moving faster in LAN parties than the guys with 386 DX/40 machines (of which I was one). Not to mention that they didn't need to enable "low quality" mode to get decent frame rate.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

AC posted:

Gaming on a _PC_ is what drives the cpu/gpu industries nowadays... not Microsoft Office.

The majority of sales still comes from the middle and bottom tiers - not the high end.

That's the nature of the beast. Games that require the latest and greatest are going to have a slow uptake.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

The 386/40 ran slower if you had more than 8 megs of ram. Pull out the extra ram, enable hidden refresh, and you could run full-screen in high quality with no jerkiness. Just the hidden refresh was worth 20% in speed. Using 60ns ram was worth another 12%. Working continuously at 40mhz instead of cycling between 33 and 66 still gave a slight advantage to the 66mhz machines, but, like I said, using the right tricks (only available w. mobos that supported those tricks) let AMD 386/40 kick the Intel 486/66 in the ass :-) Those were the days.

Re:People don't care

[Fred_A]

I upgrade when I can't add any more disks... :)

My current Athlon 800's 140 Gigs are almost full now so I suppose I'll have to upgrade one of these days. Even though the machine itself serves me fine for my daily use.

I think i'll turn it into a file server, slap a few hundred Gigs in it and stop storing crud on the workstations. And the backups will be much easier too.

Re:People don't care

[Zork the Almighty]

How about a 486 DX/50 (not DX2) ? I still have mine. It kicked ass for Doom.

Re:People don't care

[sliderr]

Even then you wanted to max out your fps at 35 because it did make a difference in deathmatches.

I know it helped alot when I got my P90 and was able to max out the fps.

The one thing I loved about the original DOOM games was the speed. It ruined me for a lot of other games.

Re:People don't care

[IntlHarvester]

Right on. I'm sure that "justifying" a 486 for the original Doom was easier because it also meant you could run Windows or OS/2, MS Office, Mosaic/Netscape, etc etc etc.

You could also play the old games on pretty much every 486 ever made -- no need to check the vendor + model of the graphics card. We used to have a lot of deathmatches in the office after work, something that's now pretty much impossible due to the video card specs.

PC Games sales would probably be a lot better if they could find a way to date label them: "ALL PCS AFTER JAN 2002" instead of requiring people to know their components.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

Most people looked at DX2 and assumed it would be faster than the same speed machine without the DX2 designation, when in fact it would be a LOT slower.

For example, a 486DX would be faster than a 486/66DX2, which is actually a 486/33.

Re:People don't care

[mattyrobinson69]

yes - golfers should get a life and stop trying to invade my TV.

I went to the pub to watch the football (soccer) with my dad when i was 14 (17 now) (in a family pub) and the golf was on! We missed manutd play arsenal (or an equally big game).

On the way home me and my dad agreed that golf was banned - the news even had to be turned over if it was on. Im not sure if he stuck to it but i definately did.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

Just a side note - OS2 ran fine on 286es - it was one of the original specs - assembler instead of c, 286 or better.

PC Games sales would probably be a lot better if they could find a way to date label them: "ALL PCS AFTER JAN 2002" instead of requiring people to know their components.

Ain't that the truth! You don't know how many times people have said "I have a problem" and I've asked them what they're running, and all they can tell me is the brand name. How much memory? They give me their hard disk size. Or "a hard disk and a floppy." What kind of video card? A 17" one. Aarrgh!

Re:People don't care

[IntlHarvester]

Better yet, the hardware industry (Intel, AMD, ATI, NVidia) should come up with a rating system like "Game:A", "Game:B" and so on.

Then game vendors could just say "Game:C class PC required, Game:D or better recommended".

Right now, they've dug themselves into a hole by making it difficult for regular users to buy games. I know when SimCity 4 came out, there were a lot of confused people saying "I just bought a fancy new Dell and this game won't run!" because they had Intel video.

(And I was thinking of OS/2 v2. Also Win3.1 could run on a 286, but it wasn't really useful unless you had a faster 386 at least.)

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Was there not a recent message here in /. that new vid cards would be enforcing DRM in drivers from here on out? Maybe waiting six months might not be wise. I note Linux Journal points out that by law, next year all all video boards that you might want to use for PVR projects have to have mandated no-copy flags. Get yours now while the getting is good. I'd rather have next to the latest that hasn't been buggered up to make the RIAA happy. If only from spite alone.

Re:People don't care

[Ch_Omega]

In non-Floating Point intensive apps, the 386/40DX was about equally fast as a 486sx 25MHz, but was faster apps/games that used the math-processor.(in 386/486 cpu's DX had a math co-prosessor, SX did not). And, allthough it played "fine" on my 486sx25, I soon upgraded to DX2/66 after playing some fan-made levels for Doom that made my machine crawl. :)

Re:People don't care

[Ch_Omega]

No, it "isn't actually a 486/33". It's a 486 with a cpu running a 66MHz, while the rest of the system ran a 33. A 486/33 was a 486 with a cpu running at the same cpu as the rest of the system. Saying a 486dx2/66MHz is a 486/33 is like saying a Pentium 4@2600MHz is a Pentium4/533. The "2" in DX2 just mean that it had a multiplier of 2. In system-intensive apps/games, the DX2 might have been slower than a DX/50, but in cpu-intensive stuff, the DX2 was faster. I did extensive benchmarking of various cpus for the Norwegian computer magazine Tekno at that time, and i KNOW this.

Re:People don't care

[Ch_Omega]

By your own logic, the 486/120 is just a 486/40, since the DX4 had a multiplier of 3, thus, the cpu ran at 3 times the bus-speed. And to claim that the 386/40 ran Doom faster than a DX2/66 is just bullshit. I had(and still have) both of these cpu(both Intel), and the DX2 ran circles around the DX/40.

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

486SX = 386DX

The only thing that made the 486 DX special was the fact that the math co-processor did Not fail the test when intel/amd ran it through the gauntlet.

Since Doom didn't use the Math-Co back then, there was no significant difference between running Doom on a 386SX/DX vs. a 486SX/DX. Maybe cache memory had a bit to do with speed, but cache was still mobo specific back then.

I do remember the TSseng ET4000 ran Doom better than those ugly Trident cards.

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Some people don't upgrade as long as their computer is "Good Enough." When something comes along and proves their machine isn't "Good Enough" anymore, they upgrade. It's because the machine is old -- the game is just a catalyst. I had a buddy in college who upgraded his machine for Wing Commander Prophecy and again for Mechwarrier 4 -- compared to that, upgrading to Doom 3 (which will be undoubtedly a social success) doesn't seem like such a big deal.

PC hardware no longer moves ahead by leaps and bounds anymore. Back in the mid-late 90s, it seemed like things got twice as fast almost every year. Now it seems to have slowed down to every 3-4 years that performance truly doubles. A 3-year old machine with oodles of RAM and a recent video card can still keep up.

Re:People don't care

[Moofie]

That DX50 was a hot, hot rig. I remember a friend of mine had a Packard Bell DX50. I mean, it's a Packard Bell, but it's a DX50!

I actually got really lucky with a Packard Bell pentium system I picked up cheap. I threw in a P90 Overdrive chip, and that thing ran like a watch for years. Good computer. Who'd a thunk it?

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

It's impossible for you to have an Intel 386/40. There's your problem. The 386/40 was an AMD (Intel never made an 386/40 - they topped out at 33, just as they never made a 286/20, stopping at 16). Check out any book by Peter Norton to confirm that.

The Intel 486DX2/66 was NOT faster than the AMD 386/40 when it came to Doom. At that time, motherboards were still being refined for the 486 but had matured for the 386. Keep in mind that when the 486DX2 was reading or writing to the bus (which it had to do for graphics - there was no such thing as AGP or even PCI in those days) it worked at 33 mhz, whereas the 386/40 worked at 40 mhz - 20% faster right off the top.

then you have the bus speed. 33 mhz divides by 3 to give 11 mhz - too fast for video cards that were rated for 8mhz but could be bumped up to 10 mhz. So the 486/66 would have to transfer data to the video card at no greater than 33/4=8.25 mhz, whereas you could safely set the bus to 40/4=10mhz, for an additional 18% gain.

Its also why pentium 150 systems run faster than pentium 166 in most cases.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

It came down to the speed at which you could transfer data to the video card. Most cards in those days were made for 8mhz, but could usually be bumped to 10mhz.

A 33mhz or 66mhz system could transfer 8.25 mhz - the next jump was 11 mhz (33/3), too fast for the video card.

A 40mhz system could transfer at 10mhz (40/4), for a gain of almost 20%.

this is why a 386/40 could do better video in those days than the early 48666DX2 for Doom. It wasn't just a question of generating the pixels - you had to get them to the video card. 10 mhz is a 21% improvement over 8.25 mhz.

Re:People don't care

[stonedonkey]

Doom played fine full-screen on a 386/40 with 8 megs of ram (if you had more than 8 megs, you had to disable hidden refresh, so it actually played slower on machines with more memory).

I don't know--I remember struggling mightily on my parents' 386 back in the day. And I'm pretty sure it had the math co-processor. Then again, I think the hard drive might have been DoubleSpaced. At any rate, people upgrade to DVD players, flat-screen TVs, Digital surround, broadband Internet. Maybe not to support a single product, but upgrading hardware for a single product to support a single game doesn't say "I need a life" so much as it says, well, "I need to upgrade, and this is a good reason."

Besides, can you expect a fan of first-person shooters to wait six months while his friends play it? Pick the best book you've ever read, then imagine a hypothetical sequel you couldn't read for six months. Pick your favorite OS, which is hypothetically coming out with a huge upgrade. Now wait six months before you can taste it.

Don't you think that upgrading hardware just for a game sort of says "I need a life"? Wait 6 months. After the initial surge, everyone will be overstock, and prices for better hardware will fall.

If you have such an apparent distaste for gaming and a disgust for its customers, why are you wasting your precious time in this thread?

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

The original argument made was that gaming drives the cpu and gpu industries.

I don't believe that. Doom 3 is not going to result in a massive shortage of high-end machines, ram and graphics cards.

Most people will be able to play it fine with what they've got now, maybe by chucking another stick of ram into the box, but that's about all they'll need.

A year ago, it would have been a different story, that's all.

Re:People don't care

[Quixadhal]

Actually, I used DOOM as a benchmark when installing the first linux machine on our campus -- a 486/133 with 4M of RAM (upgraded to a whopping 16M after all the software was installed and we started giving accounts to students).

With 4M of ram, DOOM for linux ran faster than DOOM for DOS. Apparently the virtual memory code in the 1.1 kernel was indeed superior to whatever EMM type thing DOOM used at the time.

Of course, it was also neat that someone else could be logged in playing nethack while you were fragging things with the linux system.

Which reminds me of...

http://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/

Re:People don't care

[pod]

I had a 486DX50, and it was FAST. Certainly could play Doom full-screen with sound and music with no issues at all. I remember it came with a cheesy video card which I bumped up to 512k (IIRC) to get some of the higher resolutions, but Doom just required 320x200 anyways.

Was it Doom that you could run @ 320x400 and see a 'preview' of the next frame?

Re:People don't care

[niklaus]

I even got it to run on my 386/25 with 4 megs of ram. required a good deal of autoexec.bat and config.sys hacking though. Aaah, those were the days...

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

A 486/50 would be a hell of a lot faster than a 486DX2/66 for most apps, and would give a 486/DX4/100 a run for its' money.

People didn't understand that real-world performance meant that most of the time, the DX2 and DX4 were just sitting there waiting at 33mhz for data from an 8.25mhz bus.

The 486/50 could use a divider of 5 to access the bus at 10mhz, a 21% improvement over any 486100DX4 (which should have been called a DX3, since it was 33mhx*3. Ah, Intel marketing...)

Re:People don't care

[la la la, oh look a]

Secondly, if gaming is important to you, I don't think it really says "I need a life". Getting a new set of golf clubs costs more than a computer upgrade... do golfers also need a life?

yes, they need to buy Doom 3...

...and we need to play more golf.

Thus the circle is complete.

Re:People don't care

[timeOday]

Getting a new set of golf clubs costs more than a computer upgrade... do golfers also need a life?

Only golfers who play alone, in the dark, on a daily basis.

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

golfers go outside and play golf with other people, game nerds just sit in dark rooms playing first person shooter video games that are exactly the same as every other first person shooter game ever made.

Re:People don't care

[Cyberop5]

There used to be rankings called Multimedia PC:1,2, or 3. I think the requirements for a 3 was a pentium 90mhz with 32mb ram, a 4x cd-rom, and a sound card. I'm probably wrong on the stats.

The point is, the industry has used rankings like this before with minor success.

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap. The 486DX2-66 didn't cycle between 33 and 66 MHz any more than modern-day CPUs "cycle between" multi-GHz and the typical 400 MHz effective memory bus clock. The 486 CPU core ALWAYS ran at 66 MHz, 100% of the time, no ifs, ands or buts.

And no, 386/40 systems did NOT kick the crap out of a 486DX2-66, especially not in Doom. Even aside from the higher clock rate, the 486 was a fundamentally more efficient CPU. Most operations took fewer cycles than on the 386, in many cases dramatically fewer.

For anybody actually believing this fool, consider the SPECint92 benchmark numbers for the 386DX-33 and 486DX-33: the 386 scored 8.4, the 486 18.6. Over twice the performance AT THE SAME CLOCK SPEED. The only possible way to make a 386DX-40 beat a 486DX2-66 is to run something that depends solely upon memory copy performance, so that the 40 MHz bus comes into play. If computational power is a bottleneck in any way shape or form (and it certainly was in Doom), the 486 wipes the walls with the 386.

Re:People don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Doom was not just a matter of copying bytes from one location to another in memory, or from memory into the video card, yet you keep acting as if that was the only limit to Doom's performance.

And yes, we know that ISA bus video cards had to run slower on the DX2-66. Duh. Ever heard of that thing called VESA Local Bus which was fricking EVERYWHERE before PCI came out? Most 486 systems had a VL-bus slot. Only a fool would try to run Doom without a VL-bus video card, because they were WAY faster than any ISA video card.

This is just absurd, you're clearly trolling or delusional. If the latter you're probably just some sad example of the "everything I own is superior" disease.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

is to run something that depends solely upon memory copy performance, so that the 40 MHz bus comes into play

That was exactly my point - the bus speed came into play. Anything overf a 386/25 had enough horsepower to generate the pixels - it was a problem getting them out to the video card.

And you seem to forget that the video cards in those days sat in normal slots on the bus designed to work at 8 mhz.

So the 48633/66/whatever could only access the bus at 8.25 mhz or 11mhz. 11 was too fast for the video cards. The 366/40 could use either 8 or 10mhz. So do the math - 10/8.25 = a 21% improvement in video performance.

So such stupidity as quoting SPECint numbers is meaningless, as the bottleneck in those days was the bandwidth available to write to the video card.

There were no pci slots, no agp slots, heck, you probably don't remember the ill-fated VLB (video local bus) that was still-borne, that tried to address this problem.

But you obviously never tried the two side-by-side.

The 486DX2/66 could only access memory at the slower 33mhz clock speed. Everything else was at 8.25 mhz (video, sound card, modem, etc).

So even for memory access, a 486DX2/66 was slower than a 386/40. Don't believe it - http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20000405/

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

No, the VLB as NOT "everywhere". Most people didn't go out and buy a VLB card - the stupid things were only available for a short time, weren't supported by most of the cheaper manufactureres (who sell most of the clones) and the cards were damn expensive, and there were loads of compatability problems.

THE bottleneck in those days was video. Or don't you remember that. Most people were lucky if they had more than a quarter of a meg of video ram. 1 meg was great. 4 meg was unheard of.

This is just absurd, you're clearly trolling or delusional. If the latter you're probably just some sad example of the "everything I own is superior" disease.

Nope. Unlike you, I actually had a chance to run the boxes head-to-head. Sure, on many apps, a 486 would win. But Doom had no problem running on a 386/25, so it wasn't a question of computational speed - it was strictly video IO, and with those cards sitting on the system bus, the 40 had the advantage (10mz as opposed to 8.25mhz) and nobody was going to buy a new motherboard and video card just to run Doom back then, which is what this whole thread is about.

Re:People don't care

[Ch_Omega]

You are right, the 386/40 is an Amd, but it still runs various of the more advanced/complex doom-levels(user-made, with an insane amount of enemies) far slower than the DX/2. The 386/40 crawls on some of them, while the DX/2 manages them fairly well.

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

Agreed on the user-made levels. These were insane - to the point that generating the data became the bottleneck, rather than video i/o.

Now if we could just drop the stupid desktop/folder metaphor, and make it into a doom level, we'd be cooking ...

1. Killing bugs would be fun!
2. Instead of locking your screen, just hide stuff in secret areas
3. People would think you're working whenever they hear "Awrk! Blam Blam Blam!"
4. Flame wars become death matches :-)
5. As you obtain higher levels of proficiency, you get access to more of each apps' features.
6. Forget wallpaper - level editors :-)

Re:People don't care

[Ch_Omega]

Didn't someone actually make something in that line some years ago? Now, with the Quake3 source soon to be released, someone should improve upon that idea! :) (just wait, ID has traditionally released the code of their previous engine when the new one is used in a comercial project.)

Re:People don't care

[tomhudson]

That is just too cool! Now, can we have the SimCity version?

Ooooh..

[xenostar]

Ooooh, you mean the Doom 3 interactive slide show? That sounds about right then.

Re:Ooooh..

[ChrisK077]

According to insiders, John Carmack has coded a special code path for office PCs. You just have to double-click "doom3.ppt" instead of "doom3.exe"

last post

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, been when is the linux version coming? ;)

I'm ready...

[LearnToSpell]

Except for video. Think my G400'll run it? :-P Ah well. X800, here I come!

good to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

ive been wondering what those specs were gonna be. glad that my laptop can handle more than the minimum <(^^)>

FP?

Not really all that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

When you consider how smooth alll the textures and modles look in the screen shots and trailer. I mean, the game will be multi-gig in size, have large maps, and an advanced engine. Besides that, who would have any other programs running while gaming int he first place? 384 megs of ram is what my 5 year old Mac came with, sureit's not fast enough, but anyone who uses OSX, Photoshop, or any 3dmodeling or does video editing knows a gig of ram goes fast.

How much to play with uncompressed textures

[genner]

What do you mean that video card doesn't exist yet????

Guess that Gig was the right idea...

[fataugie]

Just built a system last fall, and you can't go wrong with a gig at these prices....now for the video card. If only they would come down to earth.

Re:Guess that Gig was the right idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

9800 Pro's are only 200 at Newegg...

Re:Guess that Gig was the right idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just got one yesterday (retail, ugh), but it wasn't much more than that ($300 Cdn, which is the usual translation of $200 US).

Re:Guess that Gig was the right idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

*only* $200? lets see, for $200 I could get an Athlon XP 3200+ and still have $30 to spare, or I could get a gig of PC4000 DDR, or 2 160GB Serial ATA drives.. Once they start pricing video cards a bit more realisticly, I'll upgrade. For now, my 3 year old All in Wonder Radeon (original radeon) works just fine on everything... except doom 3.

Re:Guess that Gig was the right idea...

[Japong]

Did you try Far Cry with it? What kind of performance did you get? My 9500 non pro softmodded to 9700 pro speeds still had trouble with that one, although admittedly I didn't OC it.

Way to go ID!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now all i have to do is hang a sign from my neck saying "Will code for a Radeon 9800!"

so with...

[Anonymous Coward]

with 1GB Ram, a Geforce 5700 256MB and an amd athlon xp 3200+ should be enough?

Very smart

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't spend $3000+ just to buy a new computer. You know id, some people have a life and don't spend their savings in a computer just for one game.
They are restricting their consumer base. Very smart, very smart.

Re:Very smart

[kfg]

Wait a year and buy the same system used for two hundred bucks.

Sometimes patience really is a virtue.

KFG

Re:Very smart

[Eu4ria]

But some ppl will spend that sort of money - I saw a TV show the other day that showed ppl spending $1000's a month on there pets!!! if you have the money then why not spend it on something taht you enjoy?

Re:Very smart

[Anonymous Coward]

because I'm skint, send it to me, although there is no way in hell you are going to get to enjoy me you pervert.

Re:Very smart

[MP3Chuck]

Sure ... wait and buy a year old system to play a year old game. At which point you'll want to upgrade to play that season's latest and greatest...

Re:Very smart

[eriban]

i have been waiting for prices to drop on a dual cpu system for 3 years now. i really wanted intel cos my other pc's are athlons. but i dont want the cheaper celeron solutions... and just when the prices of an dual intel dropped until it was affordable for me 64bit dual systems came out.... and i dont want a dual 32bit now if i can have 64bit to play with

so i am still waiting on purchasing a dual cpu linux system to program on :(

But what i didnt wait for many years ago was spending every penny i had on a 486DX2 66Mhz system to play DOOM on. Then i realized i needed a soundcard to really enjoy DOOM so i worked overtime to buy a very expensive soundblaster pro.

sure i could have waited until pentium systems with 32 bits soundcards became out but i have to ensure you i had fun right from the beginning and i am still happy i did experience the DOOM period

DOOM3 seems worth it to replace my current Geforce 3 with a newer graphics card, the rest of my system is into spec.

go ahead and wait a year to buy a new system but by that time DOOM3 might not be as fun to play as it would be next month (with all the media attention of the game, friends discussing gameplay, etc.)

Re:Very smart

[kfg]

Sure ... wait and buy a year old system to play a year old game.

Which will then only cost you twenty bucks instead of fifty.

Consider it as being akin to someone paying you a grand or three to wait a year, because it is. There's some old saying about saving pennies that seems apropos.

KFG

Re:Very smart

[kfg]

go ahead and wait a year to buy a new system but by that time DOOM3 might not be as fun to play as it would be next month (with all the media attention of the game, friends discussing gameplay, etc.)

You are talking about participating in a fad, not about playing a fun game.

KFG

Re:Very smart

[aldoman]

$3000?! The max I'd spend on a computer these days would be $1000 and that would get you a totally kickass (albeit 32bit) system

You could easily get a computer to play this at medium for $500, or less...

Re:Very smart

[afidel]

$3,000, what are you smoking? Just spec'd a PC that is WELL above the minimum for Doom3 and it came to $550. Case with 400W PSU $28 52X CDRW $33 80GB 7200RPM HDD $65 Motherboard, audio+LAN $50 512MB PC2700 $95 Athlon XP 2500+ Retail $89 XP Home $90 Geforce FX 5700 $100 Hell, Dell will sell you a Dimension 4600 with similar specs but a FX5200 for less than $1,000 if you don't want to or can't build your own.

Re:Very smart

[Slime-dogg]

I wouldn't say that it's just one game. Doom 3 is the first child in the new generation of OpenGL games (I think that UT2004 may compete on the DirectX front). A lot of future games are going to use the Doom 3 engine, just like a lot of current games use the Quake 3 engine (think RTCW, Medal Of Honor, etc).

You're upgrading for the new generation of games. I'm pretty sure that the minimum requirements for UT2004 are fairly steep (maybe not as steep), and if you want a new fancy game in two years, you'll need that hardware. If you don't think you will, then don't upgrade.

Re:Very smart

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quotes like this that put you on my "friends" list years ago (even though you don't know me). Automatically adds +6 to your posts which are always insightful.

Re:Very smart

[Anonymous Coward]

I always read parent's sig as K effin G, eh, maybe its just me.

Re:Very smart

[kfg]

I always read parent's sig as K effin G, eh, maybe its just me.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that this is the case, however, it works for me.

KFG

Re:Very smart

[Benanov]

My latest PC, Ellen, will run Doom 3. I built her for about $300, by shopping around. If you build your own system, a lot of the cash that you'd pony up to a PC company for their knowledge of how to build a PC is suddenly now in your pocket. Of course, you have to support it, but no big deal.

Too Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it is time to upgrade this 486 I use to play Doom II.

Doesnt seem that steep

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine that most gamers should have atleast 512 ram. This is the next gen of game engines, the systems needed should be more powerful.

I'll stick with my consoles, thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need to play another FPS, no matter how good the graphics might be... I wonder if PC game developers ever gave it a thought that the reason why PC sales are shrinking due to consoles is because you don't need to worry about system requirements - every game made for PS2 works with your off-the-shelf PS2 (the only exception I can think of is FFXI, where you need to buy the hard drive addon).

P3 CPUs?

[mukund]

How about top-of-the-line Pentium3 CPUs? 1.5GHz definitely means a P4 or a similar Celeron, but weren't the 1.x GHz P4 cpus actually slower than high end P3 CPUs?

So I'm wondering if DOOM3 would work on a high-end P3 system as I have a dual CPU P3 system with a GeForce FX 5200 card.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[CaptainPinko]

but didn't the P4 introduce instructions that aren't supported by the P3? Specifically the SSE2? A cutting edge game would seem to make use of those instructions...

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original article lists a 1.5ghz P4 or Athlon 1500 as requirement, not just a 1.5 ghz processor.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[halowolf]

From what I remember of Id development on previous engines and all, the engines can basically handle a variety of different optimizations on different hardware platforms as appropriate.

However my vague memory of such things may be a little faulty to say the least.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the weakest link in your system is your FX5200. It's roughly the speed of a GF2 Ultra, except with DX9 features. If you *really* want to play Doom 3, spring some $$ on a new video card.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Ancient Devices King]

Athlon XP's don't support SSE2. This might be balanced out if Doom3 has support for the Athlon extensions though.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[cbreaker]

Totally... You know, I used to like nVidia cards. Well, I still do. They work. The drivers are usually fairly painless to install, and the single driver package for all cards thing is nice and easy.

The problem I have with them is how they repeatedly try to fool people into buying their GeForce 2 processors over and over and over by slapping on the new "FX" stickers on them. They did the same thing in the past with the GeForce 4 - but at least you knew if it was good if it had the "Ti" at the end.

ATI isn't nearly as bad, although their model numbers are still somewhat convoluted. I had a Radeon 9700 Pro for a long time and it was a great card - I'll definately buy another ATI. I also owned a GF4 4600 and it was a good board as well.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[dasmegabyte]

I'm crossing my fingers that the Mac system requirements will say "G4 1.25 GHz." And I'm sure Id is too...Mac users are much less likely to dump their systems for a game, and 1.25 was the top end model from a year ago.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[the_2nd_coming]

umm, you have a Xeon system based off the P3, not a P3 duely since the P3 is incapable of duel proc setups.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[brufleth]

You are so utterly incorrect.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

DUAL DUAL DUAL DUAL DUAL
Ok, I'm better now. I promise.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh... no. PIII's are SLP capable. Celeron PIII's are not (Unless you have some fancy chipset work arounds). Besides, I doubt Doom3 is coded for multiprocessing.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[nikster]

i am pretty sure the new version will be multi-processor aware (given that Q3 was and that all new PowerMacs have dual processors and that id is traditionally populated by ex-next freaks who are now OS X freaks).

so: goodness! as long as your 3D card is recent enough, there will be plenty of processing power to go around. the 3D card will just be way more important than the CPU power.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[CatOne]

It's gonna run like crap. Dual CPUs don't make any difference in games, and your FX 5200 is hardly better than a GF3, it's a total low-end card.

You could probably run it, but performance would be awful. Why "experiment" with your $60?

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

A comment without supporting material gets modded Informative? Huh? How is the OP incorrect?

I could just as easily say "You are so utterly full of shit." Maybe that will be modded Informative, or maybe even Insightful.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "I own a dual 500 workstation that proves him absolutely incorrect".

Re:P3 CPUs?

[13Echo]

"Duel"? You mean that the processors fight? Wow!

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

From my dmesg...

CPU: Pentium III/Pentium III Xeon/Celeron (551.25-MHz 686-class CPU)
Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0x673 Stepping = 3
Features=0x383fbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE, CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36, MMX,FXSR,SSE>

FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 2 CPUs
cpu0 (BSP): APIC ID: 0
cpu1 (AP): APIC ID: 1

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Quake 3 had multiprocessing support if you enabled it through its CLI, so I doubt Carmack would remove such a feature from DooM 3.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[jreilly]

i feel your pain, i've got a 1.4ghz P3. However, given that an athlon can run it, doom3 can hardly rely on the instructions that exist in the p4 but not the p3, or so i'm hoping. This seems rather like manager-speak for "you need a processor *this* fast." Of course, i'll be downloading this one before i buy, just to be sure, and feeling entirely justified about doing it, since Carmack or anyone knowledgeable hasn't commented on the matter.

Oh, and in reponse to the poser who thinks vanilla p3s can't be run in a dual-proc configuration, the dual p3-866 in my closet begs to differ.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Bruzer]

I have a dual Pentium 3 Xeon processor system with Windows 2000 (and dual booting Linux) and have found the dual processors mean nothing for games at least in Windows. One cpu is always pegged and the other essentially sits idle (from my extensive testing). That was with Max Payne and RtCW.

I read Carmack's text on porting the Quake 3 engine to make use of the dual processor systems. He said it actually slowed down the game because of the overhead of multi-processors. He abandoned the project because it did not yeild any benefits.

Don't get me wrong, I love multi-processor systems. But I wouldn't expect that a Pentium 3 dual system will keep up. But maybe you have a cooler computer than me.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why "experiment" with your $60?

yeah, just download the thing.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[ameoba]

Of course they're not really telling it straight with the CPU requirements; the Willamette core P4s were pretty sorry chips. An Athlon at 1.5GHz would smoke a P4 1.5GHz; saying they're equivalent is being political.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Galvatron]

Well, my AMD 1700+ is 1.4xx ghz, so assuming that the P3 has similar performance to the AMD chips, then a P3 1.3 ghz or above should work (if they even made P3s that fast).

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q3's SMP support stopped working at some patch level, and didn't really help that much anyway.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[bprime]

Doesn't Quake III support SMP? I think Doom III might support it as well, in which case the dual cpu guy will be in good standing.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah right, there were cases of people getting a slot + socket board and getting even dual Celerons working

Re:P3 CPUs?

[green pizza]

It's gonna run like crap. Dual CPUs don't make any difference in games

Most modern games have at least two threads, one for the game itself and another for the (increasingly complex) audio engine.

Another advantage to a dual CPU machine is that the game itself can run on one CPU, while the OS/gfx driver tasks can use the other.

That said, dual CPUs (or a cluster for that matter) is not a magic fairy wand that makes two old CPUs into one new fast CPU.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[cheekyboy]

I cant believe Carmack runs his code in one big ass loop with only one thread. Is he insane? surely he uses multiple threads for various things like network control for MP, and audio effects, world rotations. Coding for dual cpu is hardly that difficult, its like regular coding in multiple threads with different tasks, and semephores to tell the threads when job X is done to do job Y.
If his code is truly multithreaded etc... it should at least benefit from dual cpus, even if its 10%. Only shoddy syncronous code would fail to be dualcpu ported. There must be many instances in the code where for example for world rotation or colision detection, you could do 1/2 the objects/points or 1/2 the screen on ONE cpu and the rest on the second. Games should be like renderers, and do 1/2 the screen on one cpu and the other 1/2 on the other, or 1/2 the objects, which ever way you like to split the code up.

Maybe his real reason for ROI, if only 1% of people have dual cpu, then its not worth spending 1000hrs coding a MP version of the engine with 100's of IFDEFs.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[Krach42]

Not only that, but when it was available, it was only available for NT4.0, and supported graphics drivers... Those drivers being soley nVidia.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[CatOne]

I turned on SMP support with Quake 3 Arena and it crashed all the time. It was unusable. So I turned it off.

Practically, I don't think SMP support is all that "baked" in games. My experience has shown a single, fast cpu is much better than multiple, "less fast" cpus. Significantly.

Re:P3 CPUs?

[CatOne]

Have you evern run a "modern game" on a multi CPU machine?

Trust me, I've done it, and I know that Dual CPUs aren't "all that" for gaming. I got a Dell Precision 420 (2x733 P3) for gaming (gasp, $4K, what was I thinking? Whoever says PCs are cheaper than Macs :-P) back when the fastest CPU available was an 800 MHz. The frame rates I got on the dual 733 with my vid card were about 5% less than benchmark sites got on a *single* 800. So... the multiple threads don't pan out in practice.

And I don't think it's gotten any better... games just really aren't optimized for throughput. And "offloading to the GPU in a second thread"... nope.

My strong, experienced advice, says if you want the best gaming experience, go with a single fast CPU, and a fast video card. Dual CPUs are for servers or for desktop tasks when you want enhanced responsiveness. They're not for gaming.

Say NO to upgrading!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have my 486 when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!

Geforce 3

[afidel]

Is the Geforce 4 MX supported? I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?

Re:Geforce 3

[Ignignot]

Is the Geforce 4 MX supported? I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?

I've read that the engine will support older nvidia cards, but the shader will be different for them (not as good looking, many features missing). The best shader path is only used by geforce 3, and anything past geforce 4 mx, along with the radeon 300 series (9600, 9800, etc). Technically this game will "run" on some pretty old hardware. I just wouldn't want to try it.

Re:Geforce 3

[Kuad]

I don't know what the official word is, but it was said reasonably recently that there is an NV10 (GF1) render path. Realistically, the only NV10-based cards with enough "oomph" would be the GF4MX series. Well, the 440 and 460 anyways. The 420 will just shriek and die. But so would an FX5200, most likely. You'll miss out on a *lot* of the eye candy.

I do think that the 8500 is the lowest Radeon that's supported. ATI's earlier cards were significantly behind in usable horsepower (they had a lot on paper).

Re:Geforce 3

[MP3Chuck]

No ... In fact, I remember Carmack being annoyed with the naming scheme for the GF4 MX cards. Their performance is hardly comparable with a "real" GF4 ... and I don't honestly think an MX is up to par -- at all -- for Doom III.

Re:Geforce 3

[dan dan the dna man]

I wish I knew if it runs on a Quadro4 NVS (NV18GL), as this is what I have - I believe it's based on the GeForce4mx core. Guess I'm just going to have to suck it and see, and make sure I have enough money for that graphics card (hell Aug 3rd is just after payday yeah? :))

Re:Geforce 3

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

Is the Geforce 4 MX supported?

Yes. Presumably the Chronicle reporter either didn't understand or didn't want to confuse his readers by explaining that the GF4 MX has less advanced functionality than the "lower-numbered" GF3.

I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?

The Doom 3 engine does not and was never conceived of as requiring general-purpose programable fragment shaders. From the beginning Carmack targeted it at the "register-combiner" fragment pipeline of the GeForce 1 (NV1x) family, which allows for restricted combinations of pixel operations but not the programmability of even the very simple PS 1.0-1.3 style shader languages introduced in DX8. (So it's something of a halfway point between the DX7- style fixed-function pixel pipeline and the DX8+ style programmable pipeline. The NV1x register-combiner pipeline did not have an analogue in the Radeon 7x00 series (R1x0) and was not exposed in DX7, so ironically Doom 3--written in OpenGL of course, so using Nvidia's proprietary extensions is allowed--will be one of the first and only games to use the technology.)

Except for some minor effects in the ARB2 (PS 2.0+ level functionality) path, Doom 3 will not be exercising any fragment level functionality that can't be done with register combiners; the only difference is the number of passes required per fragment (5 or more for NV1x in common situations; 2 or 3 for NV2x; and 1 for NV3x+ and R2x0+).

So, leaving performance--and possibly memory size limitations--out of it, Doom 3 is perfectly compatible with any NV1x card, all the way down to the GeForce 1 SDR. Of course this is like saying that you can run Windows XP on a 386; it doesn't address whether the thing is playable or not. Last I heard, id intended on including at least some GF4 MX cards on the minimum requirements list, which would indicate that a GF2 or GF2-Ultra would be even more playable (which is to say not very).

Re:Geforce 3

[afidel]

Very cool, so I guess the question is which path would perform better on a low end card capable of using both the NV1x path and the ARB path, such as say a GF3 Ti200.

Re:Geforce 3

[Keith Russell]

The NV1x register-combiner pipeline did not have an analogue in the Radeon 7x00 series (R1x0) and was not exposed in DX7, so ironically Doom 3--written in OpenGL of course, so using Nvidia's proprietary extensions is allowed--will be one of the first and only games to use the technology.

City of Heroes got there first. There was a lot of complaining in the official CoH boards that the game's graphics were corrupted on Mobility Radeon 7500 laptops. Somebody snooped the OpenGL calls, and saw that Cryptic used nVidia's register combiner extension. I'm posting this from memory, so I'm not sure of the details, but you can search the Technical Issues forum.

Re:Geforce 3

[default luser]

Yeah, somehow the Nvidia-specific optimizations doesn't surprise me, given when the bulk of this game was thrown together.

What does surprise me is no special support for the R100 (Radeon 7xxx) series, which supported PS 1.0, and could do 3 textures per pass. I'm sure you could wrangle some interesting effects, considering the age of the hardware.

Myself, I'm just going to see how good it looks on my Radeon 8500. If it's good enough, I'll wait for these ridiculous video card prices to come down. I paid $200 for my 8500 when it was almost top-of-the-line three and a half years ago, and I am just astounded by prices today. To get an almost top-of-the-line card today, you have to sink $400.

Re:Geforce 3

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

which path would perform better on a low end card capable of using both the NV1x path and the ARB path, such as say a GF3 Ti200

The ARB path should be faster; they both render at the same graphical level, but it takes fewer passes.

Re:Geforce 3

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

What does surprise me is no special support for the R100 (Radeon 7xxx) series, which supported PS 1.0, and could do 3 textures per pass.

That's not my recollection, nor does the chart at Beyond3D agree with you. R1x0 seems to support fixed-function environment-mapped bump-mapping only, which is not flexible enough to implement the D3 lighting algorithm.

GOOAAAAL!

[KDR_11k]

My comp is pretty much exactly the minimum spec! Athlon XP 1533MHz, 512MB RAM and a Radeon 8500. I wonder if it can REALLY be played (i.e. no drop to 1 fps) at minimum details.

AMD64 option?

[Chuck Bucket]

How does this equate to an AMD64 chip? I know they can run 32bit apps, but how fast would a 2Ghz AMD64 chip run Doom3 vs a new Pentium 3.2Ghz?

I still have a 1.2Gig AMD box at home with 512Megs RAM, and I want to know which upgrade path will give me better gaming (and email checking ;)) performance.

TIA

CGB

Re:AMD64 option?

[W2k]

The Athlon 64 FX-51, at 2.2GHz, is about as fast (slightly faster generally speaking) as a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition at 3.2GHz. Which in turn is slightly faster than a "regular" 3.2GHz P4.

Re:AMD64 option?

[glenrm]

AMD64 will work great. I would think 2GHz AMD64 should be about equal to a 3.2 GHz P4 due to the integrated memory controller of the AMD64, video card is more of an issue here go with GeForce 5900 or ATI 9800 or better, heck a new XP CPU and new GPU in your current rig may be enough...

Re:AMD64 option?

[Brian Stretch]

The 2GHz Athlon 64 3200+ will perform at least as well as a 3.2GHz Pentium 4, and will burn less power doing so (especially compared to the new Prescott-core P4). The Athlon 64's go up to 3800+.

I'm hoping that id releases a 64-bit Linux build of Doom3 like Epic has done with UT2004. I've been having lots of fun playing UT on my Athlon 64 3200+ desktop with BFG GeForceFX 5900XTOC under 64-bit Fedora Core 2. Frame rate just isn't a problem at 1280x1024 res. nVidia has done an outstanding job with their latest Linux drivers. You can still play 32-bit games under 64-bit Linux (I tested Wolfenstein:ET), but you get that nice performence boost with true 64-bit binaries (due to having twice as many registers available in AMD64 mode as much as anything else).

Re:AMD64 option?

[dave420]

I played the demo on my P4 3.2, with a crappy GeForce2 card, and it worked fine...

Re:AMD64 option?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, i heard a lot of warez monki- uh, i mean people played the "demo"..

Re:AMD64 option?

[bandrzej]

That is all good for Linux, but what about Windows 64 bit edition? Then you have access to more virtual memory and the like. I know on some games like Battlefield Vietnam I get a large performance boost.

Re:AMD64 option?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was almost impressed with your bragging, but then you said "Fedora Core 2". hahahahaha. Binary distro loser.

Re:AMD64 option?

[Chuck Bucket]

thanks for the response, I think I know what I should aim for now. With how cheap boxes are these days I'm really tempted to slap something together, but I think I should spend a bit more for an AMD64 later this year.

thanks again.

CBV

Re:AMD64 option?

[the_mad_poster]

There is no Doom 3 demo yet. The .plan file was, in fact, just updated a few days ago to include a provision for releasing the demo - likely after the game hits the shelves. For everyone's convenience, please choose one of the following responses:

1. I'm sorry, I'm a pathetic loner and I thought I'd make everyone think I'm cool by pretending to know what I'm talking about. Please.. I just need a hug.
2. I steal software. Sue/arrest me now, please.
3. I'm just your plain, everyday, run-of-the-mill liar.
4. I own a time machine.
5. I blew Carmack... that's how.

Re:AMD64 option?

[phalse phace]

"I'm hoping that id releases a 64-bit Linux build of Doom3 like Epic has done with UT2004."

Not sure if this is what you wanted to know or not, but from MacCentral via Yahoo! news comes this regarding versions for Mac OSX and Linux:

"Unfortunately I don't have dates for either of these. However, Linux binaries will be available very soon after the PC game hits store shelves. There are no plans for boxed Linux games," said Hollenshead. "More remains to be done for the OSX version of DOOM 3 and that will take some time. We won't release the OSX version until it's just as polished as the PC version. The date for OSX DOOM 3 remains 'when it's done', but I can confirm that it's definitely coming."

Re:AMD64 option?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have a 1.2Gig AMD box at home with 512Megs RAM, and I want to know which upgrade path will give me better gaming (and email checking ;)) performance.

If cost is an issue, stay with the 32-bit for one more round. AMD AthlonXP 3000+ is only $150 for the chip, figure $100 for a good motherboard, and $200 for 1GB of RAM. That's a $450 upgrade that will almost definitely double (maybe triple) your performance without breaking the bank. An Intel solution usually costs about $50 more.

If cost is not an issue, do a 2.0-2.2GHz Opteron. Runs 32-bit apps just fine (and rather quickly), but the chip is $300, boards are probably $150, and memory is probably closer to $300. So that's now a $750 upgrade.

Re:AMD64 option?

[Sunda666]

Sure there is a demo;
Google for 'doom3 leaked demo'
IIRC, someone from ATI released it in the wild;

peace;

Re:AMD64 option?

[the_mad_poster]

So... you choose option 2?

Re:AMD64 option?

[Sunda666]

Definitely.
I also happen to have Windows and HL2 code in some HD somewhere :)

peace.

Re:AMD64 option?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420, thanks for the lovely night : Been busy lately : But won't forget your "oral" report. ;)

John.

I'm just glad it's not a gig of ram.

[kabocox]

I can meet that. I'm just glad it didn't require 1 gig of RAM as the min. spec.

Re:I'm just glad it's not a gig of ram.

[JawFunk]

Might as well stock up... Can never have too much RAM!

My new computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

... should be fast enough! :-D

I just put together a gaming PC with an Athlon 2800, GeForce4 FX5500, 1G DDR3200 RAM, and an 80G 7200RPM hard drive. I mostly wanted to be able to play BF1942 with all my family, but once Doom3 comes out, I'll be able to handle it!. I just hope that it runs HL2 as well...

A Good Value

[MarkPNeyer]

I just bought a new Graphics Card - The Radeon 9800 PRO with 256 megabytes of memory. You can snag one of these babies off of newegg.com for around $270, and it performs within a few frames per second of the 9800XT, which is still going for around $400. If you're looking to buy a new graphics card, I'd recommend this one - you get extremely nice performance out of this baby without spending a lot of dough.

Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[beavis88]

I'm betting that playing Doom 3 on the "minimum required" system will be the easiest way to force people to upgrade their hardware.

Hell, I have 1 GB RAM and a GF4600, and I'm fully expecting the performance to be bad enough to force an upgrade on my part...

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[halowolf]

I am about due for an upgrade to my graphics card. Its 1.5 years old, Egad! I'm fully expecting there to be a huge batch of D3 benchmarks coming out comparing different graphics cards and their relative performance. I will probably base my decision on what card to buy on that. I don't normally buy hardware for games, but I do wan't to upgrade my graphics card because its starting to chug a bit here and there, and I think D3 might be a good benchmark to use on where to go.

I'm most curious about the performance difference between Nvidia and ATI cards as I am most firmly entrenched on the ATI side of things at the moment.

Should I wait for HL2 before making the final choice? I probably wont :)

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[blair1q]

Yep. The D3 benchmark will start showing up in hardware comparison tests, and it'll be interesting to see double-digit FPS numbers again.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[merdark]

The XBOX has something close to a P3 running at 700mhz with a tweaked GF3 graphics card. I think it only has something like 256 MB of RAM.

The xbox will run Doom 3. Given that, Doom 3 BETTER run fine on a PC with specs similar to yours (and mine).

I won't be upgrading my PC just for one game. My PC runs all current games fine. At this point in my life, I have better things to waste my money on than one game, regardless of how good it is. I'd sooner have beer with friends any day.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[Anonymous Coward]

the xbox actually only has 64MB of ram.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[tr0p]

The xbox will run Doom 3. Given that, Doom 3 BETTER run fine on a PC with specs similar to yours (and mine). I won't be upgrading my PC just for one game. My PC runs all current games fine. At this point in my life, I have better things to waste my money on than one game, regardless of how good it is. I'd sooner have beer with friends any day.

What a bunch of flamebait CRAP

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[TheEnigma]

I agree (although I have a Mac which won't meet the requirements of the Mac version on CPU). As for memory, I think the minimum RAM in the system should be no less than around half the cycles of the CPU, so for a 2GHz CPU you want 1GB+ of RAM, or thereabouts. I have 1.5GB of RAM in my dual-867. It's just so much better for your hard drive not to have to rely on swap.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[merdark]

Excuse me? Care to explain your insult?

Do you not understand basic logic? XBOX is evidence that it runs well on low end hardware, therefore it's obvious it should be able to run fine on more powerfull hardware: GF4600, 1GB RAM, decent processor.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[Anonymous Coward]

What resolution does a TV run at ? Something god awefully low that a PC would never run at. That's one big reason the PC version has alot higher specs. And I'm sure the PC version has alot more graphic detail (as it should). So comparing an XBox game to a PC game is generally apples = oranges. It doesn't apply.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[merdark]

Well, it does in the sense that I should be able to run Doom 3 at 640x480 with lower detail just fine. :)

And that's if I had crappier hardware. With a GF4600 and 1GB of ram, I'd guess I can easily run it in 800x600 with reasonable detail, or 1024x768 with low detail.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure that you're right, but as a "sometimes-gamer", I've been pretty happy with a 500 MHz system for the last several years. There simply hasn't been any games that I've been tempted with since the era of Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, and that other id game.

D3 has the ability to get a lot of us non-serious gamers to upgrade, and no matter what, it's going to be a bit painful to justify a full system upgrade for essentially just the game.

Re:Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs

[Anonymous Coward]

The XBOX version is a hacked version. Or to be political about it, specially configured for the XBOX hardware. It is also incompatable to be played with the PC version. The rooms are smaller as well.

This was from a review linked from here about a month or two back. And no, I do have have it on hand ATM.

Not a problem for us geeks.

[Bold Marauder]

Personally, even though my computer is from the dot-com era, I still have 384 megs of ram. And I'm sure I can pick up a 2.x gigahertz computer from retrobox.com for $200 (might even find one cheaper somewhere else).

Now all I have to worry about is that video card...

From the article

[foidulus]

If you're upgrading, look for at least 128 MB of video memory in a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot. Cards in the $150 to $200 range -- such as a GeForce 5900XT or a Radeon 9600XT -- will be a sweet spot
I thought doom 3 used OpenGL, not Direct X
Question time: I know the mac requirements will be different, but I just bought a dual 1.8 Ghz with an FX 5200, how badly does that vid. card suck? I have no clue when it comes to these video card models...

Re:From the article

[Have Blue]

Doom does use OpenGL, but DirectX version compliance levels are a convenient way to separate generations of cards. It's easier than posting a list of OpenGL extensions that must be supported.

Re:From the article

[MarkPNeyer]

Most video cards are rated as DirectX 9.0 Compatible as a result of using programmable pixel and vertex shaders. It's easier to say 'you need a directX 9.0 capable card' than it is to say 'you need a card with PS Level 2.1 or higher.' You are correct, though - Doom 3 Does use OpenGL.

Re:From the article

[Seoulstriker]

FX 5200, how badly does that vid. card suck?

It sucks. Badly. You will not be able to run Doom 3 worth anything. I highly recommend that you get a Geforce 6800 series card. The cheapest of that bunch is $300 but definitely worth it. Do you have an ADC display? These new graphics cards support DVI only.

Re:From the article

[lmfr]

"I thought doom 3 used OpenGL, not Direct X"

Don't forget that there's more to Direct X than Direct 3D. Doom 3 does use Direct X. (Well, I'm assuming it does as quake3 did require Direct X 7. I don't have a Doom 3 copy yet. :))

The requirement for Direct X 9 should be more for a easy way to figure if your graphics card supports the OpenGL extensions Doom 3 requires, as others have posted.

Re FX 5200, that graphics card *is* Direct X 9 compliant, but its performance sucks...

Re:From the article

[fraudrogic]

Yeah but all of the "DVI only" cards come with vga adapters...

Re:From the article

[drinkypoo]

But DVI supports analog output, so unless they only support digital DVI, all you need is a little adapter widget to plug in your analog display.

Re:From the article

[foidulus]

I have a DVI monitor, but will the pc version of that card work in a mac? I know apple carries the mac version of the 6800 for $550 with the edu discount, but I don't really need to run 2 30" displays....

Re:From the article

[Zed2K]

"These new graphics cards support DVI only."

Wrong. The ultra cards have 2 dvi ports only and the GT cards have vga and dvi. But all the dvi ports work just fine with the adaptor for a normal crt that they include in the box.

Re:From the article

[cozziewozzie]

Correction: Doom3 uses parts of DirectX, when running on Windows. It's far from being a DirectX game.

Re:From the article

[cozziewozzie]

A GeForce FX 5200 is bottom-of-the-line graphics card. Doom3 will work, but don't expect miracles. If you want a nice experience, upgrade your graphics card.

I don't have that option (laptop user, my card is FX 5350, which is basically FX 5200's big brother), but at least UT2004 runs relatively well at 1024x768. A bit jumpy at times, but Doom3 was meant to be a slower-paced game, so I hope that I'll be able to enjoy it.

Re:From the article

[crackshoe]

if i remember, very few cards are supported on mac (although you can flash a pc version over to mac, if the proper firmware actually exists)

Re:From the article

[discstickers]

You don't need a 30" display to use the 6800. You do need a 6800 to use the 30" display.

I'll be getting the 6800 with my G5 later this fall.

Re:From the article

[foidulus]

Heh, that wasn't what I was implying. I meant that I didn't need Apple's version of the card because I'm not driving a 30" display. So if it were possible to get the cheaper pc version of the card, I would be all for it.

Re:From the article

[Goldfinger7400]

You can't flash any card newer than a GeForce 3 / 2MX. At least to my knowledge. Flashing newer cards would be great, but there are many people making excuses about things like the byte order being reversed and such, whatever it is no one has been able to flash newer ATI or NVidia cards for macintosh.

No Geforce 4mx

[ttlgDaveh]

Am I right to assume that as a GF3 is the minimum, then the DX7 based Geforce 4MX will not be sufficient?
If true this should be interesting, some people screamed blue murder when they discovered (after not reading the box) that Thief 3 would not run on their MX. Will ID get slammed too?

RMAed

[DaHat]

I just mailed my Geforce FX 5900 back to the seller to have it repaired or replaced yesterday... here's hoping it gets back soon because I am not about to play D3 on my GF3 which is limping my system along now!

Re:RMAed

[BarFly143]

You're not alone. I'm in the same boat; I just recently had to RMA my 9700 Pro (video RAM went bad), and wouldn't you know it, Doom3 goes gold. I really hope I can get it back in a reasonable amount of time.

Re:RMAed

[DaHat]

Doh for both of us! Mine gets worse as my horribly expensive Logitech Z-680's that I bought new only a month ago have developed a problem... the subwoofer no longer puts off center channel audio, and I'll be damned

I spent 15 dollars at the post office yesterday to mail a 350 dollar part (the video card), I am not about to pay 75 dollars to mail a 51 lb, 250 dollar part (the entire speaker set)... so now Logitech and NewEgg are going to decide if they want to have me as a customer in future as I am not going to pay huge amounts of money to have a defective part replaced that is under warranty.

Re:RMAed

[BarFly143]

Ouch! that is awful, I was actually planning on getting a set of those speakers. I have the ?Z-560's but I want the digital connectivity of the Z-680's. Maybe I will hold off for awhile, or buy them locally so I can just carry them back if I have a problem.

Re:RMAed

[DaHat]

When my 5 year old stereo Altec Lansingings died, I decided it was time to use the digital coax audio out on my motherboard (god bless the nForce2), having a friend love his Z-680's I decided they'd be the way to go... sadly no one I could find in the area sold them in the store... so online was my only option. After I bought mine, several friends expressed an interest in buying their own set but were holding off until they could afford em... some how I think my experience is going to keep them from doing so.

Ooooo

[essreenim]

..And we already got that news days ago. In fact it was mentioned by someone in a thread yesterday. The game's not overly demanding which is good.
Interestingly it will make for a nice benchmarking standard seem as its targeted for Linux too. Together with new versions of UT etc. I expect it to be part of the default measuring tape in the battle of performance gaming between Windows and Linux.
By the way anyone interested in benchmarks for games on 64 bit O.S.' should check out this site. Apparently Suse is the way to go. Beats Fedora and XP 64 bit version overall, and by a long way in some areas, and enen in some games! Now get moving on those drivers nVidia and ATI, especially ATI...

Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[gorim]

In fact, I would have been majorly shocked if it wasn't some reasonable amount as 386MB. No useful modern PC should come with less than 512MB and should really have 1GB. If someone doesn't need 512MB of memory, then they don't need that pentium 1Gz+ either.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[MarsDefenseMinister]

That's completely unreasonable, because it would require someone to buy a 256 MB module, a 128 MB Module, and a 2 MB module. What the hell were they thinking?

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[gorim]

Oops what was I thinking ? That it needed 384MB more than the original DOOM maybe ? My bad! Heh.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone doesn't need 512MB of memory, then they don't need that pentium 1Gz+ either.

Nonsense. There are enough applications that fit comfortably inside 128MB that are entirely CPU bound.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the 2mb module for?

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

To make 386 MB.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[Bun]

I've found that WinXP is rather sluggish in a computer with 256MB of RAM. Dropping in another 256MB stick, the performance takes a very perceptable jump in all sorts of machines ranging from PIII500's to XP3200+'s in day to day computer use. I've also found that doubling it again to 1GB makes for no noticible difference in the same machines.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[MarsDefenseMinister]

I'm not sure why you're going off on me. Perhaps someone stole your dildo? I know that 256 + 128 + 2 = 386. That was the ENTIRE point of my joke. To quote the original person that I was replying to:

In fact, I would have been majorly shocked if it wasn't some reasonable amount as 386MB. No useful modern PC should come with less than 512MB and should really have 1GB. If someone doesn't need 512MB of memory, then they don't need that pentium 1Gz+ either.

See? He said 386MB and I was jabbing him a little on it. Now, don't you feel like an ignorant little fuckstick? You are my bitch. My little bitch asshole, filled with my hot cum.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[WuphonsReach]

I've found that WinXP is rather sluggish in a computer with 256MB of RAM. Dropping in another 256MB stick, the performance takes a very perceptable jump in all sorts of machines ranging from PIII500's to XP3200+'s in day to day computer use. I've also found that doubling it again to 1GB makes for no noticible difference in the same machines.

Agreed. WinXP's base boot configuration (once you load all of the device drivers and all of the patches and a few things like instant messaging and an MP3 player) is right around 200-256MB. Which doesn't leave much room for applications. It also gets worse over time as you add more doodads to the system.

512MB is the real useable minimum for a WinXP machine being used for anything other then Notepad. And 1GB is vastly better, especially if your users have two monitors or keep a dozen different applications open at the same time.

It's the same old story that it's been for the past 10 years. Whenever you buy a new machine, always double the RAM and go with the cheaper CPU. The cost difference between 256MB and 512MB is likely about the same as between a 2.8GHz CPU and a 3.2GHz CPU. But the performance improvements will be huge if you go with the memory upgrade.

And since PC performance has pretty much flat-lined over the past 5 years (it used to double every 18 months, now it only doubles every 30-36 months), an older machine with 512MB or 1GB of RAM is still a very useful machine for general computing.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

lern two ad

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[gordgekko]

Agreed. WinXP's base boot configuration (once you load all of the device drivers and all of the patches and a few things like instant messaging and an MP3 player) is right around 200-256MB. Which doesn't leave much room for applications. It also gets worse over time as you add more doodads to the system.

I think something is seriously wrong with your computer then because I have more than that running right now and my Win XP Pro system is running very fast on 256 MB of RAM, and it not in fact sucking up all my RAM.

512MB is the real useable minimum for a WinXP machine being used for anything other then Notepad. And 1GB is vastly better, especially if your users have two monitors or keep a dozen different applications open at the same time.

Again, something is very wrong with your machine. Typically when I'm working I have running Firefox, Thunderbird, Word XP, TextPad, Fireworks 4, Dreamweaver MX 2004, some sort of MP3 or CD player and my machine is completely usable and I get my work done with a minimum of problems on my 256 MB of RAM (1 Ghz Athlon) machine.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[sqrt(2)]

You think it's sluggish on 256? Then come to my house, I have an ancient POS Celeron 700 with 64 MB of RAM running windows XP. It runs like frozen syrup but it surfs porn, sends e-mail and plays music just fine.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no. He meant to say you needed a '386 processor to run Doom III, not 386K of memory. (Besides, any decent machine comes with at least 4 megs of RAM these days; 386K would be ridiculous.)

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[WuphonsReach]

If you're not swapping (heavily) with WinXP Pro on 256MB, then you must be running some miracle machine (or it was freshly built).

Mozilla 1.7 alone is eating 193MB of memory at the moment (7 browser windows w/ 20-30 total tabs, plus the mail app). MSOutlook eats up another 60MB. Big fat AOL Instant Messenger chewing up 27MB. Two explorer.exe processes each using 28MB. MSExcel with 20MB, PGPTray with 10MB, and another dozen processes each eaing up a few MB each. Screen resolution *might* play into this a bit as I'm running dual screens (1400x1050+1024x768), plus the Anti-Virus software, WinZip, WinRAR, and a few other things integrated into the Windows Shell.

Looking at Windows Task Manager, the Commit Charge (K) section of the Performance tab:

Total: 557692
Limit: 2316176
Peak: 642660

The machine's been up for around 4 days and has 768MB installed. Since I have enough physical memory to cover my typical peak memory requirements, swapping is minimal. And on a laptop with a 4800rpm harddrive, swapping is extremely painful.

I stand by my 512MB recommendation for WinXP. And it's better to double the memory (256MB to 512MB or 512MB to 1GB) on a WinXP machine then to spend that cash on the fastest CPU offered.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[gordgekko]

I'm not saying that 512MB wouldn't be better but right now I have Firefox(with three tabs) taking up 45MB (which is more than usual), Thunderbird using 9.8MB plus a bunch of other crap taking up space (Folding@Home, AntiVir, Zone Alarm, etc.) and still plenty of room to go.

If my machine is going swap file heavy, I haven't noticed.

Re:Oh....I also was "surprised". *yawn*

[WuphonsReach]

Oops, I misunderstood you then.

Sometimes it seems to me that Windows tends to use more memory if you give it more memory (e.g. it tends to be looser about allocating memory). Dunno if that applies to the various apps that I use or not.

Eh, I'm upgrading my memory this week anyway (maxing out the laptop). Having a dozen apps open at once gets rather addicting. At least, as long as you can keep up with all of the windows.

I'll trade...

[the_mad_poster]

I'll trade my little brother for a Radeon 9800XT before Doom3 hits the shelves! PLEASE!

Re:I'll trade...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can he cook, clean and do the dishes? allso I'll need to know the size, so I can clear out the right size closset for him to live in... a manual would be neat too. btw does he know how to do the laundry?

Re:I'll trade...

[HedonismBot]

For all of the good love of The Lord, have you no decency left? How can you ever perish the thought of an exchange between your brother, a living, breathing creature, owner of an immortal soul, a complex personality and a wonderful human brain, product of thousands of years of evolution and an upgrade for your computer? And one which purpose is to more realistically show the hideous nature of the devil's creatures in a videogame, no less! I'm truly outraged and shocked for your reckless behaviour.

Now, maybe if you had a sister...

Re:I'll trade...

[wisdom_brewing]

i was wondering about that... ive got a more than decent box (gig of dual channel ddr, p4 2.8ghz p4) and a 9800XT, i built it about 7 months ago and am getting a bit worried about frame rates id get in D3... running at 1280x1024 with full detail, etc im not sure if ill be getting playable rates... i guess overclocking is an option id be willing to take (got 4 120mm silent fans on the box, cpu goes up to 3.45 no problems, havent had the need to push the gpu yet (cpu was to see seti@home times))... does anyone have a clue as to what the frame rates will be like when compared to the demo released ages ago?

Re:I'll trade...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could "overclock" by lowering the resolution/details a bit. It won't make it any less fun or scary, and it'll probably still look great.

Re:I'll trade...

[the_mad_poster]

I agree with this guy. Who gives a crap if you lower the overblown details to make the game playable? I must've missed the part a couple years back where everyone started deciding how much fun a game was by looking at it instead of playing. If I wanted cinematics I'd go see a damn movie.

Fuck Doom3. I'm going to play Contra3. More fun than most of the crap that comes out these days anyway...

Re:I'll trade...

[gmhowell]

WTF ARE YOU DOING? GET BACK TO WORK ON YOUR JOURNAL SCRIPT!!

Don't make me get out of the white van and pay you a visit.

(You're damned straight it's like yelling, you estupido lameness filter)

Re:I'll trade...

[KZigurs]

Got sis? (preferrably older than 15 ;D)

Re:I'll trade...

[Quasar1999]

If you have a sister that is over 18... I'm game for trading my 9800XT...

Re:I'll trade...

[ALLXSTHINGS]

Tell us the sizes of his orifices, then we'll talk. JUST KIDDING!

Re:I'll trade...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sister? But I have to rent her out for the cash to buy the game when it's released, not to mention the rest of the system.

Re:I'll trade...

[wisdom_brewing]

i guess ill do that if i dont get playable rates at 1280x1024 but ill push the hardware anyway (1280x1024 is my ideal gaming resolution for some odd reason, even with games that run sweet at 2048x1536)

Re:I'll trade...

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to sign here ...

sounds great !

[phreakv6]

Oh.. so they really have plans for releasing it sometime.. that sounds grrrrrrrrrrrr8.. i really beleived DOOM 3 was doomed.

Re:sounds great !

[mindaktiviti]

No, that was Duke Nukem Forever

Finally.

[diagnosis]

I feel that the world will be an overall happier place if more people have more RAM.

Frankly, even if people may not realize it, they'll be *much* better off having more than 256 MB RAM. Dell etc. are definitely not benefitting their consumers by including only 256 mb ram in these behemoth computers people buy, especially if people are looking into doing serious photo editing, and DV. And if you are running XP, how can you expect to survive with 256? This is so frustrating...

P.S. Half-life 2 requirements, Gabe Newell:

Ideally, one should have a 2.4 Ghz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 9 enabled graphics card to fully partake in the title. Those with less powerful components shouldn't worry about upgrading unless their system specs fall below a 1.2 Ghz processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 7 compatible graphics card.

Of course, when HL2 game was due to be publish 25 years ago, these requirements were insane.

------------------
Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

Re:Finally.

[lukewarmfusion]

I was using XP just fine with 128MB. Nothing fancy, just normal OS stuff.

I have been running my current box with 256MB PC2100 for a few weeks now, while I wait for my 1 GB to be replaced. It runs JK2, Counter-strike, and Halo with very few problems.

RAM is often overrated - your processor, your OS configuration, and [in the case of games] your video card are often more important than adding another 256MB.

Re:Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, even if people may not realize it, they'll be *much* better off having more than 256 MB RAM. Dell etc. are definitely not benefitting their consumers by including only 256 mb ram in these behemoth computers people buy, especially if people are looking into doing serious photo editing, and DV.

And what if they aren't? If they just want to browse the web, send some mail, type some letters? It may benefit some people, but certainly not everyone.

And if you are running XP, how can you expect to survive with 256? This is so frustrating...

Why wouldn't you be able to survive with 256 MB? After a clean install, XP consumes around 70MB. If you shut down a lot of services, you can even get this under 50. With Word, Excel, IE/Firefox, OE/Thunderbird loaded, you're still under 256.

Re:Finally.

[Zed2K]

You must not do much of anything with your PC then, either that or you don't care when you have to sit there waiting and waiting for data to swap off the HD into memory. Just having mozilla, outlook, instant messaging, and a few telnet sessions open is horrible under 256MB. I cannot imagine it even running with 128. Talk about massive swapping taking place.

Right now I've got outlook, ultraedit, 3 telnet sessions, mozilla and IM open under windows 2000 and its taking 322MB.

Re:Finally.

[ViolentGreen]

That's one of the most uninformed posts I have read in a long time.

Re:Finally.

[lukewarmfusion]

Uninformed? Because your XP box won't run with so little memory? Here are some tips for you (and your inner troll):

Step 1: Remove spyware.
Step 2: Don't use a memory hogging virus scan.
Step 3: Turn off your P2P when you're not using it.
Step 4: If you don't need a program open, close it.
Step 5: Profit! (Because you didn't have to buy a gig of RAM just to use MS Office)

I'm always surprised by people that think failing hardware is at fault because their computers perform badly. There are a lot of software related factors. Even then, RAM isn't always the fix. Too many people buy more memory than they need, thinking it will fix their gaming problems. You won't see a huge jump in your FPS if you move from 512MB to 1GB. But you will see that jump if you move from a Geforce 4 MX 420 to a Radeon 9700 Pro. Or if you replace your Athlon XP 1600 with a 2500+.

Re:Finally.

[angle_slam]

I was given an old computer, a 700 MHz P3 with 128 MB RAM. I wiped the hard drive and did a clean install of XP. Literally, the computer couldn't do anything. The start menu took forever to start. I couldn't run IE. I couldn't run Windows Update. Remember, this was a bare installation. No software installed. And it still couldn't run. I upgraded to 256 MB Ram and the computer ran fine.

Re:Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but you are spreading misinformation. Hear me out, before you decide to rant back, because this is from my long experience and should be pretty close to reality.

XP requires alot more than 128 MB RAM even if it can run along with that configuration. The problem will be that all RAM will be used up, so you will have to swap alot more.

For those who have enough RAM (roughly >=512 MB today), swapping to harddrive is a thing of the past. Heck, you can even turn off the paging file. With 1GB it's pretty safe, and it will prevent the stupid OS to swap out anything (yes, Windows will page out pages even if you have 2GB free RAM, REALLY stupid..)

For some optimizations in XP to work, you really need enough RAM. There's alot of tricks going on in the startup / hibernate startup and prefetching, which requires over 256MB RAM. So without enough RAM, XP can actually be slower than 2000 in some respects.

Removing spyware is an excellent suggestion.

Turning off anti-virus is a horrible idea. Every Windows computer connected to the internet today requires: firewall, antivirus, adaware/spybot s&d and some other webbrowser/email than IE and OE. You're playing russian roulette if you skip ANY of these steps..

You are right about P2P, though you seem unaware that is's a completely different issue. If you run a P2P application, it will eventually swap out your entire RAM no matter how much RAM you have. It's a limitation of the OS that it's so braindead. It's because there's no limit to how much an application can cache files, so it will eventually cache everything you share and receieve. This is good for a server setup, but not for a desktop PC. So if you're running P2P or similar apps, they should be on a dedicated server or run inside something like VMWare or Bochs.

RAM is cheap nowadays, and you'll get alot more out of your computer if you buy enough of it. The harddrive can really bring any computer down to its knees, if it's constantly swapping.

You will not increase the FPS in gaming, as you correctly state. However, you will not be subject to swapping in the middle of a game either. Swapping will usually happen in the most intense scenes of a game, so it's really a good thing to get more RAM.

As for other applications. If you're a developer, you always have 10-20 programs open. There's really no point in making things more difficult for yourself by closing an application you will have a need for 10 minutes later. RAM is cheap.

To upgrade your GHZ will make a good overall performance. Upgrading RAM will ensure that performance doesn't drop under heavy stress.

You see, it's important to define what performance you really mean. You're right in much of what you say, but I will also stress that memory shouldn't be skipped either. Too many computers today are sold with way too little RAM, and then the owners think they need a faster system, just because it kneels under heavy stress. They just need more RAM.

It's kind of like how people buy a new PC to get faster Internet. Of course, your internet will not become any faster. If you're on a modem, then you need broadband. So the right observation and understanding is important.

Re:Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, and then you installed Gentoo and everything was working out of the box!!

Re:Finally.

[gid]

That's what really annoys me about XP. I have a gig of ram, so I shouldn't NEED a swap file, right? If you turn off swap, windows turns it back on for you. If you specify a fixed swap file size, XP is nice enough to automatically bump it up for you.

When I have my dual head desktop up and running with my development environment, I'm already sitting at 341 some odd megs of swap currently. So when I start up a game or something, everything else gets pushed to swap. So I have NO CHOICE by to sit there and chew on swap. I've tried all sorts of tweaks to no avail.

When I double my RAM awhile back to a gig, I never noticed a single different in performance, and I'm pretty observant about that. Unless you use programs that use tons of ram at once, you'll probably never notice much of a performance increase above 512 meg, so that seems to be the magic ram point right now. Hopefully Long Horn will this program, but I'm not holding my breath.

old screenshot showing what I mean

Just for comparison, my linux box never even touches the swap file:

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 758 750 7 0 189 180
-/+ buffers/cache: 380 377
Swap: 512 0 512

PS. I love how the useless "ecode" tag eats spaces. Above shows 0 used megs of Swap.

Re:Finally.

[lukewarmfusion]

"Turning off anti-virus is a horrible idea. Every Windows computer connected to the internet today requires: firewall, antivirus, adaware/spybot s&d and some other webbrowser/email than IE and OE. You're playing russian roulette if you skip ANY of these steps.."

Whoa there! I never said to turn it off. I said you shouldn't use a memory hogging AV. There are anti-virus and firewall packages that do not demand quite so much from your machine. My father, a network and systems admin saved his company hundreds of thousands of dollars last year by stretching their outdated machines an extra year. The only reason they wanted to upgrade? Because McAfee was causing the machines to run too slow. He replaced it with something else (I can't remember offhand) and everything sped back up. Same protection, just more efficient. As for P2P, leaving the software on all the time will eat memory, constantly read from your drive, etc. All the factors add up - if you're not downloading right then, turn it off.

"As for other applications. If you're a developer, you always have 10-20 programs open. There's really no point in making things more difficult for yourself by closing an application you will have a need for 10 minutes later. RAM is cheap."

It is cheap. But even with 512, 1024, or more, you will still experience these kinds of issues if you abuse it. You can stretch 256 by closing programs you don't use. I don't mean a developer that needs 10-20 programs open. I mean the normal user that has eight browser windows open (seven of which are not being used), AIM, Weatherbug, mp3s playing, and four MS Word documents. If you're not using Word, close the damn thing.

"It's kind of like how people buy a new PC to get faster Internet. Of course, your internet will not become any faster. If you're on a modem, then you need broadband. So the right observation and understanding is important."

That's a good comparison. I don't claim that RAM shouldn't be upgraded - I'm just saying that too many people overlook the actual source of their problems and think that memory is the solution to everything.

Re:Finally.

[WuphonsReach]

You forgot one benefit of having enough RAM.

Prolonging the life of your hard drive.

(I killed at least two drives back in the NT4 days because the I.S. folks wouldn't let me upgrade my memory.)

Re:Finally.

[88NoSoup4U88]

Im a hardware noob : Could you explain this one a bit to me ?
My own explanation I give to your statement, is that RAM is being used for temporal storing of data : When there wouldn't be enough RAM in the machine, it would use the harddrive more for temporal storage (thus 'damaging' it more).

Am I right ?

Re:Finally.

[cheekyboy]

XP embedded can be booted into a fully working desktop with IE etc.. and all start menus and still use a total of 50meg ram at desktop time.

Now god knows what gets loaded up when XPPro loads up and uses 192 megs ram. 50 unneeded services? spy ware programs, office starts, mozillas, quicktime toolbar, real player, IM client (taking 15megs ram).

Re:Finally.

[AbRASiON]

I can sadly tell you the days of 512mb requirements are here though.

I do know how to optomise a box and I've had a fresh windows install with alsorts of ram tweaks on it (256mb) and BF1942 load times were appauling under XP - no matter how optomised I got it (I think 60mb use of ram from windows) BF still took forever (poor coding if you ask me,...... and anyone else - game rocks but seriously has flaws) - anyhow 512mb reduces the load times by a third

Re:Finally.

[AbRASiON]

You bring up a very valid point, it also shits me to tears as well.

I've got 1gb of ram and I specifically have the swap file on a second disk - fixed size of 800mb (for the hell of it- some apps like to allocate assloads of ram for no reason)

I currently have the same issue as you - 790mb page file usage and 400mb of ram free - it's ridiculous.

Microsoft really are a bunch of moronic tools........ sigh.

Re:Finally.

[Chasuk]

RAM is often overrated - your processor, your OS configuration, and [in the case of games] your video card are often more important than adding another 256MB.

This is almost the opposite of true. I am a full-time service tech, I assemble and upgrade and repair computers for a living, and I have done since the Atari 800 was cool.

Given two PC's, one with a 900Mhz processor and 512MB of RAM, and the other with a 1.2Ghz processor and 128MB of RAM, take the former. It will kick the latter's ass, assuming optimal configuration for both.

In 20+ years, I've assembled LITERALLY thousands of PC's, and tweaked more than I can count for optimum performance, using a plethora of OS's, so my knowledge comes from extensive experience.

The average person performing average tasks can't even tell the difference when he or she is sitting down in from of a machine of 900Mhz or more, everything else being equal. As far as Mhz and Ghz are concerned, most users long ago reached the point of diminishing returns. RAM is far more important, normally, than processing speed, with the video card coming a close second, although this depends on the task being performed.

Re:Finally.

[julesh]

You've got some serious problems with your configuration if you're getting more than minimal swapping on that.

I currently have mozilla, several putty (ssh client) sessions, a few command prompts, an MPEG encoder (open but idle), Photoshop 5, and winword open for a total non-cache usage of 190MB. And Photoshop's configured to use half of my 256MB of available RAM whatever it actually needs (screwed up memory management if you ask me, but that's what it does), although not all of that is swapped in. Kill photoshop and it would be down to about 100Mb. Use Internet Explorer or Opera rather than memory-hogging Mozilla, and I could probably knock another 30Mb off that if I had the inclination.

Re:Finally.

[WuphonsReach]

My own explanation I give to your statement, is that RAM is being used for temporal storing of data : When there wouldn't be enough RAM in the machine, it would use the harddrive more for temporal storage (thus 'damaging' it more).

Anytime there's not enough physical RAM to do the job, you've got to go to the swap-file (or swap-partition) on the hard-drive. Swap memory is roughly 300-600x cheaper then additional RAM, but it's performance is 3-4 orders of magnitude slower.

As for why it shortens drive life, there are a few usual ways (physical and thermal):

1) Increased seek activity on the drive. Which can wear out the head-seek assembly faster. Modern head assemblies are pretty sturdy however, it's just a coil of wire suspended in a magnetic field with a pivot point. Apply varying amounts of current to the coil and the head moves to a different track. Turn the current off and the head snaps back to the "park" zone (generally the outer edge of the platter). More likely is that the connecting wires might break or the circuitry driving the head assembly breaks down. Still, as with any physical moving part, it will only work for a certain number of operations before it breaks.

2) Increased movement of the heads generates additional heat, which causes circuit board components to overheat. This is much more likely to happen with 7200rpm (and higher) drives that aren't actively cooled. You can't touch a Maxtor 7200rpm SATA while it's running, unless you have at least *some* airflow constantly moving across the drive to draw the heat away. It's possibly to defend against this with proper cooling.

Those drives that I killed were pre-7200rpm (probably 4800 or 5400rpm), so they probably died due to mechanical causes rather then heat issues. Not because I was "damaging" the drive by using for swap, but I simply wore it out faster. So the less swapping you do, the less wear-n-tear you're putting on the drive (mostly the head assembly).

Re:Finally.

[88NoSoup4U88]

Cool, thanks for that extensive explanation :)

What the hell

[Walkiry]

>But if you do need a new chip, unless you take joy in swapping out a motherboard or building your own system, Doom 3 is probably as good an excuse as any to buy a new PC.

Who the hell wrote that, a Mac user?

You don't buy a new fucking computer, you take it down to your local computer shop and get them to upgrade it if you don't want to do it yourself.

Re:What the hell

[JustNiz]

Depends on the computer.

Right now with all the new harware standards coming out, ( DDR2, socket 775, SATA, PCI-Express, EM64-T ) the last thing I'd want to do is pump more money into a dead-end system, especially if I'm the kind of person that likes games like Doom3.

Re:What the hell

[tesmako]

I tell myself that I will upgrade it piece by piece over the following years every single time I have bought a new PC.

I never do.

In all honesty it is almost never worth the trouble for the small amount of money one might save, the motherboard, RAM and CPU are typically a few generations behind and updating the graphics card alone would make the CPU too much of a bottleneck. All in all I always end up with the same conclusion, just going off and replacing the whole thing makes economic sense and is a lot less trouble.

The Mac users has it right, very few people actually care about upgradeability.

Re:What the hell

[OmniVector]

lets see. if you have a ddr system, (or god forbid a plane sdram) upgrading it would pretty much entail: new cpu, new mobo, new ram (ddr2). want that new graphics card? pci-express graphics card. ohh. got a new SATA motherboard now. guess i'll get one of those matching SATA drives (10k if you want to endulge). so you haven't upgraded.. power supply + case ($20 on newegg) and your cd rom drive-drives ($20-100 depending on if it's a burner, etc). so you save between $40 and $120 for a new machine if you're upgrading from a machine with reasonable quake3-ut 2003 specs. you'll probably pay $40 - $120 in LABOR for those sorts of upgrades, so really, buying a new machine depending on your old one's age isn't that bad of an idea anymore now is it?

Re:What the hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the faggot mac-zealots got to this one - how dare you flamebait vote it? It's absolutly true.

Re:What the hell

[Anonymous Coward]

God, UPGRADE your computer. Lern how. Idiot consumers that spend hundreds on "new" shit are the bane of this industry. so get a new mainboard and proc, then some extra ram and a new GC. big freakin deal. buying a prebuilt Dell or worse is why these companies get away with slow ram and shitty components. consumers need to educate themselves and stop giving into landfills.

Re:What the hell

[EulerX07]

This isn't flamebait, this is insightful, in a brutal sort of way. I trade in my parts at 90% of their current value when I upgrade. Right now I have a radeon 9800 pro, if I want an X800 pro, I'd get back 281.70$CAN for my current card, and the new X800 would be 659$CAN. So i'd be looking at 370$ to go from high end to bleeding edge. The main selling point would be the 256 meg of textures (I have a 128meg 9800 pro).

So far, I went from an Athlon XP 2200+ to a 2600+, upgraded my ram, switched my motherboard, went from a radeon 9000 to a 9600 to a 9800pro.

Upgrading is a way of life for some PC users.

Re:What the hell

[falcon5768]

k 500 for parts to upgrade your computer.... 500 for a brand new computer with better standards in most cases... Id go with the buying a new computer.... Sorry, yes Im a mac user, but i actually have sat there and priced out buying parts vs getting a new machine since i work in a IT department and in a lot of cases where your upgrading more than one thing, buying a new machine is just much better... getting mem, no, getting just a vid card, no, but getting mem AND a vid card and a new prossesor... get a new computer man

Re:What the hell

[WuphonsReach]

I tell myself that I will upgrade it piece by piece over the following years every single time I have bought a new PC.

RAM/CPU/motherboard are pretty tightly linked. Unless you bought the motherboard or socket type right at the start of a series and are upgrading right before that series gets killed off, it never really works out.

I usually upgrade the video card one year and then replace the CPU/MB/RAM the next year.

The only parts that stay constant from year to year is a good quality case, power-supply and drives.

Re:What the hell

[Nyder]

actually, no, it is still a bad idea in most cases. The only time it's not a bad idea is if you know NOTHING about computers and want to have a free tech support you can call up.

Now, if you want a machine made for special purposes, like gaming, video work, so on, and you know something about computers or can con a friend or family member who does, it's will be cheaper.

how? I'm glad you asked. See, I've always built my and others own computers. You want a quiet Media Center PC for the family room, no problem. You want a system capable of playing Doom3 and your on a budget? no problem.
Doing a little research, it's very easy to find deals, and sales on all the componets you want. Quality componets, not mass produced Dell parts that get made by asian children. okay, maybe it's all made by asian children, but you get the picture. See, if you want certain componets in one of these "computer manufacters" you pay extra. But if you want the tech support, then go ahead and buy a prepaid computer. but remember, you do usually get what you paid for.

Re:What the hell

[EulerX07]

You just don't get it. You're just simply, totally retarded. I just told you I'd switched my mobo already. You make no sense, and you obviously never built a computer from parts. Right now, to increase performance, I could :

- Go from my 9800 pro to a X800 pro, something like 400$ to upgrade.
- Go from my 2600+ CPU to a 3200+ CPU, which would cost me ~180.

So tell me how "getting a new computer man" would be better then just upgrading those two parts for 500$ and wind up with :

- 1 gig of ram (done)
- Asus A7N8X (always been an Asus fan)
- Ati X800 pro
- Athlon 3200+

I have a very spiffy antec case and an Antec True Blue 480 watts power supply. I doubt my "new computer man" would get me this kind of quality for 500$. You know nothing about building computer from parts, keep ordering from catalogues but please spare me your ignorance.

Re:What the hell

[falcon5768]

oh well you know we are talking real people here... not people who think a computer is there 3000 dollar toy....

you know rich moronic skript kiddies...

What OS are Supported?

[Dareth]

What OS are going to be supported by the initial release? Is the first release a dual binary with Linux / Windows version? Will DOOM 3 run on a Win98 machine with the proper hardware? Does Direct X 9.0 support Win98?

Sorry for these "lame" questions. I am a bit out of date. Guess there is no hope of this running on my kick ass Voodoo 3 3500 eh? *wink*

Re:What OS are Supported?

[Tyreth]

The initial release will not have Mac or Linux support, but the Linux binaries will be released shortly after.

http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identi ferID=6737&action=flatview/

Re:What OS are Supported?

[Anonymous Coward]

i hope that their 'shortly after' isn't the same as Bioware's 'shortly after' for Neverwinter Nights...

Re:What OS are Supported?

[bfree]

Hmm, I want to support Id and I want to buy this game. But I want them to know I am buying it to run under linux. Should I go to a store and buy the game and not care? Should I buy it online from them and is there anyway to tell them "Linux Sale"? Should I wait for the OSX version, cause I'd rather be counted with them then with Windows, and would there be any problem with using the OSX media with a x86 Linux? Come on ID, tell me what to do! Set up some way for us to be counted if you aren't making a box!

Video Games Drive Hardware Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Who needs a new sucky Gateway?

Now you do!

Re:Video Games Drive Hardware Sales

[JustNiz]

Why pay premium prices for prebuilt PC's with crap OEM hardware?

Just build your own. Its very easy. It's cheaper and you know exactly what you're getting.

DirectX 9.0?

[David Leppik]

If you're upgrading, look for at least 128 MB of video memory in a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot.

I thought Carmack was a big OpenGL fan. (Maybe the last one in the video game industry.) Why would you need DirectX for Doom? Maybe that's just shorthand for certain shared requirements, such as programmable GPU capabilities.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[juuri]

Capability

That's just a shorthand way of saying "we require pixel shaders".

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[meringuoid]

If you're upgrading, look for at least 128 MB of video memory in a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot.

I thought Carmack was a big OpenGL fan. (Maybe the last one in the video game industry.) Why would you need DirectX for Doom? Maybe that's just shorthand for certain shared requirements, such as programmable GPU capabilities.

Don't know, but the advice given up there is dangerous.

128MB, DirectX 9.0, AGP: that specifies a GeForceFX 5200, the definitive dog of a video card. I've bought one without realising and the only reason it isn't on eBay right now is that it's so shamefully underpowered it runs without a fan... nice DVD viewing card, but some poor sod's going to read that advice and buy the thing for Doom 3!

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[Bios_Hakr]

Direct X is more than just Direct3D...

It also handles sound, input, networking, and who knows what else.

Also, Carmak's biggest prob was with DX5 being much more complicated that OGL. After DX9, he got all quiet about it. While I'm no M$ fanboy, I do see the advantages of having a small group of devs having complete control over DX rather than the 'design by commite' approach of OGL. The fact that M$ also has unlimited resources also helps a lot.

Basicly, today DX blows the socks off OGL. Unfortunately, it also limits you to a specific platform. Let's just hope that DIII also runs on OGL for easy porting to MacOS and Linux.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[h4rdc0d3]

I thought Carmack was a big OpenGL fan. (Maybe the last one in the video game industry.) Why would you need DirectX for Doom? Maybe that's just shorthand for certain shared requirements, such as programmable GPU capabilities.

It uses both actually. OpenGL is the graphics API which ID has always used, but it uses DirectX for the sound and input, etc.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[dasmegabyte]

Let's just hope that DIII also runs on OGL for easy porting to MacOS and Linux.

It does. Linux and MacOS were specifically mentioned at all stages of development, but so was the Xbox, which I'm sure doesn't have as good OGL support as it has DirectX9.

But you write your own wrapper to the API when you make your engine. I'm sure API flexibility was Job 1 for Carmack et al.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Basicly, today DX blows the socks off OGL."

Spoken like someone who has never used either.

OpenGL is, and likely always will be, the better tool. As a side bonus, it's cross-platform. It has been very slow of late because one party on the committee has been purposefully killing every move forward it can with threats of patent litigation and other tricks.

Guess which party that is? I'll give you a hint -- it has a large investment in DX9 and rhymes with "Lycra-Moth".

Despite their efforts, openGL continues to progress. With the release of its own HLSL there's no reason whatsoever to sniff MS' foetid pile of code.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom 3 only runs with OpenGL. DX only "blows the socks off" of OpenGL in the sense that it includes a lot of completely unrelated features like sound, which of course Doom 3 will use separately. For actual graphics programming there's nothing to choose between Direct3D and OpenGL these days except the inevitable native vs portability argument.

That is, you can either have Microsoft's help & support and risk being locked in the trunk or you can insist on portability and risk Microsoft cutting you off altogether out of spite.

The same thing happens in a lot of other places. If you choose Microsoft's UTF-16 approach to character encoding you get lots of Win32-only APIs and tutorials, whereas if you choose UTF-8 Microsoft mostly gets under your feet, but your software interoperates with that written to IETF, W3C etc. standards and with Unix.

Or take 64-bit application software. LP64 is the rule not just on UNIX but from big iron right down to Linux on an Opteron or Mac OS X on the G5, but to get Microsoft to co-operate with your developers you must use their bizarre non-LP64 programming model, and rewrite any code which will benefit from 64-bit integers.

Doom 3 for x86 Linux is working and should be QA'd in time to arrive shortly after the mad rush to get Doom 3 boxes into stores. I'd be shocked if it didn't make it before August is done.

Doom 3 for Mac is supposedly taking a little longer, but I expect it to be more polished when it's done. It may also be available as a boxed product with a Mac logo, unlike the Linux build.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[Sycraft-fu]

As another poster noted, it means they want pixel and vertex shaders, specifically version 2.0.

Genreally speaking, card capabilities are summed up by their DirectX version. DirectX 6 is a base 3d accelerator, DX7 means it supports fixed function hardware T&L, DX8 means it supports 1.1 shaders and DX9 means it supports 2.0 shaders. There's other changes as well that are required, but the progression of the shader/T&L stuff is the major difference game companies usually care about.

This is in a large part because pixel shaders aren't something you can do in software. If you lack vertex shaders, that's ok. The calculations can be done in software, albeit slower, and the result sent to the card. However pixel shaders have to happen after the card has done some work, so there is no way currently (other than full software emulation) to emulate them in software.

So if you hear someone call for a DX9 capable card, what they really want, in all likelyhood, is the 2.0 shaders. It's not so much a matter of the API they are actually programming in, just that if it is fully DX9 capable, they know they have access to the shaders they want.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[Ath]

Carmack has always apparently written clean code. When the Quake source code was leaked years ago, it took someone about 48 hours to port it to OS/2. That was especially funny considering id Software absolutely refused to do it themselves, citing the hassle and lack of interest.

Of course, you still needed the content files from the DOS version.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[dasmegabyte]

The hassle and lack of interest probably had nothing at all to do with the porting process. It's the testing and support process that's more costly. It means each new release must be tested and supported on yet another platform...and I'm sure the volume of OS/2 sales wouldn't come close to covering the costs of supporting it.

You'll notice that, quite often, companies that release software for Windows/Mac/Linux drop support for one or more of these after the product reaches a certain age. In fact, other than Blizzard, I can't think of a game manufacturer who treats either Linux or Mac with the same seriousness as the PC platform. UT2k4 was unplayable for the first few weeks after its release, due to a massive sound bug and only one guy supporting the entirety of the Mac population. It's still inordinately slow, though Ryan does great work for one guy.

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[kennycoder]

Carmack needs DirectX, not Direct 3D.. don't forget that directX includes directsound directinput and some networking stuff, but this last one isn't used widely. Opengl is quite better that direct3d.. lets say is easier to use and all OS compatible, even on PDAs with Opengl ES :)

Re:DirectX 9.0?

[Tim Browse]

Hmmm...care to give me an example of DirectSound, DirectInput or networking stuff that is provided by "...a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot" ? :-)

</pedantic>

Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[ayeco]

Wait wait wait a minute, Doom II's sys reqs were:

486 processor operating at a minimum of 66MHz or any Pentium® /Athlon® processors

8 MB RAM

20 MB of uncompressed hard disk space

100MB of free hard drive space for the

Windows swap file (in addition to install space)

Seems like quite a jump for just one point.

Work Computers

[rwiedower]

I personally spec'd out the machines at my office, and all have 512mb of memory. I'm not sure why you'd need a gig of memory unless you were doing a great deal of image/video editing. For my users, 512mb is massive overkill, but it means that they should be able to use these machines for at least 5 years. (All they do is word processing and internet surfing.)

On the plus side, it means we're already compliant for Doom 3. Yay!

Re:Work Computers

[DaHat]

Or you are like me and keep many windows and applications running at once... take my word for it, my home machine cries when I use it and even the gig of ram on it isn't always enough... while at work though I'm forced to live under a 256 meg ceiling... grrr.

Re:Work Computers

[benzapp]

I dunno, I keep several word and excel documents open at once, as well as photoshop, MapPoint, Outlook, SPSS, and a business specific database open all the time... with 512 megs of ram it isn't that quick. This is especialy true if I am working with a large data set.

If you are just writing small documents in word, maybe its not a big deal... but if you are writing analytical reports and you are pulling data from several sources... you can go through that much ram very quickly.

Re:Work Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

And that sounds just like an average user, doesnt it?

Re:Work Computers

[Dot.Com.CEO]

When I was running Windows (1Gb of RAM) I routinely had AT LEAST 600Mb of memory free, no matter how many applications I was running at the same time. The only time I reached the limit was when I used a Premiere filter on a 90 minute dv file, but even then I could very much use my computer. In Linux I have much the same experience with a properly configured swap policy. So what do you do that taxes even one giga of memory? Do you run oracle databases at home?

Re:Work Computers

[jazmataz23]

Actually, yes. Most folks don't actually close any application, they just leave it open, and move on to the next thing.

I do this myself, despite having cut my teeth on Mac System 7, where it was entirely possible to leave apps running (and in memory, virtual or otherwise) without any windows open at all.

You look at a random taskbar at my office at any given time, you'll see Outlook, Word, Excel, Photoshop, MapPoint, and on and on. Of course, personal knowledge of a topic is no prerequisite for posting on /.

jaz

Re:Work Computers

[NeoFunk]

Games are starting to tax 1 gb of memory. Far Cry does. And Doom 3 will.

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

I've got 151mb free on my 512mb WinXP box here. I'm running Trillian, iTunes, Palm Desktop, Firebird, and Thunderbird.

I hit that swap file not-infrequently. I want another 512.

Re:Work Computers

[Machine9]

Try compressing a 3000x4500 pixel photoshop file with 38 layers into a jpeg, and see what happens.

Re:Work Computers

[HFXPro]

Lose iTunes and use Winamp instead. Sure you don't get the iTunes music store. However, you will suddenly find you have almost 100 megs more free, and a much more responsive system. It is why I dumped iTunes 2 weeks after installing it.

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

No.

The iTunes database is THE killer feature. Winamp's media library is a pale, pale imitation. Particularly since I found musicmobs.com, iTunes has distinguished itself from the competition. And I haven't TOUCHED the iTMS. I won't pay a buck a track for DRMed songs.

iTunes is the best way I've found to manage my (medium sized) music library. I've been using it to clean up my ID3 tags, after looking for years for a suitable tool that would work with Winamp.

Winamp was my media player of choice for a long time, and WA5 is a great piece of software. But iTunes does what I need it to do, and I'm willing to give up a little memory and processor time for the enhanced utility.

And, when my iPod arrives, it'll be all ready to go. : )

Re:Work Computers

[sqrt(2)]

foobar2000 puts iTunes and Winamp5 to shame in memory footprint. Foobar2000 uses a tiny 2MB or memory with a 400 song playlist and while playing music. It also comes with the Mass Tagger plugin for ID3 tag editing.

There is also an iPod plugin for Foobar in development that will give you all of iTunes iPod functionality. Currently it only can read the iPod DB, but it is in development.

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

I'll check it out once it can read, write, and not hose the iTunes database. : )

Does it do smart playlists (that is, query-based playlists that I can change on the fly)?

Thanks for the tip. Now, I'm a little curious as to what happens with that memory footprint when I point it at my 4500 song library...

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

Wow.

I downloaded it to check it out, tried to add all my music, and it completely shit the bed.

Might have a nice low memory footprint, but that doesn't help me if it doesn't work...

Oh well. iTunes it is!

Re:Work Computers

[Hes Nikke]

i'd almost be willing to bet good money that a full half of that memory use is iTunes. the windows port is quit the RAM hog. or so i've heard.

Re:Work Computers

[Simon Garlick]

> For my users, 512mb is massive overkill

I guess none of your users have Photoshop 6 installed then...

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

Sure. But iTunes still WORKS BETTER. Have you used it at all?

Once I figured out what they were trying to accomplish with that xml database, it was a revelation. I'm serious: That database kicks ass. It makes managing a big music collection FAR simpler.

I did finally get FOobar to work, but the interface is way assy. I'll be glad to give iTunes all the RAM it wants.

Re:Work Computers

[sqrt(2)]

Strange, I never had a problem, even with massive playlists.

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

I did finally get it to work. That interface needs some ///serious/// work. It's inferior to Winamp's media library, which isn't a patch on iTunes.

I'm glad it works for you, but it doesn't scratch my itch...

Re:Work Computers

[AbRASiON]

I beleive foobar is much like firefox and miranda in it's clean tight clode style and amazingly customisable

most "hardcore" mp3 addicts swear by it, because once it's setup properly it's pretty intense - or so i hear.

personally i found it a bit shitty too - i quite like itunes and winamp 5 - but i'm sticking to winamp until my id3's are fixed - a seemingly endless job - even with tag and rename :/

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

Have you tried using iTunes to fix your mp3's? For me, it was a constant struggle with tag & rename and winamp, but it was a cinch in iTunes.

That assumes that there is SOME data in the tag, because if everything's just encoded by filename, I don't think iTunes can parse the filesystem hierarchy.

At first, I was livid that iTunes had flattened my genre\artist\album structure to artist\album, but that just encouraged me to go fix all my genre tags (which wound up being quite easy) and using smart playlists to organize my tunes.

Good luck. : )

Re:Work Computers

[AbRASiON]

I'm kind of anal with my sorting.

I've adopted the following below
(blatantly ripped from a shacknews.com member)
http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=3896736

Ahh, you asked the right person. (ok, so you didn't ask directly, but I'm answering anyways).

I have a fairly large collection myself, and the system I use is simple, yet effective.

Level 1: Divide the songs into genre categories. The most important thing here is to use categories that make sense to YOU. So, even if a band could fit into multiple genres, choose the one that you think fits it best and that you'll remember. These are the genre categories I personally use:

!New MP3s (as of yet uncategorized, I put mp3s in here as I get them, then put them into the main collection when I have enough of an artist or whatever)
Ambient (wide genre encompassing folk, new age, ambient, world etc. Stuff like Enya or Yanni or Loreena McKennit or Stars of the Lid)
Audio Books
Christmas
Classic (mainly classic rock/prog stuff, so we're talking Led Zeppelin, Yes, Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd etc)
Classical
Game Soundtracks
Humour
Industrial
Metal (mainly heavier stuff.. I put Metallica and Megadeth etc into Rock and Alternative)
Other (stuff which just doesn't fit... speeches, bass tests, sound effects etc)
Pop
Rap and Hip Hop
Rock and Alternative
Soundtracks (movie)
Techno (basically all modern electronica that's not trance, been meaning to put sub categories in here)
Trance (I have a TON, so it gets its own directory)

Level 2: Within the genre categories, music is organized by Artist. So, "Madonna" is a subdir within "Pop", and "Tangerine Dream" is a subdir within "Ambient".

Level 3: Within the artists directories, music is sorted by Album using a specific naming format. MP3s not associated with a complete album are just loose in the artist directory. Album directories are named thusly:

\Artist - ReleaseDate - AlbumName

So, the path to Dream Theater's "Scenes from a Memory" would look like this:

H:\MP3s\Metal\Dream Theater\Dream Theater - 1999 - Scenes from a Memory\

This is so that the albums are sorted by date, earliest to latest. The artist name is in the directory name so that if you decide to take that directory and send it to someone, or put it elsewhere, the artist is still associated with it. Modularity is the key here. Any single piece of the collection should be able to stand and be informative on it's own (a directory called "Scenes from a Memory" all by itself doesn't tell me much about what's inside).

Level 4: Mp3 Filenames. This is very important. A program calle "Tag&Rename" is an excellent tool for renaming large amounts of MP3s to specific standards/templates. If an mp3 is not part of an album, it goes loose in the artist directory with the following naming format:

Artist - SongTitle.mp3

If an mp3 IS part of an album and in the appropriate directory, it is named thusly:

Artist - XX - SongTitle.mp3

Where "XX" is the two digit track number. It is important that it's two digits so that albums with more than 9 tracks are sorted correctly, and it's important that the artist name is BEFORE the track number so that if you ever take that mp3 OUT of the dir and put it into an unsorted collection of mp3s (say you send it to someone), it will still sort with other mp3s from the same artist in the directory.

BAD
01 - Gamma Ray - Induction
01 - Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man
02 - Gamma Ray - Dethrone Tyranny
02 - Iron Maiden - Ghost of the Navigator

GOOD
Gamma Ray - 01 - Induction
Gamma Ray - 02 - Dethrone Tyranny
Iron Maiden - 01 - The Wicker Man
Iron Maiden - 02 - Ghost of the Navigator

So, the path to Loreena McKennitt's "La Serenissima" would be:

H:\MP3s\Ambient\Loreena McKennitt\Loreena McKennitt - 1997 - The Book of Secrets\Loreena McKennitt - 06 - La Serenissima.mp3

Yeah. Hope that's helpful.

Re:Work Computers

[Hes Nikke]

you misunderstood. iTunes on Mac OS X uses 50 MiB on my 1 GiB of RAM. my commend is that the *port* is a major RAM hog.

by the way, that XML database is the reason apples iLife integrates so well. :D

so... what's FOobar? or are you referring to foobar?

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

Fair enough. You might note that iTunes can handle all that information in the ID3 tag, and you can use smart playlists (think queries) to suit your listening fancy.

So, when I get new music what I do is immediately clear any genre tag that might have been applied by somebody with a different set of sensibilities than I have. I'll listen to it a couple times over a few days, give it a rating (which can be used as a search criterion) and pick a genre. I can also add in the date the album came out (I haven't done this with any consistency at all yet) and, of course, assign track and disc numbers (if necessary).

So, instead of having a big hierarchial table (what if I want ALL the Madonna music, not just her "Pop" stuff?) I have a nice database I can query (Play me all music with an artist including Madonna) or (Play me all music with a genre of "pop" that has a rating of three stars or greater) etc etc etc.

A friend of mine really enjoys his "High School" playlist. He set up a smart playlist that brings back music that came out during his sentence in high school, some of which he knew at the time and some he didn't. It's a good idea, and a difficult one to implement with a filename-based approach.

I don't mean to sound like an evangelist, but I've been looking for a flexible, easy to use way of organizing and querying my music, and iTunes has done /absolutely everything/ I could ask of it.

Except take up less memory. Currently, it is only a little less bloated than Firefox. Remember when Firefox was supposed to be a lightweight browser?

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

I'm sorry, I was cross posting from another branch of this discussion.

Foobar is (to my first impression) a really crappy MP3 player whose only virtue seems to be "doesn't take much RAM". I was seriously underwhelmed.

Your iTunes takes a bit more RAM than my iTunes. So I wouldn't call it a "major" RAM hog, and it is certainly worth the bloat IMO.

I am in the final stages of finally acquiring a Powerbook. I've been a Mac geek for a while, but only with Classic OS. I am seriously amped about playing with some nice state-of-the-art Mac hardware with OSX.

Color me gleeful. : ) Come to me, beautiful 12" 1.33 gHz Powerbook of my dreams!

Re:Work Computers

[AbRASiON]

Hey whoah I've misled you.

I'm agreeing with you entirely - that post is about the filename structure - when I've successfully branded my material by file name AND id3 (thoroughly) then I'll drop it into itunes - it's the best thing since sliced bread for the precise reasons you mentioned, but before then it's not that good.

HOWEVER as I'm strict with precisely how I want to brand my music I don't think itunes will have the ability to actually help me with the directory structure or the id3 tags for over 6000 songs (no doubt it has some id3 features but tag and rename is the bizzo) :( hence until then i'll use winamp 5.

I wouldn't mind a tool like encspot too which could scan all my mp3's and find pops / clicks / songs ending early and tell me - only better than encspot :(

I ALSO wouldn't mind a tool which does an audio compare (not a binary file compare) to find dupes - but that would be extremely difficult to code.

Re:Work Computers

[Moofie]

If you tell iTunes to keep your music organized, it will TOTALLY NUKE your directory structure and make you a Very Sad Person. It happened to me, and I was really pissed (until I decided I didn't care about the file structure).

iTunes' ID3 tag editing is pretty darn robust, though. Give it a good once over...I vastly prefer it to Tag & Rename for pure ID3 management (although it can do very little with file name and file structure).

And I, too, would love to be able to nuke duplicates. I just blew through a 5000 files by hand in iTunes, getting rid of dupes. Ideally, the app would go through all the audio and ask you "Hey, these two sound the same to me. I'll play one in the R speaker and one int the L, and you tell me if you want me to get rid of one."

Anyhow. Maybe I'll check out encspot and see if it's vaguely useful. What I really want, though, is for musicMobs.com to be able to populate the album art in iTunes. That would be teh roolz.

Re:Work Computers

[zebs]

mp3ext

Very handy program, integrates with Windows... select a batch of mp3s, right click, properties, mp3info. Very customisable handles batches of files pretty well.

For me and many others..

[dalamarian]

If you can find a bucket for your saliva due to excessive drool, wait a few months to buy the game/upgrades. Or just buy the game and deal with turning down graphics and slightly slower gameplay. It will always save a bunch of money.

seems kind of ridiculous

[portscan]

The article's ultimate suggestion is to buy a new PC. For this game. Seriously.

It also suggests that just getting a new processor is not enough "unless you take joy in swapping out a motherboard or building your own system." I understand that your current motherboard may not support a 1.5GHz processor, but to the uninitiated, this sounds quite scary. It makes it seem like a new motherboard is always necessary for a new processor, which is clearly not the case.

Isn't this game projected to be released on PS2, XBox, or GameCube? This would cost $100-$150, cheaper if bought used.

Those hardcore gamers who are set on a new PC will buy one anyway. Those for whom this article would be informative are being given the wrong advice.

Re:seems kind of ridiculous

[curtisk]

Isn't this game projected to be released on PS2, XBox, or GameCube? This would cost $100-$150, cheaper if bought used.

XBox for sure, ported by Vicarious Visions The release date for that one was beginning of October IIRC. I'm looking forward to the game, and I do need a PC upgrade, but I may wait for XBox version

Re:seems kind of ridiculous

[halowolf]

I'm looking forward to the game, and I do need a PC upgrade, but I may wait for XBox version

I had thought about getting it for XBOX as well, but when you look at the fact that many more mods and extensionns will be made to the PC D3 vs the XBOX D3, then the PC version will end up being a bigger bang for your buck (after ignoring the PC hardware platform requirements that is). Think of it as a bigger play time for your buck...

Re:seems kind of ridiculous

[portscan]

maybe content will be available via xbox live ($50 for the year, rather than several hundred--or thousand--for a pc upgrade or new pc).

xbox live is big these days.

But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[Gothmolly]

It will be worth it. When has Carmack ever done us wrong?

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[Billobob]

When he caused John Romero to leave his company, and subsequently make all of us his bitches.

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of us that enjoy the single-player experience every game since Doom 2 has sucked balls when it comes to single player.

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[Erik Hollensbe]

J.C. is an excellent programmer, but IMO the games they've been creating since Quake I normally are technology expositions than anything else.

I really hope DooM ]I[ surprises me, but I'm going to wait to hear rave reviews from friends before I actually buy the game.

However, I normally buy one or two games based on iD's engines, so that's normally how they make money off of me.

P.S. Yes, I ... err... obtained the E3 Alpha Demo.

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking dakatana...

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[Alioth]

Totally OT, but:

Escape from filtered Port 25 hell. Ask me about Port 26 relay service.

Why not use port 587 (submission) - this is the 'official' port to do this kind of service on.

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[BinaryC]

- It's Doom 3 not Doom III or Doom ]I[
- It's id not iD or ID

Re:But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade

[AbRASiON]

Yes he has,......

The first time was Quake 2 (opinion of course, it wasn't too bad but it had nothing to do with quake - talk about lack of contiuing a theme / universe (Q1)

Then Q3 - which if you're a single player kind of person SUCKED (and yes I know they said it's multi before releasing, but please - call it "quake arena" not "quake 3" - people expect a single player sequel to quake 2) (I know several disapointed gamers with Q3 - not everyone is a hardcore id nut.

Then finally id insulted even most of the hardcore with that asstastic Quake 3 Team arena - which should have shipped with Q3 in the first place (ask epic they seem to support their MP crowd)

While I love John's code, the games themselves in _my opinion_ have severely dropped in quality ever since Q1.

What about PowerPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

1.5 Ghz is for x86, what about the PPC? Whould a 1.25 Ghz G4 be enough?

Re:What about PowerPC?

[bedouin]

I was thinking Doom 3 would be limited to G5s, until I realized how many Macs are dual-CPU G4s, which should be adequate.

Re:What about PowerPC?

[Jeremy Erwin]

It depends on how many threads and processes are used. As it turns out, most 3d games are single threaded, with the exception of the audio. So, a dualie might be able to offload system functions and audio onto the second cpu-- a few frames per second faster, perhaps, but no great improvement. On the other hand, you might be able to run a few recompilation runs in the background, provided memory is not in contention.

The dual G5s have a slightly more intelligent memory architecture, so contention for memory bandwidth might not be such a problem.

I'm surprised it works with 384MB

[Jarnis]

384MB is so low. Lots of current games are already unplayable with high details on at 512MB. Planetside, SWG, DAOC and numerous others (tho mostly online games) are total lagfests without 1GB RAM already.

If you had asked my guess on reqs, it would've been something like 512MB, 2Ghz, GF4/Radeon9500. I'm surprised how low they actually are.

Re:I'm surprised it works with 384MB

[natron 2.0]

I am not. Perhaps for once a game will be released with decent code and does not require "the best of the best" with decent code I am sure many games could run with 384 megs of RAM.

Re:I'm surprised it works with 384MB

[jmays]

I disagree. I play SWG with high detail on 512MB and the game is not a lagfest.

This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[boschmorden]

This should be considered a minimum for LOADING the game. I've played most of the first person shooters out there for the last few years. 256MB of RAM, or even 384MB is too little. Even with a nice graphics card your framerates will be very very low. I think if anyone wants to play and enjoy any of the games lately you'll need a minimum of 512, and even at that you'll need a gig to be comfortable. I think id is in a position where they can't raise the bar to 512 because they'd lose out on sales of people buying the game that had less. I think these people will purchase the game and realize they need more and go out and buy it.

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit. obviously not the same requirements, but for ET the min requirement is a 32 meg gfx card. I play it just fine with a 16 meg Voodoo Banshee. Min requirements are just a "lets cover our ass" thing to stop people with low spec machines demanding their money back + sueing for emotional distress at not being able to be a proper n00b

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, I'm at work so have to post as AC, but:

What's the deal with >30 fps? I am still under the delusion that physiologically the human eye can't distinguish anything much faster than about 30 fps. If that's the case, what's the point of 100+ fps? Couldn't that power that's being used for all the unneccessary frames be used for better AI, better physics models, etc.?

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[prefect42]

People like to make complicated issues simple, which is where the 30fps myth came about. It's much more complicated than that. 30fps where objects are moving in the z direction almost always appears smooth as butter, but 30 fps with things moving across you (either x or y) and you'll be far more likely to notice it. You'll get into problems if you start to use spare power for AI, since the game will get harder the faster the processor (IYSWIM).

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, it has nothing to do with the fps. Ever played on an Amiga? Everything went smooth as butter since it was synced with the vertical retrace (blanking) of the monitor/TV-setup. This was done in hardware with sprites and scrolling, thus every game sported fantastic animation.

For smooth animations, that's what's needed. Your brain will filter out the periods the monitor is blank, thus the motion will appear smooth.

Most 3D games are so complex, they won't always fit a frame within so short a time, but 2D scroller games and very simple 3D ought to be possible to have smooth. And when I say smooth, I mean *smooooooooth*. Most PC games (99.9%) have not been near that at all. It's an impossible task with so much hardware diversity.

I made a prototype scroller game with sound for PC (386) in my days, which was *smooth*. It wasn't easy, the slightest timing issues would kill the smoothness since it was all in software, but it was possible. It requires such a mastery of timing , that most modern games fails to do this even now. But the PC-audience is used to see jagged motion, so the effort is probably not worth it.

If you play old, excellent and properly made games on modern hardware. Eg. Quake 3, I think it will become smooth. But if the programmer didn't sync correctly, it will just run very fast or jagg now and then. Nothing will prevent jagging if you suddenly start computing lots of stuff when the monitor are in vertical retrace. Your code should check for this, and make drawing the next scene a priority.

UT on the other hand I have worse experiences with. It's a nice engine, the game was more interesting than Quake 3, but it isn't properly synced.

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd agree. I played Return to Castle Wolfenstein on a PIII 1.2 Ghz with 512 Megs of RAM, and it was swapping noticeably. The game would play ok, but when you finally quit you'd notice that the OS had to reload all the stuff swapped out and it'd take several minutes to recover.

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[Sunda666]

On linux/nvidia drivers just export

__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1

before starting the game. It will do exactly what you say;

unfortunately, in my experience, it is necessary to tweak down the eye-candy a bit so the game can always refresh @ 85HZ (my monitor's 1024x768 refresh rate). In regular quake3 it is trivial, but it's a bit tricky in Urban Terror with the damned smoke grenades and whatnot; If the game goes below the monitor's rate with this flag on things start to get 'interesting' :)

cheers.

Re:This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play

[prefect42]

I'd say you're nearly on it there. The problem is one of jitter. Frames are not calculated for the exact moment they're going to be displayed. On the Amiga, you'd design your 3D game to be 25fps or whatever, and you'd know it was always going to be 25fps, since you made sure that was always the case by changing the level design anywhere you can't maintain it. There was no jitter, since you were displaying frames aligned with the refresh rate.

Now with varying hardware, and tougher 3D graphics you enter into a problem where you've no idea how long it'll take to calculate the frame. Do you assume that it'll fit within one refresh, and thus calculate the frame for now + 1/72th second (or whatever), or do you think it'll take two frames and go for 1/36th? Or do you just sod it, and calculate for now and get meaningless 200fps where more than half the frames are never displayed?

The real trick is to calculate a few frames ahead to smooth out the hard from the easy, and to try and remove that jitter by varying when you're generating a frame for. Syncing buffer swaps with the monitor sync is a given.

Dang that system will almost run Longhorn

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for my personal copy of a DRM-build operating system...

Sure

[laserbeak]

I love doom 3, sure, and i can't wait. But this news was the _least_ surprising, and is infact OLD NEWS, by at least 2 weeks, maybe even a month (i usually don't take too much notice with game system requirements..).

Original Doom on 386's

[vasqzr]

Before anyone comes out and says 'Doom ran fine on my 386', I'm going to state that you need a FAST 486DX2/50 to really play Doom. A slower 486 would work as long as there were not a lot of objects on the screen, and you scaled the screen down a little...but for pause-free, fragging action, you really need a 486/66 or a fast 50mhz computer.

Re:Original Doom on 386's

[tsch]

it only ran ok on my 386...and that was when i used a boot disc.

and that was after I put in 12 MB of RAM, too (T_T)

darn 386/sx-16

Such a tease!

[juggaleaux]

I'm using a Voodoo Banshee card from 1998, you insensitive clod!

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom was awesome because it was pretty much the only game around at that time that did what it did. It was really cool.

Now there are 2^1413123 FPS games, and it's old hat; is Doom 3 really worth it?

P.S. I don't think the system requirements are that steep; I've been able to meet them for over a year, and haven't upgraded much recently. (Just got a athlon 2400+ because the 2200+ was too hot)

It is not THAT simple, though

[WARM3CH]

When games announce the minimum requirements, they usually just mean a system that can just run the program but not they don't mean you can actually enjoy playing the game on such a machine. For example, Unreal Tournament 2004 minimum requirement is 256MB RAM but in practice, below 1GB you'll face paging that would slowdown the game every now and then. Now, 386MB for the minimum? That's in fact a huge requirement and I know of no other game with such a minimum requirements. If the guideline is 4 times the memory of the minimum system, that means you need something like 1.5GB RAM for a an acceptable gaming experience.

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Tim C]

I don't suppose you'll need a gig and a half, but you are right about the minimum spec generally being the bare minimum. I have 512MB in my machine, and UT2k4 takes a geological age to load a level while playing online if I have "preload all skins" on. Without it, it loads much quicker (but still not exactly quickly), but has the odd pause now and then in game while it loads up a skin (which to me is far preferable).

Either way, I definitely need some more memory...

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[bhtooefr]

The minimum spec is NOT always the bare minimum. Unreal Tournament GOTY is known to run on a 233MHz Pentium MMX (OK, so even with a nice TNT2 (32MB, w00t!), it only gets 10FPS, but I know it works, at least on Wine (which might hurt my performance but help the likelyhood of it running on an older processor than it's designed for - and yes, I know there's a Linux version, but I don't have CD 2)), when it requires a 233MHz Pentium II. Windows XP is known to run on a 20MHz Pentium (it was in an underclocking contest) with 32MB RAM, and a 63MHz (again underclocked) Pentium Overdrive with 18MB RAM (a bug in WinXP means it can only display down to 20 in the Computer Properties), even though it supposedly requires a Pentium II 233 with 64MB RAM.

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Vaevictis666]

Do it - I went up to a gig from 512, and man UT just screams along now. It used to page out horribly, but now it runs with ~100MB to spare in ram while I'm playing, though it does still put some things in swap.

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Do it - I went up to a gig from 512, and man UT just screams along now.

Indeed. I went from a Radeon VIVO (equivalent to 7000 series) and 512MB of ram to a GeForce 5900 and 1.5 gig of ram and the difference is staggering.

Also, my penis is now HYOOGE and my hair grew back!

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[xgamer04]

Actually, the "minimum" requirement is usually one that means "relatively playable". Sure, you can probably run the game on a 1 ghz athlon, but it wouldn't be playable.

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a UT 2004 addict and I was thinking about upgrading from 512 to a gig, I didn't think it would do much though. But now that Painkiller is out and with Doom 3 coming soon I think I may be upgrading soon. By the way, I haven't tried Painkiller yet, I was gonna buy it today but unfortunately it's now a crime for being under 18 and buying a "violent" video game, do you know if it's any good?

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[drinkypoo]

I second this. Also, my windows XP boot time was cut in half when I went from a half-gig to a gig. I have a lot of crap loading at startup though (14 icons in my system tray right now...)

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Dave2 Wickham]

I nicked my brother's UT GOTY CD which came with his new system, and used the Linux installer - it all installed fine after I un-uzd the files; what's on CD 2 that you need? (This version of UT GOTY didn't have a CD 2 :P).

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[HFXPro]

If you have that many things running, perhaps if you can try to cut that down. You might also mess with the prefetch settings. I load up about 7 apps and go from cold boot to desktop in less then 30 seconds. Can't say that for linux sadly. :-(

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[bhtooefr]

The installer that you're looking for is ut-goty-install-436.run. BTW, when that UT GOTY CD was used on Windows, did it give you a "Game of the Year Edition" line below the Unreal Tournament logo when you hit ESC to get out of the intro movie? If not, it was one of those slap-a-game-of-the-year-sticker-on-a-non-GOTY-CD versions. Quite misleading. Otherwise, they didn't include the second CD because it seems to only be a few bonus maps (that are on the first CD) and maybe the Linux binaries.

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Dave2 Wickham]

Haven't a clue, not installed it on Windows, though IIRC my brother's did say GOTY on the splash screen. I could be wrong though.

(Can't play UT anyway, it makes me feel motion sick. Ah well, back to Instagib Jailbreak in UT2004.)

Re:It is not THAT simple, though

[Dave2 Wickham]

And just a couple of seconds after hitting submit, I realised how I could find out. The CD just says "Unreal Tournament", but the Windows installer (run in WINE) says "Unreal Tournament G.O.T.Y. Edition". I just used the normal UT installer to install it.

Minimum = Realistic?

[Thieron]

Just how good would these minimum requirements be? I've seen some software that will "run" in minimum situations, but it is really not worth a thing.

But how many people buy PCs now with only 256MB Ram? XP will run horrible on just that much. I recently bought a new PC. I got 512MB and an AMD3000+ for around $500. I could've gone with 256MB for a little less, but anything more than the cheapest PCs seem to come with more RAM now.

Does anyone have an older PC that they plan to play games on? Just how powerful will the recommended PC need to be? I personally doubt many people will be upgrading older PCs for game play. It is simpler to just buy a newer one now, as even the cheaper new ones are a siginificant jump.

Re:Minimum = Realistic?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how many people buy PCs now with only 256MB Ram? XP will run horrible on just that much.

XP will NOT run horrible on 256MB Ram. Some apps might run horrible on that (heck, some apps run horrible even on 1GB ram), but XP itself does not.

Re:Minimum = Realistic?

[Thieron]

Perhaps. It might also depend on what horrible is. I like to be able to boot up a machine and not have it immediately start using the swap file. On one PC I've used, with 256MB RAM. XP would start using the swap with no apps loaded.

I've found that Win2000 will run decent with 256mb and well with 512. XP runs pretty well with 512mb. Currently I run 1gb RAM only because I had an extra chip after a CPU fried on me. My other machines are a win2000 machine with 256mb and an XP machine with 192mb RAM (and is no longer in use).

Re:Minimum = Realistic?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how many people buy PCs now with only 256MB Ram? XP will run horrible on just that much. I recently bought a new PC. I got 512MB and an AMD3000+ for around $500. I could've gone with 256MB for a little less, but anything more than the cheapest PCs seem to come with more RAM now.

Unfortunately, in order to meet price points, a lot of vendors still ship with only 256MB of RAM. It's been a never-ending, 10-year personal battle that everytime someone comes and asks me about system specs I have to repeat the mantra "double the memory and go with a slower CPU".

You goofed up if you only got 512MB. Minimum useful for a new machine these days is 1GB. CPUs and memory no longer double in speed every 12-18 months, so that machine will last you 5 years. Unfortunately, memory requirements are still going up at the usual rate.

Re:Minimum = Realistic?

[loraksus]

Or maybe he didn't want to get raped by the oem / system builder. Their RAM prices tend to be a bit above what you can expect to pay retail.

Over heating

[Quirk]

Why don't they spec the cooling system or the time it will take to turn your system into a smoldering slag heap. I run a 2.8 w/ 512 and a radeon 9200 se w/128 and can't play Halo for more than an hour without my system running up against the lower end of over heating.

Re:Over heating

[smcavoy]

Spec a cooling system? Why don't they just tell you what model of Compaq you should buy.
But seriously, probably because they assume anyone who builds their own system would know enough to keep cooling in mind when building it.

Not quite there...

[paranoid.android]

I don't suppose half a gig of RAM will make up for being 0.1 GHz short and having a GeForce 2 instead of 3...

If only I had the cash to upgrade. Stupid kid, messing with my video games!

Dual CPU support?

[TheVidiot]

I know it's not a popular item for games, but does anyone know if Doom3 will support dual processors?

Re:Dual CPU support?

[Malc]

Quake 3 was very nice on dual proc systems. I was able to get away with less individual CPU power. It didn't max out both CPUs all of the time. I found that the framerates didn't drop as much as on even much more powerful machines when a lot was going on - i.e. the framerate was more consistent. I believe it was implemented as a simple producer-consumer pattern, with perhaps the graphics in one thread and the game logic in another.

I seem to remember at the time that I had a choice of a single P3 500 (or 550??) or dual P2 450 for significantly less. Later when processors where in the 1.5-2GHz range I upgraded to dual P3 850. Total cost of 4 CPUs was only slighly more than that P3 500 I had originally considered! I still perfer how my dual P3-850 handles compared with my P-M 1.7GHz laptop... it might take longer on individual tasks like compilation or ripping music, but it remains more responsive and snappy feeling.

So yes, is Doom 3 multi-threaded?

Re:Dual CPU support?

[bedouin]

You'd think the Mac version would have to, since the entire PowerMac line is dual-CPU now.

Re:Dual CPU support?

[Have Blue]

id actually tried that with Quake 3 for the mac- it's very hard to get greatly improved SMP performance out of a game if it wasn't designed from the beginning with that in mind. However, MP macs will be faster than their SP equivalents anyway since they can shunt other processes onto the second processor to free up more of the one the game is using.

Re:Dual CPU support?

[Malc]

Quake 3 was designed with SMP in mind. I used to take advantage of it on the PC.

I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[foidulus]

till I find out what the min requirements for Duke Nukem Forever are.

Re:I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[pandrijeczko]

It'll need a 412 GHz Pentium 15 processor, 59 terraflops of RAM and a control uplink to geostationary orbit satellite lasers - to ensure the Earth survives long enough for it to come out once that asteroid that's due to hit us in the next 10,000 years has been taken care of.

Re:I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[daehrednud]

Infinite life span?

Re:I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[zardor]

You had better get the flux capactor upgrade first........

Re:I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

Bambleweeny 57 Submeson Brain
Atomic Vector Plotter
Fresh Cup of Really Hot Tea.

Re:I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess how long you'll be waiting?

I'll give you a hint, it starts with F, ends in R, and is the subtitle...

Anyone want to place bets on which comes first, DNF or TF2?

Re:I think I am going to hold off on upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

But will it make the hostess' undergarments jump one foot to the right? :)

Er... dunno if my card is good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

$80 GeForce FX 5200. Is an FX newer than a 3???

Re:Er... dunno if my card is good enough

[jazmataz23]

Newer? yes. Better? well..

Re:Er... dunno if my card is good enough

[kundor]

FX is a GeForce 5.

Well, then you are stuck with ATI

[cnelzie]

I have personally never been overly fond of ATI's support for DirectX over OpenGL. The reason is fairly simple...

OpenGL is more or less... well Open. It's available on a plethora of platforms. From Windows to several *NIX types to MacOSX to Linux.

DirectX? Well, that's Microsoft. You have to run Microsoft products to use it and that locks you into a Microsoft system. Let's see, it's availabe on Microsoft Windows and uh... Microsoft Windows and uh.. let me see, this is a tough one... Hmm... I know Microsoft Windows!!!

I vote Open over closed/proprietary with my dollars as often as I can. I want to see a PC market of choices, not a bleak one flavor, one size for 'all', one choice.

Re:Well, then you are stuck with ATI

[Jeremy Erwin]

what the...

The days of DirectX-only cards are long behind us. ATI supports OpenGL just fine, thank you.

OpenGL just happens to expose the design choices made by ATI and nVidia more readily, because most of the advanced functionality is exposed through vendor specific extensions. Later, the OpenGL Architectural Review Board may adopt them as ARB extensions, which signals to rest of the vendors that they should really think about implementing them, if they haven't already...

Carmack has griped before about nVidia's inconsistent floating point behavior-- certain nVidia cards ran the ARB standard code path quite slowly, and thus required custom code paths to achieve decent performance.
But this gripe was 18 months ago, perhaps the pendulum has swung back.

Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[jvmatthe]

Wait for the Xbox version to come out. An Xbox plus Doom 3 will set you back $200, plus tax. If you don't have anything against Microsoft's console, it's obviously the best choice.

Personally, I'm waiting for the Linux binary, since my Linux box it appears to have sufficient specs. I do regret that binary-only drivers (for my ATI or NVIDIA card) will probably be required.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[dave420]

I hear people going on about binary drivers, but what's the problem? You're running an OS on less than 3% of desktops out there - you should be happy you're getting any drivers at all! :)

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Zed2K]

Only problem with that is you'll have to play a first person shooter at a lower resolution on a tv with a controller.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Lord of the Wazz]

I'm guessing that the game itself will be binary-only too, so why the gripe about the drivers?

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[omicronish]

I recall the Xbox version of Doom 3 having modifications such as monster placement in levels to cope with Xbox's inferior graphics hardware (compared to what PCs are capable of). Can anyone verify this?

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Because games don't run with super-user rights. Drivers do.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[jvmatthe]

Whether it's a truly meaningful distinction or not, I tend to classify game software as entertainment (and then I don't care as much about the binary-only nature) and drivers as an essential part of using hardware I've purchased (in which case I'd like the Freedom to use it fully, in the GNU sense of Freedom). As I said, a personal choice to classify those differently, and I can certainly understand people being more or less radical than that.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[dave420]

Oh of course. I was trolling. I was stating a fact, showing how economically unviable open-source drivers are to the manufacturer, and of course it's trolling. Jeez, people, how about some objectivity? You are interested in facts and not sensationalist zeal, right? right??

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[DeltaSigma]

I certainly hope, for their sake, X-Box Doom3 owners will only be able to play against each other on that little microsoft gaming network, "live," or whatever it's called.

I'd hate to be the poor sod trying to take on a Keyboard/Mouse user with a Controller in a First Person Shooter.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[asoap]

Are you sudgesting that someone plays doom3 without a mouse and the "WASD" keys?!!? BLASPHEMY!!!!

While you do make a very good point about the xbox and the money issue, you are still spreading BLASPHEMY!!!

Personally, I'm buying a new machine this week or next week. I might even buy 2 mice just because I'll probably brake one in the first week.

-asoap

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[jvmatthe]

Well, FWIW, I thought your post was not worthy of that moderation. I do agree that GNU/Linux should be pleased that it's gotten important enough to warrant drivers, even if they are binary-only. On the other hand, this shouldn't deter the GNU-believers from continuing to lobby for completely Free drivers.

Anyway, sorry you got modded that way. I thought "Funny" was more appropriate. :^)

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[dave420]

Thanks for the moral support :)

I'm all for open source drivers too, but considering it's like Ford giving away free cars, it's a lot to ask (and especially as only a few percent of desktop users would even know what to do with them). You can't have a tiny percentage of a market dictating huge, business-model-shifting policy decisions to the suppliers. :)

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[runderwo]

Comparing a graphics vendor making programming information for their computer hardware available and an auto manufacturer giving away free cars has to be the worst analogy in the history of this site. How on earth are the two even remotely comparable?

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[syrinx]

ESDF is so much better than WASD. Try it, then assign A and Z to something useful (depending on the game). You'll never go back to WASD. :P

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[runderwo]

FWIW, I agree. Its quite a different situation between a piece of software that you depend on to store your data or to get work done, and a piece of fluff for entertainment. On the former, you simply can't afford to have a vendor locking you in to incompatible network protocols, secret APIs, and undocumented file formats, and giving you no recourse but to upgrade when the software breaks. On the latter, who cares? If a game doesn't work, just play a different game. Or watch TV instead. It's all time-wasting anyway.

Of course I still encourage those folks who want to produce games in the free software spirit, but their work is not nearly as essential as free software for business processes.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[asoap]

Good call.

I'll give it a try.

I assume you then use your pinky for a & z.

-asoap

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[dave420]

They are both things that cost tens of thousands of dollars to get your hands on. Though, if the nVidia driver code got out, it would cost them a whole heap more. A better analogy would be between the driver source code, and blueprints of every Ford car for the last 6 years, with detailed instructions on how to make them in your front room.

Glad it got your attention. ;)

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[LordMyren]

Wait for the Xbox version to come out. An Xbox plus Doom 3 will set you back $200, plus tax. If you don't have anything against Microsoft's console, it's obviously the best choice.

sure, if you LIKE playing 320 x 240. the reason it can run so well is because TV resolution is so piss poor. At that res, your pentium 600 + geforce4 MX will run Doom 3 just fine anyways.

that system is not that far off from XBox specs really; its not like because its a console the hardware magically works better. the xbox is just a 700 mhz system & tolerable video card. said it before, say it again: the reason it can run so well is because TV resolution is so piss poor.

myren

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Zork the Almighty]

How about 8,4,5,6 on the numeric keypad, with 2 as backwards, 1,3,7,9 as strafe, and mouse-look ?

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I use Mouse2+ASD so I can run and gun while taking a sip of Coke, scratching an itch, or whatever, but I knew several guys who switched to ESDF back in the Action Q2 days. I thought they were crazy. Then I found out they used their index fingers to strafe right. I *knew* they were crazy. Your index finger is likely your most versatile digit, so why tie it up strafing when your pinky is quite capable of strafing? You should use a layout that maximizes the number of keys your index finger can reach. For me, since I have a split keyboard, that means my index finger rests on F. I can use it to hit 4, 5, 6, R, T, F, G, V, and B. Before I got a split keyboard, I made good use of Y, H, and N, too.

Without a split keyboard, I can imagine that ESDF might be better if you had enough control and reach with your pinky to hit Q, A, Z, Tab, Caps, and Shift, but I sure don't. I do use Tab, Caps, Shift, and Control in games that allow it (some annoy me by ignoring Caps Lock or permanently binding Tab to something).

I also put some handy functions on the keypad so my right hand can quickly hit them and grab the mouse again, but nothing critical. I wish more games would support the extra buttons on my mouse, too. Then maybe I could actually do everything without having to have "switch" keys that modify the bindings of other keys. Heck, I can't even do that with a lot of the new engines, unless someone here knows how to decipher the config files of games that use the Unreal engines.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

also the little raised spot on the "F" key helps me know i have my fingers in the right spot

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[msi]

I might start a holy war here but ESDF is so much better. You get more keys to the left.

Best get the flame proof trousers on quick.

As for the mouse I think three might be in order as I work in a school and will have five work free weeks ahead of me when Doom3 comes out, best get a couple of keyboards as well. Good job I dont have a GF.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

AC comment remix
If they don't know anything about Linux, they don't need to hear it from someone on slashdot making an -off the top of their head- estimate about its usage. Also, as a side note, Linux can and more than likely will be the future gaming platform OS. Gaming companies do not want MS to have any amount of control over them.

Here is the issue. First, your comment is pointless... serves no purpose other than to discourage those who feel Linux is a better choice than Windows (because you make them look like idiot fanboys)

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since Descent, I've been using ASDF. I tried WASD, but really can't get used to moving a finger when changing direction (forward, backward). ASDF allows me to just press the correct key without moving fingers.

Oh, and F = forward, A = aft (backward). Kinda neat how that works out :-)

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

I do regret that binary-only drivers (for my ATI or NVIDIA card) will probably be required.

Though, a binary-only Doom 3 is apparently not an issue for you? Strange reasoning ... When the software comes from a trustworthy source, why would you object a binary-only graphics driver? Please, stop the whining. nVIDIA is a business, not a non-profit organization.

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[MarkVVV]

Here we go again...please stop this "binary-only driver" crap. Just because it's for linux doesn't mean it should be open source. I don't remember anyone asking for the forceware source code...

Re:Cheapest way to play Doom 3

[runderwo]

I didn't say "if the driver code got out". Nobody in their right mind wants NVIDIA to open source their driver, they simply want an open source NVIDIA driver. Which means we want the programming specifications for NVIDIA cards. How exactly does the programming specifications for a graphics card give you the "blueprints and detailed instructions" on how to make your own NVIDIA card? (You could also try to answer that question for the dreamland scenario of them making their own driver open source. I don't think it changes the outcome at all)

Notwithstanding the incredible amount of resources it would take to clone the card, and the fact that you'd be at least two product cycles behind once your clone reached the market... and that is, if you didn't get sued out of business for violating the NDA first.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Doom2 came out before Pentium.

And more importantly Doom2 was DOS based ... had ZERO to do with windows swap file.

Just being a pain in the arse.

hrm

[ewe2]

1 gig ram, nVIDIA 5700LE, HDD gigs to spare, and a 2.5GHz AMD chip. So far, so good.

Linux support out of the box? No. That's what matters to me.

Re:hrm

[JustNiz]

>> nVIDIA 5700LE

Oh well, guess you won't see the DX9 stuff then.

Re:hrm

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Ignoring the fact that Doom3 uses OpenGL and not Direct3D, why the hell wouldn't he be able to see DX9 stuff on his fully DX9-compliant GeforceFX?

What a weak and pitiful attempt at a troll

Doom 3 Technology

[PIPBoy3000]

Here's a good article on the technology behind Doom 3.

Essentially, it's geared towards a technology set that's already fairly well established. It relies heavily on normal mapping to produce seemingly high-polygon models when they're actually quite low-polygon. This is all done in OpenGL and not DirectX. Personally, I think it speaks highly of the ID developers that they can make an engine that looks so good on so many PCs.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[the_2nd_coming]

they use OpenGL and have always done so because they make cross platform games. the mac version will be out in about 4 months after the PC version (which is good because all the bugs will be worked out) and it will probably run recommended on a 1.2 GHz G4 but the GFX card reqs will probably be as high as on the PC.

the Linux version should be out in a month or so afterwards.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, come on. It's not like those ID developers are rocket scientists. Oh, wait...

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Alioth]

I believe id Software use Linux as their development platform, so in all probability the Linux version will ship on the same CD as the Windows version.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[the_2nd_coming]

no, they said the Linux version is not going to be available in a box. download only.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwwww :(

Does this mean I'll have to reboot my home computer for the first time in a few months to play through Doom 3 when it comes out?

I hope they get the linux binary out very soon after the game ships.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine it'll take at least a month.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineer, not scientist.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Feanturi]

Here's a good article on the technology behind Doom 3.

The author of that article must not have played Thief: Deadly Shadows, or he would not be so excited about some of the things mentioned. Like your character shadow being cast where it ought to be, based on the lighting in the room; along the floor and up the wall, stretching or shrinking as appropriate, etc. Enemies are also aware of your shadow, not just your character, and will respond if you are not paying proper attention to the lighting. And near the end of that article, a big hurrah for 'fan shadows' which also already work fine in Thief.

All that said, I'm still looking forward to Doom III, but I'll get it next year when the price is down.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[msh104]

well, you can preorder it on tuxgames, so I suppose it will be somehow boxed by them...

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a pretty old article. The MacWorld Expo was held in 2001.

Some correction: D3 doesn't use bump map but normal maps, it will ba able to use floating point pixels (as we finally got hardware supposting it) and the gloss/highlight and reflexion will be calculated per pixel, so no more L-shaped hi-light/environment map around vertices :)

The article is also wrong about the bridge part: there is no 10000 polys on that bridge (normal map != more poly) and it's pre-animated, with bones, like a monster. it's not interractive like a door would be.

Yeah sure I can be wrong. I haven't played with D3 yet, nor with the alpha leak. But everything I've read/heard (including Carmack's .plans) point to these conclusions.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[FleaPlus]

I wonder if Doom 3 will have any easter eggs referencing Armadillo Aerospace. It'd be quite amusing if one of United Aerospace Corporation craft happened to look an awful lot like the Black Armadillo.

Re:Doom 3 Technology

[RESPAWN]

Your post actually reminded me of when Quake III came out. I never thought the game would run on my computer, and so only bought it when I started using Linux as my primary OS, just becuase there weren't many games at all for Linux, but I wanted something to play when I was booted into Linux.

Anyway, I never could get the game to run under Linux (issues with getting X to recognize my Voodoo3 3000), but I did go ahead and install it in Windows as well. I was amazed at how well the game ran and how good it still looked, despite running it at the lowest levels of detail. The game just seemed to scale very well, and I had no problems engaging in network and/or internet games with my friends. I couldn't even say the same for Counter Strike at the time. (Although with CS I was able to artificially compensate some by generous use of smoke grenades which, for some reason, seemed to cause slow down for my friends running nVidia based cards. :)

640K

[fragbait]

To play Doom, I remember having to boot my 386 without loading the TSRs....
</old man voice>

*hits nearest young'un with cane*

-fragbait

Re:640K

[Eudial]

Kinda makes you feel old doesent it?

Son, When i was young 640K was enough for anyone...

=P

Re:640K

[Greyfox]

Yeah, I remember pouring over my config.sys trying to bum another 10K of RAM out of the system. I seem to recall that if you released CGA graphics (Which no one used anyway) you could free up a huge chunk and get into the 720K range. Yowza.

Re:640K

[TopShelf]

Son, When i was young 640K was enough for anyone.

Back in my day, my first computer came with 8K, and IIIIIiiiii liked it! When it came time to upgrade to 16K, it cost $200 and I had to send it away for a couple weeks! (I shit you not)

Re:640K

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah!
You might as well be speaking greek.
Them youngsters wouldn't know what a TSR was if you spelled it out.

Heck, I bet them wee bastards got a memmory manager with their first operating system too.

Re:640K

[starman97]

Heh, my first computer came with 256 Bytes of RAM..
and to add the next 768 bytes, you had to solder in the sockets.
For that matter you had to solder in everything.

It played a pretty good Startrek game on the VDM-1
Altair 8800 S/N 220406

Re:640K

[EnglishTim]

8K! 8K!? I would have sold my right bollock to have 8K! Why, I had to do with 1K and I thought it was the best thing since Star Wars Action figures!

Re:640K

[TopShelf]

Wow, it must have taken forever to set up LAN parties with that thing...

Re:640K

[Mentally_Overclocked]

Terminate and Stay Resident?

Re:640K

[ztane]

The VGA memory starts at 640k (A000:0000)...

Re:640K

[ceeam]

Not too funny for me.
It was a 32-bit piece of code. DOS4GW extenders and stuff, remember?
Now - could you make a 630k+ of lower memory available with ROM shadows and 256k of file cache AND exactly 1Meg of XMS still available of 2Meg RAM machine? I still remember pulling that off (successfully)...

Who's the true old fart now? ;))

Re:640K

[WuphonsReach]

To play Doom, I remember having to boot my 386 without loading the TSRs....

Was it DOS 5.0 that introduced the idea of boot configurations? (There were user-created entries in the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT that would prompt the user during the boot... you could pick whether you wanted a normal configuration, or you could create a "gaming" configuration.) I'm pretty sure that feature wasn't in DOS 4.0, but I skipped DOS 4 (went straight from DOS 3.3 to 5.0).

That was a nice feature for the time. Much nicer then having to keep track of "gaming boot floppies".

Ah, such horrid memories... but at least back then you knew every single file on the system (including the DOS directory).

Re:640K

[Bake]

Nope, it was DOS 6.0 if I recall correctly.

DOS 6.0 also came with a nice help system which still beats the pants of the evil creation that is known as info(1).

Re:640K

[Rich0]

Download pinfo - basically info+lynx.

Why we're still using info is a mystery to me - all that stuff should have been converted to html ages ago...

Re:640K

[Anonymous Coward]

The first linux distro that manages to turn the man/info/pinfo system into a moderated wiki where the help topics are actually up-to-date will crush the competition.

(Kidding... sorta)

That's why a demo wasn't released.

[NetNinja]

They didn't want a public whinning about how much horsepower they need to run the game.

They want you to buy the game simply from the hype and then to discover when you get home you can't run the game.

I for one won't have that problem.

Re:That's why a demo wasn't released.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of hype I happened to be looking at The Doom Collection,(DOOM, DOOM II, and final DOOM 3) at E.B. and the sales girl came over and asked if I was going to preorder DOOM3, I smiled and nodded, she hadn't seen the look on my face when I realized I couldn't even run GTA vice city well on my comp. Later, as I left EB she was busy trying to get some kid to preorder in addition to the games he was trading in for credits. I then realized I lack the misanthropy to work in the con game that is consumer electronics retail, and I really hate people. Thank you for reading this little rant, we now return you to your regularly scheduled hot grits on teh spoke troll.

-BeyondGoodandEvil

Zzzz...

[Fortyseven]

That's it? Where's the dual SLI-mode GeForce requirement? Where's the 2 gig of RAM? The quad of 5ghz Xenons. Xenonseses. es. ... Xeni?

Well, that was underwhelming at least. And I love the gasps of horror at 300+ something megs of RAM required. I had 256 megs of RAM in my dev box here at work and it was PAINFUL to have more than one or two major programs at once going. Slapped a cheap 512k stick in this puppy and it's flying nicely.

C'mon guys, you're mostly gamers. You should have at least 512 megs in your gaming rig. I mean, there are instances where someones Gamer ID badge was taken away for lesser crimes than this. Nevermind what the Geek Council would say.

Re:Zzzz...

[Anonymous Coward]

512k? That should help a lot. You can brag to your buddies that you have 256.5MB of RAM now!

Re:The minimum specs

[sigaar]

"A 1.5-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500."

They should really say in who's terms they're recommending 1.5ghz. If it's 1.5 P4 then a 1.x ghz P-III with enough RAM and a good graphics card would prabably run it playable too.

Moo

[Chacham]

Upgrade for a game? Doesn't that increase the cost of the game? Games are expensive as it is, there's no reason they can't fit it in current common cases.

Games are made for people to play, not that people were made to play games. Games should fit current specifications, rather than demand more.

And then they wonder why sales are dismal.

Game consoles usually stay the same in each model, and games *must* work on them and cannot demand more. That's a good thing. It makes the developers do more with less. On PCs, people seem to do less with more. And that is a real problem.

Re:Moo

[schmoli]

Pardon my hostility, but this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Games, and specifically iD software, have always pushed the limits of the technology available to the public. Personally I think it's a great thing that they can come out with a game that is so advanced it can't even run at optimal settings on an existing consumer machine (when launched, at least). Telling people to only code to what's available would stop the evolution of graphics, coding, everything related to computers.

Re:Moo

[JustNiz]

>> Upgrade for a game? Doesn't that increase the cost of the game?

No. It increases the amount that people with ghetto hardware will have to pay to play the game.

What alternative are you proposing? Do you really want games companies to stop innovating and not develop games that utilise new hardware/features?

Re:Moo

[kippy]

I've heard that one of the big drivers for the development of more powerful computing hardware is games. Like it or not, with games constantly pushing the envelope of what users demand from machines we are left with rapidly accelerating development of powerful personal computing hardware. One beneficial side effect is that we have ridiculous computing power that is only beginning to be tapped by United Devices, Folding at Home, climate prediction not to mention SETI and all the other distributed projects out there.

So in its way, games forcing the development of PC hardware is contributing to the advancement of science. If fully realized, all that computing power could change the world.

Re:Moo

[KarmaMB84]

They seem to be able to produce nice games for Xbox, GameCube and Playstation at a steady pace.

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it would probably force coders to be more efficient. Much better having nice tight efficient code than a piece of crap that takes forver to load on new hardware.

As for me, I haven't played a game on a computer for nearly 6 months. I don't plan on playing any in the near future anyway. So what do I care....

Re:Moo

[Rew190]

None of those games will look as good as Doom 3. Noone's forcing you to upgrade, games like Doom 3 push graphics/hardware intensive technology to the next level.

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

Telling people to only code to what's available would stop the evolution of graphics, coding, everything related to computers.

yes, just take Sun's JRE as an example

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

And then they wonder why sales are dismal.

Because Doom and Quake had such horrible, horrible sales.

Re:Moo

[Feanturi]

I think that it is largely due to games 'pushing the envelope' that I have the wicked and affordable hardware in my screamin' box right now. Thanks to companies trying to push beyond what we have, people go out and buy better stuff. What does that mean? Better stuff available for all, eventually at nice prices. If iD and other companies hadn't pushed the envelope, us slobs in the home-consumer market would still only have P1s or something equally lame. We have Microsoft to thank for some of this as well, I hate to say it but it's true.

Re:Moo

[Schnapple]

Games should fit current specifications, rather than demand more.

They already do. Sure, a video card upgrade may be in order for this game, but you don't think they made concessions for RAM? They'd have everyone have a gig of RAM if they could.

Re:Moo

[PMuse]

Hear hear! We need something to drive hardware upgrades.

Besides, we wouldn't want the game to be obsolete before it's released, would we?

Re:Moo

[SilentChris]

And yet Blizzard, arguably the most successful PC gaming company of all time, continually releases games that require average hardware or only slightly above-average hardware. You didn't need the world's best machine to play StarCraft/WarCraft 3/Diablo II when they came out. And yet they're still being played today regularly (try to say the same about Quake II).

Re:Moo

[gmhowell]

this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!

Read his journal, and you'll find depths of stupidty you never believed could even exist.

Re:Moo

[Rew190]

This is absurdly obvious.

First of all, lots of people still pay Quake 2.

Second of all, you don't need "the world's best machine" to run Doom 3, but you're damn well going to want it if you want it to look as good as it can. Noone's forcing you to buy this game, noone's forcing you to upgrade your hardware, noone's forcing you to crank up the resolution and details which WILL need a good computer.

Third of all, if noone had pushed software to require better hardware, then you wouldn't have hardware improvements.

Fourth of all, this isn't a Blizzard engine we're talking about, this is an id engine. This sucker is going to be used to power games for YEARS, in which time your HPs and Compaqs will catch up with the higher end hardware and be able to run the engine well. Not making the Doom 3 engine cutting edge (requiring spiffy hardware if you want to run with all of the jazz on) would not allow you to keep an engine relevant graphics wise without heavy modification.

Do you really, honestly think that you could play Warcraft 3 on Warcraft 2 era hardware?

I have yet to hear any sort of sane reason as to why pushing the envelope of hardware is bad, especially when you're talking about a game, which like other games, can have details and resolutions lowered so you can play on a high number of systems out there.

Re:Moo

[SilentChris]

"First of all, lots of people still pay Quake 2."

I stopped there. If you think the number of people playing Quake 2 is anywhere near StarCraft, you're quite mistaken.

Re:Moo

[Rew190]

Ignorance is bliss, eh?

Minimum requirements for... ?

[ZipR]

One thing the article doesn't mention -- what these requirements mean. If I meet the minimum requirements, will I have to play it at 640x480 with all of the bells and whistles off, or are those the minimum requirements for a good, immersive, full-on Doom 3 experience?

Hate to break it

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you guys, but RAM makers are not going to make a fortune off of DOOM3 on the PC ... and neither are Id. The PC game is their showcase. They'll shift maybe 50K, maybe 100K boxes, but probably 50K with those ridiculous system requirements, and all those 50K will already have the card and RAM and processor that it needs, because they're the core gamers.

DOOM3 will do the big numbers on X-Box, and somehow it'll do it in 64MB on a GF3.

Re:doom3??Huh

[Cruciform]

How is this even remotely Insightful?

You have the option to choose what categories you see. The AC can simply choose not to view Game stories, or if they do then they can expect to get a wide scope of game related stories based on reader submissions.

PC Gamer Life And Fun

[blueZhift]

Awww, such is the life of the PC gamer! In the old days, people would complain about these things, but the truth is that I think PC gamers live for this! I mean, who here doesn't like having an excuse to go out and seriously upgrade your rig?

Heck, I'm not even planning to get Doom 3, and I get all jittery just thinking about upgrading my old box, which is way overdue. But I've learned to wait until the game comes out and real people play on real systems, before doing any upgrade. That way you can get the right hardware and avoid any unforeseen incompatibilities.

Awww, the life of a PC Gamer...

Re:PC Gamer Life And Fun

[Scooter]

You're a wise man Blue. I couldn't wait though and have built myself a new machine for Doom3. In honour of this historic occasion I've even splashed out on a new case! Having refilled the old hearing aid beige item 3 times I could stand looking at it no more (plus I convinced myself that it didn't have adequate cooling for the new stuff :P ) I haven't gone overboard with the new machine (I stopped short of 64bit Athlons and P4Extremes at 3 times the cost of a regular P4) and based my spec around memory, so I opted for an Abit IC7 Max3 board (Intel 875p) with 1Gb of dual channel ram and a 3.2Ghz prescott. This combination is supposed to be quite efficient according to the many web and paper reviews I read. Storage from 2 workhorse type 250Gb Maxtor SATAs in a RAID 0 array, all shoved into a nice Antec P160 with a 480Watt Antec PSU.

I await my GF6800 Ultra to complete , and at this rate Doom 3 will be in my clutches before the damm thing.

I can't see it running too well on the present card: a GF4 Ti4200, but I might need a bigger PSU for the 6800...

Purchased a copy of Windows XP (Games edition) and have 100Gb spare partitiion for... probably Fedora as soon as I can spare the time download some drivers and get it to talk to the Intel RAID controller...

Yes - the life of a PC gamer is a complex and expensive one, but hey - it's Doom!

Re:PC Gamer Life And Fun

[prosys]

Heh... So will my Dual opteron 246 (2.0GHz), 4GB RAM, nVidia 6800GT, system benefit from the dual CPU's or was that bit a waste of money :-), it whips along in FarCry with everything turned on at maximums and 1280x1024 I get about 40-60fps Having said that my older system... the P4 2.77ghz(overclocked 2.53ghz), 1GB RAM, GeForce Ti4600, worked perfectly happily on medium-high settings at almost the same speeds... so there is defintely some variance here... The opteron box with an older FX5200 card was unplayably slow on FarCry with even minimal settings ... so its definitely going to benefit from the best graphics card you can afford.. forget the rest of the system specs.

Re:PC Gamer Life And Fun

[Scooter]

hehe too true - most of the extra load is on on the GPU. I couldn't justify putting the 6800 in my old Athlon1200 :), and conversely, it seemed stupid to build a reasonably quick machine and cripple it for the sake of the extra £200 quid. I normally hold off buying the "latest and greatest" but the little "add to cart" button was calling to me..

You really need the application to be written and compiled for SMP to get any benefit (although if you can bind all system tasks to one COU and the game to the other, at least it will get free reign of one chip). Even then though, I seem to remember quoted numbers for Q3 on an SMP set up as about a 12% performance increase? Again - depends on how CPU bound it is - if the GPU is the bottleneck, you won't get much of an increase.

If I still had the time to play as much as I used to in the old Q2 days, I'd have been tempted by the Opteron, or FX53... Not sure about 4Gb of RAM Today, but who knows what'll need it next week :)

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[strictnein]

Wait wait wait a minute, Doom II's sys reqs were:
# 486 processor operating at a minimum of 66MHz or any Pentium® /Athlon® processors

Hmmm... my friend had a 486 33mhz setup that played Doom 2 just fine. Over the modem between the two of us it played great. It was just when he jumped on DWANGO that it really slowed everyone down.

Oh how I miss DWANGO. It's strange how few rejects you get in game when they actually have to pay for each minute they play.

Will 384 minimum = slow machine?

[nlinecomputers]

Is this like most software recommendations. These fucking companies say you need X to run it. And it will work, but it's so slow that you really need X*2? In other words I'm going to need a fucking gig of Ram to just to play a game?

Cool.

Re:Will 384 minimum = slow machine?

[JustNiz]

>> These fucking companies say you need X to run it

They do? wow. Does that mean it'll run on Linux?

>> you really need X*2?

Is that compatible with x.org?

UPDATED: System Specs

[johnthorensen]

Items appended are in ITALICS:

• A 1.5-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500.
• 384 megabytes of memory.
• Two gigabytes of hard drive space.
• An nVidia GeForce 3 graphics card or better; or an ATI Technologies 8500 or better.
• motherboard, hard drive, CD-ROM, keyboard, mouse, power supply, power cable, SVGA monitor, linux
• Depends(tm) undergarments (for the scarey parts!)
• Pepto Bismol (for the gross parts, duh!)
• BEER (cures all other ailments that may cause you to drag yourself away from Doom 3)
• Vaseline (in case you you get that feeling and are too busy playing Doom to go find your girlfriend/wife/cheap hooker)

Re:doom3??Huh

[Noryungi]

Another disinteresting story gets into slashdot.

Uuuh... sorry, but what part of "News for Nerds" don't you understand. ;-)

This is said firmly tongue-in-cheek, of course...

Meanwhile, in reality...

[LSD-OBS]

Look, these days, there will be 2 main types of people that will buy this game.

1) Oldskool die-hard Doom lovers. These people have been around long enough that the concept of hardware upgrades is nothing new to them. Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game.

2) Newskool FPS gamer kids. They take their gaming pretty seriously, and having the latest hardware is pretty much a competitive issue to them. If you find any of these guys with less than 512mb of RAM or a 3D card older than a GeForce 3, chances are they don't have the money to buy Doom 3 anyway.

The hardware requirements stated are really light for a game of that genre, especially considering the target market. I think the poster is rather off-target by insinuating that this is a problem.

Re:Meanwhile, in reality...

[bandrzej]

This is very true. I've been an oldskooler playing Doom and Wolfenstein since they were released on the market. You always worked your equipment at that time to get as much as you could out of it, which usually ment AVOIDING windows. Hell, those were the days that your CPU speed was set by good old jumpers on the motherboard!

The funny part today is we still strive for that, but instead of DOS, its Linux.

What happens if you are both types of people? Then you are a FPS Doom gawd to make the oldskoolers drool and the newskoolers back into their diapers.

Remember, the rocker launcher is your friend :-)

Re:Meanwhile, in reality...

[LSD-OBS]

Yeah, that's me too.

iddqd
idkfa
IDCHOPPERS! :)

more precisely

[real_smiff]

It's a shorthand way of saying "we expect pixel shaders v2.0". So my GF3Ti is right out.. (PS 1.1 == DX8 IIRC).

Re:more precisely

[cozziewozzie]

Doom3 will work on a GeForce3 Ti.

It scales down

[BinaryC]

The big thing about having less ram (aside from the obvious paging issues) is the game uses less sounds. Anything less than 512mb, and it uses (for example) 1 foot step sound rather than 10 different foot step sounds.

What bugs me about Doom 3

[WormholeFiend]

is that multiplayer gaming is limited out-of-the-box to 4 players...

Sure, they say modders can increase that number, but it seriously reduces the number of potential online opponents.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[h4rdc0d3]

It was stated from the beginning that Doom 3 was a single-player focused game. Think of it more as id Software giving us an added bonus of 4-person multiplayer out-of-the-box. If you're looking for that super-duper new multiplayer experience, you might have to wait for Quake 4. Although who knows, Doom 3's multiplayer could be badass.

Personally, I'm kind of looking forward to 4 player multi. The 32 player games where a random rocket will kill 3 people just because everyone's packed so close together are getting old.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[WormholeFiend]

True, but I thought that 32-player was today's standard for multiplayer FPS gaming... At least you'd have the option of choosing big or small games.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you need a >3 ghz cpu to get smooth play with more players. I wouldn't be surprised at that for non-dedicated servers, and maybe including this 'soft limit' is their way of acknowledging this.

I sure as hell hope not though.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[Telastyn]

I've been told from a few people who work in the industry that the limitation was removed for release.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

/today's standard/? 6-7 years ago, a game called Half-Life came out with 32 player support, i think it did alright.

10x sized maps - 128 player, anyone?

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[randyest]

Personally, I'm kind of looking forward to 4 player multi. The 32 player games where a random rocket will kill 3 people just because everyone's packed so close together are getting old.

So set the server to 4-player max, and let those that want their carnage have it. There's no reason, other than performance issues or lack of time to tweak netcode properly, to have such a limit enforced on doom3 when 64-player multiplayer is common and even 100-player (Joint Operations) can be done well.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[randyest]

10x sized maps - 128 player, anyone?

Here you go.

Re:What bugs me about Doom 3

[Anonymous Coward]

/today's standard/? 6-7 years ago, a game called Half-Life came out with 32 player support, i think it did alright.

Unfortunately, it's still 32 players as the standard. And even that's not always easy (18-24 player servers seem to be common in the games I play).

Probably because a lot of folks are still using dial-up to access game servers, so you have to plan on only having a 33.6Kbps connection back to the user. When you see a game company say that multi-player is going to require a 128Kbps or 256Kbps connection, then you'll see 128-player servers.

(sigh) Maybe in 2020.

Darn it all!!!

[TejWC]

Back in 2001, when the first preview of Doom III got out, I decided to buy a new computer just for Doom III. It is a 1.2 MHz Pentium 4, 256MB of RAM and has a GeForce 3 (since that was the video card that Doom III was initally demoed in). Now I have to buy another freaken computer to play the real Doom 3!

Re:Darn it all!!!

[Cheeze]

dude, your computer is already 3 years old and Doom3 still isn't even out yet. Why did you buy a computer specifically for a game that had not been released yet?

I'm sure your computer will run fine, as long as you run it at the lowest resolution and disable any fancy stuff.

Re:Darn it all!!!

[TejWC]

Its funny, I thought Doom III would be released in either 2001 or at the very latest, 2002. I never expected it be released this late. I guess its time for another computer if I want to play Doom III with all the goodies.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[seinman]

That's a load of bullshit. Doom II played just fine on a 486/24mhz system with 4 megs of RAM. That's the system I had, and played with no problems. Plus it was a DOS game, so the Windows swap file wasn't needed. Did you just pull those stats out of your ass or what?

Re:Minimum requirements for... ?

[Zed2K]

Minimum usually means the installer will let you install the game. The executable will let you launch the game. The engine will run the game, but will it be playable at an acceptable level? Usually the answer is no.

GeForce 5900XT

[Anonymous Coward]

Will a GeForce 5900XT really be good enough to run Doom 3 at an acceptable level? (i.e. without putting all settings on minimum and a low resolution)

Re:GeForce 5900XT

[titzandkunt]

From the Houston Chronicle article, after the usual plug for the current crop of propellor-head cards [FX6800, X800]:

"...If you're upgrading, look for at least 128 MB of video memory in a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot. Cards in the $150 to $200 range -- such as a GeForce 5900XT or a Radeon 9600XT -- will be a sweet spot..."

Who knows - you might be in luck here, Just depends what you mean by "acceptable level". 1600x1200 and full-scene *anything* are probably out of our league (I've got an FX5900XT too), but 1280x1024 might be attainable with a pragmatic tweak of the in-game video settings.

T&K.

Re:doom3??Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you mean uninteresting, not disinteresting.

Sheesh, you do have the bad grammer, but you don't care about Doom3, are you sure you really belong at this site?

bah

[atari2600]

I haven't read the article - and i wont. This line

RAM chip manufacturers should be salivating about now

is so fricking stupid. Minimum requirements are a joke and if Farcry needs 1GB, it is very funny how the headline says 384 would need an upgrade from 256MB - no serious gamer has less than 512MB. Sigh.

Memory price benchmark crazy

[brechin]

Where does this guy get memory?!

Check with the maker of your PC to see what type of memory it requires. Prices varies depending on the source and type, but use $50 per 128 MB as a benchmark.

$50 per 128MB?!!?! After a quick look at Crucial, they have their top DDR 256MB sticks at around $50. That's half what this guy is telling people.

Yawn

[Graabein]

Am I the only geek who just doesn't get it with FPS games?

Bo-ring.

Now give me a good arcade game any day of the week and I'm interested. If it's a good flight sim I'll be lost to this world for the next 48 hours. But pretending you're Rambo and shooting up the place? Yawn...

Re:Yawn

[sloanster]

Am I the only geek who just doesn't get it with FPS games?
I guess you might be -

But pretending you're Rambo and shooting up the place? Yawn

Methinks you're missing the whole point of 3D FPS games, perhaps you've never even played one. Even an old classic like Q3A is a challenging test of timing, reflexes, strategy and teamwork.

If you dislike violence, there are some nice Q3A mods like freeze tag, where players are not killed, but rather suspended. The strategy comes in thawing your frozen teammates while avoiding campers, and keeping the other team from thawing their frozen players. First team to have all players simultaneously frozen loses the round.

Quite a few of the players are still running the q3demo, a free 50 MB download for linux, mac and windows. (I'm happy to report that q3demo, from 1999, runs quite nicely on my suse 9.1 gaming machine, right alongside ut2004 etc al)

As well, many players seem to use Q3A as their form of irc or im, using it as a sort of 3D chatroom. lotsa fun!

Re:Yawn

[Graabein]

> I guess you might be -

Thanks for the reply. At least you took my question seriously and attempted give a serious answer.

I notice some idiot with modpoints decided to mod me down as a troll. I guess he couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I was not trying to provoke, I really want to know.

> perhaps you've never even played one

I can understand why you'd make that assumption, but in fact I have. My first exposure to FPS was the original Wolfenstein 3D for Mac back when it came out ('94). Everyone was talking about it, so I had to try. Didn't get it then, didn't get Doom, didn't get Quake and quickly lost patience with Half Life.

> many players seem to use Q3A as their form of irc or im

Heh, OK. Never tried that. While I'll be the first to agree that man wants to (and needs to!) play, I still find it strange that we as a group tend to gravitate towards games depicting mindless violence (your remarks about non-violent versions notwithstanding). We're supposed to be a cerebral bunch, aren't we? Everybody needs to blow off some steam once in a while, sure, but with this?

I guess I'll just have to resign myself to the fact that I'm the only geek in the world who feels this way. Or am I? Anyone else out there? Hellooo?

Re:Yawn

[qqaz]

I don't get it either. To me, they all seem to be exactly the same. Play one, you've played them all. I have a friend who's really into FPS games, whenever he shows me the latest one, all I can think is "wow, that looks exactly like the one you showed me last week."

Cheapest way to play a crippled version

[littleghoti]

If you check out the screen shots on the doom3 website, the X-box graphics suck. Hard.

Of course I don't know if the maps will be the same and the gameplay, but when I play doom3, I want it to look pretty, and the X-box screen shots don't.

Doom 3 specs

[Ari_Haviv]

haha you poor suckers! Doom 3 will run 10 times faster than that on a 386 under software OpenGL...in Japan

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[richdun]

Come on guys, calm down. Doom II was also re-released for Windows 95 after it launched, which is probably where he got his stats.

Re:thats it? -No, Not Really

[yo_tuco]

If the past is representative of the present, you have to take the system requirements and double-it to get the game-play you really want. And when third-party add-ons arrive, you need to triple-it!

I remember

[essreenim]

the day..my new bor grandson , many years ago when there was a rumour about a game called..what was it... o yes Half Life 2. I never did play that gam. Ohh..my arthritis

1.5 GHz

[jandrese]

What is a 1.5Ghz processor anymore? A 1.5 Ghz P3 != 1.5 Ghz Athlon XP != 1.5 Ghz P4. This is very annoying, I wish they would just say "A 1.5Ghz Pentium 4 or similar processor".

Re:1.5 GHz

[Roguelazer]

Actually, if you RTFA, you'll see that it says "1.5 Ghz Pentium 4 Processor or AMD Athlon 1500+". That covers it pretty well, I'd say.

Re:1.5 GHz

[bobbozzo]

and then it goes on to recommend "but 3GHz or more would be best..."

Where do I get a 3GHz Athlon??

Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again it'll also run on a 733MHz intel with 64MB ram and a GF3-ish gfx card. Also known as the Xbox.

I guess buying an Xbox would be cheaper than upgrading a system in some cases (new motherboards, voltages, standards etc).

I'll certainly be playing DOOM 3 on my 28" from my comfy sofa 8)

Re:Xbox

[PhoenixOne]

I hate feeding trolls, but you might not know that the XBox Doom3 != PC Doom3. Yes, they overlap but they are different in many ways...

Besides, what self respecting Slashdot geek doesn't own a 21" monitor. And do you really want to be sitting on a comfy sofa when you are Knee Deep in the Dead! ;)

Re:Vaporware has specs?

[Roguelazer]

I hope you're kidding. I mean, it freaking ships in a few weeks. Hundreds of people outside of id have seen it. It's been reviewed for Pete's sake...

Longhorn

[Bobke]

I can't help but wonder what longhorn will do to make it need minimum specs higher than even Doom3. I mean, will it be doing like 32X anisotropic filtering, 32X AA, trillinear filtering on turning windows in 128-bit color or something?

Oh my, it takes a lot of hardware! How dare they!

[choovanski]

Sure, if you haven't upgraded in a while you'll either miss out or have to spend some money. Three words my friends, Deal With It. ;)

This is the latest Id game. You know, GAME? Those things that push hardware developers into giving us more and more to meet the demand. If you don't want to upgrade fine, play Unreal Tournament. Seriously. No one is forcing you to play Doom3. You can always wait a year or two for hardware prices to come down and THEN upgrade. (This is what I do and it works great. I'm chronically two years behind the trends. This gives me cheaper hardware, cheaper software, lots of bug fixes and updated drivers to boot. w00t! ;)

Let me hit a random site (rhymes with BlueEgg) and check some prices on some items...

-----
*A 1.5-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500.*

Albatron "PX848 Like Pro" ALi M1683 Chipset Motherboard - $37, free shipping

Intel Pentium 4/ 2.26 GHz 533MHz FSB, 512K Cache - Retail (includes fan) - $117, free shipping

-----
*384 megabytes of memory.*

Kingston ValueRAM 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail - $45, free shipping (get two if you don't already have 128 megs)

-----
*Two gigabytes of hard drive space.*

Delete some pr0n dude/dudette. $0

-----
*An nVidia GeForce 3 graphics card or better; or an ATI Technologies 8500 or better.*

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9200SE Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP -BULK OEM - $47, free shipping

-----

Motherboard - $37
Proc w/ fan - $117
Memory - $45 (or $90 if you need two sticks)
Hard drive space - $0
Video Card - $47
---------------
Total - $246 ($291 if you get 512 meg of ram)

Two hundred fifty to three hundred bucks, assuming your power supply is up to it. Without shopping around at all. YMMV of course.

Now please excuse me, I have to figure out what *ahem* files to delete from my hard drive.

Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[freezin fat guy]

One thing I really admire about Carmack's work is just how much graphics he can deliver per unit of hardware.

This is not a fluke. The pattern for all his previous engines is that the most intensive parts are coded in optimized assembly. The rest is coded in C. He admits to using some object oriented practices in his code but he still uses C. Even custom scripting support is reasonably efficient.

Id also designs the games themselves to be reasonably efficient. (When was the last time you saw a true outdoor scene in an Id game? Outdoor scenes have so far been modeled as a special kind of interior.)

In contrast the heavier games some people have mentioned use liberal amounts of C++, (which makes sense from a project management perspective) their custom scripting languages slow things down yet more, and they render scenes which are inherently hardware intensive. They can also deliver high quality graphics, they simply need more hardware.

Now I just have to add my voice to those who wish that more thought was put into the content of the games themselves - so many people spending so much fantasy time focused on raw evil is not healthy.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[Slack3r78]

I don't know about Doom 3, but Quake was coded in Objective C, which, as the name suggests, is most definitely object-oriented.

Honestly, I think it has as much to do with Carmack simply being an excellent programmer and choosing the right tools for the right job.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[genglish]

I don't know about Doom 3, but Quake was coded in Objective C, which, as the name suggests, is most definitely object-oriented.

Now, I really love Objective-C and hype it 'till people are bored of hearing about it ... but Quake simply wasn't written in it. Here's the source code to prove it: ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/q1source.z ip

I think you're thinking of the original tool set that *was* written in Objective-C. If I remember correctly a lot of the original Doom code was developed on NeXT boxes too. Too lazy to find a reference for that right now though.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[Schnapple]

but he still uses C

Actually a few QuakeCons back he said DOOM 3 is the first game they've done in C++.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[imr]

The problem with your speech is that D3 was written in C++.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[l00sr]

Actually, Carmack is pretty supportive of object orientation and higher-lever languages. In fact, he considered Java for Quake 3. Ironically, he gave up on it for portability reasons--not performance.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[zrobotics]

However, all the outdoor scenes in half life and it's mods are really just big rooms with sky textures applied in the right place. The trick isnt the illusion of outdoors, but the actual size of the room. For instance, a large sewer/factory room with many machines in it will run slower than a medium sized outdoor area with some scattered rocks and debris. I dont map ID software, so im not sure if its exactly the same, but its probably the same general procedure.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[Propagandhi]

You're totally correct (except about the C++ bit). I remember playing the Q3:A multiplayer tests on my p166 (MMX enabled) PC with 64 mb's of ram and an 8mb voodoo 2.

Those graphics were on the bleeding edge of technology, and even though my PC wasn't (even at the time) it could still run the game with VERY playable frame rates.

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again

[damballah]

He admits to using some object oriented practices in his code but he still uses C.

You make it sound like it's a bad thing to use OO.

you can't count like that

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

You must use a base 'e*10' logrithmic scale. If we multiply 2.718 by the last 'Doom Processor' Value, we get 1.8 GHz Since We have Magical Hyperthreading 2cpu's we need 434MB RAM (2.71828*8MB*10), but since Ram doesn't scale that way, just call it 318MB and require a graphics card that has the Extra (i.e. GeForce 3 has 64MB) 318+64=382 (close enough with the added processor GPU)

Linux?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

OK, I have to ask since I haven't seen it posted yet.

Are there Linux binaries included on the install CD? Am I going to have to run this "under" WineX (cedega)? I *really* want this game (and I've given id my money since the Wolf3d days...). The Windows machine I have back here have a VooDoo3 card in it - it can't run this (it's barely running Lego Racers 2).

This box is heavy duty, but only runs Linux:

$ uname -a
Linux aragorn 2.4.26-gentoo-r3 #3 Mon Jul 5 23:16:26 EDT 2004 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

$ cedega -version
Cedega 4.0-1

Re:Linux?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Shit... Sorry... I should've added that I have a Gig of RAM and an nVidia GF4-ti-4600. This is a a very worthy "gaming" machine, I just need to know if I can play this game or not.

Thanx,
M.

Re:Linux?

[EllF]

There are no binaries on the CD, but they are, according to Carmack, forthcoming, as are Mac OSX binaries. So yes, you'll be able to run this, and not via CrapX.

Re:Linux?

[Aadain2001]

LOL, my system at home is almost just like your's, even down to the computer name (aragon)!!!! Big differences are I'm running a 2.80 GHz P4 and run FC2.

Re:Linux?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Grassy ass.

M.

My Ode to 55 Dollars and a month of abstinence

[cOdEgUru]

O' my crisp 55 Dollars and my beautiful wife..
I bid thee both farewell, atleast for a while..
Now, to my 55 Dollars this is for ever..
To my lovely wife, this is a short respite..

My hard earned money, gotta let you go..
To fill the Coffers of Carmack and ID-eo
So that he maketh new game engines and new bump mapped creatures
And I, cowering in the dark, salivating at the games new features..

And to my dear wife, I will see you soon
But first I have to kiss my double barrel shotgun and my precious ammo
Before I can warm the sheets next to you
For here cometh the Cyberdemon and I gotta runnoo..

from 512 to 2.5gb

[Matey-O]

I upped the memory on my office workstation when I started using Virtual PC's for testing. I was suprised to see a performance jump in increasing ram above 512Mb...I added two 1 Gb sticks, but I wonder what memory level above 512Mb caused the performance increase.

IIRC, Windows 2000 had a memory floor of about 256 mb, after which performance didn't improve much...with Windows XP it jumped to 512....now with Office, and service packs, and virus scanners and what have you, it appears to have creeped upwards a bit.

Re:from 512 to 2.5gb

[drinkypoo]

On my Windows XP system, I had a significant performance increase when I went from 512MB to 1024MB, probably primarily related to the automatically enlarged disk cache and the reduced swap activity. I still swap plenty, of course, but not as much as I used to.

I used to run without antivirus but there's so many new virii and such that I have to use it now, so that knocked out the speed advantage of using a stripe on a hw raid controller :)

Minimum requirements for now

[Xian97]

The Doom games were always a showcase for the engine's technology. It probably won't be for a year or two before developers that license the technology start hitting the full capabilities of the engine. When that happens, I look for the current minimum requirements to go up so plan accordingly for the games that will be built on the engine in the near future if you are going to upgrade your hardware. I think that the current recommended requirement will soon be the minimum when you see the next wave of games built on the technology that iD has created.

Re:Minimum requirements for now

[ildon]

I take it you weren't paying attention when it was revealed that this would be the first Id game with a plot and characters.

ATI Mobility Radeon 7500?

[DownTownMT]

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100, 2.4 GHz, 784 RAM, 40 Gig HD, and a 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. How does that compare to the 8500 series? Am i SOL?

Re:ATI Mobility Radeon 7500?

[yeremein]

64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. How does that compare to the 8500 series? Am i SOL?

'fraid so--the 7500 doesn't support pixel shaders.

Re:ATI Mobility Radeon 7500?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 7500 doesn't even have TCL aka fixed function pipeline. This is why you can barely play ET on that! =)

386

[phorm]

Actually, doom didn't work too badly on my 386/33 at the time. At times it was a bit choppy, but clicking off detail mode or lowering the res helped that. Having a 2MB video card at the time was helpful too

Now playing Quake on my 486VX/100, that was a thing to be beheld...

Re:386

[Anonymous Coward]

UHHH... doom didn't care if you had more than 256k of video memory.

Re:386

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, he is one of those morons who quote themselves in their signature.

Everytime I see one of these it is usually a completely lame ass saying that is forced both in the way it reads and in the overall structure of the sentence.

Most adolescents seem to enjoy quoting themselves however and hopefully in a few years he'll have gotten laid and gotten over himself.

Re:386

[gid]

I remember the first time I saw Doom 2 being played on a Pentium class machine, looked absolutely incredible. You basically needed a Pentium to be competitive in death match, it made my room mate's DX2-66 look slow.

What about other platforms?

[Matey-O]

What are the system requirements for the Xbox version?

{ya, I'm being funny}

Re:What about other platforms?

[thebatlab]

Swing and a miss

Upgrades are done on log scale

[Dav3K]

Everyone knows that the increases in minimum requirements for a new game are done on a logarithmic scale.

oops

[real_smiff]

oh, well GF3 *is* the min spec. we must be on the wrong tack then, they must be asking for something else in dx9 (ideas?) i think without PS2.0 you'll get much lower image quality anyway, plus the cards are slower of course. I expect GeforceFX is a realistic minimum really.

*cough* BULLSHIT *cough* BULLSHIT...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I'm really not buying these specs. What they mean is if you are one of these obsessed gamers with no other life who has to have the greatest fucking video card on some overclocked "riced out" box (preferably with a lucite window and lots of neon), then this is what you will need. And don't forget the flat-screen monitor.

I mean come on. we've heard this line befor: "sure it'll run on an X, but you wont get the FULL experience". Yadda, yadda, yadda. And of course the fact that certain brand names are being thrown around means nothing, right? OPEN YA EYES, BOY!

Re:*cough* BULLSHIT *cough* BULLSHIT...

[microTodd]

That's a good point. What are the specs to run at 30fps, 800x600, many of the fancy effects turned off?

I mean, come one, everyone on Slashdot always says "Its the gameplay, not the graphics". Right?

Re:*cough* BULLSHIT *cough* BULLSHIT...

[ashayh]

if you are one of these obsessed gamers with no other life who has to have the greatest fucking video card on some overclocked "riced out" box (preferably with a lucite window and lots of neon), then this is what you will need.
How is this Insightfool ?
A 1.5 Ghz P4 is two years old. A 8500 or a GF3 is also two years old. (Or more). The people with the latest and the greatest are far ahead of this.

Re:*cough* BULLSHIT *cough* BULLSHIT...

[thinkninja]

GP's post is clearly just a bid for cheap karma, and you ruined it by that there critical thinking :(

I bought a barton 2500+ over a year ago and it wasn't even approaching the high-end (~$100) at the time, and he's bemoaning a 1.5GHz? Sure, it's not just the cost of the chip but these kind of specs offer great compatibility with old and cheap systems. How much enjoyment one would get out of running Doom 3 with minimum requirements is another matter...

Myself, I almost meet the recommened req. (except gfx card) and so I really don't see the need to upgrade.

Re:*cough* BULLSHIT *cough* BULLSHIT...

[Grond]

What they mean is if you are one of these obsessed gamers with no other life who has to have the greatest fucking video card on some overclocked "riced out" box (preferably with a lucite window and lots of neon), then this is what you will need. And don't forget the flat-screen monitor.

As others have pointed out, the latest and greatest is already far past the recommended specs, to say nothing of these minimums.

I think it's also worth pointing out that it's difficult to even find a PC from a major manufacturer that doesn't meet these specs. In fact, I think it'd be difficult to find one even going back about 6 months. So, I'd say you're exaggerating a little, to say the least.

And as far as a flat screen monitor goes, those are actually generally considered not so great for gaming, except for a very few, very new ones, and those are just acceptable. The hardcore players still use CRTs unless they're lugging their computers to a LAN party.

I mean come on. we've heard this line befor: "sure it'll run on an X, but you wont get the FULL experience". Yadda, yadda, yadda.

To be sure, back in the day, there wasn't much difference between high and low quality. Heck, back in the Wolfenstein 3D era, about all you could change was the screensize. These days, though, the difference between everything turned on and the bare minimum is pretty substantial. Check out a modern game like FarCry for an example.

And of course the fact that certain brand names are being thrown around means nothing, right?

Actually, given that ATi and nVidia are the only two major players left in the 3d gaming market, the fact that their names are being tossed around does indeed mean nothing.

Re:*cough* BULLSHIT *cough* BULLSHIT...

[e40]

Agreed. And what the hell was the "riced out" comment about? Is that racist bullshit, or what? (open to be corrected, if I'm wrong)

Reqs?

[vurg]

What are you people talking about? Those are just for the website.

Reading is good

[Walkiry]

Specifically, reading the text I quoted:

But if you do need a new chip

Sure, if you really have to change every single component it's better to get a new one. If you don't, then don't, just replace what you really need (in that case, the CPU and maybe the motherboard).

But why the hell do you have to buy new S-ATA drives just because your motherboard supports it? Mine also has a raid controller I've pretty happily ignored, should I format and reinstall everything I have just so that I can use it?. Should I buy Firewire components too simply because it has integrated Firewire ports to make sure I use them?

Re:Reading is good

[OmniVector]

last i checked there weren't any 10k RPM EIDE disks. the firewire comment is just trolling, so i won't touch that.

Re:Reading is good

[randyest]

I don't think he was trolling. Yes, there are no 10k IDE drives. But his point stands: you don't really need a 10k drive (7200 + 8MB cache performance is very close, and quieter) to upgrade your CPU/mobo/RAM to play Doom3. You can do it later, if you like, or better yet wait for the drives with NCQ to see a real performance difference.

I think you based your argument on false, or at least exaggerated assumptions, and the parent post pointed that out without trolling at all.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[HedonismBot]

Hey, the one from Winamp 2 to 3 was much worse.

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure Doom 2 predated any Athlon by several years....

It hasn't been 25 years!

[Taulin]

...It's only been 20, silly.

Possible uses for the extra memory

[rd_syringe]

The extra memory might be used to store:

* More combinations of black, silver, and brown. Using primary colors would unfortunately require another 512MB.
* More darkness.
* An electrical simulation that emulates poor electrical conditions. This will be used to flicker lights on and off randomly.
* More wasted bullets.
* More random metal plating on the letters of the Doom logo.
* A somersault animation. When the Doomguy jumps, he'll backflip now.
* Crates. Lots of crates. With UAC logos on them for variety.
* Shiny metal pipes. Lots of them. At least one will explode as you walk by it; another will have steam coming out of it for a volumetric effect.
* At least one level will have you walking down a hallway only to hear a.) a human scream, b.) demonic growling, or c.) eerie whistling wind coming from an unseen source.
* A hidden TC of Barney Doom, for old time's sake. Destroy Barney in true 3D now.
* Did I mention black, gray, brown, and darkness?

Re:Vaporware has specs?

[ViolentGreen]

How is this vaporware? There is a difference between vaporware and unreleased products.

D3 benchmark... Hmmmm...

[choovanski]

What do you think the odds are of Id whipping up a standalone app for D3 benchmarking? Something like the benchmarking in UT2003, but self contained? ***output*** Your system will play Doom3 at 60FPS at 640x480 with all effects set to LOW. You will probably experience some lag if you don't upgrade to at least xxx megs of RAM. You are on a dial-up modem. Don't even think about online multiplayer kid. ************

Oldskool (Re:Meanwhile, in reality...)

[cascadingstylesheet]

1) Oldskool die-hard Doom lovers. These people have been around long enough that the concept of hardware upgrades is nothing new to them. Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game.

Hmm, that's me - I was playing Doom on my ultra-expensive 100MHz 486 laptop, underway on a submarine in 1995.

But I have a life (and wife and kids) now! I certainly am NOT on the upgrade treadmill anymore. I might have asked for this game for Christmas or something, but there's no way in hell I'm getting expensive hardware upgrades just to play a game I won't have much time for anyway.

So scratch #1 off your (and IDs) list, unless they're stuck in a time warp.

Fuck That

[windside]

There's no way in hell. Playing an FPS with a console-type controller instead of a keyboard is roughly equivalent to gouging out your own eyeballs, in terms of pain and frustration.

I remember the first time I tried Doom64 - UGH. Please. I'll stick to Mario, thanks.

Sure, there's bound to be a keyboard/mouse add-on for the XBox, but certainly not a cheap one. Factor in the karma burn for owning (nay, touching) an XBox and your effective cost has climbed far beyond that of a new CPU and some RAM.

Re:Fuck That

[Hollins]

I agree. Not only is control tedious without a mouse and keyboard, they have to crank down the rate you can turn to make the game controllable, which means they generally have to add some auto-aiming features. It's a completely different experience. On top of that, you have lower resolution, no console to enter commands (want fov 120? sorry) and you miss out on all the mods, which can be half the fun of iD games.

Console versions of FPS are barely shadows of the real thing.

Re:Fuck That

[Anonymous Coward]

Factor in the karma burn for owning (nay, touching) an XBox

hah! another clueless moron who's life hasn't yet been enhanced by XMBC. you gain karma for buying the xbox (costing MS money), then chipping it and never letting MS make a cent from game sales.

Re:Fuck That

[MikeXpop]

Well, that was back with Nintendo 64. Controllers have gotten a lot more sane since then. With two analogue sticks, I have no problems with first person shooters on consoles anymore. MOH Frontline was a breeze to control. As is SOCOM II, which I just picked up. Halo was (and still is) awesome.

Also, you might be able to take an already existing USB keyboard and rewire it. But that would cost you a controller.

Re:Fuck That

[KZigurs]

Currently microsoft STRICLY restrics anyone even to think about other input means besides their controllers. Sorry, no keyboards/mouses or whatever for you...

Re:Fuck That

[demilurker]

Ever gotten into GoldenEye on N64? It's not painful or frustrating -- it's a different game. I fell in love with the SUAVE feeling that comes from that console controller and having to aim most of the time with no crosshairs. So much nicer than yer quakes and yer counter-strikes IMHO.

True, it would be painful to just plug a console controller into a FPS for a PC -- because the game was probably designed for a mouse, and you're probably playing against people with mice.

But the GoldenEye SUAVE -- damn! Can I hear an amen?

Re:Fuck That

[Anubis350]

Factor in the karma burn for owning (nay, touching) an XBox and your effective cost has climbed far beyond that of a new CPU and some RAM.

I take offense at that, I run linux on my x-box, effectively costing microsoft to subsidize a halfway decent linux-box for me. :-P

Re:Fuck That

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you have never played halo to see what a good consol FPS can be like when you design the controll scheme for a controller it blows the keybord out of the water. and even PC games that are ported can get decent controll with the x-box controller (see CS and rainbow 6 III)

Re:Fuck That

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, have you ever heard of a little game called Halo? It's only the greatest FPS in history, and given a choice between PC and console versions, what do most people play it on?

Re:Fuck That

[prockcore]

I agree. Not only is control tedious without a mouse and keyboard, they have to crank down the rate you can turn to make the game controllable, which means they generally have to add some auto-aiming features.

This works if you're talking about newer FPSes and (Doom3), but the original Doom controlled just fine on a controlpad. There was no need for auto-aim since you didn't play the original with a mouse, you played with the keyboard. There was no up or down.

Re:Fuck That

[SmittyTheBold]

Console versions of FPS are barely shadows of the real thing.

EXCEPT this console version will have a co-op play mode, which I very much look forward to.

Re:Oldskool (Re:Meanwhile, in reality...)

[LSD-OBS]

"Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game."

You, sir, are most definitely included in that list. My point was it comes as no surprise to you (or anybody in #1) that you'd need the appropriate hardware.

Consoles

[Stevyn]

And this is why I have an Xbox!

Every new pc game has tougher requirements. And I think they downplayed these specs. I'm sure to run the game at an acceptable framerate requires a much more powerful processor and graphics card. I'd rather buy a keyboard and mouse for my xbox if I really felt I needed them rather than upgrading a computer just to play a few PC games.

Re:Oh my, it takes a lot of hardware! How dare the

[yeremein]

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9200SE Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP -BULK OEM - $47, free shipping

Bad idea. Don't get an SE card for gaming--they have a crippled 64-bit memory bus. At the very least, splurge the extra $6 to get the full 9200, or better yet, get a DX9 compliant board like a Radeon 9600 (about $100) or FX5700 (about $110).

DDR

[essreenim]

Yeah thjey should just have said 256mb of dual channel DDR. That ought do it!!

Re:DDR

[pmjordan]

You know, dual channel mode, or DDR memory don't increase the amount of data you can keep in memory, it just increases the speed of accessing what is there. That advantage is useless as soon as you have to start working with swapping to disk because you've run out of memory. So in DooM 3, having 512MB of SDRAM will be faster than dual-channel DDR, 400MHz memory, as you'll be limited by your hard disk speed of all things.

~phil

Re:Zzzz...!

[Fortyseven]

That wasn't a typo.

[Insert horror music here.]

Are the levels going to be the same?

[Russ Nelson]

Are the levels going to be the same, and will I still be able to get a map by hitting Tab? If so, I might buy a new computer just to play the game just to relive the original DOOM experience.
-russ

Re:Are the levels going to be the same?

[{tele}machus_*1]

I don't know if you are joking or not, but the levels won't be the same. However, if you are eager to re-experience the original, you should download the JDoom engine and 3d model packs from Doomsday. You can then experience the classic game in high-resolution, OpenGL goodness (provided you still have copies of the original WAD files from Doom and Doom 2, otherwise you can only play the shareware versions).

Re:Are the levels going to be the same?

[jonwil]

also you can download FreeDoom and play that.

Mac Requirements:

[piecewise]

Mac Requirements:

A PC. D'oh!

blip

[mrm677]

People upgrading due to Doom3 requirements will cause no more than a tiny blip on the radar of memory manufacturers.

PC gamers represent a tiny fraction of machines (compared to businesses and normal consumers), and most hard-core gamers likely already have 384MB.

The only thing this requirement will cause is a lot of disappointed 13-year olds whose computer that Ma and Pa just bought him is not up to snuff.

Re:blip

[Christ-on-a-bike]

If they really *just bought* a computer, it's unlikely to fail any of the spec requirements. Even a geforce 4 mx is good enough to run this game.

Clarification for those who responded

[Seoulstriker]

I was talking specifically about the Mac cards and those interfaces. Graphics cards for a while on the mac supported ADC and VGA only. No DVI. So if he had purchased an ADC LCD from Apple, his new card wouldn't be able to work because he would need an adapter which also provides energy for the display (one of the features of the ADC interface). I didn't want him to be left out of a nice LCD because his new video card wouldn't support it.

You dumbass

[CaseM]

*FOOOOOOOMMMMM* What's that? It's the sound of the joke flying right over your head.

What's the big deal?

[Mr. Cancelled]

The hardware req's are still just a fraction of what it'll take to run Longhorn when it come out

Re:What's the big deal?

[JustNiz]

LOL, and the funny thing is, when you stop to think about it, Windows is just a glorified program-loader.

The Quake Icon?

[Anonymous Coward]

please! Doom in any of it's form deserves its own icon. Quake is not the only thing id has ever done.

Re:The Quake Icon?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's form

"its".

You forgot one type

[Anonymous Coward]

3) Oldskool die-hard gamers that are willing to sacrifice looks for performance. I still run everything at 640x480. Doom3 should run fine on my older hardware with those settings.

Re:You forgot one type

[LSD-OBS]

Bah, luxury! I'm going to play my Doom 3 over ssh using libaa

Video Requirement

[yeremein]

Lots of mainstream PCs have been sold with 256 MB of RAM, so upgrades will be in order

Not to mention the ubiquitous yet entirely inadequate Intel "Extreme Graphics" found in nearly all big-name desktops. Even "high-end" systems ship with the barely adequate FX5200. Video card upgrades will be required of almost all stock brand name desktops.

Re:Video Requirement

[cflorio]

That's for sure... I just upgraded to a Radeon 9600 XT from that Intel built in junk... lets just say it was a hell of an improvement playing Americas Army.

Re:Video Requirement

[m1chael]

Bitch to the person who bought it. I don't want to read your brain farts.

If you are thinking of others, well that's nice. But thoughts don't increase frame rates.

interesting specs but dont forget....

[Anonymous Coward]

to upgrade that ape nosed buck nigger that brings you ID nerds your mountain dew and doritos while you play warcraft 3 for 72 hours straight.

aka, Karim, the flat nosed nigger
snoogins.

Re:interesting specs but dont forget....

[Ag3nt]

You know...I really wish you had the balls to login and post this.

Re:interesting specs but dont forget....

[m1chael]

Even though I find the AC's post rather primitive. I wish I had mod points to mod you funny. Because the lynch mod will really teach him a lesson...

I'm lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

I just finished upgrading my machine. I replaced the CPU and MB, the video card and monitor, new memory, and a case to fit the upgrades.

What I can't figure out is why after upgrading it, I now have another machine that looks exactly like my computer did two months ago. It's got me stumped.

Ah, finally, a bit more logical requirements.

[DroopyStonx]

The last story had peple saying it'd be Radeon 9800's and huuuge CPUs.

While it makes sense considering id always pushed the envelope on latest hardware (like 486 to pentium), those were usually drastic changes in hardware and performance. The difference between a 1.5 and 3 ghz CPU, even though one is twice as fast as the other, is minimal in immediate performance for most hardware & games of today.. so to think people will run out and buy entirely new ystems (going from 1ghz to 3 will need a new mobo & CPU of course as well as RAM) is a bit overestimating how much people want to play this.

I'm a programmer, so I of all people know what I need in terms of CPU, and to be honest, my computer I purchased 2 years ago (Athlon 1800) can run anything I throw at it, even the latest games.

It's good to see that it'll still run on systems that're 2-3 years old!

Longhorn?

[Gr8Apes]

try again - longhorn won't be out until at least 2007, and many are saying 2008 or later. But even at its most optimistic, 2007-2004 = 3 years. :)

I think in 3 years, all current computers will be obsolete, with the possible exception of some 64 bit machines.

If anyone doubts that 64 bits aren't the wave of the near future, just look at all the digital cameras and DV camcorders being sold today. People will want to do digital things with that digital media, and 64 bits allows for that to happen faster (in some cases, just allows it to happen). 32 bits is dead, it just doesn't know it yet, much like the wasp body that doesn't know the head has been gone for hours.

Lastly, after seeing the "suggested" specs for a longhorn machine, nothing out there will run it yet. So, all machines will be replaced in 3 years anyways, provided anyone upgrades. (Heck, according to Infoworld, there's still a large contingent of win95/98 machines out in the corporate world. I personally know of 1 50K+ employee company where that is a true statement.)

Re:Let me guess....

[Karhgath]

I hope this was a joke...

64x64 texture?? 1996 called, they want their textures back. Usually High Res texture are at least around 512x512 at 32 bits, so around 8 megs per tetxures, a bit higher than 16k.

Most of the memory used nowadays are for textures. That's why videocards have 256/512mb ram now alone, mostly for the framebuffers and textures.

I won't even respond to the rest of your post =) You've obviously never written a multimedia/game application.

FUCK iD SOFTWARE!

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I want an awesome game. I want awesome grapics, with awesome rendering, great lighting, 3d shadows, incredible monsters made of a gabillion triangles. And I want the game to have no "jaggies" so it's smooth as glass at 1280x1024 with 60fps. Oh, and 5.1 surround sound with real time effects and echos and reverb.

What? I can't enjoy this on my $299 Walmart PC? FUCK YOU iD SOFTWARE! WTF? YOU GUYS CAN"T CODE. /sarcasm

Re:FUCK iD SOFTWARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiiiiiiiiight.

Re:FUCK iD SOFTWARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

And what the fuck is your problem?

Too bad dual CPU is so expensive now

[swb]

I just replaced my Dual P3-667 system with a P4-3.2. I priced out going dual P4 Xeon or Opteron, but it was *so much* more expensive to get even close single-CPU performance out of a dualie system than just going semi-high end P4.

I liked my dual system's ability to remain responsive even when loaded, but I found that there was little that took advantage of dual processing and as the system aged, single-CPU performance became pretty important in a new system.

It's too bad Intel and AMD don't make their plain desktop processors capable of at least 2 way, and saved the MP "tax" for 3+ CPU systems. Hopefully the next time I go through this exercise we'll have dual-core CPUs available that give the advantages of dual CPUs without all the added cost.

Re:Let me guess....

[upsidedown_duck]

Windows XP certainly would be a part of that 384MB. However, instead of Java, consider memory required for 3-D data structures, AI data structures, sound buffers, UI widget structures, etc., all of which go beyond the frame buffers and texture memory. As software gets more sophisticated, it has its way of nickle-and-diming your RAM to death.

Breath deeply and look at the specs...

[CdnZero]

Sure the RAM is high and probably not needed (especially if u have "the greatest fucking video card"... That said the video card requirement isn't that high. A Geforce 3 or ATI 8500? I picked up an ATI 9200 card a couple of months ago for $100 at retail.

The fact is these guys are giving specs that are *gasp* going to make their game look good. They aren't interested in seeing their several years of development work chug at 20fps. And none of their customers are either.

RAM is cheap, the video cards you need are cheap. I don't see the problem here...

Re:Breath deeply and look at the specs...

[edgedmurasame]

Obviously, you probably think a Mac, SGI, or the ever popular for OpenGL pSeries is cheap as well, given the price bracket of the cards to run this beast, $300-400+. With the realistic low end at the 7500/Mobility FGL 7800(The only chip solely in a non Apoo or jobstealing laptop)- and the highend (read: always out of reach of mere mortals due to the oligopoly created by the buyouts) is around the x800.

But you arent forced to do X, buy X or involve yourself with X

Well, that doesnt justify your point anymore, since some of us dont have shitloads of money.

To allow anything lesser means a sacrifice in innovation

This one is probably from the gaming community that isnt old enough to remember when one had to actually made your equipment last for a long time (when a usable PC still cost $2000) by getting every inch of that hardware used before thinking of that new upgrade. I'd think innovation would be to step up to the plate and get all the performance/quality out of the lowend/midrange before those who just blindly buy whatever is topend for $500+ expecting that everyone has their resources at hand. I'm not exactly asking for one to go down to Virges or integrated, but asking for innovation to happen within the hardware that's in the low-midrange first (read: Radeon 7500-9600 non LE).



(No nvidia quotes were given due to buyout of 3dfx)

Re:Let me guess....

[LiquidCoooled]

The 384mb is NOT used for storing frame buffers, that is nowadays part of the graphics card (and has been since the dawn of PCs).

The 1.5ghz cpu is used to make things react in real time in a realistic manner, people expect lights to flicker and boxes to move when you shoot them etc - realtime physics engines don't come cheap specification wise.

The Memory is used to buffer up the textures and models, which are then passed to the graphics card for utilisation - there is no need to shove ALL the data through the AGP bus for every frame however, so your 32mb of data per frame throughput seems reasonable.

If you want postage stamp sized 64x64 texture icons you will be fine, but I prefer to have hires detailed textures mapped onto detailed meshes.

You ARE right in that the games doesnt NEED it, but since every generation of computer has increased in spec, the expectations in people minds have also increased.

Have you just stepped out of a time warp?

Dual PowerPC 970's + GeForce 6800 Ultra ? ? ?

[blakespot]

What about the Mac delivery estimate?

I have a dual G5 2.5GHz PowerMac w/ GeForce 6800 Ultra on order. I assume this will be "up to spec..." The question is when will the Mac version be delivered?

blakespot

Re:Dual PowerPC 970's + GeForce 6800 Ultra ? ? ?

[Mr. Arbusto]

I think the answer you seek is here

flash probs doom3.com Linux?

[bach37]

Anyone else having problems with the doom site in Linux? Using Firefox with flash installed as usual, the popup flash site doesn't open fully. :/

Re:flash probs doom3.com Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, had to reboot to Windoze to see it properly. I thought flash 7 would solve all these weird problems but...

Slashdo'ts new motto:

[Thud457]

Pete and rePete were sitting in a boat.

Pete jumped out.

Who was left?

Re:Slashdo'ts new motto:

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

There is no Pete.

There is only ZUUL.

Re:Slashdo'ts new motto:

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is this ZUUL of whom you speak? He shall KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!

Re:Slashdo'ts new motto:

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wasn't left.
Who's on first.

Open source 3d driver support?

[pyite69]

Will Doom 3 work with any 3d cards that have open source drivers? I am tired of nvidia and ATI. I had an i845G which rocked but probably doesn't have enough power.

I am going to build a new PC for doom 3 and myth, so now is the time to find a good video card.

Re:Open source 3d driver support?

[JustNiz]

Dude ATI and Nvidia are the only manufacturers that make cards fast enough to run that puppy. Everyone else is waaay behind.

Re:Longhorn?

[dasmegabyte]

OK. Just want to really quickly disspell some inaccuracies in your post, probably the result of believing Slashdot anti-Microsoft FUD.

try again - longhorn won't be out until at least 2007, and many are saying 2008 or later

Many on Slashdot are saying this -- many who have absolutely no frame of reference and no idea what they're talking about. Microsoft has always said Longhorn would be out in 2006. As far as I know, they're still saying 2006 and they're right on track for 2006, based on the work they've been showing. Expecting a machine to run two years from now is NOT absurd.

the "suggested" specs for a longhorn machine,

What you're talking about...the absurd specs of 4 GHz, terabyte of hard drive, etc...were disspelled as soon as Slashdot "reported" them. Right now, the recommended specs for a development build of Longhorn -- DEVELOPMENT, mind you, not "just running it" but actively writing, debugging and profiling software -- are 1.6GHz and 1GB of RAM, and suggested DirectX 9 support with 64MB of VRAM. Nearly identical speed to the Doom 3 requirements with a nice ram boost.

Work PCs with 3D

[JaxGator75]

Some people have been known to spend the extra few dollars for a nice video card and then switch it out for a 16mb PCI card when it arrives.

Not ME, of course, but SOME people...

Netcraft confirms - 32-bit is dying! [n/t]

[Anonymous Coward]

The plant in my room grew as I was reading that

[kosamae]

I don't think you know what you're talking about. I played UT2003 PERFECTLY FINE with a 800mhz AMD Duron 384MB of RAM and a Geforce 2 MX400. I'm serious. Pretty much default settings, 800x600 resolution on a Linux box running a 2.6 kernel. I don't know what shooters you've been playing but if you're talking about Deus Ex 2, that game was simply poorly designed. If Carmack says something is minimum I would trust him.

Also relevant- I ran the Doom 3 leak on the windows partition of the same box, and it ran at about 15 fps with all the graphics options turned off, at low resolution. That was a leak of the game that's two years old now and I'm sure they've made a lot of progress on improving performance on low end boxes. I have no doubt in what Carmack said.

Re:The plant in my room grew as I was reading that

[Anonymous Coward]

UT 2003 played fine for me on my old machine.
(well, the large open map caused some slowdown. Going online was a killer.

specs at the time
Dual Celeron 400
GeForce 2 MX
Default settings
IIRC, the creative live sound card helped with running with the default settings.

Mininum Requirements != Recommended Requirements

[cflorio]

So what are the Recommended requirements? I shutter to think.

This is minimal

[Zebbers]

My parents bought a Compaq with only 128mb, it was unusable until i put another 128 in to bring it to 256. 256 is really the minimum for WinXP machines.....

Memory, to me, is the most cost effective upgrade....but its also where the cheaper computers skimp out on.

Re:This is minimal

[Machine9]

This is probably why it says "256 mb ram" in the little system requirements box on winws XP's store packaging. I know where you're coming from though, my laptop has only 128 megs yet shipped with XP anyways ~.~

Got FarCry already, thanks.

[puppetman]

FarCry will tide me over for the FPS-scary-monsters-in-the-dark type game for a while. And it was free with my AMD64 processor/motherboard.

Doom was great. Didn't need any more till Quake 2. FarCry beat them to the punch.

Maybe in 2006 I'll feel like taking another crack at this type of game.

PCGamer Reports...

[statikuz]

There was an article about this in the September issue of PCGamer, they interviewed the lead programmer at id about the sort of computer you'd need to run, and a little about the way the game works, and how it affects what will increase performance or not. PCIe won't do you any good, neither will a 64-bit processor, neither will a cool sound card, as all sound-processing is done by the CPU. Other random facts: on 64MB video cards, textures are downsized, on 128MB video cards, everything runs at full resolution but compressed, and on a 256MB card, everything is full quality except for compressed specular and diffuse textures. Robert Duffy also quoted 512MB of ram as being ideal, and 1GB being the benchmark for running the game in Ultra Quality.

And for those of you keeping score, a GeForce 6800 edges out a Radeon X800 by just a little bit. =D

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[jpmoney]

And how much, at that time, would you have payed for that 486 system?

Yeah, today is looking a little more accurate, eh?

AGP pipeline important

[SethJohnson]

Just as an FYI. I didn't see this mentioned in the article or any posts, so I thought I'd throw it in.

It will behoove DOOM ]|[ upgraders to use a video card that boasts an 8x AGP pipeline and correspondingly a motherboard that supports 8x AGP.

A nice-to-have, but not hugely necessary is DDR dual-channel memory. I bought a gig of OCZ 'high performance' dual channel memory at Fry's for about $139 after a rebate. I've noticed the framerates on Enemy Territory have improved significantly, though that could have been due to me also overclocking my CPU a tad at the same time I installed the dual channel memory.

Re:Longhorn?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was able to get a development copy of Longhorn running on a P3 750 w/ 192M RAM. Required shutting down useless services, WinFS, and other crapola, and it ran perfectly fine.

WONDERFUL!!

[Nom du Keyboard]

Now I'll be able to run Doom 3 and Longhorn on the same system!

Re:WONDERFUL!!

[houseof666]

you mean, the same system will run Doom 3 and Longhorn. But not necessarily at the same time...

Sounds Good

[SomeOtherGuy]

Man look at those system reqs, I was wondering when someone would produce a really good FPS using Java.

Matrox...

[oliverthered]

Use matrox at work, they don't make fast 3d chips anymore, but the picture quality and stability is great.
You need good picture qaulity and stability to fend of all those law suits you'll be getting in a few years time.

GeForce 4 mx == GeForce 2

[Merk]

I bet your desktops have a GeForce 4 MX, not a true GeForce 4. The MX versions are essentially rehashed GeForce 2. I would bet that most work desktops don't actually meet the graphics card requirements (or that even if they meet them the game would play like crap). Aside from graphics cards, most modern business desktops would probably do just fine.

Doom 3, with a quake icon?

[tier 3 geek]

Yeah, so they are made by the same company, but we could at least get a decent image :)

Just Buy It for Xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I'm going to do.

Re:Just Buy It for Xbox

[pmh009]

The graphics quality will be a lot less detailed, but then again, it is better than nothing i guess.

only requre 384M?

[timts]

UT2004 has loading issue with 512M, it will be smooth at 1G, planetside set 1G requirement long time ago.

so 384 is actually pretty low.

It'll be quiet in about 3 weeks....

[ONU CS Geek]

when the slasdotters with girlfriends get 'grounded' because we bought a new computer and didn't tell them until they found the credit card statement.

My favorite quote:

[so]: UMMMMMM
[so]: is this game really worth all of that?
[me]: you don't understand.
[so]: it was ok when I thought we were only buying a $50 game, but now that we have to buy a $1300 computer or spend that much in upgrading one we already have, that is going to be one expensive computer game, not to mention finding space for a new computer, electric, and we've ran out of ports on our switch.

Little does she know that the new computer's almost bought...I've just got to go pick it up. Now to just get some more OT this month to pay for it....

Bull...

[Anonymous Coward]

Got an Athlon XP 2400+ (1.93Ghz, Barton core) with 512 MB of ram and the RADEON 8500 LE (64 MB VRAM).

Doom 3 beta ran like shit (7fps, dropping to 2 sometimes).

Must be the new math...

[gillbates]

Okay, I was partially joking, so I can understand your points. Please try to understand mine: this game shouldn't require this much memory to run - unless, of course, they're using some fantastic new form of rendering.

Usually High Res texture are at least around 512x512 at 32 bits, so around 8 megs per tetxures, a bit higher than 16k.

Um, 512 x 512 = 262144 * 4 bytes/pixel = 1048576 ~ 1MB per texture.

Okay, so that's just off by a factor of 8. But then you say:

That's why videocards have 256/512mb ram now alone, mostly for the framebuffers and textures.

Which just contradicts your earlier point. If I've got 256MB on the video card, that's ~ 2 framebuffers and 200 textures on the card, not in main memory.

Having developed FPS games, I'm kind of skeptical of your 512x512 texture claim. Granted, you'd use these for large objects, but generally speaking, you want to minimize the size of tiles because of the problem with memory bandwidth: if you've only got 32MB per frame, that's 32 1MB textures you can render per frame.

There are different algorithms for rendering 3d scenes, and I've found that the difference in time and memory requirements between them can vary by an order of magnitude. The 384MB requirement makes it look as if they've chosen a less-optimized, more generalized approach for the sake of developing the game on time, rather than producing the most efficient rendering. (Insert Duke Nukem forever joke here...)

Do golfers also need a life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

hahahaha

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

I remember playing aoom on my friend's 486/25 with 4mb of RAM. We borrowed 4mb out of his dad's machine, bringing it down to 4mb itself- his dad never noticed, and Doom played far better. This was still an evil sin, however.

Doom3 = Doom for CPU?

[Assassin_for_Atari]

Ok, I got an athlon 2000+..(supposed to run like 2GHZ)......does this mean I need to upgrade since it only runs at like......*hip shot guess* 1.2ish ad apparently that FX5200 needs to get out the door as well. speaking of which...I have heard good things about the 5900xt (I just don't have 500-600 bucks for a vid card...especially when pci express is on its way)...can anyone really tell me if its a decent card?

Re:Doom3 = Doom for CPU?

[JustNiz]

5900 is so 10 minutes ago...
get a 6800.

Re:Doom3 = Doom for CPU?

[Propagandhi]

The Athlon (although on the low end) should still play Doom 3.

As for the Geforce fx 5900 (note the "fx," there is no 5900xt), that's outdated now. Or at least, it's no longer the latest and the greatest (and therefore no longer costs $500). I wouldn't recommend it, anyway, however as it's ATI companion (the 9800 xt or even the 9800 pro 256mb) outperforms it and costs about the same (the xt slgihtly more, the pro slightly less).

Hope that's helpful.

Hear hear

[Christ-on-a-bike]

Exactly. I (heart) Epic for putting Linux binaries on the disk for UT2004. Even though there's no official support, it's a great PR move.

Re:Hear hear

[Poeir]

And, really, official support would cost a fortune for the proportion of Linux users and number of distributions compared to Windows [98|2000|XP].

How long ago did the "beta" come out?

[Phil John]

And it wasn't really a beta, it was more for demonstrating at E3, probably late alpha quality. It probably had debugging enabled too.

Since that time Carmack will have been working on optimisations. He's also worked out render paths for graphics cards from shit-hot down to pure shit. I would expect he would have started with the most complex and worked down from there, cutting stuff out. So what you saw before may have not yet been optimised for low-end graphics cards like yours.

Also, while 64 MB will just about cut it, it really is the weak point of your setup. Invest in a card with at least 128 MB, one of the current crop of mid range will probably be the sweet-spot price/performance wise - and won't break the bank.

this thread is *cough* BULLSHIT *cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you believe this guy just called a 1.5ghz processor and geforce3 a "riced out box"? Get real!

I bought a 1.3ghz processor and geforce2 almost 3 or 4 years ago, and they were already mid-range at that point. I think I spent about 150$ on the geforce2, maybe less.

These minimum specs are very low, and probably ARE the specs for 30fps at 800x600.

Talk all you want about gameplay over graphics, but thats not what the FPS genre is about, especially not from ID. If you want gameplay, go play Counter-Strike on the 1998 Half-Life engine. If you want graphics, that's what you buy Doom3 and a "rice out" 50$ 1.5ghz processor for.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom played best on a Pentium 90mhz+. You could not tell the difference on anything faster than a 166mhz. This is especially true when there were a lot of monters on the screen while playing 4-way coop. No 486 had silky smooth frame rates in that scenario.

How about the Mobility Radeon 9000?

[jabberjaw]

Tibooks users everywhere demand to know! Seriously, does anyone have any input with regards to this? I am doubting it, but one can hope, no?

Has anyone noticed the author?

[edunbar93]

The author of the original article is a twit. Either that or he's intentionally scaremongering. I think he really wants a job writing in the finance pages.

Consider the opening line:

If there's a gamer in your life, chances are you've noticed some strange behavior since last week.

If there's a gamer in your life, he has a way better computer than the system specs. There's no need to say "Look out! You'll need to upgrade big time!"

It's also full of gems like this, about video card upgrades:

It's also where computer makers, looking to cut corners on mainstream systems, often wimp out.

Wowee mister wizard! You've managed to establish that when you buy a PC in a bundle, you get sucky components! It's also worth noting that these sucky components don't run *yesterday's* games either, never mind today's! So if you're in the least bit interested in playing Doom 3, I'd bet dollars to donuts that you *don't* have a Dell with the cheapo onboard video processor.

The interesting thing is that I don't think he's actually all that clueless. What I think is that he's got half a dozen ads for computer stores surrounding his article, and that he thinks he'll get more if he boosts sales.

Bad reporter! Bad!

Re:Mininum Requirements != Recommended Requirement

[octaene]

You "shutter" to think? I believe you mean "shudder", right?

What are you talking about

[billybob]

I don't think Id is planning for everyone to run out and buy Doom III now. I think he's releasing it as a technology demo (as Quake III was) and then will market it to gaming companies as the ultimate way to create their games.

Are you on crack? Of course they want everyone to go out and buy doom 3, and trust me, it will happen.

Just because they license their engine out doesn't mean the original game they release with said engine is just a "technology demo". They're still trying to make an awesome game, quake 3 was by far my favorite of all the quakes. Doom 3 should be a killer one-player experience, which was their goal. Seriously, it looks scary as hell.

Now of course their ultimate goal, financially, as a company, is to license the engine and make serious bucks from it. And they deserve to, hell they spent 4+ years coding the damn thing. But that's not "the real secret". They want to release a killer game, why not license out the engine on the side, if it kicks ass and they can make tons of money off it?

Since the lead time on new games is at least a year, "common" computing should pretty much catch up in the interim.

It's WAY more than a year, even if the engine and dev tools are already completely done for you.

Re:What are you talking about

[AKAImBatman]

Are you on crack? Of course they want everyone to go out and buy doom 3, and trust me, it will happen.

Oh, I believe it will happen. Just not right now. First systems have to play catch-up to the proper tech before Doom III will run on the majority of systems. The hardcore gamers, those with the latest and greatest hardware, and the overclockers should all be covered. That still leaves a HUGE portion of the market that Id will slowly draw revenue from over the next 3-5 years.

It's WAY more than a year, even if the engine and dev tools are already completely done for you.

As I said, at least a year lead time. A year of lead time can happen when an existing project switches engines in mid-development. While not very common, it has been known to happen.

Re:What are you talking about

[bass2496]

It's WAY more than a year, even if the engine and dev tools are already completely done for you.

Not if history is any indication. The first Quake III engine based game, Ritual's underrated Heavy Metal: FAKK2, went gold in summer 2000, just half a year after Quake III Arena went gold in winter 1999.

Re:What are you talking about

[JDevers]

Do you think that Ritual got their copy of the engine source the day that Q3:A went gold? The minute the engine reached a usable and somewhat stable level, they start licensing it.

Re:What are you talking about

[bass2496]

The minute the engine reached a usable and somewhat stable level, they start licensing it. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. Is this not the case with the Doom 3 engine?

Re:What are you talking about

[bass2496]

Nevermind, I misinterpreted the parent's post.

I thought he was saying that even if the engine and dev tools are available previously, that it will be more than a year after the release of Doom 3 before a Doom 3 engine game will be released.

Even then, the post he was responding to was wrong if id licensed the Doom 3 engine before the game came out. We might see Doom 3 based games coming out during the next year.

Upgrade?

[cubicledrone]

Biggest eye-opener: 384 MB of memory. Lots of mainstream PCs have been sold with 256 MB of RAM, so upgrades will be in order.

Oh, that's alright.

RAM chip manufacturers should be salivating about now. You'll also need a 1.5-GHz processor and a GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500 graphics card or better."

Oh, that's alright.

Or, for a couple hundred bucks, it will run on a console, right?

Re:Upgrade?

[Machine9]

"Or, for a couple hundred bucks, it will run on a console, right?"

So true... BUT, playing an FPS with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard has traditionally been a royal pain in the arse, I think the only one that ever managed to have a decent means of controlling it has been Metroid Prime...

Re:Upgrade?

[pmh009]

I agree. Most of the people who think Halo is the best FPS ever have never played BF1942 or UT2004 or any number of other FPS PC games. It is the same thing as in high school when one of my friends thought Goldeneye was the best game ever... while at the same time I'm playing Half-Life and Counterstrike where you could actually look, shoot and aim... all while moving.

Doom 3 on Xbox is great news!!!

[SenorCitizen]

At least if the performance delta between the PC version and the console version is anywhere near what we had with Halo!

I mean, a $200 box running the game at 2x the framerate, that's gotta be the bargain of the year... ;)

Re: do golfers also need a life?

[TalMaximus]

Ummm, anyone else bothered by the fact that there is a joke about shooting our President in this thread. Political issues aside the man is still the President and jokes or comments about shooting him are not funny.

System Specs

[NEOtaku17]

The latest Doom 3 beta played alright on my Athlon XP 2500+ with 512MB of DDR PC2700 with my Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 XT. Although the framerate dropped very low during some firefights I don't think it ever really reached the point of "unplayability". Just FYI.

Doom 3 theme

[F100d]

Have you guys heard the Doom 3 theme? There is a clip of it posted on the Doom 3 website. Anyone notice any similarities to it and Tool's Lateralus?

Re:Doom 3 theme

[F100d]

Here, listen: http://www.dissention.net/media/music/toolRip.mp3L isten

Everquest? Half Life 2?

[argent]

I just had to upgrade my wife's computer to a DX9-compatible card for Everquest, and people are talking about 9200 as the minimum ATI card for Half Life 2... so I don't see how these specs are particularly unexpectedly high.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[Accipiter]

A 66MHz Athlon?

What?

Killer App?

[IllogicalStudent]

AHA! This is the killer app needed to get 3D Mice to go mainstream!

Re:Oldskool (Re:Meanwhile, in reality...)

[Anonymous Coward]

But I have a life (and wife and kids) now! I certainly am NOT on the upgrade treadmill anymore. I might have asked for this game for Christmas or something, but there's no way in hell I'm getting expensive hardware upgrades just to play a game I won't have much time for anyway.

Yeah, but it costs a lot less then it used to (a good game ring can be built for under $1000 instead of $3000). Plus, the system improvements are starting to slow to a crawl (last year's machines are only 25% slower then this year's machines).

Re:Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again - in C++

[freezin fat guy]

Thanks for pointing out D3 does use C++ and is the first Id engine to do so.

I know Carmack isn't anti-OOp, but he is very concious of performance and I'll openly speculate that he waited to leverage C++ until now for that reason.

I also wish that more of the licensees using Id engines were onboard with multi-platform support. There's really little excuse not to compile a couple extra binaries when the core engine supports it.

So basically I'm screwed, right?

[seaniqua]

I took a look at this, and cringed. I knew my stuff was out of date (it was upper-midrange in 2001 when I bought it), but I never thought it was this bad. All my stuff is at or just below the minimums (1.5 Ghz, 128m RAM, GeForce2, more than enough HD space). Unfortunately, it is a Dell, based on RDRAM. I looked around, and the cost just to upgrade the memory would be around $500! I also put together a motherboard/CPU/memory/video card combo (correct me if I would need to replace more of those items to "convert" to DDR SDRAM) for only about $200 more. Please someone tell me I am wrong somewhere here!

Jesus christ, mods

[rd_syringe]

It was a fucking joke. "-1 Flamebait?" Geez, I even referenced Barney Doom for the old players around here. I've been a Doom fan longer than a lot of you have been playing Counterstrike.

Pull your head out of your ass. I look forward to the reverse meta-moderations on this one.

Re:Jesus christ, mods

[easter1916]

You're wasting your breath on these idiots, rd_syringe. I thought it was funny, anyway.

Re:Jesus christ, mods

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey shithead. If I find any of your posts modded down I'll metamod in agreement with the moderator. You are a piece of shit asshole who deserves to be modded down.

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[syukton]

so roughly 23 times the clock speed and 48 times the ram. That does seem a little ... excessive.

Re: do golfers also need a life?

[Hard_Code]

oh no, a threat from a slashdotter...i'm sure the secret service is trembling

waiting will mean certain deathmatch peril

[SethJohnson]

All that said, I'm still looking forward to Doom III, but I'll get it next year when the price is down.

In order to save maybe $20 off the cost of this game, you're willing to give every other FPS fanatic a >six-month headstart in playing Doom III? You must love to be everyone's easy frag on deathmatch servers!

Re:waiting will mean certain deathmatch peril

[Feanturi]

In order to save maybe $20 off the cost of this game, you're willing to give every other FPS fanatic a >six-month headstart in playing Doom III? You must love to be everyone's easy frag on deathmatch servers!

1) I tend to play most such games in their single-player campaign only. I hate being pestered to join friggin' clans all the time.

2) Fraggin' is fraggin'. It's the same old crap with different weapons and better graphics.

GF4 MX has limited Pixel Shader 1.1 support...

[MojoStan]

afidel (530433) asked:

Is the Geforce 4 MX supported? I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?

To which ToLu the Happy Furby (63586) replied:

Last I heard, id intended on including at least some GF4 MX cards on the minimum requirements list, which would indicate that a GF2 or GF2-Ultra would be even more playable (which is to say not very).

I'm just speculating here, but maybe the GeForce4 MX (and not GeForce2) was included on the minimum requirements list because it "kind of" supports Pixel Shader 1.1 (which GeForce2 lacks). I say "kind of" because the GF4 MX's T&L unit requires help from the CPU to process vertex shaders (think Winmodems).

Maybe John Carmack got the GF4 MX working on the NV20 path (Geforce 3) by using its limited pixel shader support. So maybe a GF4 MX is the minimum GPU that uses vertex shaders and makes DOOM 3 "look good."

I couldn't find any good information on NVIDIA's site, but here's one review that compares the GeForce4 MX with the GeForce2 Ti (including a little info on pixel shader support): MSI GF4MX420, GF4MX440 and GF4MX460 Video Cards Review

Re:GF4 MX has limited Pixel Shader 1.1 support...

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

maybe the GeForce4 MX (and not GeForce2) was included on the minimum requirements list because it "kind of" supports Pixel Shader 1.1 (which GeForce2 lacks). I say "kind of" because the GF4 MX's T&L unit requires help from the CPU to process vertex shaders (think Winmodems).

Check your article again: that's Vertex Shaders 1.1, not Pixel Shaders.

Re: do golfers also need a life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you bothered by the innocent deaths caused by the see-through politics from him ?

STFU bitch : Getting him shot would be doing him a favour.

My sad story...

[Baikala]

Here I was in a BestBuy store with $200 bucks left after Xmas, pretty much sure Half Life 2 was arround the corner. I had two options: the 9600SE at $130 and the 9600XT at $200 (altought the 9600PRO had the best cost/benefit radio it didn't include the HL2 cupon). I thought the 9600SE was the vanilla version in a new package (the reguar 9600 was sold out and no longer in production) so I bought it.
I have regreted that desition many times but not as hard as today, the 9600SE turned out to be the "9600 cripled", the regualar 9600 with a 64 bit memory interface(all the other 9600's got a 128 bit mem. interface), it's DX9 performance is abysmal and it's DX8 performance is below the Radeon 8500's. To make matters worst the 9600XT is $150 this days!
Now I'm forced to upgrade it in order to play D3. So this is the telltale kids: "Don't buy that brand new Video Card "variant" without reading reviews and benchmarks first!.

Re:My sad story...

[Glonoinha]

Or you could remember Glonoinha's Rule #32 : don't buy a new video card until a) your old one is no longer fast enough to play the game you want to play, and b) you actually have the game you want to play in your hands (and it doesn't play on your video card.)

I have been chomping at the bit for new hardware for a year now, but as I wasn't installing any new software I decided to wait (it was fast enough for my existing games, etc.) Doom III gets announced, my new P4 2.8GHz w/ HT and a gig of memory arrives and I go out to buy a new fx5900se. Maybe I planned it that way, and maybe I got lucky. Actually I got lucky, but it makes for a good lesson.

If I had bought in December, I would be facing another upgrade.

Consider the Jihad

[1two7.0.0.1]

Are you tired of slashdot's editors? Check out anti-slash!

While you're there, check out the database tool here. With the database tool, you can quickly gain karma by reposting highly-moderated slashdot posts, and secure the +1 bonus for future jihad operations.

By decreasing /.'s already low signal to noise ratio, you can force /.'s editors to come clean about their ethical lapses, and have a great time doing it!

Thank you for your support,

jihadi_31337

Re:Oldskool (Re:Meanwhile, in reality...)

[titzandkunt]

[People who will pimp-out their rig to play Doom3]

1) Oldskool die-hard Doom lovers. These people have been around long enough that the concept of hardware upgrades is nothing new to them. Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game.

"Hmm, that's me - I was playing Doom on my ultra-expensive 100MHz 486 laptop, underway on a submarine in 1995.

But I have a life (and wife and kids) now! I certainly am NOT on the upgrade treadmill anymore. I might have asked for this game for Christmas or something, but there's no way in hell I'm getting expensive hardware upgrades just to play a game I won't have much time for anyway.

So scratch #1 off your (and IDs) list, unless they're stuck in a time warp. "

So you're Oldskool, but your waning enthusiasm demonstrates that you're no longer die-hard.

Best keep #1 on the list.

T&K.

HE WAS KIDDING, DUMBASS

[Anonymous Coward]

I get where Eric_Cartan_South_P is comming from. I hate gamers who bitch about high specs, yet want full eye candy, especially when they are cheap or have no skills to upgrade their own box without running to Dell support or some shit. So calm the fuck down, he was just blasting lame gamers with lame gear who bitch.

Obligatory Rambus bitching

[bersl2]

I just realized that my 3 year-old OEM-built comp's mobo takes RDRAM. Oh fuck.

And then I remembered about the magic of eBay, where you can get 2x512MB of never-used RDRAM for about $100.

So between that and nvclock + a chipset cooler, I just might be set until I can save up for a dual Opteron "because I want to splurge" machine.

G4 1.42 GHz

[green pizza]

I'm crossing my fingers that the Mac system requirements will say "G4 1.25 GHz." And I'm sure Id is too...Mac users are much less likely to dump their systems for a game, and 1.25 was the top end model from a year ago.
I think the top line G4 when the G5s were announced was a 1.42 GHz G4.

Sorry to be pedantic but..

[Anonymous Coward]

..The logo on the front page for this story is incorrect as it's a Quake3 logo, not Doom3. :P

Only 384MB?

[slasher999]

Anyone getting PC's without at least 512MB these days is either cheap or buying Dell crap. Memory is installed in pairs (in quality machines anyhow), and who bothers wasting the energy required to pick up a 128MB dimm anymore?

"Dude, your getting screwed!"

Re:Only 384MB?

[forkboy]

Some people don't buy a new computer every year. I know, this is /. and that's a hard concept to grasp. A computer sold 3 years ago would very likely have only 256 MB. The hard drive might only be 20 GB, too! Gasp!

Re:Rice boys

[Anonymous Coward]

try www.riceboypage.com for the 411 on that.

Oops, I meant Vertex Shaders 1.1

[MojoStan]

The subject said Pixel Shaders 1.1, but my comment clearly referred to Vertex Shaders. My comment is probably nonsense anyway.

poor game tester...

[Doppler00]

I feel sorry for the poor game tester they made use a minimum spec machine to go through the entire game...

You know what would be funny? A website that posts minimum spec benchmarks on all the popular games. Would be interesting to see what game makers think "minimum" actually means.

Xbox version???

[pmh009]

These minimum requirements make me wonder about how much level of detail will be stripped out of the Xbox version. I know the Xbox doesn't have to run a full featured OS like XP, but still... I'm glad I'll be playing the PC version!

Re:Longhorn?

[wideBlueSkies]

I still don't understand why an OS would need 1GB of RAM..... WTF is it doing with all that memory(and processor speed)? Crunching numbers to help find a cure for cancer?

wbs.

Eh?

[MLC2012]

So what's the big deal? Most of Doom 3's target audience had more than 384MB of RAM, GeForce3/Radeon 8500, and a gig-and-a-half processor sometime in 2001.

Expecting to play such a game on a craptacular OEM desktop box, especially one made more than about two years ago, is unrealistic.

Never trust a Min Spec

[cgenman]

Welcome to the world of Minimum System Requirements as determined by the Marketers.

Don't upgrade your systems until you find out how much stuff you really need.

That's what I likke about consoles.

[JFMulder]

Minimum requirement : Having the console and the money.

Re:That's what I liKe about consoles.

[JFMulder]

I expect the typing police to hit any second now...

Grandpa game

[DragonHawk]

"... mainframe had 32K, and the tube was black and green ..."

You had memory? Why, back in my day, all we had was a bunch of people standing around flipping knife-switches. Tube?!? We didn't have no stinking tubes! We had a stone tablets hooked up to a steam-driven hammer! And you didn't hear us complaining, let me tell you! We were happy for what we had!

Matlock? Matlock!? Is that one of those new-fangled tele-vision thingies? Why...

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[AbRASiON]

Why do so many people confuse Doom 1 and 2's specs?

Doom 1 and 2 both had identical specs and identical engines, the only difference (in the end at version 1.9) was the wad file they processed.

Doom required 4mb of ram and ran on a lowly 386 DX if I recall - SX may have worked but they used that dos4gw extender which might have meant dx only, not sure.(as did all the cool games then - syndicate anyone?)

Oh and yes Doom 2 was virtually unplayable with 4mb on the last level as it had too many monsters due to them spawning from romero's severed head - 8mb of ram was like night and day difference

It didn't need a windows swap file, 3.11 was all the rage then, but I think 95 was either on it's way or just out

NOTE: your post is still funny but please an Athlon in Doom 2's day? hah! :)

The g

Video RAM?

[ReKleSS]

Like everyone else, I'm getting excited about doom 3. However, I'm curious whether there's a video ram requirement. My box is just up to spec (p4 2ghz, 512mb ram, gf3 ti500) but my video card is a bit weird... geforce 3 with only 64mb ram. Anyone know if this is going to impair my ability to make the most of my box for playing doom 3?
--ReK

Re:Video RAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not. 128MB is pretty standard fare for a current GFX card. But a GF3 Ti500 should still cut the mustard. Having only 64MB may bottleneck your speed when the game is using larger textures, or higher resolutions >1078x768.

I actually wish the sys reqs were higher

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I enjoy blowing more dough on hardware, but I wish D3 required more hardware. I'm tired of seeing the latest hardware (ie. Geforce 6800, Radeon X800, 3.4GHz+ CPUs) go to waste. The Doom3 engine will enjoy at least a 2 year life span. So why not have the initial product require the cutting edge hardware? I think the jaw dropping graphics will inspire many more people to upgrade. I know, I know it makes more economic sense to cater to the greatest common denominator.

I've see the screenies and the trailer and am very impressed by the next-gen graphics that the engine will deliver. I'm sure there's some scaling of the quality based on the hardware in the PC, so texture and shader detail will be lost if only the minimum requirements are met and if you're running with the latest and greatest then you can enjoy the game in all its gory glory. However, consider, if Carmack and team were able to define higher requirements, perhaps 2.5GHz, 512MB and DX9 support, then imagine what a leap in quality we could enjoy. This point has already been brought forward by a couple of reasonable gamers, but the type person that's going to go out and buy Doom3 is either going to have a mid-range to high-end PC or will be looking forward to upgrading in order to be apart of the experience.

Give your IT dept a few days

[rsilvergun]

and they'll all be swapped out with S3 Virges

I disagree

[rsilvergun]

for two reasons:

1. More people with more ram means less ram for me (i.e. higher prices)

and 2. People, especially in America, are cheap. Very cheap. And they buy cheap ram. Very cheap ram. Very bad cheap ram. Then they don't use it. Until it's time to install Windows XP again. Then winnt.exe uses their ram. All of it. Including the cheap, bad ram. And then it blows up. And they want to know why. And they want me to fix it. And they don't want to buy more ram. Because they already did that. Bad ram, but ram, nonetheless. These are not happy people.

That's 'cause doom wasn't meant for consoles

[rsilvergun]

Give Golden Eye or Perfect Dark or even Conqor's Bad Fur day (the FPS sequences) a try, and you'll see what I mean. The hard part is having auto aiming, but not making it so things get cheap. Now that I think about it, Rare's the only one's I've seen do that right (unless Metroid Prime wasn't Rare, I don't think it was, but I'm too lazy to look).

Re:Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III

[Anonymous Coward]

Syndicate :) :D :) :D

Nope

[Udo Schmitz]

this mean this might even run on some of the high-end G4 MacIntosh, once ported

Seeing how you spell Macintosh I can clearly see that you are not a Mac user. If you were you would surely know this: Game companies normally make sure that titles, once ported to the Mac will run so shitty that the minimum requiremnts effectly double. Of course this won't be stated on the package, which will read like: Minimum G3, 256 MB.

Yes, I own a very old Mac and am filled with bitterness ...

Re:Nope

[mirko]

I can clearly see that you are not a Mac user
You should either see an eye-doctor (occulist ?) or revise your judgement ;-)

BTW, I think ported games run great on Mac, I could play Unreal Tournament on a G3/800 iBook with maxed RAM even despite the minimal specs mentioned a G4...

Blackcomb

[Udo Schmitz]

Microsoft has always said Longhorn would be out in 2006.

And in some parallel dimension Microsoft might have a perfect track record for meating deadlines.

As far as I know, they're still saying 2006 and they're right on track for 2006,

Yup, no miracle with postponing some more hard to implement features (at least hard to implement for Microsoft) to the later Blackcomb release.

But, yeah, I'm pretty sure by 2006 they'll have some smoke and mirrors presentation for people like you :)

Unreal Tournament

[Udo Schmitz]

I could play Unreal Tournament on a G3/800 iBook with maxed RAM

Well, still no need for me to try it here ;) But seriously: Did you play networkgames aginst real people or only for yourself against the bots? Are frame rates still good enough to get frags with more than 5 people in a big room all firing their weapons?

Re:Unreal Tournament

[mirko]

No, I only play against bots...
So, Doom3 should be okay in monoplayer ;)

What I like with fps is that I can decide to play 5 minutes and it lasts 5 minutes.
With Warcraft or whatever, it always ends up lasting for days.

Re: do golfers also need a life?

[oliverthered]

It's called civial disobitiance.
It's thie differance between not repliying to spam or a letter offering you the chance to win $1 million, and forwarding all the spam and letters to someone who really needs to think about the problem.

Windows XP operating overhead

[Oshkoshjohn]

When the memory overhead for just the Windows XP OS, firewall and anti-virus closes in on 200 megabytes, it's hardly a Christmas miracle that entry-level PC's now need 512 megs of RAM, and run nicer with a full gigabyte!

FUD? Hardly.

[Gr8Apes]

Many on Slashdot are saying this -- many who have absolutely no frame of reference and no idea what they're talking about. Microsoft has always said Longhorn would be out in 2006. As far as I know, they're still saying 2006 and they're right on track for 2006, based on the work they've been showing. Expecting a machine to run two years from now is NOT absurd.

According to InfoWorld in Jul 2003, Longhorn was to be released in 2005. Sometime after that, I think in the 4th Quarter of 2003, they stated Longhorn would release in the first half of 2006, and I believe the latest date is second half of 2006. There's also widely publicized data on feature reductions in Longhorn, to enable them to maybe make the 2006 date. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the 2006 date may be a bit too agressive (or maybe it does). I personally wouldn't be surprised to see Longhorn ship in 2Q or 3Q of 2007, if not later. Security is, after all, job 1 at MS now, and they have such a stellar record with it... take, for example. XP SP2, delayed yet again.... Yep, MS will surely ship Longhorn in 2006. They said so in early 2004!

There's also the issue of MS release schedules. MS does not do a release more often than every 2 years. Since I believe they're still planning on the "new" XP release, that implies that Longhorn would be no earlier than the end of 2006. Granted, this is conjecture, but has held true so far.

What you're talking about...the absurd specs of 4 GHz, terabyte of hard drive, etc

That was a dual-core 4Ghz CPU btw, and probably necessary to be able to do anything with the original WinFS busily collating and searching all that data. Hardware requirements will be directly affected by the reduced feature set that will actually ship with Longhorn, and I don't wonder that some of the feature clipping will be purely to reduce hardware requirements.

Take WinFS with network share information, somehow that just screams large amounts of RAM and disk space to me. Remove it, and that requirement is seriously reduced, as likely happened within MS once they realized what that actually meant. I'm not surprised that was moved to the vapor BlackComb, which is actually the new, true Longhorn, while Longhorn becomes more like XP. The further this progresses, the more I'm reminded of the never achieved Cairo....

Anymore FUD you wish to discuss/disprove?

buying advice

[Anonymous Coward]

before upgrading or buying a PC for DOOM 3 try waiting for it to come out... then you're probably going to find someone who wants to show the game off to you, after you watch and see the game running pretty smooth ask for specs...also remember there is HL2 around the corner

You miss DWANGO?

[AlexMax2742]

People still play Doom online. With a quake-like console, mouselook, and higher resolutions as well. Or not, if you prefer it that way.

ZDaemon. Trust me, Doom II Deathmatch (and CTF(!)) is far from dead.

well duh

[ewe2]

i sure won't since i won't be running it in anything else but linux son of a flatulent baboon!