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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."
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.
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.
Ooooh, you mean the Doom 3 interactive slide show? That sounds about right then.
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.
Banu
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?
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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...
Wait a year and buy the same system used for two hundred bucks.
Sometimes patience really is a virtue.
KFG
I'll trade my little brother for a Radeon 9800XT before Doom3 hits the shelves! PLEASE!
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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.
------------------
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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.
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.
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?
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http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identi ferID=6737&action=flatview/
till I find out what the min requirements for Duke Nukem Forever are.
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.
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.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
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).
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.
To play Doom, I remember having to boot my 386 without loading the TSRs....
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-fragbait
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.
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...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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.
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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.
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..
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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.
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?
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.
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