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Specs For id's Next Game After Doom 3 Calculated

Posted by simoniker on from the clever-boy dept.

jvm writes "Since my current PC is beefy enough to play Doom 3, I began planning for id Software's next game, the one that will come out _after_ Doom 3, so I've worked out the release date and minimum system requirements. It looks like a 3GHz processor and 1.5Gb of RAM just won't cut it in 2007, although the hard disk requirement doesn't hurt too much. Where's this information coming from? From id Software's past game requirements, a couple of exponential and linear models, and some pretty graphs. Start saving for that upgrade now! (Slashdot recently covered the Doom 3 system requirements.)"

16 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Start saving nothing... by skermit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I paid over $3000 for a P-90w/64mb of ram back when it was the top of the line... now you can get a top of the line computer for roughly half that. The bleeding edge price of computer hardware has been dropping steadily, so by the time we need all that computing power, it'll cheap enough to own.

    --
    -Christopher Wu
    http://www.christopherwu.net/
    1. Re:Start saving nothing... by Prior+Restraint · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do I really need all that for a gaming machine, though? I mean, are save-games so important that I really need RAID?

      Another thing to consider is inflation. I realize skermit's info is anecdotal, but let's use it as a demonstration. This site says the Pentium 90 appeared in 1994. The Inflation Calculator says that $3000 in 1994 dollars is $3645.04 in 2003 dollars (the most recent data available).

      Assuming you aren't just putting stuff in your PC because it's possible to do so, I'm pretty sure a top gaming PC today is certainly no more expensive than the analogous PC of a decade ago, and I suspect it'll be cheaper.

      Anyone care to compile actual numbers, instead of relying on skermit's and Dragoon412's estimates?

    2. Re:Start saving nothing... by kannibal_klown · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Do I really need all that for a gaming machine, though? I mean, are save-games so important that I really need RAID?"

      Games hit the harddrive for 3 reasons:
      1) Save-games (no big deal)
      2) Loading maps (sometimes a pain in the ass)
      3) Accessing the resources (it does it more if you have less ram).

      RAID would only come in handy if the game you're playing has really long load-times, or if you're hitting a cache-file a lot.

      For saved games, yeh, it's pretty useless.

      But as far as price goes, RAID is pretty cheap. A lot of motherboards come with it now, particularly those with SATA ports.

      At that point, you'd just need to buy 2 SATA drives (like, 2 80GB drives), and you'd have a fast RAID solution storing 160GB.

      I'm considering going that route with my next PC. RAID 2 smallish SATA hard drives together for my main system, and back stuff up on a 3rd drive (probably a slow 5,200 RPM drive).

  2. System Reqs by Plake · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, for what it matters I've always found ID to make the best performing games for their minimum requirements. I had a 233mhz for running Quake 3 and that was even low for back when it was released, but it still ran and well I must say (30fps or so, with low res options).

    Just think what Half-Life (3?), or any other major FPS's requirements will be at the time.

    --
    Check out Mon and Mon.cgi
    1. Re:System Reqs by kannibal_klown · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Tell me about it.

      I had a PII 233 when Quake 3 came out. But I had a VOODOO 3 card in there. That game ran like silk on my machine.

      Meanwhile, my friends were bragging to me that their machines were faster (PII 300's with stock video cards). They nearly sh!t a brick when they saw it run on mine (their puny 8MB Rage cards sucked).

      However, you're only siting one example. Quake (the original) really needed a Pentium to play well. At that time, 486's were still more common than the Pentiums, and Quake crawled on them.

      DOOM 1 & 2 REQUIRED a 386 w/ 4MB Ram, but it ran pretty choppy. A 486 ran it like silk.

      In the end, I don't know.

      On one hand, we have previewers saying it runs well on low-end systems, and that the engine is very scalable.

      On the other hand, the "benchmarks" were running HIGH end rigs (obscene amount of RAM, very fast CPU's), and the benchmarks were good, but not great.

      I'm torn as to whether or not I should upgrade now. I have the funds put away for almost a whole new HIGH END system, but I don't know if it's worth it. While a high-end machine will handle DOOM3, can we say the same about the later games that will utilize the engine? They might not be as efficient with their maps and what-not, and you might need like a 4GHz rig to run them in all their glory.

      I want to get a "PCI Express" capable motherboard now, so I can upgrade it later if needed, but it's hard to find them in retail.

      I have a P4 2.4 w. 533 MHz FSB, 1GB Ram, and ATI 9800XT; I consider it a mid-range machine capable of handling mostly anything out there today. The closest system they had to mine in the "benchmarks" TROUNCED my specs, and yet 1024x768 at medium quality (with no AA or AF) ran at like 50FPS. That means mine will be lucky to get like 40FPS at low settings.

  3. Nope. by fr0dicus · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What were the Xbox 2 specs supposed to be again? Seriously, how long can this sustain itself, can't we reach a level where we decide the hardware is good enough, and allow it to trickle down so enough people have it and it starts to become viable to make original games again?

    PC gaming died when GL code was added to Quake, it's a one-trick pony. Now consoles are eating its lunch (you can see it in the sales). Expect further fragmentation if Linux continues to make inroads. Is there a killer app on the horizon that will come into its own when this kind of power becomes available? I can't even see Longhorn needing this kind of ridiculous power.

    1. Re:Nope. by Teancom · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ridiculous power? Where I work, we are buying 3.4Ghz P4s with 4 Gigs of RAM for all of our engineers. Granted, I work at a memory manufacturer so the RAMs easy to come by, but we're only paying about $1K for the machines themselves. So I don't think its a stretch at *all* to say that in '07, a top-of-the-line machine from today will be the minimum reqs for a top-of-the-line game then. That's the "thing" about computers: today's overpowered monster is tomorrow's weakling.

      Oh, and the speed of the machine has jack-all to do with making original games or not. If you can make an original game for a 1Mhz C64, or an Apple II, or a 286, then you can make one for any desktop machine in use today.

    2. Re:Nope. by Have+Blue · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is there a killer app on the horizon that will come into its own when this kind of power becomes available

      There was for every other major leap forward in computer power (and every time someone declared the evolution of technology was over, not just in computers). What makes you think the future will be any different?

  4. Re:wtf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes, it's slowed down.

  5. Graphics by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What about graphical requirements? That's a big piece of the picture that's missing from these calculations.

    1. Re:Graphics by Paladin128 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not something that could be plotted easily, as:

      a) only in Quake II was 3D accelleration actually required
      b) a lot of the changes have to do with features rather than clock speed, memory, and fillrate.

      For instance, up until Doom3, no vertex or fragment shaders were required for the card. We don't know what tomorrow will bring in terms of on-chip components and language change. This would be like trying to plot OpenGL version requirements...

      --
      Lex orandi, lex credendi.
    2. Re:Graphics by Frizzle+Fry · · Score: 3, Funny

      A simple linear model reveals that a minimum requirement for id's next game after doom 3 will be graphics card with 5d-acceleration.

      --
      I'd rather be lucky than good.
  6. Convincing.. by mZam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But i think something that's being left out is the fact that all of these new releases are based on new engines each time.

    Each set of ID games listed.. (D1-3 Q1-3 etc.) Are all based on entirely new engines created for the respecive games (except for doom2).

    In recent interviews about the new ID game, they all said that their new game in the works would utilize an enhanced D3 engine, not an entirely new coded one (like RTCW uses an enhanced q3 engine). They also said that since they have the engine already, release time wont take remotely near as long as it did for D3.

    This is the same for Quake4, which I would assume, uses the D3 engine as well.

  7. Finally... by hal2814 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...I'll have something to run on my Longhorn system.

  8. Last year's Macintosh should handle it. by dbirchall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't really think Id is being unreasonable, since the specs are well below the Macintosh I bought last year.

    A 3.16GHz x86 is only a smidge (if that) faster than a 64-bit 2GHz PPC970. And I've got dual...

    1.6GB of RAM... well, I've only got 1.5GB right now - but I've got space for 8GB.

    3GB of disk... I think I've still got 50GB or so free on my main 250GB SATA drive... and then there's the second 250GB SATA drive...

    I wonder how many FPS I can get on it running at 1920x1200. :)

  9. His math is off by inkless1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He isn't taking into account the correct variables.

    It depends utterly on what tech id uses.

    Doom -> Doom 2. Took 1 year apart. Why? Same engine.

    Doom2 -> Quake ... 2 years. Different engine.

    Quake 3 -> Doom 3 ... 5 years. Different engine.

    So if, as rumored, id Project X uses the same engine (or a mildly improved one), we'll probably see it 2005, 2006 at the latest.

    Not 2007