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Doom 3 Programmer on OGG, Ultra, 60FPS Play
Cryect writes "Appears that Doom 3 is making use of Ogg Vorbis to reduce memory usage for sounds. This comes from id programmer Robert Duffy's latest plan update where he says: 'When we started on memory optimization, most levels used between 80 and 100 megabytes of sound data. We made the choice to move to .OGG for quite a few sounds which effectively removed the problem for us.'" Duffy also comments on texture usage in 'Ultra' mode ("In Ultra quality, we load each texture; diffuse, specular, normal map at full resolution with no compression. In a typical DOOM 3 level, this can hover around a whopping 500MB of texture data") and framerate ("The game is capped at 60fps for normal game play. For render demos, like what was used for the HardOCP stuff, we run those at full tilt which is why you will see 60fps.")
Does anyone know of any other high profile games using Ogg?
If I'm not mistaken, doesn't this just shift the burden to the processor by adding more decoding time to it in exchange for memory savings?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
And how could Ogg possibly improve the size of their sounds? Ogg is a container format. I think they mean Vorbis, the compression codec.
I know I'm being anal retentive. I don't care.
-- mind over pixel
The Vorbis format really is a godsend for gamers, because in the game programming world, the roadblocks which otherwise hinder it are gone. For one, the no license fee argument becomes applicable - Vorbis doesn't help portable player makers much, because they have to support MP3 and WMA anyway. But since the consumer doesn't care what format game audio is in, programmers can go for a cheap (BSD licensed), easy (good APIs), and very good (high quality) solution without worrying about making the game less useful. Many games already use Ogg Vorbis, like UT2003/4 - here's a complete list. (Well, it would be there, if the Wiki was up.)
Here's the question: Why don't game developers take care to run the game on a certain number of de-optimized systems and then release demos with those configurations as well?
I mean, I think it would be nice to see exactly what the game looks like on the Min specs, and if recent games have proven anything, it ought to look incredible.
I ran the UT2004 demo at what must have been hovering near the recommended mark (practically all the special spiffies were turned off), and the graphics still blew me away.
If anything, this might convince me to buy the game or to upgrade hardware to "release" level, and it would also give people a *real* taste of what the game will look like.
Anyone know what specs are needed to run the game at full settings and 60 FPS?
I hope Ogg isn't going to be the extension for both audio and video then. Because right now you can tell if a file is a sound file or a video file just by looking at it. It would be really stupid if people started distributing MOV files that were just sound encoded in a format that is the same as something that could be stored in a wav.
Sounds like a sound card with 128MB of RAM and an Ogg Vorbis decoder would help with resource management significantly. Anything like this out there or on the horizon?
I'm still eager for D3 benchmarks on low and mid-end systems. Anyone knows of any? I'd love to know if it'll be playable on my FX5200.
Would SLI of (2)256MB GPUs be sufficient to meet the 512MB requirement?
I don't know alot about how the memory is handled in an SLI setup. Can the cards access each others memory?
Just curious since I'm sure there will be the uber d00dz who would be willing to spend 1k to run at maximum c00lness
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I ran the UT2004 demo at what must have been hovering near the recommended mark (practically all the special spiffies were turned off), and the graphics still blew me away.
;)
This is completley true for me as well. I almost felt like I was getting something for free.
Questions...
Is it just me or are the developers of UT2004 not getting enough critical and community thanks for making a game that runs so well on crappy systems? I could be totally wrong, but it doesn't seem like they are. Methinks it's just easier for some folks to complain when it *doesn't* work
Next-gen games that run well (or in the case of UT2k4, excellent) on low to mid-range systems would be a welcome paradigm shift and would go a long way to extend the lifespan and relevance of PC gaming. Was that a specific goal of UT2K4's desiginers? If so, how hard is it to implement?
It *seems* like programming for next gen games would be harder for the bleeding edge systems because alot of assumptions about the hardware and drivers have to be made at the very beginning....wheras the crappy hardware in my computer is available for your perusal RIGHT NOW!
Someone enlighten me?
"The game is capped at 60fps for normal game play. For render demos, like what was used for the HardOCP stuff, we run those at full tilt which is why you will see 60fps."
This quote made no sense to me until I did RTFA, and realized that it was faulty. What really was written in the article was:
"...which is why you will see > 60fps."
500 MB???? EHEH .. i still remember when i bought 2 extra Mb for my 386@25Mhz so i could just play Doom1 in protected mode, in a small window ;) ...
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
The best tacticshooter ever
Operation Flashpoint
uses ogg for all sound effects.
Eagerly waiting for OPF2 coming out.
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Cool, is this ASF file I have here audio, or a video? Because apparently you can tell "just by looking at it." Never mind that nobody else can. :-)
The truth is, file extensions mean DICK in the grand scheme of things. Operating systems should choose more intelligent ways to distinguish filetypes... it doesn't matter if you use metadata or a program like file(1), either option are better than using file extensions to leap to conclusions.
And anyway, both audio and video open using the same application, so who cares? ;-)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Couldn't you use a massive amount of RAM, and a fat AGP (or PCI-E, for that matter) interface, to deal with the 500MB of textures? That's how other applications used to do it, before the huge amounts of video RAM showed up. Actually, I recall something about that being the entire point of AGP.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!