Slashdot Mirror
Doom 3 Hardware Guide Debuts
Nosf3ratu writes "Over at HardOCP, the boys have teamed up with id software again to publish the Official Doom 3 Hardware Guide. As the guide states: 'With the prospect of so many new people being brought into gaming by DOOM 3, there will likely be a lot of questions regarding the computer hardware needed to support it.'"
"What we noticed immediately is that DOOM 3 looks incredible even at 640x480! "
and
"Looking at the image, it's surprising just how good Low Quality looks."
My hopes weren't very high, but I'm relieved to see this. Now I know my TNT2 card will do just fine.
But seriously, their test on a minimal system yielded encouraging results:
"Our system was composed of a 1.5GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of Corsair RAM, and a GeForce 4 MX 440 video card"
fp?
Mom says my
FTA: "There are no major differences in image quality between NVIDIA and ATI video cards when playing DOOM 3 at the same settings."
From this shot, I would have to say, ATI looks nicer for quality of lighting. The blending seems more natural.
FTA: "There is no doubt that DOOM 3's minimum system specifications can easily deliver a good gaming experience."
If you don't mind frames dropping to this and their ultimate Doom 3 system.
FTA:"Without a doubt, our AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 system sporting the ABIT AV8 motherboard with 2GB of Corsair XMS RAM was the pinnacle of DOOM 3 performance in terms of image quality and speed when outfitted with the BFGTech GeForce 6800 Ultra OC."
And that is a nice system by any standards. I think I am very interested by the Alienware Doom system. The Aurora ALX looks sweet.
Xian has some cool quotes for the guys at Hard|OCP here. Most notably:
"I am proud to say that DOOM 3 is quite possibly the most aurally detailed and complex game ever made, on any platform."
Drooooool.........
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
With Doom3 and HL2 comming out very soon, I am interested to see how this will affect sales in new CPU's and video cards. Will there be a great boost in sales so people can play these games? I for one have just bought a new computer to allow me to play these--although it is a laptop, and I need to get a faster HD for it.. heh
Boxing Equipment Reviews
Then, i can use my Dual 2.0 G5 with Apple's gorgeous new displays. Yes, i know LCD is bad for gaming, but the new apple monitors are just crazy. At least my "Stock Game" looks good on the monitors.
Actually, does anyone know if ID is planning an OSX release like they did with Quake 3?
-------
artlu.net
Interestingly, Windows 98 won't be supported.
:-)
I'll be in the weird situation of having a game that will run on my PC in Linux, but not on my games-only Windows installation.
Makes a change!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
> Now I know my TNT2 card will do just fine.
BWHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!
This means I have to upgrade my laptop now to be able to play in class.
With the prospect of so many new people being brought into gaming by DOOM 3, there will likely be a lot of questions regarding the computer hardware needed to support it. ...are you sure my 500MHz Pentium II box won't be able to support Doom III?
These things always make me laugh. HardOCP, TomsHardware, all the "hardcore modder" sites.
No doubt this article will convince a bunch of clueless wannabe's that they MUST piss away $1000 in hardware over the next week else they won't be playing Doom 3.
Which, of course, drives "obsolete" stuff, like the (now over 6 months old!) Radeon 9800 XT into the bargain bin for me!
Between these moron sites, and morons at Best Buy and CompUSA, it's a great time to be a tech bargain hunter.
Not too long ago, I overheard an employee at CompUSA telling some customer "Oh, you have DDR333? You really should get a new motherboard that supports dual-channel DDR 400, it'll make a huge difference in your frame rates".
I lurked about as the customer picked out a new mobo and two new sticks of Kingston HyperX RAM - and of course payed 3 times what the stuff would cost on newegg. He hung around as the "upgrade specialists" installed it for him. Before he left I offered him 100 bucks for his old motherboard (an Asus P4PE), 2.4ghz CPU (just a Celeron, but they frankly perform MUCH better than morons give them credit for) and "obsolete" gigabyte of DDR333, and went home with a bag full of "obsolete" goodies.
Woohoooo! God bless people who refuse to accept their own ignorance. The system works!
Never forget, don't believe your eyes. It may look really smooth and good on your screen, you may think you're having fun, but if those benchmarks say it's old, then damn you it's time to spend money!
Benchmarks are everything!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Nice article, though where's the multi-processor graphs? "Ultimate DOOM3 Systems" still only shows single CPU systems.
...
Any clues anyone? It seems the game is pretty much video card limited, but a 2nd CPU might flatten out the frame rates to a more even level instead of bouncing up and down from 17 to 60 FPS
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
"With the prospect of so many new people being brought into gaming by DOOM 3..."
Does anyone really see Doom 3 as some kind of crossover phenomenon that will make people start gaming and suddenly go buy top-notch computers to support their new addiction? I highly doubt it. This sounds like a huge event for the computer gaming crowd, but not much beyond that.
Sorry to poo-poo the hyperbole, but come on...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Is it too much to ask that we have some confirmation that Doom3 is actually a good game before /. spams us with 15 stories a day on it?
There's tons of games coming out all the time, many are better than the mediocre junk id foists on us in the name of selling graphics engines, why dont they get covered?
It is obvious that this sets a new standard for hardware scaling in games. 640x480 at low quality looks stunning, as does 1600x1200 at high. The fact that 80% of modern hardware (remember 78.1% of statistics are made up) can run it proves that id software is as dedicated as ever to providing the best gaming experience as possible. This guide also sets a new standard in thorough reviews. Granted this shouldn't be expected for every game, although it proves [H]ardOCP is comprised of a dedicated team (thanks Kyle and everyone else) who only want to bring the best information to the end-user. I for one have a new level of respect for id software, and [H]ardOCP. They are both setting new standards in thier respective areas.
1. Chainsaw
2. Boomstick
3. Super boomstick
4. Chaingun
5. Rockets launcher
6. Plasma gun
7. BFG
and a bit of armor
what more do you need?
Aren't they standard issue for all Space Marines?
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
'With the prospect of so many new people being brought into gaming by DOOM 3...'
Does this mean they think a lot of people who will play Doom 3 will be 'new' to computer gaming? Aren't most the people excited by the (pending) release of the game people who have been playing games since the first Doom (and before)?
Even looking at the configuration screen shots gave me a little wood: I can't imagine the unparalleled joy I will feel when I start it for the first time.
I suspect one of these things will occur:
1) my heart will stop for two or three seconds when I hear the first 5.1 audio
2) my bladder will burst from playing through the entire game in one marathon 54 hour session
3) I will immediately develop carpal tunnel and a permanent curved spine from sitting in my computer chair
4) My eyes will melt in their sockets like the Nazis in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark
5) all of the above
BRING IT ON
Thanks,
--
Matt
What?
A Pentium II/Voodoo machine can't hardly run Quake3, which is a game that came out in 1998 (or was it late 97?). I think your troll is rather cute, but be honest, for id to make Doom 3 playable on a box such as an AMD 1800+ and a GeForce4 MX440, that's the complete opposite of a "marketing guide by the ultra-evil conspiracy between iD/nVidia/Dell".
On the topic of said troll, what the hell does Dell have to do with anything?
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
The article recommends a 5.1 speaker setup. Since EAX isn't supported (erm, yet) and it uses software-based audio, how does the game interface with, say, a normal DD/DTS reciever and it's digital vs. 6-channel analog inputs? I'm waiting for a DD-advertised game to actually output a Dolby Digital signal w/o an nForce.
/hopeless Creative junkie
The interesting question is: What is the optimal hardware for running Doom 3 on a GNU/Linux system? I haven't played a game since RtCW, and I want to buy a new system to play Doom 3 on GNU/Linux. I know nothing about the current state of hardware support for various high-end graphics cards on GNU/Linux.
"On the topic of said troll"
Geee some people have no sense of humor.
Try getting out more, some fresh air and a stiff drink would definitely do you some good.
For the humor impaired or with hyperactive anal cavities:
IT WAS A JOKE,buying a new machine for a version upgrade from Doom2 to Doom3 yadda yadda yadda.
I know I know... it was waaaaaaaaayyyyy to subtle a joke.
*feh*
I was still reading it when yall /.ed it. Now it no longer responds.... Sigh.....
"Assassins!"
- Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his orchestra
Looks like my Athlon 2500+ and Radeon 9600SE will work out OK. Now all I need is a copy of the game...anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
After all this coverage Doom 3 seems to be getting from various places including Slashdot, I really hope the game doesn't suck. By now, everybody must be convinced it's visually and aurally breathtaking (assuming you have the system to run it); I just hope the gameplay is as equally impressive.
Of course, I suppose I could just be bitter because I'll have to wait for the XBox version....-_-
Don't forget your customized Doom 3 zboard keyset.
I don't know if I'm the only person who noticed this, but these screenshot images are REALLY poorly compressed; doing a side-by-side comparison is pointless if all you see are JPEG Jaggies.
Will the monsters still fight each other? That was the coolest thing (to me) about Doom/Doom II.
Gnnnnnnh! By God, please don't read the article if you are a spoiler-sensitive person. The fps-graph clearly indicates the locations of monsters as the article describes how "some heavy action that requires the video card to draw several monsters at one time, the frame rate can drop down". Thankfully I didn't look at the x-axis too carefully. Be cautious, people! This article may truly be the demise of your Doom3 experience!
DX 9.0 compatible 3D card w/ 64MB RAM*
MS Windows 2000/XP
Pentium 4 1.5 GHz or Athlon XP 1500+
384 MB RAM
8x CD-ROM
2.2 GB of HD space
Broadband (for multiplayer)
*Supported 3D Graphics chipsets:
ATI: Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
NVIDIA: GeForce 3, GeForce 4MX, GeForce 4 Titanium, GeForce FX, GeForce 6
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Just curious, is there a reason this story is posted with a Quake 3 icon? Isn't there a games icon?
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
- An unoriginal plot
- An unoriginal genre
- Did id even bother hiring writers?
- High hardware requirements
Sure, you can play on lower-end hardware at 640x480, but then what's the point? There's a whole generation of games coming out right now (I can't possibly imagine Half-Life 2 being less substantive) that offer the same kind of visuals with a much more substantive game to go along with them. Why bother? I guess you could add it to your benchmark suite to show people how paying $600 for a graphics card really was worth it, but then again, you can get 3DMark as a free download. Why?Software piracy is victimless theft.
This story is a dupe. See link. Try to do a better job next time, editors.
People are really masturbating all over this game to obscene levels. It's not going to be *that* big of a milestone in gaming. It's another atmospheric FPS shooter with a plotline.
I mean, I've already done the shadowy, bump-mapped corridor thing in a little game called Far Cry that in addition to that, has outdoor levels with an infinite distance. I doubt I'll be seeing anything in Doom 3 that is as fun as driving an inflatable boat into an enemy camp on a gorgeous outdoor beach.
The indoor areas of Far Cry look exactly like Doom 3's screenshots. Just less shadowy.
You're way out of date. Win2K and XP are superior gaming OSen.
An unoriginal plot
Doom started that plot years before Half-Life.
An unoriginal genre
Doom started that genre years before Quake.
Did id even bother hiring writers?
Yes, they did.
High hardware requirements
The HardOCP article makes it a point to state that the minimum spec machine ran the game great.
Nice troll.
And if not, no need for wasting money on them, just type in IDKFA!
And besides, everybody knows that iD is conspiring with Alienware! :)
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
That's right. If you have a star trek holosuite you will be able to have the ultimate Doom experience, up to having your own heart attack from the realism.
What are people using out there for performance gaming that also want to use dual monitors for other work? I would envision setting up the computer to single screen to play DOOM3, then changing back for other apps. But most performance 3D cards come with only a single VGA and single DVI port.
I'll wait for someone who hasn't gone to bed with ID software and Nvidia to review the game before I pass judgement.
I get suspicious when all I saw in the review was Intel's latest crap.
How is an LCD bad for gaming, the refresh rate?
I play HL and GTA:VC on my Dell Laptop with the 15.4" display and it looks much much better than my 21" CRT I use a secondary monitor. The refresh is amazing, and the picture quality is crazy crisp. I would use an LCD over a CRT any day, even a smaller LCD too.
Any word anywhere on Doom 3 demos? If at all possible, I try the game demos to see how the game performs on my computer. I don't want to buy an unreturnable software game and find out I'd need to upgrade laptop hardware before it's framerates are sane enough to play with.
Not Alienware. That's just a front. iD is really consiping with Aliens! That's why Doom3 and Alien Vs Predator are coming out so close to each other.
Ok, there's been what, like 10 stories about Doom 3 over the past two weeks? Isn't it time the Slashdot powers that be come up with some kind of Doom 3 graphic next to the main post, instead of the Quake 3 logo? Doom 3 is obviously a quantum leap ahead of Q3, I think it's a little bit backwards to use an old icon.
This is meant to be an honest question.
Can someone point out one reason to be interested in this game, other than shiny this or shady that? I've read many articles and raves and still haven't found an answer, but the hype keeps coming, so what am I missing?
about the benefits of speed holes. I put a few in my machine and I am rip roaring ready to go!
but what should i expect from a site that has a static ad for bfg branded geforce cards on the left side. but it's nice to know my radeon 9800 pro can run this game if i somehow break down and decide to buy it. 4 person multiplayer? lol
I see that they talk about whether a person should use a 5.1 sound system or headphones, but I can't find any mention of recommended sound cards.
Has any one heard of any suggestions or recommendations there?
I'm not a nerd. I'm a geek. Nerds make more money.
God I hope it's actually meaningful this time... eh quake 3 smp = ass on wheels.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
...will it have live action porn stars in the transitions, like Wing Commander?
I've got an NEC MultiSync LCD screen with a 16ms (avg) response time, and FPS games display beautifully. Just have to make sure the PRT is at least 16ms or so. The low-end LCDs are too laggy, pixel-wise, and you get that horrible ghosting.
My FX5200 *will* play it and look amazing to boot! We love you John!
The refresh rate isn't a big problem unless you desire visible fps over 60 (the vast majority of LCDs refresh at 60 Hz). The "response time," though can cause a problem. This is the speed at which the pixels change color. Slow response time is why all the old LCDs used to leave mouse trails even before mouse trails were a setup option in a GUI. Things have improved to the point where such trails are hardly noticeable, but in fast-moving games you can still end up with afterimages as the LCD pixels attempt to display the next frame.
After reading it all I can say is thanks for all the time and effort you put in to that, I still have trouble believing you did that all in just three days of testing! :shock:
;)
Oh, and I'm having trouble believing about no-AA being not really noticeable...but you get the benefit of the doubt until I can get the game and check it out for meself.
- "When I say dance, you'd best DANCE motherf*cker!" -Violent Femmes
yes ghosting is still a very bad problem for fast moving FPS games on a LCD. That's why true gamers use CRTs
For me the main ones are response time and color quality. There are pleanty of 15" lcds out for $300 but the response time will be 20 ms or worse and the color is oftwn washed out lookign.
I'd love to have an LCD that I could use for gaming. I'd want one with at 1600x1200 resolution with a response time of at least 12ms. That will put me around $1000 which is a heck of a lot more then I want to pay for a monitor.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
What would your momma think of you not helping out someone in need?!!
* Doom 3 - $50
* New system to run Doom 3 - $650-100+
* Not realizing the irony of this - priceless
John Kerry is a Joke!
i'm gonna write CTF for this game, as it badly needs it http://www.teamwarfare.com/forums/showthread.asp?f orumid=229&threadid=157534
>mfh, are you serious? I can't tell the difference between the two ... what's different?
I'm not sure if it's a dither on the BFGTech Geforce or what, but I could see many of the cells towards the darker area of the image quite a bit more pronounced than on the image with the ATI card. Whenever the dark background is blended with the light, the ATI card seems to be hiding the cubism better than the BFGTech cardie. You see the little cubes all over? They are present in both cards, but the difference is more pronounced with the BFGTech, thus making it less believable. The ATI handles these imperfections in a quite stunning manner, IMHO.
There also seems to be better interpolation between the brown line in the light on the ATI card, as the line seems to be less jagged.
Maybe this was just a varriation from the position the screenshot was taken between the cards, but in that representation I think the ATI looks nicer.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
bah, sounds like the "true gamers" need to be less anal.
Please don't use that word again.
If I buy the state of the art ID software release (ergo Doom 3) I want to see ALL of the eyecandy at a minimum of 50 FPS and a minimum resolution of 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 with 4x AA.
Realistic minimum requirements for people who want to actually experience the new eyecandy: GForce 6800 or ATI x800 pro; Athlon64 3600 or better; DDR400 RAM.
Anyone who uses the phrase "true gamer" has need of some attitude adjustment. They're probably just a little too invested in an almost entirely useless hobby (one in which I engage in the full knowledge that it's just entertainment like any other).
*cough*whore!*cough*
who is not impressed by the Doom III ads we see? I mean the game sounds awesome by all accounts but why does the ad look so lame? The picture looks like it could come from any cheesy FPS wannabe games.
Me thinks the marketing people needs a kick in the pants.
There's always loads of fuss over a new Doom/Quake release, like it's the greatest thing ever. And inevitably it isn't. Quake was rubbish, despite everyone being force-fed hype for ages before it was released, as was Quake2 and Quake3.
The engines were great, don't get me wrong, but the actual game was dull as mince. It's only when someone with imagination takes the ID engines and makes a nice game (MOHAA,RTCW Multiplayer, Alice etc.) that you get a decent experience. Yes ID make lovely graphics engines, but that's about it. All of their games are point, shoot, frag fests and always have been.
Take Half Life, great game, imaginative, immerses you in the story, all using the Quake2 engine. Whereas Quake2 was dull dull dull.
I will look forward to Half Life 2 and Battlefield 2 (looks more impressive as a game than Doom3 does, from what I've seen so far) but not Doom3. The more hype I hear about it the less I want to play it. There's more to a game than fancy graphics.
Again I am disappointed in an 'advanced' guide that spends 90% of its time dealing with graphics and dedicates only a single half-heated page (a quote from the developer) speaking of the sound design. The goals of this guide are to provide, "an upgrade that will make a real difference and offer you the greatest improvement in gameplay for the money spent." GamePlay. Gameplay involves SOUND especially on this game.
How about mentioning the different sound cards? The quality difference between 24bit/96Kbps 5.1 on the Audigy 2 and the Dolby Digital 5.1 support the nForce 2 offers? Yeah, thanks.
From Todd Hollenshed of id's plan file:
"Demo: our priority was finishing the game first and now we are turning our attention to the demo. I don't have any information to share regarding any specific content, but I don't believe that we have ever disappointed in that regard in the past. We will release the demo as soon as it's done, but this probably won't happen until after the game has arrived on U.S. store shelves."
So yes there will be a demo, but unfortunately not until after the games been out for a while.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
How about a keyboard with some pressure sensitive
WASD keys? That is one thing console controllers are better at... you can adjust your character's speed with an analog control.
A mouse is better for view control, of course.
> We'd both need better source images to make any strong claims about one card being better or worse than the other. From where I'm sitting, they're nearly identical.
You know I thought they might be artifacts from the image, but I figured that the guys from the review wouldn't do that. I think we would need zero compression images to distinguish it better, so I have to agree with you there. I guess we'll have to wait and see, eh?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
In the time that I've perused Slashdot's gaming section, I've never once heard anyone even mention the possibility of paying for an X11 server. Everything I've seen and read leads me to believe that it's a worthwhile investment, especially for ATI cards. The drivers are stable, fast, and perform well both in 2D and 3D. Can someone furnish an answer to this?
Because they were going for "best playable IQ" as they call it, the benchmarks are EXTREMELY hard to compare. I would not be able to use this myself to determine a future hardware purchase. Rather, I find this more useful as a "will Doom3 play well on my computer" article. For that it is quite useful. As for my next hardware purchase, I'll wait for the traditional timedemo benchmarks with the tests all at the same IQ level.
So you're turning a $50 game into a $800 game, all in the name of a few slightly higher quality textures? Mind you, the lighting stuff that really distinguishes Doom 3 from earlier FPSes like UT2003 and Quake 3 is still there in the lower quality modes. From the screenshots, I'd say the medium quality is pretty damned good at showing off the engine. Sure, high and ultra quality looks a bit bitter, but not worth the several hundred dollars in upgrades it'd take 99% of us to run it.
Well, if you've got the money to waste...
Hell, why stop at a single $500 video card? Just recommend that $5000 dual-GPU Alienware behemoth. That could probably run it in 1600x1200 in ultra quality mode without too many problems. It's not like money seems to be an issue to you in your pursuit of ultimate 1337ness.
...except that Doom 3 frame-limits to 60fps anyway, so you won't be having any problems there.
I have a Toshiba Tecra M2, and its screen is OK for UT2K4, which can get very fast moving, so I'd assume it won't have a problem with Doom 3, apart from its somewhat underpowered GFGo 5200 forcing me to play at 640x480. It is a digital panel, though, so people with LCD problems may wish to use DVI (although strangely, only decent flat panels usually have DVI, when it would help the awful ones more.)
And the first link tells me that W32.Welchia attacks the RPC DCOM vulnerability found in Windows {NT,2K,XP,2K3} and the WebDAV vulnerability found in IIS 5.0, but specifically lists Windows 98 among the "Systems Not Affected". Is there a different version which also attacks stock 9x installations?
don't you think that it's quite exceptional that they have a section comparing mobos? Different manufacturers of the same chipset are usually pretty close in terms of perfomance (~4% is the highest I ever read in articles about certain chipsets). However, it perfectly makes sense to me after reading 21 pages featuring Abit ads.
"Yes, your system is able to run it and it looks great, however, we'd like to make you read ~20 pages of appendix before we'll tell you. Just look at it this way - you'll know how your system performs before we come to a decent conclusion, so you don't have to look it up anymore. Apart from that we must make sure that you read every page, because otherwise noone will click on the banners we have. And btw, did you know that Abit motherboards rule, but other products by Abit didn't live up to our expectations, because we have different sponsors for sound and video." Just my (highly biased) roundup.
(and yes, my main box is equipped with an Abit board. I guess that's the reason it came to my attention)
I don't read replies by ACs.
does this mean P4's hyperthreading isn't supported?
I should have thought more about muggings though. Do they require a weapon?
this sig deleted by another sig
The new Apple Displays have a 16ms refresh rate. Thats plenty good for gaming. I think there are only a few samsung displays that are quicker than that at 12ms... I bought a 20" yesterday. :D
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'm really hoping that I will be able to play this game on my PB12 1Ghz, 512mb, GeForce FX Go5200 (gasp) 32MB ... i know this isn't a gaming maching but if a 2 year old PC can handle this game I'd hope that a machine I bought in March ( rev.C with 64mb card came out a month later ) will play at least in low quality.
Long ago John Carmack said in Jan 2003 Doom3 was going to have a ARB1, nv1x, nv2x, R2x0, nv3x, and ARB2 path. We recently heard the nv3x path was dropped now that nvidia's driver compiler does a good enough job on optimizing a ARB_fragment_programs (Pixel Shader 2.0 in D3D terms) that the nv3x isn't needed. But is the ARB1 path still around?
The article says the min spec is:
*Supported 3D Graphics chipsets:
ATI: Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
NVIDIA: GeForce 3, GeForce 4MX, GeForce 4 Titanium, GeForce FX, GeForce 6
It doesn't list other manufacturers, but I don't know if this really implies other manufacturers currently can't run it.
What about the PowerVR Kyro (no cube map support), Radeon 7x00, Intel Extreme Integrated, SiS Xabre (useless drivers), Matrox Parhelia, 3DLabs P10/P9? Without the ARB1 path they wouldn't be able to run the game. Well 3Dlabs used to support nvidia's register combiner extensions so could use the nv1x path if their drivers are up to snuff. It is one thing to be able to run the game quickly (the reson the GeForce4MX is supported when it is technically just a quicker version of the older GeForce/GeForce2/GeForce2MX) to ensure the game is enjoyable, but it is another thing to not be able to run it at all due to not supporting modern OpenGL extensions. It would be nice if older cards could run Doom3, slowly and without specular, instead of not at all.
Also what about GLSL? Even longer ago Mr. Carmack said in June 2002 (wow, they've been working a long time!) "I am now committed to supporting an OpenGL 2.0 renderer for Doom through all the spec evolutions" in refernce to the GL shading language. Will there be a Doom3 renderer which uses the high level GLSL extension instead of the fragment program extension? I get the impression there won't be, and it would be pretty pointless with the fragment program support, but 3Dlabs currently only supports the high level fragment shaders, not the low level fragment programs...
I know this is a silly question since the rumours say 64bit windows won't be out until 1H 2005, but I recently saw a demo that claims to be 27% faster compiled as 64bit vs the 32bit version.
Have any id employees mentioned anything about an AMD64 version?
Anyone out there knowledgeable enough about these things to make an educated guess/extrapolation using these numbers as to the Mac OS X requirements? The OS X version should be out shortly after the Windows version, and typically, the CPU requirements are not so steep as the Windows version of these things. Any ideas?
There is no doubt that DOOM 3's minimum system specifications can easily deliver a good gaming experience. We found it simply incredible that a system this old could run DOOM 3 at all, much less run it well. It may be hard to believe, but we can honestly recommend spending $50 on DOOM 3 if you have a system comparable to this. You can still have a very worthy DOOM 3 experience with it.
I know some of you are thinking that it would be tough to call gaming at 640x480 a good gaming experience, but the environments in DOOM 3 are very forgiving in terms of resolution as discussed in our IQ section. Do we suggest you use a higher resolution to place yourself in an even more immersive environment? Without a doubt, but it is hardly a requirement to really feel a part of the DOOM 3 story.
As mentioned in our id Software's Official DOOM3 Benchmarks article, id Software has resourced hundreds of man hours in order to optimize DOOM 3 for a wide install base. It is truly amazing that so many people will be able to enjoy DOOM 3, possibly even those that have not upgraded their computer for years.
This is certainly good news. For years we've heard the lamers whine that you only can play on a new 3 GHz system, that people will need to spend $1000 on the top Ultra videocards, but any PC that's not more than 3 years old will do. Great achievement by ID.
I'm really looking forward to playing around with the console and experimenting with cvars to tweak performance. The evolution of my Quake 3 config is one factor that makes me still play it today, 5 years later. Remember, there're tons of little tweaks for the q3 engine, not accessible through menus that can have a dramatic effect on frame rate at little or no cost. Yay for Carmack's engines.
Do LCDs with 1600x1200 and 12ms response time even exist?
Well, I had problems with my GeforceFX go5600 with running Doom 3, in that it failed to initialize opengl...
So I contacted Activision, who told me that laptop equivalent graphics cards (Radeon 9600, 9700, and the new 9800 and future X600, GeforceFX 5200, 5600, 5650 and 5700) of desktop cards are unequivocally unsupported.
So the moral of the story is don't by this game for your gaming laptop!