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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.
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?
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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?
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...
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.
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.
I don't know, but I can tell you that Far Cry kicks ass. It supports the latest in rendering techniques, but more importantly, it's a fun game with great level design and awesome enemy AI.
Doom 3 isn't going to impress me nearly as much as it would have if Far Cry hadn't beat them to the punch. Id didn't set the bar this time, CryTech did.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Don't forget your customized Doom 3 zboard keyset.
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.
Not to mention a million dollars wasted shipping them all separately
/me hits newegg instead of working...
Mom says my
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.
It's the authors. Just like people line up to read the next J.K. Rowlings novel, before there have been any reviews out, people line up to buy the next John Carmack game.
It could be called "The Facts of Life: Tuti versus Natalie" and people would line up around the block for it.
That said, have you read a bad J.K. Rowlings novel?
Translating this all back into the world of technology, it's just the Next Big Thing. I've been waiting since, what, 1999 for this? For me, it's kind of like, Return of the King. I really liked Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers, and I just knew that ROTK was going to be great. I just knew it! Granted, I pretty much felt the same way about Star Wars I and Matrix II and Matrix III. But, people are optimists about entertainment, and the act of being optomistic about it is honestly almost as much fun as the thing itself. I *crave* Doom 3.
Education is the silver bullet.