Doom 3 Announced for Mac

thelemmings writes "Aspyr today announced that it will (finally) publish Doom 3 for the Macintosh. The game is scheduled for release Q1 2005 and the system requirements indicate that a G5 processor will be required, which seems quite surprising as it will leave iBooks and Powerbooks owners on the side of the road. Too bad iD Software didn't release a free OSX client like they previously did for linux version of the game."

Comments

Whatcha need

[Davak]

Well, Apple guys/gals... you'll need these...

Complete List of Doom 3 Console Commands
List of Common Doom 3 cheats

To Run it you'll need this...

Mac System Requirements:
Mac OS X 10.3.6 or later
PowerPC G5 1.5 GHz or faster
384MB RAM (512MB recommended)
2.2 GB free disk space
ATI Radeon 8500/nVidia GeForce 3 or better
32MB of Video Ram (VRAM)
DVD drive required to install and play

And you'll have to wait until..

Aspyr Media Inc. on Wednesday announced plans to publish id Software's Doom 3 for the Macintosh. The game is currently in development for the Mac by id, and will be released in February, 2005.
Source

Re:Whatcha need

[Pluribus]

TRUST ME on the 10.3.6. Both the NVidia and ATI video drivers (although ATI's driver was more sane) had enough issues that require the new revision. Doom3 + 10.3.5 most likely would = bright red world due to a driver issue. (There are issues with certain color formats and ARB_fragment_programs , all of which are fixed in the beta versions of the drivers.) I know... Same things with my game 10.3.5 has broken ARB_fragment_programs and broken NV_register_combiner2 OpenGL extensions. Both of which are fixed with 10.3.6.

NOTE: They were able to be worked around on the ATI cards. I had to blacklist those extensions on the NVIDIA card to prevent my use of them on 10.3.6.

Disclaimer: I dont work for Aspyr nor participated in any of the testing of the game. However, I do know the reasons for requiring 10.3.6 because I have encountered them. (It really is hard to explain to someone who has a NV 5200 why you have to render it like a GF2 to get it to work correctly)

Re:Whatcha need

[ChoGGi]

you can get a keyboard+mouse for your ps2/xbox
http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?artc=34 95

Re:OS X 10.3.6

[adzoox]

Actually it's been final seeded to developers (about a week ago) - it is inevitable that it will be out before February.

Aspyr is saying this because Apple is completely rewriting the video drivers in this next point release.

Re:I'm gonna go out on a limb here...

[HAKdragon]

Except, according to both the first post and Aspyr's website, the game is being developed by iD while Aspyr is the publisher.

Re:I'm gonna go out on a limb here...

[grag]

Actually, the system requirements are preliminary. We usually guess higher, and then readjust the requirements the closer we get to Final Candidate. I believe this happened to RTCW for Mac, but I would have to ask someone who was the project lead for RTCW for Mac.

This is done to prevent customers making a preorder for the game, only to find out that the requirements have been raised at the last minute.

Re:the whole thing makes me wonder market shares

[arasinen]

I am of course only speaking for myself, but if a suitable game (such as Rome: Total War or Star Wars Battleground) would be released for the Mac, I'd buy it in an instant.

Oh dear. I don't think I'll leave my apartment for a week or two.

GTA San Andreas on ANY computer...

[Polaris]

When's it coming out on PC, for that matter? It's not even an X-Box title, you can ONLY play it on PS2

Re:GTA San Andreas on ANY computer...

[Sinus0idal]

Indeed, I find it ridiculous, especially because GTA began its life on the PC.

Re:GTA San Andreas on ANY computer...

[Cirrius]

You can blame warez for that. PC titles are quickly becoming a dead platform. With console development you can make an average game, sell 300-500k and see a very small percentage of warez. With a pc game good luck even selling 300-500k, although you will easily see 100k+ downloads through various warez channels on any decent title.

John Carmack

[haxor.dk]

Is this the same DOOM III game that John Carmack went on stage at MacWorld to present a few years ago, saying that would be out for the Mac, first?

What a crock....

Re:John Carmack

[n0mad6]

That same demo at MacWorld showed off how this game would use the amazing technology of that newfangled graphics card, the "GeForce3". Presumably, this was a card that would run the game flawlessly when it was released :-p

Re:the whole thing makes me wonder market shares

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even know what OpenGL is? It's a cross-platform graphics API supported by both hardware manufacturers and ISVs. It's been ported to too many platforms to list.

OpenGL is used for 3D graphics editors, games, visualization, and scientific applications, to name a few. Khronos' OpenGL ES is used in mobile devices and is quickly becoming the standard 3D API for embedded systems. Check out the "Applications and Games" page on www.opengl.org. Notice that the number of OpenGL-based games is far fewer than non-game applications (on any platform).

So, what does any of that have to do with John Carmack?

D3D could never be realized on anything other than Microsoft-supported platforms, which is the main reason why "we've still got OpenGL".

Re:I would like to see justification for this

[DudemanX]

I'm no Mac guy, but isn't that G4 choked by a 133Mhz FSB while the P4 is running 800Mhz(200x4)? Doom hasn't really been out long enough to notice a trend, but Quake3 scales VERY well with bus/memory speed increases. Doom3 might just need the bandwidth that only the top of the line FSBs can provide. Something to think about....

A few reasons

[endrek]

I would imagine part of the reason they require a g5, is because apple's hardware is all tied together and they hay have taken a look at the other things tied to g4s and seen insufficent video cards. I would imagine top of the line video cards are coming out with the top of the line systems. The g4 has somewhat become the apple "budget" system as it is no longer top of the line. So they just decided to target the g5.

Besides, it is a way more powerful cpu, and doom3 does need some cpu power. Lets face it. There are a lot of macs out there that just aren't that powerful.

finally, if they did target g4s which are 32bit, when the binary was run on a g5, it wouldn't be able to take advantage of the g5's better architecture as much. By targeting the g5, specifically, they can get the most out of it, at the cost of dropping g4 support, which isn't that bad because likely the game would run like crap on one anyway.

Lets face it, ppc and macos are not the ideal gaming environment. You want better? grab some x86 hardware and put linux on it. You can do alot, like doom3. You want a dedicated game machine never to be used for anything else? :: shudder :: then put windows on it. That is sadly when the gaming is at.

Re:Is that what we want?

[westlake]

While there is no overwhelming reason to switch from Windows to play games, there are plenty of reasons to switch from Windows in general, and many people already have (or have never ran Windows at home to begin with).

w3School's stats show XP's market share doubling in two years from 30% to 60%, Linux and the Mac combined from 4% to 6%. OS Platform Statistics The evidence is pretty clear, I think, that home users migrate to newer versions of their Windows or Mac OS and not to alternative operating systems.