Xombie,

Where do you get the idea that Carmack's rocketry project is holding the game back? I'm sorry, but its the content creation as far as I can tell. That's not Carmack's job.

Also, keep in mind that Valve has been developing Half-Life 2 for FIVE YEARS! id Software has been at it for maybe about THREE.

Check your facts.

That Inquirer article is VERY misleading.

Carmack has never said there would be NO multiplayer that I know of. It has always been the case that multiplayer was a lesser part of the game. They are interpolating that and misrepresenting it.

Also, Carmack only said he would limit destructible walls, not interaction in general. The stupid Inquirer people think he meant there would be no interaction just because you can't destroy every wall and door.

And why are they dumping on DOOM for taking 60 man years? Half Life 2 has probably taken 100 man years so far or more, assuming they have the same size teams.

Why even bother reading the Inquirer? They are a bunch of nincompoops.

This comment was edited on May 15, 22:16.

TangledThorns,

"The 5900 is gonna end up just like the 3Dfx's Voodoo 6000. Doom 3 won't be out till after September and thats when ATI will be gearing up the R400."

Perhaps. But by then who knows what nVidia will have? I don't think anyone is out of the running. We know for sure both card makers are competing hard, but I don't think nVidia has any more chance of disappearing than ATI. If one of the companies hits a horrible cash crunch, then maybe, but if they are shrewd, they should both be back for more after DOOM.

To test the sanity of what you're saying you have to ask yourself: Will ATI disappear if they "lose" this supposed "DOOM III" war? I don't think so.

#44 Bingo,

Although "Stalker" looks good and some of the screenshots I've seen look downright fabulous, it is still mostly old tech. It is not as advanced as DOOM III. The main difference is that it uses higher resolution textures and many more polygons than past games. This is still good, but I don't think it is quite what you're making it out to be.

The Stalker engine looks like another incarnation of the same approach that Unreal Tournament 2003 is using, although it may not even be that advanced. When you look at the weapons, items and player hands/arms, you see that nothing has really changed from the past. Its one texture plus lightmap, which hasn't changed much since Quake. THAT is why it is faster!

One thing it has is fairly nice skybox textures. They show a lot of screenshots on their website to show them off. I guess that is supposed to let us know that Stalker has a lot of "outdoor" areas. But no one should be fooled into thinking the game can actually render those skies in real time or anything. In fact, they look like digital photographs plastered into an otherwise quite ordinary rendering engine. Again, this looks nicer, but it is not a major advance.

I think the guys building the Stalker game are doing a fine job given what they have to work with. I also think for some games, especially heavily "outdoor" ones, doing it the "Stalker" way is probably best due to resource constraints. Its "quantity" over "quality" at this point.

P.S.:

Here is a perfect example. Look at this shot:

http://www.stalker-game.com/download/gallery/screenshots/sb_xray_24.jpg

Now, at first glance, it looks great. But actually the textures are all simple, flat and "matte" or "dull" and have no other surface properties although they are quite expertly done. These are typical "old school" graphics. Also, the shadows are clearly all part of static lightmaps. The gun and the hand are statically lit with the shadows "painted" on, just like every game since Quake 1. The gun might be shaded on a "per polygon" basis like most games, but will certainly be blended with the lightmap as usual. Again, this is quite typical.

There is no doubt that games look better with high resolution texures, as can be seen in the Stalker game. But the tech is still basically the same as before.
This comment was edited on May 12, 21:07.

Ratty,

1280x1024? Forget it. It won't be playable on that system at that resolution.

In my opinion 1024x768 has always been sufficient. After all, DVD movies are no more than 700 lines of vertical resolution. Its all about what you do with that resolution. Higer res does not always equal a better image. There is no reason that we can't have photo-realistic graphics to the last detail with a 1024x768 display, especially on a 17" or 19" monitor.

Antother thing. Running at high resoution to get rid of "jaggies" is acutally SLOWER on most of these cards than running lower res with anti-aliasing on. Look at the HardOCP article carefully and you'll see that I'm right.

Hump,

"I'm sure either card will be a fine choice as anyone who will let a 10% difference (or thereabouts) bother them will be the truly anal."

Yep. I think you're about right there.
This comment was edited on May 12, 16:51.

GabooN:

"I like Nvidia but with 9700 up ATi has beaten them in pic quality, and they do it faster. The Nv35 seems fast but I almost want to see what ATi has up there sleeves..."

Fair enough. I agree. It will indeed be interesting...

Eveyone else:

Congratulations! This is a reasonable and civilized thread so far.

One interesting thing to note about the Hardocp benchmark, assuming nVidia hasn't somehow "cheated" their drivers to run DOOM III better: nVidia has just announced a kick-ass chip!

I have been thinking for some time that ATI's lead was only temporary, because nVidia has an updated manufacturing process, great engineers and had the coming headroom of widening their bus from 128 to 256 bits. Here we see now that with the faster clock speeds and equivalent bus width, the newest cards leap far ahead. And they probably have even more room to grow from here before undergoing another major engineering and process overhaul. Now I think its time for ATI to sweat a little again. ATI's market share has barely had a chance to make inroads and the competition has come back strong. But one thing is that ATI will be seen as an equal to nVidia now. That is the main thing they gained.

P.S.: Yep, the prices are high for these new cards. Again, it’s a good thing there might be another "rev" by the time DOOM III and other games come out. Maybe people will have more affordable options by then.

This comment was edited on May 12, 14:54.

If you are responding negatively because of the benchmarks, consider that on high quality mode @1024x768, you were quite lucky to get 30 fps in Quake III Arena around the time it came out! Only later did affordable cards come out that were able to get more than that.

In truth, the situation is almost the same here, except its BETTER...the higher end cards can average 60 fps @1024x768 and 4xAA!!. There are also several offerings at lower prices that can get 30-40 fps if you are on a budget. 6 months from now, soon after the game is released, you might even be able to buy the 60 fps card on the cheap and the 30-40 fps card for even less.

Although I do sympathize with people who groan that they can't run DOOM III on their old system, and don't want to spend the money, this has been the way of id Software for some time now and we should not be surprised by this. Maybe you don't like it, and maybe you still shouldn't buy the game if you simply don't have the cash, but you shouldn't be surprised, either.

P.S.: And of course, you can run it at 800x600 2xAA and probably get decent visuals with a better framerate. I mean, you don't have to run it at the settings in the hardocp article.

This comment was edited on May 12, 13:51.

64 - I agree.

I remember a few years ago when people used to actually like games. Remember fun, people? Now its just wave after wave of junior hellspawn and little snot-nosed thieves competing to see who can be the most vile and narcissistic.

I imagine it will take some work to get the Doom III engine to render outdoor stuff as great as the indoor stuff. Call in the Doom III Plus engine.

Yes, you can look on the bright side of the winter solstice thing. It won't get any worse. The days will only get longer from here on...

This comment was edited on Dec 22, 13:46.

Except for a few people here who seem to have a grasp on what a development process is and what ALPHA BUILD, "unintentionally leaked", and "NOT DONE" means, the rest of you truly are bumbling idiots, as the previous poster said.

No matter how many times you shout from the rooftops that this is nowhere near the finished product and should simply not be judged too rigorously, people will still complain about stuff like inverted mouse settings and slow performance. It matters not that they are benchmarking on something that bears no relation to the retail product.

People like this are incapable of relating the concept of "NOT DONE" to what they see and reserving judgment. You can shove their face in the facts, but, like the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", more idiots spawn for every one you vanquish. Mix this tendency with an infantile refusal to do one's own research and read the articles and interviews and you have something akin to a baby crying because it pooped its pants and doesn't know what to do about it.

This comment was edited on Nov 8, 13:43.

You forgot to take your ritalin, didn't you? Paul Jayquay's is a good guy. And for crying out loud, I remember him announcing that policy on quake3world and I don't think he made it up all by his lonesome. Its called company policy. If you had a job you might know what I was talking about. If you do have a job then I wonder how you could talk that way.

teh mane mahn,

I do happen to like both of those movies you mentioned, because both of them are good at what they intend to be (although I flatly disagree that the Matrix has no meaning or no interesting conceptual/story content -- I'm not sure why you think this, because as high-budget action movies go, it has a kind of ruthless logic to it and deals with its subject surprisingly well.)

I do "get it".

I'm just saying that maybe its okay to let some people be graphics lovers while letting other people eschew all graphics technology on principle and only play tetris. I don't feel threatened by either group, nor for that matter, by people who think all videogames are stupid in general and only for little kids. Some think playing videogames past childhood is some kind of mark against you.

I can say I agree that it is obnoxious when graphics mongers insult other people just because they don't have the latest hardware or something, and it is annoying when people make fun of others who like to see new and exciting graphical environments. Maybe I'm just being ridiculous to suggest that people should refrain from the bombast and mutual denunciation over this, but that's my case here.


For the record I didn't like the demo becasue it didn't feel like fun to me, and I thought the visuals were muddy and uninteresting. I'm sure there were several graphical bells and whistles at work, but it didn't really register for me.
This comment was edited on Feb 25, 07:23.

Indiv,

Some of these people demand the latest graphics capabilities in their games. They are visually oriented in their videogame choices, or at least they demand a game looks as good as it plays. So, their opinion is predictably negative toward such and such a demo because (to them) it looks like no improvment on the past. As they spend money to upgrade their systems, the disappointment is that the software isn't keeping up, at least this time around.

I'm betting (only betting) that if the gameplay in some game were (to you) poor but the graphics and artwork were amazing, you would be quick to point out how "wrong" people were for enjoying that game, just as you are quick to point out how wrong people are for not wanting to play a game whose visuals they found to be poor or at least falling short.

Seems like there is nothing but strife to be had between these different types of people unless they just accept that they differ on a subject that is truly open to preference (no one will die as a result of your decision.)

Maybe people feel like society will crumble or decay if people like good graphics too much. Maybe others think that the relentless pursuit toward graphical realism will be jeopardized by people who downplay graphics and proudly claim they would play with crappy looking 2d sprites if the gameplay was good. Or maybe the point is simply "don't be so rude about it. State your opinion and move on." Anyway, I think there is room enough for everyone at the table.

Maybe someone can enlighten me on that point. What's the big fear? Or is it just simply a case that the other type of person peeves you and you can't help getting into an arument with them? Maybe its the same argument that exists between people who like explosions in their movies and those who like character development or pholosophic weight.

Whew...can't believe how long that was.

This comment was edited on Feb 25, 00:18.

If you like graphics, interactive environments and "story told through visuals", I have no problem with you. If you can afford it, great. Its an interesting experience you can have if you want it. If not, more power to you. If you prefer Pac-Man and Tetris to Quake III, why should grpahics lovers make fun of you? I don't see a problem with that.

I do see a problem with the sniveling complaints of one group about the other. And it goes both ways. Personal insults leveled at people just because you possess or do not possess a hot video card is pretty lame.

I do question a bit why that one guy needs a pimped out P4 system to play ROMs from really old game systems...the point of that eludes me. But knock yourself out.