I played Half-Life 1 using the minimum system reqs, and it sucked. It was so choppy that it hurt to play. Other games that are like that are: RTCW, BF1942, SOF2, Max Payne... but I can think of 3 games that aren't like that: Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3. I believe that DOOM 3 will run fine on a 1Ghz CPU w/ a GF1. Remember, JC said that DOOM3 isn't using any technology that has been implemented since the GF1, so this makes sense. My question is, will the game even be able to run on a TNT2?

I laugh when I see Valve saying HL2 will run on an 800Mhz w/ a TNT2 because I know that, while it may be able to run, the experience will not be enjoyable.

I got a 9800 Pro because, while the 5900 may be faster overall, it's not fast enough to justify spending $100 more. Besides, I like to support the underdog, and ATI is the underdog right now.

I do think that ATI and Nvidia are price fixing though. I mean, this is the first time that new video card prices have stayed this high for this long. I expected the 9800 Pro to be way less than it is now, especially with the heat Nvidia has been puting on with the FX. And the 9800 pro 256MB is way too expensive for what it gives you: the performance of a 9800 Pro 128MB card. Also, I don't know why anyone would pay $500 for a 5900 Ultra when it only gets 10 more FPS at the most. Besides, the human eye can only see 60FPS, so beyond that who cares?

My DOOM3/HL2 machine specs:

Asus A7N8XDX
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
1024MB dual DDR 400
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

id ran their E3 demo in 2002 with a Radeon 9700 on a P4 2.2, and it worked great.

I think any comments that STATE that DOOM3 or HL2 will suck OR be good are retarded. I think both games will be great, but I don't KNOW that they will be great, or that they will suck. Debates on whether they'll suck or be good don't mean jack.

"Funny, I didnt see one Nvidia add when i opened that page, in fact, the banner ad on top was an ATI ad."

Its above the "Article Info on every page of the review.(its also on every benchmark) The ATI banner ad is from nutrend or nextag that just happens to be advertising that they have a 98/9700 available...Which is why I didnt point out the that that banner, and another on the left cycle adds for nvidia cards from MSI and ASUS. The review is about Nvidia and ATI not MSI, ASUS, nutrend or nextag.

I'd also like to clear up that I never said that the review was inacurate or that I didnt like nvidia products. In fact I think I've owned every generation of nvidia card since the TNT. I just dont like feeling like I'm reading an advertisment rather than a unbiased review. He should keep logo's ,advertisments and slogans of the competing parties out of the review.

All this talk about GF 1's got me thinkin about the other video card requirement. Radeon 7xxx. Anyone out there with a 7000 series? Last I heard they only ran 16MB/32MB SDR on a PCI bus with AGP as the 'powerful' version. I know the 7500 could probably do it if you had a 64MB DDR AGP version or an A I W.

My brother has a GeForce DDR in his computer. 32MB DDR Memory. 175Mz Core Clock, 300MHz Memory Clock. Its accually not too bad, of course he could careless about graphics - I garuntee he'll try and run Doom III on it. Should be entertaining.

The only reason I paid $775 for a 9800 was I bought into the hype. I wanted a graphics card so powerful I could boost my car in the winter with it. Im not gonna do that again. I shoulda just got a 9700 or waited till the price dropped. Well at least I dont have to upgrade for a couple more months.

Choban

yes, there will be noticeable speed differences between the alpha and the final product.

First: because it's alpha which means the game is full of debugging code and not in any way optimized. During the alpha phase the basic game is put together and features are implemented or left out. It's only during the final beta phase where optimizations are done and final testing on all hardware is accomplished. This is pretty obvious in D3 when one zombie hits you and the framerate drops down to 2-3 fps at the worst.

Secondly: Drivers! Since the game is not out and the final build is not available, no company can optimize their driver. Sounds logical ATI already said the final performance of the game will be much better with the help of improved drivers.

And lastly: Although only GF FX 5900 owners are concerned here but UltraShadow which can increase performance was not available when the E3 alpha leak was coded...

Hi everyone,

Erm someone told me a link got posted. My preview at

http://hatekill.yojutsu.com/default.aspx?viewarticle=preview_doom3

is speculation. It's like a guess at what the full game will be. It's different from a normal preview and it supposed to be a bit of a laugh at hype.

If you read

http://hatekill.yojutsu.com/default.aspx?viewarticle=Previews

I think you will get the idea of the site

Like any guess it can be wrong! I say that on the main previews page!

Ummm didn't the GF1 replace the TNT2?

Yeah it did, but I still see TNT2s being sold. I don't think I've ever seen a GF1 though.

My statement has usually been true for Id's engines, it definitely was since Quake 2 and beyond.

Back then, you could run a Q2 game at max graphical quality on a Voodoo 1 and it wouldn't look much worse than on a V2 SLI or even a TNT.

Q3 on the other hand has some great graphical potential with it's shader and LOD tech that to this day remains untapped for some reason. My best guess is that it's a performance or compatibility issue.

Don't you look foolish now?

Not really.

DOOM3 will be fantastic.
We'll all buy it and tell casual gamers it's the only game worth having. Then we'll come to serious gamer sites and slate it.
Happens all the time.
Gasp.

It's a preview - Hence why it's under the preview section

ok, the "preview" says the game is pointless. Does this now change anything?

Didn't JC say that no one should make any assumption based on the alpha leak about how the game will play and feel? So, actually the preview is pointless rather than the game.

Vacs

I'm amazed you think there is any large speed difference between "alpha" versions of a game and the final product. Are ID Software going to totally recode the game? Of course not.

The only thing that will save it is if everyone gets monster PCS and next gen gfx cards. Even if that happens, Doom 3 is going to be a major letdown when compared to HL2, simply because ID still have the crappy "clear the mob of monsters" and "get the key" style gameplay.

I realy hate all the hype about the grpahics in games, it's good to read previews which show alternative viewpoints.


This comment was edited on Jul 18, 17:19.

I wouldn't exactly say the 5900 ultra whoops the radeon 9800 pro in Doom3. Anandtech's 'preview' only shows Doom3 at medium quality. Tom's shows both medium and high quality. Its nice to see medium quality shown for kicks, but who would want to play Doom at medium quality esp if they own a 5900 or 9800?? The anandtech preview is incomplete in my opinion just for that reason. Medium quality doesn't say anything to me...and if you go to Doom3 at high quality the Radeon is faster at all resolutions until 1600x1200...

Also, Tom's title "NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra:
The Way FX is Meant to be Played!!" has nothing to do with nvidia fanboyism. He says "The Way FX is Meant to be Played" meaning the FX finally got its act together and this is what it should have been when the 5800 ultra was out. If he said "NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra:
The Way GAMES are Meant to be Played!!" it would be another story especially considering the ultra isn't always faster than the 9800 pro.

Some people...what is it with accusing everyone of everything around here??

Saying the verdict of the game is "pointless" without having played a final representation build of the game

It's a preview - Hence why it's under the preview section

Every surface in Doom3 uses shaders. All lighting and shadowing is done via shaders. In that respect, Doom3 has a higher percentage of shader-using polys than Half-Life 2. At the same time, I agree that Half-Life probably has more shaders total, but that's like saying Everquest has more textures than Quake 3, the scope of the projects are much different, as are their intended player experience.

Q1 and Q2 were both written in C. Q1 had QuakeC which was
JC's proprietary game-running script. Q2 used a DLL in C.
Q3 was coded in C++.

And before someone else tries to get it wrong, Half-Life
originally used Quake 1 code. The ONLY Quake 2 code it
used was for the networking side of it which, I'm told,
has since gone the way of the dinosaur about 3 years ago(or
was it only 2?).

-Hyatus
"da da da"

enjoyed all id's games since Doom and some before.
There, your sweeping statement no longer stands because one person out there disagrees.

Good for you Wilf, next time try to remember that people here are posting, gasp, opinions
Don't you look foolish now?

It's not always that obvious graphically. I've played plenty of games on the latest engines that looked only marginally better with everything set to maximum.

Pancreas, you'll notice that I said this engine, ie the Doom 3 engine. Not every or any engine.
My statement has usually been true for Id's engines, it definitely was since Quake 2 and beyond. I think Doom 3 will be even more scaleable than that.

Creston

Edit : Gubbins, I think that Id just consciously made the decision to go with an engine that ups the visuals and foresakes the hordes of critters. It's probably impossible to have an engine that does both, and I think Id realises that they'll never be able to make an engine handle the amount of monsters that, for example, the Serious Engine does, without making some enormous sacrifices into what THEY want their engine to do.

And most games are going to fewer monsters, slower pace etc. The days of the Hordes of Imps (Doom) are long past us..

I personally prefer the hordes of monsters, as long as it makes sense. Something that Serious Sam never did. I hate spawning crap. In doom, extra monsters had to be IN the level, behind a wall that would open up. THAT made sense. This "here, let's spawn a massive monster right behind you so he can fire at you ten times before you can turn around" bullshit that developers do to create some fake idea of "difficulty" is pissing me the fuck off. Unfortunately, this is something that pretty much EVERY developer does nowadays, whether or not they have lots of monsters in their game or not. I guess AI programmers are becoming a rare breed...

This comment was edited on Jul 18, 16:38.

Check this link:
http://hatekill.yojutsu.com/?viewarticle=preview_doom3

It's very anti Doom3 but tries to justify why

This review is one of the worst I ever read. Infact it's completely useless since it's based on a year old E3 version which won't reflect the game in any way. Don't get me wrong, I'm more excited about HL2 than D3 but this reviewer clearly hated D3 before he could play it for the first time on his notebook.

Of course animations are jerky and framerates are sluggish (especially when hit by a zombie) but this is alpha version... remember?

Also this guy has no idea what his talking about since he doesn't seem to know that HL2 uses shaders to an extremely greater extend than D3. Nevertheless he claims that JC has fallen in love with shaders although D3 does almost not use them and that it's all nvidia's fault... Whatever!

Saying the verdict of the game is "pointless" without having played a final representation build of the game (like the nvidia benchmark demo) does really add much to his professionalism.

Review verdict: Don't read it!

This comment was edited on Jul 18, 16:20.

when i do naked handstands, i feel so much closer to nature.

Couldn't you make a parameter that, when a user joined a multiplayer game, would check your config and turn on shadows or reject your connection?

That would be a bad idea. The fact is it's the lighting that's slowing everything down.
Look at the characters:
Other than the texture detail and bump/spec mapping, the polly count isn't much different from Q3.
The detail in the levels are questionable as I've only played through 3 levels and I doubt those will make it (as is) into Doom 3 anyway. But they didn't have huge poly counts anyway. More than Q3 certainly, but not huge poly counts.

Based on the Alpha (I know "it wasn't fully optimised") most people with average PCs will have to sacrifice the lighting to get the frame rate. So would you like to be kicked off servers, because 640x480 wasn't an acceptable res and to get better you switched off the lighting?

The Doom3 engine is all about the lighting. What other innovation is there in the engine?
I've read articles posted in Bluesnews where the designers where asked why Doom 3 seems to be quite a different game from the original Doom series (re: slower paced and less monsters)

Their comment was it was partly due to the engine being unable to handle huge hoards of monsters at once.
Designing the levels and so forth where not so much about making the engine look good, but not to let the engine look bad.

After reading those comments (I'll see if I can find the link again) I realised the Doom3 engine was surprisingly restrictive for an engine developed by Carmack. To the extent that that the game had to be developed around it's restrictions.

The source engine appears to have more useful features (lip sinc etc) that would make designers life easier. It isn't a one trick engine: Unlike the Doom 3 engine.

Check this link:
http://hatekill.yojutsu.com/?viewarticle=preview_doom3

It's very anti Doom3 but tries to justify why

I've done a bit of coding in my time and been told off for not commenting enough, and I'm like "What, it's totally obvious what I'm doing here!" and other people are baffled till you explain it a bit better.

Which is why it is almost impossible to comment too much, If people don't understand what is going on without the original programmer to talk to then the code is basically non-maintainable and non-supportable. In java you have javadoc so there's no excuse.

If JC doesn't comment enough, then should he drive a ferrari into a brick wall in error (got those ATI sunglasses or something), then Id would be dead very, very quickly.

I'm fairly (60 % ) edit: ( 60 % ) when run together as I did just before gives (60%) which is not what I was aiming for sure Quake was written in C and not C++.



Anvil
This comment was edited on Jul 18, 15:57.

sometimes they do not have bad prices...but I would NEVER buy a pc component from them..... depending on where are located in Ontario, check out Canadacomputers.com