On DOOM 3 Settings [Jul 26, 2004, 4:07 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Robert Duffy, id Software programmer,
updated his .plan about DOOM 3 settings and how they will work, discussing
specifics about the "ultra" quality setting as well as differences in how
certain data are handled differently by ATI and NVIDIA hardware. He also
mentions that the game is capped at 60 FPS (except when running demos as a
benchmark), discusses the software used during development, as well as a bit on
a hard drive nightmare encountered along the way. Here's a bit:
Image fidelity is dependent on what quality level we load the textures at.
In Ultra quality, we load each texture; diffuse, specular, normal map at full resolution with no compression. In a typical DOOM 3 level, this can hover around a whopping 500MB of texture data. This will run on current hardware but obviously we cannot fit 500MB of texture data onto a 256MB card and the amount of texture data referenced in a give scene per frame ( 60 times a second ) can easily be 50MB+. This can cause some choppiness as a lot of memory bandwidth is being consumed. It does however look fantastic :-) and it is certainly playable on high end systems but due to the hitching that can occur we chose to require a 512MB Video card before setting this automatically.
High quality uses compression ( DXT1,3,5 ) for specular and diffuse and no compression for normal maps. This looks very very close to Ultra quality but the compression does cause some loss. This is the quality that for instance the PC Gamer review was played in.
Medium quality uses compression for specular, diffuse, and normal maps. This still looks really really good but compressing the normal maps can produce a few artifacts especially on hard angled or round edges. This level gets us comfortably onto 128MB video cards.
Low quality does everything medium quality does but it also downsizes textures over 512x512 and we downsize specular maps to 64x64 in this mode as well. This fits us onto a 64MB video card.
RAM hasn't gone down in price for months because demand is steady while no new manufacturing is occuring and no new processes are coming online to make it cheaper real soon. Video cards like the GF6800 line and the x800 line would be suffering, were it not for Doom 3, because they use just about the most expensive processes around (even more than what AMD and Intel use in many cases). Lots of huge corporations pay (stupidly I think, but hey, its good for us) for the latest Intel Xeon chips when they would be better off with mainstream stuff. You wouldn't buy a 600+ dollar CPU, but that's what all new Intel chips intro at.
Economics: The study of the persistence of stupidity in all human activity.
Here is my constribution to more of such stupidity (It should be obvious from what follows that I'm not actually an economist)
HL2 fans would probably be best served by an extremely successful D3. RAM production is very cyclic and tightly linked to it's market price. The costs of production are enough to support a reasonably low price (my best guess based on past prices recalled by my tired mind would be around half what they are now) but the ease with which many companied can ramp up production mean there are small windows with which manufacturers can make the best margins. Increased demand for memory (both system and video) will cause a temporary increase in prices (although more likely just an extension of the already high prices that are already present - we are already at a point of scarcity which is encouraging manufacturers to increase production) Manufacturers will maintain production, probably all the way thru the x-mas season, (even if a glut occurs rapidly the low prices increase the demand and production can neither be started or stopped on a dime)
The processes of CPU and GPU are more speed driven rather than quantity driven so you won't just get cheaper but faster for cheaper will apply (memory capped out at system speeds means increases to yield mean more units) increases in yeild of CPU lead largely to more chips at a higher clock speed and consequent loss of the lower end chips helping them maintain margin to cover the more expensive process.
I obviously need sleep. Possibly someone actually conscious can interpret and articulate my statements better than I. Well....assuming I'm not a complete crackhead.
Playing with yeast to help you live longer!
My e. coli cures cancer!
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