Doom 3

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:53 pm

Well it just went gold. Coming out August 5th.

I don't think my computer can handle it so I don't know if I'm going to get it yet.

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:33 am

Ah, you posted this topic before I had a chance.

I'll get it. I'm a sucker for id games.

All I need is a decent video card to make my rig D3-ready. More than likely I'll get the GeForce 6800 simply because of the Linux driver support (and acceptable performance). I actually have a few recommendations I want to add to my hardware thread, too.

When I get D3, I plan to install it and UT2004 in Linux. If that goes anywhere I'll start a thread about Linux gaming.

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 3:12 am

What are your current specs?

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 6:21 pm

See hardware thread.
http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/mohtali ... =6903#6903

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 10:34 pm

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=56050

In slightly more positive news, Hollenshead was able to confirm to UKGamer.com that, "Multiplayer is client-server," laying to rest suggestions that Doom's four-player deathmatch mode might be peer-to-peer; in other words, that it would rely on individual players connecting together or hosting things locally rather than connecting to dedicated servers hosted by regular server operators on the net. As yet though, there's no word on if and when a dedicated server package might appear on the net ahead of the game's release on August 5th in the States.

When I thought multiplayer was going to be peer-to-peer, it made sense to have a small number of players per game. However, this makes no sense. Did Carmack forget how to write netcode? Were hitboxes really that simplifying?

Post by **Jonathan** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:25 pm

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17437

Apparently uncompressed large textures in D3 will utilize up to half a gig of video memory.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:59 pm

but who will pay the extra for the additional 256mb of ram? how much do consumer pay for video ram anyway?

Post by **Jonathan** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:59 pm

No one, because there is only one game that will use that much memory.

Not really sure what GDDR goes for.

George · Post by **George** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:48 pm

They could just fill the entire half gig texture buffer with a single color value (red, green, or brown depending on the level) and no-one would know the difference. I don't remember id ever releasing a polychromatic level.

Or maybe the half-gig is all for rendering players. With that much memory, they could probably use a different texture for each hair.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:39 am

I guess I will see how horrible it runs on my computer

and then return it to the store

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:52 pm

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger ... 0726134608

Robert Duffy goes on about system requirements.

The highlights:

low quality requires at least 384 MB RAM

low quality requires at least 64 MB VRAM

high quality takes 256 MB of VRAM, ultra quality takes 512 MB of VRAM

high quality wants 1 GB of RAM

game is capped at 60 fps

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:45 pm

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDI=

Despite the rather breathless copy ("We were literally drawn into the game, and became fully immersed in it at these settings."), this is a pretty good guide to image quality settings and hardware performance. For instance, the minimum system mentioned by the Houston Chronicle scores an average of 29 fps with a minimum of 13 fps, which is unplayable by my definition. They tested with a pretty broad spectrum of platforms and video cards, so you should be able to find a configuration similar to what you own or are planning to buy. Use the "Jump to" knob at the bottom of the page to pick out the CPU/motherboard that is closest to your system.

They claim higher resolution to be better than AA. They also refer readers to the BFGTech 6800 OC, which runs faster than the stock nVidia frequency out of the box.

Also, you can clearly see in the screenshots that they've added blue to their 3-color palette. Ah, progress.

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:49 pm

Or, you can get the Gainward 6800 Golden Sample, which runs at 400 MHz!

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 193&depa=0

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:03 pm

But only 128MB.

But wait! [H]ard has their GeForce OC 128MB running at High quality at 1600x1200 with only a 3.0GHz P4, despite the fact that they claim High quality is for 256MB cards.

But wait, further reading makes me think Newegg has this inappropriately labeled. It probably doesn't do 400 MHz out of the box. But if the BFG can overclock to 400 MHz, this probably can too.

I will probably save myself the cash and buy a 128MB card.

Post by **Jonathan** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:34 pm

As for Peijen's question, the price difference between the 256 MB GeForce GT 6800 and the 128 MB GeForce 6800 is approximately $100. Given that there are other differences between the two cards besides the amount of memory, my best guess is that video memory costs roughly the same per megabyte as system memory.

George · Post by **George** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 11:08 pm

I dunno how much the blue will help. There's still no light. Maybe that's better than Q3's gross misuse of colored light, though.

My computer might have a shot at 800x600 high quality. They list my card (9800 Pro) as doing 1024x768, but my CPU, RAM and motherboard are complete crap.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 12:06 am

so how ill D3 fare on my P4 2.53 1G ram with Ti4200? 640x480 low quality?

Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 12:43 am

Probably 800x600 low quality. Maybe medium.

Post by **Jonathan** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:47 pm

Every time someone buys D3, Gabe Newell kills a kitten.

Doug Lombardi sez: Don't buy D3, wait for HL2! It's coming out; this time we mean it!

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&i ... earch+News

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 8:46 pm

so anyone tried it yet?