[Eug]

Here are the Doom III scores:

1024x768x32 Medium Quality
P4 3.06 GHz

Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB - 68.7
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB - 68.0
Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB - 60.8
Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB - 35.2
Radeon 9000 Pro 128 MB - 20.0
Geforce FX 5900 Ultra - 83.0
Geforce FX 5800 Ultra - 81.1
Geforce FX 5600 Ultra - 48.0
Geforce FX 5200 Ultra - 27.7
Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128 MB - 38.2


UT2003 Antalus Flyby scores (for reference):

Athlon 2700+
1024x768x32 Normal Setting

Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB - 168.3
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB - 168.9
Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB - 162.9
Geforce FX 5900 Ultra - 178.2
Geforce FX 5800 Ultra - 176.6


Ouch!

The UT2003 scores are inflated compared to real game play, but still it illustrates just how demanding Doom III is going to be. Plus games are usually faster with the same card on PCs than on Macs.

I can't access AnandTech or HardOCP right now - being hammered.

[xyber233]

That is brutal! Will Doom III even run on the dual 1.42? Wow. I am amazed.

[voodoo]

Why is there such a big difference between the P4 and the Athlon? Makes no sense to me...

[Eug]

Why is there such a big difference between the P4 and the Athlon? Makes no sense to me...

The P4 3.06 is Doom III. The Athlon 2700+ is Unreal Tournament 2003. I provided the latter scores just for reference, but the numbers are not really directly comparable.

BTW, I'm assuming the UT2003 scores are with the internal bench, but I dunno for sure. As a comparison...

My TiBook 1 GHz Radeon 9000, 800x600x32 (default settings):

Antalus (flyby):
25.508516 / 56.155087 / 205.284271 fps
Score = 55.346733

That is brutal! Will Doom III even run on the dual 1.42? Wow. I am amazed.

Well, I'd guess there'd be some more game and driver optimizations, but yes, that's brutal.

I suspect that a dual 1.42 with 9700 Pro might be able to run it adequately, but most of the rest of us can pretty much forget it.

[xyber233]

Heh, I guess all those people wishing to play Doom III on a powerbook have their answer .

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by xyber233:
Heh, I guess all those people wishing to play Doom III on a powerbook have their answer .

I was suprised and shocked at how many people really believed their GigaBook would be able to handle Doom 3.

[itai195]

Oh well, it's coming to xbox isn't it? Good enough for me...

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by itai195:
Oh well, it's coming to xbox isn't it? Good enough for me...

Probably not. Carmack said he'd sleep on it but the xbox would never be able to play Doom 3 at it's full graphics settings. If Doom 3 were released on the xbox, it'd purely be because MS gave them an insane amount of money. If Doom 3 were an xbox exclusive (no PC or Mac version until a year or two after), Carmack would have to surrender all common sense.

Releasing Doom 3 for the xbox would be the exact same scenario as Halo.

iD would have to move everything from OpenGL to DirectX9. They'd have to rework the whole control/playability to fit the controls of a gamepad (and thus slow the game speed/action down significantly.) They'd have to give up special video card features they've been working on for a long time. And they'd have to disapppoint many iD fans (the fan base is probably much bigger than the Bungie fan base) in the process.

In other words (now that I think about it), iD will never release Doom 3 on the xbox. Unless they got a sum of money large enough to compensate for all the money they could have made on the PC and Mac.

While the console market is big. xbox is about as popular as the GameCube...but has waaaay shittier games. I wouldn't want to rework and release a game I've been working on for over 3 years for a dying platform.

[itai195]

You must have missed this: Doom III Confirmed for Xbox

Porting a game to a console does not necessarily mean that the game is exclusive to that console and won't be released on PC. That only happened with Halo because MS bought Bungie. Doom III is one of only 2 or 3 PC games I really want to play, so I'm glad I won't have to buy a PC just to play it

Sidenote, E3 is this week, so we should be seeing some details regarding Doom III on xbox in the coming days.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by itai195:
You must have missed this: Doom III Confirmed for Xbox

Porting a game to a console does not necessarily mean that the game is exclusive to that console and won't be released on PC. That only happened with Halo because MS bought Bungie. Doom III is one of only 2 or 3 PC games I really want to play, so I'm glad I won't have to buy a PC just to play it

Sidenote, E3 is this week, so we should be seeing some details regarding Doom III on xbox in the coming days.

It may have been ***CONFIRMED*** but I don't think it's really confirmed. Releasing a FPS on a console means changing the whole dynamic of the game.

You can't expect Doom 3 xbox players to compete with Doom 3 computer players on the net. The whole development would have to be split in two. One branch would develop Doom 3 to be slower paced to allow for the slower and limiting gamepad controllability. The other branch would have to gear the gameplay for keyboard+mouse setups.

Doom 3 would lose much of the scariness if things were slow paced like on a FPS on a console. I can understand the zombies being slow, but not scary. If you can outrun something, the scare-factor is reduced immensly.

I still remember the Skaarj attack in Unreal inside a long narrow and dark passage way...*that* was scary. Why? 'cuz he was fast...and you had to react fast.

If the scare-factor lies in the thought that the slow gamepad controls won't allow you to turn and around in time to shoot the weird half-mechanical half-organic zombie-munching beast that is running after you, then forget it!

Doom 3 for xbox = poopie!

[itai195]

I think that's somewhat unjustified, after all Max Payne and Halo were very successful on xbox.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by itai195:
I think that's somewhat unjustified, after all Max Payne and Halo were very successful on xbox.

Max Payne was 'very succesful' on the xbox?

I can understand Halo being 'very sucessful' since it was a highly anticipated exclusive. If it had been released on the PC at the same time as the xbox, on the other hand, I think it'd be a whole different story. People would have bought the PC version instead of the xbox version.

[DrBoar]

Anyone now how SMP DOOM III is?
Quake III is fully SMP with a substantial speedboost for DP while for example UT2k3 relly just offloads some minor stuff to the second CPU giving a far more modest.

If it is fully SMP I would guess that DP 1.42 and 1.25 could be marginal at playing Doom III. If it is like UT2k3 all G4 and doomed so to speak


My guess is that that we need to get out from the Motorola snail farm to be able run Doom III
"I still remember the Skaarj attack in Unreal inside a long narrow and dark passage way...*that* was scary. Why? 'cuz he was fast...and you had to react fast. " the one on the Titan level that drops down a air vent more or less on top of you? I was happy I had my Depends strapped on

[Tom Rudderham]

Seems that the GPU is the determing factor here.
Looks like in high detail the Radeon 9000 gets 20fps in 1024 by 768, I wonder what it would get in medium? Doom's lower detail shadows in the Alpha gave double the frame rates to high detail.
The 15" PowerBook may be able to run it after all! Sweeeet!

[Tom Rudderham]

Guys, check out the Splinter Cell benchmark.
It's even more demanding than Doom 3!!
(Edit: Twice as demanding! MX owners better start saving now!)

[Eug]

Originally posted by Tom Rudderham:
Seems that the GPU is the determing factor here.
Looks like in high detail the Radeon 9000 gets 20fps in 1024 by 768, I wonder what it would get in medium? Doom's lower detail shadows in the Alpha gave double the frame rates to high detail.
The 15" PowerBook may be able to run it after all! Sweeeet!

The Doom III scores are with medium detail, not high.

[Tom Rudderham]

Doh! How about low detail then?!

[itai195]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Max Payne was 'very succesful' on the xbox?

I can understand Halo being 'very sucessful' since it was a highly anticipated exclusive. If it had been released on the PC at the same time as the xbox, on the other hand, I think it'd be a whole different story. People would have bought the PC version instead of the xbox version.

As a matter of fact, yes, Max Payne was successful on the Xbox. It's one of their Platinum Hits now.

The point is that the xbox can pull off FPS games just fine. There is no hard and fast rule that says an fps must slow down on consoles. Halo was successful on the xbox because it played pretty well. I'm not going to hypothesize about how many people would have bought the PC version instead; it's clear that many people bought the xbox version and loved it. The only people still clamoring for a PC version are those who didn't buy an xbox to play it on.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by itai195:
As a matter of fact, yes, Max Payne was successful on the Xbox. It's one of their Platinum Hits now.

The point is that the xbox can pull off FPS games just fine. There is no hard and fast rule that says an fps must slow down on consoles. Halo was successful on the xbox because it played pretty well. I'm not going to hypothesize about how many people would have bought the PC version instead; it's clear that many people bought the xbox version and loved it. The only people still clamoring for a PC version are those who didn't buy an xbox to play it on.

Shows how useless the xbox really is if Max Payne, a PC game is a Platinum Hit. Max Payne was a single-player game...I haven't played it on the xbox, but I know you don't need twitch action reflexes to play it especially in bullet-time.

If Halo plays the same way on computers, it'll be a ridiculously easy game. Why? Because of the ease and speed of control a mouse and keyboard offers over a gamepad.

Why is Halo being heavily modified for PCs/Macs? Because it has to be challenging using the mouse+keyboard combo.

Will xbox Halo players be able to play vs computer Halo players? No. The game's gameplay is being drastically changed. xbox players would get owned playing against people using a mouse+keyboard. That is unless Halo would have been programmed to retain the slowness of the Halo gameplay...which would certainly be a cause of frustratation for a lot of players used to fast-paced 1st person shooters.

I'm not going to say 1st person shooters are terrible on consoles. But I'm going to say they are very awkward. Controlling player movement and torso/aim movement on a gamepad is the most unnatural control ever. Just like piloting a helicopter is a PITA, the same applies to 1st person shooters on consoles.

IMO, 1st person shooters and real-time strategy games don't belong on consoles for the very reason that they are complicated to control unless the gameplay is slowed down dramatically.

But, hey, if people really want to buy consoles to play 1st person shooters, more power to them. The experience of a FPS on a console is, IMO and many real FPS players, mediocre at best.

[blizzard]

I seem to recall when the GeForce3s originally came out it was said that it would be the lowest card you could use to run Doom 3. Now, I don't know if they are still planning on keeping to that promise, but it might suggest that there's a ray of hope for some of us.

[Guy Incognito 2]

The E3 Doom 3 trailer video at GameSpot is amazing.

1. This is not a game our G4s will be able to handle. I don't think Doom 3 will be playable on anything less than a 9700 or GeForce FX...and while the 9700 is available for Macs, the G4 CPU won't cut it for this game unless it's fully SMP + Altivec optimized...sorry.
2. This is not a game the xbox will be able to handle without some severe changes to the engine and the gameplay. (notice that I didn't say it won't be available for the xbox...Carmack has said that he's planning for an xbox release, but I'm sure there will be lots of changes to the game on the xbox.)

The 970 will probably be the minimum requirement on this game for the Mac.

[exca1ibur]

Yeah Guy, that demo is amazing. I think the min will be at least a dual 1 Ghz and an ATi 9700. If its higher I wouldn't be surprised to be honest. However, I'm sure John Carmack will have it MP aware as he did with Quake 3, but I agree that its gonna take some major power to run decent in full glory.

For the curious...

E3 Doom 3 Trailer

[rm199]

I think D3 will be playable on mild hardware. It wont be as intended however... once you turn off all the features to get it to run it will look like Doom 2. What is the point in that? It is a next gen game it will need next gen hardware. I'm most likely going to buy a PC when D3 is released, that Dell Dimension XPS looks like a winner for a games pc.

RM

[Guy Incognito 2]

Carmack said that the lighting/shadows is the major performance killer. Turning it off almost doubles the performance.

He also said that he might add the option to turn off shadows although he didn't like the idea because that lighting effects is what makes the game so scary in the first place...that and the moth-like creature with the baby face. (That last one was an opinion of mine. )

[entrox]

Quake 3 is SMP-aware and turning on support for it increases my frame rate by about 35FPS (from ~80FPS to ~115FPS on highest detail in 1280x1024x32). That's an improvement of nearly 50%. Since every id-engine was based more or less on a previous engine, I think it's safe to say, that Doom 3 will also be SMP-aware. BUT (and here comes the stinker), while Q3 is cleary CPU-bound, D3 is clearly GPU-bound, so I think it's ALSO safe to say that Doom 3 won't be getting a 50% increase from multiple processors /including/ any potential AltiVec optimizations.

So don't expect any miracles - Doom 3 will run like **** on nearly every Mac of today. I remember playing the original Q3 IHV-leak on my Pentium 200 *** Voodoo 2 with 5FPS. A few years later it's 20 times faster on my MDD - expect the same with your machines (PCs included).

[entrox]

What the hell? Why does my post get censored? Am I not allowed to write c-u-m as in "Magna *** laude"?

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by entrox:
Quake 3 is SMP-aware and turning on support for it increases my frame rate by about 35FPS (from ~80FPS to ~115FPS on highest detail in 1280x1024x32). That's an improvement of nearly 50%. Since every id-engine was based more or less on a previous engine, I think it's safe to say, that Doom 3 will also be SMP-aware. BUT (and here comes the stinker), while Q3 is cleary CPU-bound, D3 is clearly GPU-bound, so I think it's ALSO safe to say that Doom 3 won't be getting a 50% increase from multiple processors /including/ any potential AltiVec optimizations.

So don't expect any miracles - Doom 3 will run like **** on nearly every Mac of today. I remember playing the original Q3 IHV-leak on my Pentium 200 *** Voodoo 2 with 5FPS. A few years later it's 20 times faster on my MDD - expect the same with your machines (PCs included).

I dunno...the Doom 3 physics engine seems to be out-of-this-world. I think it's a little early to say that Doom 3 is GPU bound.

Although it is true that Doom 3 uses almost all of the new card graphics goodies such as textures and lighting, most of the environment's computation is done by the CPU.

[Eug]

Hmmmm... It seems the nVidia numbers may be misleading. Things are not being rendered properly on the nVidia side and now people are accusing nVidia of rigging the drivers to favour the Doom III bench.

Driver Irregularities May Inflate nVidia Benchmarks

nVidia claims they're just bugs.

On a different note, there are now rumours that the ATI 9800 Pro will be coming to the Mac. No timeline though.

[entrox]

Of course you are right - It /is/ a little early, but I strongly believe D3 will be GPU-bound. The physics I saw weren't particularly impressive - or perhaps better worded: they don't look like something, which needs excessive processing power. But even if they do, they can be nicely accelerated by an SIMD unit /if/ properly done (as seen in NASCAR 02), which gets us back to the GPU.

But as always, this is only an educated guess.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by entrox:
Of course you are right - It /is/ a little early, but I strongly believe D3 will be GPU-bound. The physics I saw weren't particularly impressive - or perhaps better worded: they don't look like something, which needs excessive processing power. But even if they do, they can be nicely accelerated by an SIMD unit /if/ properly done (as seen in NASCAR 02), which gets us back to the GPU.

But as always, this is only an educated guess.

What from the physics engine didn't impress you?

The impressive parts I saw were the deformable environment (monsters bashing up doors and ripping them off, monster forcing his way through the piping), the ragdoll physics (dead zombies getting thrown around by some invisible force, large monster throwing a zombie out of his way), the lighting effects (seen almost everywhere during the trailer...so well done, IMO, that people don't even notice it, just like you wouldn't take notice of it in real-life), the lifelike movements of the monsters (again, very well done).

Perhaps all of these were so well done that they became subtleties for some people. I'm a little mystified when people say they weren't impressed with the Doom 3 physics.

Oh well, that's the price you have to pay when the physics starts to resemble more like real-life physics.

[entrox]

The impressive parts I saw were the deformable environment (monsters bashing up doors and ripping them off, monster forcing his way through the piping)

I am assuming, that these are not real-time but pre-calculated animations. This is nothing new - most car racing games had those, too. The debris bouncing around after that isn't anything special - see my second point:

the ragdoll physics (dead zombies getting thrown around by some invisible force, large monster throwing a zombie out of his way)

Those are simple rigid body physics and don't require huge processing power. Granted, when combined with an IK-system it looks pretty good (the ragdoll effect you describe).

the lighting effects (seen almost everywhere during the trailer...so well done, IMO, that people don't even notice it, just like you wouldn't take notice of it in real-life)

But lighting hasn't anything to do with the physics engine. It's done entirely on the graphics card in several passes. This the major reason why I think D3 will be GPU-bound.

[freeandunmuzzled]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
The E3 Doom 3 trailer video at GameSpot is amazing.

I am sure it is, but I can't download it...

Protected Delivery - Microsoft Windows Required

We are sorry. This protected delivery is only available through Kontiki's secure delivery software running on a Windows PC (Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98, or NT4).

Please try to access this content through a computer running Microsoft Windows.


...what is this, stalinist russia?

[justinkim]

Try the link off this story at slashdot: Doom IIi Trailer Debuts at E3

BitTorrent was nice and fast. You can get the BitTorrent client at versiontracker.

[xyber233]

http://www.planetquake3.net/download...s&lid=1616

[Chimpmaster]

They are intense requirements. Fortunately it is being released on xbox so I will just buy it on that format.

I accepted on the very day i purchased my g4 imac that whilst being a wonderful machine, it wouldnt be long before it couldnt cope with the latest 3d games.

Rather than constantly upgrading my desktop, im going to hang onto that imac for at least another 3 years, as it meets all my other business and personal performance requirements.

My xbox however is my gaming toy and is great for those intense 3d games.

Doom3 should be cool - i hope it has a chainsaw!

[fourstarcltv]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
The E3 Doom 3 trailer video at GameSpot is amazing.

you're right there, quite stunning.

time to start saving for a 97/9800 for my pc (currently have a 9000 pro), there's no hope for my poor old dual g4.

anyone heard when the game is due? end of 2003?

[danengel]

I can't open this trailer, how do you do it?

[xyber233]

It is an avi file. You can download VLC and run it using that or you can download Divx and use the Divx Validator program to make the movie work in Quicktime.

[ccrider]

I attended E3 and was a little disappointed in Doom3. Yeah, it looked pretty good, but after all the hype, I wasn't too impressed.

I WAS impressed by Half-life 2, as well as Far Cry. If you haven't checked out Far Cry, check it out- I think it has a good chance of turning many a head. The lighting effects do all that I saw in Doom3, as well as all the ragdoll physics and incredibly immense environments. You can actually have a viewable distance one mile in any direction- pretty cool. In the demo I saw, the player shot and killed an enemy, then proceeded to move him into the ocean by shotgunning him in his various body parts (all individually movable) until he was "floating" in the water. He then proceeded to hop on top of him, shooting his head and other body parts, and they would submerge temporarily, then resurface.

You can also shoot fish, and they'll float to the surface.

Half-life2 also rocks. Check out the videos and they'll speak for themselves.

Doom3 seems to be WAY too demanding, while HL2 and Far Cry have a more scalable architecture.

We'll have to see what becomes of Doom3, but I have my doubts.

Too bad neither HL2 or Far Cry will reach the Mac, though

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by ccrider:

Too bad neither HL2 or Far Cry will reach the Mac, though

Is this a fact?

[Tom Rudderham]

Of course not, he's just assuming things.

[ccrider]

Originally posted by Tom Rudderham:
Of course not, he's just assuming things.

I should have said "probably won't".

I apologize, for I do not know for sure; I realize anything is possible, however I would say it is doubtful if history is any lesson.

Here's to hoping, though... I'd like nothing better than to play them on my mac.