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ice · Feb 20, 2004, 10:09 AM

Do you guys know if Doom 3 will run on G4s like on the current powerbook models? I suppose its not the CPU so much as the GPU thats important when asking this question though. What are your thoughts?

lenox · Feb 20, 2004, 11:39 AM

The developers of Doom 3 have actually said that Doom 3's hardware specs won't be that bad. They mentioned something like an older p4 and a geforce 2 or 3 at the bottom end, on the pc side. Take that however you may.

ice · Feb 20, 2004, 11:43 AM

huh... i suppose they will have options to turn off all the insane features and that would probably help a bit. i was just wondering if anyone heard anything and i hadn't heard that so thanks for the info.

Lateralus · Feb 20, 2004, 11:46 AM

If the Doom engine is going to be AltiVec aware like the Quake III engine is, a G4 of high clock speed and a Radeon 9600 should be fine for running the game.

Arkham_c · Feb 20, 2004, 01:35 PM

The big issue will be the video card. They're going to use all the latest and greatest pixel shaders and whatnot for the game. Hopefully it will simply disable those features rather than emulating them with multiple passes for cards that lack them.

SouthPaW1227 · Feb 20, 2004, 03:57 PM

No chance in hates. Seriously.

blizzard · Feb 20, 2004, 04:30 PM

I'd be inclined to agree. Doubt it'll run at any playable framerate.

MindFad · Feb 20, 2004, 04:43 PM

With many of your shaders and effects off (probably most), it'll run. And at lower resolutions.

James L · Feb 21, 2004, 09:14 AM

I think you will see a similiar experience to the Halo one we just had.

There are many people on G5 towers who are complaining about Halos performance. I personally have played it on a G4 PB and a G5 tower and saw little difference.

The problems arise from a poor port, not from the hardware. I think a current G4 with enough RAM and a decent GPU should be able to run this programs fine, but not if the code is buggered to start with.

macgyvr64 · Feb 21, 2004, 11:28 AM

Id usually does a very nice job of ports, though. Quake 3 runs pretty well on machines as low as 300 Mhz. That, and their apps seem more... hmm... they just have a better "feel," if you get what I mean. Run Halo and for 5 minutes, then run Quake 3. Something about them is different, other than the difference in frame rate, of course. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the quality of their Mac games is better than others. I think they'll do Doom 3 on the Mac the way it should be done.

Angus_D · Feb 21, 2004, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by James L:
The problems arise from a poor port, not from the hardware. I think a current G4 with enough RAM and a decent GPU should be able to run this programs fine, but not if the code is buggered to start with.

But with Halo the PC port was poorly done, the Mac port is on par with it really...

Have there even been any announcements about Doom 3 being ported to the Mac yet? I seem to remember hearing they didn't think it was worth doing parallel development for Mac/Linux like they did with Quake III b/c they didn't sell well enough.

MindFad · Feb 21, 2004, 02:59 PM

Hasn't Carmack already said a few times it's coming to the Mac (anyone want to dig up links)? And it was demoed on the Mac, as well�well, a video was shown (I think). I thought it was to be a very close, if not simultaneous, release.

Horsepoo!!! · Feb 21, 2004, 06:15 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
But with Halo the PC port was poorly done, the Mac port is on par with it really...

Have there even been any announcements about Doom 3 being ported to the Mac yet? I seem to remember hearing they didn't think it was worth doing parallel development for Mac/Linux like they did with Quake III b/c they didn't sell well enough.

Quake III didn't sell well enough on Mac? It was just the #1 benchmark tool used for years and years by many many Mac users.

Angus_D · Feb 22, 2004, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Quake III didn't sell well enough on Mac? It was just the #1 benchmark tool used for years and years by many many Mac users.

Yes, but still proportionately it's a minuscule portion of the market and they said they wouldn't bother. Maybe that was just the Linux version.

blizzard · Feb 22, 2004, 02:13 PM

AFAIK it was the Linux version, and I'm not sure if that was only referring to the boxed versions or the entire product as a whole.

CIA · Feb 27, 2004, 01:56 PM

Well, if you want high framerates, I suggest Doom II.
Seriously, ID is great when it comes to the Mac. I would be supprised if we didn't see some 64 bit G5 patches for Doom III after it's release.

Truepop · Feb 27, 2004, 06:03 PM

I think it will run well on a G4. I aquired a beta of the PC version by some means... but anyway even on a PIII 650MHz with a GeForce 2 TNT 32MB it was playable and fluid but the models looked worse than crap. I thought it was because the game wasn't complete (there was no menu).

Wasn't the game designed with the GeForce 3 in mind and is the GeForce FX is faster than the 3?

Also Quake is G4 aware but is it multitreading and can use both procs?

lenox · Mar 1, 2004, 12:39 PM

quake 3 is multithreading and can use both procs.

open the console, type r_smp
if it says 1...it's on