[Bruck]

I used to have an older PC that could not run doom3, but I bought it anyway (PC Version) because I planned on building a new tower. Instead I started using my 15" powerbook alot more, and have since ditched the idea of building a pc. Does anyone know if

1) doom 3 will run well on my powerbook? (1.3ghz/15"/80gb/1gbram/5400rpm)
2) can I use a friends doom 3 install cd for mac, and my pc version's code (never been used before) or should I sell my pc version on ebay and buy the mac version?

Thanks!


Lou

[joe]

There's a FREE playable demo of Doom3 Mac available at www.macganefiles.com. That ought to give you some idea what to expect. Since you're a bit below minimum spec I recommend you turn off shadows and start at 800*500 (wide aspect) low quality. Then bump up the settings/quality from there until the performance drops off.

I can't help you with the code. You may want to send an email to Aspyr (Mac publisher of Doom3) tech support. Tho probably not worth asking untli after you find out how well the demo runs on your Mac.

FWIW I was also below minimum spec when I bought Doom3 (1.4GHz G4/Radeon 9800). I played the game all the way through without any problem. It was a little jumpy in places at 800*600 med quality (no shadows). The biggest performance hit on the Mac version of Doom3 comes from enabling shadows. With your hardware I wouldn't even bother turning shadows on. They automatically get turned on any time you select med quality. So be sure to double check and turn them off if you're testing different quality settings. Good luck

[Chinasaur]

Anyone have a guess how the new iMac will run Doom3?

[demibob]

it wont

i dont think doom 3 will work on an intell mac

[Chinasaur]

Originally Posted by demibob

it wont

i dont think doom 3 will work on an intell mac

Rosetta - http://www.apple.com/rosetta/

[Scooterboy]

I don't think running games like Doom 3 under Rosetta will yield great results.

[Leonard]

Rosetta can't run all PowerPC Mac programs, for instance it can't run Mac programs that have Altivec instructions. Also Rosetta has a performance hit and for a game like Doom that takes the latest hardware to run good, you don't want to use Rosetta.

[joe]

Originally Posted by demibob

it wont

i dont think doom 3 will work on an intell mac

Apple has a bar graph comparing Doom 3 performance on the new iMacIntel Core Duo to the previous 2.1GHz iMac G5:
http://www.apple.com/imac/graphics.html

More interesting than the 2.3x performance increase for the iMac Core Duo (IMHO) is the apparent availability of a beta universal binary for Doom 3 Mac (available to Apple at least). I'm not sure what resolution and video quality settings Apple used for their comparisons. But you can find more Doom 3 benchmarks from the last 2.1GHz and 1.9GHz G5 iMacs here:
http://www.barefeats.com/im21b.html

More Mac Doom 3 benchmarks here - tho only an older 1.8GHz G5 iMac is listed. Similarly spec'd G5 Towers are also listed:
http://www.macologist.org/showthread.php?t=909

Doom 3 Mac is not dual-aware from everything I've read - unless that new beta changes things. So a reasonable "guess" as to the huge performance boost seen with the new iMac Core Duo would be the obviously faster Radeon XT1600 graphics chipset, optional 256MB GDDR3 video RAM, and whopping 2megs of shared L2 cache (vs 512KB). It's too early to tell, but here's hoping these new iMac Core Duo's turn out to be as good at gaming as Apple's benchmarks indicate! Previous iMacs have always come up a bit short in that area.

[Chinasaur]

This is sounding very good.

[demibob]

Originally Posted by joe

Apple has a bar graph comparing Doom 3 performance on the new iMacIntel Core Duo to the previous 2.1GHz iMac G5:
http://www.apple.com/imac/graphics.html

More interesting than the 2.3x performance increase for the iMac Core Duo (IMHO) is the apparent availability of a beta universal binary for Doom 3 Mac (available to Apple at least). I'm not sure what resolution and video quality settings Apple used for their comparisons. But you can find more Doom 3 benchmarks from the last 2.1GHz and 1.9GHz G5 iMacs here:
http://www.barefeats.com/im21b.html

More Mac Doom 3 benchmarks here - tho only an older 1.8GHz G5 iMac is listed. Similarly spec'd G5 Towers are also listed:
http://www.macologist.org/showthread.php?t=909

Doom 3 Mac is not dual-aware from everything I've read - unless that new beta changes things. So a reasonable "guess" as to the huge performance boost seen with the new iMac Core Duo would be the obviously faster Radeon XT1600 graphics chipset, optional 256MB GDDR3 video RAM, and whopping 2megs of shared L2 cache (vs 512KB). It's too early to tell, but here's hoping these new iMac Core Duo's turn out to be as good at gaming as Apple's benchmarks indicate! Previous iMacs have always come up a bit short in that area.

ok point taken
most of the graphics heavy programs suggest you dont use rosseta though

[joe]

Originally Posted by demibob

ok point taken
most of the graphics heavy programs suggest you dont use rosseta though

Yet another Core Duo iMacl Doom3 benchmark from cnet.com (8th paragraph):
http://reviews.cnet.com/Apple_iMac_C...2.html?tag=sub

This appears to be a roseta ("non-native" in their lingo) benchmark. Contrary to every other rosetta comparison I've seen, the Core Duo iMac outperforms the G5 iMac here by about 40%. This is probably due to the much improved graphics, memory bus, and larger L2 cache in the Core Duo compared to the G5. Still, nice to see at least one rosetta benchmark outperforming the original. Can't wait to see the "native" universal binary version of Doom3 running on a Core Duo iMac