The Official DOOM 3 [H]ardware Guide thread.

roccer said:
will i see a difference in performance if i get a new motherboard (keep the same proc and memory) that has 8x AGP as opposed to 4x AGP?

to be more specific, would i be better off buying an ABIT is7-E to replace my ASUS P4s533
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probably not much, but you would see some performance gain, assuming you also have a 8x agp videocard.. I remember when i upgraded from my sis board to my current one, keeping all components the same, i gained about 4-5% in performance. but it all depends on how fast your ram and cpu is able to feed the data over the AGP bus, if you ram and cpu cant keep up, then a faster AGP bus wont help
 
theelviscerator said:
One question...Level Load times? are they lengthy?
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Level load times are long but not worse than anything else I have played lately. Comparable to FarCry. We took a RAID0 setup but never got to test the times compared to single drives....sorry.
 
demingo said:
probably not much, but you would see some performance gain, assuming you also have a 8x agp videocard.. I remember when i upgraded from my sis board to my current one, keeping all components the same, i gained about 4-5% in performance. but it all depends on how fast your ram and cpu is able to feed the data over the AGP bus, if you ram and cpu cant keep up, then a faster AGP bus wont help
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proc is a 2.53ghz p4 with 533fsb. memory is 1GB DDR333 Corsair XMS

i just wanna be able to play @ 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 with high quality
 
I just wanted to say that you have truly impressed me with that article. I've been reading the [H] for the last two years, and been a member of the forums for one year, and I think you may have out-done yourselves here. Kyle and Brent both deserve some award for that. I could feel your enthusasm in every graph, and every image. You definitely know your hardware, and love your games.

I'm glad that you enjoyed writing the review as I enjoyed reading it. While most review sites would just do the highest-spec possible with a X800XT-PE and a 6800U, that wouldn't tell me anything (I don't have a spare few grand). That may have been the most helpful article I've read since I've been here, and it helped settle the burning question of whether I needed an upgrade to appreciate Doom 3. Thank you so much, and keep up the good work. :)
 
Dweiss said:
The way current HT technology works is not ideal for FPS gaming. They slow down the latency of the threads so that two can be processed at the same time; It has twice the pipe-line length. Slow core latency won't work for all of the on-the-fly calculations that most FPS engines do. Its impossible to keep everything in-sync when the core slows the processes just so it can split the thread. Quite simpley the technology needs to change before Carmack will change his view. Do some re-search so that you may understand better than I could explain.
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Um, the Northwood C did NOT have 2x the pipeline of the Northwood B. I don't know where you got that information, but it's not true. The C has a 20 stage pipe, the Prescott has a 34 stage pipe. The PIII had a 10 stage pipe, so if HT resulted in a 2x stage increase, then the NWB would have had a 10 stage as well (which is wrong, since the PIV always had more than the PIII). http://www.intelforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=2778

Got proof?
 
roccer said:
proc is a 2.53ghz p4 with 533fsb. memory is 1GB DDR333 Corsair XMS
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I'd say you would get a similar gain to what I saw when I swapped mobos. I read you got a 6800U. 3-5% might happen, especially at higher detail levels when more data is needed. but im just guessing as i dont have doom3, but if it scales like other games, 3-5% is my best guess
 
demingo said:
probably not much, but you would see some performance gain, assuming you also have a 8x agp videocard.. I remember when i upgraded from my sis board to my current one, keeping all components the same, i gained about 4-5% in performance. but it all depends on how fast your ram and cpu is able to feed the data over the AGP bus, if you ram and cpu cant keep up, then a faster AGP bus wont help
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AGP is nowhere near saturated under ideal conditions. Your increase is from going to a good mobo.
 
roccer said:
proc is a 2.53ghz p4 with 533fsb. memory is 1GB DDR333 Corsair XMS

i just wanna be able to play @ 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 with high quality
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From my experience bus syncing can yield good results when gaming; Your 533 bus would be sync'ed at 8x agp(533), vs your 4x (266). You may see a note worthy increase, but i wouldnt expect anything stellar.
 
demingo said:
I'd say you would get a similar gain to what I saw when I swapped mobos. I read you got a 6800U. 3-5% might happen, especially at higher detail levels when more data is needed. but im just guessing as i dont have doom3, but if it scales like other games, 3-5% is my best guess
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in that case it wouldnt be worth i take it (i got a non ultra btw, not U ) im planning to build a whole new system come the end of the year. i just want to squeeze out anything i can out of this machine before then

maybe Kyle can input on my lil predicmend? :D
 
lopoetve said:
AGP is nowhere near saturated under ideal conditions. Your increase is from going to a good mobo.
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Yea, thats entirely true. But with the massive amounts of texture data doom3 moves around, it might be the first one to stress the agp bus past 4x, especially with high amounts of system ram where the texture data can be stored until needed by the videocard
 
lopoetve said:
Um, the Northwood C did NOT have 2x the pipeline of the Northwood B. I don't know where you got that information, but it's not true. The C has a 20 stage pipe, the Prescott has a 34 stage pipe. The PIII had a 10 stage pipe, so if HT resulted in a 2x stage increase, then the NWB would have had a 10 stage as well (which is wrong, since the PIV always had more than the PIII). http://www.intelforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=2778

Got proof?
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I'm not gonna start a flame war, I was trying to explain a fairly complex concept to someone who has no idea of the functionality, nothing about what i said was exact to the T. You sir can be right. :cool:
 
What does everyone think my frames per second will be with my medeocre system?

Pentium 4 1.6 Ghz
512 MB Sd Ram
9600XT
 
I'm new here, so I don't wan to leave a bad first impression, but....

Could we PLEASE stop spreading misinformation about the heat haze effect? Doom 3 IS NOT a DirectX game. Doom 3 uses OpenGL. I doubt (although I don't know for sure) that Doom 3 even uses the most recent extensions added into OpenGL 1.5, judging by when 1.5 support was available on graphics cards, and the release schedule for the game.

Unless I am horribly mistaken, as long as your card has full OpenGL support, and full pixel and vertex shader support, you should be able to enjoy every snazzy effect in the game.

If anyone knows otherwise for absolute certain, please correct me. I'm just sick of hearing about DirectX when it has nothing to do with Doom 3.
 
Great coverage guys.
I'm a little intrigued by your statement about some higher end video cards with 128MB being able to run High Quality. But then you showed on the 3.0Ghz P4C with a 9800pro that you settled on medium quality. How well would the 9800pro do with high quality on that system?

I'm concerned that my 9800 non-pro doesn't stand a chance of running high quality settings with 1024x768. What made you decide to go with medium for this setup?

Keep up the good work!
 
Could we PLEASE stop spreading misinformation about the heat haze effect? Doom 3 IS NOT a DirectX game. Doom 3 uses OpenGL. I doubt (although I don't know for sure) that Doom 3 even uses the most recent extensions added into OpenGL 1.5, judging by when 1.5 support was available on graphics cards, and the release schedule for the game.
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Then explain why you need a DX9 class card for it, everyone here knows that OpenGL is used.
 
I am so totally jacked that my i8200 will be able to play Doom 3!!!
Low quality is better than nothing when playing in the cafeteria.

Thanks and Praise to id Software and [H]ardOCP!!!

Fucking Sweet!!!
 
turdhat said:
Man, my question got left in the dust ! Kyle help me out here please if you can. I do not use a monitor for my setup as I have my pc connected to a HDTV. Do you or anyone else know if this game will support custom resoltions or will I have to get my monitor back out and sit at a desk :( Thanks for all the hard work you guys out into the guide as I now know where I stand.
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Custom res console commands above. Should work for you fine.
 
turdhat said:
Anyone know if the game will support custom widescreen resolutions for us hdtv gamers out there through an ini edit or other means? If possible I plan to play in 864x648 or 1152x648 as I do with most games. On the big screen it is going to be a blast !
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See custom res commands above.
 
Why do people keep saying Doom 3 is a dx game? LOL yes there is a version of Doom 3 that is dx which was done by Vicarous Visions for the X-BOX only!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
CrimandEvil said:
Then explain why you need a DX9 class card for it, everyone here knows that OpenGL is used.
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I'm guessing that you require pixel shader 2.0 for it, and since there's no OGL version to describe using 2.0, they simply say you require a direct x 9.0 card to enable that feature, not saying the game will be using direct x.

So, could anyone help answer my question?
 
Smith said:
I'm guessing that you require pixel shader 2.0 for it, and since there's no OGL version to describe using 2.0, they simply say you require a direct x 9.0 card to enable that feature, not saying the game will be using direct x.
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Ogl does support SM 2.0 in ARB, ARB 2, GLSL paths.
 
I'm guessing that you require pixel shader 2.0 for it, and since there's no OGL version to describe using 2.0, they simply say you require a direct x 9.0 card to enable that feature, not saying the game will be using direct x.
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Well put. Props to you sir!
 
rancor said:
Why do people keep saying Doom 3 is a dx game? LOL yes there is a version of Doom 3 that is dx which was done by Vicarous Visions for the X-BOX only!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I haven't seen anyone say that. :rolleyes:
(see Smith's post)
 
Yeah those are the guys that did the port, saw it first hand unbelievable! Great lookin game. Ah I see where he is coming from

Yes you will need a Dx9 card or a card that support Ogl 1.4
 
I'm most surprised at the lack of CPU scaling with the 9800Pro. I have a P4 2.4C running at 2.7GHz, with a 9800Pro, so I was most concerned with the P4 2.4 and 3.0 pages. I noticed that the difference between a P4 2.4 w/ 9800Pro and a P4 3.0 w/ 9800Pro was less than 1 FPS for average FPS. Thats less than 1 FPS for a 600MHz difference. I was planning to upgrade either my CPU or my video card. Clearly I need to focus on my video card at it appears to be the bottleneck.
 
Well I for one am glad that after spending a wee fortune on my upgrades, Doom3 and all the incantations that will follow will run more than happily on the new rig. Luckily, I only bought the X800 Pro for the Mrs's PC, and my nice shiny new ASUS V9999 Ultra Deluxe is on backorder. That said, after reading that hardware summary, Doom3 will run a treat on 'her' PC too.

/me tries to work out a way to convince the woman that "just another £100" is justified to take the rig to 2Gb.
 
you are in the same exact boat im in, except im running amd cpus. i cant believe how little difference the cpu makes. most benchmarks show a sizeable diff between the 3200+xp and the 3500+a64, but in this doom3 run they are identical. looks like ill be replacing my videocard soon.
 
souped said:
how will my system perform?

p4 2.4c
512mb pc2700 ram
gf4 mx440 64mb
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Not much better than the min spec page in the Doom3 guide. The bottleneck is the video card. It seems to be very playable with a couple of effects turned off.
 
pxc said:
Not much better than the min spec page in the Doom3 guide. The bottleneck is the video card. It seems to be very playable with a couple of effects turned off.
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How do you suppose mine will?

Pentium 4 1.6 Gigahertz
512 MB SD RAM
Radeon 9600XT 550/650
 
My system is a P4 3.0ghz overclocked to 3.5ghz, with the fsb set to 233 for my Corsair PC3700 (DDR466) 1GB to run 1:1 with the cpu. Also got a Nvidia 6800 Ultra. Hoping to try 1600x1200 with 16xAF, and Ultra Quality settings on... Hopefully it might work with my system... :)
How come reviews never ever test out 16xAF only ever 8xAF, is there no visual difference or something ?
 
wilson502 said:
most newer games, cpu matters little, its all bout the GPU.
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the thing is, doom3 and hl2 were supposed to be the first series of games where cpu came back into play because of advanced physics/ai
 
i thought it was the other way around. But it seems the video card is making more of a difference, the cpu is meaning little.
 
sandman187 said:
My system is a P4 3.0ghz overclocked to 3.5ghz, with the fsb set to 233 for my Corsair PC3700 (DDR466) 1GB to run 1:1 with the cpu. Also got a Nvidia 6800 Ultra. Hoping to try 1600x1200 with 16xAF, and Ultra Quality settings on... Hopefully it might work with my system... :)
How come reviews never ever test out 16xAF only ever 8xAF, is there no visual difference or something ?
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Don't only ati have 16x af?
 
jesteadt said:
Great coverage guys.
I'm a little intrigued by your statement about some higher end video cards with 128MB being able to run High Quality. But then you showed on the 3.0Ghz P4C with a 9800pro that you settled on medium quality. How well would the 9800pro do with high quality on that system?

I'm concerned that my 9800 non-pro doesn't stand a chance of running high quality settings with 1024x768. What made you decide to go with medium for this setup?

Keep up the good work!
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Good Day,

Thats exactly what I mentioned in a post pages back ( maybe page 10 )...Its is strange that the test shows you can run Doom3 with High Quality and 1024x768 with a 9800pro 128 MB in a AMD XP 3200 WITH 512 MB RAM and you only achieve a Medium Quality with a P4 3.0 with the same video card AND 1 GB of RAM...Both processor fight very equal in performance ( overall P4 3.0 is slightly better than AMD 3200 ) but in one case you have 512 MB Ram and in the other 1 GB but the performance in Doom 3 is better ( a lot better because one case is High Quality and the other Medium ) in AMD one..I am not an expert on the subject but it seems a little bit odd...and I really havent read a good explanation which make the AMD far better than P4 3.0 with this conditions and deserve a High Quality versus the Medium of the P4..
 
Brent, would my system with a 6800u OC be ok for doom 3 Ultra Quality, 4xa/a 1600x1200 or higher? honest opinion?
 
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