The Official DOOM 3 [H]ardware Guide thread.

[Dyslexic]

That little blemish is going to turn into a gigantic festered zit in the middle of ATI's forhead when DOOM 3 releases on August 3rd.

Noone is going to be doing anything else but playing DOOM 3 and talking about DOOM 3. Half Life 2 isn't going to even be around till September.

You got that right except about HL2 coming in Sept. ITS NEVER COMING!

Congrats on the card. Does it match your case as you had hoped?

 

[^eMpTy^]

That little blemish is going to turn into a gigantic festered zit in the middle of ATI's forhead when DOOM 3 releases on August 3rd.

Noone is going to be doing anything else but playing DOOM 3 and talking about DOOM 3. Half Life 2 isn't going to even be around till September.

And i've had my XFX 6800GT for about 3 weeks Dyslexic.

In all reality I don't think this one game is really that important to most users...but it should have been important to ATi because they are never going to hear the end of it...they should do a study to see how much damage these D3 numbers are doing to thier sales...it's got to be doing some appreciable damage by now...

 

[Blad3]

Empty, reading it now...

 

[Chris_B]

What's the before and after on that? like 120/135? lol...CoD is one of those cases where the argument that more performance isn't really needed holds true...

Was 128 now at 142 or so.

 

[burningrave101]

Congrats on the card. Does it match your case as you had hoped?

Its the green reference design but i like green and it matches pretty well . Alot better then a RED X800 would look in a blue themed case lol.

It has a sticker with a big bulldog on the heatsink/fan .

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD03ODk

Looks just like the Ultra.

The Flames of Deception (continued) Episode 03

The clock was counting down and the lives of millions of gamers were in his hands. Signs of the bug were already showing as other gamers equipped with ordinary graphics cards began experiencing pixel fill rate overloads. Outlaw flew pass all the traps and glided through the game flawlessly. In a matter of minutes, with the help of some warp zones, he was already at the final stage. Rising out of the floor beneath him emerged the last boss...the mother brain. The mother brain began to speak but outlaw didn't have time for idle chit chat so without hesitation, he whips out his machine gun and starts unloading on the mother brain. With a final shot to the cerebral corex, the gigantic brain exploded and the game suddenly has a system wide meltdown. Every gamer is ejected just before certain doom. Outlaw, armed with the new GeForce 6 Series Graphics card, has saved the world once again. Though he didn't win the trillion dollar prize, saving the lives of millions of gamers was the greatest reward he could have ever wished for.

 

[mi1stormilst]

Being a part of the Big [ H ] over the last few years has been a blast! However, today takes the cake! How can I thank you guys for contributing so much to the community? This IS the right way to test video games! Hands down this is the most useful article I have ever read in relationship to what, when, and why I should/shouldn't upgrade my PC. WOW! Just freaking WOW! All the other websites will be shaking their heads saying "I should have had a V8" I am really excited about Doom 3 and reading more articles here on the [ H ]! GIMMIE MORE GIMMIE MORE!

Seriously you guys RULE ALL!

 

[Dyslexic]

In all reality I don't think this one game is really that important to most users...but it should have been important to ATi because they are never going to hear the end of it...they should do a study to see how much damage these D3 numbers are doing to thier sales...it's got to be doing some appreciable damage by now...

The DOOM3 engine will be used alot so that is a big deal for ATI in the long run. We could be talking about 30 games in the next 2 years so ATI better fix this or they will suffer even more.

 

[Dyslexic]

Its the green reference design but i like green and it matches pretty well . Alot better then a RED X800 would look in a blue themed case lol.

It has a sticker with a big bulldog on the heatsink/fan .

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD03ODk

Looks just like the Ultra.

Well I have to say I love my eVGA6800GT you made a good call in pimping them. They are sweet. But I hate the cheezy fish chic on my heatsink.

 

[^eMpTy^]

The DOOM3 engine will be used alot so that is a big deal for ATI in the long run. We could be talking about 30 games in the next 2 years so ATI better fix this or they will suffer even more.

you're preaching to the choir brother

 

[mi1stormilst]

The DOOM3 engine will be used alot so that is a big deal for ATI in the long run. We could be talking about 30 games in the next 2 years so ATI better fix this or they will suffer even more.

Well thats kinda silly they will have 8 new card architectures in 2 years...they will be fine...heck they are fine now.

 

[burningrave101]

In all reality I don't think this one game is really that important to most users...but it should have been important to ATi because they are never going to hear the end of it...they should do a study to see how much damage these D3 numbers are doing to thier sales...it's got to be doing some appreciable damage by now...

At the moment, DOOM 3 will be the closest many of us will ever come to playing the leading man in a big Hollywood movie production. While there will continue to be many more action games in the near future, many of which will provide an enhanced level of realism, DOOM 3 will be the first and likely one of the best you will see. We've played it and we're here to tell you that even if computer gaming is not "your thing," you will want to play DOOM 3, and we have a feeling many people will see it that way. The interactive entertainment experience of DOOM 3 is going to be far reaching and will certainly break the bounds in appealing to those people outside what is considered the average gamer. With the prospect of so many new people being brought into gaming by DOOM 3, there will likely be a lot of questions regarding the computer hardware needed to support it.

DOOM 3 is the pinnacle of every game we've ever seen and played up to this point. Nothing else even begins to match it. DOOM 3 is one of the most highly anticipated games of all PC gaming history. DOOM started the whole fps genre. Not Half Life and DEFINITELY not Far Cry lol.

I'm a BIG Half Life fan and i'll own me a copy of HL2 when it comes out but DOOM 3 is much bigger then HL2 and anything else that will be out this year.

 

[^eMpTy^]

Well I have to say I love my eVGA6800GT you made a good call in pimping them. They are sweet.

I know right...I feel perfectly justified talking them up all the time, cuz the fact is they are that damned good...I don't know how I ever lived without this thing...

 

[^eMpTy^]

DOOM 3 is the pinnacle of every game we've ever seen and played up to this point. Nothing else even begins to match it. DOOM 3 is one of the most highly anticipated games of all PC gaming history. DOOM started the whole fps genre. Not Half Life and DEFINITELY not Far Cry lol.

I'm a BIG Half Life fan and i'll own me a copy of HL2 when it comes out but DOOM 3 is much bigger then HL2 and anything else that will be out this year.

I think Half Life will be just about as big as D3...especially with mods and CS:S and all that stuff...but I also think the 6800s will beat ATi there too...

 

[Dyslexic]

Well thats kinda silly they will have 8 new card architectures in 2 years...they will be fine...heck they are fine now.

I wouldnt say fine but I think they will bounce back they just misjudged the Open GL sitch. ant in 2 years they will have 2 new architectures at the most. They just switched from the 9700pro arch. with the X800s.

 

[^eMpTy^]

I wouldnt say fine but I think they will bounce back they just misjudged the Open GL sitch. ant in 2 years they will have 2 new architectures at the most. They just switched from the 9700pro arch. with the X800s.

You do realize that the X800s are effectively a highly tweaked r300 (aka 9700) core right?

And they misjudged the OpenGL situation for like 4 years...I'm not saying they can't bounce back, I'm just saying they dug themselves a nice hole to crawl out of...

 

[burningrave101]

Well thats kinda silly they will have 8 new card architectures in 2 years...they will be fine...heck they are fine now.

I dont know if you know this or not but the majority of people dont upgrade their video card 8 times in 2 years. They usually upgrade ONCE every 1-2 years.

It doesn't matter what ATI is going to do in the future. It matters what ATI is doing right now. And they aren't doing very much.

Their X800XT PE is getting beaten by the 6800 non ultra in several OpenGL games.

The 6800u is giving the X800XT PE a run for its money in D3D by keeping up with it while running full Trilinear and no optimizations. The X800's are optimized to hell and back just to perform at the level they are now. nVidia hasn't even began to optimized their 6800 cores but they are suppost to in the 62.xx series drivers i believe.

The X800's dont have support for Smart Shader 3.0 and DirectX 9.0c. Smart Shader 4.0 wont be out until Longhorn releases with DX10 and that wont be until the R600 and NV60 cores in around 2 years.

Their whole ATI lineup blows chunks for any kind of use in Linux.

The only thing thats keeping the X800's even in the race and remaining competitive is their very well hidden driver optimizations.

It would just tickle me pink to see an X800 run head to head with a 6800 in full Trilinear filtering with ZERO optimizations.

 

[meanmodda[H]]

Kickass job guys , congrats to Kyle and Brent for such a thorough job. Talk about adding fuel to the fire.

 

[neokeelo]

ok so im trying to hit that "sweet spot" (1024x768 ,high quality) with my rig listed in my sig. Think I can do it?

 

[Qwestman]

Paid for my copy of Doom 3, and I get it on the 4th. I read that it comes in 3 CD's. That's right, 3 CD's. I wonder, what is the total amount of disk space this game will take when fully installed? GB's or what?

 

[Keiichi]

Great work on the guide. Although I do have a complaint of not having any benchmarks for a low end system like the required system spec. That would be really nice to see how it will really run for most people.

Paid for my copy of Doom 3, and I get it on the 4th. I read that it comes in 3 CD's. That's right, 3 CD's. I wonder, what is the total amount of disk space this game will take when fully installed? GB's or what?

They say minimum 2GBs, doing some math that's all 3 cds, but it might be more if the installation files were compressed on the cd. I think it would've been reasonable to expect it to be on just one DVD, given the target audience/system they built it for.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

maybe it will be a dual-layered dvd?

 

[CrazyBomber]

Todd Hollenshed has already spoken about that. No DVD, just a 3 cd version, sorry

Here's the quote:

"I know some gamers are hoping to use the DVD players on their machines for something other than watching movies, but there are downsides," he said. "For us the cost of the goods and the cost of the replication and having to make two masters just isn't worth it."

link: http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/14/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

[CIWS]

Great work on the guide. Although I do have a complaint of not having any benchmarks for a low end system like the required system spec. That would be really nice to see how it will really run for most people.

Sorry, you must have missed it when reading the article. Here's the link, it averaged 22.2 fps in low quality and 640 x 480

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDU=

 

[Killdozer]

I have a question.
When you were doing the analysis with the different systems, the first time you had a 9800Pro up there, the article said that the detail setting was High.

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDc=

On the next hardware combo, the 9800Pro 128 was said to run at Medium quality.

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDg=

Just a typo?

 

[Drakkor]

is a 32 meg card out of the question(obviously im not gonna be playing the game, i just want to edit it for now)



im a poor poor man ive got a 32 meg geforce 4 mx , is there no hope, or will i have to shell out 500 bucks for a new card

 

[Geta]

Hello Ladies...question for the guys that ran the test. Heres me system

Athlon XP @ 2.5Ghz , 476Mhz FSB
1 GB DDR 1:1 FSB
nf7-s
xfx 6800 GT @ Ultra

you believe I'll be able to play @ 1280x1024 4xaa and 8xaf HQ? I dont care if its dips to like 25FPS once in a while.

 

[Keiichi]

Sorry, you must have missed it when reading the article. Here's the link, it averaged 22.2 fps in low quality and 640 x 480

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDU=

Wow I did totally miss that. Although it was done with more ram than minimum spec.

 

[CrazyBomber]

Hello Ladies...question for the guys that ran the test. Heres me system

Athlon XP @ 2.5Ghz , 476Mhz FSB
1 GB DDR 1:1 FSB
nf7-s
xfx 6800 GT @ Ultra

you believe I'll be able to play @ 1280x1024 4xaa and 8xaf HQ? I dont care if its dips to like 25FPS once in a while.

476Mhz FSB? How nice... does that mean you have the multi at 5x?
Of course you can. didn't u read the article? I'm sure u can find one system that matches yours...

is a 32 meg card out of the question(obviously im not gonna be playing the game, i just want to edit it for now)

It might do the trick. Although you probably won't be able to test the maps. I think it might be worth it to spend 120 bucks on a 5700 or a 9600, don't u think?

 

[Keiichi]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the minimum system requirements for the game are too high? To put it into perspective there is an xbox port for it coming. If they can get it up and running on that, I think they could have done a better job of being able to scale towards slower computers.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the minimum system requirements for the game are too high? To put it into perspective there is an xbox port for it coming. If they can get it up and running on that, I think they could have done a better job of being able to scale towards slower computers.

its not a port, its being made by vicarious visions side-by-side with the pc game. but don't forget the xbox doesn't need to run the background apps/programs like a computer at that spec does

 

[Brackle]

You do realize that the X800s are effectively a highly tweaked r300 (aka 9700) core right?

And they misjudged the OpenGL situation for like 4 years...I'm not saying they can't bounce back, I'm just saying they dug themselves a nice hole to crawl out of...

WOW lets see 9700pro is .15 and X800 series is .13

And I am wondering what proof you have that it is the same core?....links <not nvnews>?...dont need to put down ATI every chance ya get...gets old

DASHlT
P.S. I am buy a 6800GT soon <not an FANBOY of either ATI or Nvidia>

 

[lundrog]

I would like to thank the HardOcp team for the review, Id software, and it was a great call to make newegg a part of things.

 

[CIWS]

Wow I did totally miss that. Although it was done with more ram than minimum spec.

Judging by the data presented in the guide RAM didn't seem to be much of a factor unless you were running in the highest of settings / hardware, and if we are talking minimum spec systems the gamer obviously isn't going to be running anywhere near this mark. The good news is, judging by Kyle's comments in the guide, even running the game at Low Quality and 640 x 480 still gives a good gaming experience. Also, ( this is a personal opinion ) if someone is really a "gamer" these days it seems almost silly not to have at least 512 megs of RAM in the box. There are simply too many of the main stream games that function so much better with 512+ megs of system RAM.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the minimum system requirements for the game are too high? To put it into perspective there is an xbox port for it coming. If they can get it up and running on that, I think they could have done a better job of being able to scale towards slower computers.

Keep in mind though the Xbox version more than likely will not have all of the features and eye candy of the PC version. But it might make an interesting compairison once the Xbox version is out. (Xbox vs Min sys PC spec)

 

[Replicant]

kyle, a question (although OT)-

if there is an option in the settins menu to disable shadows, isn't that going to completely kill MP? i remember one of the selling points of MP being that you can shoot out the lights and hide in the shadows, but if some people are able to completely disable the shadow system, whats the point? sounds like it would ruin it if someone turned off shadows for the sake of winning...any info on this? thanks

 

[jesteadt]

I have a question.
When you were doing the analysis with the different systems, the first time you had a 9800Pro up there, the article said that the detail setting was High.

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDc=

On the next hardware combo, the 9800Pro 128 was said to run at Medium quality.

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0LDg=

Just a typo?

I've seen this asked several times, but no good answer. Mike Ryan was asking almost the same thing. Intel systems and 9800 pro = med quality. AMD XP systems (a lesser system, comparing similar classes of CPUs, by all accounts I've seen) and 9800 pro are shown with a high quality setting. Doesn't make any sense. Kyle or Brent, fill us in!!!

 

[driller]

I was wondering about that myself. Maybe it will be a server side setting in MP?
But I am sure a hack will be out soon after Doom3 is released to get around it.

-driller

kyle, a question (although OT)-

if there is an option in the settins menu to disable shadows, isn't that going to completely kill MP? i remember one of the selling points of MP being that you can shoot out the lights and hide in the shadows, but if some people are able to completely disable the shadow system, whats the point? sounds like it would ruin it if someone turned off shadows for the sake of winning...any info on this? thanks

 

[END]

Great guide guys I love it.

Now I have just what is needed as customers are starting to ask questions on systems will be able to play. I see in increase in overall hardware sales with this game. This may be the wrong place to say it but it's still true. I can't wait to play myself.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

I was wondering about that myself. Maybe it will be a server side setting in MP?
But I am sure a hack will be out soon after Doom3 is released to get around it.

-driller

hopefully Doom 3's MP will mostly attract 'old skool' gamers(or gamers that find cheating stupid). i say this in hope there will be hardly any cheating online for Doom 3

 

[zioburosky13]

Hi there.This is my first time in the forum and I have some question about my hardware and Doom3.I want speed and performance too.What quality should I use based on my system?

AMD AthlonXP2800+
Gigabyte GA-7VA
2 sticks of Kingston VAlueRAM PC2700 512MB=1GB
Ati Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB.

Also,does a 7200Rpm HD and 2 MB buffer really speed-up the load-time of the game?

 

[Drakkor]

476Mhz FSB? How nice... does that mean you have the multi at 5x?
Of course you can. didn't u read the article? I'm sure u can find one system that matches yours...




It might do the trick. Although you probably won't be able to test the maps. I think it might be worth it to spend 120 bucks on a 5700 or a 9600, don't u think?

actually i want to wait for a 512 meg card, and just spend all my cash on that