The Official DOOM 3 [H]ardware Guide thread.

jon_k said:
oh wow great review. I do have a question though? What is the min CPU speed before it starts handicapping your video card? The reason I ask is that I have a Athlon 2100XP and I am considering buying the 6800 GT becasue I want to play the game at 1280x1024 High Quality with maybe some AA if I have enogh power leftover. Suggestions?
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You can look at the card overlap from 2500+ to 3200+ for that impact.
 
mashie said:
Very nice article, I guess you have set a new bar for the future content here at [H].

Kyle / Brent, after playing the game for 60h+, who ended up the king of Doom3 multiplayer?
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Kyle owned my ass
 
Great work guys, you should be proud of your work.

Question: The minimum fps on the benchmark level used was effected by the cutscene for all the benchmarks? If so, how long is the cutscene?

About the multiplayer Brent, are there any large open rooms where the "fireworks" and action gets intense with 4 player MP? :)
 
Clearly the 6800 outperforms the x800, and so for Doom 3 I might as well spend my money on an nVidia card. I'm wondering, though, is there any word on which cards Half Life 2 is going to favor? Is it Directx or OpenGL?

Other than that question, this article answered all my questions. Very thourough!
 
kcthebrewer said:
Kyle, is the 16xAA mode on the 6800 cards compatible with Doom3?
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Actually yes it is to my understanding but we did not test it.
 
It might have been benificial, but not enough to spend all the extra time getting it to work in all the plateforms they are releasing it for. That, and some times SMP support will actually cause a proformance hit.

Brent_Justice said:
Kyle owned my ass
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LOL
 
chucky said:
I'm wondering, though, is there any word on which cards Half Life 2 is going to favor? Is it Directx or OpenGL?
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Hmm.. that would be interesting. I wonder if Valve would be willing to do something similar.
 
FluxCap said:
Great work guys, you should be proud of your work.

Question: The minimum fps on the benchmark level used was effected by the cutscene for all the benchmarks? If so, how long is the cutscene?
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Yes there are two cutscenes in that run that impact the framerate averages. The one at the end really drags low. That said, since the framerate is capped at 60, the average frames number would be even low than we are used to in our normal runthrough that are not capped as there are no massive spikes to average in. So where some of these cards were getting 55fps in DOOM 3, had the framerate not been capped the average could be much higher.

See why we started getting away from avg frames? They don't tell the story....
 
... but indirectly Doom3 related. Anyone know of a guide for complete noobs on how to overclock my AMD Athlon64 3200+? I'm not greedy, just looking for an extra 100-200 megahertz before Doom3 arrives.
 
As always, great job guys. Anyone that doesn't know what to expect after reading this, needs to get some better glasses.

One note on the "Ultimate Enthusiast DOOM 3 System": If I recall correctly there are still a fair number of people reporting problems getting the AGP/PCI locks to work correctly with the new bios on the Abit K8T800 Pro board.

/me makes a note to buy another round of drinks for the [H] crew at qcon.
 
Eisengrim said:
... but indirectly Doom3 related. Anyone know of a guide for complete noobs on how to overclock my AMD Athlon64 3200+? I'm not greedy, just looking for an extra 100-200 megahertz before Doom3 arrives.
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Depends on your Motherboard really, some have utitlites included, like that ABIT uguru utitlity.
 
drako said:
Hmm.. that would be interesting. I wonder if Valve would be willing to do something similar.
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We were talking to Valve about this last year and this was very interesting. I hope they are seeing the feedback from this today. I would love to go do an official guide for HL2 as well.
 
Nice article!

So, 1024x768 at Medium Quality is guaranteed with a 2800+, 1 gig of RAM and a 5900XT? I wonder how it'll run on High, because I don't think i could play it at anything less.

Also, dosent FarCry's engine have the Heat Haze effect?
 
ive only started skimming but i had to open a new tab, click on the announcement link which i knew would have a link to the discussion thread and say.

hardocp, i love you. i think the particular sentence that got me was the one about doom3 doin what no game has done before, look good at all resolutions and the whole AA bit. me, im looking forward to playin it at like 1280 on high. but lemme read on.

anyways, the point is, you give it straight no bs and its almost as if this hardware guide is the culmination of the transformation you guys have undertaken with the change in style of vid card reviews etc.

i'm reading this guide for general info, not to be all "omg D3 will own my machine i hate id, lies lies, optimizations RAH RAH RAH" yea none of that crap. i know i'll be able to run it and i know whenever i upgrade i'll be able to run it too. ass a gfx designer, im am really keen on quality / color, and downright obsessive about it. but yea, im rambling so time to read the guide.

thanks again, love you guys. this is big time. oh and i still care more about hl2 (oh snap)
 
ronin.ee said:
Nice article!

So, 1024x768 at Medium Quality is guaranteed with a 2800+, 1 gig of RAM and a 5900XT? I wonder how it'll run on High, because I don't think i could play it at anything less.

Also, dosent FarCry's engine have the Heat Haze effect?
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Yes, Far Cry has heat haze.
 
worm said:
As always, great job guys. Anyone that doesn't know what to expect after reading this, needs to get some better glasses.

One note on the "Ultimate Enthusiast DOOM 3 System": If I recall correctly there are still a fair number of people reporting problems getting the AGP/PCI locks to work correctly with the new bios on the Abit K8T800 Pro board.

/me makes a note to buy another round of drinks for the [H] crew at qcon.
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I have had three of the newer boards in here and they have all oced around what we showed. if you have a board that does not do that, you need to RMA it.
 
greenhorn1 said:
Hi. I don't really play many computer games but i would ideally like to be able to play Doom 3 at 1024x768 at HIGH texture settings.

I currently have a P4 2.8 GHz with 1 GB of PC3200 ram and a ATI 9800 pro video card. I don't really know how drivers effect performance but it seems like people are saying new ATI drivers should help perfomance somewhat. Do you think it will bump perfomance up enough that I would be able to run at HIGH texture quality on my machine?
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That sounds do able.
 
Thank you once again [H]!

I'm feeling better about my rig, My son's might need an upgrade - luckily there's lots of yard work to be done! :D :D :D
 
Nvidiot said:
I'm just surprised that's all. If SMP was attempted in Q3 there must have been at least one person at id that thought it would be beneficial.

I am thinking down the road as well. We read all about multi-core cpus coming from AMD and Intel. The current batch of P4's already has HT. It seems like a no-brainer to include SMP support (if only to distribute the physics engine workload or maybe the AI engine workload). Today this may not be a big deal, but as this will be THE game for the next 2 to 3 years it would be great if it were made to take advantage of near future or even contemporary features in cpu technology.

This is not a trivial programming task, but neither is writing the most advanced video game to ever hit the market.



Just my 0.02.
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Carmack thinks that SMP is inelegent. He much prefers single CPU designs for his engines... from his .plan.
 
Mr Brent and Mr Kyle,

As many of us have said to you, really great job...I envy you because this so quality work and also because I think you have enjoyed doing it. I only have one question to ask about your test..
My question is about your results with an AMD xp 3200 and a Pentium 4 3.0 both using an ATI Radeon 9800pro 128 MB...I will explain my problem,

1.- The AMD 3200 system has 512 MB of RAM while the P 4 3.0 GHZ has 1 GB.
2.- Both systems use an ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB
3.- From all the researchs I have done ( a lot today ) all of them say that a P 4 3.0 GHz is far more superior than a AMD xp 3200.

But from your results you tell that with the AMD 3200, 512 MB you can best play with 1024x768 res and High Quality with No AA and 8X AF..But the the P4 3.0 ( far superior than AMD 3200 ), 1 GB of Ram ( double than the AMD system ) you can best play ( with the same 9800pro 128 MB ) with 1024x768 res and MEDIUM QUALITY with No AA ( of course ), but ( really incredible ) NO AF...Are this results correct?..If so where do you think is the difference??..I know that benchmarks not always shows a system superiority but from my point of view at same video card the P4 3.0 is far better system than AMD XP 3200 one...
I am asking this because I own a P4 3.2 GB with Dual Channel 1 GB Ram in an Intel MB and of course a Radeon 9800pro..I dont want to change muy video card until the new generation settles in the market and the relation cost/performance come to a more optimal point..But as a P 4 3.2 is around 10% faster than a 3.0 I may asume that the best option for me is 1024x768 Medium Quality No AA and No AF as well...And I find it strange after seeing AMD 3200 results...Also I am asking this because I read with great interest all your guide and this point really caught my attention and I want to try to explain it.
Finally, to ATI users I read today that ATI is going to release a new set of drivers which boost performance of Doom 3..Lets wait and see!!...Again , thanks for all and very good work..
 
Kyle, Brent, JC & all the fellas at id......This is a tremendous accomplishment, I don't think id could have picked a better outfit to do this, you guys are good people,...and thorough. :D

I think we are looking at another landmark in the history of gaming...when you stop to think about it, this group of guys has brought us so far...Doom started a revolution, Doom3 will/already has done the same....and its not even out yet!

This is not a trivial programming task, but neither is writing the most advanced video game to ever hit the market.

Just my 0.02.
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In Carmack we trust....
 
FluxCap said:
Great work guys, you should be proud of your work.

Question: The minimum fps on the benchmark level used was effected by the cutscene for all the benchmarks? If so, how long is the cutscene?

About the multiplayer Brent, are there any large open rooms where the "fireworks" and action gets intense with 4 player MP? :)
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Didn't time the cutscene, it wasn't that long, but it is part of the story in the game so they can be important to watch.

We didn't check out all the multiplayer maps but the ones we did there were some decent sized areas, definitely places where you could get 4 people firring rockets at each other.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Didn't time the cutscene, it wasn't that long, but it is part of the story in the game so they can be important to watch.

We didn't check out all the multiplayer maps but the ones we did there were some decent sized areas, definitely places where you could get 4 people firring rockets at each other.
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ooh... rockets... :drool:

:D Damn it all. I hate you. I can't wait :(
 
lopoetve said:
Carmack thinks that SMP is inelegent. He much prefers single CPU designs for his engines... from his .plan.
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He is definitely entitled to his opinion.

Also, given the great performance he is currently getting with single cpu systems maybe there IS no justification for SMP. I only wonder if his thinking will need to change as we move forward in gaming / graphics engine design.
 
Showed this screen to a freind of mine whos taking a college art course

http://www2.hardocp.com/1090787143TO62AMOEWX_4_19_l.jpg

What he had to say

the perception is off ... it looks like they just copied the outline of the creature and offset it to a wall they didn't bend the shadow around corners and such.


Anyone else think hes right on this :confused: :(
 
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 !
 
Nvidiot said:
He is definitely entitled to his opinion.

Also, given the great performance he is currently getting with single cpu systems maybe there IS no justification for SMP. I only wonder if his thinking will need to change as we move forward in gaming / graphics engine design.
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If so, I'm sure that of all the people, he'll recognize it and do it right :)
 
Nvidiot said:
This is not a trivial programming task, but neither is writing the most advanced video game to ever hit the market.
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What, you want TWO miracles? :D :D ;)
 
Chris_B said:
Showed this screen to a freind of mine whos taking a college art course

http://www2.hardocp.com/1090787143TO62AMOEWX_4_19_l.jpg

What he had to say

the perception is off ... it looks like they just copied the outline of the creature and offset it to a wall they didn't bend the shadow around corners and such.


Anyone else think hes right on this :confused: :(
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I think he's right, but not being able to see the wall/etc myself, I don't know if it's actually true, or something we don't see/understand.
 
Well, I've got the 6800GT, OCZ 3700EB, Raptor, and other various parts sitting near me. Can I hold out until the 9th for the K8N Neo2? Argh!!!

Great write up, guys.
 
Chris_B said:
Showed this screen to a freind of mine whos taking a college art course

http://www2.hardocp.com/1090787143TO62AMOEWX_4_19_l.jpg

What he had to say

the perception is off ... it looks like they just copied the outline of the creature and offset it to a wall they didn't bend the shadow around corners and such.


Anyone else think hes right on this :confused: :(
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Hmmm...not sure. The light is coming from a single point source right in front of the creature, and the perspective is kind of skewed to the side. I don't think it looks wrong, per se, but it is kind of hard to tell.
 
Chris_B said:
Showed this screen to a freind of mine whos taking a college art course

http://www2.hardocp.com/1090787143TO62AMOEWX_4_19_l.jpg

What he had to say

the perception is off ... it looks like they just copied the outline of the creature and offset it to a wall they didn't bend the shadow around corners and such.


Anyone else think hes right on this :confused: :(
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Dont forget to tell him thats done in real time, not a single scene render. You can only get so much. I think it looks great though.
 
Oh, it TOTALLY looks great, but he's right (from the one glance), the shadow isn't perfect (wow, we sure do nitpick)
 
Looks like I'll be at 800x600 with medium detail levels on my laptop (Pentium-M 1.4GHz, 1GB RAM, Mobility Radeon 9600 video card).

Not too bad at all -- and certainly better than I thought. Of course I'll eventually build another desktop computer with higher-end components, but for now this system should suffice. I should even be able to use that cool-sounding "heat haze" feature. :)

Great guide guys, and it is surprising the detail present even with lower quality settings.
 
One thing that cannot be discounted is the passion and pursuit of great hardware and great gaming that shows through in all of Hard|OCP's reviews. While other sites are releasing 3D Mark scores or general FPS charts, Hard|OCP is revolutionizing benchmarking and taking a true stand to show gamers and enthusiasts how our hard earned money (turned into hardware) is best spent by benchmarking true real life gameplay instead of standard tests and demos. They truly deserve all the praises they receive for their work. I'm glad Hard|OCP is getting more recognition by the major companies that make money due to the accurate and honest reviews done by the Hard team. Keep up the great work; I can't wait to play Doom 3 like the rest of you! Now I'm really hurting for that 6800OC though Kyle! :)

Chris Lilly
 
re: the debate on this image - http://www2.hardocp.com/1090787143TO62AMOEWX_4_19_l.jpg

I would think it would be pretty hard to make an accurate guess about this shot given the visual info - flashlight is the only light source, is the guy looking up at the creature? is he looking down? where does that wall go? is there even a corner there?

the dust in the air is an excellent touch... :cool:
 
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