Doom 3 hardware guide

[blackeye]

Link
I have been waiting for this.

 

[KagePrototype]

Hmm, looks like it should be playable for me at medium. Sweet.

 

[kungfucheez]

One thing i noticed was there wasnt any real noticable difference between Ultra, and high quality. Wow nice article, he mentioned that playing on low settings and on 640x480 was playable and fun. also the 9800pro got an aveareg fps of 47 with high quality 1024x768 but no AA and 8xAF so this makes me happy

 

[blackeye]

There is one feature we simply must talk about and that is "Heat Haze." Heat Haze requires a DirectX 9 level video card in order to work. This feature is enabled automatically on those cards. It's one of those awesome effects that makes the word “Wow” come right out of your mouth when you first see it. Heat Haze adds a wavy “ripple” or "mirage" type effect to objects that have heat or steam coming from them. Heat Haze is also seen on fireballs being thrown by demons and produced by certain weapons in your arsenal that create a type of energy impact.

I cant wait to see this on action.

 

[Dedatorv]

One thing i noticed was there wasnt any real noticable difference between Ultra, and high quality

Yeah I noticed that too. Cannot wait for this game to come out.

 

[blackeye]

They look identical to me.
I think it would be more noticable in game play though.
Its hard to tell image quality in screenshots.

 

[ewilson248]

that is one MOFO of an article.. looks like my 5950 ultra is good to go at 1024
we shall see

 

[PvtRyan]

I cant wait to see this on action.

It's also in Join Ops with burning wrecks and from the engines of helicopters. Looks pretty cool, but nothing special really.

 

[blackeye]

I didnt notice any image quality difference between ATI or Nvidia.
Link

 

[KagePrototype]

Wow, even the minimum spec is getting like 29fps average, and still looks brilliant. That's really impressive on Id's part.

 

[kungfucheez]

Yeah he mentioned there wasnt any real difference between the 6800 and the x800

 

[ewilson248]

I think that due to the fact that this game looks to be more "sleath/thinking"
rather than " haul a**s / shoot first / let god sort 'em out"
the quality of the textures and such will be much more important.

finally we get to stop and smell the video roses!
ie.. really get to enjoy the eye candy!

 

[blackeye]

Its nice to see that doom 3 is getting decent frame rates on the minimum spec machine. If you ever tried to run halo on minimum spec you would get around 1 FPS.

 

[OCybrManO]

Cool, my system specs are the exact same as the test system on page 16. Now, I just need either a GeForce 6800 Ultra or an X800XT-PE to go with it so I can play at 1600x1200 on High Quality. I'm currently using the 9500 Pro from my previous system.

 

[Seppo]

Oh this is where all the discussion is. I thought the thread in General Gaming forum was the one to increase post count

 

[Shuzer]

Looks like I'll be able to pull medium at 1024x768, or maybe high at 800x600 (or MAYBE 1024x768, we'll see)

Thanks for the link

 

[Axyon]

Monitor doesn't support 1600*1200, so 1280*1024 2xAA 8xAF here I come!

 

[Warbie]

It's interesting that Doom 3 seems to look great at low resolutions and that, "DOOM 3 is unlike any other game we have ever seen on the PC", in this respect.

If this is true many people will play at a lower res to keep a decent framerate/high settings. My main worry is that whether i'll lose much quality by playing under the native resolution of my monitor (1280*1024)

 

[KrazyKlown]

There are rumors that ATI may be announcing a 512 mb version of the X800 this September, with it being released October.

See: http://www.teamradeon.com/ (on the right hand side as you scroll down)

Personally, my 9800pro 128mb is gonna hold me off till then. But I must admit, I feel a little drool on mouth when I think of a 512mb video card.

 

[Axyon]

There are rumors that ATI may be announcing a 512 mb version of the X800 this September, with it being released October.

See: http://www.teamradeon.com/ (on the right hand side as you scroll down)

Personally, my 9800pro 128mb is gonna hold me off till then. But I must admit, I feel a little drool on mouth when I think of a 512mb video card.

Did you look at the comparison screenshots? There is literally an absolutely minute, minute, minute difference between High and Ultra settings. No point wasting your money on a 512mb card when there are less expensive and equally-as-good 256mb ones out there.

 

[blackeye]

Being released october
Teamradeon the one and only ATI fanboy site.
Wasnt the x800 xt supposed to be released june.
I still have only seen one in my local store and its $881 and im not paying that much when it should be priced at $699
Money thieving bastards.

 

[Seppo]

"DOOM 3 runs just fine on an Intel 1.5GHz Pentium 4 or an AMD Athlon XP 1800+."

That's a relief, I have Athlon XP 1800+

 

[Roland Deschain]

Do they even test the 9800 PRO 256MB, because I can only find benchmarks for the 126MB and the 9800XT 256MB. Can comebody give me a link, or did they not test it.

 

[AzzMan]

Wow the 9800pro has almost 50 fps, on high quality to boot.
The only real fps dip was in the end, where they said the cutscene was playing.

 

[blackeye]

The 9800 pro would probably perform similar to the 9800xt. Maybee %5 slower
I havent really looked over the benchmarks in much detail just the image quality but im sure the 9800 pro is there.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Yeah, the 9800PRO 126MB is there, but for some reason they did not include the 256MB, I want to see how they compare.

 

[blahblahblah]

The 9800 Pro 128 MB will perform nearly (if not exactly) the same as the 9800 Pro 256 MB.

 

[Gunner]

Awesome! It's amazing, I can't wait to get my hands on it

Thanks for sharing the link, this really rocks!

 

[Roland Deschain]

The 9800 Pro 128 MB will perform nearly (if not exactly) the same as the 9800 Pro 256 MB.

the 126 9800PRO can only load the 126MB textures, and has to compress the 256MB and 512MB, but the 256MB 9800PRO can also load the 256MB, but I heard they are a bitch to run and can slow the card down, so that's why I wanted to see how they compare, but I think the 9800XT Pro 256XP is a good example of how the 9800 PRO 256 is going to behave.

Plus, don' forget they are using a 3.4CPU, and very few of us have a CPU above 3.0.

 

[blackeye]

Well now that the A64's went down in price its much more affordable for everyone. Especially the 3500. The 3800 also looks like its a good buy but its still a bit expsensive.

 

[blahblahblah]

the 126 9800PRO can only load the 126MB textures, and has to compress the 256MB and 512MB, but the 256MB 9800PRO can also load the 256MB, but I heard they are a bitch to run and can slow the card down, so that's why I wanted to see how they compare, but I think the 9800XT Pro 256XP is a good example of how the 9800 PRO 256 is going to behave.

Plus, don' forget they are using a 3.4CPU, and very few of us have a CPU above 3.0.

Doom 3 is GPU intensive, not CPU intensive. There is a very small difference between in-game performance of a 3.4 GHz CPU and a 3.0 GHz CPU.

The 9800 XT is about 5 to 10% faster than the 9800 Pro. You could probably run your 9800 Pro at high quality, but you would have semi-frequent frame rate slowdowns which would jar you out of the Doom 3 universe. Just because your card has 256 MB of video memory doesn't mean your card can use it.

 

[Seppo]

Doom 3 is GPU intensive, not CPU intensive. There is a very small difference between in-game performance of a 3.4 GHz CPU and a 3.0 GHz CPU.

How about between Athlon 1.8ghz and 3ghz? I mean is there like a limit that 3ghz is the highest CPU you will ever need for Doom III. So should I get a new video card or a new processor? (my vid card is Radeon 9600 Pro 128mt)

 

[The Terminator]

Depending on your system, we have found 128MB video cards that can handle High Quality mode very easily.

Taken from the HardOCP Doom III hardware guide. 128 cards well probably outperform some 256 mb ones. JUst cause you have a 256 mb card doesnt mean youll run the games faster/better then a 128 mb one.

 

[Bio]

sweet i can run it on low , but just wait too i get the x800xt pe, THEN YOU WILL BE SHAKING IN YOUR PANTS!!!! (Know its hate ati)

 

[gulo]

I can't wait to play that game !!!
I am glad I will be even able to run it on my second low-end computer. I will put my old Geforce TI 4200 in there and I should be able to run it at 640x480 for some 1on1 home-network action

 

[Bio]

Somebody here who can have it on high?

 

[blackeye]

Taken from the HardOCP Doom III hardware guide. 128 cards well probably outperform some 256 mb ones. JUst cause you have a 256 mb card doesnt mean youll run the games faster/better then a 128 mb one

It all depends on how the core and memory are clocked.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Taken from the HardOCP Doom III hardware guide. 128 cards well probably outperform some 256 mb ones. JUst cause you have a 256 mb card doesnt mean youll run the games faster/better then a 128 mb one.

The 128MB cards will outperform the 256MB only because the 128MB don't load the 256MB textures. There are ways to bump down 256MB cards to only load 128MB textures, but I'm not sure if that will increase the performance at all, but from the benchmarks the 9800 PRO 256 can certainly run at high at 1024 with acceptable frame rates, only dropping during the cutscenes.

 

[gulo]

I am going to play it at 1024x768 on High Quality (my monitor won't take anything over that
I will play around and see what is the max AA my system will take.

 

[ShadowFox]

Good to see my 9500 Pro will still be rockin when Doom 3 comes out.

Good job id! Carmack for president.