Doom 3: Windows 2000 or above only. Why?

[Roland Deschain]

Not only do you have to insanely upgrade your computer to enjoy Doom 3 on high settings, but now I learn that you have to have Windows 2000 or higher. Now I have XP (thank god for that summer job at the computer store), but I know many people that still have 98 and decent computers.

Now my question is, to those who are much wiser in computer lore than me, why Id software did not put in the support for the lower systems: is it just that they assumed that people with 98 will not have the necessary hardware to run the game.

PS: I can see the illegal download of XP rise soon after Doom 3 is released .

 

[blahblahblah]

Thats why the minimum, playable requirements for Doom 3 is a 1.5 GHz P4 and a Geforce 4 MX.

IIRC, Win 2000/XP supports larger file sizes than Windows 98/Me.

[Edit]: Not to mention better stability, better memory management, and a bunch of other features.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Umm by now all pc's aren't decent if they have below windows 2000...Its just stupid of them not to upgrade there operating system.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Ahhhh, that's makes sense, to tell you the truth I still have nightmares about those bluescreens that used to pop out in the middle of Half-Life; I wake up screaming!

 

[Asus]

When Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 98, just about everyone else jumped ship too.
Microsoft came back because so many complained but the other companies are not going to.

The Windows 9x based systems have some memory management issues and probably won't handle the stress of the newer games as well, with the resources etc.
It's better this way.

 

[ShadowFox]

Actually 98 hasn't been updated in months, and I believe that is the whole issue.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Out of pure curiosity, is HL2 taking the same standpoint, ie: only supporting 2000 or higher, or is that still something to be announced.

 

[blahblahblah]

Out of pure curiosity, is HL2 taking the same standpoint, ie: only supporting 2000 or higher, or is that still something to be announced.

Considering Half-Life 2 supports a DX 7 codepath you would have to assume that they will support Win 98/Me.

 

[lans]

Another reason why Doom 3 is very demanding and has the looks of a proper next-gen game, literally.

 

[scribblehead]

it IS a next gen game - hell you can't even run the game with ULTRA settings yet (well if you've got a GF6800, 2 gb of DDR ram and 3.5 ghz pentium)

 

[Alig]

It had to change sometime or other. Eventually things always get phased out, like windows 95 windows 98 is next on the list init.

 

[redundant]

if you're going to spend all this money on a geforce6800 ultra, 2gb ram, and a 3ghz cpu, you'd think that you could probably spring for at least win 2000

 

[Element Alpha]

You can always download one of the many free linux distro's. I suppose the port will come a little later(1 month?), but at least you don't have to spend 150(XP upgrade home) to 400€(XP pro) on a piece of buggy MS software.

Thank god(=John Carmack) for OPENGL

 

[sharp]

400 euros for XP Pro? I can get an OEM version of XP Prof (UK) for about 120 euros. The only difference between OEM and retail is that you don't get a fancy box around it.

 

[Element Alpha]

Oh - I know - I know. I was just trying to make MS look bad. But I guess you're right. To bad OEM versions are only supposed to be sold with a new computer... (nahnah nah nah nah )

Anyway it doesn't make Linux any "less free", if you know what I mean.

 

[Direwolf]

And then theres the fact that if most people didn't get it bundled with something else at some point that they've got plenty of other ways of procuring it.

 

[IchI]

Gmaes change and so does the development. Without steps like these we would all be still playing spectrums. Stop complaining. Its a good thing.