Uh. OK. No difference between quality levels?

[SubKamran]

I have a question. I'm using a 9800 Pro, no AA, 16xAF.

Now, I took 3 screenshots of the exact same place. One on Medium, one on High, and one on Ultra.

I pasted them into Photoshop, put them one on top of the other, and when I switch between them, there is absolutely no difference (except my fists which I kept up to make sure it actually took different screens ). I restarted DOOM after each change, 1280x1024, Catalyst 4.7.

Can someone else do the same thing? Maybe this is why I think Doom3's graphics are not all that

*gasp* Has my DOOM been stuck in Low quality? ARGH.

 

[FictiousWill]

let's see the pics.

 

[SubKamran]

http://www.subkamran.com/stuff/lib/img/games/doom3_med.jpg
http://www.subkamran.com/stuff/lib/img/games/doom3_high.jpg
http://www.subkamran.com/stuff/lib/img/games/doom3_ultrahigh.jpg

Difference between first and second I believe is just lighting. Textures are the same.

PS. I thought no computer could run Ultra well? I'm 1280x1024 and I can play it "allegedly" fine at 25fps.

 

[Shuzer]

You can definitely see the normal/bumpmap compression on medium, looks ugly

There's a HUGE difference between medium and high.. but, as id said, high and very high really don't show much difference

 

[63]

I play on High with a 9600 AiW at 1024x768 fine...

 

[SubKamran]

You can definitely see the normal/bumpmap compression on medium, looks ugly

There's a HUGE difference between medium and high.. but, as id said, high and very high really don't show much difference

Let me retake it on Medium. I took that before I saved, and the rest I took after loading the save.

 

[SubKamran]

You're right! They are different.

So why are High and Ultra so...the same?

 

[Zerox]

There is a difference but its subtle you must search for it. All textures in Ultra is uncompressed = no compression artifacts.

If you look real close at the top right you'll then see a very subtle change in texture quality.

 

[KagePrototype]

I can see the difference between low and medium qualities, but I honestly can hardly tell the difference between medium, high or ultra high. They all look so similar during gameplay that there's just no point in my eyes to go any higher than medium. The occasional texture may seem more detailed, but it's not as if I actively seach out differences. I find that upping the resolution is more effective and noticeable; it doesn't seem to impact framerates that much, and helps get rid of jaggies really effectively.

 

[Zerox]

There is no idea to go above High cause you won't notice the difference under gameplay anyway.

 

[scribblehead]

Only thing thats added in ultra quality is un-compressed textures and added polygons (smoothed surfaces due to AA possibly).

So far thats what i've noticed.

 

[Axyon]

Only thing thats added in ultra quality is un-compressed textures and added polygons (smoothed surfaces due to AA possibly).

So far thats what i've noticed.

There aren't any added polys, the only difference between high and ultra is that the specular and diffuse maps are uncompressed in ultra.

 

[scribblehead]

i distinctly remember an article by Robert duffy on this subject.....go look through his blogs.

I'm not entirely sure that un-compressed textures/dif. and spec. maps are the only differences.

Edited:


Damn you abom

I found it too...

 

[Axyon]

i distinctly remember an article by Pat duffy on this subject.....go look through his blogs.

I'm not entirely sure that un-compressed textures/dif. and spec. maps are the only differences.

"In Ultra quality, we load each texture; diffuse, specular, normal map at full resolution with no compression. In a typical DOOM 3 level, this can hover around a whopping 500MB of texture data. This will run on current hardware but obviously we cannot fit 500MB of texture data onto a 256MB card and the amount of texture data referenced in a give scene per frame ( 60 times a second ) can easily be 50MB+. This can cause some choppiness as a lot of memory bandwidth is being consumed. It does however look fantastic and it is certainly playable on high end systems but due to the hitching that can occur we chose to require a 512MB Video card before setting this automatically.

High quality uses compression ( DXT1,3,5 ) for specular and diffuse and no compression for normal maps. This looks very very close to Ultra quality but the compression does cause some loss. This is the quality that for instance the PC Gamer review was played in."

From Robert Duffy's .plan http://www.webdog.org/cgi-bin/finger.plm?id=313