[H]ardOCP Doom 3 Hardware Guide is up!

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Fern
Well, I'm pleasently surprised to see them say a 9800pro w/128MB can play at *high* at 10 X 7. I was expecting it to be *medium* because of having only 128MB of vid ram. Plus the rig only had 512MB of main memory. I was expecting 1gig to be neccessary.

Well, will actually know soon enough.

I dont know, the 9800pro dropped to 7 fps on those settings. on a 3200+ 512

 

[imported_tgenius]

I should be able to do high on my P4 3.2 with 2 gig ram and ATI 9800 Pro 128mb card.

 

[imported_tgenius]

Another thing a friend pointed out.. in the system requirements.. all the ATI cards are listed EXCEPT the x800 series.. is this "coincidence" or just an oversight?

 

[PhoenixOrion]

another thing to point out that at max 16x12 res, even the fastest gfx cards dipped all the way into the teens.

sweet spot 12x10 at high iq.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Lets see... 1.5 GHz (or XP1500) and a Geforce4MX... 640x480 with no AA, no AF, and low detail settings... average 22 frames per second. NOT a quality gaming experience by ANY means, especially with FPS dropping below 10 at times. So... who was it who was trying to convince me in another thread that it would be just fine? 22 FPS average with drops below 10 != fine.

Sounds similar to Halo on the Xbox. I don't hear too many people complaining about gaming experience with that game.

A person with MX is probably just happy to be able to play the game.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Naustica

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Lets see... 1.5 GHz (or XP1500) and a Geforce4MX... 640x480 with no AA, no AF, and low detail settings... average 22 frames per second. NOT a quality gaming experience by ANY means, especially with FPS dropping below 10 at times. So... who was it who was trying to convince me in another thread that it would be just fine? 22 FPS average with drops below 10 != fine.

Sounds similar to Halo on the Xbox. I don't hear too many people complaining about gaming experience with that game.

A person with MX is probably just happy to be able to play the game.

Correction...

A person with MX is probably just happy to be able to play a game.

*EDIT* Also, I refuse to buy Halo for Xbox for a few reasons... 1. The reason you just mentioned, the game pushes the limits of the Xbox and that results in poor frame rates in certain conditions. 2. A first person shooter on a console is rediculous... aiming with a joystick is like steering a car with your feet and accelerating/braking with your hands... possible, but not natural. 3. Halo as a game I feel is over rated. I played it on the PC, the graphics were ok... not being able to use anti-aliasing is utterly stupid... don't release the game if you don't know how to write it to support one of the most popular image quality enhancements. The story left a lot to be desired... I quit playing at times simply because I didn't care about the story so it was basically just killing monsters, which is fine, but that's not a big selling point anymore since there's hundreds of games where you kill people and monsters.

 

[reallyscrued]

what he just said is SOOOOOOOOOOOO TRUE. HALO for xbox is the most utter crap ever...joystick for a shooter? i used to think fps's were also better on consoles in the goldeneye 64 days...then i played UT....WOW. Then quake 3...JEEZUS. then halo for xbox...ehh its cool. Then halo for pc...NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE IT. still the game itself sux...id play goldeneye or timesplitters or even ghost recon over a futuristic game where u can only carry two weapons. vehicles were a nice touch, but UT2K4 anyone? nuff said.


also...id play Perfect Dark over all them...but like halo, it pushes the limits of the 64...nuff bout consoles before i piss everyone off.

 

[reallyscrued]

haha, forgot the the point of the damn thread.
yup...looks like im buying the 6800NU over the 9800Pro 256meg version. THANK GOD U CAN PLAY THIS GAME ON HIGH WITH 128 MEGS OF RAM.
my system gonna be a 2500 barton OC'ed to a 3200+ (seems ez, add extra cooling and flip the 400mhz fsb switch)
nf7-s2 mobo with half a gig of ram...
cheapest 6800 out there (seems like the eVGA hits the sweet spot at 283 dollas on newegg.)

ill play probably 1280*1024 at high, never dips below 35 which is fine for me. or at 1024*768 if im an FPS whore with my 6800.

 

[FluxCap]

Originally posted by: PhoenixOrion
another thing to point out that at max 16x12 res, even the fastest gfx cards dipped all the way into the teens.

sweet spot 12x10 at high iq.

I don't see any dipping into the teens. Also, do you know why the minimum fps is so low? The benchmark contained 2 cutscenes which hurt the score and without those not many of the cards would have ever got below 30 on the minimum.

Also, can anyone give me a link to read or give a good explanation about Doom 3 being capped at 60fps and how the engine wouldn't really benefit from upping that?

 

[Marsumane]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Fern
Well, I'm pleasently surprised to see them say a 9800pro w/128MB can play at *high* at 10 X 7. I was expecting it to be *medium* because of having only 128MB of vid ram. Plus the rig only had 512MB of main memory. I was expecting 1gig to be neccessary.

Well, will actually know soon enough.

I dont know, the 9800pro dropped to 7 fps on those settings. on a 3200+ 512

Yea but like they said about the 6800u, if u up your system ram, it helps alot with those specific situations. I think a gig of ram, 2266ghz AXP and a 128mb 9800p will run fine at 1024x768 on high settings

 

[Falloutboy]

would of like to see a 9700 on the test but I guess I can extrapolate knowing I'm faster than a 9600xt but a but slower than a 9800. I should be able to run 10x7 at med quality pretty well

 

[high]

I plan on running it at 1280x960 at medium / high settings...
Rig in sig

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: HelloDeli
Awsome!

My EXACT same system configuration right there! Oh man I cant wait

Whats even more awesome is this (1600x1200 0aa/8AF High Quality):

P4 3.0ghz, 1 gig, 6800gt

Min - 35fps
Max - 60
Avg - 56.5

A64 3500+, 1 gig, 6800gt

Min - 35fps
Max - 60
Avg - 57.2

So much for everyone bashing P4 in gaming .... hmmm....the 1.5 year old 3.0ghz is still rocking the house at the most demanding game.

DAmn for me I am 640x480 Low Quality and still getting 13 as min frame. I REALLY need to upgrade. Nice rig btw.

On a brighter note, since it is already easily possible to run Doom 3 at 1600x1200 8AF, the next batch of new videocards (coming in 1 year?) should deliver 50-60 minimum framerate. I really did not expect what is arguably "the most demanding game to be released" to be playable at these high settings. This is nothing like trying to get 30 frames in Unreal 1 when it first came out with the top end card.

Also the article mentioned little improvement of going from 512 to 1 gig but a lot more going to 2 gigs (but with current prices, this is more of a luxury).

 

[OnEMoReTrY]

You shouldn't use these as comparisons, they were not done the same each time, this is merely an average FPS during someone playing a level. If you want accurate benches using the same test, the AMD will be significantly higher. "our conclusions here are based on real gameplay and not on timed game demos or synthetic benchmarking tools of any kind"

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: OnEMoReTrY
You shouldn't use these as comparisons, they were not done the same each time, this is merely an average FPS during someone playing a level. If you want accurate benches using the same test, the AMD will be significantly higher. "our conclusions here are based on real gameplay and not on timed game demos or synthetic benchmarking tools of any kind"

But isn't real gameplay the important factor? I mean if AMD was faster in timed demos but provided similar gameplay at higher resolutions as Intel, then that is all that matters to me. All I am saying is that time and time again has proven that at 1600x1200 and esp once you enable AA/AF features, the cpu you have has little or no effect on gaming, transferring most of the workload onto the videocard. So anyone who plays at high resolutions is again MUCH better off investing into a new videocard (not to mention that investing into a new videocard rather than a cpu generally gives more bang for the buck in gaming in the first place)

In fact, in this thread I've provided data that shows how a 2.4ghz P4 + X800Pro absolutely destroys a 3.2ghz P4 + 9800xt. Yet I see people recommending someone with an AXP 2500+ and 9700Pro to first upgrade the cpu because the new end cards will be bottlenecked. (I know this is somewhat off topic, but doom 3 once again helps to illustrate the greater importance of a videocard above all)

 

[GeneralGrievous]

In fact, in this thread I've provided data that shows how a 2.4ghz P4 + X800Pro absolutely destroys a 3.2ghz P4 + 9800xt. Yet I see people recommending someone with an AXP 2500+ and 9700Pro to first upgrade the cpu because the new end cards will be bottlenecked. (I know this is somewhat off topic, but doom 3 once again helps to illustrate the greater importance of a videocard above all)

That's because people are idiots. Anyone with 2 ghz or more shouldn't have any major issues; anyone with 3 ghz or higher has nothing to worry about at all. If you are CPU limited you should be playing at a higher resolution.

 

[BFG10K]

HardOCP's idea of playable is laughable at best.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Correction...

A person with MX is probably just happy to be able to play a game.

My msi gf4 mx440 (okay I added a gf4mx440 (original) to my collection of msi hardware) can run some games okay. For example with ut2004 (1024x768 with high settings) colossus demo I get 59fps, with rankin I get 48fps and with torlan I get 35fps.

Ofcourse my msi geforce3 ti500 (recently added), msi geforce4 ti4200, msi geforce 5900 xt and msi geforce 6800 gt will all run Doom3 much better than my msi geforce4 mx440!

BTW does anyone know if there is any sort of option in Doom3 to run demos for benchmarking because imo using fraps isn't an accurate way to benchmark.

 

[MemberSince97]

More people in the world have graphics displays worse yhan the average AT ers.... People with less than Ti 4200/ATI8500 are by far the majority by 80% or more.

 

[biostud]

I can only say that I'm pretty impressed that it's possible to make such a scalable engine.

 

[lopri]

HardOCP's idea of playable is laughable at best.

I wouldn't say it's that bad. But the bottom line with their review method is - you have to trust the reviewers. And they introduced that method because of rampant driver cheatings from graphics chip vendors. So they're basically saying "Trust us instead of trusting nVIDIA/ATi"

Considering their GPU reviews are pretty much done by 2 persons (Kyle and Brent), I could hardly say their test results/suggestions are reliable - 1. Accuracy (dozens of tests done by 2 people?) 2. Bias (I read their personal preferances between the lines, all the time) 3. Questionable results and comparisons (I think this issue is closely related to the issue 1 and issue 2, their numbers are often "off" and the numbers they acutally are "selecting and showing" are, to say the best, not self-proving - if not "biased")

On top of that, their attitude is like "You don't like the way we do things, then go away" Well, that actually made me keep some distance from them. Don't get me wrong, HardOCP is still one of my favorites and where else could I possibly get a hands-on reviews on Doom 3 like that? But certainly not a good attitude on their side. I would rather aggressively tackle down any issues raised up against their reviews, instead of simply saying "get lost."

All in all, however, if the method becomes more sophisticated and involving more trust-worthy (knowledgeable, less-biased) people, I'd say they have a good potential to grow in graphics reviews area. More than I have a reservation on their method, I totally ignore a test like 3DMark or some other artificial-looking numbers thrown on a graph.

lop

 

[CKTurbo128]

I noticed that the minimum required specs on the guide stated that a minimum 1.5 GHz processor is required. My main system is no problem (AMD Athlon XP-M 2600+ @ 2.3 GHz, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1024 MB), but I have a Celeron 1.4 GHz "Tualatin" on my second rig with 768 MB of RAM and a GeForce 4 Ti 4200.

Will Doom III be one of those games that won't let you install the game if you don't meet all min. required specs (e.g. "Sorry, but Doom III requires a 1.5 GHz or higher processor.") like old games in the past? I would be pretty peeved if I can't install D3 on this second rig because I'm -0.1 GHz under the min. specs, especially when PIII Tualatin-based processors generally equalized or outperformed the early P4 Willamettes at similar clockspeeds. Forgive me if this is a stupid question.

 

[TStep]

I think the Tually will be fine. It's close to an Athlon in clock to clock speed. Probably faster than a P4 1.5 willy. SDRAM would be a little slow. The Ti4200 is a major leap from a GF4 MX. I think your system would meet the minimum requirements.

 

[Marsumane]

Originally posted by: CKTurbo128
I noticed that the minimum required specs on the guide stated that a minimum 1.5 GHz processor is required. My main system is no problem (AMD Athlon XP-M 2600+ @ 2.3 GHz, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1024 MB), but I have a Celeron 1.4 GHz "Tualatin" on my second rig with 768 MB of RAM and a GeForce 4 Ti 4200.

Will Doom III be one of those games that won't let you install the game if you don't meet all min. required specs (e.g. "Sorry, but Doom III requires a 1.5 GHz or higher processor.") like old games in the past? I would be pretty peeved if I can't install D3 on this second rig because I'm -0.1 GHz under the min. specs, especially when PIII Tualatin-based processors generally equalized or outperformed the early P4 Willamettes at similar clockspeeds. Forgive me if this is a stupid question.

I dont see them doing that. But nobody really has any info on the actual installation of the game at this point. That system will be able to play it fine im assuming.

 

[Marsumane]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
HardOCP's idea of playable is laughable at best.

I couldnt agree more. The thing is, that when the frames probably dipped down, was when there was many enemies on the screen firing at you. And we all know what happens when u get 13fps with all that action...