I waited two months for my laptop, just so that it could play Doom3.

[gibhunter]

That was a year ago when ATI announced Mobility 9000 with DirectX 8 support. At the time I bought and ended up returning a laptop with Mobility 7500. So, now that I've been playing on a system with a Geforce3 level card, I am seeing the screenshots of Doom 3 and I'm starting to get worried. Just how exactly did Doom running on Geforce3 look like? Was it at all similar to what's out there right now? Was it playable?

My goal is to basically run it with all of the features turned on. Since it's basically a DX8 level of a game I think that Radeon 9000 supports all of those features. NowI understand that it should be dog slow, but as long as I get 28fps at 800/600 I will be more than happy.

 

[stardust]

I had 35fps in Doom3 Alpha E3 demo on a Geforce4 Ti4400 overclocked (320/600) at 800*600 res with all eye candy turned on... good luck with ur mobility radeon

 

[gibhunter]

Shoot, I guess I'll have to sell it and get a new one with Mobility 9600 then. I really hope I could get away without having to do that.

 

[yhelothar]

geforce3 level card could play doom3 fine @ 1024x768 with no AA/AF... as long as you turn off the shadows(bump mapping still on), from my experience on the leak

 

[bunnyfubbles]

yes, and leaks of alpha version games will accurately determine overall performance

. At 800x600 I'd be willing to bet that you should be able to easily play the game as long as your CPU is fairly fast as well.

 

[yhelothar]

Well said bunnyfubbles.. alpha versions of games runs significantly worse than final version of games.
JC is king of graphic engine programming. Just see how well quake3 engine runs and looks. I have no doubts that geforce3 is able to run the game with decent settings

 

[otispunkmeyer]

dont forget that technology that would eventually become doom3 was demoed on a gf3 because it was first to be programmable. i got the video on my comp!

 

[gibhunter]

OK, I saw the benchmarks on TomsHardware and Anand with the 9000 series cards and at 1024/768 in medium setting the demo ran at about 20fps. I'm sure that with some extra optimizations by the time the game comes out, that number would jump to about 25 at 1024/768 or about 37fps at 800/600, so hopefully I'll be able to run it at about 28fps in 800/600 or just about as fast as I ran Quake 2 on 4MB Riva 128 and 300MHZ CPU. Should be playable.

Problem with laptops is that they are virtually impossible to upgrade and having a desktop is basically not an option for me. So when I bought my laptop, I waited the extra couple of months to be able to get the Radeon 9000 with it. The idea behind it was that it should allow me to keep it for a couple of years and still play the top games when they come out. Hopefully it's still true, though for Half Life 2 I may be missing some features available only to DirectX9 cards.

 

[Keysplayr]

If Doom3 is your priority and you can only have a laptop, you should definately consider a laptop with an nvidia based solution. The reason I say this is because nvidia blows the doors off of ATI in OpenGL games. Doom3 being openGL (not DirectX) based. Try to find a laptop with a mobile 5600 or even better 5700 solution. Dont know what the selection is right now, haven't shopped for a laptop since I got mine 3 years ago.

Ask around about nvidia and OpenGL.

Keys

 

[Genx87]

You have to remember the 7500 while technically a GF3 lvl card is probably nowhere near the speed of a GF3 in something like Doom3.

From a few leaked benchmarks of an early version of Doom3. They had a friggin 5200 keeping pace with a 9800 Pro. I am sure it has improved greatly, or at least I hope it has hehe. But dont expect your 7500 to run the thing like a GF3.

 

[Pete]

The 7500 is a GF2-level card, I think--DX7. I wouldn't count on a GF3 giving you smooth framerates above 6x4 or 8x6, but then people have different sensitivities. Myself, I really prefer 60+fps avg. in a SP FPS, and possibly more in MP mode.