Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2012]

[Cyan]

What?

Have you read the entire article?

Doom 3 ran on PC at 480p -on the PCs from 2004, save a few cases-, and on the Xbox 1.

Now we have consoles that were created a year later than the original PC game.

So we will do the math for yah':

640 x 480 = 307200 pixels

1280 x 720 = 921600 pixels

Thus 921600 divided by 307200 equals 3.

Hence we have consoles that are 3 times more powerful, BUT....

There is more to it. 60 fps vs 30 fps.

60 divided by 30 equals 2.

3 x 2 = 6 times the processing load this generation consoles have to bear.

Add to this improved models and textures and we can add 2 to the previous numbers.

( 3 x 2 ) + 2 = 8 .

Taking into account these consoles are about 8x times more powerful than the original Xbox -memory wise and so on- the numbers make sense and here we have iD optimizing games like only very few can do.

The numbers are in accordance to the reality. And these numbers sound pretty creepy for the PCs of the time.

Sorry but they are nowhere near a console in anything.

When Richard mentions it's a technical achievement it's for a reason.

I have a question: how many retail games do you have running at 720p and 60 fps on consoles?

I can tell you. Yes, RAGE! (CoD doesn't even get there resolution wise)

And now Doom 3. Does anyone else see the pattern?

I am myopic, and for those of us who value their sight iD are kind to our eyes, and they are still among the best.

 

[TheWretched]

Thing is... in 2004, people didn't use 640x480 anymore. At least in most cases. I am unsure which monitor I had at the time (I switched to an LCD around then, with 1280x1024), but if it was before that, then I had a 19'' CRT which easily managed 1600x1200 or something around that, which is miles beyond 640x480 or 720P for that matter.

 

[almighty]

Have you read the entire article?

Doom 3 ran on PC at 480p -on the PCs from 2004

No it didn't..... Try 1280x1024 and 1600x1200.... An Nvidia 6600 ( Non GT model ) could manage Doom 3 at 1280x1024 with 4x anti-aliasing at 35fps

Even a low powered machine from 2004 could still manage to be playable 1024x768

Even during the Quake 2 era PC was still gaming way above 640x480, the only time Doom 3 has truly been run at 648x480 was on the original Xbox.

You could no longer buy a 640x480 monitor in 2004, they were all 1024x768 or 1280x1024 monitors.

 

[Trejser]

My 7600GT was running it at 1280x1024@60fps: High, no AA, no vsync (just like consoles)

RSX is probably much faster than 7600GT so only thing that could make the difference is CPU, but I wasn't setting the world on fire with E6300@1.8GHz Maybe Cell PPU is weaker.

 

[almighty]

That's the thing, a 7800 GTX could manage 1920x1080 at nearly 60fps so it's curious as to why a closed boxed system with what is in essence, the same GPU only running 1280x720 at 60fps.

I know you lot are going to scream memory bandwidth at me but even a 7600 GT could manage 1920x1080 at a decent frame rate.

 

[warb]

I remember my good old 9800pro struggling with Doom 3 in 2004. 1024x768 it was playable, mostly above 30fps.

Soon swapped out for an X800.

 

[HMBR]

I remember my good old 9800pro struggling with Doom 3 in 2004. 1024x768 it was playable, mostly above 30fps.

Soon swapped out for an X800.

it would probably be over 40fps most of the time...
my FX5900Se could keep the game over 30fps in 1024x768 (in 800x600 it was much easier to run)... people with high end GPUs (6800) could play it with no problem at 1280x1024

640x480 was the resolution to use only if you had a low end Geforce 4 MX, FX5200 or something...
even a Geforce 4 Ti could probably play it half decently in 800x600....

.

 

[assurdum]

My 7600GT was running it at 1280x1024@60fps: High, no AA, no vsync (just like consoles)

RSX is probably much faster than 7600GT so only thing that could make the difference is CPU, but I wasn't setting the world on fire with E6300@1.8GHz Maybe Cell PPU is weaker.

I don't think it's matter of weak here, from what I have understand reading here. It seems more the particular Cell structure without 'big' cores.

 

[FATBOT]

An Nvidia 6600 ( Non GT model ) could manage Doom 3 at 1280x1024 with 4x anti-aliasing at 35fps

Never.

I had a 6600GT and played D3 in high settings in 1024x768 no AA, 8xAF. No way a normal 6600 could run D3 in 1280x1024 with 4xAA with an acceptable framerate.

---------------------

60FPS is very nice. But just 720p with no AA in an high contrast game such as Doom 3 is not enough. 30FPS with 720p + 4xAA or 30FPS with 1080p would be better. Since D3 isn´t such a fast paced shooter...

Also the flashlight casts no shadows, very disappointing!

 

[Reiko]

Never.

I had a 6600GT and played D3 in high settings in 1024x768 no AA, 8xAF. No way a normal 6600 could run D3 in 1280x1024 with 4xAA with an acceptable framerate.

---------------------

60FPS is very nice. But just 720p with no AA in an high contrast game such as Doom 3 is not enough. 30FPS with 720p + 4xAA or 30FPS with 1080p would be better. Since D3 isn´t such a fast paced shooter...

Also the flashlight casts no shadows, very disappointing!

There's too many 30fps shooters this gen. 60fps on consoles is a blessing.

 

[I.S.T.]

That's the thing, a 7800 GTX could manage 1920x1080 at nearly 60fps so it's curious as to why a closed boxed system with what is in essence, the same GPU only running 1280x720 at 60fps.

I know you lot are going to scream memory bandwidth at me but even a 7600 GT could manage 1920x1080 at a decent frame rate.

Remember, the RSX doesn't have the same amount of ROPs as the 7800 GTX. It has 8 or so.

 

[assurdum]

Have you read the entire article?

Doom 3 ran on PC at 480p -on the PCs from 2004, save a few cases-, and on the Xbox 1.

Now we have consoles that were created a year later than the original PC game.

So we will do the math for yah':

640 x 480 = 307200 pixels

1280 x 720 = 921600 pixels

Thus 921600 divided by 307200 equals 3.

Hence we have consoles that are 3 times more powerful, BUT....

There is more to it. 60 fps vs 30 fps.

60 divided by 30 equals 2.

3 x 2 = 6 times the processing load this generation consoles have to bear.

Add to this improved models and textures and we can add 2 to the previous numbers.

( 3 x 2 ) + 2 = 8 .

Taking into account these consoles are about 8x times more powerful than the original Xbox -memory wise and so on- the numbers make sense and here we have iD optimizing games like only very few can do.

The numbers are in accordance to the reality. And these numbers sound pretty creepy for the PCs of the time.

Sorry but they are nowhere near a console in anything.

When Richard mentions it's a technical achievement it's for a reason.

I have a question: how many retail games do you have running at 720p and 60 fps on consoles?

I can tell you. Yes, RAGE! (CoD doesn't even get there resolution wise)

And now Doom 3. Does anyone else see the pattern?

I am myopic, and for those of us who value their sight iD are kind to our eyes, and they are still among the best.

But isn't it a 60 fps with dynamic resolution? I don't see the great achievement here, imho.

 

[Trejser]

Remember, the RSX doesn't have the same amount of ROPs as the 7800 GTX. It has 8 or so.

Yeah, same as 7600GT, yet card was capable enough to render the game in 1280x1024 60fps. BFG is not even constant 720p.

 

[Arwin]

When they said 'designed for', I thought they were referring to stuff like texture resolution etc. Though apparently there was a texture option for the Ultimate edition that required 500MB of texture memory?

 

[Turok]

Thing is... in 2004, people didn't use 640x480 anymore. At least in most cases. I am unsure which monitor I had at the time (I switched to an LCD around then, with 1280x1024), but if it was before that, then I had a 19'' CRT which easily managed 1600x1200 or something around that, which is miles beyond 640x480 or 720P for that matter.

That doesn't mean that the game resolution has to match the desktop resolution.

Either way, it is silly to say that Doom 3 was designed with 640x480 res in mind.

 

[TheWretched]

That doesn't mean that the game resolution has to match the desktop resolution.

Either way, it is silly to say that Doom 3 was designed with 640x480 res in mind.

Well yes, but usually (or in my case), I played the games at those resolutions, too, if the performance was there.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, same as 7600GT, yet card was capable enough to render the game in 1280x1024 60fps.

Judging by the fps video, they seem to drop frame rate in spaces with a lot of additional smoke/transparencies within a stencil volume. Moving about the levels doesn't seem to affect that 60fps target a whole lot.

The multi-panel bridge section is a bit rough as each moving panel has a volume during the sequence (video doesn't show it well, but all the moving geometry there is actually shadow-casting).

When they said 'designed for', I thought they were referring to stuff like texture resolution etc.

He's referring to their design targets when the game was started and in-production (especially before the delay); recall the Geforce 3 days. Of course, by the time the game actually came out, there were much better cards than that.

The Quakecon 2003 demo stations were 480p using FX5900s FWIW, though I imagine they were aiming to have 60fps with zero drops no matter what happened on-screen.

Though apparently there was a texture option for the Ultimate edition that required 500MB of texture memory?

Yeah, a 512MB card was recommended for fully uncompressed textures (Ultra), but I think that was mostly a safety net.

 

[I.S.T.]

Do the uncompressed textures actually add anything to the look of the game? I just enabled them when I started playing the game earlier this year due to having a 512 meg card at the time, but having never really played Doom 3 before, I wouldn't know the difference.

 

[AlNom]

For the most part, no. Some textures were slightly discoloured, but then those textures weren't exactly much to look at either.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/doom-3-tests_3.html#sect0

 

[pjbliverpool]

When you consider D3's original design target was the GeForce 3 its pretty crazy that we are still talking about it today in the context of the current consoles. Especially considering very little has changed in core engine in all that time. Even today you could run D3 up on a GF3 at low resolution and get a half decent experience.