PC Gamer cover story on Doom3

[Freak'n Big Panda]

Those models look too low in poly detail.

At E3 its was running at only 800x600 on a r9700, if the game has any more polies performance would suck on 99.9% of all comps.

9-10 of the same type of weapons we have been using for 10+ years in gaming.

So so true Putting new weapons in the game wouldn't take away from its fun.. it would add too it. I don't know why ID chose to do this Same thing goes for the monsters... no new ones at all Its basically Doom with a new engine... Oh well maybe it will be fun. And even if it isn't a fun game is bound to come out on the doom 3 engine some time

 

[BoddoZerg]

DOOM is awesome.

The problem with DOOM3 is that you won't be able to blow away 200 Imps in a matter of seconds anymore. =( Bah.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Anyone have any guesses, as to when PC would be fast enough to handle the high polygon model instead of this lower one and bump maps ?

I hoped low poly + normal maps, is just a stop gap solution. Or will it stick around for the next 5 years ?

I'd be surprised if its anytime soon. The memory requirements (physical and bandwidth) would be pretty staggering in my mind. Consider each reference character model is comprised of many hundreds of thousands of polygons, assume an average of even 3 characters on screen and you have a poly budget well into the millions on characters alone. Add in the level geometry and you have a staggering amount of vertex data that needs to be transfered from system memory to video card and processed in realtime.

On a chip level I dont think we're that far off to be honest (ie having a chip with enough horsepower to process those volumes of data at high speed realtime). I think the big issue will be memory and bus constraints.

 

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

hmm... perhaps the topic starter meant for the discussion to go more towards the graphics engine, techniques used to achieve the pictures in that article, etc. (instead of whether carrying a knife is "fun" or not).

heh, dunno, but I'm back in it again. On p50 in the Who's saying what around the world of gaming section, they posted a quote from me in QT3 forums. Bastards. Wait'll I catch Vederman; because this has his fingerprints all over it.

Yes, I'm egotistical, but the fact is I love me more than I love the next jackass standing next to me. When God said love thy neighbor, he didn't say I should blow him too. As such, I really, truly don't care much for most people. At all. In fact, I have nothing at stake when it comes to lashing out at idiots who find it necessary to declare open season on me.

 

[Luminescent]

In my humble opinion, I believe the latest graphics processors, such as the R300 and possibly the NV30, would definitely be able to push more polygons than the Doom 3 engine is going to output while running the somewhat complex shader routines. Even considering the shadow volumes, these processors with ~4 vertex shading units each, who have hardly been tapped, alongside their nifty programmability, should clearly run doom or any game with more polys than they are currently exposed to without having to dumb down effects or resulution.

We should never pass judgment to quickly on today's latest hardware while running games that have been developed to run on the lowest common denominator. I am sure much more could be done if Carmack soley targeted the R300 and the NV30 (which he eventually will). So to say that high polygon games with complex shaders is out of the question for this generation hardware is most certainly wrong in my mind. How do we know we'll have to run Doom 3 at 800*600 for respectable framerates when, with good coding (a definite for id), the engine should not choke the R300 or NV30, even if it carried more polygons per model or if it had a resolution of 1024*768. Being that the two processors (or at least 1 that I know of) handle 2-3 shading ops per cycle, per pipeline, with 4 vs's and 8 ps's, they should be more than satisfactory for running the game at full settings (assuming cg, or some other minimal hardware optimization is made).

Aren't the hardware engineers the ones who set the boundaries of a rendering engine's possibilies. The boundaries of Doom 3 are set right around the first generation geforce line, with some optimizations for the more modern graphics processors.

P.S. I'm not sure if I went a bit off topic, but it truely buggs me when the latest hardware is shot down over a game engine which was not comfigured specifically for it.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

DOOM is awesome.

The problem with DOOM3 is that you won't be able to blow away 200 Imps in a matter of seconds anymore. =( Bah.

Funny thing: I just played through Doom and Doom2 over the last week or so (some of the opensource doom projects are quite impressive). Doom never had more than 8 or 9 baddies at one time and usually only 4 or 5. It wasnt until Doom2 (generally considered the weaker of the two) that you encountered the 'dozens' of enemies and even those scenarios were limited.

 

[Ichneumon]

DOOM is awesome.

The problem with DOOM3 is that you won't be able to blow away 200 Imps in a matter of seconds anymore. =( Bah.

Funny thing: I just played through Doom and Doom2 over the last week or so (some of the opensource doom projects are quite impressive). Doom never had more than 8 or 9 baddies at one time and usually only 4 or 5. It wasnt until Doom2 (generally considered the weaker of the two) that you encountered the 'dozens' of enemies and even those scenarios were limited.

Exactly, and Doom2 didn't have nearly the ambiance that Doom did IMO.

 

[Humus]

Anyone have any guesses, as to when PC would be fast enough to handle the high polygon model instead of this lower one and bump maps ?

I hoped low poly + normal maps, is just a stop gap solution. Or will it stick around for the next 5 years ?

I'd be surprised if its anytime soon. The memory requirements (physical and bandwidth) would be pretty staggering in my mind.

Not with displacement mapping.

 

[Dreadnought]

The number of monsters you remember attacking at once in doom increases proportionally to the length of time since you last played it...

 

[Dave Baumann]

Not with displacement mapping.

Thats a good point. I wonder if, in his next engine, John will aim to increase character detail with a combination of bump and displacement mapping.

 

[flf]

1. No Alternate Fire on any weapons.. how inspiring.

Alternate fire != more fun. You could make a game with quaternary fire modes that would still suck Diakatana.

2. The same set of weapons featured in the orig. Doom. How nice, we are on a planet in a future setting, and we will be running around with chainsaws, pistols, shotgun, and mini-gun while trying to conserve ammo for the Pulse rifle and BFG.

Players are familiar with the design. Sure, UT brought us tons of weapons, and the mods brought us a ridiculous amount of additional weapons, but it all comes down to three types: projectile throwers, beam weapons, slow-moving projectiles that explode. Once again, adding more weapons doesn't necessarily make the game any more fun, however it does make the game harder to balance.

3. Totally static environment. so other than the buttons that open doors.. Carmack believes that if we have more things to monkey around with in the game it can only take away from our gaming experience.

I don't think anyone has actually played the actual game yet, so it's a bit soon to be complaining about how bad the gameplay is, no?

4. Oh what an "original" intro they have planned, getting to walk around the facility, talking to scientists and guards. Before the sci's do something nutty to open that 4th demension gate and bring fourth the spawn of hell.

And your proposed alternative is...?

What I see is someone who is whining and impossible to please. If you want a specific game, I propose you write one that fits your own tastes and stop demanding that someone create one for you.

 

[John Reynolds]

Wonder what the per-pixel lighting performance hit would be if the game ships with a flamethrower? 8)

 

[Nagorak]

As I've stated elsewhere I think Doom3 is basically going to suck. John Carmack has once again shown he doesn't have a clue when it comes to gameplay. It seems he actually looks down on people who innovate with alternate fire modes and actually being able to open drawers. He considers them to be "just gimmicks that don't add to gameplay"...

Maybe Carmack should actually play games made by other developers who actually understand gameplay and not just making engines. Seriously, I have to wonder if Carmack games at all, which considering his profession is absolutely ridiculous...

i think stamina is a great idea and should be used more often ,button mashes and 100 mph freaks lookout

If you can't hit things now, I doubt not being able to run is going to help you.

Exactly, and Doom2 didn't have nearly the ambiance that Doom did IMO.

Did Doom2 have any ambiance at all? It was just a lot of running through mowing down a lot of guys... Kind of like the 4th episode of the original Doom (which basically sucked).

It's really weird because the original does definitely seem to have much better atmosphere.

 

[µße®LørÃ￾]

It's really weird because the original does definitely seem to have much better atmosphere.

Thats because it was the first "3D" fps game where you could sort of look up and down. And it supported 3D sound with the Gravis Ultrasound - damn good card.

 

[KimB]

Well, you couldn't look up/down in DOOM, or even jump, but it did at least have multiple levels (That is, surfaces at different heights).

The first one that I remember with a look up/down control was Duke Nukem 3D, though there may have been others.

 

[Maverick]

Marathon

 

[DemoCoder]

I find most of the weapons in every game except for counter-strike suck big time. CS has the best mix of weapons and gameplay for a multiplayer FPS IMHO. Most of the UT weapons and alt-fire modes are just gimmicks. I find that they don't add anything to the basic game play. In CS, the alt-fire just triggers sniper scopes.


But CS weapons can be used in different modes. Because of the way accuracy is modeled, the distance, rate of fire, and your body stance matter much more. You can use the AK-47 in full auto, or you can use it single shot, or burst shot, and it all depends on how you control it.

In other game engines, they'd have a alt-fire switch to go between single shot and full auto and the accuracy would be controlled by this switch. In CS, it determined simply by how much you hold or press the fire button.

Doom3 might not be much of a game, but engine wise, it is going to blow the doors off UT, and if someone ever implements Counter-Strike on top of it, the possibilities would be endless! Like Splinter Cell, the use of the realistic shadows would be a huge boon for tactic shooters.

 

[V3]

Not with displacement mapping.

Why didn't Carmack implement this in Doom3 engine for the R300 or NV30 path ? Someone mentioned shawdow can be problematic, but isn't there some neat solution to it ?

 

[Humus]

Well, it would probably be a lot slower. Plus that the shadows would still be done with the lower poly model as the shadow volume is done on the CPU. If Carmack would have used shadow maps instead there wouldn't be this problem and the shadows would get the full detail of the displacement mapped model.

 

[nggalai]

Hi there,

Okay.. We get Netrisca all over again.. Plenty of scripted "boo" moments to make us poop our pants.. yet.. the environments will still be static execpt for the crates we can push and the crap we can shoot off the shelves. Btw i loathed Quake II from early on for that walking up to said button or door to make it open.

Na. You can mark any object as "destructable"--and who says you can't build walls out of such objects? Also, the physics engine seems to be rather interesting indeed. Swing a light to illuminate dark corners in a room and suchlike.

Well, we'll have to wait and see. Such speculations don't really serve very much.

ta,
-Sascha.rb