Will we get a .plan update from Carmack on Radeon 9x00?

[cybamerc]

no_way:

> has JC commented on why D3 in-game models are still _so_ low-poly ?

Yes, read B3D's interview with him for answers.

> Don't current cards have enough vertex-processing power or, more
> likely, would shadow volume calculations would become prohibitively
> expensive

Doom 3 was running at 30 fps at QuakeCon (on a Radeon 9700/P4 2.2Ghz/800*600 res). It's obviously hard to say what the bottleneck(s) is(are) but I think it's fair to say that Doom 3 is plenty taxing as it is.

> ( why couldnt he do shadow calcs on lower-lod model ) ?

Because then you'd get mismatches between the models and the volumes.

 

[Nagorak]

The NV18 and NV28 will only be uninteresting if those extra transistors were just a typo.

Hasn't this been settled yet?

 

[MikeC]

Doom 3 was running at 30 fps at QuakeCon (on a Radeon 9700/P4 2.2Ghz/800*600 res).

That's an interesting piece of information. Mind if I ask where you obtained it from?

 

[cybamerc]

MikeC:

> That's an interesting piece of information. Mind if I ask where you obtained it from?

Todd Hollenshead mentioned the part about the framerate in an interview with Gamespot (he also mentioned that the framerate is capped at 60). Tim Willits talked about the res in an interview with Gamespy (they upped it from 640*480 at E3 due to driver improvements made by ATI).

The specs of the systems can be found on multiple sites.

It'll be interesting to see how much you have to turn off to make it playable on a GF3 or even GF4.

 

[Doomtrooper]

It has been posted many times before that the frame rate is capped at 60....so next year if you have a Nv35 or a Radeon 10000 Pro running on a 3GHZ AMD Opteron..you will get 60 FPS

The presentation in the DOOM III theater was quite the scene at QuakeCon. After being thrown in the front of the line before all of the fans (which I feel both bad and good about), I was treated to an extended version of what was shown at E3. Only this time it was shown at higher detail and resolution. "We ran the DOOM III presentation at E3 in 640x480 in medium quality," explained Tim Willits. "Without changing the executable, we're running it here at 800x600 in high quality and that's due to the great work that ATI has done on the 9700 drivers." The presentation was also running the game on a 2.2Ghz Pentium 4 with that lovely Radeon 9700, so it was no wonder that it was moving smoothly. Both Tim Willits during out little talk and Carmack in his keynote later were quick to point out that the game could run on anything as low as a GeForce1 however. "The game running at full features is with a GeForce3 video card or higher. It'll run on anything down to a GeForce1 because of the hardware acceleration, but we feel that some of the graphical features would have to be turned down. But with the new products from ATI and nVidia coming out before the release of the game, we're sure that we'll have great penetration for the game full feature."

http://pc.ign.com/articles/368/368245p1.html

If a Geforce 1 can run it anyone with a Geforce 3 or 8500 have nothing to worry about, let alone 9700 and Nv30 owners.

 

[demalion]

Hmm...there are reasons Doom 3 is months away, and JC has stated clearly that one of them is "optimizations". The framerates at E3 can probably be improved with nearly a year of optimizations going on...nevermind the state of the ATi drivers at the time compared to how they are even now.

The only 30 fps I remember is that 30 fps is the target speed for the GF3 with all features, but even though I'll take your word for the interview statement until I read it, I'm pretty sure "even" a GF4 will be able to output images comparable to E3 at 800x600 at a bit more than 30 fps on the final game.

 

[KimB]

( why couldnt he do shadow calcs on lower-lod model ) ?[/img]

As he's stated in the past, doing the shadow calcs on a lower-poly model would result in incorrect self-shadowing.

Regardless, I'm willing to wager that when you see this game in motion, the low polycounts won't matter so much anymore

 

[BoddoZerg]

If you download Tenebrae, you can see how good shadowing effects can look even despite horrendously poor polycount, texture quality, and animations.

 

[KimB]

But, apparently, DOOM3 is going to have both excellent texture quality and animations

 

[BoddoZerg]

Yep, leaving polycount as the only drawback, which you will hardly notice in game.

Even then, there's no comparing Quake1 polycount with Doom3. =)

 

[Tahir2]

Doom3 was running at 800*600 with FSAA wasn't it?

 

[Dave Glue]

Doom3 was running at 800*600 with FSAA wasn't it?

I believe so. When it came out that it was running at E3 in "medium quality", either Carmack or another Id fellow mentioned that the difference between "medium" and "high" quality was anisotropic filtering and FSAA.

30fps on a 9700, even with FSAA and aniso at 800*600 is indeed one hell of a taxing game.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Doom3 was running at 800*600 with FSAA wasn't it?

From the screen shots...I would assume so..I continue to see screenshots posted @1024 x 768 and above that show very little jaggies..yet interviews continue to say 640 x 480 and 800 x 600

I.e: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/21803

 

[pascal]

I worry about my wallet

 

[Tahir2]

I think it is mighty impressive as this is a new tech engine and the drivers, even though they were optimised by ATI at short notice, were at that stage immature.

Just my .02 pounds worth

 

[cybamerc]

High quality is uncompressed textures and anisotropic filtering. There has been no mention of whether or not FSAA was enabled to my knowledge but I personally doubt it. I also think some of you put little too much faith in Carmack's coding skills. Doom 3 will be slow - even on the Radeon 9700.

 

[alexsok]

High quality is uncompressed textures and anisotropic filtering. There has been no mention of whether or not FSAA was enabled to my knowledge but I personally doubt it. I also think some of you put little too much faith in Carmack's coding skills. Doom 3 will be slow - even on the Radeon 9700.

Carmack is a genius!

DOOM III won't be slow even on GF3 (30fps is what they're targeting with all features enabled and the max fps is limited to 60).

 

[Joe DeFuria]

DOOM III won't be slow even on GF3 (30fps is what they're targeting with all features enabled and the max fps is limited to 60).

At what resolution? 640x480? 512x384

It is hard to imagine (assuming 30 FPS, 800x600, high quality in 9700 is in fact true) that a GeForce3 would manage 30 FPS at 640x480 with the same settings. Of course, when you start disabling features (lowering texture detail, turning off aniso....), all bets are off.

In other words, it's starting to sound like we're going to "need" a 9700 / NV30 to really play Doom3 "as it's meant to be played" at reasonable resolutions.

 

[alexsok]

DOOM III won't be slow even on GF3 (30fps is what they're targeting with all features enabled and the max fps is limited to 60).

At what resolution? 640x480? 512x384

It is hard to imagine (assuming 30 FPS, 800x600, high quality in 9700 is in fact true) that a GeForce3 would manage 30 FPS at 640x480 with the same settings. Of course, when you start disabling features (lowering texture detail, turning off aniso....), all bets are off.

In other words, it's starting to sound like we're going to "need" a 9700 / NV30 to really play Doom3 "as it's meant to be played" at reasonable resolutions.

I really doubt even R300/NV30 generation of cards will allow us to set AA & Aniso in DOOM III and still play it at enjoyable framerates...

Carmack is targeting GF3/XBox level of hardware for DOOM III to truly shine, while the techology itself is based on the GeForce 1 era.

I truly think GF4TI4600 for example or Radeon 8500 could run the game at 30fps with all features enabled at a resolution of 800x600 (if not higher).

Remember that Todd.H said that the fps is limited to 60fps and no matter what u do, u won't be able to get higher than that.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Carmack is targeting GF3/XBox level of hardware for DOOM III to truly shine, while the techology itself is based on the GeForce 1 era.

XBox is more like a GeForce4, and it only has to contend with 640x480 resolution. (I doubt Doom3 will be an HDTV title...)

I truly think GF4TI4600 for example or Radeon 8500 could run the game at 30fps with all features enabled at a resolution of 800x600 (if not higher).

I hope that's the case, but I'm not expecting it. I'm guessing these cards (GeForce3/4, Radeon 8500) will be able to run the full lighting model at reasonable speeds (that's what's really important), but that some of the detail will have to be lowered (texture, filtering detail resolution) to get 30-60 FPS.

The GeForce1/2/4 MX and Radeon 7500 and lower models, though they technically have the hardware support to "properly" run Doom3, probably won't be able to run the proper lighting model at acceptable speeds, no matter how low you turn down the detail.

I guess we'll find out in another year or so.