Doom³ Minimum System Requirements

[Jonty]

Doom³ System Requirements

Hello

Just thought you'd like to know that John Carmack recently confirmed the minimum system requirements for his forthcoming Doom³ game (as well as other games, I assume, such as Quake 4, Trinity etc. which use the engine). Although higher than those required for Half-Life 2, Carmack says the game will be playable, if not pretty, on a system with the following setup . . .

The Phobos Lab

• 1GHz CPU
• 256MB RAM
• GF1 or Radeon 7xxx series card

So there you have it. Half-Life 2 will require at least Pentium class 700-800Mhz CPU and a DX6-class graphics card, so in terms of the lowest possible system required to play the games, the two engines aren't worlds apart.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Please don't let this thread, if anyone replies, descend into "ST*U!?11 HL2 0wnz DOOM?111" discussion, I'm sure we've heard that all before

 

[Wilier]

Im assuming that those are the very barest of bare minumums to run the games, and that they will, in fact, appear on the screen like an old CBM64 game like Monty Mole or something?

 

[Anasyn]

Re: Doom³ System Requirements

"ST*U!?11 HL2 0wnz DOOM?111" etc etc.. yer, done with that cos I doubt I'll buy either

But are you sure about those sys reqs (based on screenshots I've seen I'm not entirely), or has John Carmack managed to hire "Comedy Ali" after he fled Iraq?

"Duke Nukem Forever will be out before Christmas 2003"

 

[Testin da Cable]

you wont be able to run in eyecandy mode, that much is clear, but you will be able to play the game on a low-end spec pc. a very good thing(tm) as it opens up the game to nearly everyone in computerland, unlike a title such as say...unreal2003.

 

[Sibanac]

any word on the 'optimum' spec,
i mean the minimum req for all pwetty stuff on and playble

 

[Clowneh!]

yeh right. bf minimum specs:

500mhz
128mb ram
1.2gigs
32mb gfx card with T&L

and it runs like crap on a 1.4ghz, 512mb, 128mb gfx

i bet thats how d3 will be but badder

 

[Testin da Cable]

full-on everything? ooh, I couldn't even begin to guess, but I'll try:
tdc hazards: 2.8GHz PIV (or equiv. AMD) or greater, 512MB dimm or greater, radeon 9700pro or greater, as fast a harddrive as you can get for quick level loading (tdc thinks those levels are going to be frigging BIG) and a good soundcard a la nforce2 thingy/audigy class. that should work well

 

[Jonty]

Sibanac: Both Half-Life 2 and Doom³ are currently capable of running well beyond what today's hardware can handle, so in theory there is no upperlimit. For example, Valve say their charcater models are around 5 million polygons before they are scaled down. The ones to be released when the game ships will be in around 5,000 polygons, since no hardware could currently handle 5 million polygons per charcater in a game like Half-Life 2. That said, once hardware levels increase in the future, Valve say they'll be happy to release the high resolution models as part of a patch/update.

To play the game 'the way it was meant to be played'™, Half-Life 2 requires around 2Ghz CPU and a GeForce4, probably with 256Mb RAM at a guess. Naturally you can go beyond that and start turning on anti-aliasing and such, but that's what Valve are touting as their ideal spec (although TdC's ideal machine sounds like it would play nice )

Anasyn: Yes, those are the minimum system requirements, straight from John Carmack rather than the publisher's PR department. Like Half-Life 2, Doom³ will be fully scalable, meaning advanced features, polycounts, you name it will all dynamically adjust to the user's own system settings. So, to get either Half-Life 2 or Doom³ to run on either system on the minimum requirements, pretty much everything will be turned off and down. The game would probably be almost unrecognisable, but it would be playable.

Clowneh!: It's true most minimum requirements are a little dodgy, probably to encourage people to buy the game, but I bet you that you haven't turned everything off or down graphically and sound wise, have you? I'm not saying you should, but if you did I'm sure the game would perform better, even if it did look hideous

Kind Regards

 

[Testin da Cable]

5 mil eh? ooh gone are the days of keeping the count down
I soooo want a new computer

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
5 mil eh? ooh gone are the days of keeping the count down
I soooo want a new computer

hehe, never satisfied Anyway, it seems things are set to get a lot more complicated in the future too, as the technological envelope is pushed even further . . .

Tim Sweeney, Epic Megagames
In Unreal Tournament 2003, we built 2000-polygon meshes, texture map them, and use them in-game with diffuse lighting. That was a simple process, which didn't require any memory beyond that taken up by the mesh and texture maps.

In our next-generation technology, we are building 2,000,000-polygon meshes, and running them through a preprocessing program that analyzes the geometry and self-shadowing potential of the mesh based on thousands of incident lighting direction using per-pixel floating point math, and compresses all of this data down to texture maps, bump maps, and 16-component spherical harmonic maps at as high a resolution as possible.

Kind Regards

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally quoted by Jonty
In our next-generation technology, we are building 2,000,000-polygon meshes, and running them through a preprocessing program that analyzes the geometry and self-shadowing potential of the mesh based on thousands of incident lighting direction using per-pixel floating point math, and compresses all of this data down to texture maps, bump maps, and 16-component spherical harmonic maps at as high a resolution as possible.

*wood*

 

[leggy]

The problem with a minimum spec that requires everything turned off is that the game really needs to be something special.

I don't see this as a problem with HL2, but D3... well.

In our next-generation technology, we are building 2,000,000-polygon meshes, and running them through a preprocessing program that analyzes the geometry and self-shadowing potential of the mesh based on thousands of incident lighting direction using per-pixel floating point math, and compresses all of this data down to texture maps, bump maps, and 16-component spherical harmonic maps at as high a resolution as possible.

*Hemorrhage*

 

[Jonty]

That's a very good point, leggy When you have a visually arresting game like Doom³, where the use of lighting, and in particular shadows, is an integral part of the game, turning that aspect of the game off kind of defeats the point I'm not saying Doom³ will be shallow, far from it, but since it seems it will be shipping without multiplayer support, it needs all the help it can get.

I'm tempted to say minimum specifications should be scrapped, and recommended specifications used instead, but the only problem with doing that is that you can tweak a game to your own preferences. Thus, what's ideal for someone can always be improved in someone else's eyes. So, at least with minimum requirements, there's no ambiguity, even if it's a far from ideal way of measuring the system requirements needed to run the game.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. I'm glad I'm not the only one who only half understood what Tim meant with his technobabble

 

[old.tRoG]

Hmm... Anyone got £5000 lying around?

*Slaps his rusty old box*

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Sibanac
any word on the 'optimum' spec,
i mean the minimum req for all pwetty stuff on and playble

2Ghz+
9700/9800/GFFX5800/GFFX5900
1Gb Memory

Most nice stuff on

Those min specs need pumping up by at least 30%.

 

[Sawtooth]

Well I recently went through my 3 yearly upgrade with DOOM3 and 1/2 life in mind as I want to play with everything turned on. I eventually settled on the following as something that should last the next 2 years worth of games (hopefully)

Chaintech Zenith NF2 board (Stable at last on its April Bios release but played about a bit at first (new Bios availiable but Im not sure the pain would be worth it). Northbridge water cooled with Asetek water chiller.
Athlon Barton XP+3000, I can clock this up to 3200 no probs as this is water cooled.
1GB Ram with the high performance RAM setting enabled- think this synchronises the DDR RAM .
Radeon 9700 Pro , water cooled- but this may get upgraded closer to release as the NVidia camp seems to have sorted themselves out now. Also I read somewhere that the Radeons were not as good as the Nvidias for Doom 3? I guess the 5900 Ultra or maybe the next generation Radeon by Chrimbo then.
Seagate SATA drive (To be installed tonight.)
Audigy 2 soundcard
NEC 17inch multisynch TFC -only probs with TFCs is the fixed resolution. Still this ones okay for FPS with no ghosting. I think the low bare minimum will let you see individual frames like in a flick book. I remember an article about UT2003 where they gave a low spec and said it would give people an impresssion of what they are missing, ie upgrade to play.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

I hope with these specs D3 will have anti aliasing, unlike HL2;

1) Is this a problem that can be fixed with new drivers, or would we have to buy a whole new card to recitify it? If so, are there any cards on the horizon that would offer it?

Drivers aren't likely to fix the problem, with the exception of the ATI 9500-9800. There's hope there for being able to use FSAA properly. You are out of luck on NVidia unless either NVidia or us come up with some clever way of solving this problem.

2) Is this a problem unique to hardware + Source?

It's a problem for any app that packs small textures into larger textures. The small textures will bleed into each other if you have multisample FSAA enabled. The best thing to do right now is either buy an ATI card in the hopes that it will be solved there, or wait until the next generation of cards come out.

 

[smurkin]

shouldnt have to wait too long....I got it from a fairly good source that there will be a d3 test/demo out before the end of the month (so maybe next month then).

*edit* further down on the phobos map there is a contradictory statement saying the demo will be available at quakecon in 2 months ... lets hope we dont have to wait.

 

[Jonty]

It's true that the Doom³ beta test will be available prior to the game ships, just like Q3Test was. Unlike Valve, who seem sure there won't be a demo of Half-Life 2 prior to the full game's release, id say the feedback they receive from the community is immensely beneficial in helping iron out bugs. There's merit to both approaches, I guess.

As for antialiasing, I don't quite know where the problems are arising. But I'm almost certain that there won't be any problems once launched, since the level of cooperation between id software, ATi, and nVidia especially, is just incredible. If there is a problem, I'm sure it will be fixed, if not, then I'm sure a workaround will be in place. John Carmack and co. are extremely talented, even if Doom³ itself may have an uncertain future

Kind Regards

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

D3 does AA just fine. It's HL2 that won't be able to do it until ATI release a patch, Nvidia guys are pretty much out of luck however.

 

[Jonty]

Sorry Scooba, must be half asleep, caught the wrong end of the stick Well, I don't know what to say. I'd be surprised if it was a permenant problem, since using anti-aliasing is becoming ever more popular, even to those who don't much care for tinkering with settings. Here's hoping it all gets sorted before September 30th

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Just out of interest, is anyone planning to purchase and download Half-Life 2 via Steam, rather than buying a boxed copy? Just curious

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

I'm going right for the dvd copy to justify having a dvd drive in this pc.

 

[PR.]

Whatever is fastest

I keep meaning to PreOrder it somewhere...

Theres a DVD Version?

 

[Sawtooth]

Im buying the boxed copy. Im always reinstalling stuff so Id only forget the password/account number , whatever.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Sawtooth
Im buying the boxed copy. Im always reinstalling stuff so Id only forget the password/account number , whatever.

ditto

 

[Jonty]

Hello!

Valve's Gary McTaggart today confirmed that, for Half-Life 2, . . .

Gary McTaggart, Valve Software
Anti-aliasing has been fixed for all cards.

Kind Regards

 

[Cdr]

Happy Little Rabbits

Happy Little Rabbits

All Happy Little Rabbits

 

[Jonty]

Sorry for deleting your post, vofflujarnid, but posts such at that tend to infuriate other community members, and I'm sure you don't want.

Kind Regards

 

[Cdr]

heh damn, now I need to edit mine

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Cdr
heh damn, now I need to edit mine

lol! Thanks Cdr

Kind Regards