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First Person Shooters (Games)

Doom 3 Expansion and Xbox Version 83

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-the-movie dept.
id Software revealed today that early April will see the release of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, and an Xbox port of the original Doom 3 shooter. From the article: "This is DOOM 3 built for the Xbox, including 480p and wide-screen support, full Xbox Live multiplayer, and the Xbox exclusive 2-player co-op campaign. For fans of DOOM 3 on the PC, Resurrection of Evil takes you to the undiscovered depths of the UAC's Mars base and back to Hell itself for a vicious new battle with the forces of evil and the most ferocious demons imaginable."
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Doom 3 Expansion and Xbox Version More

Doom 3 Expansion and Xbox Version

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  • Doom hasn't been very successful outside of the PC world. Are there ANY PC games that have been successful when ported to console?

    I can think of a couple for vice-versa situation...
    • Depends on your definition of successful. In general, console games vastly outsell PC games.
    • The Sims. #1 game of all time in terms of units sold.
    • Halo was basically a pc to xbox port, and it sold quite well.
      • It wasn't a PC to Xbox port. Sure it started development on the PC and Mac, but once it was made for Xbox, it was developed specifically for the Xbox. If it was a PC port as you say then the PC version would've had a much better frame rate.
    • Grand Theft Auto
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • GTA1 and 2 were PC-only. GTA3 and GTA:VC were first developed for PS2 and then later ported to PC and XBox (which is what they're doing with San Andreas too).
          • GTA and GTA 2 were available on PS1, and there was a cut-down port of GTA 2 to gameboy colour. I've played both the GTA 2 ports, they are both terrible compared to the PC version, and the fact you'd never encountered them implies they weren't that successful. I'd have thought GTA (being older and designed for less powerful machines than the playstation) would have been OK on PS1.

            There may well have been other versions too.

            Side note, you can download GTA 1 and 2 PC for free (and legally) at Rockstar. [rockstargames.com]
        • Huh? I distinctly remember remapping the keys on GTA3 and Vice City. But yes, they did come out originally on the PS2.

          At least the PC versions let you aim with the mouse, rather than having to muck around with a lock-on system.

    • There are plenty of successful FPS's on consoles, I can't imagine why they wouldn't be able to do well with Doom 3 (as far as porting is concerned).

  • hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Staplerh ( 806722 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @05:52PM (#11622964) Homepage
    Wow, on one level the URL leads to a press release-esque article, trumpeting the successes of Doom III and predicting great things for the future. No criticism or critical thought is apparent there, but I have some problems.

    I've seen screenshots of the doom III proposed port to the XBox, and I've also wondered how the XBox will run Doom III - given the XBox's technical inferiority to top-end systems.

    My money would say that Doom III will be a failure as an Xbox port, after the intial surge of players that are interested in playing. Any opposing thoughts, or insight into the Xbox graphical system that would allow Doom III on Xbox to look anywhere near as good as it does on a top-end PC?

    Cheers.
    • Doom III runs nearly fine on my 900mhz, 312MB PC100 ram, GeForce2 MX system.

      Im sure the XBOX can handle it, especially if they turn off some of the mandatory settings (that i would have turned down - for instance LOW detail looked pretty friggin high to me)

    • Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Evil Couch ( 621105 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @06:03PM (#11623106) Homepage
      one of the problems with PC games versus console games is that console developers can tweak all the settings to make their game squeeze every ounce of power out of the console.

      in developing PC games, you can't tweak your code that finely, because you have to support a wide variety of machines.

      take as an example, Splinter Cell for Xbox. A game that was incredibly graphics intensive, featuring quite a few effects that would choke a machine with the exact same specs.

      I think doom3 will be successful on the xbox, but not nearly to the extent that it was on the PC.

      • take as an example, Splinter Cell for Xbox. A game that was incredibly graphics intensive, featuring quite a few effects that would choke a machine with the exact same specs

        If it had the exact same specs, it would perform exactly the same.

        • Nope, a PC with equivilent hardware is still a PC. The video card might have an nVidia chip in it, but it could be from one of many manufacturers. So could the motherboard, HDD, sound card, etc. The drivers and firmware would be different, as would the operating environment.

          On the console, the hardware is consistant and known to the programmers. They can optimize the code of the game to take full advantage of this. Try that with a PC game and it might work great on some computers, but would probably n
          • The point I was making is that if it has exactly the same specifications, then it would be an X-Box.
            • True, but an unmodified modern PC game running on any XBox-spec machine (including an XBox) is going to choke. The solution is to heavily optimize for the specific specs of the XBox. The parent was saying that a generic PC version of Splinter Cell would choke on an Xbox-level PC.
            • That's not a point. It was an attempt at humour, and you failed.
        • If it had the exact same specs, it would perform exactly the same. Well not really since there is much less overhead "read software and extra useless drivers". The fact that each console has a set of known hardware makes it easier to great really nice looking games. Now actual game play and play ability thats another thread.

    • Re:hmm (Score:1)

      by dipo ( 224074 )
      My old GF4ti (XP2400+1GB) ran D with descent FPS (35) in 800x600. It was playable and looked nearly as cool as on my new 6600GT. Only the Resolution (800 vs. 1152), the effects (glas,heat) and the textures (med vs. high) were the differences.

      The xbox-GPU is a GF4ti!
      With lower resolution, fewer polygons, fewer and low-res textures, fewer effects and simple maps, i think the Xbox could handle the game with 25-30 FPS.
      With this restrictions it could do it without xxxx MHz an xxxMB RAM.

    • A bear in the forest (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @06:48PM (#11623617) Homepage
      When you and your best bud see a bear in the forest, it's best to run fast... but not necessarily faster than the bear, just faster than your bud.

      So in this case, why does Doom3 have to look anywhere near as good as on a top end PC? It only has to look as good as on a $200 PC.

      What? No $200 PC will play Doom 3?

      Well, then it only has to look as good as Halo2 on XBox. Do you think that's possible? Will it look better?
    • Any opposing thoughts, or insight into the Xbox graphical system that would allow Doom III on Xbox to look anywhere near as good as it does on a top-end PC?

      I played Doom III on the Xbox at last year's E3. I was impressed by the level of detail and light effects they were able to include. This was at NTSC resolution on an ordinary TV. I would not be surprised if 480p on an HDTV revealed some flaws, but what I saw looked pretty nice. You can see a crappy movie I took here [wordhole.net]. Notice that it has just as m
    • It *was* a press release. It said that in big, bold letters at the top of the page. It doesn't get much more press release-esque than a press release.

      Regarding your comments about it failing on the Xbox, it certainly won't look as good as the PC version - the Xbox GPU doesn't support shaders, so they're probably redoing a lot of the lighting in texture work. The realtime lighting is the thing that makes Doom such a dog, I'm sure once that's stripped out, it should run pretty well.

  • Unconfirmed title-rumors. (Score:5, Funny)

    by rylin ( 688457 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @05:53PM (#11622980)
    Doom 3: Bigger and Blacker
    Doom 3: The hunt for more Black
    Doom 3: Monitor Standby
    Doom 3: The Missing Flashlight

    anyone else have any?

  • Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by opposume ( 600667 )
    Is this microsofts attempt to corner the FPS market in the console gaming industry? First Halo now this? I'm not big on console gaming so I'm not sure what's available for the others but this seems to be a huge thing for the xbox that the other consoles don't have yet...
    • It is really only because the Xbox is just powerful (barely) powerful enough to run a port of Doom III. Plus, it is friendly to those used to programming for PC, thus the developers figured they could squeeze some more cash out by making an Xbox version. A GameCube version might have been more difficult to make a PS2 version near impossible.

  • PC getting the shaft.... again..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dousk ( 829088 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @05:59PM (#11623060)
    Not including co-operative mode for the PC is beyond my comprehension :-/ Do they think that PC users are all lone freaks?
    • They did this with Halo as well - I had it on the XBox and for the Mac, and it broke my heart that the PC version had no co-op, which was really the most enjoyable way to play the game. For gods sake, stop doing this, game companies!
      • Is Doom 3 Xbox co-op over Live/LAN? In that case, I can empathise with you wanting it on the PC versions. What if it's splitscreen though? How would you make PC Doom 3 cope with dual keyboard/mouse? Wouldn't Windoze get ever so slightly confused? Of course it would be relatively easy to provide alternative modes for both PC and Xbox, so I can see your point about PC getting the shaft. Probably comes down to "lazy" developers and some requirement for a unique Xbox selling point (low pre-sales expectations
    • There has been a rumour about this that Microsoft paid id for the exclusive rights to a co-op mode on the Xbox, hence why we wont see co-op mode on the PC. I have been hoping doom3 would be co-op since this is a game that would be much much enjoyable when your blasting away the minions of hell with your friend alongside of you. I guess us people with the good looking graphics wont get to enjoy this part, but the low resolution TV boys will.

    • Dang lameness filter...

      YES, They do!

    • There's actually a pretty good technical reason why co-op mode is almost never supported on PC games, but can be done in split-screen mode on consoles.

      In split-screen mode, you only need to keep one copy of everything, and therefore you have no need to keep two sets of data in sync. Plus you don't have to deal with latency issues.

      For networked PC users, once you split it up so you have to maintain two, three, four, X number of copies of data (one for each client), then the complexity increases exponentia
      • and even then you still see warping players due to low latency.

        I know it's bad form to reply to my own posts... but that should've read HIGH latency.

        Sigh... I really should proofread my posts before hitting that 'Submit' button...

      • Yeah sure it is more difficult. But honestly if you strip the front end stuff (graphics and audio) the core game of Doom 3 is not much more complicated than Serious Sam or hell, Doom 2. Ok I am oversimplifying a bit but really - if game modders can develop a coop mod for Far Cry, I find it hard to believe a network coop for Doom 3 was not possible to do.
        I think not worth the extra development time, or not put in to give the Xbox version something unique is more likely.
  • I'm sure I saw an advert in this month's PC Format (UK) that said it (the PC expansion pack) was out in February. I guess they must've needed a bit more time.

  • Online Co-op?? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @06:14PM (#11623242)
    It doesn't say if it's online co-op or have a friend over co-op I know this engine will be stripped down, but it's still the Doom 3 engine. If it is online, then Bungie's excuse for no online co-op (in Halo 2) b/c the engine is too complex and gameplay would suffer is weak at best.
    • Oh, that excuse was weak from the start. The real reason is obviously that they didn't want to netcode the monsters. If Serious Sam can do co-op online with the kinds of monster counts it had (breaking the hundred mark is common), anybody can.

  • Excellent (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @06:33PM (#11623440)
    I wonder if there will be a part where you pick up an item and some monsters jump out at you?
  • I hope they will include a decent Multiplayer in the expansion pack ; We'll probably have to wait for Quake IV to get that though.

  • I am wondering if they will be budging with the flashlight ; Allthough I think it's a very understandable design decision not to be able to wield a gun and the flashlight at the same time, the ammount of flak they've been getting for it , might make them budge to , all of a sudden, let a crate of mountable flashlights be delivered to the UAC base ;)

  • The exclusive Limited Collector's Edition also includes full versions of the original Ultimate DOOM(TM) and DOOM II(R) playable in single player, or split-screen co-op or deathmatch with 2-4 players on one Xbox.

    I'd been hoping to see classic DooM action on the Xbox Live! service. I think it'd be especially suitable for one of the first online co-op/deathmatch games be available on what is (reportedly) the best unified online gaming service around, console or PC. Not that I'm going to play it anytime soon

    • Uh, after the Xbox is discontinued I wouldn't expect to see a lot of support for it on Xbox Live.
      Ports of Doom are available for free, if you have a modded Xbox. You still need the original game wad files. I haven't checked out networking support, I'm not sure if any of the ports feature it.
  • So, lets get this straight ...
    Its possible to do Doom 3 on a 7xxMHz PC with the equivalent of a Geforce 3 ?

    bring it on .. I wanna know why the spec's for running it under linux aint so low!
    • So, lets get this straight ...
      Its possible to do Doom 3 on a 7xxMHz PC with the equivalent of a Geforce 3 ?

      Well, they do have Carmack and standardized hardware going for them, which are two huge assets in creating a badass engine.
    • If you wanted to hire John Carmack to spend a few months personally optimizing Doom 3 for your machine, I'm sure it would work just as well.

  • xBox specifications (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dixie Flatliner ( 850959 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @10:28PM (#11625629)
    I'm tired of hearing the argument that a 733mhz nvidia nv30 chipset is incapable of performing to the calibur of a new pc. This is a bunk conclusion for a couple of reasons.

    1. The xBox is not stock hardware, it's a dedicated task machine built around it's own instruction sets, that can handle tasks that require processor (cpu or gpu) on a pc, automatically.

    2. The xBox only need output at resolutions ranging from (tv resolutions converted to pc resoltions) 640x480 to 1024x768, and can achieve much higher preceived detail with lower resolution textures (for a easy way to experience this, simply hook up the video out on your graphics card to your tv, and run your favorite game, you'll notice while the resolution is low, the textures seem richer then normal)

    3. The xBox does not run a shell OS, only a runtime environment, without added resources.

    4. The xBox need only be configured to run one application.

    5. Games on the xBox can be optimized to the extreme, since there is no need to ensure compatibility.
    • Good post, and the rest of your points are interesting. However point number #1 isn't correct: "can handle tasks that require processor (cpu or gpu) on a pc, automatically".

      The XBox has similar chips to a regular PC: GPU, CPUs, TV output chips... and the instruction set on the chips isn't that different from regular ones too. I think the key is the hypertransport link - which PCs contemporary to the XBox did not have (now, Apple motherboards, and AMD 64 motherboards do). From what I recall, the hypertransp

  • Wow! This should be a great expansion! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by snuf23 ( 182335 ) on Wednesday February 09, 2005 @11:38PM (#11626167)
    ...undiscovered depths of the UAC's Mars base"


    Wow! What an amazing and unique choice of setting! I wonder if it will look like the discovered depths of the Mars base.

  • Im not so sure Doom 3 is actually going to be released for the xbox _ever_.

    As anyone who has _tried_ to play it knows. Doom 3 needs more than a regular machine to run properly so the xbox version has been drastically severed, models have lost half their polycount, some of the lighting tricks had been cut off, the levels have been reduced, etc. (which strikes me as odd since RIDDICK uses similar technology and runs without a hitch in the console) some fans may be dissapointed with the result. (not to mentio

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