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Games Entertainment

Doom 3 Alpha Leaked 819

Alex_Ionescu writes "The Doom 3 E3 Demo Alpha has leaked to the public. It looks promising, altough I'm only getting 12FPS on a Radeon 7500. Did anyone else have the chance to play it and could post their FPS? Here are some sites with more information and screenshots: here , here, here, and finally here. "
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Doom 3 Alpha Leaked

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  • by IoQuaTiX ( 162024 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:22PM (#4589416) Homepage
    is this a 'bad' leak? or was it done on purpose or what?
    • by Magila ( 138485 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:27PM (#4589463) Homepage
      It was most definatly not on purpose. It is the demo that was shown at e3 and it most likely was leaked by someone at ATI. Id seems to have gone the silent route with it, they will probably never publicly discuss this incident.
    • by einer ( 459199 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @09:01PM (#4591595) Journal
      The leak wasn't a very serious leak, despite the Drudge Report's alarmist headline [drudgereport.com], which reads "The most anticipated game in history: Doom III by ID Software has been compromised after an Alpha version was leaked... " [The link on their page actually points to this thread.]

      Basically, an alpha version containing 3 levels, got out. This is far from the whole game, and the game certainly wasn't 'compromised.' Now, on to my point... ;) I think this leak is a 'good' leak that was not done on purpose. It serves as a great demo and is certainly no more harmful than the full blown warezed copies that are sure to follow.

  • SWEET!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tadheckaman ( 578425 )
    This looks really nice... but will there be any hardware avalible that can play it?
    *ducks*
  • Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chester K ( 145560 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:23PM (#4589427) Homepage
    ...News for Nerds, 0-Day Warez!
    • by isorox ( 205688 )
      ...News for Nerds, 0-Day Warez!

      Nah, more like: News for Nerds, 3-Day Warez
      • more like 4-day :P (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dirtsurfer ( 595452 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @04:41PM (#4590293) Journal
        I was wondering when this was finally gunna show up on slashdot.
        Doom 2 is probably my favorite game EVER in terms of hours spent enjoying it, and I've been looking forward to Doom 3 ever since John Carmack mentioned the idea in his .plan. Like A lot of people, I even forked over the money for a total system upgrade just so I'll be able to get decent framerates (Althon2000, Geforce4 Ti4400, 512mb ddr2700)

        Anyway, of course I was really excited when people on efnet started mentioning an alpha being leaked, and I managed to get ahold of it that night. So I loaded it up, and played it for a few minutes.. and closed it and deleted it. Yes, it looks great. Very promising. But really, it's not worth the download. There are only 3 levels, and you can tell that even those aren't polished yet. From playing it, I learned that it's a beautiful game and awesome engine, and it's going to be fun as hell. But anyone can see that just by looking at the screenshots that have been around forever. This alpha is more of a spoiler than anything else. Instead of going out and trying to get your hands on it, you'd be better off to just wait for the real game to come out.
        • by Herkum01 ( 592704 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @07:41PM (#4591272)

          I can just see the John Carmack and his stock broker meeting,

          Stock Broker: John, you stocks have been tanking lately, and the whole IT has been hit hard. Your portfolio is starting to get a little weak.

          John Carmack: (jumps in a telephone booth, ripes off his shirt to reveal his costume, with an "IT" on his chest) The computer industry is hurting, must get it to rebound. I will create a new game, Doom 3 to save the Industry! They will all have to buy new computers to play it! That will improve my portfolio right?

          Stock Broker: Yes!

          John Carmack I am on it(leaps out the window flying to his Cubicle of Productivity)!

        • Let me put it like this...

          I got ahold of the alpha demo at around 10am on Friday.

          I played it on my GeForce2GTS at around 10:05am on Friday.

          I picked up an ATI Radeon 9700 at 5pm on Friday. Thank dawg for leaked Alphas on payday :P :)
      • ...News for Nerds, 0-Day Warez!

        Nah, more like: News for Nerds, 3-Day Warez


        Nah, more like: News for Nerds, 3-Day Warez, 5-Day Warez and 8-Day Warez.
        with all those repeat stories...

        --Azaroth
    • 7-14d dupe warez.

      seriously though, i'd like to see isonews/nforce news on the frontpage.. that would be handy
    • Yes Slashdot, what the heck!? This is theft, plain and simple. What are you doing linking to this stolen software? Get a fricking clue!
  • Leaked by ATI? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:24PM (#4589434)
    According to this site [htgk.org], the demo was leaked by an ATI employee.

    Shame on them...
    • Hmmm (Score:3, Funny)

      by tunabomber ( 259585 )
      Maybe, before he leaked it, he patched the game so that it was artificially crippled to only run at 12 FPS so that it will spur demand for ridiculously fast video cards.

      Hey, I can wear my tinfoil conspiracy hat once in a while, can't I?
  • QUAID (Score:3, Interesting)

    by D4Vr4nt ( 615027 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:25PM (#4589440) Homepage
    Start the reactor!

    Um.. Crap, I can't play it, I only have a Matrox G400. :P

    Maybe they leaked the alpha on purpose because they knew practically no one can play it. Well unless of course you just stare at the ground the entire game.

    Looks really cool though, do we get a chainsaw again?
    • It's going to require a HW T&L card (like ut2k3 and bf1942 and others).

      That means geforce1 or higher, or radeon or higher. Nothing by matrox before the para-whatsit has T&L AFAIK.
    • Re:QUAID (Score:3, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      it's pretty playable(as what comes to speed) .. and very non-dukenukemware. that is, it looks like they'll get it done quite fast. and it's scary as fuck.

      besides, part of the horror of the doom1 was for me that when too many moonsters came i couldnt possibly shoot em all because my comp slowed down

    • Re:QUAID (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is a chainsaw in the alpha. give weapon_chainsaw give the player what appears to be the chainfist thingy from Q3, but it has no sound or animation and bizarrely see through. Also present are the plasma gun (give weapon_plasmagun) and rocket launcher (give weapon_rocketlauncher) from Q3. It runs fine on any recent machine i.e. Athlon XP or P4 with Geforce 3 or 4 or Radeon. There are some frame rate issues, but then it is an alpha.
  • I got a copy (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aztek ( 260107 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:25PM (#4589443) Homepage
    I got a copy from other places and trust me you guys arnt missing much. When id says 'alpha' they mean it.
  • by Speedy8 ( 594486 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:26PM (#4589450) Journal
    I wonder if this story has anything to do with the ad at the top of it for a Radeon 9700...
  • newsgroup downloads (Score:4, Informative)

    by MoceanWorker ( 232487 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:27PM (#4589457) Homepage
    for those who don't want to bother with the mirror site and just download from newsgroups..

    alt.binaries.games.worms is offering the Doom III Alpha copy..

    there will be plenty of reposts.. so take your time :-)
  • My FPS... (Score:5, Informative)

    by sailor420 ( 515914 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:27PM (#4589462) Homepage
    My machine is a p4 2.4 w/ a 64mb Radeon 8500. I have 512 megs DDR. Running at 800x600, medium detail, with bumpmapping enable, I am averaging around 20-25 FPS.

    Try killing any and all non essential processes running in the background. Also, try killing and multiple monitors (just unclick the "extend my desktop...", you dont have to pull other cards out).
    • ALPHA (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Remember its only in alpha stage, and in no way is the code even closed to being optimized.
  • It's Too Bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:30PM (#4589482) Homepage
    I don't like these software "leaks". They mess things up, IMHO. Let's take this program for example (I'll point out I haven't played it, I have a GeForce 2 Go and I'm not a masochist).

    One possibility of what will happen is what seems common to me when things are leaked. People play it, and they like/dislike a certain feature. Then when it's taken out/changed, they complain, when they never would have seen it (or missed it) otherwise. When people get to play something like this, they seem to think that it's their game.

    Another possibility is that people play it and think it's the best game ever (and when it changes, complain, as above). If this doesn't happen, then the other extreme does, and that one seems a bit common to me. People play it, it's got lots of problems (it's an internal alpha, what do you expect) and so they say it's terrible, etc when the work on it is no where near complete. So when it DOES come out, alot of these people have already made up their minds.

    I do think that this is news, and I'm glad it made it onto slashdot, but I DON'T think that slashdot should be posting mirrors to the leaked alpha (I know they'd show up in the comments but still...)

    • by isorox ( 205688 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:43PM (#4589588) Homepage Journal
      I DON'T think that slashdot should be posting mirrors to the leaked alpha

      iD was worried about the leak, so they submitted to slashdot to stop people downloading. If a server cant take a 50kb page being slashdotted, what about an xxxMB file?
      • Never thought about that. "Son, you must only use the Slashdot effect for good, never for evil. You may also use it on friday nights as long as you fill up the gas tank and bring it back in one piece." Oh wait.
  • by wahgnube ( 557787 ) <slashtrash@wahgnube.org> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:31PM (#4589492) Homepage Journal
    And in other news (TOTALLY UNRELATED) today, sales of high end Nvidia and ATI cards goes up by 1000%.
  • leaked on purpose? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thopo ( 315128 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:36PM (#4589532)
    since this alpha seems to be heavily optimized for the R300 aka ATI9700 (or more precisely: not optimized AT ALL for any other card) it might have been leaked on purpose so the FramesPerSecond-Whores (hello Kyle Bennett) out there run to the shops to get theit 9700 to play the shiny new Doom3.

    or maybe it was leaked just in time for the NV30 to demonstrate that it does kick the 9700's butt in Doom3. sure it was leaked by an ATI employee?
    • by saldek ( 139594 )
      Since they only planned to use the alpha for a few demonstrations at E3, it's not really surprising that they optimized it to run as fast as possible on their test setup only.
  • by npongratz ( 319266 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:37PM (#4589537)
    http://www.thegameclans.com/doom3pics/high%20res/s hot0054.jpg [thegameclans.com]

    Do those urinals have CAMERAS strategically attached to them????? Creepy...
  • Um... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:38PM (#4589546) Homepage
    Has anyone noticed that the links in this article are ILLEGAL? And not just controversial, civil-disobedience, megacoprs-bought-the-law-to-oppress-us "illegal", but violation-of-NDA and warez-illegal? I thought at least the Slashdot editors were smarter and more ethical than this.
    • Re:Um... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @03:12PM (#4589761)
      Has anyone noticed that the links in this article are ILLEGAL?

      I don't totally agree with your point, but I do agree that it is very poor judgment on the part of Slashdot's editors to post those links. Linking to leaked software is very close to linking to warez, IMO.

      I wonder if the same thing would have been done with a leaked pre-release version of Photoshop or MS Office? Probably not.

      • Linking to leaked software is very close to linking to warez, IMO.

        Yeah, why should I buy the full version of Doom III now, when I have a bug-ridden alpha demo that runs at a crappy frame rate?

        The big difference here is that linking to warez theoretically hurts sales of the software. No sane person could believe that this does.
    • I thought at least the Slashdot editors were smarter and more ethical than this.

      Removing those links would not serve any usefull purpose but would set an indecent precedent. Anyone able to handle eDonkey or relatives already finds the file in plenty. But i think, postings with links to it should be moderated down not up.

      Yours, Martin

    • Re:Um... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by |<amikaze ( 155975 )
      violation-of-NDA and warez-illegal

      OK, so what NDA did CmdrTaco et al sign that prevents them from spreading this around? What EULA did they agree to? They aren't breaking a contract, since they didn't SIGN a contract.
  • by zaffir ( 546764 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:43PM (#4589583)
    Taken from HTGK, no word on it's validity, but still interesting:

    "Xian> ATI leaked it
    Xian> oh we will. We are hoping our rep gets fired.
    Xian> John sent them a flame mail yesterday basically saying "This has hurt our relationship"
    Xian> haha, no
    Xian> not really
    Xian> they sent us a development laptop with a full build of Unreal Warfare on it
    Xian> yep
    Xian> Well, we deleted it
    Xian> that's a whole can of worms we don't want to get into
    Xian> yeah, well, ATI has clearly violated our NDA
    Xian> we thought about that.
    Xian> but, no
    Xian> ATI is on our shitlist right now
    Xian> we are not dealing with them until further notice
    Xian> no, it's not public chiQ
    Xian> We know ATI leaked it. We watermark all releases
    Xian> Squiggle: ATI has a relaxed policy about pre-release software. Remeber, they gave us a laptop that had Unreal Warfare loaded on it 3 months ago
    Xian> They don't seem to care about strict enforcement of NDA's
    Xian> on a positive note, people seem to *REALLY LIKE* the leaked shit"
  • by dw3ll ( 227713 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:48PM (#4589609)
    I don't believe slashdot posted this. Isn't it considered piracy in the worst form? Now EVERYONE on the planet will be after a copy (as ever 1/2 the world was not after it already). Sucked that JC's labor of love is exposed to the world in such an incomplete state.

    I will get off my moral high horse now and look for a copy :)
  • What are the odds on /. taking this story down by 8am tomorrow morning? I mean, really, did they check to see if Id intentionally leaked this?
  • Unreal alpha (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dexter77 ( 442723 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:55PM (#4589648)
    Unreal alpha also leaked before it was released. It also required twice as much memory and processor power than the final version.

    I wouldn't draw any conclusions about the 3D-engine efficiency before the final version is released.
  • by simetra ( 155655 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @02:58PM (#4589665) Homepage Journal
    Why Do Games and Game Studios Fail? [slashdot.org]


    Yesterday we cried because games and game studios fail. Today we rejoice because an up-coming game has been leaked. We want to have our cake and eat it too. This mentality is a good part of the reason our types aren't taken seriously.

    • Oh get real. This is an unstable alpha with only 3 maps. It's not like anyone is going to keep playing this instead of buying the real version when it (finally) comes out!
    • by Rew190 ( 138940 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @03:28PM (#4589852)
      No, this is a test of a gaming engine, not a full-fledged game.

      This is by far not a finished product, and shouldn't be treated as such. The folks who are downloading this are mostly interested in getting a rough idea of how the finished product is going to run on their computer and what this engine is capable of doing.

      All this does is pique interest in the finished product. This is not it. Make the distinction.
    • I guess you will have a point, IF Doom 3 fails because of this.

      I.e. you have no point.

  • Get Better FPS (Score:2, Informative)

    To get the leaked doom alpha running a little smoother or your POS system. Open the "doomconfig.cfg" in wordpad (not notepad, as it can screw things up sometimes). Scroll to the bottom of the file, and work your way up changing the following settings:

    seta r_ext_compress_textures "1" seta r_colorbits "16" seta r_depthbits "16" seta r_mode "3" seta r_fullscreen "1" seta r_shadows "0" seta r_useStandardGL "1"

    This should get your fps up a little bit, but you will lose some very nice eye candy!
  • by abe ferlman ( 205607 ) <bgtrio@nOSpaM.yahoo.com> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @03:09PM (#4589728) Homepage Journal
    Will winex run it?

    Or am I going to have to install that leaked version of Longhorn after all?

  • Just say no... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JensR ( 12975 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @03:09PM (#4589730) Homepage
    It's a shame that Slashdot actually links to this software. Id software and John Carmack have been very supportive of the community, ignoring reverse engineering even though their licenses don't allow it and giving a lot of information about the technologies. All you should NEED until the game is released are screenshots and the movies. So don't spoil it for you and others.
  • by Cornelius the Great ( 555189 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @03:09PM (#4589733)
    Keep in mind that this version is the same version used at the E3 presentation, which means it was optimized for a Radeon 9700, which has been boasting some pretty impressive fps scores. I get only about 20 fps on my Geforce4ti/4200 (128mb version), and my framerate drops below 5 when more than 1 monster is on the screen.

    If you want the demo, don't use filesharing apps...they've been too unreliable for the file. Try doin a search on packetnews for IRC channels that host the file (I got mine at addictz.net #datavault).
  • by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @03:17PM (#4589787)
    System:

    AMD T-Bird 1400, 512 mb ddr, Creative GF4 Ti4200.
    Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3.
    30.82 NVIDIA Detonator Drivers.

    Running at 640x480x32, I average at 30 fps when using low quality settings. When there's heavy action on screen, the framerates drop below 5. The intro "map e3\intro" is absolutely jaw dropping, albeit beit pretty slow on my machine. After watching the intro and playing around with the 3 included maps, I have no wonders that people at E3 were complaining that "Stop showing us the pre-rendered stuff, show us the engine" to which ID employees responded with something along the lines of "Well, this *IS* the engine". My knowledge of English is not good enough to be able to express how impressive this thing is. The scary atmosphere, lighting, shadows, creepy noises. ID did it all right. This is far from the "real thing", as it's only an Alpha of the engine that was shown months ago and the full game is still months off. Still. Two Words: My GOD.

    P.S: I hear that this thing also has Multiplayer and the Editor included as well, but you have to hack around to get them to work.
  • I click in to read this article and I see a banner ad at the top from ATI for a Radeon 9700.
  • ATI leak (Score:5, Funny)

    by smallstepforman ( 121366 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @04:58PM (#4590381)
    I can imagine the atmosphere at iD headquarters near Dallas right now;
    John - "Damn bastards, the ATI folk. They leaked the alpha."
    Xian - "We've got to punish ATI somehow for this."
    John - "I know, I'll cripple performance on ATI cards. I'll just insert a sleep() function call here and half the framerate when I detect an ATI card. That will teach them."
    Xian - "Excellent."
  • It is a Debug Build (Score:3, Informative)

    by Paladine97 ( 467512 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @05:20PM (#4590483) Homepage
    I checked it out and it is easily a debug build. There debug symbols are intact as well as linking to OutputDebugString. Therefore, it is HIGHLY unoptimized, so don't even count on getting any decent FPS.
  • by Chicane-UK ( 455253 ) <chicane-uk@[ ]world.com ['ntl' in gap]> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @05:22PM (#4590498) Homepage
    These are linked on some of the many different threads relating to this story, but for those of you in a rush and not wanting to look around.

    Admittedly this will make the game look nowhere as amazing as it currently does, but these two tweaks (which you can enter on the console) worked wonders for me...

    r_useStandardGL 1 - the default is set to '0' - using this toggle will disable the bump mapping.

    r_shadows 0 - the default is set to '1' - using this toggle will disable the dynamic shadows which, whilst looking amazing, melt your computer.

    Some other things worth noting that I have discovered... if you edit the 'runact.cfg' (which if you have downloaded this leaked copy, you will know you have to exec - and it takes about 5 minutes loading up textures and stuff) - if you comment out the bottom three of the top 4 'exec' statements to read like :


    exec activate_demo1
    #exec activate_demo2
    #exec activate_demo3
    #exec activate_intro


    That 'exec runact.cfg' takes a hella lot less time and the game seems to run as normal.

    One last thing.. should we even be talking about this? I know that John Carmack reads /. - I am sure it must be reassuring for him and the id team to see how much people are wanting (and enjoying) this game but he must be pretty pissed about the whole affair!
    • I found the r_enableDoomIII 0 command worked wonders on my machine. Of course, the game looks a lot like a Windows desktop with that setting disabled. Still, I got like 80 fps on my Neomagic 128 card on my laptop. Can't beat that.

      Erik
  • Whether or not (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JayFlatland ( 125245 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @05:38PM (#4590585)
    posting this story was a moral thing for slashdot to do, it's still the biggest news event in gaming for quite a while. Can't expect the press to not spread the news.

  • by ThesQuid ( 86789 ) <a987NO@SPAMmac.com> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @08:06PM (#4591372) Journal
    This just in! Slashdot has made the Drudgereport! [drudgereport.com] I wonder if the barrage of new traffic will be too much for the new servers to bear....
  • by yorgasor ( 109984 ) <(ten.shcetirt) (ta) (nor)> on Sunday November 03, 2002 @08:26PM (#4591453) Homepage
    Now I enjoy FPS as much as the next guy. I was hooked on Doom I/II more than anyone else I knew at the time. And when I first looked at the screenshots of this game I was shocked at the quality of the rendering, how much more realistic the scenes were than other 3D FPS games I've seen. It looked like it would be a fantastic game. But then I saw a few other screenshots of guys getting blown away, with their intestines hanging out, the various bullet wounds and blood splatter on the wall, and I felt a little uncomfortable. Everyone wants to see their games look more realistic, but where do we draw the line? Do we want to see every bullet hole? Every organ? Fingers, partial heads, various limbs and appendagest all being blown off? There seems like there's a point where this begins to be unhealthy.

    Now I'm not saying everyone playing this game will turn into serial killers, or anything like that. I'm not saying it's going to be the downfall of our generation. Blowing up monsters, aliens, various creatures, 'bad guys' etc has been a big part of my life, and those games have all been fun without needing highly detailed portions of their remains scattered around the level.

    I guess my question is, are other people turned off by more realistic, graphic gore? Will FPS games quest for more realistic games turn to be their downfall, or will they start to modify them so, although the texture & enemies look more realistic, the actual shooting will be less intense? Or will they include an option where the user can choose to play ultra-graphic violent mode, or a more toned down version appropriate for younger players?

  • Damnit. (Score:5, Informative)

    by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @09:15PM (#4591655)
    No, this was not leaked on purpose.

    Yes, we are upset about it, and it will have some impact on how we deal with some companies in the future, but nothing drastic is going to change in terms of what support is going to be available.

    Making any judgements from a snapshot intended for a non-interactive demo is ill advised.

    John Carmack
    • re: Damnit. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why don't you guys act positively then in this situation?

      The leak is out, and known about it. Instead of having websites that are desperate to cater to id's wish (eg, Shacknews.com) by buying their heads in the sand and pretending this doesn't exist, or sending Christian around like a good little stormtrooper to cease and desist sites hosting pictures....

      Why not officially release some pictures? Why not just make an official announcement thats somethings been leaked?
    • Re:Damnit. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ShooterNeo ( 555040 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @11:37PM (#4592227)
      Maybe this is begging the question, but WHY are you mad? It seems rather unlikely that this leak will hurt you in the slightest way in terms of sales of the future game. The people who have the hardware capable of trying it and are savvy enough to download it mostly know what "alpha" means. Anyway, if you were really worried about fans losing interest because of buggy demos, why release tech demos? I recall some of the Quake tech demos were extremely buggy and almost unplayable on some computers, yet it didn't seem to dampen fan enthusiasm.

      The only thing I see that might be irritating is that ATI seems to have broken trust with you.
      • Re:Damnit. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tcc ( 140386 ) on Monday November 04, 2002 @01:05AM (#4592586) Homepage Journal
        > Maybe this is begging the question, but WHY are you mad?

        You're working on a project for over a year

        You want gamers and other end-people to see and experience the FINAL result, maybe create some noise by having CONTROLLED (i.e. being very precise about what you want and don't want to show yet) demos.

        You do some deals with some Hardware companies because hardware/drivers development is getting more and more complex and at some point in the development, it's easier to send an alpha build for the hardware company to do the QA on their drivers or reproduce specific bugs that you don't want to explain or make a little application to reproduce it (especially when it's getting to a point where it's a pile of little bugs left and right).

        This is a good thing for the Game dev team and a good thing for the hardware team: they get to demo their technology in closed doors and the Game dev team gets better feedback and optimizations from the vendors where it can get optimized at the driver level. Also having more people on the QA testing of the engine doesn't hurt.

        Naturally, all of this is confined with NDAs and closed environment, and I am sure the Vendors are in the obligation to make any investors or customers viewing anything more than what was shown publicly at E3 or any other demos to sign NDAs.

        Now, every users can download UNFINISHED work, probably a RUSHED build so that they could make the demo on time, and have first hand EXPERIENCE with this build, while having first hand experience with a final build would be even better, now it will be only an "evolution" instead of a bigger bang that what people experienced with this leaked build.

        While everyone here LOVES John's work, I don't want to speak for him, but personally I'd be seriously pissed at the person/company ruining the momentum I wanted to bring with a FINAL POLISHED product, in such a fashion. Of course the final will rock and people will love it, but until then, this shouldn't have happened and some head will fall for this. The people responsible for this leak will obviously have their head chopped off and better be looking for a job outside the graphics/game industry.

        Anyways, we'll probably never know the whole truth on this but early reports seems to point at ATI... I'll wait for the official confirmation but if it would be them, as a (small) shareholder of ATI in my RSPs, I sure would be VERY disapointed at them.

        I wouldn't be surprised for this to come from a hardware vendor, expecially after seeing some Drivers QA labs, When you hire "kids" to play games and do a bit of work, pay them a "kid" salary, and have more or less supervision, you can't ask them for being highly professionnal people and act like if they were CEOs with the same responsiblities and engagement, like one of my friend says (working at another company), you get what you pay for. Still, it's a shame if it would be ATI.

    • Re:Damnit. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Chicane-UK ( 455253 ) <chicane-uk@[ ]world.com ['ntl' in gap]> on Monday November 04, 2002 @03:32AM (#4592951) Homepage
      John,

      Whilst it is unfortunate that this was leaked, I think you should take some comfort in the fact that just about everyone who has tried this out is absolutely blown away by it. Not just by the stunning visuals, but by the scary atmosphere, the awesome sound, and just about everything else. This is the first game that has scared the hell out of me in ages..

      The game rules.. I cannot WAIT to buy the full version.
    • Re:Damnit. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Greyjack ( 24290 ) on Monday November 04, 2002 @03:37AM (#4592964) Homepage
      A thought for those of y'all wondering why id might be piqued (to put it mildly) that this was released early:

      Sure, you're still going to buy the game. However, have you thought that perhaps iD doesn't want their competitors to have a detailed look at what's coming?

      In an industry where a technological lead for your graphics engine == mucho $$$ from engine licensing sales, the less their competitors know, the better.

      I'm sure that *nobody* at Epic or Monolith has pulled this down from edonkey and checked it out yet. No sir, no way.
  • by DarkVein ( 5418 ) on Sunday November 03, 2002 @11:51PM (#4592277) Journal
    Probably nobody will read this. That's okay. Nobody should have to read anything they have to make an educated decision about believing or not.

    The demo is completely CPU bound. I get the same framerates from r_mode 1 to r_mode 7 (400x300->1280x1024), on my Ti4600. Supposedly all optimizations were removed from this particular build for some stress testing that ATI wanted.

    Now, I'm not sure what that stress test could be, in ATI's case. Probably s_noUpdates 1;s_restart; and notarget would knock most of the software-proccessed 5.1 audio and AI, so ATI might have wanted to do brute-force fillrate tests.

    Anyhow, if anyone scrolls down this far, I figured they might want to know that the demo is CPU bound, completely unoptimized, and that the final game will, without question, be highly optimized.

    Also, the binaries are stripped. :)

Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. -- Philippe Schnoebelen

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