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Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

Doom 3 System Requirements Revealed 867

Posted by CmdrTaco from the time-for-a-new-video-card dept.
The Llama King writes "The Houston Chronicle's Computing column has got the Doom 3 minimum system requirements. Biggest eye-opener: 384 MB of memory. Lots of mainstream PCs have been sold with 256 MB of RAM, so upgrades will be in order. RAM chip manufacturers should be salivating about now. You'll also need a 1.5-GHz processor and a GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500 graphics card or better."
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Doom 3 System Requirements Revealed More

Doom 3 System Requirements Revealed

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  • thats it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by inf0c0m ( 83209 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:31AM (#9748685) Homepage
    is it just me or is anyone else suprised?

    even the desktops i order at work come with more than the minimum requirements (1gb ram, 2.4+ processor, geforce 4 (or equiv)).

    but i suppose this is minimum requirements...recommended will be much more.

    • Re:thats it? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Mysticode ( 696150 )
      Although most (all?) new machines are going to meet these specs. There are a number of people out there (me for one) that will have to upgrade to meet the minimum specs. I have Duron 1.3 with 384MB RAM. Atleast I don't need to upgrade my video card - Radion 9600

    • Re:thats it? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Threni ( 635302 )
      I'm surprised it got an article on Slashdot in it's own right, given that the information was posted as a comment to the last Doom3 story here. I guess we're going to see lots more exciting Doom3 facts and figures here.
    • I'm surprised at the desktops your "work" uses. Many small businesses rely on dumb terminals, some loaded with windows 98. I think the biggest upset here is the graphics card. Gamers will have to expend an additional $200 just to run the game in 'OK' mode?

      • Re:thats it? (Score:3, Informative)

        by athakur999 ( 44340 )
        Doom III's "Okay" mode will probably look just as good as the "High Quality" mode on the games that were popular a year or two ago. If you want the new eye candy that Doom III's "High Quality" mode will provide, then you need a card capable of handling all that eye candy. OTOH, if you're happy with the quality you're used to seeing, then you should be fine using the card you already have.

        • Re:thats it? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Merk ( 25521 )

          Not quite. Particularly in an atmospheric (aka dark) game like Doom 3, I bet most of the levels will be designed for a certain level of graphics performance. Although the game may play ok at the minimum settings, it will be really hard to get through these sections because you won't be seeing what the level designer saw.

          It's like trying to play a modern flight sim at 320x240. The framerate might be OK, but your instruments would be unuseable, and because the designers assumed the instruments would be

    • Re:thats it? (Score:4, Funny)

      by ScottGant ( 642590 ) <scott_gant AT sbcglobal DOT netNOT> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:40AM (#9748837) Homepage
      But once again they have to cater to the lowest common denominator. There are always those people out there that have the computer they bought 15 years ago and want it to last a lifetime and then go:

      "back in my day we could program everything in 640k of RAM, that's all you need and we were THANKFULL to get it! And we loved it! We didn't need more than 4 colors on our CGA displays. Why doesn't Doom 3 work on that? Guess they don't know how to program! Oh...have to go, Matlock is on..."

      • Re:thats it? (Score:3, Funny)

        by bstone ( 145356 )
        Well, back in my day, the mainframe had 32K, and the tube was black and green. And we were happy to have it!! ('course, the only game we had was sorting a tray full of punched cards ... but it was FUN and we LOVED it)

        What? Matlock's on ... gotta go...

    • Re:thats it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Albanach ( 527650 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:43AM (#9748885) Homepage
      geforce 4 (or equiv)

      You have geforce 4 cards in your work desktops? What are folk doing in your office that they need 3D accellaration? Most office desktops I see have Intel 810 chipsets or similar, and why the heck not... these are for running Excel, not playing Doom III. A quick trip over to Dell.com shows their Office desktops - the Optiplex range all come with ether Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900) or Embedded Intel Extreme Graphics 2. I suspect neither of those would be up to running Doom III

      • Re:thats it? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:14AM (#9749309)
        We recently bought a bunch of new Dells, and they all come with Quadro FX 500 cards. Not that we need them - but to get the other specs we need (gig of RAM, 3GHz proc - we do server-side Java, and run every locally while developing, including the server), that's what comes in the machine.

        It's really not worth our while getting them swapped out, though; our IT dept seems to have a fear of non-standard configurations. At least this way, if a machine dies, we can have an exact replacement here within hours (theoretically, at least).

      • Re:thats it? (Score:4, Informative)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:20AM (#9749397)
        Geforce 4 isn't real special anymore. We're talking about an $80 add-on card. In fact some decent motherboards come with Geforce 4 onboard graphics, although that's the "MX" variant which may not count.

        It might not be a bad idea to shell out a few extra bucks even for "typical desktop PCs" because of the liklihood of accelerated GUIs (ala Mac).

    • When games announce the minimum requirements, they usually just mean a system that can just run the program but not they don't mean you can actually enjoy playing the game on such a machine. For example, Unreal Tournament 2004 minimum requirement is 256MB RAM but in practice, below 1GB you'll face paging that would slowdown the game every now and then. Now, 386MB for the minimum? That's in fact a huge requirement and I know of no other game with such a minimum requirements. If the guideline is 4 times the m
      • I don't suppose you'll need a gig and a half, but you are right about the minimum spec generally being the bare minimum. I have 512MB in my machine, and UT2k4 takes a geological age to load a level while playing online if I have "preload all skins" on. Without it, it loads much quicker (but still not exactly quickly), but has the odd pause now and then in game while it loads up a skin (which to me is far preferable).

        Either way, I definitely need some more memory...

    • Doom 3 Technology (Score:5, Informative)

      by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:49AM (#9748962)
      Here's a good article [doomworld.com] on the technology behind Doom 3.

      Essentially, it's geared towards a technology set that's already fairly well established. It relies heavily on normal mapping to produce seemingly high-polygon models when they're actually quite low-polygon. This is all done in OpenGL and not DirectX. Personally, I think it speaks highly of the ID developers that they can make an engine that looks so good on so many PCs.

      • Re:Doom 3 Technology (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:57AM (#9749930)
        Oh, come on. It's not like those ID developers are rocket scientists. Oh, wait...

      • Re:Doom 3 Technology (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Feanturi ( 99866 )
        Here's a good article on the technology behind Doom 3.

        The author of that article must not have played Thief: Deadly Shadows, or he would not be so excited about some of the things mentioned. Like your character shadow being cast where it ought to be, based on the lighting in the room; along the floor and up the wall, stretching or shrinking as appropriate, etc. Enemies are also aware of your shadow, not just your character, and will respond if you are not paying proper attention to the lighting. And nea

    • Re:thats it? (Score:3, Informative)

      by imr ( 106517 )
      remember that the geforce4mx that you often see in cheap PC is equivalent to a geforce2 and sucks big time. Yes, you knew it already, but I see so many people buying that piece of crap that it cant hurt to be said over and over again.

    • Re:thats it? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mnmn ( 145599 )
      I expected the bare minimum to be much higher. Given the trailers and screenshots, no way this bare system could produce that at 10fps.

      But then again, the people at id can really produce optimized code. Remember the BSPs in quake2 or the basic system requirements of even doom?

      Theres still no PC that can respectably run Giants, citizen Kabuto at full settings on, because they shipped the product before optimizations, but I'd expect ID to allow more fans to play this game. If the minimum CPU was 3.5GHz and

  • People don't care (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FJ ( 18034 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:33AM (#9748709)
    When the first DOOM was released I had a few friends who said that needing a 486 PC just for a game was insane.

    They upgraded after playing the game on someone else's PC.

    • Re:People don't care (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... m ['on.' in gap]> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:52AM (#9749005) Journal
      When the first DOOM was released I had a few friends who said that needing a 486 PC just for a game was insane.

      They upgraded after playing the game on someone else's PC.

      Doom played fine full-screen on a 386/40 with 8 megs of ram (if you had more than 8 megs, you had to disable hidden refresh, so it actually played slower on machines with more memory).

      Don't you think that upgrading hardware just for a game sort of says "I need a life"? Wait 6 months. After the initial surge, everyone will be overstock, and prices for better hardware will fall.

      • Don't you think that upgrading hardware just for a game sort of says "I need a life"?

        Not really. Some people don't upgrade as long as their computer is "Good Enough." When something comes along and proves their machine isn't "Good Enough" anymore, they upgrade. It's because the machine is old -- the game is just a catalyst. I had a buddy in college who upgraded his machine for Wing Commander Prophecy and again for Mechwarrier 4 -- compared to that, upgrading to Doom 3 (which will be undoubtedly a soci

      • Re:People don't care (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PitaBred ( 632671 ) <<gro.sndnyd.derbatip> <ta> <todhsals>> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:46AM (#9749787) Homepage
        What's with the "wait 6 months"? It's not as though hardware is ever doing anything but getting cheaper and faster. As long as you buy next-to-top-of-the-line, you'll get about the best bang for your buck. And next-to-top-of-the-line should run Doom3 admirably.
        Secondly, if gaming is important to you, I don't think it really says "I need a life". Getting a new set of golf clubs costs more than a computer upgrade... do golfers also need a life?

    • Possible uses for the extra memory (Score:4, Funny)

      by rd_syringe ( 793064 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:29AM (#9749544) Journal
      The extra memory might be used to store:

      * More combinations of black, silver, and brown. Using primary colors would unfortunately require another 512MB.
      * More darkness.
      * An electrical simulation that emulates poor electrical conditions. This will be used to flicker lights on and off randomly.
      * More wasted bullets.
      * More random metal plating on the letters of the Doom logo.
      * A somersault animation. When the Doomguy jumps, he'll backflip now.
      * Crates. Lots of crates. With UAC logos on them for variety.
      * Shiny metal pipes. Lots of them. At least one will explode as you walk by it; another will have steam coming out of it for a volumetric effect.
      * At least one level will have you walking down a hallway only to hear a.) a human scream, b.) demonic growling, or c.) eerie whistling wind coming from an unseen source.
      * A hidden TC of Barney Doom, for old time's sake. Destroy Barney in true 3D now.
      * Did I mention black, gray, brown, and darkness?

  • Ooooh.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by xenostar ( 746407 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:33AM (#9748711)
    Ooooh, you mean the Doom 3 interactive slide show? That sounds about right then.

    • Re:Ooooh.. (Score:3, Funny)

      by ChrisK077 ( 667911 )
      According to insiders, John Carmack has coded a special code path for office PCs. You just have to double-click "doom3.ppt" instead of "doom3.exe"

  • Very smart (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I won't spend $3000+ just to buy a new computer. You know id, some people have a life and don't spend their savings in a computer just for one game.
    They are restricting their consumer base. Very smart, very smart.

  • P3 CPUs? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mukund ( 163654 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:35AM (#9748755) Homepage
    How about top-of-the-line Pentium3 CPUs? 1.5GHz definitely means a P4 or a similar Celeron, but weren't the 1.x GHz P4 cpus actually slower than high end P3 CPUs?

    So I'm wondering if DOOM3 would work on a high-end P3 system as I have a dual CPU P3 system with a GeForce FX 5200 card.

  • Geforce 3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by afidel ( 530433 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:35AM (#9748759)
    Is the Geforce 4 MX supported? I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?

    • Re:Geforce 3 (Score:5, Informative)

      by MP3Chuck ( 652277 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:59AM (#9749103) Homepage Journal
      No ... In fact, I remember Carmack being annoyed with the naming scheme for the GF4 MX cards. Their performance is hardly comparable with a "real" GF4 ... and I don't honestly think an MX is up to par -- at all -- for Doom III.

    • Re:Geforce 3 (Score:5, Informative)

      by ToLu the Happy Furby ( 63586 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:26AM (#9749500)
      Is the Geforce 4 MX supported?

      Yes. Presumably the Chronicle reporter either didn't understand or didn't want to confuse his readers by explaining that the GF4 MX has less advanced functionality than the "lower-numbered" GF3.

      I know that origionally Carmak wanted to require programable shaders, is that still the case, or did he relent and support the fixed function pipline that the Geforce 4 MX line inherited from the Geforce 2?

      The Doom 3 engine does not and was never conceived of as requiring general-purpose programable fragment shaders. From the beginning Carmack targeted it at the "register-combiner" fragment pipeline of the GeForce 1 (NV1x) family, which allows for restricted combinations of pixel operations but not the programmability of even the very simple PS 1.0-1.3 style shader languages introduced in DX8. (So it's something of a halfway point between the DX7- style fixed-function pixel pipeline and the DX8+ style programmable pipeline. The NV1x register-combiner pipeline did not have an analogue in the Radeon 7x00 series (R1x0) and was not exposed in DX7, so ironically Doom 3--written in OpenGL of course, so using Nvidia's proprietary extensions is allowed--will be one of the first and only games to use the technology.)

      Except for some minor effects in the ARB2 (PS 2.0+ level functionality) path, Doom 3 will not be exercising any fragment level functionality that can't be done with register combiners; the only difference is the number of passes required per fragment (5 or more for NV1x in common situations; 2 or 3 for NV2x; and 1 for NV3x+ and R2x0+).

      So, leaving performance--and possibly memory size limitations--out of it, Doom 3 is perfectly compatible with any NV1x card, all the way down to the GeForce 1 SDR. Of course this is like saying that you can run Windows XP on a 386; it doesn't address whether the thing is playable or not. Last I heard, id intended on including at least some GF4 MX cards on the minimum requirements list, which would indicate that a GF2 or GF2-Ultra would be even more playable (which is to say not very).

      • Re:Geforce 3 (Score:3, Informative)

        by Keith Russell ( 4440 )

        The NV1x register-combiner pipeline did not have an analogue in the Radeon 7x00 series (R1x0) and was not exposed in DX7, so ironically Doom 3--written in OpenGL of course, so using Nvidia's proprietary extensions is allowed--will be one of the first and only games to use the technology.

        City of Heroes got there first. There was a lot of complaining in the official CoH boards that the game's graphics were corrupted on Mobility Radeon 7500 laptops. Somebody snooped the OpenGL calls, and saw that Cryptic u

  • AMD64 option? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chuck Bucket ( 142633 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:35AM (#9748764) Homepage Journal
    How does this equate to an AMD64 chip? I know they can run 32bit apps, but how fast would a 2Ghz AMD64 chip run Doom3 vs a new Pentium 3.2Ghz?

    I still have a 1.2Gig AMD box at home with 512Megs RAM, and I want to know which upgrade path will give me better gaming (and email checking ;)) performance.

    TIA

    CGB

    • Re:AMD64 option? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) * on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:48AM (#9748956)
      The 2GHz Athlon 64 3200+ will perform at least as well as a 3.2GHz Pentium 4, and will burn less power doing so (especially compared to the new Prescott-core P4). The Athlon 64's go up to 3800+.

      I'm hoping that id releases a 64-bit Linux build of Doom3 like Epic has done with UT2004. I've been having lots of fun playing UT on my Athlon 64 3200+ desktop with BFG GeForceFX 5900XTOC under 64-bit Fedora Core 2. Frame rate just isn't a problem at 1280x1024 res. nVidia has done an outstanding job with their latest Linux drivers. You can still play 32-bit games under 64-bit Linux (I tested Wolfenstein:ET), but you get that nice performence boost with true 64-bit binaries (due to having twice as many registers available in AMD64 mode as much as anything else).
  • I can meet that. I'm just glad it didn't require 1 gig of RAM as the min. spec.

  • Honestly, those are pretty low-end specs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beavis88 ( 25983 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:36AM (#9748773)
    I'm betting that playing Doom 3 on the "minimum required" system will be the easiest way to force people to upgrade their hardware.

    Hell, I have 1 GB RAM and a GF4600, and I'm fully expecting the performance to be bad enough to force an upgrade on my part...

  • From the article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:36AM (#9748778)
    If you're upgrading, look for at least 128 MB of video memory in a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot. Cards in the $150 to $200 range -- such as a GeForce 5900XT or a Radeon 9600XT -- will be a sweet spot
    I thought doom 3 used OpenGL, not Direct X
    Question time: I know the mac requirements will be different, but I just bought a dual 1.8 Ghz with an FX 5200, how badly does that vid. card suck? I have no clue when it comes to these video card models...

    • Re:From the article (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:47AM (#9748935) Homepage
      Doom does use OpenGL, but DirectX version compliance levels are a convenient way to separate generations of cards. It's easier than posting a list of OpenGL extensions that must be supported.

    • Re:From the article (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lmfr ( 567586 )
      "I thought doom 3 used OpenGL, not Direct X"

      Don't forget that there's more to Direct X than Direct 3D. Doom 3 does use Direct X. (Well, I'm assuming it does as quake3 did require Direct X 7. I don't have a Doom 3 copy yet. :))

      The requirement for Direct X 9 should be more for a easy way to figure if your graphics card supports the OpenGL extensions Doom 3 requires, as others have posted.

      Re FX 5200, that graphics card *is* Direct X 9 compliant, but its performance sucks...

  • RMAed (Score:2)

    by DaHat ( 247651 )
    I just mailed my Geforce FX 5900 back to the seller to have it repaired or replaced yesterday... here's hoping it gets back soon because I am not about to play D3 on my GF3 which is limping my system along now!

  • I'll trade... (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:37AM (#9748800) Homepage Journal

    I'll trade my little brother for a Radeon 9800XT before Doom3 hits the shelves! PLEASE!

    • Re:I'll trade... (Score:5, Funny)

      by HedonismBot ( 742920 ) <guiller@g m a i l . c om> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:29AM (#9749541)
      For all of the good love of The Lord, have you no decency left? How can you ever perish the thought of an exchange between your brother, a living, breathing creature, owner of an immortal soul, a complex personality and a wonderful human brain, product of thousands of years of evolution and an upgrade for your computer? And one which purpose is to more realistically show the hideous nature of the devil's creatures in a videogame, no less! I'm truly outraged and shocked for your reckless behaviour.

      Now, maybe if you had a sister...


  • Finally. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by diagnosis ( 38691 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:38AM (#9748808) Homepage
    I feel that the world will be an overall happier place if more people have more RAM.

    Frankly, even if people may not realize it, they'll be *much* better off having more than 256 MB RAM. Dell etc. are definitely not benefitting their consumers by including only 256 mb ram in these behemoth computers people buy, especially if people are looking into doing serious photo editing, and DV. And if you are running XP, how can you expect to survive with 256? This is so frustrating...

    P.S. Half-life 2 requirements, Gabe Newell:

    Ideally, one should have a 2.4 Ghz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 9 enabled graphics card to fully partake in the title. Those with less powerful components shouldn't worry about upgrading unless their system specs fall below a 1.2 Ghz processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 7 compatible graphics card.

    Of course, when HL2 game was due to be publish 25 years ago, these requirements were insane.

    ------------------
    Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net [freevil.net]
    G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"
  • What OS are going to be supported by the initial release? Is the first release a dual binary with Linux / Windows version? Will DOOM 3 run on a Win98 machine with the proper hardware? Does Direct X 9.0 support Win98?

    Sorry for these "lame" questions. I am a bit out of date. Guess there is no hope of this running on my kick ass Voodoo 3 3500 eh? *wink*

  • DirectX 9.0? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by David Leppik ( 158017 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:40AM (#9748830) Homepage
    If you're upgrading, look for at least 128 MB of video memory in a card with Direct X 9.0 capability that installs into an AGP slot.
    I thought Carmack was a big OpenGL fan. (Maybe the last one in the video game industry.) Why would you need DirectX for Doom? Maybe that's just shorthand for certain shared requirements, such as programmable GPU capabilities.

  • Does not compute, BIG jump from II to III (Score:5, Funny)

    by ayeco ( 301053 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:40AM (#9748835)
    Wait wait wait a minute, Doom II's sys reqs were:

    486 processor operating at a minimum of 66MHz or any Pentium® /Athlon® processors

    8 MB RAM

    20 MB of uncompressed hard disk space

    100MB of free hard drive space for the

    Windows swap file (in addition to install space)

    Seems like quite a jump for just one point.

  • But unlike a force hardware/Windows upgrade (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:40AM (#9748845)
    It will be worth it. When has Carmack ever done us wrong?

  • I'm surprised it works with 384MB (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jarnis ( 266190 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:41AM (#9748852)
    384MB is so low. Lots of current games are already unplayable with high details on at 512MB. Planetside, SWG, DAOC and numerous others (tho mostly online games) are total lagfests without 1GB RAM already.

    If you had asked my guess on reqs, it would've been something like 512MB, 2Ghz, GF4/Radeon9500. I'm surprised how low they actually are.

  • This shouldn't be considered a minimum for play (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boschmorden ( 610937 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:41AM (#9748857)
    This should be considered a minimum for LOADING the game. I've played most of the first person shooters out there for the last few years. 256MB of RAM, or even 384MB is too little. Even with a nice graphics card your framerates will be very very low. I think if anyone wants to play and enjoy any of the games lately you'll need a minimum of 512, and even at that you'll need a gig to be comfortable. I think id is in a position where they can't raise the bar to 512 because they'd lose out on sales of people buying the game that had less. I think these people will purchase the game and realize they need more and go out and buy it.

  • I think I am going to hold off on upgrading (Score:5, Funny)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:46AM (#9748923)
    till I find out what the min requirements for Duke Nukem Forever are.

  • Cheapest way to play Doom 3 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:48AM (#9748946) Homepage
    Wait for the Xbox version to come out. An Xbox plus Doom 3 will set you back $200, plus tax. If you don't have anything against Microsoft's console, it's obviously the best choice.

    Personally, I'm waiting for the Linux binary, since my Linux box it appears to have sufficient specs. I do regret that binary-only drivers (for my ATI or NVIDIA card) will probably be required.
    • Only problem with that is you'll have to play a first person shooter at a lower resolution on a tv with a controller.

    • Fuck That (Score:5, Insightful)

      by windside ( 112784 ) <pmjboyle@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:32AM (#9749602)

      There's no way in hell. Playing an FPS with a console-type controller instead of a keyboard is roughly equivalent to gouging out your own eyeballs, in terms of pain and frustration.

      I remember the first time I tried Doom64 - UGH. Please. I'll stick to Mario, thanks.

      Sure, there's bound to be a keyboard/mouse add-on for the XBox, but certainly not a cheap one. Factor in the karma burn for owning (nay, touching) an XBox and your effective cost has climbed far beyond that of a new CPU and some RAM.

      • Re:Fuck That (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hollins ( 83264 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:53AM (#9749870) Homepage
        I agree. Not only is control tedious without a mouse and keyboard, they have to crank down the rate you can turn to make the game controllable, which means they generally have to add some auto-aiming features. It's a completely different experience. On top of that, you have lower resolution, no console to enter commands (want fov 120? sorry) and you miss out on all the mods, which can be half the fun of iD games.

        Console versions of FPS are barely shadows of the real thing.

  • 640K (Score:5, Funny)

    by fragbait ( 209346 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:49AM (#9748964) Homepage
    <old man voice>
    To play Doom, I remember having to boot my 386 without loading the TSRs....
    </old man voice>

    *hits nearest young'un with cane*

    -fragbait

  • Moo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chacham ( 981 ) * on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:49AM (#9748972) Homepage Journal
    Upgrade for a game? Doesn't that increase the cost of the game? Games are expensive as it is, there's no reason they can't fit it in current common cases.

    Games are made for people to play, not that people were made to play games. Games should fit current specifications, rather than demand more.

    And then they wonder why sales are dismal.

    Game consoles usually stay the same in each model, and games *must* work on them and cannot demand more. That's a good thing. It makes the developers do more with less. On PCs, people seem to do less with more. And that is a real problem.

    • Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)

      by schmoli ( 105622 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:54AM (#9749030) Homepage
      Pardon my hostility, but this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Games, and specifically iD software, have always pushed the limits of the technology available to the public. Personally I think it's a great thing that they can come out with a game that is so advanced it can't even run at optimal settings on an existing consumer machine (when launched, at least). Telling people to only code to what's available would stop the evolution of graphics, coding, everything related to computers.

  • PC Gamer Life And Fun (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:55AM (#9749033) Homepage Journal
    Awww, such is the life of the PC gamer! In the old days, people would complain about these things, but the truth is that I think PC gamers live for this! I mean, who here doesn't like having an excuse to go out and seriously upgrade your rig?

    Heck, I'm not even planning to get Doom 3, and I get all jittery just thinking about upgrading my old box, which is way overdue. But I've learned to wait until the game comes out and real people play on real systems, before doing any upgrade. That way you can get the right hardware and avoid any unforeseen incompatibilities.

    Awww, the life of a PC Gamer...

  • Meanwhile, in reality... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LSD-OBS ( 183415 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:58AM (#9749076)
    Look, these days, there will be 2 main types of people that will buy this game.

    1) Oldskool die-hard Doom lovers. These people have been around long enough that the concept of hardware upgrades is nothing new to them. Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game.

    2) Newskool FPS gamer kids. They take their gaming pretty seriously, and having the latest hardware is pretty much a competitive issue to them. If you find any of these guys with less than 512mb of RAM or a 3D card older than a GeForce 3, chances are they don't have the money to buy Doom 3 anyway.

    The hardware requirements stated are really light for a game of that genre, especially considering the target market. I think the poster is rather off-target by insinuating that this is a problem.

    • 1) Oldskool die-hard Doom lovers. These people have been around long enough that the concept of hardware upgrades is nothing new to them. Chances are they will currently have good enough hardware for Doom 3, or they will take it for granted that they will need an upgrade before they buy the game.

      Hmm, that's me - I was playing Doom on my ultra-expensive 100MHz 486 laptop, underway on a submarine in 1995.

      But I have a life (and wife and kids) now! I certainly am NOT on the upgrade treadmill anymore. I

  • What bugs me about Doom 3 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @09:59AM (#9749106)
    is that multiplayer gaming is limited out-of-the-box to 4 players...

    Sure, they say modders can increase that number, but it seriously reduces the number of potential online opponents.

  • Carmack's Engine Code Delivers Again (Score:4, Interesting)

    by freezin fat guy ( 713417 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:14AM (#9749305)

    One thing I really admire about Carmack's work is just how much graphics he can deliver per unit of hardware.

    This is not a fluke. The pattern for all his previous engines is that the most intensive parts are coded in optimized assembly. The rest is coded in C. He admits to using some object oriented practices in his code but he still uses C. Even custom scripting support is reasonably efficient.

    Id also designs the games themselves to be reasonably efficient. (When was the last time you saw a true outdoor scene in an Id game? Outdoor scenes have so far been modeled as a special kind of interior.)

    In contrast the heavier games some people have mentioned use liberal amounts of C++, (which makes sense from a project management perspective) their custom scripting languages slow things down yet more, and they render scenes which are inherently hardware intensive. They can also deliver high quality graphics, they simply need more hardware.

    Now I just have to add my voice to those who wish that more thought was put into the content of the games themselves - so many people spending so much fantasy time focused on raw evil is not healthy.

  • My Ode to 55 Dollars and a month of abstinence (Score:5, Funny)

    by cOdEgUru ( 181536 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:16AM (#9749340) Homepage Journal
    O' my crisp 55 Dollars and my beautiful wife..
    I bid thee both farewell, atleast for a while..
    Now, to my 55 Dollars this is for ever..
    To my lovely wife, this is a short respite..

    My hard earned money, gotta let you go..
    To fill the Coffers of Carmack and ID-eo
    So that he maketh new game engines and new bump mapped creatures
    And I, cowering in the dark, salivating at the games new features..

    And to my dear wife, I will see you soon
    But first I have to kiss my double barrel shotgun and my precious ammo
    Before I can warm the sheets next to you
    For here cometh the Cyberdemon and I gotta runnoo..

  • Minimum requirements for now (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xian97 ( 714198 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:16AM (#9749343)
    The Doom games were always a showcase for the engine's technology. It probably won't be for a year or two before developers that license the technology start hitting the full capabilities of the engine. When that happens, I look for the current minimum requirements to go up so plan accordingly for the games that will be built on the engine in the near future if you are going to upgrade your hardware. I think that the current recommended requirement will soon be the minimum when you see the next wave of games built on the technology that iD has created.

  • blip (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mrm677 ( 456727 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:44AM (#9749751)
    People upgrading due to Doom3 requirements will cause no more than a tiny blip on the radar of memory manufacturers.

    PC gamers represent a tiny fraction of machines (compared to businesses and normal consumers), and most hard-core gamers likely already have 384MB.

    The only thing this requirement will cause is a lot of disappointed 13-year olds whose computer that Ma and Pa just bought him is not up to snuff.

  • Video Requirement (Score:3, Informative)

    by yeremein ( 678037 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @10:52AM (#9749857)
    Lots of mainstream PCs have been sold with 256 MB of RAM, so upgrades will be in order

    Not to mention the ubiquitous yet entirely inadequate Intel "Extreme Graphics" found in nearly all big-name desktops. Even "high-end" systems ship with the barely adequate FX5200. Video card upgrades will be required of almost all stock brand name desktops.

  • FUCK iD SOFTWARE! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @11:09AM (#9750097)
    I want an awesome game. I want awesome grapics, with awesome rendering, great lighting, 3d shadows, incredible monsters made of a gabillion triangles. And I want the game to have no "jaggies" so it's smooth as glass at 1280x1024 with 60fps. Oh, and 5.1 surround sound with real time effects and echos and reverb.

    What? I can't enjoy this on my $299 Walmart PC? FUCK YOU iD SOFTWARE! WTF? YOU GUYS CAN"T CODE. /sarcasm

  • WONDERFUL!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @12:48PM (#9750631)
    Now I'll be able to run Doom 3 and Longhorn on the same system!

  • poor game tester... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2004 @08:33PM (#9755663) Homepage Journal
    I feel sorry for the poor game tester they made use a minimum spec machine to go through the entire game...

    You know what would be funny? A website that posts minimum spec benchmarks on all the popular games. Would be interesting to see what game makers think "minimum" actually means.

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