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MaintainMe: This probably actually belongs at Doom/Doom3? - but that contains no WikiWords at all.




Anecdotal experience from Vitenka.  It does not run acceptably well, out ofthe box, on a 2.2GHz Athlon, with a Gf-FX card, on low detail settings.  Any time something happens (door opens, monster pops up, rapidly turn your head) the FrameRate? stutters unacceptably.  This probably means that it is overloading the texture memory and having to swap stuff out.  I do not know how big the texture buffer was on these machines.  I do know that there is a major tweak to set the memory used by Doom, which many people have found works well.
How much RAM is that with? My system looks similar (I've got 640MB RAM but a less noble graphics card) and I'm probably going to be trying to play this. --Requiem (Oh - and which tweak would that be?)
The tweak guides have exploded with information recently - they will be better than I am now.  seta image_cacheMegs was the early one being reported as good.  I think these machines had 512 RAM, but I'm not sure.  Anecdotal evidence is that Doom3 is CPU limited, not FillRate? limited.  Other people just say that the machines this was on must have been badly set up.  --Vitenka
I'd probably agree, having played it. Anecdotal experience from Requiem is that it runs at a perfectly good 30fps at 800x600 and medium detail, on an Athlon 2200+ with a Gf4 128MB and 640MB of RAM. And I'm running WinXP, so it's not as if my machine is particularly well set up or efficient.

On low detail settings, the game does not look particularly impressive.  It has shadows, and facial animations are good - but heads are distractingly cubic.  No noticable reflections etc. - though the lack of them may suggest that the graphics have moved into the 'too good to spot' area.
''On medium detail settings, the game looks pretty damn pretty. On high detail settings, it's like visiting an art gallery - both in terms of the graphics and the frame rate. --Requiem

They aren't kidding about the darkness.  It's very very dark, all the damn time.  You are also kept extremely low on ammunition.
The levels are very linear, but arranged in a hub-like fashion.  You will often have to re-traverse the middle of the base to get to the next mission area.  Memorising the layout of the base before all hell breaks loose is a good plan.

The plot is a wonderful thing.  It is utterly derogatory, completely the same as the plot for doom1 (and, for that matter, HalfLife) - but it is presented in a dead-serious fashion.  I found this incredibly funny for some reason.
There is a long intro, presented in a similar style to DeusEx.  Then you get to blast zombies.
The intro begins to strain credibility a little at the end.  You have technicians complaining "Welcome to the dungeons - Nothing ever happens down here" even as you are being issued your armour and gun.  Doesn't make a vast deal of sense.  Still, the g-man has openend up his portal to hell and it's your job to blast imps.

Throughout the game are dropped clues, marathon style - but presented very well.  As well as reading things on your pda, you also frequently have explanations played to you via your (in-game) headset whilst you explore and fight.  This helps keep up the atmosphere.

Everyone has no doubt heard about the flashlight.  The other guns betray the 'back to the beginning' origin of this game.  If you have ever played the alien-doom-TC then you'll be right at home with the theme, the atmosphere, the weaponry, the mood - and, unfortunately, the fairly awful sound effects.

[Requiem's quasi-review]



Technical aside - WindowsTwoThousand? and above are the only officially supported OS so far.  A linux binary is in the works.  However, it has been reported working under wine, and there is a (slightly suspect) patch for the installer which convinces it to let you try on win98 - which allegedly works.

Further anecdotal evidence - at aforementioned cafe, they've started playing Doom in preference.  --Vitenka




MaintainMe: There is a big input to the discussion about artificial difficulties making a good game (and all difficulties in a ComputerGame are artificial) - which belongs on that page, but I can't remember the name of that page.
In outline, though - Doom3 is very very dark.  You have a flashlight, but you cannot use it at the same time as a gun.  Ignoring outcries of realism (which do have a bearing upon this, but it doesn't seem to be a very big one), the very first mod that came out for Doom3 is a patch that 'fixes' this.  Not everyone wants to use this patch, but many many people are choosing to do so.
Requiem does not want to use the 'patch' - as far as he's concerned, it's not a patch, it's a mod; the game is completely different if you can both see and shoot. And he hasn't finished the game unmodded yet.
Well, yes - it does.  Just thought it was an interesting input to the discussion that a large number of people saw it as 'broken' and immediately fixed it.  Whereas another large number of people reject it.  I also suspect the rejection has a lot to do with the default settings for their particular graphics card.  It's hard to differentiate between 'dark' and 'dark' without actually having the computers side by side.  --Vitenka
Heh, true. My monitor is long in the tooth and grey in the muzzle, and is probably much 'darker' than most. But, y'know, that's what the gamma setting is for. I suppose it's down to whether you like shooting things you can't see. TBH, after 8 or so levels I started learning how the creatures moved, with the result that I can now blind-fight pretty effectively (flash the torch around the room and remember the layout, target by sound and the glow of the enemy fireballs). It does feel like I (in character as the marine) am becoming more skilled at fighting in the dark of the UAC complex. I like this. Some people's mileage may vary. --Requiem



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