and the fps increase for me was 1fps

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

90% of the people telling you how smoothly their games play and what awesome framerate they get on doom3 at 1600x1200 with 4xAA are so full of crap. People maybe put it that high, and they don't really CARE or NOTICE that it's choppy. I've seen people playing something at 15FPS and I asked them, "how can you stand that?" and they said "what? It runs smooth... what are you talking about?"

The point is, people have severely differing opinions on what "smooth" is. The only way to verify for sure is to get them to run a timedemo so you can get actual AVERAGE FPS. Another thing people do is turn on the dynamic "current" fps indicator and look at a wall. WHOA all of a sudden they're getting 60FPS. But as soon as they look at something complicated, of course their crap goes down to 15. And the best time to judge framerate is in the most complicated room with the most dynamic lighting and the most enemies coming at you with the most complicated guns. Because what good is 60FPS when it drops to 15 as soon as you enter a fight?

Take everything people say with a huge grain (nay, a barrel) of salt. Find a place that lists timedemo scores with specs similar to your own.

I have a p4 3.2ghz, 512 MB of RAM, geforce fx5900, and at 640x480 on medium detail and NO anti-aliasing I get 45-50 FPS (AVERAGE) on the first timedemo. Of course, a timedemo measures frames and time, so obviously that number drops when there are monsters and action on the scene and jumps higher when they are looking at a wall. So it's Not Good.

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Brian's Web Log is CLOSED.

Brian--how the HELL do you get that performance? I get 45-60 fps 800x600 medium no aa no af. I mean it runs smoothly on my comp 1024x768 low 2xaa 2xaf, 30+ fps meaning this.

And me running with a 2400+, Ti4400 128mb, 512 MB DDR PC2100

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[This message has been edited by Dj Yoshi (edited August 10, 2004).]

That's so true Brian. For years I couldn't understand how people with similiar or lower specs always outperformed me. It turns out they were just full of crap. Myself being a videophile and doing so much level design over the years, I can spot the difference between 70 and 85 FPS - not that I care, but I can see it if I'm looking. I shoot for settings that will get me at least 40 FPS in most action scenes (obviously drops at times are acceptable) because anything worse and all of a sudden I can't hit my targets anymore.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Aye I agree, performance during the 'heavy' encounters is paramount. I can run it at 1280x1024 at high with 2xAA/16xAF and it's ok 90% of the time, but in a big effects filled firefight it can drop down to that 15 fps range which is just, ugh. Pass.

I'll take a smooth framerate and less jaggies over increased detail any day.

Anyway, just finished the game. So sexy.....much better than the usual iD techdemo disguised as a game Screenshots don't do this game justice, as much as I loved FC's engine (including the indoor areas) this engine is just in a class of it's own. I literally can't wait to see what other developers do with this thing.

Some misc. screenshots:

Where's ya brain?

No smoking!

Machinegun > Pistol, dumbass

Cute magic trick

I thought he wanted a hug, I was mistaken

Coolest little robots ever

Mars outsdoors looked so cool...wanted to see more it :-/

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Jaiph is hawt.

But yeah, when I get my system upgraded (need to get more faster RAM and AMD64. Guess I'll hold out till christmas.) it'll run flawlessly 1600x1200 4+xaa 8+xaf.

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I didn't have the system requirements to run the Doom 3 installation wizard.


j/k. I still can't run the game . . .

My computer be this:

P4 2.4 GHz
512MB DDR RAM
128MB GeForce 4 Ti4200
120GB 7200 RPM HD

How badly will it slaughter my computer?

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

not too badly but i wouldn't suggest trying high quality

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

I thought it auto-adjusted the settings or something.

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Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

It scans your hardware for "optimal" quality, but that is bull. I did an auto detect (2.2ghz P4, 512mb, Radeon 9800) and it "suggested" I run at 640*480 at low. pfft

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ZGPC

no game auto detects a system properly... the auto detect settings are always a bit lower than what the machine can actually do

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

It told me to run the game on low at 800x600 and it runs smoothly on high detail at the same res. And that's not just staring at the wall either. The fps doesn't take a hit pretty much anywhere.

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I figure that one day I'll either be famous, or in prison. But I guess if I'm going to prison, I should probably try to do something that would make me famous anyway.

Did you run a timedemo?



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Brian's Web Log is CLOSED.

what gets me is that testing low and high at the same res is a 4-5fps difference on my machine

and like i said jaiph's tweak gave me 1fps more and the config file tweak that was available on the first day i'm not sure about because i set that one before i even got the game to run

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

No I base it on the times when I have a lot of action on screen--I've got the fps up in the corner. 1024x768 low 2xaa 2xaf it's never dipped below 25, and I consider that to be good.

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An FX 5200! Hah! your better off with a GF2! (Mabye some slight exagerration, but not much at all)

What's the required spec for Ultra Quality?

recommended for ultra is a 512MB video card but i'm sure the top of the line 256MB cards could do ultra at reasonable framerates but the difference between high and ultra is very slight... you might notice if you stare at the same screen for a few hours...

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

I heard the thing about Ultra High needing 512mb, but my 256mb 9800 Pro was actually enough to run it. I got mid 30's in the timedemo at 1024x768 @ Ultra High but no AA/AF.

Like you say though I honestly couldn't see any real improvement and greatly missed the AA In the end I went back to High with 2xAA/16xAF....so yeah...I wouldn't go blowing piles of money with the goal of simply running D3 on Ultra high.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Only 2xAA? 4x! C'mon man!

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1280x1024, 4XAA, Ultra Quality, 11.9fps

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

No, don't use AA at all. AF is where it's at -- why? Because at higher resolutions, you won't notice the jaggies in Doom III at all. Here is the sweetspot as far as I'm concerned:

With a Geforce 6800 GT 256 MB:
------------------------------

• High Details or whatever
• 1280 x 1024
• 8x AF and 0x AA

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Your humble opinion is wrong.

[This message has been edited by Mystic0 (edited August 11, 2004).]

1024x768. High. 2xAA. 16xAF. (w/Humus tweak) Timedemo = 35.1 fps on 2nd run.

1024x768. High. 4xAA. 16xAF. (w/Humus tweak) Timedemo = 25.7 fps on 2nd run.

I'd prefer the FPS



Yesterday when I tested 1280x1024 0xAA 16xAF vs 1024x768 2xAA 16xAF the former had jaggies that were FAR more noticable than the slightly lower res with 2xAA. I have some screens lying around here somewhere...

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

AF is automatically set to 8x when you select high quality

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

I'm not using ingame controlled AF personally, with humus tweak ATI control panel AF is faster and looks better.

Here's some comparison between 1280x1024 0xAA/16xAF and 1024x768 2xAA/16xAF.....I'd love to run it at 1280x1024 as that is my desktop resolution, but even at that res you really notice the lack of AA (well, on large monitors anyway).

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Timedemos are not an accurate guide to how the game will play; the demo only creates the graphics. There is no AI or sound or anything. And for some strange reason Doom III runs far better when actually playing than in a timedemo.

I have a PIV 2.4ghz, 512 RAM, 9600XT and on high detail (800x600) with AA and AF off I get 60 frames when there are no enemies, and about 25-35 when there are. That Humus tweak did nothing for me, incidentally.

Timedemos run better than the game, so when someone tells me their timedemo score, I know the game will run a bit slower. Timedemos calculate AVERAGE FPS. So if you get 15 fps half the time and 60 fps the other half the time, they will do (15 + 60) / 2 = 37.5 timedemo score.

Dj Yoshi: why not just post your timedemo score on the various detail levels instead of just insisting that it runs smoothly?

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Brian's Web Log is CLOSED.

If it runs smoothly for him, what does it matter what specific FPS the game says it's running at? Not everyone cares about the difference between 75 and 90 FPS, so if he thinks it's running great, and it's actually 16FPS, then he's just really lucky; he can put the detail up higher than everyone else.

Because people going around telling everyone that it runs great on their p1 233 machine may encourage others to go out and waste 55 dollars on a game that runs like crap. Which is why we all need a STANDARD frame of reference.

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Brian's Web Log is CLOSED.

I would, but I haven't had time to play a game in a week. Seriously. I just started school with 3 honors/AP classes. I'm still on Alpha Labs 1 XD

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I haven't played either because the game bores me

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Brian's Web Log is CLOSED.

That's because they're meant for video benchmarking only. It's for people who, after applying a video tweak or overclock, can measure increase or decrease in performance. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never had performance changes after altering sound quality or settings. As long as the sound is hardware accelerated, I've never had it interefere with my video. AI, however is a different story.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Yes Brian. That's darn right. It's too bad you would have to make it a quantitative and not a qualitative decision when people say how fast it runs. It's an opinion, it's subjective. If you take their advice when they don't give specifics, and you don't follow up before buying the game then you are responsible and no one else. Always do your research.