Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fineus on November 11, 2002, 01:55:24 pm
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Has anyone else but me seen the Doom 3 Alpha release? Anyone with good (and I mean good) system specs and broadband might want to check it out (no, it's not warez - you don't get the full game. Think of it as a buggy early demo). Moving on...
The game itself isn't optimised and a lot of it is missing - for instance it only contains the introduction and three levels featured at this years E3. But it still gives a taste of whats to come, and it's got me hooked!
The weapons feel good, you're a marine. The weapons reflect that feeling. The sound is incredible (though choppy on my system). Turning off the lights and putting the sound up is garunteed to instil fear if you're playing it for the first time!
Graphics? Heh, wow. I got between 0 and 50fps but around 24fps was the average. But I've got a slow CPU for the game (1.4GHz) with some of the graphics on above low and so on. The lighting rocks. Merging all objects so they're affected by the same lighting was a really good idea, and the world looks and acts as one. The player looks to be in the level as opposed to a floating camera wandering around it with a gun. Everything is pretty dark and broody, lots of techy stuff and steel everywhere (this is on the Phobos based maps of course). Monsters and the player are very high in detail, zombies eyes glow with an evil menace that only just stands out enough in the darkness to make you run in fear without giving away the entire zombie. Everything moves convincingly (though the death animations need work - but this is an alpha). The cyber-dog thingy (not sure of its real name) is huge, fast and evil.
I can't really go on describing it, all I'm saying is it's well worth a look for people who like a game that feels the part. Definitely one of my list next year when it comes out. More frightening than any PC game I've played before anyways...
Oh, I should point out once more that this is based on the alpha version. Not optimised for nv cards and certainly incomplete (only 3 available weapons for instance).
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Where can I find it?
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Slow CPU (1,4 GHz)? :wtf:
Who are you kidding dude? (450 MHz)
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You can only find it on Kazaa - it's in an RAR file (around 360Mb).
And yes, slow in that my CPU is the bottleneck and the game is very intensive on graphics. It's also not optimised for nVidia cards like I said - apparently it's optimised for 9700 Cards at the moment.
Suffice to say, it's an alpha. Don't expect 50FPS with full details and sounds.
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Slow ? Jesus, i have the same and i'll already feel old.
makes sense since i've had this one for almost a year :wtf: (In December)
if its really worth trying out though.. i'll look into it.
Right now i'm reading "Old Man and The Sea" and it just got to the good part ( This Marlin is towing him around the ocean and he is sitting in his boat waiting for it to promptly die :D )
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It was alledgedly leaked by a 3rd party employee from - I think - NVidia (or another gfx card firm). Needless to say, ID have went ape****.
Screenshots?
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Hate Hemingway. Love Doom. :D
Trying to find it without using Kazaa...
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still sticking with ut2k3 until an official demo comes, don't wanna spoil much
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Originally posted by Thunder
You can only find it on Kazaa - it's in an RAR file (around 360Mb).
Actually, you can find on the eDonkey network, as well.
I thought about downloading, but decided against it. :nervous:
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Originally posted by aldo_14
It was alledgedly leaked by a 3rd party employee from - I think - NVidia (or another gfx card firm). Needless to say, ID have went ape****.
Screenshots?
It was an ATI employee. And yes, id cut all cooperation with them.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
It was alledgedly leaked by a 3rd party employee from - I think - NVidia (or another gfx card firm). Needless to say, ID have went ape****.
Screenshots?
It was leaked from someone at ATI. No point even trying to run it on anything less than a 1.4ghz and geforce 3 methinks.
Oh and sound wise Trent Reznor owns you.
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Well, I wasn't planing to download the game anyway. Even though I have ADSL on 1024/256.
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Originally posted by 01010
It was leaked from someone at ATI. No point even trying to run it on anything less than a 1.4ghz and geforce 3 methinks.
Oh and sound wise Trent Reznor owns you.
Ah.... well, had to be one of the two.
Who's Trent Reznor?
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Whaddaya think? Is 2.0 Ghz 512 RAM and 128 MB ATI radeon good enough to run it on full detail
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Whaddaya think? Is 2.0 Ghz 512 RAM and 128 MB ATI radeon good enough to run it on full detail
shut up. :sigh:
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KT, he is going to get one of those. Right now he has a PII 500 mhz 64 mb of ram and 8 mb of video card.
I love being mean. ;7
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*Points and laughs hysterically*
:lol: :lol: :lol:
( i feel better)
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Originally posted by Ten of Twelve
Whaddaya think? Is 2.0 Ghz 512 RAM and 128 MB ATI radeon good enough to run it on full detail
Not necessarily. It needs a LOT of optimization and preferably an NVIDIA card, and considering it was ATI that made the leak i'm going to make a (not so) uneducated guess that ATI cards may not run too well on Doom3 EVER.
Oh and Trent Reznor is the guy who did the sounds and such for Doom3. Did the Quake sounds too.
Oh yeah and he masquearades as Nine Inch Nails too :) . Wish he'd get off his arse, stop playing games and finish the new friggin album.
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Pentium 600
and you have 300 MHz with 4 megs of video memory :ha:
I was talkin about the PC I'm gonna buy in a WEEK :ha: :ha: :ha:
Yout have a problem KT?
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why of cour.. err no.. never.
*walks away chuckling*
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Originally posted by 01010
Oh and Trent Reznor is the guy who did the sounds and such for Doom3. Did the Quake sounds too.
Oh yeah and he masquearades as Nine Inch Nails too :) . Wish he'd get off his arse, stop playing games and finish the new friggin album.
Ah..not a fan of that sound - that always worries me, commerical artists on game soundtracks, because not everyone who shares the same taste in games will sshare the same taste in music.... will have to see.
I think the ATI 9500+ series will run Doom 3 with nary a whimper... they seem to be unbelilievably **** hot (not to mention 8x AGP support, which only a few GF4s have IIRC).
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I'd just like to point out that, based on what we've seen so far, Doom 3 is not a Doom game. It may have the name and the premise, but in spirit there's very little Doomy about it--
Doom 3 is being pitched as a survival-horror (bleah) type game, with tons of scripted sequence and in-engine cutscenes. You apparently face no more than 5 or 6 monsters at a time. There is no Use key. The gameplay seems to encourage creeping slowly through the levels. It will require bleeding-edge hardware to run well.
All of these things are pretty much the opposite of classic Doom gameplay. Doom 3 will probably be a good game, but I very much doubt it'll bear any resemblence to Doom.
As for Trent Reznor doing the sounds-- oh joy. The man who, in Quake, gave us grenades that sound like cow bells when they hit the ground. Yay.
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I'm not sure I agree with some of what you say Zylon... yes the latest game pushes the boundries of hardware right now, but if it didn't then where would the game be? At its most basic its an FPS first and foremost. And an FPS that doesn't look as good as others, doesn't make full use of hardware available? Well thats not going to inspire anyone. It needs to push the envelope if it's going to get noticed and sell on more than the name alone.
You've not fought the enemies in the game (I presume). These things take a lot of shots to drop. Zombies keep getting back up to attack you - one shotgun shot to the head won't do it at this stage. Imagine 10+ of them, you'd be swamped. Attacks on mass are out - claustrophobic, dark and scary settings with things that actually take effort to kill are in.
The whole concept here seems to be moving away from running in all guns blazing, one man army style play. You are not Rambo. You're a lone marine trapped on a planet which is steadily being overrun by the forces of Hell, and eventually you have to go to the source to fight them. It works much better this way in my opinion, the idea that there are hundreds of zombies wandering around seems a little unrealistic to me - a lot of people died in the initial attack, and many of the zombies have been eaten anyway (one of the cut-scenes shows a hell-hound eating a zombie).
Suffice to say, this is not a Serious Sam game. This is all about fear, and it looks like it'll work.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Ah..not a fan of that sound - that always worries me, commerical artists on game soundtracks, because not everyone who shares the same taste in games will sshare the same taste in music.... will have to see.
I think the ATI 9500+ series will run Doom 3 with nary a whimper... they seem to be unbelilievably **** hot (not to mention 8x AGP support, which only a few GF4s have IIRC).
Nah nah nah. He doesn't do conventional music for the games. Listen to the quake soundtrack, mostly just ambient sound. Incredibly atmospheric, very creepy. Same deal with doom3.
As for the ATI running it, I don't think I made myself too clear, John Carmack stated that whoever released the alpha was severely on the ID ****list which, if it was ATI, means that they could easily code the game to run slower on ATI chipsets. Also considering that a lot of graphics card sales will be influenced on how doom3 will run on them, I think that ATI best be very nice.
Oh yeah and the Shambler is the mother****ing scariest bastard ever.
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The one thing I always associated with Doom / 2 was Fear (with a capital F). It was suppossed to be scary, and - because it was all they could do with the technology - they needed a lot of monsters and anonymous growls. For me, I think doom 3 sounds like it has the exact atmosphere of Doom (I felt that was much better than Doom2, because it had a vague explanation where you were) in mind, but done with modern technology and games ideas.
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Not optimised for GF cards? But... we've all seen the clip of Steve Jobs unveiling the GF3 by using it to demonstrate Doom 3 on his new Mac... right?
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Originally posted by 01010
Nah nah nah. He doesn't do conventional music for the games. Listen to the quake soundtrack, mostly just ambient sound. Incredibly atmospheric, very creepy. Same deal with doom3.
Ah..well ,I'll have to see then. Or hear, in this case.
Originally posted by 01010
As for the ATI running it, I don't think I made myself too clear, John Carmack stated that whoever released the alpha was severely on the ID ****list which, if it was ATI, means that they could easily code the game to run slower on ATI chipsets. Also considering that a lot of graphics card sales will be influenced on how doom3 will run on them, I think that ATI best be very nice.
Hmm... i doubt ID would 'boycott' ATI - especially as the latest Radeons *could* be market leaders in the NV30 doesn't shape up. It's just not good commerical sense. What i would expect, is that maybe they don't allow use of, for example, the Doom engien (or future versions) to be used by ATI as tech demos. Seeing as doom looks the most ambitious engine out there, that would hurt ATI's marketing a bit. Or maye it just means they won;t be asking them for advice, which is sort of similar to what you sggested but less deliberate.
NB: Dg, I think the sentence is 'not optimized for GF3 yet". It is an Alpha... I'd imagine you'd see a substantial performance benefit between the leaked Alpha and a final game as a result of optimization and simply having mroe time to work on the engine.
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Yep, but the Alpha is different. In that unvieling you saw, what... a few different scenes? One or two things? It wouldn't take much to rip out everything but what they needed to show so that it runs much better - keep in mind, no sound... little camera movement IIRC. You'd get a vastly higher framerate compared with what D3 Alpha has to put out.
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Originally posted by Thunder
Yep, but the Alpha is different. In that unvieling you saw, what... a few different scenes? One or two things? It wouldn't take much to rip out everything but what they needed to show so that it runs much better - keep in mind, no sound... little camera movement IIRC. You'd get a vastly higher framerate compared with what D3 Alpha has to put out.
True - but you could just as easily say that they designed that demo to represent the speed an quality they intended and expected the fully optimized final product to be, and the alpha is only really there to allow the artists to do work (on top-notch worsktations) whilst they finish the engine code. Not to mention whether the code is intended to be re-optimized for the next 'proper' version of DirectX, and that the current stuff has some partial redundancies to allow new DX features to be introduced at a later date.
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Thats true - I agree. Suffice to say, further optimisation is needed and will happen.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Ah..well ,I'll have to see then. Or hear, in this case.
Hmm... i doubt ID would 'boycott' ATI - especially as the latest Radeons *could* be market leaders in the NV30 doesn't shape up. It's just not good commerical sense. What i would expect, is that maybe they don't allow use of, for example, the Doom engien (or future versions) to be used by ATI as tech demos. Seeing as doom looks the most ambitious engine out there, that would hurt ATI's marketing a bit. Or maye it just means they won;t be asking them for advice, which is sort of similar to what you sggested but less deliberate.
NB: Dg, I think the sentence is 'not optimized for GF3 yet". It is an Alpha... I'd imagine you'd see a substantial performance benefit between the leaked Alpha and a final game as a result of optimization and simply having mroe time to work on the engine.
They didn't give ATI the alpha just for to be used as a Tech Demo for the Radeon, I read somewhere that they passed the alpha to ATI because with the graphical effects they want to implement it made more sense for ATI to create drivers and such.
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Originally posted by 01010
They didn't give ATI the alpha just for to be used as a Tech Demo for the Radeon, I read somewhere that they passed the alpha to ATI because with the graphical effects they want to implement it made more sense for ATI to create drivers and such.
I find it somewhat scary if this was pre R9500, because that card is obviously the best on the market, and if it can;t do enough for ID.... :shaking:
Um..what I did mean, to be honest, was that the Doom3 engine would be great to show off a graphics cards' power. If ID said 'no', it might be a bit of a dent for when ATI advertise their cards.
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Originally posted by Thunder
The whole concept here seems to be moving away from running in all guns blazing, one man army style play. You are not Rambo.
See, that's exactly my point. In Doom 1/2, you ARE Rambo. You DO run in with guns blazing, taking out most enemies with one shot.
id seems more set on giving us Resident Imps instead of a true Doom update. The truly bizarre thing is that Carmack's public statements run directly counter to what's been shown. He's been saying that Doom 3 will be a fast, streamlined shoot-em-up. Yet what we've seen involves slow movement and frequent gameplay interruptions.
No Use key. No weapon alt fire. Would have been no ragdoll physics if one of the programmers hadn't gone ahead and implemented it against Carmack's wishes. It seems the only thing state-of-the-art about Doom 3 will be the graphics. Any innovation outside that area, Carmack dissmisses as a "gimmick".
It also looks as if many enemy attacks physically knock the player around. I hated those sorts of attacks in Quake 2, and I anticipate hating them in Doom 3 as well.
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You will hate them - it's true that the view is affected by an attack, if a zombie slashes accross you you'll be knocked in the direction of its slash.
That said - if you wanted fast past Rambo action, why don't you go and play Serious Sam? It's got all the fast paced action anyone could need right now.
That said, I do see your point about the tech side of things. A convincing critisism might be that ID had problems making the game run well with lots going on, so they changed the balancing and bam - different style. All of a sudden slow moving action is the order of the day, not multiple monsters and fast paced blasting.
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Remember that last level, with the wall-sized boss and the gazillions of uber-respawning baddies? That's why they couldn't do the old Doom style with the flash new graphics (I'm assuming you won't be playing it on a Cray2...)
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I have it and am playing it on a:
P4 2.4Ghz
w/ GeForce 4 Ti4600
Get around 60 fps on average.
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Remember that last level, with the wall-sized boss and the gazillions of uber-respawning baddies? That's why they couldn't do the old Doom style with the flash new graphics (I'm assuming you won't be playing it on a Cray2...)
yeah, but that needed top-of-the line gfx cards too when it was the latest-greatest...
EDIT: w00t, phear my 999 posts...
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AMD XP 1.53
GF4 MX440
:(
I'm considering flogging the MX440 and buying a Ti42 or 4600... 128mb if I can afford it... opinions?
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
AMD XP 1.53
GF4 MX440
:(
I'm considering flogging the MX440 and buying a Ti42 or 4600... 128mb if I can afford it... opinions?
I would wait till NV30 comes out. That should lower the prices some. :nod:
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:confused:
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The card thats coming after the GF4 line. However I should point out at this point that the config file for Doom 3 has an option for support of nv30 instructions. Evidently nVidia have been playing with it as well - though I've no idea what it'll mean for the end user. It's something to bear in mind if you think Doom 3 is optimised for nv25 play only.
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screen
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As in shot? Ok - it'll take a bit of time to get one but I'll go and get snap happy.
In the meantime bear in mind that my system specs have a bottleneck at the CPU:
1.4GHz CPU
GF4 Ti 4600
256DDR RAM
Videologic Sonicfury sound card
Now... off to get the screens.
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OK. here we go... I tried upping the resolution to try and get some better shots, it sorta worked but not really... anyhow:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0000.jpg)
An empty corridor on Phobos.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0001.jpg)
Leading up to the bathroom scene. Note filtering is off at the moment so we've got jagged edges everywhere.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0003.jpg)
Run.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0004.jpg)
No, really run.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0006.jpg)
Or you'll end up like this guy...
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0009.jpg)
Who himself proceeds to get up and attack you. A shotgun shot to the head puts an end to that.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0012.jpg)
Mirror effects in the bathroom. Note the difference in guns between the real and the reflection.
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0013.jpg)
Random technological stuff going on. I died at this point which is where the shots end.
I'll fiddle with the settings some more and see if I can get a better result for you - but I hope that's a good idea as it is.
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I hate being a spoilsport, but it is actually illegal to possess the Doom 3 alpha. Despite what some people seem to think about leaked pre-releases, being the property of the developers/publishers/etc means that unless they release it in whatever manner they dictate, then it's an illegal release. In this case, an ATI employee leaked it, and despite what anyone may think, it IS warez. Activision and id Software have forced many sites to take down their screenshots as a result.
Despite leaking this release, ATI will still be working with id in graphics matters. The relationship has been soured, especially given ATI's history of leaking information, but they will continue to work together to optimise video drivers and game performance. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "optimised" for Radeons, but the Radeons are capable of rendering more textures per pass than any other cards. Which is one of the reasons Carmack will continue to work with them.
Slightly off topic, the NV30 has been delayed again. Expect to see them in Q1 next year. In the meantime, nVidia are bringing in "enhanced" versions of their current cards to fill the gap, but they are still falling short of ATI's current offerings.
Still looks nice (what's in the screenshots) for less than 5 minutes of gameplay. I'll be interested in seeing the finished product, when I have the CPU power to drive it.
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I can understand what you mean about it being warez, but from a certain point of view the game only contains as much information as a demo, and those are free. Given the game hasn't been released with a price tag or been completed I'm inclined not to treat it as stealing software - especially since I intend to purchase the full thing when it's released.
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Originally posted by Thunder
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/col/files/doom/shot0006.jpg)
:ick :D
That's some nice screen there, Thunder. Looks like D3'll be a purchase :nod:
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It does look good doesnt it! But I should point out that that's a scripted sequence shot... and most of the levels seem dark so I've not had a chance to experiment with just how good things can get. I'll investigate further :)
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Hmmm... deja vu--
(http://www.sshock2.com/ss2mmdb/screenshots/-rumbler.jpg)
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It is indeed technically warez, but I doubt anyone really cares; if gamespy ok's it, it is fine. :D
Anyway, those are some very nice graphics there. I hope they bring back that mutated pig/gorilla guy from the original games (the pink guy who growled and ran around); he was one of my favorite monsters. :D
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Bull demons! Yay!
My favorite monster was always the Baron of Hell. A minotaur with flaming green claws... with the best sound effects... scared me $#!+less when I finally got to Level 8 in the demo... :shaking:
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oh, yeah... those...
and the cyberdeamons! and that big spider in the end!
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
(http://www.sshock2.com/ss2mmdb/screenshots/-rumbler.jpg)
Oh yes, now that is a game. I wish they'd make one with the Doom 3 engine (where was it that I read that line?).
Speaking of which, does anybody know how hard that engine will be to mod?
Heh, I just noticed it. Health at 1, security alert active, three levels of toxin and a rumbler in front of you. If you got out of that alive, I'll bow to your magnificence.
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Originally posted by Levyathan
Speaking of which, does anybody know how hard that engine will be to mod?
D3? From what I gather it's based on the code of the Q3 engine (very loosly). So... about that hard?
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Originally posted by Levyathan
Heh, I just noticed it. Health at 1, security alert active, three levels of toxin and a rumbler in front of you. If you got out of that alive, I'll bow to your magnificence.
Well, note the URL of the image.
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Originally posted by Thunder
D3? From what I gather it's based on the code of the Q3 engine (very loosly). So... about that hard?
From what I've read, it'll be shipped with the full modding tools ala UT2003. So probably no harder than other FPS's, cept you'll probably need to use more polys and details to do it justice. On the plus side, if it's real time lighting you won't need to worry about shadowmaps.....
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What's the console command to lower the detail a bit to get it smoother that you were using Thunder?
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There are two ways, but this explains it far better than I can....
http://ludo.netonline.no/~imho/getting_started.html
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Originally posted by aldo_14
From what I've read, it'll be shipped with the full modding tools ala UT2003. So probably no harder than other FPS's, cept you'll probably need to use more polys and details to do it justice. On the plus side, if it's real time lighting you won't need to worry about shadowmaps.....
Well if you go the route iD is going for character models, you start with about a million polygons for a character, and then you start baking that down , converting polygon based detail into map based detail, until you get to around 6000 polys--or so said one of the iD guys in an E3 interview.
Now, I'll likely not be buying Doom3, but if someone makes a System Shock style fear fest based on the Doom3 engine, i'll be all over that like a junkie with a pile of free crack.
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Originally posted by mikhael
Well if you go the route iD is going for character models, you start with about a million polygons for a character, and then you start baking that down , converting polygon based detail into map based detail, until you get to around 6000 polys--or so said one of the iD guys in an E3 interview.
'tis but one way to do it.... I can see the benefit of starting at high detail and reducing, but I'm far too lazy to do so myself (in fS2).
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
Well, note the URL of the image.
Doh. Maybe it's Dave's then.