Graphics, looking towards the future.

[Nessus]

Will there be any thoughts about making the game scalable into the future? For example including graphics options that would bring current gen cards to their knees but will be achievable a year or two after launch.

I know Valve stated that with HL2 they had game models that were really high detail that they would release at a later date when technology caught up. Looks like that will never happen but I thought it was a great idea. Did you guys do anything like that?

[Cerberus_e]

doom 3 did that with ultra quality: you need 512 mb memory in your GPU to play on that or it won't work properly http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
now, a year later, there are still not a whole lot of people being able to run ultra quality (almost none, in fact)
it's a cool feature yes.

but it's like that with most new games, 3DR says no graphics card is able to run DNF at 1600*1200 on maxed out settings.

[Geo-King]

I would like to see that too but I am going to have this comp (2.4MHz Intel, 9800Pro - 4x AGP, 1GB 333MHz RAM) for a very long long time so I hope it's scalable indeed.

I remember reading a long time ago someone from ID saying that DooM3 would show its true potential when new cards come out. Are we at that point now???

It’s amazing what modders can do. Just look at all the stuff they have done to older games. Have you played with the tenebrae (http://tenebrae.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=screenshots.txt) source port for Quake1.

[Emultra]

Cerberus_e said:
but it's like that with most new games, 3DR says no graphics card is able to run DNF at 1600*1200 on maxed out settings.



Even SLi'd 7800GTX's?

[Cerberus_e]

Geo-King said:
I remember reading a long time ago someone from ID saying that DooM3 would show its true potential when new cards come out. Are we at that point now???



how unfortunate, if you waited 1 minute longer to watch this thread, you'd have seen my post http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Spyd]

The Doom3 engine will show its real power with Quake4 and next games.
Half Life 2 will have these high-res models with the "Lost coast" map, to be released shortly.
I hope that we'll get some stuff from 3DR when DNF is done, such as new content or high res models.

[Geo-King]

In my opinion, Hardware manufacturers are purposely developing product at slower speeds to make as much profit as possible. Some guy in Japan over-clocked his CPU to 7 or 8 (I don’t remember) GHz. WTF! Sure, he needed a crazy cooling system but that’s still proof that we should be at 10GHz by now. Some guy did this in his basement, don’t you think a multi-billion dollar company can do just a little bit better?

Why am I ranting off topic you might ask well because I wanna see Photo Realistic DNF! GRRRR! BARK! BARK!

Found the story.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/web/display/20050811231553.html

[hell-angel]

Emultra said:

Cerberus_e said:
but it's like that with most new games, 3DR says no graphics card is able to run DNF at 1600*1200 on maxed out settings.



Even SLi'd 7800GTX's?



Even if they did, that are 2 graphics cards, not 1 and that is what they where refering to. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Kalki]

I hope so. I want to see how this game stacks up against what we saw in Unreal Engine 3, not that I have any expectations from it.

[Little Conqueror]

Cerberus_e said:
doom 3 did that with ultra quality: you need 512 mb memory in your GPU to play on that or it won't work properly http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
now, a year later, there are still not a whole lot of people being able to run ultra quality (almost none, in fact)
it's a cool feature yes.

but it's like that with most new games, 3DR says no graphics card is able to run DNF at 1600*1200 on maxed out settings.



512 MB?!? Really?!? I know I'm not exactly getting the best out of my Ultra on my Radeon 9600, but I can still run it in 800x600 (which I don't like doing of course) at a very acceptable framerate.

I'm waiting until Duke Nukem Forever is a bit closer to release before I upgrade/buy a new computer. Things are just so damned expensive now - I have rent and bills to pay, so I don't have money (though I have plenty of time) to burn on computer hardware.

But I definitely think developers should keep a broad spectrum of hardware in mind, from low-end to extreme. Scalability is awesome. Even if I'll never be able to do it on my slow computer, I want all sorts of nice, advanced options - I just don't want them to be pushed on my aging computer and called "features." (An option to disable works.)

[FireFly]

Cerberus_e said:
doom 3 did that with ultra quality: you need 512 mb memory in your GPU to play on that or it won't work properly http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
now, a year later, there are still not a whole lot of people being able to run ultra quality (almost none, in fact)
it's a cool feature yes.

but it's like that with most new games, 3DR says no graphics card is able to run DNF at 1600*1200 on maxed out settings.


It works just fine with 256 MB cards, you just occasionally get some slight hitching (as new textures are loaded into the video memory).

As for George's quote, that was said in early 2004, before the new generation of cards hit.

[Cerberus_e]

FireFly said:

Cerberus_e said:
doom 3 did that with ultra quality: you need 512 mb memory in your GPU to play on that or it won't work properly http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
now, a year later, there are still not a whole lot of people being able to run ultra quality (almost none, in fact)
it's a cool feature yes.

but it's like that with most new games, 3DR says no graphics card is able to run DNF at 1600*1200 on maxed out settings.


It works just fine with 256 MB cards, you just occasionally get some slight hitching (as new textures are loaded into the video memory).




yes, when you open a door http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I have that problem on low quality too http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Little Conqueror]

I think that's actually an issue with the game itself that can be resolved. It's been a while since I've played Doom 3 though.

[Piano Man]

I just hope the game supports AA and Full AF!!! I want Duke in all it's picture Perfect perfection. My Graphics card is just drooling for this game.

[hasenbein]

I can play D3 it with Ultra Details but I cant see a difference. In what way should it look different?

[Cerberus_e]

no compression in the textures.

[FireFly]

That's already the case for the 'High' quality setting. The only difference between the 'Ultra' and 'High' settings is that the former does not compress the specular or diffuse maps, meaning the lighting on objects is slightly more refined.

[NutWrench]

hasenbein said:
I can play D3 it with Ultra Details but I cant see a difference. In what way should it look different?



The Doom 3 engine sorts textures according to frequency of use. So a commonly-used texture gets the least compression and an infrequently-used texture gets the most. At the Ultra setting, ALL the textures are at the best quality, with no compression.

If you look carefully through a Doom 3 level, you can find several one-shot textures that look really crappy, even at the medium texture quality setting. (Like the bio-scanner texture at the beginning of the game)

[Jeff]

I probably won't get much quality with an X800 series card, but maybe for the next round. Bring on those 1 GB to 2 GB of graphics memory.

[Nessus]

I found Ultra barely worth doing, unless youre really looking hard at still shots you dont really see a diffrence.

Does Doom3 use 3DTC? I thought that looked really good, did it take off or did Nvidia not adopt it thus killing it?

[Piano Man]

Plus when you put it on ultra, it forces anti aliasing (by default unless you reset it back to 0)

But you don't need an 512 MB Card to experience Ultra...

I do it all the time and it works fine and is so smooth.

[hell-angel]

Jeff said:
I probably won't get much quality with an X800 series card, but maybe for the next round. Bring on those 1 GB to 2 GB of graphics memory.



Yeah, and those processor speeds (for the GPU) can be increased as well IMO. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif


b.t.w. Jeff:
Congratulations. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Zaarin]

Jeff said:
I probably won't get much quality with an X800 series card, but maybe for the next round. Bring on those 1 GB to 2 GB of graphics memory.



Aww, crap, I still have a GF4 Ti4200 with 128Mb + Voodoo 1 with 6Mb http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Also, Happy b-day to you Jeff! Hope you get what you wanted for present. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Sayantan]

Nessus said:
Does Doom3 use 3DTC? I thought that looked really good, did it take off or did Nvidia not adopt it thus killing it?



Nope. It doesn't have it yet. But who knows ......... *fingers crossed*

[hell-angel]

Sayantan said:

Nessus said:
Does Doom3 use 3DTC? I thought that looked really good, did it take off or did Nvidia not adopt it thus killing it?



Nope. It doesn't have it yet. But who knows ......... *fingers crossed*



what is 3DTC?

[SyntaxN]

Nessus said:
Does Doom3 use 3DTC? I thought that looked really good, did it take off or did Nvidia not adopt it thus killing it?


Do you mean 3dc from ATI http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[Nessus]

Yeah I meant 3dc, I always thought it really looked really good.