Doom 3, part 2.

Oh, dear.

No, no no. I really don't want to hear this.

No, I'm not listening to you.

On that note (as it were) - what does it sound like?

The closest I got to Doom was the original Quake and then much later
the Doom-inspired levels in an Unreal add-on. Thing is, I loved
playing the original blocky Quake and all its scary bits and stirring
music - the original Unreal really flicked my switch and caused the
first of many upgrades(1).

The best thing I ever did was to connect the sound card output to a
surround sound amp which sat conveniently under my monitor, feeding
"true 3D sound" through five speakers. It used to scare the shit out
of the (now ex-) wife if the volume crept up a bit at 2am.

1. Mind you, I was never really convinced of the wisdom behind using
a AGP graphics card which piped its output through a PCI 3D card.

 

By happy co-inky-dink I just happened to be working from home today, the day
that my copy of Doom 3 arrived[1].

I must say that, so far, I'm pretty fucking impressed. I obviously need a
better graphics card and more memory, as my machine can only handle "medium"
graphics detail.

The game, however, is good. Very scary and, for me at least, generally very
short. Imps are now tough ... FFS, they were low level cannon-fodder in the
earlier Dooms.

Oh well, let's see if I can ever make it back to Marine HQ ...

"The devil exists ... I know, I built his cage". You just have to love that
line.

[1] I um'd and ah'd about buying it, but eventually came up with the flimsy
rational that since I'd spent hundreds of hours playing Doom 1 & 2 without
ever paying a penny I'd fork out my hard-earned for a copy.

--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

What spec PC are you running it on?
It ran like a heap of shite on my XP1800 machine with a TI4200 graphics card
(and still not great on an FX5700U) so I decided not to buy it until I have
a more suitable machine.
--
Alex

YZF 600

"I laugh in the face of danger"

"Then I hide until it goes away"

www.upce.org.uk
www.drzoidberg.co.uk

 

3Ghz processor, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb graphics card ... so not exactly a bargain
basement spec.

It has to be said though that even "medium" resolution knocks the socks off
any other game I've played, including UT2004.

My one complaint is that, so far (for very, very small values of "far") a
lot of the game is set in near- or total-darkness, which means that the
minimum system spec could just as well be a monitor with an "off" button


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Start with a graphics card that has a spec equal to about a top-of-the-range
computer from the late-90s and build around it

They're cunning as well, they don't just stand there and wait for you to
shoot them - they do annoying things like leap at you, sending you cannoning
backwards and throwing your aim to shit.

You get some early missions which are piss-poor (report to reception, go to
marine command HQ, follow little scuttling robot thing) and then it suddenly
goes all Pete Tong and everything is out to get you.

The sound is one of the things that makes it. The first fighting section
puts you in an old engineering facility on Mars so you wander through the
gloom accompanied by the sound of machinery, screams of help (from very
close by), a radio link so you can listen to all of the other marines get
slaughtered and "things" breathing/moving.

I played Doom when it first came out, often over a lap-link to my mate
Martin's machine (I lost a lot because he was using a state-of-the-art
486DX66 with 8Mb of RAM and I had an IBM PS/2 386 with 2Mb of RAM).

By the time Doom 2 appeared we'd moved on to proper networked games and then
we spent a lot of time playing Duke Nukem 3D.

I never got into Quake and didn't get a copy of the original UT until last
year.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Despite the claims on the box that's pretty much the minimum spec I've seen
to get it to run at a half decent speed.

Yep , I've seen it running on a good machine and it really was very
impressive.

It's just one big commercial for Maglite
--
Alex

YZF 600

"I laugh in the face of danger"

"Then I hide until it goes away"

www.upce.org.uk
www.drzoidberg.co.uk

 

You do need a stonking good PC to run it at decent quality...

Though if you have an ATI card, youll need to sort this out....

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14874

Its a good game alright... note I say *good*, not *Great*...

id make good games that run on *great* engines... Im just waiting to see
what someone can really do with this one.... Remember, Half Life was based
on a (heavily modified) Quake 2 engine... and how good was *that* game?..

Ive got HL2 preloaded on my system already... now just the wait until they
get their shit together to release the unlock for it! Grrrrrrrrr!

But in the meantime, Doom 3 passed the time... or at least it did till I
finished it :-(

 

Ohh yes. I`ve been addicted to Doom 3 ever since my *ahem* copy turned up
last week. There are some quite honest bona-fide "scare the shit out of you*
moments well in it, especially if you search around. I wont spoil it be
telling you where...

The sound effects are sublime, and add so much atmosphere to the game, and
medium settings (what is recommended for a 128Mb card anyway) is still quite
enough to see the details in all their (albeit dark) glory. Although, I am
getting twitchy at the thought of buying a new video card with decent DX9
capabilities.

Apparently there are some quite groovy DX9 effects that I`m missing out on
at the moment. Just eyecandy, does not distract from the game in any way
but..... Tempted....

Anyway, it runs quite happily on medium settings/800x600 here. Not much in
the way of noticable slowdown even with numberous enemies/details on screen.
System spec (in case anyone is interested) AMD Barton 2500+ clocked at 3200+
(2.2Ghz), 512Mb, GF4Ti4200 (overclocked to 300/625)

One small niggle which is easily curable is the "lag" when you enter some
doors, or go into some new scenery. The lag being as it loads the new
textures into memory. Well, the cure is to go into the DoomConfig.cfg file,
and find the entries relating to seta_image_useCache "0" and so on.. Change
the next 3 entries to summat like this..

seta image_useCache "1"
seta image_cacheMegs "96"
seta image_cacheMinK "20480"

Where cacheMegs "96" is a multiple of your system memory. 1/4 to 1/6 of
total RAM appears to be the golden target. I find 1/6 slightly better as I
usually have a few odds and sods downloading/running in the background
anyway as I`m playing it.

 

What's an "*ahem* copy", Loz?

 

It`s one of those ones that turns up in a plastic snappies bag instead of a
proper case. Not that it will stay like that for long. I do intend to buy a
proper retail version when my local Tescos restock it so I get a valid
CD-key for multiplayer.

 

Feeble excuse.

Oh yes, Duke3D was a fantastic multiplayer game. At the time nothing could
beat Descent though, the targetting reitcule is still burned into my eyes.

Pity, you missed a lot of fun.

Still, I'm not likely to upgrade my machine for a while so I suppose it's my
turn now.

 

<SPOILER SPACE>


















The two bits that have really got me, so far, have been the bit in the
toilets (mainly because I was expecting a jokey sort of zombie-on-the-bog
type thing, and then I looked in the mirror) and my first encounter with one
of those bitey things that used to be pink (I can't remember what they're
called, but they're one step up from Imps).

Mind you, the bit in the medical lab where the corpse sits up was good too.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Sounds like System Shock 2?

 

Just a small note, Doom 3 uses OpenGL, not directX. Its oretty much the
only game that does though.

Mash

 

Demon. The invisible ones were Spectres. They were perfect for Doom 2's
double-barrel shotgun.

 

I believe so, but also there are some effects (apparently theres a rather
nice heat-haze effect) that is reliant upon DX9-class cards.

How this actually works (mixing OpenGL with DX9, or maybe it is reliant upon
various shader programming that is only useable with DX9-class) I do not
know.

 

AndrewR <> spewed forth the following...

<snip>

Ohh yes. The bathroom scene. Quite apt, really.

Picture the scene. About 2.30am, room in darkness apart from the glow of the
monitor. Wearing headphones...

I very nearly ruined a perfectly servicable pair of trousers...

Theres more to come, trust me. )

 

Really? One of the system requirements is 100% compatible DirectX 9.0b 3D
hardware accelerator card and the installation routine includes DirectX 9.0b


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

If you can wait a month you can rape the parts out of the PIII-800
that's in my loft, if you want.

 

If you don't want the processor, could I have it please?