Doom 3 minimum PC requirements announced
 

For all those wondering if your system will stack up, insiders have revealed the minimum system specs needed to play this little beauty:

Yowza. Luckily my last upgrade put me over this mark. Barely. And in case the one gamer in the world who hasn't already heard about Doom 3's release date is reading... it ships August 4th. Here's hoping id Software kicks our asses again; Doom 3 is the first game I've been excited about for a while now (outside of the false announcement of the Half-Life 2 release date).

This one is not too bad for me but I'm thinking about upgrading the video card anyway. If it's any interest to ppl, here are the general newegg price levels you could expect these days between $100 and $250, and any discussion helping me pick is helpful.

$125
ATI Radeon 9600PRO

$140
GeForce FX5700 or Radeon 9600XT

$175
GeForce FX5900XT

$210
ATI Radeon 9800PRO

I've been waiting for the next Duke Nukem since... oh, about 1964 (at least it seems that long).


Here is a link to a small movie about the game - interviews with the creators and some footage from the game. Scroll down to the files posted on July 17, 2004 - there is one movie but two resolutions to choose from. Also, there are some screenshot collections on the same page.

Unfortunately, my system is such that I'll have to wait for Santa before I can play :(

whooooeeeee.

Baby, I'm IN!!!!

gimme gimme gimme gimme.

$210
ATI Radeon 9800PRO

All the way.

You are never going see a linear relationship between graphics card prices vs graphics card performance but the 9800Pro comes close.

I think to see it at it's best you'd need something that has not been produced yet, I hear a top end AMD64 and a X800 would do nicely.

Crap. I have 384, can free up two gigs (though I need a second HD soon) and have a GF4 Ti4200, but I'm running an Athlon T-Bird 1300.

I'm actually not all that concerned, because I'd imagine that the video card would be more of a bottleneck than the processor speed, and if they're saying that a GF3 will be playable...

This statement has so little actual value that I am going to decrement your post count by one. :) :biggrinha

Well, if you want to go big....
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...721/index.html

Well, I hear that the element of the game which really slaps the hardware around is the dynamic lighting... and if I'm not mistaken, that's a pretty CPU and GPU intensive task. So they may be serious about the CPU requirement.

The guys at id said that they wanted this game to be scary, and I think they've hit the mark with these system requirements. Think about it... these specs are the minimum system requirements, so if you meet them, you'll probably be able to run it at 800x600 max, with low-to-moderate detail. The recommended requirements haven't been officially released yet, but they say something about some "Cray-Super" computer? Anybody ever heard of that? :)

You're right UT, feel free.
Of marginally more value is that linux binaries will be availiable at release where as an OSX boxed version don't have a date yet.

Amen Silent, i run a 3 ghz pent 4, 512 ddr ram and the 9800 pro and i have yet to expeirence lag what-so-ever! I bless thee ATI in all your endeavours!
I kinda needed it to run Halo properly.. that game is a beast, but Doom's graphics will smack it up it like a redheaded stepchild!

Now that's what I'm talking about...

9800Pro it is.

Ehh, if that's the case, I'm done, since my A7V133 motherboard only goes up to 1.4GHz.

One of these days, I'm going to get someone to throw a bunch of NewEgg parts together and make me a faster system.

I've been thinking of upgrading. Unfortunately, I'll probably need a new MB, CPU, and RAM. What a pain...

Don't think of it as a pain. Think of it as an excuse.

It's the research and installation that's the pain. The actual getting and using wil be great.

While I'm still in househunting mode, I probably shouldn't have an excuse.

(Even so, I smell a "how about this config" thread or two coming up in Technology.)

Looking on GameStop's site, it lists one more requirement:

* Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP

CRUD. That's one more "upgrade" necessary, as I'm clinging onto 98SE for dear life.

If you've got enough cpu muscle to handle it, 2000 and XP are actually very nice. They are much more stable than the 95 derivatives. Also, XP is much more game friendly than the previous NTs.

My problem with that, and the reason that I have always been resistant to Windows upgrades, is this:

* Windows apps (other than Doom 3) that I want to run that will run under 2000/XP: all of them.
* Windows apps (other than Doom 3) that I want to run that will run under 98SE: all of them.

So I'm paying $100 to... er... run exactly the same apps that I run now, with the exception of one game. Doom 3 may be spectacular, but paying $100 for XP on top of its $54.99 list isn't on my to-do list.

I clung to WfWG 3.11 on my old PC (P-133) until absolutely everything required 9x, and still have 95 on it to this day. When I bought my current system, I specifically got 98SE instead of Me or 2000, and haven't regretted it.

Ain't it great how Microsoft takes it upon themselves to chew up any spare CPU cycles you might have? They seem to have the mentality that as CPUs grow faster, their kernel must grow proportionally. As a result, compuers never really seems to run any faster unless you run an old version of Windows on new hardware.

Worse than that, my cool joystick isn't supported under XP, as I discovered when I made the switch. :(

But, on the whole, I'm happier with XP. I don't play many joystick games.

and yet OSX manages to get faster and add new features with every major release.

Quoted for truth.

When the same program that runs fine with 128MB under 9x requires 256MB under XP to avoid chugging heavily, something's seriously wrong here.

My father-in-law has an entry-level Dell that's somewhere in the 2000s -- I think it's a 2.5Ghz P4, running XP. Since we both have 128MB of RAM, even though his is DDR and mine is PC133, my system runs almost _everything_ more efficiently than his. I'm in the process of ordering a new 256MB stick for him, which should be thoroughly unnecessary but isn't.

Don't denigrate 98's ability to fill all available cycles as well. Heck, I bet Workgroups could operate slowly on a P4, given half a chance.

I'm not saying that there's ever been an efficient version of Windows -- far from it. It would be nice to see new versions of Windows be at least _more_ efficient than those before them, however. Maybe Me->XP, but that's because Me was so horrible to begin with.

Well, I have no doubt that problems could arise in those OSes causeing them to consume excess cycles (beyond their built-in excess), but what I am talking about is "normal use." Windows XP's kernel is so crammed with excess, bloated crap that it almost oozes out of the seams on the computer case. In it's day 98 was as bad as XP in terms of what percentage of CPU cycles it ate, but my point is that the percentage should decrease, not stay flat. It's the OS.... it's supposed to just get out of the way and let me use my system.

Apple's OSX is also bloated, but at least they're moving the right direction.

I wouldn't upgrade just for a game either.

I thought there was something you didn't like about 2000 or XP. I know they require more muscle than 98. I'm willing to pay the price for the improved stability.

Is that the improved stability that left them wide open to most of the viruses and worms of recent years (such as Blaster), to which 9x were often immune?

(That doesn't include "OMG CLICK COOLSHIT.SCR.PIF.COM.EXE FOR NEKKID PICS OF ANNA KOURNIKOVA" email viruses, of course. Then again, since my main mailbox is a Unix shell account, I don't worry much about those...)

That's not entirely fair, the biggest wheel is going to get picked on the most.

I used 2k for a while and was quite happy with it. I still use... um, recommend it when I'm upgrading an older PC for someone.

That being said, I refused to move up to XP until the first service pack came out.

I'm running XP on a PIII 800 with 512 MB of RAM and it runs fine. If you turn off all of the glowy crap and visual enhancements and run your pc with a little attentiveness and don't install every plugin, browser bar, weather bug, clock updater, calender, run MSN, ICQ, AOL and Yahoo Messenger, while playing winamp and solitaire with your anti-virus, ad-watch, winamp agent, quicktime monitor, lotus works quicklaunch and your office shortcut bar running in the background you'll be fine.

And don't forget to run your updates.

I use Windows Update on a regular basis and haven't had a problem. YMMV.

If stability is your major goal, then Linux or BSD would be good choices. Not as many games for them, though.

For me, my job is developing for Windows (mostly) with some Unix thrown in. If you have to use a Win32 OS, then 2000 and XP are better choices than the 95 based versions.

Doom 3 is coming out for Linux.

A /. story has information on how D3 might work with $500 cards but is so underwhelming with information that I refuse to link it. But in it, it's hinted that people got a decent game experience on a 1.5 ghz machine with an MX440 card. Maybe the best thing to do is wait.

ATI 9800, P4 1.8, 512 RAM. I expected my system to choke on this game based on the hype. At 1024x768 medium detail the game plays beautifully and looks amazing. I was thoroughly impressed and the game has a couple "jump out of your skin" moments.

Gameplay is basic, not really groundbreaking, and the scary moments in the game so far just amount to the cheap shots (demons dropping from the ceiling or popping into your field of view suddenly). But this game really is the natural evolution of Doom. I think that as long as you go into the game expecting to see just that, you're gonna be thoroughly pleased.

I went and bought a 9800pro card and it wound up not working. Might be due to a power supply (not again!) and thus require a whole new supply. This game is getting expensive and I haven't even installed it yet.

98SE wasn't too bad. ME sucks, but it could be worse, you could have a Mac and be stuck with a machine that crashes more than any Win2k box, costs twice as much, and has a tenth of the software available and a one button mouse. lol

If you're a stickler for not wasting any resources, go with something thin like Linux. Although the learning curve is a bit higher for that.

I went into ebgames to buy Doom because I heard it was one of the best games out, then they guy convinced me to buy x box and wait another two months to get doom on it. But, i heard the game was fantastic.

Fuck the guy at EBGames. Go get it now. You'll thank me later.

Friendly advice: ignore everything the guy behind the counter at EBGames says. In fact, more often than not, you can take his advice, do the exact opposite, and you've made a better decision than those dumbasses are capable of.

And if you really want to have fun with them, ask them to pronounce "Suikoden".

the thing is that he said that you need a top notch computer, which i can believe or else this thread would not have been created. according to him, that if my computer is as old as i say it is, it will run at an incredibly slow rate. I may just buy the xbox

Post specs.

Early reviews are saying that the game is not that bad on a minimum box. I think it would suck on an Xbox where the controller isn't made for FPSing.

OTOH I'm waiting to debug my 9800pro video card before installing it. I want the maximum effect.

Yeah, I've never considered my system much of a "gaming rig" but I'm really pleased with how D3 looks. Granted, I haven't seen it on a high-end system, so I really don't know what I'm missing.

I'm not bashing on the Xbox here, it's a helluva a nice console, and I tend to prefer it over the other 2 current generation systems, but yeah, D3 really needs to be played on the PC. You're gonna get the following:

1. Higher resolution
2. Mods! There's already a couple out to improve the game a bit (I like the duct tape mod)
3. Much better controls. Let's face it, console controllers have a long way to go before getting this right on an FPS. Halo tried, and in some ways succeeded, but the bottleneck here is not the games.

So get the Xbox, and get SSX3 and Crimson Skies with it. But upgrade your PC if needed, and play Doom 3 the way God intended.

the thing is that if i spend 55 bucks and i can't play it for shit because of my computer, its a waste of money. And i don't think i'm going to be getting an upgrade any time soon.

But you're ready to drop, what, $150 on the Xbox, and $50 on the game? Post specs.

Just finished Doom 3. Cool game. Astounding graphics.