I have a serious question.

My friends aren't DOOM fanatics like I am (2 groups), and they think Doom III's engine is only a tad-step up from Final Fantasy X (the other group likes Final Fagstacy).
I need help convicing them why DOOM III is going to change technology for games forever (they even say the PCGAMER of DOOM III, and said that FFX's cutscenes were better).
I want the common list for dumbass people, and the technical reasons.
This would really help me pound them for saying that DOOM was crappier than wolfenstein and that HALO has more energy than DOOM (they obviously never knew games -fps- with sprites). Thanks a bunch. And, would the DOOM III alpha test run on a GeForce 2 MX? Thanks!

Chu said:

My friends aren't DOOM fanatics like I am (2 groups), and they think Doom III's engine is only a tad-step up from Final Fantasy X (the other group likes Final Fagstacy).

[/b]I don't know what FFX is like, but you should watch those prejudicial slurs.

I need help convicing them why DOOM III is going to change technology for games forever (they even say the PCGAMER of DOOM III, and said that FFX's cutscenes were better).

So you need some help to convince them of something that you don't even know is true. Why? Doom 3 isn't the first game to use stencil shadows. It may have some neat effects like bumpmapping and monsters realistically falling down stairs, but nobody in the general game market is going to recognize any of Doom 3's features as revolutionary. I think that you've been influenced by the Doom 3 trailer.

I want the common list for _______ people, and the technical reasons.
This would really help me pound them for saying that DOOM was crappier than wolfenstein and that HALO has more energy than DOOM (they obviously never knew games -fps- with sprites). Thanks a bunch. And, would the DOOM III alpha test run on a GeForce 2 MX? Thanks!

Of course they're crazy if they think that Doom is poor compared to Wolfenstein, unless they're comparing Doom 1/2 to RTCW. Even then, it's debatable. Also, the Doom 3 alpha should run on that card. But it won't look the same as the GF3+/R8500+ cards.

AndrewB said:

Also, the Doom 3 alpha should run on that card. But it won't look the same as the GF3+/R8500+ cards.

I think the game is supposed to look the same on all cards, at the expense of performance on the less powerful ones.

New (better) cards can provide somewhat better graphics, for example enhanced AA. It's a matter of whether or not you enable it, though.

I thought that bumpmapping only works on newer series of cards.

AndrewB said:

[/b]I don't know what FFX is like, but you should watch those prejudicial slurs.

Meh, I've played FFX, wasn't bad, but wasn't good. Besides Doom3 will leave a lasting impression on your mind like the original did. Gameplay, atmosphere, surrealism, and now, graphic enhancement.

Chu said:

My friends aren't DOOM fanatics like I am (2 groups), and they think Doom III's engine is only a tad-step up from Final Fantasy X (the other group likes Final Fagstacy).

this is like comparing apples and sausages. These engines have nothing in common except they display graphics on a tv-like screen. Your friends obviously know nothing of video games or rendering engines.

ravage said:

Meh, I've played FFX, wasn't bad, but wasn't good. Besides Doom3 will leave a lasting impression on your mind like the original did. Gameplay, atmosphere, surrealism, and now, graphic enhancement.

Game-editibility left a larger impression than any of those other factors combined. Something that, from what we know now, Doom 3 will likely lack.

I thought that bumpmapping only works on newer series of cards.

All Doom 3's features at least work on a GeForce 2.

Game-editibility left a larger impression than any of those other factors combined. Something that, from what we know now, Doom 3 will likely lack.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but Doom 3 is probably the most editable closed-source game ever.

As easy to edit as Doom? How does it compare to Quake 1 in ease of editing?

Yeah, thanks Fredrik and everyone. They think that games are all about graphics (hence that's why they think DOOM sucks). Allright, I guess I will download DOOM III. Yeah, they're morons. It'll be hard convincing them--especially since they play console games more than PC games. But, Doom III started turning their heads when I said it will be out for Xbox.
You guys are really helpful. Maybe now, they won't have such a predudice-type view.
Thanks!

As an example, you might point out that FFX-2, using Doom3 technology, could give Yuna dimples, maybe a couple attractive wrinkles between her brows, put clefts underneath her fingers, and bring out the painstaking detail the artists put into her clothes, so that all of the above will be shaded and shadowed dynamically by every single light, all the time. Compare this to "fake" shading, where the artists "paint" shading which ALWAYS remains dark, even when the light changes position.

There's a screen shot that shows a bunch of characters fighting on top of a stone plateau. While the characters cast shadows on the ground, they don't cast shadows on themselves. They would in Doom3. The ground in this screen shot is a mish-mashed texture that tries to look like rocky ground. With the Doom3 engine, you's see individual pebbles, each one reflecting the light of that blast of magic that one of them has just cast.

The difference the Doom3 engine makes is in the uniformity with which mass amounts of detail can be applied to the game, and in the uniformity with which those details interact with the lighting in the environment. The FFX-2 engine does not appear to have these properties.

Or, put more simply, the WHOLE game would look like the pre-rendered FFX movies.

Then again, it really doesn't matter which engine you use-- Yuna is always going to look better than a pinky-demon. Unless you're really that kind of Doom fan. Not passing judgement ;)

AndrewB said:

As easy to edit as Doom? How does it compare to Quake 1 in ease of editing?

I haven't looked at it much, but as far as I can tell, it's easier than Quake 1. You can view the level in real time directly, no compile times. The fact that it's in 3D makes it slightly harder than Doom for a beginner, but once you know it, 3D editing is really simple. And Doom 3 levels aren't much more detailed than Quake levels.

When I said that it was editable, I was also thinking of the fact that editing everything other than levels is easier in Doom 3 than in any other game.

Chu said:

They think that games are all about graphics (hence that's why they think DOOM sucks).

Standard moron semi-gamer attitude. Now I wish I had seen this FFX so that I could laugh my ass off at those morons for thinking that it's better than Doom 3, Hah!

Game-editibility left a larger impression than any of those other factors combined. Something that, from what we know now, Doom 3 will likely lack.

Um, according to those who have already tried their hands at editing for the Alpha, it's pretty easy to edit for Doom 3.

And even so, I never gave a damn about the editability (sp?) of Doom when it was new - back then I was too damn busy playing the game. I reckon it's gonna be the same with Doom 3, though this time I'll be able to try editing it myself because the modding tools are included in the game - until 1998 I didn't have any sort of internet connection so editing for Doom was not an option.

When I said that it was editable, I was also thinking of the fact that editing everything other than levels is easier in Doom 3 than in any other game.

Does that mean that you can edit other things in the Alpha than just the levels?

I never gave a damn about the edibility of Doom

I didn't want to eat it either :P

Does that mean that you can edit other things in the Alpha than just the levels?

Sure. Textures, sounds, skins, models (might require a converter)...

It's all in text/tga/wav files, remember?

Fredrik made a phunney:
I didn't want to eat it either :P

*Munch, munch munch*
"Who's eaten my copy of Doom!?"
*Burb*

It's all in text/tga/wav files, remember?

Sorry, I know that it's all in text files 'n stuff, but I've never been sure what that actually means for the editability (sp?), except that it supposedly means that it should be easier to edit.

I can't believe Doom 3 uses 11 KHz WAV audio. Maybe it's just the alpha, but if they're making the audio as poor quality as possible just so they can squeeze out that extra bit of graphics performance, that's quite cheap.

dsm said:

Sorry, I know that it's all in text files 'n stuff, but I've never been sure what that actually means for the editability (sp?), except that it supposedly means that it should be easier to edit.

Yea, everything I've looked at in the alpha seems to be really user freindly. I picked up how to fiddle with the particle files in about 3 minutes.

Lord FlatHead said:

I think the game is supposed to look the same on all cards, at the expense of performance on the less powerful ones.

NO IT'S NOT SORRY ..

And for the first question about convincing your friend..Well I tried bot gamez and I can surely tell you that IT IS NOT THE SAME thing at all.. It's a new engine they built durin gtheir years of absence..

AndrewB said:

I can't believe Doom 3 uses 11 KHz WAV audio. Maybe it's just the alpha, but if they're making the audio as poor quality as possible just so they can squeeze out that extra bit of graphics performance, that's quite cheap.

you are absolutly right :)...It is 1.05 gig once unzipped taht's enough lool..

Sigh. Where to begin?

I'll skip over Chu's original post as the issues he brought up will be addressed in later posts. I'll also skip over AndrewB's post, because, well...it's an AndrewB post. Except...

A Geforce 2 MX isn't going to run Doom 3 playably. Period. There IS no argument with this. Such will be met with a bancannon shell. Thanks.

Lord Flathead is correct - the alpha (and likely the game, as well) is designed, with the default settings, to look essentially the same on any video card, regardless of it's featureset. The compromise is in performance. Of course, you can tilt the balance the other way (compromising quality for speed) with a little config editing.

Bumpmapping works on every card Doom III is supposed to run on.

Use3D - I don't think his friends are the only ones that don't know anything about video games nor rendering engines. In fact, I'd willing to bet that their age is represented by a number smaller than the number of cylinders in my car's engine.

Fredrik is aso correct. Doom 3's file formats are very standardized; the game will be incredibly easy to modify. However, I would make the assertion unflinchingly that this is more in the interest of licensability than moddability.

Hey now EsH. Those hell knights are sexy fiends.

I love how once we prove one of AndrewB's statements wrong he has to find something else to whine about. Are you wearing white facepaint and eyeshadow these days, AndrewB?

Warezgard, do you realize that not only does your post make very little sense to begin with, but that you also completely missed the point? Graduate middleschool and come back, sweetheart.

warezgard said:

And for the first question about convincing your friend..Well I tried bot gamez and I can surely tell you that IT IS NOT THE SAME thing at all..

What do you mean by bot gamez?

It would appear he's talking about Quake 3, and it's engine...

(wtf)

AndrewB said:

What do you mean by bot gamez?

[quote]they think Doom III's engine is only a tad-step up from Final Fantasy[quote]

AndrewB said:

What do you mean by bot gamez?

Bot games like FF, which don't have true characters, only actions and stuff.

AndrewB said:

As easy to edit as Doom? How does it compare to Quake 1 in ease of editing?

Well, it wouldnt be easy to pull off complex changes in actual game design even in Quake c - at least not compared to C++. If you say, wanted to make a RPG mod it would be a lot easier to do the really hard stuff through dlls rather than hacking.

What youre saying Is similar to asking if doom is as "easy" to edit as quake - its much harder to do the complex stuff like rooms over rooms in doom than in quake, but if you want to stay stuck in the past then the answer is obvioulsy doom.

It depends on what you want to do

and besides, doom 3s level editing actually will be easier in the direct sense - real time, more importing from other sources (lightwave and maya for example) and more

Katarhyne said:

I'll also skip over AndrewB's post, because, well...it's an AndrewB post. Except...

A Geforce 2 MX isn't going to run Doom 3 playably. Period. There IS no argument with this. Such will be met with a bancannon shell. Thanks.

??? Why are AndrewBs posts unanswerable?

Anyhow, keep in mind that it has been REPEATEDLY stressed that doom 3 was designed around GEFORCE ONE LEVEL HARDWARE. Literally 90% of of interviews with carmack have him complaining about how fast the industry is moving. Now maybe id totally missed their mark and have fucked up, but its certainly not that case that "There IS no argument with this." Sorry.

I'd be surprised if a game that could run on a GeForce 1 couldn't run on a GeForce 2 MX. Yeah I know, the GeForce 2 MX is lousy, but is it really THAT bad?

Katarhyne said:

A Geforce 2 MX isn't going to run Doom 3 playably. Period. There IS no argument with this. Such will be met with a bancannon shell. Thanks.

It depends on what you mean by "playable". To some people, Doom3 being "playable" means being able to run the game at 1280x1024, with all effects on, at about 20fps. To others, it means maybe tuning a few effects off, jumping down to 1024x768, and getting AT LEAST the standard 30fps.

This is just hardcore hardware geek stuff. The truth is, if you turn specular highlighting off, on a GF1 card, each light will only take one or two passes to do bumpmapping. That's more than reasonable on a GFMX2, where each scene might have at most 3 overlapping lights.

Even stripped down, specular highlighting off, Doom3 will still look pretty damn good compared to other games out there. You could probably run at a reasonable 800x600 (yes, some gamers can live with this-- I was shocked, too) at about 30fps in most scenes. This is quite playable for many gamers, myself included.

Of course, people who fork out more money will get more effects, but there's more to a game than graphics, and even on low settings, those graphics will be pretty increadible.

EsH said:

It depends on what you mean by "playable". To some people, Doom3 being "playable" means being able to run the game at 1280x1024, with all effects on, at about 20fps. To others, it means maybe tuning a few effects off, jumping down to 1024x768, and getting AT LEAST the standard 30fps.

To me "playable", means cranking it down to the lowest possible settings and resolution and even there have rather choppy framerates.
Hell, when I first had Doom on my computer I played it with the smallest screen size and with a framerate that might have been around the 15 or so in some places - damn choppy and extremely hard to hit things right, dunno how the fuck I managed to master it.

First of all, BBG - he wasn't talking about 'bot gamez' he was trying to say "both games", but he's mentally damaged and thus incapable of recognizing and fixing errors.

Second of all, Wobbo - by all rights you should be seeing a "sorry, you're banned" screen right now but I'm in a pretty decent mood and to be fair, you brought up a valid (if flawed) point. Yes, Doom 3 is designed to run on Geforce256-level hardware. However, it is designed AROUND Geforce3-level hardware. But besides that, you DO realize that the Geforce256 DDR outperforms the Geforce 2 MX, right?

Yes, dsm, the Geforce 2 MX is THAT BAD. It's got less than half the fillrate and less than half or even sometimes less than one-quarter the memory bandwidth of a Geforce 2 GTS. In DX6 apps, the TNT2 Ultra can outperform the Geforce 2 MX200.

EsH - playable to me is 90+FPS with everything maxed at 1024x768x32 or 1280x1024x32. Of course, most people would disagree. ^.~ I actually consider "playable" to be around 30FPS in 1024x768x32 with everything enabled, and all of the adjustable-value settings (r_picmip, r_subdivisions, etc) to be one setting below maximum. That way, you're still getting the largest portion of the visual impact of the game without sacrificing too much speed. A Geforce 2 MX just isn't going to cut it - Geforce 2 Ultras can't even pull that off in 640x480, at least in the alpha.

dsm, how can you live?

Katarhyne said:

dsm, how can you live?

Rofl! How can all the poor people in Africa and other third world countries live?
Because they're used to living like that and that's the same answer I can give you.

At any rate, the days of playing games at a choppy framerate are over for me. Today, all of my games run decently.
:-)