Is the technology looking more and more "nothing special"?

I haven't posted on this board in a long time, nor have I paid much attention to the progress of Doom 3, but I just need some answers...

It's looking like Doom 3 is being outdone BIG TIME, and not just by Half-Life 2. My brother downloaded a game called Hitman 2: something something Assassin, by Eidos. The thing does these amazing 3D sequences, with very real and fluent effects. It had real-time shadows, (they looked like soft-shadows from where I was standing,) lighting effects every bit as impressive as Doom 3... He was running at 1024x768, and seemed to get a very constant 60FPS. What are his system specs? I know that exactly...

900MHz AMD
256MB SDRAM.
GeForce2

I think this this whole "revolutionary" GeForce3-and-newer pixel-shader technology is just bull____. Everything that Doom 3 claimed to revolutionize seems to have already been far outdone. Seriously, why is it that these amazing effects can be delivered on a freaking GeForce2 at such a stunning pace? I smell rotten hype.

uh?
Hitman 2 does not have real time shadows.
Do you really think Hitman 2 looks better than Doom3?
hah. No game can touch Doom3's graphics, not even Half-Life 2.

Are you calling me blind? I know what I saw, and I couldn't tell the difference.

I'd like it if someone who actually knew could fill me in on this.

AndrewB said:

Are you calling me blind?

You must be. I also happen to think Doom 3 looks far superior to hit man 2. I haven't seen any moving footage for half-life 2 yet so I can't say how it compares to doom 3.

Edit: Gramma fix.

Erm... DOOM 3 outdone by Hitman 2?

You mean this looks better than this?

I have a very hard time believing that your eyes aren't dysfunctional...

Yes I got Hitman 2 running nicely on my old TNT, but in no way (even with my current GF4) would I say it was better looking than Doom 3.

AndrewB said:

AndrewB's maniacal ramblings

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Quick! Somebody show me something unfunny before I die laughing!

dsm said:

Quick! Somebody show me something unfunny before I die laughing!

Insert random impse thing here

oh my fuck I cant believe what im reading here, How the fuckin hell does Hitman 2 look better then doom 3 seriously I need a logical answer.

Even if you compare with other big upcoming FPS games like HL2,stalker,far cry..doom3 still looks the most advanced graphics wise

Tyockell said:

oh my fuck I cant believe what im reading here, How the fuckin hell does Hitman 2 look better then doom 3 seriously I need a logical answer.

Logical answer: AndrewB finally got insane of all the bashing, so he's beginning to hallucinate and say stuff he's not even aware of himself :-)

Let's all hope he gets over it and show him that we care for him when he's back in the large club of the mentally sane again shall we?

:-P

dsm said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Quick! Somebody show me something unfunny before I die laughing!

Shaviro said:

Insert random impse thing here

http://www.geocities.com/insertwackynamehere57/fun_stuff/imse64.html

Zoorado said:

Erm... DOOM 3 outdone by Hitman 2?

You mean this looks better than this?

I have a very hard time believing that your eyes aren't dysfunctional...

Obviously you picked one of the more extreme-ugly pictures of HM2, and the most sparkling of Doom 3's pictures.

Anyway, obviously the Doom 3 models are far advanced in their polygon-counts, but that's not the point. I'm talking mainly about the lighting and shadow effects. Hitman 2 definetely DOES use real-time shadows, and it's been demonstrated that these shadows can be computed with relative ease, and were not the thing of advanced hardware features, like they were making it out to be.

For heck's sake, I'm not comparing polygon counts here. I'm talking about lighting and shadows. So stay on the subject.

Perhaps the answer is because bump/specularity/gloss maps aren't used (or are used very little) in Hitman 2 whereas they're used on every surface in Doom 3.

Well, I don't agree with the whole Hitman 2 vs. Doom 3 thing, but I do think that if Id Software doesn't hurry up and get their asses in gear that they will lose the race to revolutionize gaming today.

Thanks, finally, for some intelligent responses.

Did you know that Demon Massacre looks better than Doom 3!? OMG!!!!11

Melfice said:

Well, I don't agree with the whole Hitman 2 vs. Doom 3 thing, but I do think that if Id Software doesn't hurry up and get their asses in gear that they will lose the race to revolutionize gaming today.

Revolution my ass. I'm afraid first-person shooters are going the way of the adventure game. Prettier graphics, a new idea every six months, and a whole lot of rehashes of old games. Because that's what Doom III is - it's Doom meets Half-Life with near-photorealistic graphics and a few gimmicks. I'm sure it'll be a blast to play, but honestly I haven't seen any revolution, or even _evolution_ in first-person shooters since the releases of Half-Life and Deus Ex. And that was years ago.

Anyway, I don't think fancy features equals great graphics. In many ways, Metal Slug 3 (one of the greatest 2D sidescrollers ever, at 320x204 resolution) looks way better than, say, Soldier of Fortune II. And the scene in Half-Life 2 with the scientist and the young black/mulatto woman looks just as good as anything I've seen in Doom III, despite the lack of bumpmapping or fancy lighting.

John Carmack's "I'm a genius, I'll do everything by myself" philosophy is outdated. True, he is a genius when it comes to engine and graphics programming - but I'd rather have five great programmers working on a game engine than one genius. I'll be the happiest gamer alive the day Raven Software and id Software merge into a nice big first-person shooter development house with a hundred employees, including the most talented programmers and artists in the business. The basement days are over, and id Software should begin realising that.

Lord FlatHead said:

John Carmack's "I'm a genius, I'll do everything by myself" philosophy is outdated. True, he is a genius when it comes to engine and graphics programming - but I'd rather have five great programmers working on a game engine than one genius.

Last time I've checked 5 people have been working on the game engine at id software:

- John Carmack (you know what he does)
- Graeme Devine (sound & particles)
- Robert Duffy (tools & gameplay)
- Jim Dose (scripting & gameplay)
- Jean Paul van Waveren (AI & physics)

BTW - Raven was bought by Activision a while ago, so you wont see id software merging with a development studio which depends on other peoples (especially marketing) decisions.

Lord FlatHead said:

Anyway, I don't think fancy features equals great graphics.

Yes, absolutely agreed. It's something I mentioned before. Here's 6 games... Super Mario Bros. 3, Duke Nukem 2, Donkey Kong Country, Quake 2, HL:Counter-Strike, Operation Flashpoint. Which 3 would you say have the best graphics?

No doubt in my mind, the first three.

I haven't posted in a while, but fuck me...

[hears parody of Aerosmith's "What Kinda Love Are You On"]

I wanna know...
What kinda drugs are you on?!?

Hi everyone.

Carmack predicted that the Doom3 technology would be extensively copied, it being the "new technology" and all. It kind of makes me wonder if he said that as a defence againt the onslaught of pretenders to the fps graphics throne he knew would pop up before Doom3 was done. Not only do games like Halo2 and Thief3 have similar technology, but even before that there were impressive "tech" demos that pretty much showed off the outward appearance of Doom3 technology (that is, they didn't have all the surface tracking, beam-tree, under the hood type optimizations you need for a real extensive game).

In this respect, Doom3 certainly won't splash into the world as a great revelation as far as bumpmapping and stencil shadows are concerned. But the Doom3 graphics engine is extremely solid, probably much more solid than the engines in the other games since it has had a longer time to mature. It is consistant in the way the lighting works-- while other games use bumpmapping and stencil shadows as more of a feature (often intermingling lightmapping and other such hacks) Doom3's lighting is founded on the idea that everything acts the same way, quality being paramount. Doom3's engine takes advantage of several different card technologies-- a lof of these games only work on pixel-shader cards, while Doom3 can do the full lighting thing on a primitive GF1 (with lower resolution). Lastly, we've only seen the "basic" doom3 technology, which has been done for well over a year. That is, Carmack has had over a year to think up more "features", which he said are being put into the game. All this along with Flash-like GUI surfaces (which hasn't really been done before), the surface shaders, etc...

FWIW, hitman2 looks gorgeous, but is graphically flawed. It uses shadow maps, which is sort of a dynamic lightmapping-- if you look closely, you can see jagged edges around the characgter's shadows. Doom3's stencil shadows do not leave jagged edges, and affect EVERYTHING, not just the characters. The lighting is more of a serious simulation in Doom3 than a feature as in Hitman2. The stationary objects seem to use simple static lighting. Halo2 is probably a much better example of a technology pushing alongside Doom3's.

On the topic of real-time lighting, has anybody heard anything about Nocturne 2 recently? There was a video released more than a year ago showing the lighting effects of the new engine, but that's the last I've heard about it. I hope it wasn't cancelled, I was looking forward to it...

Well, even if a game uses "hacks and tricks" to pull off smooth-shadows, and is convincing enough, I'd far prefer that to ugly stencil-shadows that are used in a constant, solid manner.

Seriously, stencil-shadows leave a whole lot to be desired. I don't mind games like Morrowind that use them, since the gameplay is good enough that the graphics are irrelevant. But if it's supposed to be photo-realistic, then stencil shadows are just not good enough. If I actually cared a lot about graphics, I would constantly be thrown off by the fakeness of the sharp shadows and pitch-black areas.

AndrewB said:
But if it's supposed to be photo-realistic,

As I see it, DOOM 3 isn't about that at all; it's about being fearsome and stuff. It's much more like the (high quality) sci fi and fantasy artwork of the last 10 years than anything like "realism." And a consistent, solid design does count.

Yeah, it's supposed to be fearsome, and is heavily hyped as such, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be. It takes more than dark shadows, huge monsters with big teeth, and scaly skin to make a scary game. That has everything to do with gameplay formula and structure, and almost nothing to do with graphics.

And yes, a solid and efficient design does count. But still, stencil-shadows are ____-ugly.

AndrewB, there are a lot of issues at stake here which you are simply too ignorant (not a dig at you, it's just the truth) to understand. Allow me a moment to try and educate you.

A) Hitman 2 is primarily a DirectX 7 game, as is Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal 2. Ostensibly all three are DirectX8-based, but the rendering technologies and features that both engines use are all (with rare exception, such as "shiny water" and a few reflective surfaces) within the DirectX7 featureset.

B) The Geforce 2 GTS, Pro, and Ultra cards (all exactly the same, the only difference being memory and core clockspeeds) are all extremely potent rendering platforms. Clock for clock, the Geforce 2 core has no problem keeping pace with the Geforce 3 and 4Ti platforms. The primary thing which holds it back is its relatively primitive memory controller, which is why the Ultra variant, with it's exotic high-speed DDR memory, can upstage the Geforce 3 in most pure DX7 tests. So, it's not really surprising that a Geforce 2 can blast through DirectX7 games - that's exactly what it was made to do.

C) Hitman 2 does not even make use of EMBM or DOT3, the latter of which Doom 3 uses on (nearly) every single surface. Amusingly, EMBM is a DirectX6 feature - not that many cards of that era supported it. In fact, the only ones I can think of that did were the Matrox G400 and the PowerVR Kyro.

D) Hitman 2 does not have a realtime unified lighting engine as Doom 3 does. It uses a system similar to the ones used in Morrowind and the Serious engine, for simple projected shadows which vary in intensity based on the intensity of the lightsource. It's really quite simple compared to the lighting in Doom 3. For the rest of the game's lighting, simple precalculated lightmapping like that of Quake 2 is used. If you find that Hitman 2's lighting looks as good as Doom 3's, then you truly have...an "altered perception". Not that that was ever in doubt.

Nothing yet released can even touch Doom 3 yet, from a technological standpoint. The closest thing so far is 3DMark2003, and even that doesn't match it - and that's only a nonplayable demo.

I see nothing to argue with.

AndrewB said:

I see nothing to argue with.

Nothing to be won, anyway. :D

Aux's methods of argumentation usually aren't very diplomatic, but he usually won't argue that way unless he's sure. I've been on the blunt end of it a few times, and it really is a lesson in setting aside ego.

Everybody quit whining so much over Doom3 already. It's making me nauseous. Some of you people seriously need to get out and see the sun...and perhaps wait till the game arrives to make your judgment of it.