Doom3 Benchmarks out!

[Andrew]

This is urban legend bullshit. iD (Carmack) prefers OpenGL but
market sensibilities require them to use M$-Direct3D. A bit of
clarification: M$-Direct3D is a subset of M$-DirectX. DirectX contains
Direct3D which is the primary graphics handling portion of DirectX.
OpenGL, on the other hand, is it's own API.

I don't take tech lessons from clueless trolls.

 

[K]

At 1024x768 with very high settings

Those numbers were timedemos, not actual in game framerates
which would be much lower.

?

K

 

[K]

This is urban legend bullshit. iD (Carmack) prefers OpenGL but
market sensibilities require them to use M$-Direct3D. A bit of
clarification: M$-Direct3D is a subset of M$-DirectX. DirectX contains
Direct3D which is the primary graphics handling portion of DirectX.
OpenGL, on the other hand, is it's own API.
A game developer, or any graphics rendering programmer, can choose
whether to call into use the DirectX (Direct3D) or OpenGL APIs. And if
they want to be totally safe they can program separate modules that
let you choose which API to use. Anybody that remembers the original
Half Life would know that it had an option to choose between OpenGL or
Direct3D or Software. Most games are programmed for both OpenGL and
Direct3D. The code to select one or the other is fairly trivial. What
is not trivial are the pipelines afterwards. OpenGL does not have all
the features of Direct3D and Direct3D does not have some of the
performance that OpenGL does. Also, providing modules for both
increases the programming effort.
The difference these days is that a lot of games are trying to
decide on their own which API to use based on what hardware is being
used, sometimes with mixed results.

Nice try at talking technical but it doesn't hide the fact you really
haven't got a ****ing clue what you're talking about.

K

 

[RayO]

No, it means they won't bench well.

This is the funniest benchmark I've
ever seen, one where 3.2GHz/2Gb/5950
is the low-end.

Hahaha, good one! <LOL>

RayO

 

[Slash]

Yep - so much for seeing how my GeForce 3 performed at 1024x768.

I also loved the line "We figured that 1600x1200 resolution would be
the place to start..."

WTF ?

I assume this article is aimed at people with high-end system,
presumably overclocked ones.

Who the **** plays games in 1600x1200 ? And on what ? A 23" monitor
???

Of course not... 1600x1200 would be a 4:3 ratio, 23" LCDs are almost
all 16:10. You'd play in 1920x1200.

-Slash

 

[Slash]

On 23 Jul 2004 04:49:43 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Nada) scribbled:

[snip]

It's been very harsh when it comes to the prices. I don't know how
it's in Canada and USA at the moment, but here in Europe we're seeing
prices of 500 euros for Nvidia's biggest guns abd ATI's top of the
line cards aren't too cheap either. I read from somewhere on the
internet where the Ultra was priced at 800 dollars max which is
absolutely insane! I've never had a problem of giving up 230 euros,
but over 500 euros is just way too dam much even for the performance
these new cards have to offer. I remember the 1994 when we'd struggle
with 386s with "Doom", so maybe there's a way to get through the
autumn without a panic inside the piggy bank.

Well, the difference of course is back then, the jump from a 386 to a
486 (or even a 486SX25 to a DX2/66, etc) was huge. It'd be like going
to a P4 8GHz. Moore's Law or no Moore's Law, the speed jumps made now
aren't nearly as dramatic, simply because there are more incremental
releases.

But yeah, Doom 3 will be good, and it will cause many people to spend
a lot of money.

-Slash

 

[RayO]

On 23 Jul 2004 04:49:43 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Nada) scribbled:

[snip]

It's been very harsh when it comes to the prices. I don't know how
it's in Canada and USA at the moment, but here in Europe we're seeing
prices of 500 euros for Nvidia's biggest guns abd ATI's top of the
line cards aren't too cheap either. I read from somewhere on the
internet where the Ultra was priced at 800 dollars max which is
absolutely insane! I've never had a problem of giving up 230 euros,
but over 500 euros is just way too dam much even for the performance
these new cards have to offer. I remember the 1994 when we'd struggle
with 386s with "Doom", so maybe there's a way to get through the
autumn without a panic inside the piggy bank.

Well, the difference of course is back then, the jump from a 386 to a
486 (or even a 486SX25 to a DX2/66, etc) was huge. It'd be like going
to a P4 8GHz. Moore's Law or no Moore's Law, the speed jumps made now
aren't nearly as dramatic, simply because there are more incremental
releases.

But yeah, Doom 3 will be good, and it will cause many people to spend
a lot of money.

Some corrections:
1) Doom I was released summer of '93, not '94.

2) The 486 was nothing new even in '93, let alone '94. Many people
had started upgrading to 486s from about late '91 and through '92 and
'93. I believe Intel had even stopped making 386s by '92 to focus on
the 486, to make AMD go away with it's 40MHz 386. So when
Doom I was released it's system requirements were
nothing very special at all, neither was Wolf3D's the previous year,
which played nicely on a good 386. Both these games on their release
played very well on the bulk of the installed base. They were both also
sharewared, but that's another story.


RayO

 

[Highlandish]

On 23 Jul 2004 04:49:43 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Nada)
scribbled:

[snip]

It's been very harsh when it comes to the prices. I don't know how
it's in Canada and USA at the moment, but here in Europe we're
seeing prices of 500 euros for Nvidia's biggest guns abd ATI's top
of the line cards aren't too cheap either. I read from somewhere
on the internet where the Ultra was priced at 800 dollars max
which is absolutely insane! I've never had a problem of giving up
230 euros, but over 500 euros is just way too dam much even for
the performance these new cards have to offer. I remember the
1994 when we'd struggle with 386s with "Doom", so maybe there's a
way to get through the autumn without a panic inside the piggy
bank.

Well, the difference of course is back then, the jump from a 386 to
a 486 (or even a 486SX25 to a DX2/66, etc) was huge. It'd be like
going to a P4 8GHz. Moore's Law or no Moore's Law, the speed jumps
made now aren't nearly as dramatic, simply because there are more
incremental releases.

But yeah, Doom 3 will be good, and it will cause many people to
spend a lot of money.

Some corrections:
1) Doom I was released summer of '93, not '94.

2) The 486 was nothing new even in '93, let alone '94. Many people
had started upgrading to 486s from about late '91 and through '92 and
'93. I believe Intel had even stopped making 386s by '92 to focus on
the 486, to make AMD go away with it's 40MHz 386. So when
Doom I was released it's system requirements were
nothing very special at all, neither was Wolf3D's the previous year,
which played nicely on a good 386. Both these games on their release
played very well on the bulk of the installed base. They were both
also sharewared, but that's another story.


RayO

I had a 486sx2/50 (no math coprocessor) and doom1 S/W ran like a dog with 2
legs, it was literally a slide show. I didn't upgrade until the P90 was a
year old. who could afford it back then?

 

[John Henders]

X800 is still ahead in shader heavy DX9 games. The new FarCry
benchmarks (using SM2.0b on X800) show X800PE to be 15-20% ahead of
6800Ultra (which is using SM3.0). This should be good news for X800
owners who are waiting for STALKER or Half Life 2. 6800 is clearly
ahead in DOOM3 and it's likely that the lead will be carried over to
other DOOM3 engine games. However, to me the more important thing is
that nVidia in DX9 and ATI in openGl are competitive enough that most
people would not regret purchasing either of the 6800 or X800 cards.

Maybe this will be the incentive ATI needs to finally make an OpenGL
driver that's not a slug.

 

[RayO]

I had a 486sx2/50 (no math coprocessor) and doom1 S/W ran like a dog with 2
legs, it was literally a slide show. I didn't upgrade until the P90 was a
year old. who could afford it back then?

You probably had a bad chipset, it made a big difference back
then, even 486sx should've done better than that poor dog.
I ran it on 33/386DX and 486/66DX2. On the 386 it
chopped, not a complete slide show, but not
pleasant either. On the 4/66 it rocked.


RayO

 

[Andrew]

Maybe this will be the incentive ATI needs to finally make an OpenGL
driver that's not a slug.

They aren't slugs now. They *may* be slower than NVidia, but not by a
major amount. Its like comparing two sports cars, one can do 150 MPH,
another 160MPH, is the 150MPH car a slug?

 

[John Henders]

But what about at high detail with no AF -- that's what I want to see (the
hell with medium quality)? I'm hoping my new 5900XT can run doom3 at 40 or
above fps at high quality settings, at 1024 x 768 (with no AA and no AF).
Note that I have a P4 2.6 (800mhz FSB) and 1 GB of DDR ram.

This article claims that there is little visual benefit to AF:

So if I can turn off AF and turn off AA at "high quality" doom 3 settings --
and run at 1024 x 768 with at least 40 fps -- I'll be happy.

I don't know how recently you looked at the article but there's an
apology at the bottom about having the same pictures for both af and no
af, and the new pictures, at least for me, show a distinct difference,
as he notes, mainly on the floor, where the lines between the stones on
the floor are much more clear cut and realistic than the blurred
together stones in the no af picture. I could easily live with the
blurry floor but it certainly isn't as unnoticable as the article made
it out to be to be.

 

[Mark Morrison]

Of course not... 1600x1200 would be a 4:3 ratio, 23" LCDs are almost
all 16:10. You'd play in 1920x1200.

-Slash

Ah - that would make all the difference.

<grin>

--

Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes !
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses !
And what's with all the carrots ?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway ?
Bunnies ! Bunnies ! It must be BUNNIES !

 

[Andrew MacPherson]

On the 4/66 it rocked.

It's rather sad, but even after all these years the phrase "DX2/66" still
causes a little twinge of excitement in some deep, dark pleasure centre in
my brain. It was such an object of unaffordable techno-lust that the
effects have obviously scarred me for life

Andrew McP

 

[Highlandish]

You probably had a bad chipset, it made a big difference back
then, even 486sx should've done better than that poor dog.
I ran it on 33/386DX and 486/66DX2. On the 386 it
chopped, not a complete slide show, but not
pleasant either. On the 4/66 it rocked.


RayO

both your pc's had a math coprocessor in them, that's why they ran better.
the sx models were severely hampered with out one

 

[RayO]

both your pc's had a math coprocessor in them, that's why they ran better.
the sx models were severely hampered with out one

Wow, I'm impressed, you are absolutely right. I did have a math
coprocessor in my 386, I needed it for some other work.

RayO

 

[Newf !!!]

I had a 486sx2/50 (no math coprocessor) and doom1 S/W ran like a dog with 2

legs, it was literally a slide show. I didn't upgrade until the P90 was a
year old. who could afford it back then?

in 93 I ordered a p90 the same week they came out. I was about to
order a p60 or 486-100 and they started selling the 90 so I took the
plunge and go it. I saved up a LONG time for it though. I paid 3800
shipped. Canadian for a Gateway 2000 P90, 8 megs ram, 540 meg hd, 17"
monitor,no sound card, 2x cdrom, no speakers, no printer, no modem.

Crazy

Then I upgraded from 8 to 16 megs, and paid almost 400 bucks for that.


then agian, way before that, I had a 386-25, 40 meg hd, 2 meg ram, and
it too was almost 4000 bucks.

My first pc was a trs-80. 1000 bucks for a external 5 1/4" drive LOL
I never bought it and got a tape drive instead. had to use the old
style counter to line up the tape before you loaded it.

 

[Highlandish]

in 93 I ordered a p90 the same week they came out. I was about to
order a p60 or 486-100 and they started selling the 90 so I took the
plunge and go it. I saved up a LONG time for it though. I paid 3800
shipped. Canadian for a Gateway 2000 P90, 8 megs ram, 540 meg hd, 17"
monitor,no sound card, 2x cdrom, no speakers, no printer, no modem.

Crazy

Then I upgraded from 8 to 16 megs, and paid almost 400 bucks for that.


then agian, way before that, I had a 386-25, 40 meg hd, 2 meg ram, and
it too was almost 4000 bucks.

My first pc was a trs-80. 1000 bucks for a external 5 1/4" drive LOL
I never bought it and got a tape drive instead. had to use the old
style counter to line up the tape before you loaded it.

by the time I cold afford the p90, I was like all techy and look at me, I
have a Pentium. I visited my mum because she bought a new pc for herself,
and bugger it all, she had a p2-266, and she didn't even know how to use it
and all she wanted was to type letters and do the accounting. FFS! I felt so
small after that.

 

[Stoneskin]

Blig Merk left a note on my windscreen which said:

This is...

Didn't get much further than this. Now back into the killfile you go.

 

[spinlock]

It is interesting that they left the x800 PE data out of the last
few benchmarks.

Why would someone running an unbiased test publish partial results?