DOOM 3 GOLD!!!

[manny_c44]

I'm getting much higher framerate on my shoddy Radeon 9000 than on my Radeon 9600 Pro.

Even at the lowest detail. at 640x480. with all special effects turned off. even with the latest beta drivers. and the latest chipset drivers for my motherboard.

MADDENING!!!

Whats the story there? I've got my 9600Pro on Medium 1024x768, I don't have the FPS counter displayed but it runs pretty smoothly with everything on. Maybe you're not meeting the minimum RAM or CPU requirement?

[Jayel]

Medium at 1024x768????

holy crap. must be something wrong with my desktop. But it's just Doom 3. All other 3D games run much smoother on 9600 Pro.

My desktop is a P4 2.0Ghz before 0.13m manufacturing process stuff, with only 256kb level 2 cache and slow fsb and slow ram and everything, so maybe that's got something to do with it.

(my notebook computer is a 1.4ghz centrino with 1mb l2 cache)

What are your computer's specs?

[MrHoatzin]

Don't you work for ATI, Dan? Couldn't you check all this with someone who, like, you know, knows these things from a closer standpoint than any of the forumites here?

[Jayel]

My work term doesn't start until september.

I suppose I could give the human resources a ring and yell "hey, what gives!?"

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Jayel, try turning off all those pr0n adware programs you have running in the background, and then disable the nude Pamela Anderson 3D screensaver. That might free your system up a bit for the game.

[Jayel]

I tried adaware, spybot, and whole bunch of other crap and still no difference.

But I can't bring myself to turn off the nude Pamela Anderson 3D screensaver. That'd mean giving up a part of myself.

edit: I just realized I visit this site like every 10 minutes. Must be the exam period.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I prefer not to know which part, thankyouverymuch.

[manny_c44]

The minimum req for RAM for D3 is like 400mb. I have 768MB DDR PC3200. My guess is that your memory is being drained by something else or maybe you just don't have enough to begin with? Does the game crash at medium setting?, does it play like a slide show or just experience bouts of slowdown?

Otherwise, my specs are more or less equal to yours.

[Jayel]

I have 512MB ddr sdram at 266Mhz (PC2100, it's called, I think), which is the maximum speed my motherboard can support. Yours must be a more recent one.

As for "slide show or just experience bouts of slowdown"... it's kinda both.

Whenever it needs to run a video or an audio file, it halts for a second or so, almost as if it needs to load up something from the hd, but the hd indicator never lights up, so I'm pretty sure there's no shortage of ram.

And runs like a slide show all around. Perhaps 5~15 fps.

I guess I'll just play it on my laptop. I'm consistently getting around 20 fps all the time. Except I'll miss those refracted glasses and heat distortions and other fancy effects.

400mb ram... geez. how the hell are they gonna get it running on an xbox.

[manny_c44]

I have 512MB ddr sdram at 266Mhz (PC2100, it's called, I think), which is the maximum speed my motherboard can support. Yours must be a more recent one.

As for "slide show or just experience bouts of slowdown"... it's kinda both.

Whenever it needs to run a video or an audio file, it halts for a second or so, almost as if it needs to load up something from the hd, but the hd indicator never lights up, so I'm pretty sure there's no shortage of ram.

And runs like a slide show all around. Perhaps 5~15 fps.

I guess I'll just play it on my laptop. I'm consistently getting around 20 fps all the time. Except I'll miss those refracted glasses and heat distortions and other fancy effects.

400mb ram... geez. how the hell are they gonna get it running on an xbox.

Well the Xbox runs at TV resolution which is like 380xsomething or other, and it still looks kind of wonky at that resolution.

After enabling the FPS counter, I see the game is more erratic than I percieved through normal play. There were a few occasions where I went down to around 15fps. But just walking around halls is atleast 30 and usually more like 40-50, on medium 1024. I've also found that disabling the effects on my set-up basically does nothing for frame rates, all advanced-options disabled is like a 4fps boost. Another wierd thing is that setting between medium and low made the frame rate slightly more consistent, but just by 2-5 fps. And changing the resolution from 640x480 to 1024x768 made almost zero difference....pretty bizarre.

And I forgot to mention I'm running the Catalyst 4.9 drivers. Which you should download...maybe thats the main problem .

If that doesn't work, which it should, then try this.

Go the Doom config file in Doom3/base. And make the following 3 paramters like mine:

seta image_useCache "1"

seta image_cacheMegs "128"

seta image_cacheMinK "20480"

I think that would get rid of your video/audio loading problem and make all of the levels load faster.

Tell me if its succesful!

[Chris]

Well the Xbox runs at TV resolution which is like 380xsomething or other, and it still looks kind of wonky at that resolution.

Xbox supports several high-def resolutions, and surely a company like id will insist on their game covering all of them.

[manny_c44]

Please accept my apology

[Jayel]

I tried the old drivers and the newest beta drivers. I also tried editing the config file as you suggested.

They had no effect. But thanks for your help.

I noticed that the framerate is around the same even if I turn off shadows, specular highlighting, and the bump mapping. It's also around the same if I turn on every option (at medium texture detail) including anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

I'm pretty much convinced that it's the cache memory. Apparently the performance hit due to small cache is much greater with intel cpus than with amd's.

[SiN]

I guess I'll just play it on my laptop. I'm consistently getting around 20 fps all the time. Except I'll miss those refracted glasses and heat distortions and other fancy effects.

hey cool, so doom3 works on laptops then. i just bought a laptop for university, i wanna play doom3 on it too, but im not positive as to whether its gonna work well.

whats specs does ur laptop have?

SiN

[Chris]

hey cool, so doom3 works on laptops then.

Uh, yes it "works on laptops" if the laptops have the minimum system requirements, just like with desktops...

[SiN]

Uh, yes it "works on laptops" if the laptops have the minimum system requirements, just like with desktops...

ah yeah, let me try that again :

hey cool, so doom3 works on the Mobility/Go line of video cards. Cool!

SiN

[Chris]

Not mine!

[SiN]

well, which video card to u have on ur laptop?

SiN

[Jayel]

As long as your laptop has radeon 9000, geforce4 go or higher, it will probably work with Doom3.

my laptop is a 1.4ghz centrino with 512mb ram and radeon 9000 (64mb). seems to run games just fine. I haven't encountered a game that it can't run, but must go with the lowest texture detail for the latest fps's. Far Cry shows some serious popping/draw distance issues with it.

i didn't really buy it for gaming. It was the cheapest and also the latest laptop that I could afford that had a parallel port. (i need that parallel port for software dogles)

[Chris]

Yeah but my laptop's video card only has 16mb RAM.

[toblix]

How big are they?

[SiN]

As long as your laptop has radeon 9000, geforce4 go or higher, it will probably work with Doom3.

my laptop is a 1.4ghz centrino with 512mb ram and radeon 9000 (64mb). seems to run games just fine. I haven't encountered a game that it can't run, but must go with the lowest texture detail for the latest fps's. Far Cry shows some serious popping/draw distance issues with it.

i didn't really buy it for gaming. It was the cheapest and also the latest laptop that I could afford that had a parallel port. (i need that parallel port for software dogles)

excellent. im getting a laptop powered by a p4-2.8ghz, 512mb ddr ram & a geforce fx 5200 go ... i suppose that should be fine then.

its really difficult finding the perfect laptop isnt it? im so used to building pcs to my specifications, that i got REALLY picky when it came to getting a laptop. well, the thing is gonna arrive via air mail in a week or so ... cant wait to play doom3 on it!

SiN

[AGA]

I've got a GeForce FX 5200 (the non-laptop variety), and it works fine with D3 on medium detail levels, so you should be okay with your Go equivalent...

[Salka]

Yeah but my laptop's video card only has 16mb RAM.

...Have you ever considered buying a new Laptop? There are plenty of pay-options you could go for too, including Credit and Interest-Free. Spread the cost! Would you also like to consider our extended warranty? And a surge protecter? And some clearance items? And you're going to need a battery charger with that. And anti virus. You'll NEED the anti virus. It's $34.99. Yeah. And you'll need some ink cartridges with that printer. Oh, that's right, you're going to need a printer, too. And a USB cable. No, none of the printers come with USB cables. Now, how are you going to pay for that? Credit? Cash? Credit Card? Cheque/check?

Oh, speaking of which, Stevan, are you going to buy that Sony 3219 with a fifty year extended warranty today?

[Salka]

Whoops, double post. Anyway, I'm off to work now. Look! I'm psyched already!