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Ian Labs id Software's Official DOOM3 Benchmarks id Software's Official DOOM3 Benchmarks : The folks at id Software have been kind enough to share with us benchmarks from the upcoming DOOM 3 We look at NVIDIA's and ATI's finest in a head to head comparison.
That time is almost here, but before the game goes for sale on store shelves, id Software has been kind enough to do some things for the community so we can all hit the ground running and be ready for our DOOM3 experience from the moment we open the box. Today we are sharing with you framerate data that was collected at the id Software offices in Mesquite, Texas. Both ATI and NVIDIA were present for the testing and brought their latest driver sets. While an extensive amount of data was taken, what we want to focus on is the high end video cards that are currently making their way to market. That means we will be showing you frames per second rates taken using the DOOM 3 timedemo "demo1" that will be included in your boxed copy of DOOM 3 The version of the game used to test is the same version you will be loading onto your own computer. Article Image A John Carmack Message John Carmack wanted to take a moment to talk to the gamers and hardware enthusiasts that would be reading today. He has some insight on the numbers and what they really mean as well as some thoughts for the overclockers out there. It should be noted that all of the modern cards play the game very well, and benchmark scores should not be the be-all-end-all decision maker. Scores will probably improve somewhat with future driver releases, and other factors like dual slots or dual power connectors can weigh against some of the high end cards. The benchmarking was conducted on-site, and the hardware vendors did not have access to the demo before hand, so we are confident that there is no egregious cheating going on, but it should be noted that some of the ATI cards did show a performance drop when colored mip levels were enabled, implying some fudging of the texture filtering. This has been a chronic issue for years, and almost all vendors have been guilty of it at one time or another. I hate the idea of drivers analyzing texture data and changing parameters, but it doesn't visibly impact the quality of the game unless you know exactly what to look for on a specific texture. On the other hand, the Nvidia drivers have been tuned for Doom's primary light/surface interaction fragment program, and innocuous code changes can "fall off the fast path" and cause significant performance impacts, especially on NV30 class cards. A note on overclocking: it is very likely that overclocked configurations that "play everything else perfectly" will start to show problems on D3 due to new usage patterns. Everyone is of course free to do whatever they want with their own hardware, but don't complain to us... Talking to John briefly about his overclocking comments made some things clear to us that many enthusiasts will need to be aware of. When he speaks of "new usage patterns" he is literally talking about transistors on some of new GPUs that are going to be used for the first time when you play DOOM 3 on your video card. So be aware that pushing your GPU MHz may get you different results in DOOM 3 than with other games. id Software & HardOCP Team Up Today we are showing you the DOOM 3 timedemo frame rates that so many of you will use to help make a decision for your DOOM 3 gaming configuration. But do keep in mind, as John mentioned above, we should not all live and die by the frame rate. As many of you are familiar with, HardOCP has taken a very tough line on evaluating the real-world gaming experience provided by our hardware, and that is exactly what is being done with DOOM 3 as well. id Software is very aware that there is a portion of the gaming and enthusiast crowd that wants their framerates straight up and that is what is being delivered to you today, but remember there is much more to the picture. id Software and HardOCP want you to be aware of just what kind of DOOM 3 experience you can expect from your current system or one that you are building or buying specifically to play DOOM 3 The question, "Is my box OK for playing DOOM 3?" Id Software and HardOCP are working to answer that question right now.
ardware Guide in order to give you an official resource to help you know what to expect out of your current hardware or to help make the right hardware buying decision should you be ready for an upgrade. This guide will look at components as well as full systems and what it is going to take to deliver the true hellish experience that is DOOM 3 For those of you that think you are not going to have the hardware that you need to play DOOM 3, the fact of the matter is that many of you will be just fine, although an upgrade may still be in your future. As of this afternoon we were playing DOOM 3 on a 15GHz Pentium 4 box with a GeForce 4 MX440 video card and having a surprisingly good gaming experience. Even a subtle jump to an AMD 2500+ with a GeForce 3 video card that is two years old will deliver a solid gaming experience that will let you enjoy the game the way id Software designed it to be.
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