My DOOM 3 RIG: suggestions, opinions, advice... PLEASE!

[erikiksaz]

HardOCP's take on it
Anand's take

If you look at the benchmarks, both cpus were both P4 3.0 ghz, with the ultra 5900 ultra and 9800 pro.

At 1024x768, the quickest cards (well, the 9800 pro seemed to have a driver problem, but it should be somewhere around 5900u territory) had well over 70 fps. And remember, this is a slower-paced single player game! FPS in excess of 125 are not need as much compared to faster multiplayer games such as Quake 3.

If you absolutely positive NEED that system no, go right ahead, from those benchmarks, it WILL run Doom 3 at medium settings. Even with your 9600 pro, it would still pull 30+ fps, which was better than the ~10fps i had with my Geforce 3 in the beta. AND i didn't complain either, since slower paced does not require massive fps.

But, if you could hold out, you might be able to squeeze out high settings by the time it's released.

 

[BenSkywalker]

saw the other day on Tech TVs X-Play show that Doom3 will also be out for the X-Box. If that's the case then either it will look awful on the X-Box compared to the PC or the final requirements aren?t going to be as steep as everyone is worried about...

You will lose FPxx(FX12, FP16, FP24, FP32) support for shaders, but the core game engine was built around what was possible with GeForce1 level hardware(although obviously they expanded a bit, most of it is really simply pushing DX7 really hard with some DX8 and very few DX9 features added in). The XBox has a GF4 level graphics chip and the build utilized for it will have several optimizations that won't be present in the PC port(as an example, certain VS ops will be on the GPU that will be on the CPU for the PC port). Carmack has said that D3 will be about twice as fast on the XBox as it would be on a comparable spec PC(Pelery733, GF4 etc), and they are looking for 30FPS locked(said the game couldn't hold 60FPS).

 

[jacktesterson]

I think DOOM 3 is highly overrated....the game Im most interested in is Half Life 2...but anyways yeah your right. It is going to be released on the XBox...altho XBox's graphics are the best in console entertainment (my opinion), the PC version will make it look silly. But the requirments are not as steep as you all feel. Ive been told even Minimum settings are going to be better looking then all games to present, and wont take a ton of PC.

Half Life 2 says a perfect machine is
2.0 GHZ P4 pr Athlon XP 1700+
64MB or higher Video (ti 4200+ or radeon 8500LE +)
4Gb of space for game
512 MB ram



My opinion to you is go 1 GB ram. ITs not overkill. You'll find out when loading the game my friend



I beleive when its said and done, Doom 3 will be in the same requirments category. Half Life 2 may not be as pretty, but is very very good. I think its a marketing scheme to get people to buy the high end equipment.

 

[jacktesterson]

lets sell a game nobody can run!!!

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: AMDHardcoreFan
I think DOOM 3 is highly overrated....the game Im most interested in is Half Life 2...

OH YEAH!! HL2 is gonna rock! Doom who??

 

[ch0sen]

I could use some more feedback please.

 

[paperfist]

You are asking people to impossibly speculate on a product that has NO release date and the only indication of how it runs so far has been a leaked alpha. On one side you have the immovable object, John Carmack whose motto is it?s done when it?s done and on the other side you have the irresistible force of a constantly changing/costing hardware landscape.

I remember a scenario like this for Star Wars Galaxies, in the beta & regular forums people have been posting what should I build?, what should I upgrade? topics for the last 12 months in anticipation of a game which had no indication of hardware requirements and that was suppose to ship 6 months ago. You fast forward to today and all those people who spent their money buying and upgrading their rigs still have NO SWG to play and if they had bothered to do this later then sooner they would have had nice HT CPUs (maybe a 64bit CPU), ATI 9800s or nVidia5900s, 800 or 400MHz FSBs for the same amount of money they already shelled out or they could have bought that same hardware they now have for 20-40% less cost.

So dude, keep saving your money and when D3 is truly on the horizon you?ll not only have a clear picture of what you need to run it, but you?ll also be able to build twice the rig for the cost that you are trying to build it for today.

Just my 2 cents

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: ch0sen
kewl, thats what i thought it was. 1gig of ram is just overkill with games these days.

Not true, I noticed a huge differance

 

[GaryShandling]

Originally posted by: paperfist
You are asking people to impossibly speculate on a product that has NO release date and the only indication of how it runs so far has been a leaked alpha. On one side you have the immovable object, John Carmack whose motto is it?s done when it?s done and on the other side you have the irresistible force of a constantly changing/costing hardware landscape.

I remember a scenario like this for Star Wars Galaxies, in the beta & regular forums people have been posting what should I build?, what should I upgrade? topics for the last 12 months in anticipation of a game which had no indication of hardware requirements and that was suppose to ship 6 months ago. You fast forward to today and all those people who spent their money buying and upgrading their rigs still have NO SWG to play and if they had bothered to do this later then sooner they would have had nice HT CPUs (maybe a 64bit CPU), ATI 9800s or nVidia5900s, 800 or 400MHz FSBs for the same amount of money they already shelled out or they could have bought that same hardware they now have for 20-40% less cost.

So dude, keep saving your money and when D3 is truly on the horizon you?ll not only have a clear picture of what you need to run it, but you?ll also be able to build twice the rig for the cost that you are trying to build it for today.

Just my 2 cents

Excellent advice for a man with patience

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: ch0sen
kewl, thats what i thought it was. 1gig of ram is just overkill with games these days.

wrong.

 

[Vonkhan]

While rest play ro-sham-bo, here're my tips:

Get a more powerful power supply: Antec 430w or higher.

Get a AIW card, save on a PCI slot and resources. Nay sayers, compare your gaming performance/3dmark scores with PCI cards installed/uninstalled.

Get two hard drives in a RAID config.

Skip the floppy drive

Get a Belkin Nostromo n50 speedpad

Get a Audigy 2

Buy your stuff from the For Sale/Trade Forum and save!

 

[bigpow]

Originally posted by: PCMarine
Why don't you just wait until doom 3 is released and THEN make you decisions? Speculation costs time and money...

EXACTLY!

 

[Vonkhan]

1GB RAM is good, u'll definately want it.

I'd advice u not to look at Doom3 as the goal, but rather ... wait ... this sounds like The Matrix

 

[Macaw]

Floppy Drive - *BLACK* PANASONIC 1.44 MB DENSITY FLOPPY DISK DRIVE, MODEL # JU-256A-198P

Hahahahhahahaha *gasp* hahahahhaaha

What is this 1972? You going to put a tape reader and 300-baud coupling modem on that rig as well? I haven't put a zip drive, floppy drive, or any of the other removable media crapola on my PC since 1994.

 

[Lonyo]

Some people still use floppy drives.

 

[BoomAM]

You seem set on buying some sort of pc now. So heres what i`d do in your situation.
Buy a lesser CPU, something cheaper, prehaps a P4 2.0ghz. Get a cheaper video card as well, such as a 9100pro. That`ll do you counterstrike fine, and any game thats out prety well.
Then, when doom3 comes out, buy the best processor and video card conbination thats out. You`ll have more money to spend on a video card/cpu then wont you.

 

[ch0sen]

bump!

 

[Rogozhin]

Lonyo is correct

get a $8 floppy, you will need it to flash video card bios or a quick file sometime for school or work.

Looks like a good system but in 3 months that 1.5 gs will get you more computer for the money.

If you can wait-and patience IS a virtue-do it.

rogo

 

[Totti]

GET ANOTHER CASE !!!

That case weighs a ton..... nearly 40 pounds !!!
Since you will be taking ur rig to LANs I'd suggest getting a lighter case.
Have you looked at the LanBoy yet?
I don't know if the looks are for you, but the LanBoy is definitely very convenient to carry around, it even comes with a carrying strap.
Also you probably don't need a full tower since you won't be filling the thing with many drives, just a thought

 

[Booster]

Don't mean to burst your bubble, but I don't hink that when the game comes out you'll be able to run it perfectly at max settings. That game is going to be a graphics hog... You'll run into some bottle neck. I do think you'll be able to run it at a nice resolution (1280x1024) fairly well, but then again what is perfect.?

I second that. I think that the HW needed to run Doom III at max setting at say, 1600*1200, would require about 2-3 years to become mainstream, like GF FX 20000 and Pentium 6 50GHz.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: Booster
I second that. I think that the HW needed to run Doom III at max setting at say, 1600*1200, would require about 2-3 years to become mainstream, like GF FX 20000 and Pentium 6 50GHz.

I can see where your coming from, but i dont think we`ll need rigs like that.
IMO, we`ll have rigs capable of running at those settings by the end of the year/early next year. And mainstream rigs capable of it by mid next year.

 

[Totti]

May I ask do you have or what is your current PC?
I mean if you are just going to play counterstrike for the time being, the system you listed is way overkill.
Counterstrike has VERY LOW system reqiurements and will pretty much run on anything.
So if you already have a PC then just slap a cheap video card on there and have fun

I am with the others....wait until doom3 comes out!
Not only will there be new and hopefully cheaper graphics cards by then, there will be the Athlon64 and new intel processors which will definitely drive the prices down some more.
If you wait till then you won't have to waste your money in buying expensive two video cards
I know the waiting game is endless in the computer world,
But it looks very likely that Doom3 is the first of the next-gen games and is set the revolutionize the PC gaming industry.

I am in the same boat as you.
I've finally saved up enough for a new PC and came so close to ordering last week, almost the same parts u listed above.
But friends and the internet folks won me over to wait until doom3 so that's what I am gonna do now.
Hopefully the ps2 and 2 more semesters of school can keep me busy enough.

These are my laughable specs for the current PC I use:
HP Celeron 466mhz, 128MB SDram, 32mb TNT2.....

As you can see....I need a new PC....BAD

 

[ch0sen]

Well how about a PC that will run Half Life 2 with now problems in medium to high quality? What should i get?

 

[BoomAM]

The rig that i suggested will do HL2 fine. Just replace the video with a 9500pro or better for high res/quality.

 

[wetcat007]

this game hogs ram memory 1 gig is prolly a minumum