Thread: Doom III info

Toms Hardware asked John Carmack some questions about Doom III at Quakecon 2002. Fans of Objetive and Team multiplayer games should wait for UT2 rather than Doom III. :cry:

THG - What platform does Doom III target?

TW - Doom III is targeted mainly at the GeForce 3 series cards and the Radeon 8500 cards. Other cards will be able to run the software, but of course the graphics will be scaled down from those cards on the target platform.
(After reading this do you think gamers will be shopping for a GF3 or Radeon 8500???
Doom III = $$$)

THG - When looking at Doom III is the game more video card or CPU dependent for the best experience?

TW - Due to the complex nature of the graphics fidelity that we are trying to present in Doom III, the game is more video card dependent than CPU dependent.

THG - Does Doom III have a specific build to exploit the features of both the AMD and Intel CPUs?

TW - No, we have one build, but it does take advantage of the best features of each CPU.

THG - What can you tell us about multiplayer in Doom III?

TW - Doom III will have multiplayer, but we are not going to break any new ground in the multiplayer support within Doom III. For Doom III our focus is on the story and the single player version of the game.

THG - There continues to be a lot of talk about the amount of textures transferred between the video card and memory. What kind of sizes are we talking about?

TW - 80MB textures are not uncommon for Doom III. :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
(There goes almost everybodys current card FFS! :evil: )

Q - Will Doom III have multi-processor support?

A - Yes

Q - Will it have Multiplayer?

A - Yes, death match at least. We are concentrating on the single player version with the first release of the game. We will have an expansion pack at some point that will have a focus just on the multiplayer.

Q - What about the new 3D Labs video cards?

A - From what I have seen so far the new 3D Labs cards are not going to be competitive with the highest end video cards. The card has good drivers however and the virtual texture mapper is good and I think other companies will adopt this. I don't think that it will be a card that will be adopted by consumers.

Doom III will feature six custom back ends to take advantage of the specific features of the video cards. Currently this will only apply to cards from ATI, NVidia, and 3D Labs. Maybe at some point we might do something with Matrox and SIS cards, but for the moment that has not been determined. The Matrox and SIS cards will be able to run the game, but because of the lack of a custom back end, we will not be able to take advantage of the special specific feature of these cards.
We are already working with 3rd parties on the engine and the technology, so you can expect new titles to be introduced using the Doom III technology soon.

We are already working with 3rd parties on the engine and the technology, so you can expect new titles to be introduced using the Doom III technology soon.

OK so 3rd party games will come out soon and there will probably be lots of them in time, but with such hardcore graphics and sound will it be worth it for the majority of us any time soon? (If they make a new Heretic it might.) Think of how many people bitch about maps in CS such as de_storm running really shitty on their computers.
Graphics cards come in 64, 128 and now 256Mb capacities, but Doom III uses around 80Mb. Thats fine for those with 128 (not really that many), but what about those with 64? :? Not to mention 32 or even 16 :cry: !!!
All I can say is Buggar!

Doom III should be coming out in stores around 2003 right? By then, next gen cards will have become more mainstream as Geforce 4's for instance (128mb ^_^) would be in about the middle of the market. It's for games that push the boundaries so far that help accel the 3d card industry so far. John Carmack has consistantly created game engines that were on the boundaries of complexity for their time with basically every game he has created. And they were still successful, I'm sure Doom III won't be much different.

plus its the latest in a truly visionary series of games - hell I'll be getting it just to continue the Doom experience


Meph am hardcore Doom player from waaaay back

It's the 3rd party games on the Doom engine I'm waiting for, not Doom itself.

Yeah i was never keen on the Doom series or Quake. But i like Elite Force and Jedi Knight 2 from the Q3 engine. I prefer fps games that are at least partially realistic like CS and DoD, but then I really like the UT engine games too

hmmm, i was already thinking of a purchase of a 9700 (this comes in 256mb varieties correct??)...(i bloody well hope so...) but i am a hardcore doom player as with meph....from waaaaaaaaaay back...

so this will be a 'have to' buy for me

Id say it probably would be 256 as well as 128

Yep 128 is on the first batches and 256 models will come soon.

Originally Posted by MARTOK

Yeah i was never keen on the Doom series or Quake. But i like Elite Force and Jedi Knight 2 from the Q3 engine. I prefer fps games that are at least partially realistic like CS and DoD, but then I really like the UT engine games too

Elite Force II is based on the TNG series, yay I'm excited. Except apparently they have "fixed up" the Quake III engine a bit for it :? I hope not like Lucas Arts did with JK2 :oops: . Medal Of Honour is my favourite WW2 game and UT will always rock 8) .

That reminds me i want to play Elite Force again

Just got a map on the Daedalus

Originally Posted by Odyssey

Yep 128 is on the first batches and 256 models will come soon.

[quote:a1d8de10c0="MARTOK"]Yeah i was never keen on the Doom series or Quake. But i like Elite Force and Jedi Knight 2 from the Q3 engine. I prefer fps games that are at least partially realistic like CS and DoD, but then I really like the UT engine games too

Elite Force II is based on the TNG series, yay I'm excited. Except apparently they have "fixed up" the Quake III engine a bit for it :? I hope not like Lucas Arts did with JK2 :oops: . Medal Of Honour is my favourite WW2 game and UT will always rock 8) .[/quote:a1d8de10c0]

i agree, JK2 graphics weren't that good but then again it is Lucasarts...(<--- they've been getting worse...)

i will be buying the 256mb variety...should see me through Uni and beyond