Doom 3 teething problems

Lexus Alyus · Post by **Lexus Alyus** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 8:26 am

I realises that this isn't a Doom3 forum, but yuou qll are having loads of fun playing it, so, for some help then I was wondering if you could be so kind as to answer a few of my quaries.

Firstly, my system spec:

80gig hard drive (I think it's a maxtor)
Radeon 9200 with 128megs of ram
512megs of ram (at that time... it's now only 256, so I'm not evengoing to attempt to run the game. I should be getting a 512 some time soon, so I'l have 768megs then... so, base it on that amount

).
Athlon AMD 2.6XP+ (In windows XP it says that it is running at 2.0gHz... not bad IMO)
And a Good sound card. Anyone that knows me knows wghat soundcard I have

. And anyway, sound is perfectly fine. What isn't fine is...

I ran the game and it was runninhg slow. It defaulted to 640x480 res in medius quality, but it was jerky as fuck... I couldn't get the FPS but it was unsatisfactory to play like that. I turned it down to low quality, 800x600... I eventually turned off bumpmapping and high quality Special FX and it ran okay... but when you got to some action it stuttered and dropped. It even stuttered when there was just one imp running at me. I refused to turn shadows of because IMO it would just take away all the atmosphere...

Basically, Doom3 runs smoothly most of the time, I don't care how high quality everything looks... it's better looking than Doom, that's for sure

. I just want it to run smoothe with few stutters in FPS... I c an't play the game because of these stupid stutters... I try to aim and then the next thing I know the fucking imp is right in my face chewing mew up... then the next thing I know Im' dead!

What I want to know is this: My computer is good enough... and I think ity's just the video card. if I get a new video card, will it sort out these problwms? I'll have ample memory and deceny CPU (with all opinions put asside). So, if I get a good video card, will it run smoothly with hardly any stutters. To tell the truth, I want no stutters. I don't care if I keep the quality lower and have all effects (except shadows) turned off! I just want it to run smoothe.

Apart from ths, I wa really getting into it. I was scare as fuck but I was just so put off by this drop in perfermoance that it mafde the game unplayable for me. I reallky want to play it because the physics are great, the satory is fucking exfelent, the game play is nothing short of amaizxing, the graphicsa are beyhond stunning and I just feel pissed off with myself for ever doubting this game

. I just want to play it!

Option 2 was to forget upgrading and just gettinga n Zbox... that woulds be cheaper... but to be honest, I don't want an Xbox, I want a decent PC. I'm on a budget, and if I havew to buy a top of the range video card that will solve my problems then I will, but if I have to buty a new motherboard and processor then you can just forget that!

Will a better video card solve my problems? If so, should I get an ATI or an Nvidea? Finally, what is the best one of those that I can get that will run doom3 well but not top[ of the range (it's too expensive aTM, but if I have to then I will...).

Thank you so much in advance.

Grubber · Post by **Grubber** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 8:58 am

Set Low detail mode

. If this doesn't help, turn off bump mapping, specular mapping and so on in the Advanced options.

Lexus Alyus · Post by **Lexus Alyus** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:35 am

You don't understand... I have done that and the FPS seeps as low as 5 when there is only 1 monster on screen! I'd dread to think what it wouldbe like with a few more. It goes to 5 with all the options off on the lowest resolution... everything is as low as it gets. I don't get iy because the minimum is twice as bad as mine... my cpu and memory are on the recommended... why is it so damn slow!

I can't help feeling that it is all my video cards fault... but I need proof of this. on the hardware guide it says that its lowest FPS was 20 on the same spec as mine but with a Nvidia FX5600.. that's the card that i'm looking at... is that good idea? Will that solve my problems?

ATM the avarage FPS is 30... it dips right down to 5 when you open a door, at the beginniong cutsce (where you can look up to the ship) and in large areas. Why is this happening! Why is the ATI Radeon 9200 so shit? I thought it was supposed to be good. Funny thing is that the game runs even worse on an IBM 2.6ghz (actual clock speed) with 512megs of ram and a radeon 9200 with 256 megs! That can't be right can it?

Mr. Tee · Post by **Mr. Tee** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:37 am

I read about Doom3, and Id tested many video cards with it...

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQyLDI=

It seems that the nVidia's always outperform ATI (sometimes by alot). I hope this info helps.

Lexus Alyus · Post by **Lexus Alyus** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:53 am

I wanna see comparisons between the ATI Radeon 9200 and the Nvidia FX5600!

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:05 pm

Lexus: Your video card is the weakest link (goodbye) in that system setup. However, before you go out and spend alot of money on a new card, there are some tweaks out there for ATI cards that supposedly boost performance, so you may want to look into that. There's also a new beta driver out there that supposedly gives some people a performance boost. (ATI is working overtime to repair their damaged image in light of the terrible Doom 3 performance -- heh)

If you do decide to upgrade, go NVidia, and go as high as you can. I'm more than pleased with the performance of my GeForce 6800 GT (~$400 retail), with which I play on High Quality@1024x768 and have no issues in single-player. For multiplayer I use a custom config that lowers it to Medium quality@800x600 and turns off a few features because I don't want to experience any frame loss when the action gets going.

Incidentally, turning off shadows doesn't completely disable them, as that would remove the atmosphere entirely. What it does is turns off certain dynamic shadows created by swinging lights and moving objects. IMO, this still does remove some of the coolness factor, but for the most part the game is just as dark and spooky as usual.

arioch · Post by **arioch** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:11 pm

On the other hand I'm "more than pleased" with the performance of my 9800pro128 at 1024x768 high quality, and it's a card that costs <$200.

Fools.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:12 pm

Wow. I'm pretty sure... Wait, maybe.... no... no I'm pretty sure... Nobody gives a flying fuck.

element1 · Post by **element1** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:14 pm

You could get a pretty good video card over at your local CircuitCity or online for around $150. I did this and it improved my system greatly. The Xtasy 9600 is a good card the this price.

Lexus Alyus · Post by **Lexus Alyus** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:31 pm

Okay... that's fair enough. IMO I'd say that no matter what drivers and performance improvers I get, its still going to run really shit. I tried that one that is linked from Doomworld and that didn't help in the slightrest... absolutely no difference.

I've been looking into a few things nd I descovered that my AGP is 4x... my ATI is probably 8x... so, it's probably running a 8x graphics card at 4x... is this the problem? This is vitally important because if it is then I'll be more than happy to get a new motherboard and graphics card... if i'm going to do that then I might as well swim the whole of the channel and get a new priocessor whiler I'm at it. I was looking at the Nvidia FX5600. There is no way tha I can afford that stupid 6800... it's too pricey for me. But in tha respect I'm sure the 5600 is more than adequit.

Why are people saying that they are getting great performance from a 1.5Ghz processor with 512megs of ram and a Gforce MX440!? If that is the case then minbe should run better just because everything in it is roughly 50x better! Sereously, if this is all down to my video card then ATI are shitter than any of us can possibly imagine.

Finally, upon further research, on my step dads rig (get this, he's got an Intel 2.6Ghz processor and a Radeo 9200 with 256 megs... he also has the 512megs of ram). His sytem runs worse than mine! You'd think that it would be bearable and runnable... but it's actually worse!? How can this be!? I am so confused...

Thamks so far

.

Ixnatifual · Post by **Ixnatifual** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:38 pm

I'm running it on Radeon 9800 Pro 128 mb with medium quality and 1024x768 and everything on except antialiasing and vertical sync.

Previously I had an nVidia card installed and it apparently left a mess behind it and I couldn't get good frame rates even with 640x480. But then I reinstalled DirectX from the Doom 3 CD and it worked fine. Also there's a fix that can increase FPS by up to 40% at times on some ATI cards.. Apparently this has something to do with ATI cards doing something faster via math than nVidia, and the fix makes some "lookup" thing get done by math instead of a series of commands.

The fix is pretty easy to use, but what they are talking about is mostly mumbo-jumbo to me =) http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Ixnatifual · Post by **Ixnatifual** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:43 pm

By the way the game really gains a lot if you edit the doomconfig.cfg file and change
seta g_showPlayerShadow "0"
to
seta g_showPlayerShadow "1"

This way the Doomguy also casts shadow in the game. This is really awesome, I've been playing with it on from the start. Not only does it look cool, you can also get spooked by your own shadow sometimes =)

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 3:30 pm

It also adds a full model's worth of polygons into the shadow drawing routines. I'm not saying it's not cool, as I use it myself, but it would only worsen Lexus' already poor performance.

Lexus: Yes, ATI blows chunks, however you and your dad should be getting some decent performance from both those systems. It could be that there's something else that's wrong with the system. Update your drivers (all of 'em), reinstall DirectX, hell try a reformat if you think it'll help. It could also be a heat issue, god forbid.

Post by **randi** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 3:46 pm

Ixnatifual wrote:Also there's a fix that can increase FPS by up to 40% at times on some ATI cards.

But only if you have anisotropy enabled through the ATI control panel instead of letting the game control it. Otherwise, the difference is negligible.

My system is pretty similar to Lexus', except I have a GeForce FX 5900, and my average framerate when I timedemo demo1 is 38 FPS. When nothing's happening, it stays around 60 FPS, and getting things in view can drop it to around 30 FPS. And I'm playing at 800x600 in medium quality.

So, HotWax, would the speed boost a 6800 GT gives be worth it, or should I wait until next year's models come out? I almost made an impulse purchase of the 6800 GT, but the fact that nobody selling them at a decent price seems to have them in stock and those retailers that do have them are charging significantly more than MSRP kept me from getting one. Now I don't know if it's really worth spending $400 on.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 4:19 pm

Well of course whether the card is worth it depends entirely on whether you're willing to live with the performance you have.

To compare, at 1600x1200 on High Quality settings, I get 52FPS when I timedemo demo1. I also don't get significant speed increases until I drop the res to 1024x768, so there's some hardware limitation there. In other words, with a 3.2GHz CPU, I'd probably get even better results.

The bottom line is that the card is a powerhouse, but the price is also pretty steep at the moment. I definately would not buy an Ultra. The only difference between the two is the $200 difference and a 50MHz faster clock. The performance gain is not worth the price difference.

If you have the patience and don't need blinding speed right now, I'd wait a few months for the card's price to drop. The only reason I bought the card was because I had set aside $1000 for when Doom 3 came out to get my system as fast as I possibly could. I actually went a little bit overbudget.

Oh and if you do decide to upgrade, factor in the price of a better PSU if you have 300W or lower. The card "requires" a 350W power supply. Now, I've actually been running the card on a 300W, but I'd be more comfortable with a more powerful PSU. (And if NewEgg could possibly send me a 400W PSU that works, I'd be a happy man.)