Picked it up 2:00 today...

P4 2.8C/1.0 gig ram/9800pro128 420/360mhz

1024 x 768
2X AA
High detail settings

Like butter..... A game hasn't scared the hell out of me like this since System Shock 2 (A must play if you can find it!) or the original Doom all those years ago.

I purchased the game yesterday after work, and only have a couple hours of game time to base an opinion.

I'm not really disappointed, but the gameplay and visuals so far are not exactly what I was anticipating, although the sound is fantastic on a 5.1. In my humble opinion Far Cry is a more impressive game!

Hopefully I will have to recant my statements after finishing the game  :-/

My greatest gaming experience to date, gl Quake on my Voodoo 1  ;)

wrote on 04.08.04 at 15:17:16:

I'm not really disappointed, but the gameplay and visuals so far are not exactly what I was anticipating, although the sound is fantastic on a 5.1. In my humble opinion Far Cry is a more impressive game!

The visuals so far have been pretty impressive, it might be a matter of taste though since I have found the FarCry demo to not be that impressive.

Use of sound in D3 is pretty good, but could be a bit better IMHO. At times it scares the hell out of you and other times it's a bit flat.

I considered getting a 5.1 setup but had to settle for a nice set of Koss headphones.

Is i better on voodoo 5 now that its finished?

nobody knows???...

I have the game now too , i agree it rocks......
But no good for the voodoo 5. The game jams
when loading. It doesnt even work with mesafx  :'(

dude, people upgrade their Radeon9x to play this game, and you wanna run it on a voodoo5?

Yes !  ;)

Alpha version works so its really weird. And no I do not intend to play the game to the end on a voodoo 5. I have a geforce fot that. Its just the sport to get it running....and because of this reply i remember that maybe i forgot to force 32bpp  ;D ...hope afterall !

...no succes  >:(

Quote:

D.Borca is fixing MesaFx.   Seems that now the game will start even if it seems that many things will be or will stay very difficult

So somebody actually played Doom 3 retail? Dborca told me he was programmig blindly with error logs from a friend. He also mentioned the game was booting....but playing   :-/

Doom 3 wont run for me even with the latest Mesa .dll, always get an error "failed to initialize renderer"  :(

Quote:

No "last" demo, i guess ?     ... Though that would not be the first game that i buy only for "seeing".

ID and demos doesn go very well  ;D The last one i ever saw was quake 3. Maybe you can borrow the game from somebody to see how it looks. That saves you 60 euro's  ;)

Doom 3 stil doesnt boot. I dont get an error the screen just stays black and then bluescreen of death  :'(

Got it... ;)

Played it... :D

Finished it... ;D

Overall I'm very impressed - the game is VERY polished (heck they spent four YEARS making it!). 8)

Only two gripes I have are... :P

1. It's too dark in places. There's "moody dark" and then there's just "too fookin dark too see anyhthing!"... >:(

2. You need a MONSTER PC to run the game at any nice speed... :P

My main rig has a Radeon 9700Pro, AthlonXP 2600+ and 512MB RAM - and the game STILL pushes my H.W. to the max... :o

A friend of mine has an Athlon64 3000+ 1GB RAM and a Radeon X800Pro - seeing DOOM 3 at ULTRA QUALITY 1280x1400 is REALLY cool! 8)

(unfortunately for him, his new PC came at a hefty price...his girlfriend got fed up of his DVD collection and sold ALL 300 of his DVD's - OUCH!) :'(

Anyhow, in retrospect, the game reminds me of the film "Event Horizon" ...twisted and creepy! :o

Nuff said! 8)

I finished up the game last night and my biggest beef is the inability of the main character to use the flashlight and a weapon simultaneously  :'( , he has two arms why cant he seem to use them  >:(

@paulpsomiadis,

I also agree with your opinion that the game is just "to dark", I understand that the game designers are trying to create a mood/atmosphere but in my opinion it's a bit of overkill.

The game does have extremely scarey moments though, and overall was worth the price of admission  ;D

I read that id is going to release Quake 4 & Return to castle wolfenstein 2 using the doom 3 engine, should be very interesting  ;D

Well, don't forget :

Doom3 overrides the Gamma Settings with its own value (Default Gamma = 1.0 )

The Brightness setting (which is the only available In-Game) only goes that far, not far enough for most.

Manually edit the DoomConfig.cfg to reflect a Gamma Setting more useful, and the Game will "brighten up" to the level it was intended to be seen, while still preserving those intentional "Dark Moments" ;)

There are also some other advanced Quality settings in there that one might want to edit according to personal preference and System Performance.

@Falcon is correct, there are some "hidden" settings in the DoomConfig.cfg file... ;)

1. change  - seta_showPlayerShadow "1"
(enables player model shadow) ;D

2. change - seta g_nightmare "1"
(enable NIGHTMARE difficulty) :o

3. add the line - bind "p" "toggle pm_thirdperson"
(press P to toggle 3rd person view) :P

There's also a line to enable 'percentage hit count'...can't remember what it's called though... ???

[checks cfg file...] :P

seta com_showFPS "1" - shows FPS counter
seta g_showBrass "1" - render ejecting bullet cases
seta g_showProjectilePct "1" - show % hit rate

There ya' go DOOM fans! ;D

Also, for people who want a flashlight on their guns, try out THIS MOD... ;D

The DUCT TAPE MOD! 8)

http://ducttape.glenmurphy.com/

There is also a 'sound pack' that replaces some of the enemy and weapon sounds with the ones from the "Alpha version" that were recorded by Trent Renzor of the band Nine Inch Nails... 8)

However, I WON'T supply the link - i.d. software have deemed the sounds in the MOD to be copyrighted! >:(

Thus the MOD is illegal - so you'll have to Google for it WHILE YOU STILL CAN! ;)

(it does sound cool though!) 8)

Enough for now... :P

PEACE! 8)

Well, I haven't played it but I have seen over 30 hours of live footage and many more hours on in-game demos.

However, from what I've seen, I get the feeling the staf at id had a 3 year holiday vacation and then decided to get back to work and draft up the game in 12 months. ;)

From what I've seen, the game is good. But for 4 years in the making, not that good.  :-/

Visually, in 4 years worth of development (and John Carmack getting anything he wants in terms of the latest graphics hardware and even having a say into what should go into their next cards) it's lacking.

The plot and character interaction is still somewhat basic, and hasn't really progressed much from the days of Half-Life, with Barney greeting Gordon at the entry bridge from the rail-bus.

The game looks good, but id should be able to come up with something really more spectacular in 4 years.

But until I've actually played the game, I can't give a good as review of DOOM3 as you guys.

wrote on 24.08.04 at 23:42:50:

The game looks good, but id should be able to come up with something really more spectacular in 4 years.

Don't go by demos or videos- The ingame graphics are just not done justice by static pictures. The way things shift and change (reflections, glass, etc) in a fluid manner as you move is just fantastic. Level of detail is very good in most areas, one touch early on before the fun starts is watching the desk clerk entering a report about you on his computer! Pretty neat watching him type and the words scrolling up on his screen.

My only gripes (and I'm just starting to play through a second time, on nightmare now) are about the pacing through the game (inconsistent) and uneven interaction with the enviroment through the game.

A critter can break through a glass window and come at you but a BFG won't even cause a scratch in the same glass?

Hello...

great looking game , good feel and play , but not being able to destroy the environment ala redfaction etc makes its whole "realistic" aspect a bit flat . And i kept getting flashes of alien vs predator 2 , in the back of my mind . but visually great lighting , transperant heat vapours etc . the engine should do justice to coming games !

hehe, I'm going to test it on the S3 DeltachromeS8 256MB that arrived today.

wrote on 27.08.04 at 13:09:13:

hehe, I'm going to test it on the S3 DeltachromeS8 256MB that arrived today.

Hi Falconfly,
A Deltacrome S8  :o :o :o !!
Where you found it ? can you send me an e-mail where I can buy this card ? (if I can buy it online is better) I'm really interested on this card.

Thanks in advance.  ;D

A big german reseller is offering those :

www.alternate.de

My Card arrived 36 hours after placing the order.
(a Volari Duo V8 Ultra 256MB is still enroute, but bought from another reseller)

PS.
The usual Benchmarks (including CodeCreatures Pro) ran flawless, and the afternoon FarCry (an extreme test) ran surprisingly well on that Card as well.
Looks like the S3 Driver team did their homework pretty well in the Direct3D sector.

@Falcon - ALWAYS first with the KICK A$$ toyz! 8)

Some Deltachrome S8 screenies might be nice (or a shot of the card...) ;)

@Amigamerlin - glad to see you 'migrating' to the archive for a short while...I know your usual stomping ground is "3Dfxzone.it"... ;D

Well, mine will be going back on Monday, since the Card itself is working, but the Retail Box and its content actually arrived in used condition, and had the wrong manual inside (for a Club3D GeForceFX/-4MX *lol* )

So it works, but definitely not what I wanted from a Collector's point of view.

I've already taken alot of screenshots with it (FarCry), and I'll picture the Card before I send it back.

I hope to get the (hopefully brand new this time) replacement soon enough :)

For those of you who want a LO-RES snapshot of the card, I followed the link that @Patience posted... ;)

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/images/club3d/club_3d_s3_deltachrome_s8_256mb_fs.jpg

Kind of looks like a V4500 and a Radeon 9600 got together and had kids... ::)

LOL! ;D

Here's how to tweak DOOM3 and basically all the commands and what they do.  I created my own .cfg file and it made the world of difference.  I'm going to post it in a series because the message is apparently too long.
Enjoy

Part 01


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Low Quality: This mode is designed for a graphics card with 64MB of Video RAM. It uses compressed textures (textures are the 2D images used on the surfaces of all 3D objects) and light maps, and texture resolution is also limited to 512x512 at most. The reason for this is that large uncompressed textures quickly fill up your Video RAM and cause a lot of swapping into and out of the Video RAM, creating small pauses and freezes. Texture compression and reducing the resolution of textures keeps the Video RAM overhead low, with the down side being some "compression artifacts" (i.e. blurriness, some pixelation and most noticeably a purplish tinge to textures). The game will also use only one sound per event. For example, firing the shotgun has the exact same sound effect every time. This is done to reduce memory usage, as all sounds are preloaded into RAM wherever possible. Medium Quality: This mode is designed for a graphics card with 128MB of Video RAM. There is still compression used for textures, and light and render maps. Texture sizes are not automatically reduced however, so all textures will appear at their full resolution. There will still be compression artifacts however, but once again this must be done to keep Video RAM demand low. The number of sounds per event also increase, such that there will be some variety for each sound effect at the expense of some system RAM. This mode is the one recommended for most people as it is a good balance of image quality and performance. High Quality: This mode is designed for a graphics card with 256MB of Video RAM. In this mode there is no texture compression (which greatly increases Video RAM usage), however light maps are compressed still. It is important to note that in this mode, Anisotropic Filtering is automatically enabled and set to 8x, which is quite high. This helps noticeably sharpen textures as they fade into the distance, however it has a pronounced impact on performance. Essentially in High Quality mode texture quality is improved over Medium Quality due to removal of compression and through use of Anisotropic Filtering, but at the cost of a significant performance hit on cards with lower Video RAM and processing power. Ultra Quality: This mode is the highest possible for Doom 3 and is designed for a graphics card with 512MB (!) of Video RAM. No compression is used for anything, hence while graphics quality is at the best it can possibly be (not including Antialiasing, which you can also enable separately), there is a major performance hit for current systems. Due to the lack of compression loadup times are theoretically reduced, however in exchange for this most systems will notice a lot more freezes and pauses as video information is constantly being swapped into and out of your Video RAM. For the most part the difference between High and Ultra Quality modes is difficult to tell.

Part 02


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Advanced Options High Quality Special Effects: With this setting set to Yes, Doom 3 will use a range of advanced graphical techniques to increase your immersion in the game. For example, looking at a column of fire will produce a highly realistic heat haze effect. These effects take some graphical power to produce, so disabling this option (setting it to No) will improve your performance at the cost of realism and immersion. Enable Shadows: This setting determines whether you see any real-time shadows cast for objects in the game. If set to Yes you will see most objects casting very realistic shadows, which move with dynamic sources of lighting (such as swinging lamps for example), however your FPS will be lower as your system has to do more calculations to determine where shadows are cast at any point in time. This is particularly noticeable when there are multiple characters/enemies on the screen, as they cast very complex shadows. If set to No, these shadows will disappear, although this doesn't mean all the areas of darkness in the game will be removed. Your performance will improve, but the atmosphere of the game may suffer somewhat. If you feel comfortable turning this option off, then the performance improvement (which is significant on many systems) may be worth it. Enable Specular: If set to Yes, specular lighting gives the surfaces of objects, ranging from metals to skin, a realistic sheen. When combined with Bump Maps (see below), this option creates a very plausible illusion in Doom 3 that your surroundings are real. However obviously it reduces performance, so if you're after more FPS and don't mind the drop in realism, set this option to No. Enable Bump Maps: Bump mapping is an effect which makes 2D textures appear as though they are 3D, with depth and grain. If set to Yes, surfaces will appear much more realistic, especially when light shines on them, however your performance will be lower. Again, if you can do without this effect turn it off. Vertical Sync: Vertical Synchronization (also called Vertical Sync, or simply VSync) is the synchronization of your graphics card and monitor's abilities to redraw the screen a number of times each second (measured in FPS or Hz). If VSync is disabled (set to No), you may see some image "tearing" as your monitor and graphics card go slightly out of synchronization when the refresh rate exceeds the monitor's abilities, however your FPS can now exceed your monitor's refresh rate. There is something important to understand when talking about VSync and Doom 3 though - the Doom 3 engine is specifically capped at 60FPS, so normally you cannot exceed this framerate regardless of your VSync setting (you can exceed it by using the com_fixedtic -1 command - see Advanced Tweaking section). You can still have a refresh rate higher than 60Hz, it's just that your monitor will simply show some frames more than once. It is always recommended that you have as high a refresh rate as possible to ease eyestrain (See Advanced Tweaking section). Whether VSync should be on or off in Doom 3 is not set in stone - it differs by system. Some people have reported to me that they get better, and more importantly smoother framerates with VSync enabled (Set to Yes). Others show through their Timedemo results (See Neat Stuff & Conclusion section below) that having VSync off improves their average FPS. You will need to experiment, but to begin with I recommend firstly checking your graphics card control panel to ensure that the Vertical Sync option there is set to 'Application Preference', and then in Doom 3 set VSync Off. If you are happy with it, keep it off, however if you find the image "tearing" too annoying, or want smoother FPS, then set VSync back to On. Also run a Timedemo with VSync on and off and see what your particular results show. Antialiasing: Antialiasing is a method of smoothing the jaggedness of lines in 3D graphics. For more details see my Simple Antialiasing and Anisotropic Guide. This setting has (up to) five options: Off, 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x. When set to Off, there is no additional Antialiasing used, unless you have forced Antialiasing enabled in your Graphics card's control panel. Antialiasing set to Off provides the fastest performance. When set to 2x Antialiasing, this uses your graphics card to smooth out jagged lines at the cost of some FPS. Higher levels of Antialiasing will reduce FPS even more, but smooth out jaggedness considerably, particularly for distant objects. Note that if you have any level of Antialiasing enabled in your graphics card control panel, they will override these settings. If you want to use Antialiasing in Doom 3 I recommend selecting 'Application Preference' (not '0x') in your graphics card's control panel and then setting the AA level in-game here. For most people however I recommend setting Antialiasing to Off since it is a major performance drain, and Doom 3 is a game which really doesn't require antialiasing at any resolution - the jaggedness of lines is barely noticeable. Once you're done with these options click 'Close Advanced Options', then click 'Apply Changes' to put them into effect. Defaults: If you want to return to the default settings for the game, click this option. Note that doing this will mean you will lose all your existing customized in-game settings.

Part 03


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The Doom 3 Console The console is the closest you can get to having direct real-time access to Doom 3's engine. Through the console you can enter commands to change engine variables during the game. To open the console, start Doom 3 and then press the CTRL, ALT and ~ keys together. You will see the console come down, and you can enter text at the command prompt. A list of commands you can enter are covered in the next section. To make regular access to the console easier, enter the following line into the console: set com_allowconsole 1 This means that you can now open and close the console by simply pressing the '~' key (the key above TAB), and not three keys at once. Note that to make this setting (and many other settings) "stick", i.e. remain enabled even after quitting and restarting Doom 3, you will need to insert it into a Config file, or in the game icon's Target line, both of which are covered below. Doom 3 Config Files Although you can alter many variables by entering them into the console, most command variables need to be set each and every time you start Doom 3. This is because the game engine resets these variables to their default state as the engine initializes at startup. By default, when the game engine starts, it automatically detects the presence of, and runs the command variables from two specific files: DoomConfig.cfg and AutoExec.cfg. DoomConfig.cfg already exists in your \Doom 3\base\ directory, and you can edit it using a text editor like Windows WordPad or Notepad. However changing some of the settings in DoomConfig.cfg will see them reset to default values again the next time you restart Doom 3. So the best thing to do is create a new text file, rename it to "AutoExec.cfg" (without quotes) and place it in your \Doom 3\base\ directory. You can now enter all your custom tweaks and settings into this file, and they will come into effect automatically each and every time you start Doom 3. This makes it easier to keep track of what you have tweaked, and if at any time you want to remove all your tweaks, you can simply delete the AutoExec.cfg file. Note that there is another way of executing a config file, and that is to firstly create a config file with any name you wish, e.g. MyTweaks.cfg, place it in the \Doom 3\base\ directory, and then in the Doom 3 console at any time type: exec MyTweaks.cfg This will run all the command variables in your new .cfg file, however unless you actually execute this file it will not be automatically run at startup time - only DoomConfig.cfg and AutoExec.cfg are automatically detected and run by Doom 3. Performance Commands [Cache Tweaks] The following commands control the image cache, which if enabled and set correctly can help smooth FPS and may also boost performance: image_useCache [0,1] - If set to 1, uses background loading to cache image information. This may not necessarily improve framerate performance, but it does assist in smoothing out frame rates and reducing loading pauses. Note that the image_cacheMinK (see below) size must be raised from its default otherwise the game will crash when using this setting. Once this setting is enabled, the actual cache value is set in the image_cacheMegs setting below. image_cacheMegs [Megabytes] - Determines the maximum amount of system memory to allocate to temporary loading of full-sized precompressed images if the cache is enabled by setting image_useCache to 1. Note that since this caching only applies to precompressed images, using the Ultra Quality setting will render this setting useless, since at Ultra quality no texture compression is used. Since a cache is only a temporary holding area, and not the place where the entire game is meant to reside, do not raise this value to something extremely high as that will simply reduce the available memory for the rest of Doom 3. Try a value of 128MB for those with 512MB of system RAM, and if you have more than 1GB of RAM, you can try a higher value like 196MB or 256MB for example. Do not set this to half your system RAM or some other monstrous amount. image_cacheMinK [KiloBytes] - This setting determines the minimum size in KB for precompressed image files to be loaded into the cache. To make sure most image files can be loaded, and to also prevent a system crash when enabling caching, select a value like 3072 to start with. Raising this setting may improve caching, but it may also hinder caching if most textures are below the size you specify, so don't just raise this value for the hell of it. [Graphics Tweaks] r_brightness [value] - Determines the overall brightness for the game. You can adjust this using the slider in the main options menu (See In-Game settings), however if you want to fine tune it you can do so here. Has no performance impact. r_gamma [value] - Determines the gamma level (essentially a form of brightness) for the game. Raising this value too high can make the game image appear washed out. Has no performance impact. r_displayRefresh [Hz] - Determines the refresh rate used when Doom 3 is launched. You should already be getting the maximum refresh rate possible on your monitor when playing Doom 3 through the use of a refresh rate fix (See my ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide for a link and instructions for both Nvidia and ATI users), however if you want to set this manually, determine the supported maximum refresh rate on your monitor for the resolution you've chosen for Doom 3 (e.g. I run Doom 3 at 1280x1024, and my monitor can do 85Hz maximum at this resolution), and set this variable to that value. r_multiSamples [0,2,4,8,16] - This setting determines the level of Antialiasing samples used. This can be set using the in-game menus (See In-Game Settings section). The numerical values here are 0 which is no antialiasing, 2, 4, 8 and 16. com_videoRam [MB] - Shows the detected amount of video memory on your graphics card in MB. If this value is incorrect, set it to the correct value to improve performance. cm_backFaceCull [0,1] - If set to 1, removes all polygons behind the direction the player is facing - that is, all the things the player cannot see. This can improve performance, but if you experience any visual anomalies set this back to 0. Note it's cm_backFaceCull, not com_backFaceCull. com_purgeAll [0,1] - If set to 1, discards all data between level loads. Can increase loading times noticeably but may help reduce in-game pauses. com_machineSpec [-1,0,1,2,3] - Shows the currently detected machine specification level, with the choices being -1 - Not detected, 0 - Low quality, 1 - Medium quality, 2 - High quality, and 3 - Ultra quality. com_fixedTic [-1,0,1] - If set to 0 (the default) Doom 3's ticrate is capped at 60FPS, meaning the game framerate cannot exceed this, except when running a timedemo. If you want to remove this cap, set com_fixedTic to -1. Setting it to 1 removes the cap, but causes the game physics to go out of sync. Removing the FPS cap doesn't necessarily improve performance, and can lead to more variable framerates.

Part 04


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setMachineSpec - Detects your system hardware and sets the value for com_machineSpec (See above). execMachineSpec - Executes all the relevant config files and sets variables based on the machine specifications provided by the com_machinespec variable. For example, if you raise your machine spec to 3 using "com_machinespec 3", then running the command "execMachineSpec" will change all your settings and config variables to the ones appropriate to a machine suited for Ultra quality performance (i.e very high end). r_vertexBufferMegs [Megabytes] - This setting controls how many MB are allocated to the vertex buffer. Increasing this value will see a performance improvement on most systems, so try increasing it to 48MB or 64MB. r_orderIndexes [0,1] - If set to 1, reorganises indexes to optimize vertex use. This improves rendering performance. r_usePortals [0,1] - If set to 1, uses portals to perform area culling, otherwise everything is drawn. Setting this to 1 provides the best performance. r_useOptimizedShadows [0,1] - When set to 1, uses the dmap generated static shadow volumes, which provides optimal performance. r_lightScale [value] - All light sources are multiplied by this value. Increasing this value increases the intensity of all visible light sources. Basically it makes light sources brighter the higher the value. r_skipParticles [0,1] - If set to 1, this disables all particle effects, including smoke, fog, steam etc. This can dramatically improve performance in areas with these effects, however it can reduce realism greatly as well. r_skipDiffuse [0,1] - If set to 1, disables diffuse lighting. This improves performance, but also darkens areas where such lighting is used since no lighting is used to replace the removed diffuse lighting. r_skipUpdates [0,1] - If set to 1, lighting is not updated, meaning all lighting will become static (fixed direction and intensity). This can improve performance significantly, but reduces realism. r_skipDeforms [0,1] - If set to 1, any material which can be deformed will remain in its original state. r_skipFogLights [0,1] - If set to 1, disables all fog lights which can improve performance. r_skipTranslucent [0,1] - If set to 1, disables translucent rendering, which can improve performance (but reduce realism) in such areas. r_skipInteractions [0,1] - If set to 1, disables all light interactions with surfaces, effectively making almost all surfaces black. r_skipMegaTexture [0,1] - If set to 1, uses only the lowest level images. This improves performance at the cost of lower image quality for some surfaces. r_skipGuiShaders [0,1,2,3] - If set to 1, this removes all Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) in the game (i.e. computer terminals, security screens etc.), if set to 2, GUIs aren't drawn but they can still be interacted with, if set to 3 they will be drawn, but cannot be interacted with. These settings can improve performance but obviously reduce playability. r_useShadowCulling [0,1] - If set to 1, tries to remove shadows from partially visible lights. This provides optimal performance. r_useLightCulling [0,1,2,3] - Determines the light culling method. 0 is no culling, 1 is box culling, 2 is the exact clip of polyhedron faces, and 3 also includes areas. This should be set to 3 for optimal performance. Other methods can reduce visual anomalies with lighting but will reduce performance. r_useCulling [0,1,2] - Determines the object culling method. 0 is no culling, 1 is sphere culling and 2 is sphere and box culling. Setting this to 2 provides optimal performance, but other methods can be tried to reduce visual anomalies. r_renderer [best, arb, arb2, cg, exp, nv10, nv20, r200] - Determines the rendering path to use. Some renderers can't run on certain hardware - for example cg is an Nvidia rendering language and can't run on ATI cards. You can experiment with these to see which is best on your system, as I haven't had the chance to test these on various hardware. r_ignoreGLErrors [0,1] - This setting should be set to 1, to ignore OpenGL errors. Most people will have one or two OpenGL errors throughout the game, and these don't seem to affect gameplay. r_znear [value] - This setting determines the distance at which z-buffer clipping occurs. The default value is 3, and lower values can result in graphical anomalies for distant objects but improve performance, while higher values may help reduce any z-buffer graphical anomalies, but may reduce performance. r_useInfiniteFarZ [0,1] - If set to 1, this uses the no-far-clip-plane trick which provides optimal performance. r_useStateCaching [0,1] - This option should be set to 1 for optimal performance, as it caches OpenGL state changes. r_useIndexBuffers [0,1] - If set to 1, uses ARB_vertex_buffer_object for indexes. This can actually reduce performance, so set to 0. r_useVertexBuffers [0,1] - If set to 1, uses ARB_vertex_buffer_object for vertexes, which improves performance. r_useCachedDynamicModels [0,1] - If set to 1, uses cache snapshots of dynamic models which improves performance. r_useTwoSidedStencil [0,1] - If set to 1, optimizes the processing of stencil shadows. r_useTurboShadow [0,1] - If set to 1, uses the infinite projection with W technique for dynamic shadows which improves performance without a noticeable drop in image quality. r_useShadowVertexProgram [0,1] - If set to 1, does the shadow projection in the vertex program on graphics cards with this capability. If you set this to 1 and experience problems or a crash, it is because your graphics card does not support this functionality. r_useShadowProjectedCull [0,1] - If set to 1, removes polygons which would fall completely inside shadows, optimizing performance. r_useTripleTextureARB [0,1] - If set to 1, this allows graphics cards with 3+ texture units do a two pass instead of three pass which improves performance. Set this to 1 and if you experience problems, your graphics card does not support this function. r_useConstantMaterials [0,1] - If set to 1, this setting uses pre-calculated material registers if possible, improving performance. r_useNV20MonoLights [0,1] - If set to 1, this option uses optimized rendering for mono lights. r_mode [-1,3,4,5,6,7,8] - This setting determines the resolution, as set in the in-game menus under Screen Size (See In-Game Settings section). The mode values are 3 = 640x480, 4 = 800x600, 5 = 1024x768, 6 = 1152x864, 7 = 1280x1024 and 8 = 1600x1200. Note, you can use -1 for r_mode, and this tells the game to use the values for r_customHeight and r_customWidth to set screen width and height - this is useful for allowing things like widescreen mode. r_useLightPortalFlow [0,1] - If set to 1, this uses a use a more precise area reference determination for lighting. Setting this to 0 improves performance but may result in graphical anomalies.

Part 05


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g_projectileLights [0,1] - If set to 1, allows dynamic lights for projectiles. Setting this to 0 can improve performance in combat. g_doubleVision [0,1] - If set to 1, shows a blurry "double vision" effect when taking damage. Setting this to 0 removes this effect and can improve performance when taking damage. g_muzzleFlash [0,1] - If set to 1, shows a flash from the muzzle of weapons that are firing. If set to 0, this effect is disabled, which can improve performance. g_showBrass [0,1] - If set to 1, visible shells will be ejected from weapons. If set to 0, no visible shells will be ejected, and performance may be improved in heavy combat. g_showHud [0,1] - If set to 1, this enables the Heads Up Display (HUD). If set to 0, this removes the HUD from view, which may give a minor performance improvement. This command is most useful for taking "clean" screenshots (i.e. without the HUD). g_showPlayerShadow [0,1] - If set to 1, the player will cast a shadow when standing near lights. If set to 0, the player casts no shadow, which improves performance. g_nightmare [0,1] - If set to 1, Nightmare difficulty level can now be selected on the main menu screen. If set to 0, this option is disabled. Normally players must complete the entire game before Nightmare mode is enabled. g_bloodEffects [0,1] - If set to 1, full blood effects (blood sprays, splattering etc.) is enabled. If set to 0, this is removed, which may yield a small performance improvement in heavy combat. g_skipViewEffects [0,1] - If set to 1, removes various view-related special effects like the damage effects (double vision). This can improve performance. g_fov [angle] - Specifies the angle for the Field of View (FOV). The wider the angle, the larger the field of vision for the player, giving a "fish eye" view in effect, however performance will be reduced. The smaller the angle, the higher the performance. The default of 90 is recommended, but players can try 85 which is a value used in some other games and will gain a slight boost in FPS. g_skipFX [0,1] - If set to 1, disables certain special effects (I'm unclear on which). This can improve performance. g_skipParticles [0,1] - If set to 1, disables certain particle effects (does not include smoke, dust, fog effects etc). This can improve performance, particularly in areas which use these effects to a large extent, but realism will be reduced. image_usePrecompressedTextures [0,1] - When set to 1, all textures will be precompressed, resulting in less video memory being used and hence smoother performance on most machines. There will be some minor compression artifacts on textures, but these are hardly noticeable. If you want to use uncompressed textures for maximum image quality, set this to 0, but performance will suffer and you may get more small pauses depending on the amount of Video RAM on your graphics card. image_useNormalCompression [1,2] - Specifies the compression method used for textures. 1 is 256 color compression (if available), which gives the best performance but provides the most compression artifacts, while 2 is rxgb compression, which is the normal compression method. image_useCompression [0,1] - When set to 1, compression is used - with the method of compression specified in the image_useNormalCompression variable. Compression provides the fastest performance by reducing the size of textures and light maps, but there are some (minor) compression artifacts. When set to 0, no compression is used, which provides the highest image quality but slower performance. image_preload [0,1] - If set to 1, Doom 3 attempts to preload most images in the background, meaning less loading pauses during the game but longer loading times. If set to 0, images are loaded dynamically as needed, meaning more loading pauses during the game. 1 is the recommended setting. image_lodbias [value] - Determines the Level of Detail (LOD) bias for mipmapped images. The higher the number, the less detail is visible on surrounding objects. This can improve performance, but reduces image quality. The default is 0, and values above 1 reduce detail quite heavily, so experiment with fractional values such as 0.2 or 0.5. image_anisotropy [1,2,4,8] - This setting determines the level of Anisotropic Filtering used in Doom 3. Valid values are 1, 2, 4, and 8. The higher the value, the lower your performance, but the crisper textures will appear in the distance. Note that 1 is the lowest you can set for Anisotropic - 0 will simply default back to 1. Also note that if you have forced Anisotropic Filtering in your graphics card's control panel, it will override this setting, so for optimal performance set the Anisotropic Filtering level in your control panel to 'Application Preference', and adjust the level here. image_filter [GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST, GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR] - Determines the OpenGL texture filtering method to use on textures by default. GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR is Trilinear Filtering, however if you want a performance boost without any noticeable image quality loss, change this setting to GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST which is Bilinear Filtering.

Part 06


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[Downsizing Tweaks] The following values control the largest size allowed (in pixels) for textures, lighting and render maps. If downsampling is not enabled, these values make no difference. However if downsampling is enabled, changing the limit values can improve performance by restricting the size of texture, light and render maps. The common values are 256 for 64MB graphics cards, 512 for 128MB graphics cards and 1024 for 256MB graphics cards. You can try lower values for your graphics card to see if loading times and in-game pauses are improved, and judge whether your image quality has fallen or not. Typically smaller sample size limits will result in more pixelated textures and less detailed lighting as textures and lightmaps are resized from their original resolutions to smaller ones. image_downSizeLimit [pixels] - This setting controls the diffuse light map downsample limit - the largest size in pixels for the diffuse light map. image_downSize [0,1] - If set to 1, this puts into effect the downSizeLimit value specified above. image_downSizeBumpLimit [pixels] - This setting controls the bump map texture downsample limit. image_downSizeBump [0,1] - If set to 1, this puts into effect the downSizeBumpLimit value specified above. image_downSizeSpecularLimit [pixels] - This setting controls the specular lighting light map downsample limit. image_downSizeSpecular [0,1] - If set to 1, this puts into effect the downSizeSpecularLimit value specified above. Speed Up Load Times One method some people are recommending to speed up loading times and perhaps boost performance is to unpack the zipped .pk4 files in the \Doom 3\base\ directory. These .pk4 files contain all the files Doom 3 uses to run the game, and at the start of each Doom 3 session these are unpacked and loaded up, which can take some time. If you want to use this method, follow these steps: 1. Firstly make sure that you do not delete the .pk4 files. Move them somewhere else on your system. 2. Rename each file from .pk4 to .zip. 3. Extract the contents of each file using WinZip to the \Doom 3\base\ directory. This may take a fair bit of time. 4. Make sure you run Windows Defragmenter after this procedure, as the files will be spread all over your hard drive. Do this by going to Start>Run and typing "Defrag.msc" (without quotes), then click the Defragment button. 5. You can now start Doom 3 and it should read these files much more quickly. Note that I personally don't recommend this method, as the performance gains are minimal, with the main gain being faster loading times. The down sides to this method are that playing Doom 3 multiplayer becomes difficult, as most servers will consider your game files to have been altered and you will be kicked. Also, when it comes time to patch/update the game, you will have to remove these files, replace the original .pk4 files (that's why you shouldn't delete them!), run the patch, then unpack them again. Rather tedious given the 3GB + of information that needs to be unpacked. Doom 3 Game Music If you like the Doom 3 title music, and indeed any sound effects and ambient music in the game, you can find these in the pak003.pk4 file in your \Doom 3\base\ directory. Using the method mentioned before, rename this file to pak003.zip (make sure to name it back to pak003.pk4 straight afterwards), and use WinZip to extract the contents to an empty directory. The main theme music is called d3theme.ogg.

I converted one of my Seether tracks to .ogg and renamed it to d3theme in the base/sounds/musical folder.  Note:This is after I unzipped all the pk4 files.  In the main menu, this track plays, cool!

For some other interesting stuff » DOOM3 Tweaks

Adieu  :)

People running DOOM3 on a Radeon card might also want to try this little tutorial from the Beyond3D forums...

I've re-posted it here for convenience: -


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Beyond3D Forums Shader Patch Quick guide for those who don't want to read the full thread. Download this file: http://esprit.campus.luth.se/~humus/temp/doom3PerformanceTweak.rar Extract so that the shader file goes under doom3\base\glprogs. This replaces a dependent texture read with equivalent math, which runs better on ATI cards, but seems to run slower on NV boards, so only apply this if you got an ATI card. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I picked up Doom3 today and let be begin by saying it's a kickass game so far.  A few minuses like weapon reload (which I find add nothing to a game, except annoyance, so I don't know why many devs keep adding it to their games), but overall much above my expectations. Anyway, to the fun part, exploring the technology.   I think I've found the source of why this game runs comparably slow on ATI hardware vs. nVidia at the moment, and found a solution to the problem. First, open your doom3\base folder. Doubleclick on the pak000.pk4 file. In the "window can't open this file .. .bla bla" dialog, go on and associate the file with an app like WinRar. With this file open in WinRar, go to the glprogs directory in the file. In there you'll find the shaders. The interaction.vfp file seems to be the main rendering shader. Altering this shader to output a constant color turns most objects into that constant color, except for stuff like computer screens etc. So doubleclick the interaction.vfp file to open it (you may have to associate the .vfp extension with a text editor like notepad or wordpad first since we're going to edit the file). Scroll down to the fragment shader. You'll find these rows: Code: PARAM   subOne = { -1, -1, -1, -1 }; PARAM   scaleTwo = { 2, 2, 2, 2 }; Add this right below them: Code: PARAM specExp = { 16, 0, 0, 0 }; Now scroll down to this: Code: # perform a dependent table read for the specular falloff TEX   R1, specular, texture[6], 2D; Comment out that line by adding a "#" to it, and add another line that will do the same thing with math instead, so it should look like this: Code: # perform a dependent table read for the specular falloff # TEX   R1, specular, texture[6], 2D; POW   R1, specular.x, specExp.x; Save the file and close your text editor. WinRar will ask if you want to update the file in the archive, select yes. Close WinRar and enjoy about 40% higher performance in Doom3. Haven't done extensive testing yet, but my performance went from 34fps in 1280x1024 to 48fps. Conclusion and discussion: I don't want to complain about Carmack's work, I still consider him to be the industry leader in graphics engines. Though when I read the shader it striked me how many texture accesses it did compared to the relatively short shader, even for stuff that could just as well be done with math for a small cost in instructions. Using a dependent texture lookup for POW evaluation makes a lot of sense for R200 level hardware due to instruction set limits, but for R300 and up it's much better to just spend the three cycles it takes to evaluate POW with math instead of risking texture cache trashing with a dependent texture read, which may be much more costly, especially since the access pattern in this case will be far from linear. Also, using math improves the quality too, even though it may not be very noticable in this game. I should point out though that I'm not sure if the constant specular factor 16 that I chose is the one that the game uses, so output may be slightly different, but if this solution will be worked into the game in a future patch, then this is easily configurable by the game so that there won't be a difference, except a lot faster. An interesting follow-up discussion may be why this dependent texture lookup is much slower on our hardware than on nVidia. Maybe there's an architectural difference that's to blame, or maybe something else? The main point here though is that this should be good enough proof that ATI hardware can run Doom3 just as good if not better than nVidia, and that we can pass on all the "ATI suck in OpenGL", "ATI's drivers suck" etc. into the trashcan where it belongs.

@paulpsomiadis,


have you tried the above tweak, if yes what was your fps gain ?

I have read some post's on ati related sites with people reporting nice performance improvements and others stating it introduced some graphical error's  :-/

@paulpsomiadis,

Disregard my post above, curiousity got the better of me, so I backed up the file (just in case), applied the patch and have gotten fantastic results (32 fps avg. before, 40 fps avg. after)  ;D

I'm scared, hold me :'(