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Doom 3
At the 2002 E3 exhibit ID Software showed of DOOM 3. Days after that the world was shocked as somehow that demo got leaked onto the Internet. It's now 2004 and the game has finally been released! The breathtaking realism of the Doom III engine basically depends on two features; a realistic physics engine and a unified lighting scheme that incorporates detailed bump-mapping and volumetric shadows. Hardware older than GeForce 4/3 lack the flexibility and power to run Doom 3 with detailed features at an acceptable frame-rate. The engine is once again written in OpenGL.
DOOM 3 sports a brand spanking new game engine that's a marvel to see. The amount of special effects that master programmer John Carmack has whipped up show us environments that we've heard about but have never seen before. ID has made an engine that specializes around the type of game they made: dark, scary, and intense. The game takes place on a base on Mars in the year 2145. The environments will give you a feeling of claustrophobia, which is only heightened by the game's dark atmosphere. Every light in the game is cast by some actual light source somewhere. If there's no lights on in the room, you'll see literally nothing and will need to turn on a flashlight. Shoot out a light in the middle of a battle, and you'll need to fight blindly. Sometimes, graphics do truly contribute to atmosphere as well as gameplay and with DOOM 3 it's obvious that id understands this better than most game developers.
In a weird way it's almost impossible to fully describe what the game looks like, but needless to say its well beyond anything to date. Multi colored per-pixel lighting on bump-mapped surfaces. Each and every object in the game, including the teeth of the monsters you fight cast dynamic shadows, but not the jagged kind you mayve seen in other recent games. The shadows are done using Carmacks own algorithm. Im sure many of you have upgraded specifically for this game, but it appears as though the video card is by far the most important piece of hardware needed. Even at the lowest resolution with the lowest amount of detail it looks jawbreaking.
Doom 3 can be played absolutely fantastically without any need to sacrifice on its image quality on any modern graphics card. The 6600 SLI setup however takes the lead for sure. Very impressive results. The performance lead that ATI has with Half-life 2, NVIDIA has with Doom 3.
When looking at
AA and AF tests (below) in combination with the game's high quality mode. We again see the GeForce lineup offer more value for money. Still, the high FPS in 1600x1200 for the x800 XL, 850 XT and x850 XT PE are at a level that you will never complain about. Below again the 4xAA and 8xAF results. Playable up-to 1280x1024 for the 800 XL and 1600x1200 for the x850's.
Very nice. Right, I think I've shown you enough to get a good idea of the three products discussed today. Right, why don't ya'll join me for an overlocking session? Next page please.
