DooM3 Graphics Engine

[Cat]

Doom 3's live ragdoll
Each limb reacts according to being shot, using a physical simulation, rather than blended animation.
If you look very closely, once you kill a zombie or demon, you can see the skeletons falling 'physically' over the fleshy gibs.

v.

Far Cry's lack of live ragdoll physics.
( for mercs, they have a single canned pain animation that is played, (might be blended into the current animation.) It doesn't matter where you hit them, the same flinch animation is used. This particular trigen doesn't even have pain animation. This could be because they don't feel pain...



Far Cry's non-unified lighting breaks the flashlight.
Far Cry's flashlight in action. Decide for yourself if it's more realistic than Doom 3's.
Obviously the flashlight doesn't span indoor and outdoor areas, as shown in the first video. The second one shows how the flashlight doesn't really look like a flashlight, and that lit surfaces pale in comparison to Doom's.

v.

Doom 3's flashlight. Note that specular effects occur correctly, when the view vector is nearly parallel to the reflected vector.


Doom 3 throwing of dead ragdolls.

Doom 3's rocket launcher produces more noticeable ragdoll effects.
Gibs fly around and hit surfaces, contrary to a poster's previous claims.

I think this will convince most of you that Doom 3's physics and flashlight are fine.

 

[BFG10K]

soft shadows with the level of accuracy D3's lighting engine has is not going to be viable for a very long time.

Painkiller and AFAIK Far Cry both have soft shadows. Also DE2/Thief 3 might do too but I'm not sure.

In my version of D3 I'm mainly in dark and dreary factory settings, they don't tend to have polished chrome diamond plated floors that reflect light like a mirror and neither does D3(although FC does).

They don't need to be diamond. Do you know what one of the universal properties of metal is? Luster. Specifically you'd expect some degree of surface sheen when one shines a flashlight on it and Doom III doesn't do this. FC most certainly does though.

I was also very carefully inspecting specular surfaces today while shining a flashlight onto them and it turns out they don't react very much to it either.

It lights them to overbright/unrealistic levels, D3's engine is significantly more realistic in that aspect.

FC reacts to shiny surfaces how you'd expect to react when additional lighting is placed on them and that to me is more realistic.

It looks like something I'd expect to see on the PS2. I've seen quite a bit better on the GameCube.

So D3's answer to FC's water and foliage is?

This is typical strategy on your part. Ignore the fact that your game of choice doesn't have anything remotely matching said features and instead turn around and come up with some strawman.

Try and get any of the ferns in FC to move.

Excuse me? They all move and in fact I can't how they'd not move.

D3 has supported shaders that exceed SM2.0 spec for years

How so?

and in terms of render paths it has NV10, NV20, R100, R200, ARB2 and the varrying quality settings for each of those

R100? I don't think so so that leaves four. Far Cry has DX7, SM 1.x, SM 2.0, SM 2.0b and SM 3.0 so that makes five.

Does FC support proper IK?

Not sure. Does Doom? If so I'd like to see the source code to verify this.

Does FC support a unified lighting model?

Probably not but the lighting still looks better in FC IMO.

Can FC handle layered overlapping shadows?

I see no reason why your character's shadow can't overlap with environmental shadows.

What drivers are you running?

4.7.

Also, have you gone in to the console and custom disabled features to drop the quality to below that of the Low settings in D3?

Why the hell should I do that given I don't need to in FC?

I disable shadows in both games and FC runs quite well at 1024x768 while D3 is basically a constant slideshow. Even at 800x600 it still dips well below 30 FPS in many cases, and despite this the IQ in FC is better than Doom III.

OK- R7000 failed to run at all, Kyro2 failed to run at all, Voodoo5 failed to run at all.

Of course they did given the game is completely designed around shaders. That's my whole point.

Try the NV1x core and the game will run- missing heat waves, getting blending artifacts throughout the shaders that display too.

Again, that's my exact point. The D3 was designed around DX7 tech and shaders were then added on as more advanced cards came along. FC OTOH was designed for SM 1.x/2.0 all along. Also D3 didn't push forward with increased polygon counts and texture resolution and instead took the bump-mapped and dark approach. It looks good but I wouldn't say it blows everything away unlike Quake III during its day.

Serious question- do tiles serve as mirrors in your hemisphere?

So you'd expect tiles (or any other smooth surface for that matter) to have no reflections? Serious question, do you have tiles or metal in your hemisphere? Do you also have torches with which you can shine onto those objects to try it out for yourself?

Go into a tiled kitchen or bathroom at night and turn out the lights. Now shine a torch onto the wallpaper and then onto the tiles. See the difference? Or are you saying there's no difference?

Shine your flashlight on the ground outside, where are the shaders?

They're moving the terrain. Lighting shaders aren't used outside (it'd be too bloody slow to light every leaf blade I'd imagine) but they're certainly used everywhere for lighting inside. And you're criticising FC outside when D3 barely has any outside areas to begin with. Where is D3's foliage? Where are the lighting shaders it uses on the outside?

SOF used a splatter and put in place a new texture, nothing like what D3 does.

Uh, no. The Ghoul system deformed the actual body and what's more it also had about 25 hit zones and the body reacted differently depending on which was hit. SOF2 doubled this and produced even more realistic gore. In SOF2 I can carve a jack-o-lantern out someone's head just by using a knife.

The only way it could output 32 stencil ops per clock while running 4x MSAA is if it was a 128x0 part.

It's not outputting 32 while running MSAA. It can output a maximum of 32 zixels or MSAA samples per clock.

Took me about eight attempts to get the game to install(on multiple different drives) without corruption taking place

I never had a problem with it.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Painkiller and AFAIK Far Cry both have soft shadows.

Neither do. They have lightmaps and a very, very poor shadowing implementation(comparable to that done years ago).

They don't need to be diamond. Do you know what one of the universal properties of metal is? Luster. Specifically you'd expect some degree of surface sheen when one shines a flashlight on it and Doom III doesn't do this.

Diamond plate- a type of metal plating that is used, most visibly by 'rednecks', as a way to make their pick-up trucks appear more macho then they would normally. This type of plating usually is chromed with a mirror finish.

Except for that fact that D3 does have sheen you would have a good point.

FC most certainly does though.

FC amplifies the initial light, haven't seen a metal that can handle that yet.

FC reacts to shiny surfaces how you'd expect to react when additional lighting is placed on them and that to me is more realistic.

Polished to mirror finish sewer mains in a factory where the lights don't work right? Not in my world.

So D3's answer to FC's water and foliage is?

For foliage I guess I would say the low res textures you were talking about- not quite as horrific as FC's foliage but they aren't quite up to par. FCs water and all of its shaders combined don't hold a candle to D3's lighting and shaders, not even close.

Excuse me? They all move and in fact I can't how they'd not move.

I clip right through them every time I'm walking. KOTOR's foliage obliterates FC'c.

R100? I don't think so so that leaves four.

My mistake on that one, of course it can't run on the R100 as that is a DX7 class piece of hardware.

Far Cry has DX7, SM 1.x, SM 2.0, SM 2.0b and SM 3.0 so that makes five.

If you take that angle then D3 has sixteen- NV1X Low, Medium, High, Ultra, NV2x Low, Medium, High, Ultra etc.

Not sure. Does Doom? If so I'd like to see the source code to verify this.

Video footage above for you to look at.

Probably not but the lighting still looks better in FC IMO.

What lighting?

I see no reason why your character's shadow can't overlap with environmental shadows.

I'm talking about overlapping shadows from the same object from differing light sources here, something a game with a real lighting engine can handle and FC most certainly can't.

Why the hell should I do that given I don't need to in FC?

I was wondering how you got the game to look so ugly but you answered my question below.

I disable shadows in both games

And that explains a lot. Why are we having this conversation? You set the game up to run in @ss ugly mode and then complain that it doesn't look good, I'm dumbfounded by this. OK, from now on I'll compare it to FC without any shaders running at all. It is d@mn near comical to read back through this thread and look at your comments about how the game doesn't look that good when you disabled the most impressive feature of the game, and one that is used all over the place. What on Earth made you disable shadows? Drop the res, lower the details but kill the lighting systems benefits? Daft.

So you'd expect tiles (or any other smooth surface for that matter) to have no reflections? Serious question, do you have tiles or metal in your hemisphere? Do you also have torches with which you can shine onto those objects to try it out for yourself?

Almost everything is tiled here, including the floor sitting five feet away from me. It's dark in the room for external light but the overhead light it on and guess what? No reflection.

Now shine a torch onto the wallpaper and then onto the tiles. See the difference? Or are you saying there's no difference?

Yes, I'm saying there is no difference.

And you're criticising FC outside when D3 barely has any outside areas to begin with.

Not like FC, but I've been outside probably half a dozen times in the relatively small amount of the game I've been able to play through(d@mn job always gets in the way).

Where are the lighting shaders it uses on the outside?

Running without shadows I can see why you'd have to ask that.

Uh, no. The Ghoul system deformed the actual body and what's more it also had about 25 hit zones and the body reacted differently depending on which was hit. SOF2 doubled this and produced even more realistic gore. In SOF2 I can carve a jack-o-lantern out someone's head just by using a knife.

Gee whiz, 50 hit zones. How can D3's per pixel hope to compete with that

It's not outputting 32 while running MSAA. It can output a maximum of 32 zixels or MSAA samples per clock.

And so can the NV4x parts. Actually, there were some funky numbers someone over at B3D that showed the NV4X part exceeding its theoretical maximum while running 4x MSAA w/Stencil ops.

I never had a problem with it.

You must not have had one of the drives they decided it didn't matter if the game worked with.

 

[Cat]

Doom 3 has inverse kinematics, although I haven't looked to see where it's applied yet. (cvars ik_debug and ik_enable.)

In the flashlight videos I posted, you'll see that Far Cry's flashlight is the least correct of the two. It isn't unified, and it doesn't cast shadows. It does however have specular interaction, which Doom's flashlight also has. Far Cry's flashlight is just very bright, and has a very wide cone.

Neither game uses anything close to a BRDF to simulate metal.

What are you thoughts on Doom's physics engine and ragdoll use after watching the videos?

 

[parkbench]

Video-card vocabularies are useless. Instead of hiding behind jargon, use your eyes. Cat's videos prove the difference between D3's unification and FC's hacks.

On a consistent basis, my eyes tell me that Far Cry is faking reality more often, as beautiful as it is.

In terms of physics, the most important point is that only dead objects have physics applied. This is bad and I'm very glad D3 fixed what everybody's broken with gee-whiz ragdoll.

My guess is that two more gfx card generations will allow D3 visuals in FC's environments.

 

[BFG10K]

I finished the game and finally at the end I was able get some decent ragdoll physics at the dig site levels. It's a shame the game hid them so much and also that they appeared to be confined to just explosive weapons. It's also still lacking in some areas, like blasting a monster at point blank with a shotgun doesn't even make it flinch.

Except for that fact that D3 does have sheen you would have a good point.

It does not have dynamic sheen but FC does.

For foliage I guess I would say the low res textures you were talking about- not quite as horrific as FC's foliage but they aren't quite up to par.

I'm sorry, but you're simply trolling now.

you take that angle then D3 has sixteen- NV1X Low, Medium, High, Ultra, NV2x Low, Medium, High, Ultra etc.

Uh, no. Changing the texture resolution/compression isn't another path, not unless you want to split each of Far Cry's five paths into the hundred or so console variables that control the IQ. So that would be what, 500 paths if we followed your ludicrous line of reasoning?

I don't think so.

What lighting?

Flashlight and water, especially at night with the moon being cast over the rippling water.

I'm talking about overlapping shadows from the same object from differing light sources here,

Well, shine a light onto an object which is affected by other lighting/shadows and see how the overlap looks.

And that explains a lot. Why are we having this conversation? You set the game up to run in @ss ugly mode and then complain that it doesn't look good, I'm dumbfounded by this.

Don't be silly. For starters it doesn't make that much difference since the only real changes are a few extra dynamic shadows, largely from the flashlight. All of the world shadows remain exactly identical. Also my issue was with lighting (specifically sheen), not with shadows.

Secondly, I've played large portions of the game with shadows on including any areas I was carefully looking at. So again, for the purposes of what I'm arguing that setting makes no difference.

What on Earth made you disable shadows?

Because it's a God-damned slideshow even at at 800x600 with them enabled. Given the choice between a sea of pixels and a few extra shadows which I usually don't look at anyway, the solution is painfully obvious.

It's dark in the room for external light but the overhead light it on and guess what? No reflection

Either you have some hellishly dirty tiles or you need your eyes checked. Or you're being intentionally obtuse, like is often the case whenever somebody dares to criticise one of your pet companies.

Not like FC,

Exactly, nothing like FC. FC blows D3 away in the outdoors department yet all you can do is troll about the foliage matching some 8 bit texture or whatever strawman you dreamed up next.

Running without shadows I can see why you'd have to ask that.

How about you run outside with the two settings and tell me the differences?

Gee whiz, 50 hit zones. How can D3's per pixel hope to compete with that

So where exactly can I cut up a head in Doom III and carve portions off it? Where can I blow off stumps and have blood squirting while the corpse twitches? If you want gore then nothing touches the SOF series. Nothing.

And so can the NV4x parts.

Perhaps, but that was never the issue. The issue was that you refused to accept that the R420 could do it but now you've mysteriously changed your tune. Or is it now more believable because there's a chance the NV40 does the same?

 

[Shinei]

I didn't want to get involved, but this argument is starting to bug me.

BFG, the impulse effects are limited because id didn't implement the cartoon-level ragdoll physics that are so popular (see Max Payne 2 for a massive example, bodies fly like kites when you hit them with a shotgun blast; hardly realistic). However, if you use volume of fire (machinegun, plasma rifle, chaingun), you can see the combined impulses knocking back and bowling over targets.
There are mods that remove the vaporization and gibbing effects of the weapons, so you can see how your shots interact with a model; if I so desired I could put a smiley face on the chest of a zombie using my handy machinegun, but that'd be a tremendous waste of ammunition. Granted, it doesn't have the same level of detail as SOFII, but nobody has time to sit there and start doodling on a model with a combat knife while demons are warping in and trying to eat your soul; I'm sure future games based on the Doom 3 engine will include that kind of "fun stuff".

Ok, the shadowing system needs to be really addressed here. It's done up based on the intensity of the radiosity; Sol is a far stronger light source than your dinky flashlight, so when you see yourself being projected by a backlit Sun, your flashlight will only lighten your shadow. If you were to stand next to a dim light and shine your flashlight on your shadow, your shadow goes away.
Now, I'm REALLY curious to see where there's water in Doom 3 to compare the shaders, since I don't remember seeing any, and I'm playing the game through again to see if I missed it.
Further, if my Ti4200 can handle Doom3 at 10x7 with all the goodies (including shadows and player shadows) enabled, your system can too.

And I've never seen tiles shine like someone dumped a bucket of water on them, except for, well, when someone dumps a bucket of water on them. You don't get light amplification off tiles or metals, you get a fraction of your light back at you in the reflection. Maybe if you had highly polished tiles or metal, you could get a lot more light back at you, but in a facility where half the lights don't work even when the place isn't being blown up by marines and demons, I doubt highly that the janitorial staff has time to sit there and scrub the tiles til they shine. Again, if you don't like it, there's always the fact that there will be other games coming out for the engine, along with mods that may include specularity that you actually like.

And that concludes my intervention in this point/counterpoint discussion.

 

[BenSkywalker]

It does not have dynamic sheen but FC does.

It does on certain elements, although not incredibly over the top as it is in FC. Sewer mains do not have mirror finishes in the real world.

I'm sorry, but you're simply trolling now.

No, I'm not. Compare the foliage to KOTOR and it looks p!ss poor at best, and that's a game that shipped some time ago.

Uh, no. Changing the texture resolution/compression isn't another path, not unless you want to split each of Far Cry's five paths into the hundred or so console variables that control the IQ.

If you want to get down to the finer points the FC has three paths right now. It appears as though the ARB2 path could well see a split in D3 in the not too distant future, just like FC may see that next patch that adds the other two rendering paths in.

Flashlight and water, especially at night with the moon being cast over the rippling water.

One light source one object, that's a lighting engine?

Well, shine a light onto an object which is affected by other lighting/shadows and see how the overlap looks.

In FC the second light source won't create a shadow most of the time. SeriousSam has a better lighting engine then FC does, easily so.

Don't be silly. For starters it doesn't make that much difference since the only real changes are a few extra dynamic shadows, largely from the flashlight. All of the world shadows remain exactly identical. Also my issue was with lighting (specifically sheen), not with shadows.

It adds a significant amount. Your issue is not with lighting in any way, your issue is with a lack of over the top shaders. Light and darkness are the issues directly involved in light and paramount to its existance, FC can't get either of those right(even if it does put a mirror finish on an object with no reflective properties).

Because it's a God-damned slideshow even at at 800x600 with them enabled. Given the choice between a sea of pixels and a few extra shadows which I usually don't look at anyway, the solution is painfully obvious.

When Quake3 shipped did you complain about its performance on a Voodoo1 by chance? Removing the shadowing in D3 is akin to disabling all shaders in FC.

Either you have some hellishly dirty tiles or you need your eyes checked.

At my current work location they actually have a crew in retiling certain segments of the floor right now. Every single one of the brand new tiles they put in are completely dull. Now, when they finish off a segment and give it a couple days to set, the floor contractors come in and put several coats of wax down and then they have some reflective properties- but that is entirely due to the wax, not the tiles.

Or you're being intentionally obtuse, like is often the case whenever somebody dares to criticise one of your pet companies.

Where is your rabid diatrabe against ATi's cheating? Why aren't you jumping in to every thread going off about it? Why is it that you have backed off your assinine assertion of ATi's superior texture filtering? This is really simple, I point out the truth- you won't listen to it if it offends your current hardware or software of choice. I'm running a R9800Pro which according to you I shouldn't ever do because it doesn't come from one of my 'pet companies'. Difference between you and I is I have no problem pointing out everything that is wrong with it while you feel the need to defend things obsessively until everyone is sick of listening to it, only to seemingly conveniently forget those same issues when they are problems for your current fling. By your standards ATi is 'cheating' right now in DooM3, of course the assertion of it is laughable at best but your failure to be up in arms is hypocritical to say the least.

FC blows D3 away in the outdoors department yet all you can do is troll about the foliage matching some 8 bit texture or whatever strawman you dreamed up next.

KOTOR can show you some decent foliage, FC's is extremely poor.

How about you run outside with the two settings and tell me the differences?

Realism.

So where exactly can I cut up a head in Doom III and carve portions off it? Where can I blow off stumps and have blood squirting while the corpse twitches? If you want gore then nothing touches the SOF series. Nothing.

Gore? I thought we were talking about realisim. I was pointing out that D3's collision engine was such that is could accurately place the impact anywhere on the body. It wasn't about some juvenille lust for blood.

Perhaps, but that was never the issue. The issue was that you refused to accept that the R420 could do it but now you've mysteriously changed your tune. Or is it now more believable because there's a chance the NV40 does the same?

You are freakin comical sometimes, let's recap-

For newer hardware enabling MSAA takes away 'zixel' fill so the performance hit will likely be comparable to normal levels.

Notice I stated 'zixel' fill. You replied-

Not on the R420 it doesn't.

It doesn't? Now, wait just a second, what about this quote-

It's not outputting 32 while running MSAA. It can output a maximum of 32 zixels or MSAA samples per clock.

And who is that from? YOU! Go argue with yourself and you can blame me for your inability to agree on it with yourself if it makes you sleep better at night, just another one of those guys who is packing higher end ATi gear then you have and is a hardcore nVidiot right......

 

[g3pro]

My thoughts on the FC vs. D3 physics engine:


D3's physics are some of the worst I have ever seen. There is essentially no physics at all in the game! For example, I should be able to push the nuclear reactor by running into it. Not being able to do that sucks, IMHO. Also, when you punch a hellknight with fists, but without beserk-pack, he should fly at least 10 feet backwards. Why would id choose not to do that? That sucks. Secondly, when monsters are dead, they should have the capability to fly all over the place. What's the point of ragdoll if you can't shoot them from the floor to the ceiling to the walls? Instead of computing mass, the D3 physics engine should just use arbitrary masses, just like FarCry. With the blast of a pistol, bodies should fly everywhere. I don't understand why D3 can't do this. I bet the engine is just not advanced enough. And what's the deal with the Doom3 death animations? They're non-existant! This is the lowest point about D3, BTW. I want to see the same animation with interaction with other objects, like in FC. Jeez, why can't D3 do this???

I also think the D3 engine graphics are some of the worst to date. In fact, Quake looks 1000x better. In order to increase performance on my machine (3.4ghz EE P4 with 2gb RAM, geforce 6800 ultra), I disabled shadows, specular highlights, ran at 640x480, and low detail. The graphics are absolutely horrible! :thumbsdown: I can run FC at 1920x1600 with ultra details on everything and the graphics are incredible! This is definitely one of D3's sorest loosing points, IMHO. And what the f*** is the deal with D3's lack of outdoor environments! And don't tell me that mars has no atmosphere, because it actually does! :| I'm so sick of these D3 fanbois. D3 should have palm trees indoors and outdoors. Not having that would make D3 not like FC, which would suck, IMO.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: g3pro
My thoughts on the FC vs. D3 physics engine:


D3's physics are some of the worst I have ever seen. There is essentially no physics at all in the game! For example, I should be able to push the nuclear reactor by running into it. Not being able to do that sucks, IMHO. Also, when you punch a hellknight with fists, but without beserk-pack, he should fly at least 10 feet backwards. Why would id choose not to do that? That sucks. Secondly, when monsters are dead, they should have the capability to fly all over the place. What's the point of ragdoll if you can't shoot them from the floor to the ceiling to the walls? Instead of computing mass, the D3 physics engine should just use arbitrary masses, just like FarCry. With the blast of a pistol, bodies should fly everywhere. I don't understand why D3 can't do this. I bet the engine is just not advanced enough. And what's the deal with the Doom3 death animations? They're non-existant! This is the lowest point about D3, BTW. I want to see the same animation with interaction with other objects, like in FC. Jeez, why can't D3 do this???

I also think the D3 engine graphics are some of the worst to date. In fact, Quake looks 1000x better. In order to increase performance on my machine (3.4ghz EE P4 with 2gb RAM, geforce 6800 ultra), I disabled shadows, specular highlights, ran at 640x480, and low detail. The graphics are absolutely horrible! :thumbsdown: I can run FC at 1920x1600 with ultra details on everything and the graphics are incredible! This is definitely one of D3's sorest loosing points, IMHO. And what the f*** is the deal with D3's lack of outdoor environments! And don't tell me that mars has no atmosphere, because it actually does! :| I'm so sick of these D3 fanbois. D3 should have palm trees indoors and outdoors. Not having that would make D3 not like FC, which would suck, IMO.

DISREGARD THIS POST

-Kevin

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: g3pro
My thoughts on the FC vs. D3 physics engine:


D3's physics are some of the worst I have ever seen. There is essentially no physics at all in the game! For example, I should be able to push the nuclear reactor by running into it. Not being able to do that sucks, IMHO. Also, when you punch a hellknight with fists, but without beserk-pack, he should fly at least 10 feet backwards. Why would id choose not to do that? That sucks. Secondly, when monsters are dead, they should have the capability to fly all over the place. What's the point of ragdoll if you can't shoot them from the floor to the ceiling to the walls? Instead of computing mass, the D3 physics engine should just use arbitrary masses, just like FarCry. With the blast of a pistol, bodies should fly everywhere. I don't understand why D3 can't do this. I bet the engine is just not advanced enough. And what's the deal with the Doom3 death animations? They're non-existant! This is the lowest point about D3, BTW. I want to see the same animation with interaction with other objects, like in FC. Jeez, why can't D3 do this???

I also think the D3 engine graphics are some of the worst to date. In fact, Quake looks 1000x better. In order to increase performance on my machine (3.4ghz EE P4 with 2gb RAM, geforce 6800 ultra), I disabled shadows, specular highlights, ran at 640x480, and low detail. The graphics are absolutely horrible! :thumbsdown: I can run FC at 1920x1600 with ultra details on everything and the graphics are incredible! This is definitely one of D3's sorest loosing points, IMHO. And what the f*** is the deal with D3's lack of outdoor environments! And don't tell me that mars has no atmosphere, because it actually does! :| I'm so sick of these D3 fanbois. D3 should have palm trees indoors and outdoors. Not having that would make D3 not like FC, which would suck, IMO.

i'm really hoping this is sarcasm...

 

[g3pro]

Of course it's sarcasm! I thought I pegged down BFG10k's points above pretty nicely. I thought I made the response juvenile and idiotic enough to be recognized as a joke.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Oh lol... and i posted about it *sigh* well as i said in my above post disregard it if you were joking.

-Kevin

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: g3pro
Of course it's sarcasm! I thought I pegged down BFG10k's points above pretty nicely. I thought I made the response juvenile and idiotic enough to be recognized as a joke.

well, i thought as much, but given the quality/mentality of the majority of posters here.... i thought i'd ask just to be sure

 

[Jeff7181]

I'm going to play devil's advocate...

setting the game to Ultra does absolutely nothing under all of the settings I have tested so far

And just how exactly are you testing? I've done the same on my 9800 Pro and can see definate changes in performance levels. If id says Doom 3 NEEDS a 512 MB video card to use Ultra settings, just how do you expect to use Ultra settings with a 128 MB card... EVEN if your AGP aperature is set to 256? Try setting your AGP aperature to 512 and then tell us there's no difference...

We need more timedemos

Make your own, it's not that hard.

First off is the texture quality being less then optimal

Looks fine to me. What are you comparing it to, and in what detail level are you referring to? In medium quality there is HEAVY pixelization caused by the compressed specular maps... not textures.

One of the major issues we are seeing in terms of texture quality is that the gamma for the game needs to be cranked up significantly higher then what we have seen, to the best of my memory, ever. This is washing out a lot of textures that should be looking quite a bit better if the game wasn't so dark.

You're creating the problem. Doom 3 is a dark game... you're not supposed to crank the gamma and look into every dark corner and see perfectly. Hell, you're not supposed to look down a hallway and see perfectly... that's what Doom 3 is. If you don't like it, just say so, don't say the texture quality is bad because of that, because it's not.

Aliasing in the game certainly is very easily noticeable.

Aliasing in every game is noticeable. However, even at 800x600 on my 17 inch monitor I don't find it even close to as noticeable as Far Cry at 800x600 on my 17 inch monitor... so I'm not sure what you're talking about here...


Few more comments about other posts...

Cranking the gamma is required to see pretty much anything in the game, even when there is lighting and/or you are using your flashlight

Actually it's not. If it is for you, either you're in a bright room, or your monitor isn't displaying it correctly. I have that problem with an old 17 inch monitor on my other computer... everything is dark on it... so I can see how playing Doom 3 on a monitor like that would be almost unplayable... however, that's not a problem with Doom 3, it's a problem with your monitor.

The OP is saying he sees *no* difference between Ultra and High (in quality or performance), implying that it's not really running in Ultra Quality mode.

Of course not if he doesn't have enough RAM available between the onboard RAM and the AGP aperature... it won't magically create more RAM to use just because you set it to Ultra... and it won't decide "hey, I don't REALLY need all this in RAM" and just ditch some stuff...

it takes longer to load a level under Ultra than it does to load under medium (almost twice as long)

Again... obviously since in Ultra mode it uses up to ~500 MB of RAM... so quite a bit more needs to be read from disk as it's loaded into RAM.

Far Cry looks better and runs faster plus many other games such as Painkiller have far superior physics

Haven't played Painkiller yet, but I disagree with you completely that Far Cry looks better or runs faster and most definately doesn't have better physics than Doom 3.

You must be sh!tting me. Far Cry is almost movie quality. Tell me, what in Doom III compares to Far Cry's rippling water and wave effects? What in Doom III compares to Far Cry's foliage and lighting?

Almost movie quality? I think that's a bit overboard. Yes it looks nice.
What in Doom 3 compares to Far Cry's rippling water and wave effects? My guess would be nothing since there's no oceans in Doom 3... either way, I'm not very impressed with Far Cry's water after seeing it... the waves crashing is kinda nice, but looks more like sheets of ice sliding up onto the shore... I'm actually more impressed with the water in Morrowind.
What in Doom 3 compares to Far Cry's foliage and lighting? Well... the lighting is superior in my opinion... and again, there's no foliage in Doom 3... but I'm anything but impressed with Far Cry's foliage... yes there's lots of it, but it's not very realistic... I can shoot a leaf and little green bits fly around, but the leaf doesn't move and no matter how many times I shoot it, it doesn't come off the tree. (yes I'm being picky, just like others are being picky about Doom 3)

No it doesn't. In fact Far Cry has a bathroom level like Doom III and...well...there's just no comparison.

It does? I don't remember that... what level is it?

Absolutely no ragdoll effects

It absolutely does... find a dead body and go punch it a few times. It DOES move around and flop a bit... A LOT more realistically than in Far Cry might I ad... I should make a video of me shooting a dead body in the foot and watching the body spin around 3-5 complete times in the sand... or how about being flung 20 or 30 feet in the air to about 20 or 30 feet away? Now... I've never experimented with that myself... but I think a body would probably explode if it was close enough to a grenade to be flung over 20 feet up into the air and land 20 feet away... I could be wrong though having never experimented...

I have to admit, that D3 doesnt use physics extensively, it uses it for bodies and thats it, all the other objects within the game dont use physics whatsoever

It doesn't? Then why do boxes move different if I punch them at different angles? Why do pill bottles roll around and bounce when they hit the ground after I punch them? Why do laptops tip over and fall on the floor when I punch them? Why do syrofoam cups and aluminum cans bounce around and roll around whenI punch them? Why do desk lights fall over when I punch them? Need I go on?

Does D3 support geometry instancing

Does it need to? How many similar objects are even on the screen at one time? Maybe 5 or 6 of the same type of boxes or ammo clips?

I sincerely doubt it. Look at the game on DX7 hardware and check for differences. Now do the same for Far Cry.

It could just be that Doom 3's shaders are more backward compatible... whereas with Far Cry if your card isn't capable of SM2.0 then you're just SOL... no "impressive" lighting for you.

but the enemies don't explode into tiny pieces like you want them to

They do somewhat... haven't you seen a brain fly yet?



Now for things I agree with...

Geometry instancing I'm not sure, D3 has supported shaders that exceed SM2.0 spec for years and in terms of render paths it has NV10, NV20, R100, R200, ARB2 and the varrying quality settings for each of those.

ABSOLUTELY! I was going to bring this up if I didn't see anyone do it as I read through...

Does FC support proper IK? Does FC support a unified lighting model? Can FC handle layered overlapping shadows? I think not, yet you still claim it's more advanced then D3.

Same as the last one...

Serious question- do tiles serve as mirrors in your hemisphere? They don't here, they aren't even close.

Not here either... especially with all the soap scum on them

Shine your flashlight on the ground outside, where are the shaders? Shine your flashlight on a tree, where are the shaders? The shaders that you see are on the pipes/floors etc.

Again... something I would have brought up if it wasn't...

Doom 3 throwing of dead ragdolls.

OMFG!!! I cracked up watching that... I'm going to have to play with that...



Ok... I'm done... I don't feel like reading any more... lol

BTW... if I quoted you and disagreed with you, don't take it personally like so many people do on here

 

[MajorCatastrophe]

Regarding the debate on Doom 3's lighting, the fact that it probably is the most realistic lighting representation in a game yet, also seems to be the reason why it looks so obviously wrong in so many places. (I do think the game looks awesome - no question).

I can perfectly understand that due to the way the engine handles lighting, having more lights or more ambient light would kill performance, but the problem is that the gameplay seems to rely on this limitation - so the technical *limitations* rather than *capabilities* have dictated the way the game is designed which is probably why a lot of gamers feel a bit underwhelmed by it. The whole issue about not being able to hold a flashlight at the same time as a weapon seems to support this because that would take away the game's main scare tactic i.e. it's dark.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: MajorCatastrophe
Regarding the debate on Doom 3's lighting, the fact that it probably is the most realistic lighting representation in a game yet, also seems to be the reason why it looks so obviously wrong in so many places. (I do think the game looks awesome - no question).

I can perfectly understand that due to the way the engine handles lighting, having more lights or more ambient light would kill performance, but the problem is that the gameplay seems to rely on this limitation - so the technical *limitations* rather than *capabilities* have dictated the way the game is designed which is probably why a lot of gamers feel a bit underwhelmed by it. The whole issue about not being able to hold a flashlight at the same time as a weapon seems to support this because that would take away the game's main scare tactic i.e. it's dark.

And that's what people don't seem to be getting... it's SUPPOSED to be dark... you're not supposed to be able to see into every corner... having the flashlight on constantly doesn't seem realistic to me... even if this game was about realism.

When you guys are talking about soft shadows, are you talking about "blob" shadows created by light sources that are too far away to cast a definite shadow? If so... why would you want that? Games in the past have used "blob" shadows as a way of increasing performance vs. a... I dunno what you call it, dynamic shadow I guess?

Oh by the way... go through the config file and turn on the player shadow... that's pretty cool =) Your own shadow will scare you at times, lol. I haven't noticed any negative impact on frame rates with it either.

 

[ZimZum]

I was more impressed with Far Cry's graphics than I was with Doom's but I wouldn't say that one is definitely better than the other. They both have advantages over each other in different areas. However I do think the water in FC is best Ive ever seen in a game. There are other games with nice looking water but in most of those you cant interact with the water. Wave Runner has great waves and wakes but the water itself doesn't look anywhere near as good as FC. COD has great looking water but its purely for decoration, you cant interact with it.

As for physics and realism. Are physics exaggerated in games like PainKiller and to a lesser extent Far Cry? Sure, but thats also the case in pretty much every movie ever made. People don't fly off the ground when you punch them with an uppercut. In reality when people get shot they fall down not backwards even when hit point blank with a 12 gauge. If you want realism every death scene by gunshot in a movie would look like the character getting his puppet strings cut and collapsing in a heap to the ground. Because thats what happens in real life. But that would make for pretty boring action scenes. At the end of the day games like movies are entertainment.

 

[Drayvn]

Too Jeff, about the physics...

Though supposed to be a real strength of the engine, I found the physics in the game came off feeling very uneven. I could knock over the occasional chair and explosions would send bodies flying through the air, sometimes bouncing off crates before they disintegrated into ash, but other times it felt like there were no physics at all. During one sequence where paranormal activity was going on, everything in the room started floating towards me, the chairs, crates, cans of soda, papers, etc. Then, as soon as the effect passed, only the chair was moveable. The papers did not move, the cans would not skitter and clank away when I walked over them. Nothing.

This is what i mean by not using the physics extensively, as in only certain things have physics, or the fact that the physics isnt implemented properly, of course they are with the ragdolls, no doubt about it, but most everything else, the objects within the game, they dont seem realistic enuf (i kno i kno, its not supposed to be realistic, but at least i thought the physics would have been)

 

[Runamile]

I have just beating D3 over the weekend, having beaten Painkiller, Deus Ex 2, and played extensivly on FC, and have a few observations here.

The attempts at true, real-time light rendering on D3 was a noble effort, and a good first attempt. This concept is at its first generation for computer games, and thus has tons of room for improvement. I was quite impressed with things like moving the flashlight around a ladder and having the rungs' shadow move accordingly. What did not impress me at all was the implentation of most other lighting effects. Like pointed out in above posts, If one is in a totally dark passage way, and they are carring a flashlight, a lot more will light up then a tiny spot ahead of them. The same aplies to all the lighting, and the lack of reflections anywhere.

This was probally the single most agrivating thing of the whole game- the extreme darkness. Think of it this way- you are watching a horror movie. What is more interesting/frightening - a dark forest where you can see all the trees (at least faintly) and the person stubling through it, and you see the 'thing' creaping up behind; or a pitch black screen with only a very faint outline of a single tree? Thats the thing with D3- YES it is scary when its dark- but not if I cant even see what I should be scared about. Honestly, through some of those parts, I probally would of been better off shutting off my monitor and fire blind- the screen looks the same minus a HUD, but I would have a less chance of becoming disoriented and shoot the floor.

The other thing that bugged me was the lack of interactivity with objects. Say there is a pile of boxes in D3. For the hell of it, ive empited every clip of every gun into these stacks, and nothing happens. They are totally un-interactive. In painkiller and DE2, if you shoot something that isnt a cement wall- it moves. What a concept. There was a very general toned down feeling of the physics throughout. But I think a lot of it had to do with they style of game, though IMO it really should of been implemented more. Look at Painkiller- The point of that game was basicly tons of needless slaughtering of wave after wave of bad guys. And I was in sheer glee the entire time. The physics engine was entirely entertaining and interactive. I felt the surge of my weapon, and had a satifaction evertime I rammed a stake through the head of a knight and watched him snap back and fly. It was just plain awsome. It was a very arcade-style game and the physics added into the thrill. The same for DE2, and to a much lesser extent, FC. With D3, I think they needed the extra 'thrill' added of feeling a shotgun blast that, at point blank range, will do a little more then just kill a bad guy.

My last complaint would be the apparent lack of any decent AI. I believe only twice did I actually see something even attempt to get out of the way of me pumping round after round into it. And those may of been on accident. I would of liked them to dodge my bullets, then run up a wall (instead of standing there) and throw a plasma ball or something at me. Nope, didn't happen.

Basicly I am saying that they had a good effort in trying out a lot of new stuff, but like the first attempt of anything, it has room for improvement. Awsome games such as Painkiller and FC use modified tried and true method of doing things, making it easier on them to focus on other parts of the game. I believe in the Doom engine potential though, and am excited on what the games coming out in a year or two based off this engine will do, after they have worked off the mistakes of D3.

 

[BFG10K]

Compare the foliage to KOTOR and it looks p!ss poor at best, and that's a game that shipped some time ago.

We are comparing Doom III to FC, not to KOTOR. Please pay attention.

One light source one object, that's a lighting engine?

So where does D3 create a rippling water effect and then illuminate it? And don't give me any KOTOR horsesh!t, I want to hear about D3.

In FC the second light source won't create a shadow most of the time

I'll check this next time I'm in the game.

Your issue is not with lighting in any way,

Yes it is and again, I'm not complaining about the shadows at all. Let me make that clear in case it isn't.

your issue is with a lack of over the top shaders.

Reflections are now over the top?

Every single one of the brand new tiles they put in are completely dull.

Even with a flashlight on them? And what about mirrors? You at least agree that they should reflect? Or is that over the top too?

Assuming it isn't, try shining a torch into a mirror in D3 and see what it does.

When Quake3 shipped did you complain about its performance on a Voodoo1 by chance?

No because Quake III not only ran at whip-lash speeds but it also basically delivered the highest eye candy around at the time.

Where is your rabid diatrabe against ATi's cheating?

Point out some cheating and I'll complain, don't you worry about that.

Why is it that you have backed off your assinine assertion of ATi's superior texture filtering?

Except I never made that assertion at all, all I said was that their AF IQ looked sharper compared to my previous video cards and also that I didn't have an issue with the shimmering.

This is really simple, I point out the truth- you won't listen to it if it offends your current hardware or software of choice.

Oh, if you only knew what my current hardware is.

By your standards ATi is 'cheating' right now in DooM3,

If they're optimizing the driver just for that one game then of course they are. I've complained multiple times that I want their entire OpenGL ICD rewritten instead of them just focusing on D3. Currently it has a lot of compatibility issues and it's simply getting worse, not better. Add to that the unoptimized state it's been in for the last two years and I'm quite annoyed at the whole issue.

As a side note, JC commented that the NV3x is performing shader subsitution in D3. Have you seen me complaining about that? Not really because I really can't be bothered.

Realism.

So outside you'd expect no shadows? You are kidding right?

Notice I stated 'zixel' fill.

Yes, I did. The 32x0 configuration in zixel mode can stay when perfoming MSAA samples on the R420. You said it can on the NV40 which is fine but I haven't heard about that so I wasn't commenting on it.

Anyway, I really don't see where this is going now. I finished D3 and it was a great game. Not outstanding in either gameplay or graphics but certainly extremely solid. FC still looks better to me.

 

[BFG10K]

I thought I pegged down BFG10k's points above pretty nicely.

To imply that any degree of thought went into your post is simply ludicrous.

I'm going to play devil's advocate...

You're sorely mistaken if you think I'm going to waste my time with that.

 

[Leon]

It's also still lacking in some areas, like blasting a monster at point blank with a shotgun doesn't even make it flinch

All you need to do is to download a mod where the bodies stay (and not dissapear), and increase shotgun kickback range. Shoot them, watch them fly 5 feet away from you.

 

[Jeff7181]

We are comparing Doom III to FC, not to KOTOR. Please pay attention.

Sorry, I guess we missed the rules of this thread, could you please point me to them?

So where does D3 create a rippling water effect and then illuminate it? And don't give me any KOTOR horsesh!t, I want to hear about D3.

I'll be glad to point it out as soon as you point out an ocean on Mars. Or even a lake...

Point out some cheating and I'll complain, don't you worry about that.

I'm at a loss for what he's talking about there too... unless he means "brilinear" filtering...

As a side note, JC commented that the NV3x is performing shader subsitution in D3. Have you seen me complaining about that? Not really because I really can't be bothered.

Actually after learning about the details about why this ATI tweak works in Doom 3, it sounds almost everything is a substitute shader.

In case anyone's not up to speed on that... basically what happens in Doom 3 is there's this one shader that's used for almost every lighting effect. That shader has parts that point towards one or more "lookup tables." The way I understand it is, when it needs the result of an equation, say, 4x4 for simplicity, it looks it up on a multiplication table and see's that 4x4 = 16. It doesn't actually do the math...
Now with this tweak, what you're doing is making it ignore that lookup table and actually do the math. So now instead of looking at the table, it actually does 4+4+4+4 = 16. If you've read any tech articles about the NV3x, NV4x, R3xx, and R4xx GPU's, you know that ATI's GPU's have more raw computational power... so performing this math is easy for them, that's why they're so much better at running raw DX9 shader code... it's just math, and that's what they accel at. On the other hand, nVidia's GPU's are not so powerful, and it's faster for them to look up that information in the table that's sitting in RAM rather than perform the calculation in real time. My 4x4 example is WAY over simplified, but that's basically what's going on I believe.

You're sorely mistaken if you think I'm going to waste my time with that.

So you don't want to back up your explain your opinion, you just want us to accept it as fact????

It's also still lacking in some areas, like blasting a monster at point blank with a shotgun doesn't even make it flinch

They do flinch, they stop, roar, then charge again... do you honestly think if you shot a rhino point blank with a shot gun you'd send him flying backwards??? That's about the size of some of these BIG creatures... and the zombies... well... they're zombies... hell's spawn... if they get shot I don't think they'll drop the zombie act and be like "oh shyt I'm hit! call 911!"

 

[eno]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

As far as turnin up your gamma... the game was meant to be dark... youre supposed to run around conserving your flashlight and getting scared. :/

I assume you haven't played the game yet........ conserve the flashlight? Cranking the gamma is required to see pretty much anything in the game, even when there is lighting and/or you are using your flashlight(which the batteries don't die in btw).

Not sure why you can't see anything, I don't turn up my gamma or brightness, once it starts looking grey instead of black I back it off, thats how the game is supposed to look, dark as hell. Of course the game is getting washed out in color if you crank up all the gamma and brightness/contrast. Turn off ALL lights in the room, turn the gamma/brightness up till it starts to look grey, then lower back till its between grey and black , and thats the highest you should raise it. I love the game and I do have a hard time seeing, thats why theres a flashlight. Just replaced my 9700pro with a 6800GT, WOW, huge difference, feels like the jump that was made when I first got the 9700pro to replace a GF4Ti4400, huge increase in performance.