ET:QW E3 Demo Machines

(Bongoboy) #1

Several folks have asked what machines were used for the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars demo LAN at the Activision E3 stand. For the record:

[ul]Apparatus: Area-51 7500
Processor: Intel Pentium D Processor 950 w/ Dual Core Technology 3.4GHz 800MHz FSB
Operating System: Genuine Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Power Supply: Alienware 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply with Active PFC
Chassis: Alienware Full-Tower Case - Space Black
Chassis Upgrades: AlienIce 2.0 Video Cooling
Motherboard: Alienware NVidia nForce4 SLI X16 Motherboard
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Video: NVIDIA 7800GTX 512MB
System Drive: High Performance - 160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x DVD-ROM Drive with Software DVD Decoder
Sound Card: Alienware Edition Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition 7.1 Audio with XRAM Technology
Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet[/ul]
[b]We were running our E3 build of ET:QW at 1024c768 with 2xMSAA (MultiSampling Anti-Aliasing) locked at 30 FPS. Your mileage may vary.

Kudos and thanks to Alienware and NVIDIA, Logitech (mice/keyboards) and Creative Labs (speakers and briefing headphones) for making our game look and play so nice.[/b]

(mortis) #2

I see the used systems allow SLI, and I see a 7800GTX, but is it a single 7800GTX card, or is SLI being used? Thanks for sharing the system specs, btw, it really helps people to get a target for their planned hardware upgrades.

(kamikazee) #3

Whilst I know I’m never going to own such hardware in the near future, thanks for the heads up!

(Bongoboy) #4

Just the single GPU, on this occasion.

Please do bear in mind, we haven’t really done ANY optimising yet, so please don’t regard this kind of spec as our minimum specifications : )

(kamikazee) #5 
{o,o}
|)__)
-"-"-
O RLY?

It looks kinda obvious that one would never take that as a minimum.
On the other hand, I think it would qualify for the “kicks-tapir-ass specification”. :smiley:

(mortis) #6

True, but it can be viewed from the other side, too…if you have a machine with at least those specs, it’s reasonable to expect that you will probably be getting not less than 30 fps. OpenGL has historically favored systems with lots of CPU, so I’ll hazard a guess that systems with less robust but modern video cards, adequate RAM, fast FSB speeds, and dual core CPUs ought to do the trick. Truthfully, I’m not concerned at all what the minimum specs will be, since I will spend whatever it takes to run the game adequately. I’ll put that 7800GTX on my wishlist at newegg, get my friend at Intel to score me a P4EE dual core CPU, and I’ll be set.

Complete system stats for off-the-shelf Area-51 7500 from alienware:

Technical Specifications
Operating Systems
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition SP2
Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional SP2
Processors
Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition
Dual-Core Technology, up to 3.73GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 4MB Level 2 Cache
Intel® Pentium® D Processor
Dual-Core Technology, up to 3.4GHz, 800MHz FSB, 4MB Level 2 Cache
Cooling System
Standard high-performance, low-noise air cooling
Optional extreme-performance, whisper-quiet liquid cooling
Chipset
NVIDIA® nForce 4 SLI X16
Memory
Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Four DDR2 DIMM sockets
Up to 4GB of system memory
Graphics
Dual NVIDIA PCI Express x16 high-performance graphics
Up to 2 x 512MB GDDR3 dedicated video memory
DVI, VGA, and S-Video outputs with dual-display support
Dual DVI and S-Video outputs with dual-display support*
Full DirectX® 9.0 and OpenGL® 2.0 graphics compatibility
NVIDIA SLI-Enabled*

  • Dependent upon video configuration

Drive Bays
Externally accessible:
Four 5.25" for DVD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW, or DVD±RW drives
Two 3.5" for floppy drive and/or 10-in-1 digital media reader / writer
Internally accessible:
Three 3.5" bays for hard drives
I/O Ports
Externally accessible:
Parallel: One 25-pin parallel port Video: Four 24-pin parralel port Keyboard: One 6-pin mini-DIN port³ Mouse: One 6-pin mini-DIN port³ IEEE 1394: One 6-pin IEEE 1394 port - 1 back
One 4-pin IEEE 1394 ports - 1 back USB: Eight USB 2.0 ports - 4 front / 4 back Audio: Six 1/8� analog jacks / one optical output / one optical input²
Supports 8-channel (7.1) 16-bit audio
Three 1/8� analog jacks / one 1/8� digital jack (optional)²
Supports 8-channel (7.1) 24-bit high-definition audio Ethernet: Two Gigabit Ethernet Serial ATA: One Serial ATA-II 3Gb ¹Only one DVI port operational when SLI is enabled
²Dependent upon system configuration
³Compatible with USB devices using adapter

Internally accessible:
Serial ATA: Five Serial ATA-II 3Gb ports
Primary IDE Channel: One 40-pin connector Secondary IDE Channel: One 40-pin connector Floppy: One 13-pin connector Slots
2 x PCI Express x16
2 x PCI Express x1
1 x PCI Express x4
2 x PCI
Chassis
Chassis features:

AlienIceâ„¢ high-performance air intakes illuminated in choice of colors
Locking front and side panels secure and conceal front I/O ports and drive bays
650* Watt power supply with Active PFC
High-efficiency, low-noise 120mm and 80mm fans - one additional 80mm fan provided by power supply
Up to eight USB 2.0 ports (4 front / 4 back)¹
Four 5.25" external bays
Two 3.5" external bays
Four 3.5" internal bays
*710-Watt maximum output

(Fab) #7

Nice…

(Redh3lix) #8

It’s blatantly obvious Splash Damage would use top end kit to show off their baby. I would tbh. Thanks for the info chaps.

(Redh3lix) #9

Is it me, or are Alienware extremely overpriced :???:

(kamikazee) #10

I think you pay a price for the name.

(madness) #11

Hope it can run on X800XL : d

(datoo) #12

So I’m assuming Quake Wars takes advantage of the dual-core cpu?

(mortis) #13

We know at the very least that it can run on a dual core even while ‘unoptimized’. The system specs provided by bongoboy speak volumes about the kind of hardware that will be ideal for ETQW. Lots of RAM, dual core CPU, high end video card, fast hard drive is all it takes. The E3 systems were all dual core. If ETQW didn’t support dual core, they would have logically used a 64 bit AMD chip in order to have the best of the best to demonstrate their game engine. Nobody would show off their hot new game on anything less than the best, most appropriate hardware.

(EB) #14

The only way that I see those specs as an “overkill” would be on my wallet.

(MadMattUK) #15

So how come the Dell monitors?. Did alienware forget to provide them…ah I forgot, Alienware IS Dell these days :rolleyes:

Many thanks to you Splash Damage chaps for sorting the Demo machines specs btw. A small gesture, but it speaks volumes to the gaming community.

Oh well, aprt form the gfx card, my pc meets or exceeds those specs, so I’m a happy customer :slight_smile:

(Killgarr) #16

Is it me, or are Alienware extremely overpriced

its you!

If you wana see overpriced go see Voodoo, or Falcon computers.

Great job at E3 guys, the line to play sucked, but i had a blast playing. A MUST buy game for me :smiley:

(gerry) #17

Pentium d cpus? Why was there a big quakewars posters advertising intel core duo tech at one of the hotels? Pic was posted here a while back. Suprised pentium systems were used at all seeing as how badly they compare to amd systems in terms of raw framerate for games.

(datoo) #18

That’s why I asked if quake wars supports dual core. See this page about quake4’s dual core patch:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/page3.asp

I’m assuming Quake Wars has dual core support because of that huge intel banner we saw pictures of, but I wanted to hear it from one of the developers. :slight_smile:

(gerry) #19

I pm’d bongoboy a day or so back asking that question about dual cor,e got no response back :(. Im sure it will support it though, makes more sense to enable people to get better performance if they have a dual core setup.

(mortis) #20

IIRC, the P4EE processor in those E3 systems has 2 hyperthreaded cores (4 logical processors), so a properly designed application could deliver some serious CPU performance. OGL loves high end CPUs, so it seems like a good fit, provided the game engine is designed to take advantage of that hardware. Granted that the ‘unoptimized’ version ran flawlessly according to all reports from E3, I think that it strongly suggests that the game is able to take advantage of multicore architectures.

Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of jury, I rest my case.