hardware specs to run d3?

(ratty redemption) #1

so what range of specs are you guys using and what spec is recommend to get smooth fps in the default maps?

also how does the hardware requirements of d3 compare to hl2?

I haven`t played that either, and am looking into which engine to map with once gerbil and I have finished our et maps probably sometime next year.

also is there a significant difference between the d3 and hl2 engines as to how large, a day lit outside area, they can smoothly render?

Ive heard some conflicting things in the past about the d3 engine on this matter, so thought Id ask you guys since your actually working with it.

(blushing_bride) #2

i think mapping for half life2 will be much easier than doom3 due to it using old school baked in lighting like ET. Doom3 on the other hand seems to be much more complex and dare i say it slightly ahead of its time. Some people at doom3world (including me) are working on a “doom can do it” too project. The idea is to make a large sexy looking european style townsquare using the doom3 engine and putting its dynamic lighting abilities to good use. Im fairly sure that half life 2 can render large outdoor scenes with better fps then doom3 can but im also under the impression that it could no way have a moving sun with real time moving shadows and changing light. Look at this thread to get a good idea of some of the possible things

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=7530

Personally im finding mapping for doom3 much more difficult then Q3 engine type games as its kind of like having to re-learn how to do everything (espcially lighting and texturing). However im pretty sure that once i get past the intial up hill struggle it will be very satisfying and much more advanced then anything that halflife2 can do (i dont wanna start a doom vs halflife flame war so im only guessing). Doom3 might require a better PC than half life2 but thats the only disadvantage i can think of.

EDIT: doom3worl seems to have been hijacked at the moment so you will have to hit the stop button as soon as a page loads to keep it on the screen

(ratty redemption) #3

thanks blushing_bride, and I`ll read through that topic you linked to :slight_smile:

also I didnt consider accidentally starting a flame war, so please what ever people post in here can it remain friendly... Im sure personally, I`m going to enjoy playing both games equally.

so for me, its just a matter of which engine is more suited to my style of mapping, ie large terrain maps, but that doesnt mean the whole engine is better then the rival engines, and vise versa :slight_smile:

(blushing_bride) #4

well its probably a good idea to play through both games and decide which seems better suited to you. It may be true that doom3 can not handle large open areas as good as half life 2 but i also remeber when Quake3 came out you needed a super computer to run it well and there were no large open spaces in it either. I hope the doom3 engine will blossum in the same way in that it will progress as more games are made for it and computer technology catches up to run its games with better frame rates. My understanding of half life2 is based on reading various foums so i probably should not comment on it too much but my gut feeling is that halflife 2 is the pinnicle of old style game engines where as doom3 is the first of a new generation. I bet the people at SD have a much better idea of what the doom3 engine can do, i just wonder if they made some comments would they be giving anything away about their secret new game.

(ratty redemption) #5

interesting and maybe q4 being developed by raven software, iirc, will push the current limits of the d3 engine.

certainly raven did a lot with the q3 engine so it will be interesting to see if they or another of these companies addresses the sun lit outdoor issue.

although, from what I`ve read of the topic you linked to above, at least it seems like d3 can handle pretty large terrain type maps, so it does appear to be mainly down to the sunlight and number of ai, or players in these outdoor areas which are currently the limitations… I hope I understood that correctly.

(blushing_bride) #6

Im still getting my head round it at the moment but it can handle the same enviroments as any other type of game engine but alot depends on how many lights are hitting a given surface. Most surfaces will be a combination of 3 or more textures and each pixel on each texture has its light calculated in real time (not sure about this, i think there’s more to it). So if you got muzzle flash, plus monster missile flash plus 3 or 4 normal lights things can get a bit slow so you really have to think alot harder about lighting. Im sure a minimum spec PC would not be able to handle large well lit open enviroments in the doom3 engine but im certain the engine is more than capable of making huge detailed enviroments with all the fancy bells and whistles on only you will need a PC that is above the games minimum specs to run it.

Its all pretty new to just about everyone at the moment. im really looking forward to see what professionals like SD can do with it (hurry up like) but in the mean time i think the Doom can do it too project at Doom3world will be a good indication of what kind of thing can be done.

(ratty redemption) #7

thanks again for commenting on this and I`ve been reading more of the link you gave me, as well as some of the links it has to other threads discussing hl2 v d3.

as of this time, although this might change over the next few months, overall I would say d3 seems a better route for me to go in, plus I know several of you guys and I`m sure by the time I start using one of these two engines, you guys will of experimented a lot with pushing the engines to their limits :slight_smile:

Id still like to know what specs are recommended for d3 if some of you dont mind posting your specs and the kind of fps you get?

(blushing_bride) #8

im using a P4 3.0, 256mbGFX5900 and a gig of ram. I get between 20-40fps in single player depending on whats happening although i do have the settings at the second highest settings.

(ratty redemption) #9

thanks, that`s a good reference and I would be happy with those fps :slight_smile:

(ratty redemption) #10

off topic, but can someone tell me if it would be possible to port over et custom maps to d3? I understand the materials are different but would the brush, mesh work be possible? and if so is there any difference in scale between those two games?

(nUllSkillZ) #11

I’ve tried to convert GR to D3 (for my own pleasure not for release).
And maybe for some spectacular screenshots of how RTCW2 might look.

There’s a tool called “Q3toD3” which converts Q3 maps into D3 maps.
I’ve only tried a few times but I’ve failed.

I think the map file and the used textures/shaders have to be in the Q3 path.

(Zombie13) #12

You don’t need to convert quake format .maps to Doom 3, you just save your .map as a prefab (.pfb) and open that in DOOMEdit, and your map will be imported :slight_smile:

Z

(ratty redemption) #13

wow, and will the q3 maps be the right scale in d3?

thanks guys :slight_smile:

(blushing_bride) #14

Yep brushwork from old Quake3 engined games is the right size for doom3 (the editors are more or less the same unless you use GTK5.0). However converting maps will be much more complicated as you will need to redo all the lighting (skyboxs dont give off light for example) and you would need to write a shader file for every texture and presumably if you want it to look upto the same standard as other doom3 maps you’d need to make specular and difuse textures to sit under the normal ones. A big work load to be sure.

i would like to point out again that im new at Doom3 mapping so i could be wrong aout some stuff but the scale is definitly still the same (if i remeber correctly the info_player_start is identical).

(ratty redemption) #15

thanks and that all sounds fine to me since I love making custom texture and shaders, equally as much as I enjoy brush work :slight_smile:

(kat) #16

You don’t need to convert quake format .maps to Doom 3, you just save your .map as a prefab (.pfb) and open that in DOOMEdit, and your map will be imported

You may not even need to do that, just make sure all the Q3 engined entities are stripped out and all the brushwork is covered in caulk save and then load the map as is… D3 should convert it when it inports the map. I’ve done this a couple of time but not a a full on pre-built (and presumably complex) map.

You may or may not find this article I wrote a while back of some use.
http://www.quake3bits.com/htm/articles/doom_3.htm

(ratty redemption) #17

@kat, thanks was very interesting and the link off your page to http://www.tweakguides.com/Doom3_1.html is very informative, although I only read the first few pages, but will study it further when I have more time …and I like how that site link to their hw and os tweaks from within the d3 article :slight_smile:

I have a couple of questions about mapping d3, should I start specific topics in this forum if I can`t find existing ones, or just continue to post in this topic I started? …as per usual with me, it soon strayed off topic.

(blushing_bride) #18

probably best to start fresh topics otherwise this thread will end up becoming 100 pages long. however its worth searching the forums at doom3world as well

(ratty redemption) #19

k, will do :slight_smile:

(Zombie13) #20

Nifty man, although I’m not really into conversions, I only found this out cause a guy wanted to make some q3 map in d3 :slight_smile:

Z