<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Even tho Doom 3 is pretty much going to push our hardware, and it being probably quite more demanding than HL2, it will certainly run very decently on current and next generation videocards.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're confusing how demanding one feature is with how demanding the game is in general. Almost certainly both games are going to be designed to scale so that they demand as much as your hardware can give.
What Doom3 is pushing the hardest on our hardware is a real time shadow simulation via pretty much the simplest brute force method. That leaves a lot less room for other things: bigger environments, larger number of players, complex objects like vehicles, etc. This is just a reality.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You have to keep in mind that Doom 3 was originally developped with a target system of a Geforce 3-4. The realtime shadow thing is indeed fairly heavy, and will probably not be used again (at least in a similar fashion) in any other game. However, it is severly overrated if you think it'll bring today's systems down to it's knees.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't say the game id is designing will bring someone's system to its knees: they are designing a game with their engine's strengths and weaknesses in mind. I said that trying to make the engine do things that go outside of the game types that compliment its abilities is going to be very hard on most users' computers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Now what if more than 4 enemy's (Singleplayer) appear in the screen? According to you the hardware simply wouldn't be able to handle it. Obviously that can't be correct, as i've seen dozens of Doom 3 movies containing multiple enemy's with a decent FPS.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're confusing carefully controlled SP characters with player characters. I'm not implying that Doom3 can only have 1 enemy on the screen at any one time (I've played the alpha too), but we are also not going to be large facing hordes unless they are the very low poly smaller enemies like Lost Souls (one of the reasons the characters have to be lower poly is that every single edge means more work for the shadows).
And, most importantly, most of these enemies aren't going to be generating new light sources. The problem with MP players is that they can and will be doing just that: not in a controlled way, but all over the map and sometimes all in the same area, whenever they want to. The problem with Doom3's method of lighting is that these events can ramp out of hand very quickly: each new light event means having to reconsider the entire viewable scene.
I'd say that 6-8 is probably pushing the limits of the number of zombie-sized/detailed characters you'd ever see on the screen at the same time in SP, and MP characters are going to be a lot more intensive than that. Can you really imagine Natural Selection gameplay on Doom3? 8 guns ablazing with grendades exploding brightly everywhere while 8 more kharaa charge about casting dynamic shadows everywhere? Multiple Flashlights re-lighting the scene? It's just not feasible at this point.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Besides of wich, ID hasn't published a single System Requirement to Doom 3, wich makes it rather hard to already judge the game elements as being 'too heavy' for the current hardware. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, but the method they're using is well known technique, and everyone including Carmack acknowledges that it's a performance hog that has its advantages and disadvantages on current hardware (they are jumping in early, ahead of the revolution, as always, and I'm sure it will turn out great, as always): allowing some fantastic effects but also constraining the game design somewhat. This isn't bad, but it's a reality: you can't get something for nothing. We don't have to know the system requirements to know the sorts of demands being placed on people's systems via the method being used.
Keep in mind that when the design desision was made to support a max of 4 players in the built-in multiplayer mode, we didn't have cards of the capabilities of the Radeon X800 or GeForce 6800. The things are what, twice as fast as current generation cards?
Progress marches on. It won't be long before a 16-player DooM 3 multi is possible at the current quality levels, and 16 players is all you really need for many modern games like NS or CS.
I'm betting that it will be a matter of days, or weeks after DooM 3's release before somebody releases a mod that just jacks up the max players in multi from 4 to 32 and sets it loose. Then we'll really see how many players modern PCs can handle.
I also think that shortly thereafter we'll see mods that actually try to acheive higher playercounts realistically, IE, reducing the game's overall visual quality in order to accomodate more players.
This is true: but the playable specs designed into a game have to be targeted at the average computer, not the high end. When it's SP and you can scale entities and effects to better hardware, that's one thing. But when it's MP, the number of on screen events is the same for everyone that can play. And 16-32 player Doom3 matches just don't seem feasible.
ssjyodaJoin Date: 2002-03-05Member: 274Members, Squad Five Blue
if u are waiting for everyone to have a x800 or a gf6800, then thats at least 2 years away. Many many ppl still use a gf2 and lower, have to keep those in mind, which is what valve has done while creating hl2.
NS2 would be great on hl2, the new animation and modeling techniques are gona give me a BLAST for a few years <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Travis Dane+May 19 2004, 05:33 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Travis Dane @ May 19 2004, 05:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> People with a GF2-4MX are <b>not</b> going to be able to play HL2 anywhere near decently, with all it's graphics options turned off, it'll probably look more like HL1 again. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Where did you read that? Last I heard you could run HL2 on a 1ghz cpu, 256ram, and a 64+ meg 3d card, which WOULD include the Geforce 2-4MX series. Sure it won't look the greatest, but it'll run on 800x600. Do you think the guys at Valve would just turn a blind eye to a good 70% of their customers?
Get a clue. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Half-Life 2 won't have graphics setting like say... Far Cry has it set up. You pick a resolution, color depth, and it looks the same for the most part for everyone. There is an auto-scaler in the game.
EpidemicDark Force GorgeJoin Date: 2003-06-29Member: 17781Members
Man. I want teh ns2. We want textures as big as my deskop and models with source polygons around 6 million <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> Just imagine all the detail you can put in the aliens.
<!--QuoteBegin-Doofus+May 20 2004, 02:55 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Doofus @ May 20 2004, 02:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Travis Dane+May 19 2004, 05:33 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Travis Dane @ May 19 2004, 05:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> People with a GF2-4MX are <b>not</b> going to be able to play HL2 anywhere near decently, with all it's graphics options turned off, it'll probably look more like HL1 again. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Where did you read that? Last I heard you could run HL2 on a 1ghz cpu, 256ram, and a 64+ meg 3d card, which WOULD include the Geforce 2-4MX series. Sure it won't look the greatest, but it'll run on 800x600. Do you think the guys at Valve would just turn a blind eye to a good 70% of their customers?
Get a clue. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Think lower. It's designde to go back to DirectX 6, and you're talking DirectX 7 cards.
I'd wager the game will run on 16-32MB cards, it has to to support DX6.
HL2 will run on nearly anything, VALVe has made sure of that. But as they've said before, if you run HL2 in DirectX 6 mode, it will look much like HL1, which was a DirectX 6 game. (Yes, yes, I know, it's an OpenGL game, but the Direct3D renderer it includes has DX6 capabilities, and DX level is still a good measuring stick for capabilities)
This is true: but the playable specs designed into a game have to be targeted at the average computer, not the high end. When it's SP and you can scale entities and effects to better hardware, that's one thing. But when it's MP, the number of on screen events is the same for everyone that can play. And 16-32 player Doom3 matches just don't seem feasible. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> And that's the inherant problem with DooM 3' it's not scalable. Carmack designed the engine to look more or less the same no matter what hardware you run it on. Sure, there are minor differences between cards, like higher precision (less banding) on newer cards, and some newer effects you can't get (The game doesn't really use pixel shaders much if at all, last I heard).
Still... I can't help but feel that there is some way to scale down the game yourself. Surely there's some cvar in there some where to turn off per-pixel lighting, or texture resolution, or something.
Feasible for general, no, which is why we won't see 16-32 player in the integrated multiplayer. But mod makers will have it out soon enough, and people with Radeon X800s and GeForce 6800s (which won't include me, my Radeon 9700 Pro is fine, thank you) will have a ball.
<!--QuoteBegin-ssjyoda+May 20 2004, 01:14 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (ssjyoda @ May 20 2004, 01:14 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->if u are waiting for everyone to have a x800 or a gf6800, then thats at least 2 years away. Many many ppl still use a gf2 and lower, have to keep those in mind, which is what valve has done while creating hl2.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> That is indeed true, but certainly don't expect anything fancy you saw on the E3 movies, as i pointed out earlier, it will probably look <b>very</b> bad, somewhere in the area of HL1 again.
<!--QuoteBegin-Doofus+May 20 2004, 07:55 PM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Doofus @ May 20 2004, 07:55 PM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Where did you read that? Last I heard you could run HL2 on a 1ghz cpu, 256ram, and a 64+ meg 3d card, which WOULD include the Geforce 2-4MX series. Sure it won't look the greatest, but it'll run on 800x600. Do you think the guys at Valve would just turn a blind eye to a good 70% of their customers?
Get a clue.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> See my first reply.
<!--QuoteBegin-MR.JEBURTO+May 21 2004, 01:47 AM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MR.JEBURTO @ May 21 2004, 01:47 AM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> heres an idea.
maybe natural selection should be finished on the half life 1 engine before any talk about it being on half life 2 even starts <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Hey, this is all hypothetical <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 21 2004, 02:43 AM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 21 2004, 02:43 AM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And that's the inherant problem with DooM 3' it's not scalable. Carmack designed the engine to look more or less the same no matter what hardware you run it on. Sure, there are minor differences between cards, like higher precision (less banding) on newer cards, and some newer effects you can't get (The game doesn't really use pixel shaders much if at all, last I heard).
Still... I can't help but feel that there is some way to scale down the game yourself. Surely there's some cvar in there some where to turn off per-pixel lighting, or texture resolution, or something.
Feasible for general, no, which is why we won't see 16-32 player in the integrated multiplayer. But mod makers will have it out soon enough, and people with Radeon X800s and GeForce 6800s (which won't include me, my Radeon 9700 Pro is fine, thank you) will have a ball.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can't recall any interview on wich John Carmack claimed the engine was completely static, in fact, if you have played the alpha (yea yea, shame on me) you'll know there's just the standard config.cfg with all the video\shader\texture settings in it. So i'm pretty certain that's not going to be much of a problem.
As i pointed out earlier, Doom 3 is indeed not really fit for a deathmatch galore with 32 players. Then again, that's not exactly what we want with NS now do we? (at least not at it's present state). NS games currently involve 12 to 16 players for optimal gameplay. With the possible exception of combat.
Not static, no. But there are various codepaths (Indeed, Carmack recently merged all the high-end paths into one ARB2 path) designed to acheive the same visual output (more or less) on any card. They all have per-pixel lighting, they all have bumpmapping, etc.
Yes, there are differences between cards. Lower or higher texture resolutions. Higher precision calculations. Etc. However, the game will look similar on all cards.
HL2, on the other hand, will look drastically different between the low and high ends.
KungFuSquirrelBasher of MuttonsJoin Date: 2002-01-26Member: 103Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The realtime shadow thing is indeed fairly heavy, and will probably not be used again (at least in a similar fashion) in any other game.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is one of the most naive statements I have ever read. It's already in a ton of games/engines (some released, most still in development), and is considered a benchmark of all new rendering technology.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 21 2004, 05:14 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 21 2004, 05:14 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not static, no. But there are various codepaths (Indeed, Carmack recently merged all the high-end paths into one ARB2 path) designed to acheive the same visual output (more or less) on any card. They all have per-pixel lighting, they all have bumpmapping, etc.
Yes, there are differences between cards. Lower or higher texture resolutions. Higher precision calculations. Etc. However, the game will look similar on all cards.
HL2, on the other hand, will look drastically different between the low and high ends.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I can imagin Doom 3 requires certain features to upkeep it's atmosphere, wich is probably the most important element of the game. It'll pretty much come down to realtime-shadows as being the most essential (and demanding) feature. Tho other settings, like texture quality or bumpmapping, can be probably be changed to a certain degree.
I think it will depend alot on how effecient mappers can go around with the lightning in their maps. Tho it's always hard to get an accurate estimate on how far you can go with it.
<!--QuoteBegin-Apos+May 19 2004, 01:50 PM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Apos @ May 19 2004, 01:50 PM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'd say that 6-8 is probably pushing the limits of the number of zombie-sized/detailed characters you'd ever see on the screen at the same time in SP, and MP characters are going to be a lot more intensive than that.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And you managed to guestimate this out of screenshots and an old alpha ran with outdated hardware? Good lad.
<!--QuoteBegin-KungFuSquirrel+May 21 2004, 05:26 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuSquirrel @ May 21 2004, 05:26 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The realtime shadow thing is indeed fairly heavy, and will probably not be used again (at least in a similar fashion) in any other game.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is one of the most naive statements I have ever read. It's already in a ton of games/engines (some released, most still in development), and is considered a benchmark of all new rendering technology. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Funny how you din't give a single example... Also you might have noticed the "at least in a similar fashion", with wich i ment it wasn't going to be done in the same way it was done in Doom 3 (somewhat straightforward and raw), not that it wasn't going to be done at all.
I could certainly envision a hardware solution to realtime shadowing, such as a secondary GPU dedicated to calculating shadows in parallel to the main GPU.
nVidia is moving that way with their Ultra Shadow thing, though that's really only acceleration.
Realtime shadows are indeed destined to be the next big thing There are not that many big-name engines out there that many games get based on. So far, we know two of them, Id's engine, and the Unreal engine, both use realtime shadowing.
Another big player, Source (HL2), might not use realtime shadowing, but it's closer than current games are.
It's not an outrageous statement to say that eventually, nearly all games will use realtime shadowing. To say the exact opposite, THAT is the outrageous statement.
I don't really care anymore, all I know is that the beta looked and ran VERY nicely on my All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro.
Yay I just sent in all my info to ATI, and I can't wait till HL2 shows up at my dooooooooorrrr.... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 21 2004, 09:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 21 2004, 09:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> nVidia is moving that way with their Ultra Shadow thing, though that's really only acceleration.
Realtime shadows are indeed destined to be the next big thing There are not that many big-name engines out there that many games get based on. So far, we know two of them, Id's engine, and the Unreal engine, both use realtime shadowing.
Another big player, Source (HL2), might not use realtime shadowing, but it's closer than current games are.
It's not an outrageous statement to say that eventually, nearly all games will use realtime shadowing. To say the exact opposite, THAT is the outrageous statement. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Realtime shadowcalculation will indeed be a standard for future graphics, only thing to hold us back is ofcourse the hardware. Tho by the time Unreal 3 is released (or a game using it's engine), i think it's pretty safe to say it will be a standard feature. And damn is that Unreal 3 techdemo sweet...
after scouraging the net, ive found out some very interesting things. and now i am pretty sure that with half life 2 there will be tools to directly port a mod to half life 2 without having to redo or change anything. has anyone seen the first version of half life and counter strike on half life 2, they were direct ports, nothing different. you couldndt even tell it was on the half life 2 engine except for the fact that the water looked different. so they must have directly ported it. thus i am pretty sure ns will be directly ported.
cs and half life have been totally redone with insane graphcis but the first beta for counter strike and half life source were just 100 precent ported moduels textures and all.
First of all there are lots of people here making assumptions about game engines which they haven't used (the complete versions) so save all your arguements about how it won't handle XXX amount of players etc till you can test it for yourself.
The doom3 engine is scalable but only really upwards where as the HL2 is more backwards.. If you read some PR from Carmack they have added lots of stuff in the doom3 engine which they are not using in the game.
Make a product good enough and people will upgrade their pc's to play it and by the time doom3 hl2 comes out vast majority of people will have good pc's.
Doom3 without a doubt would be the engine of choice for NS if you had to start from scratch. Just look at the similarities in gameplay style, characters and atmosphere.
I belive the only thing the HL2 engine has going for it is the easier port.
<!--QuoteBegin-bade+May 21 2004, 12:04 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (bade @ May 21 2004, 12:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> cs and half life have been totally redone with insane graphcis but the first beta for counter strike and half life source were just 100 precent ported moduels textures and all. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, no. Only Counter-Strike got new media, Half-Life didn't. VALVe said if somebody wants to make a mod later to port over the Half-Life 2 graphics (models, textures, sounds, etc) to Half-Life in source, they're welcome to, but Half-Life will ship with HL2 without new content.
<!--QuoteBegin-kabab+May 21 2004, 11:53 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (kabab @ May 21 2004, 11:53 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> First of all there are lots of people here making assumptions about game engines which they haven't used (the complete versions) so save all your arguements about how it won't handle XXX amount of players etc till you can test it for yourself.
The doom3 engine is scalable but only really upwards where as the HL2 is more backwards.. If you read some PR from Carmack they have added lots of stuff in the doom3 engine which they are not using in the game.
Make a product good enough and people will upgrade their pc's to play it and by the time doom3 hl2 comes out vast majority of people will have good pc's.
Doom3 without a doubt would be the engine of choice for NS if you had to start from scratch. Just look at the similarities in gameplay style, characters and atmosphere.
I belive the only thing the HL2 engine has going for it is the easier port. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> NS on DooM 3 is completely counter productive. It'd be a complete rewrite, for one thing, and ALL media would have to be redone from scratch right off the bat.
Second, the minimum requirements for even a 12 player NS game (let alone a 32 player game) would be so high that nobody could play it.
DooM 3 is the opposite from the best engine for NS. It's the worst.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 22 2004, 12:07 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 22 2004, 12:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-bade+May 21 2004, 12:04 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (bade @ May 21 2004, 12:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> cs and half life have been totally redone with insane graphcis but the first beta for counter strike and half life source were just 100 precent ported moduels textures and all. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, no. Only Counter-Strike got new media, Half-Life didn't. VALVe said if somebody wants to make a mod later to port over the Half-Life 2 graphics (models, textures, sounds, etc) to Half-Life in source, they're welcome to, but Half-Life will ship with HL2 without new content. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> would be cool
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 22 2004, 06:08 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 22 2004, 06:08 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Second, the minimum requirements for even a 12 player NS game (let alone a 32 player game) would be so high that nobody could play it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Care to share your secret e-mail from John Carmack containing Doom3's system requirements? As there is no other way you could have possibly come to this statement.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 22 2004, 05:07 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 22 2004, 05:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Actually, no. Only Counter-Strike got new media, Half-Life didn't. VALVe said if somebody wants to make a mod later to port over the Half-Life 2 graphics (models, textures, sounds, etc) to Half-Life in source, they're welcome to, but Half-Life will ship with HL2 without new content. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Uh.. then why the hell are they going to charge money for it? Half-life running on source with nothing else but fancy water and ragdoll physics doesnt exactly make me want to invest more money in a 5 year old game.
I'm sure on the end of the E3 2004 video Gabe mentioned it would look better.
<!--QuoteBegin-supernorn2000+May 22 2004, 06:50 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (supernorn2000 @ May 22 2004, 06:50 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 22 2004, 05:07 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 22 2004, 05:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Actually, no. Only Counter-Strike got new media, Half-Life didn't. VALVe said if somebody wants to make a mod later to port over the Half-Life 2 graphics (models, textures, sounds, etc) to Half-Life in source, they're welcome to, but Half-Life will ship with HL2 without new content. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Uh.. then why the hell are they going to charge money for it? Half-life running on source with nothing else but fancy water and ragdoll physics doesnt exactly make me want to invest more money in a 5 year old game.
I'm sure on the end of the E3 2004 video Gabe mentioned it would look better. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> There are people who have not played HL yet. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
They will be more likely to buy a game with 'fancy water and ragdoll physics' than one without, also better skyboxes and maybe some better models ?
Comments
You're confusing how demanding one feature is with how demanding the game is in general. Almost certainly both games are going to be designed to scale so that they demand as much as your hardware can give.
What Doom3 is pushing the hardest on our hardware is a real time shadow simulation via pretty much the simplest brute force method. That leaves a lot less room for other things: bigger environments, larger number of players, complex objects like vehicles, etc. This is just a reality.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You have to keep in mind that Doom 3 was originally developped with a target system of a Geforce 3-4. The realtime shadow thing is indeed fairly heavy, and will probably not be used again (at least in a similar fashion) in any other game. However, it is severly overrated if you think it'll bring today's systems down to it's knees.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't say the game id is designing will bring someone's system to its knees: they are designing a game with their engine's strengths and weaknesses in mind. I said that trying to make the engine do things that go outside of the game types that compliment its abilities is going to be very hard on most users' computers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Now what if more than 4 enemy's (Singleplayer) appear in the screen? According to you the hardware simply wouldn't be able to handle it. Obviously that can't be correct, as i've seen dozens of Doom 3 movies containing multiple enemy's with a decent FPS.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're confusing carefully controlled SP characters with player characters. I'm not implying that Doom3 can only have 1 enemy on the screen at any one time (I've played the alpha too), but we are also not going to be large facing hordes unless they are the very low poly smaller enemies like Lost Souls (one of the reasons the characters have to be lower poly is that every single edge means more work for the shadows).
And, most importantly, most of these enemies aren't going to be generating new light sources. The problem with MP players is that they can and will be doing just that: not in a controlled way, but all over the map and sometimes all in the same area, whenever they want to. The problem with Doom3's method of lighting is that these events can ramp out of hand very quickly: each new light event means having to reconsider the entire viewable scene.
I'd say that 6-8 is probably pushing the limits of the number of zombie-sized/detailed characters you'd ever see on the screen at the same time in SP, and MP characters are going to be a lot more intensive than that. Can you really imagine Natural Selection gameplay on Doom3? 8 guns ablazing with grendades exploding brightly everywhere while 8 more kharaa charge about casting dynamic shadows everywhere? Multiple Flashlights re-lighting the scene? It's just not feasible at this point.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Besides of wich, ID hasn't published a single System Requirement to Doom 3, wich makes it rather hard to already judge the game elements as being 'too heavy' for the current hardware. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, but the method they're using is well known technique, and everyone including Carmack acknowledges that it's a performance hog that has its advantages and disadvantages on current hardware (they are jumping in early, ahead of the revolution, as always, and I'm sure it will turn out great, as always): allowing some fantastic effects but also constraining the game design somewhat. This isn't bad, but it's a reality: you can't get something for nothing. We don't have to know the system requirements to know the sorts of demands being placed on people's systems via the method being used.
Progress marches on. It won't be long before a 16-player DooM 3 multi is possible at the current quality levels, and 16 players is all you really need for many modern games like NS or CS.
I'm betting that it will be a matter of days, or weeks after DooM 3's release before somebody releases a mod that just jacks up the max players in multi from 4 to 32 and sets it loose. Then we'll really see how many players modern PCs can handle.
I also think that shortly thereafter we'll see mods that actually try to acheive higher playercounts realistically, IE, reducing the game's overall visual quality in order to accomodate more players.
This is true: but the playable specs designed into a game have to be targeted at the average computer, not the high end. When it's SP and you can scale entities and effects to better hardware, that's one thing. But when it's MP, the number of on screen events is the same for everyone that can play. And 16-32 player Doom3 matches just don't seem feasible.
So much!
So fast!
Where did you read that? Last I heard you could run HL2 on a 1ghz cpu, 256ram, and a 64+ meg 3d card, which WOULD include the Geforce 2-4MX series. Sure it won't look the greatest, but it'll run on 800x600. Do you think the guys at Valve would just turn a blind eye to a good 70% of their customers?
Get a clue. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
maybe natural selection should be finished on the half life 1 engine before any talk about it being on half life 2 even starts
Where did you read that? Last I heard you could run HL2 on a 1ghz cpu, 256ram, and a 64+ meg 3d card, which WOULD include the Geforce 2-4MX series. Sure it won't look the greatest, but it'll run on 800x600. Do you think the guys at Valve would just turn a blind eye to a good 70% of their customers?
Get a clue. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Think lower. It's designde to go back to DirectX 6, and you're talking DirectX 7 cards.
I'd wager the game will run on 16-32MB cards, it has to to support DX6.
HL2 will run on nearly anything, VALVe has made sure of that. But as they've said before, if you run HL2 in DirectX 6 mode, it will look much like HL1, which was a DirectX 6 game. (Yes, yes, I know, it's an OpenGL game, but the Direct3D renderer it includes has DX6 capabilities, and DX level is still a good measuring stick for capabilities)
This is true: but the playable specs designed into a game have to be targeted at the average computer, not the high end. When it's SP and you can scale entities and effects to better hardware, that's one thing. But when it's MP, the number of on screen events is the same for everyone that can play. And 16-32 player Doom3 matches just don't seem feasible. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
And that's the inherant problem with DooM 3' it's not scalable. Carmack designed the engine to look more or less the same no matter what hardware you run it on. Sure, there are minor differences between cards, like higher precision (less banding) on newer cards, and some newer effects you can't get (The game doesn't really use pixel shaders much if at all, last I heard).
Still... I can't help but feel that there is some way to scale down the game yourself. Surely there's some cvar in there some where to turn off per-pixel lighting, or texture resolution, or something.
Feasible for general, no, which is why we won't see 16-32 player in the integrated multiplayer. But mod makers will have it out soon enough, and people with Radeon X800s and GeForce 6800s (which won't include me, my Radeon 9700 Pro is fine, thank you) will have a ball.
That is indeed true, but certainly don't expect anything fancy you saw on the E3 movies, as i pointed out earlier, it will probably look <b>very</b> bad, somewhere in the area of HL1 again.
<!--QuoteBegin-Doofus+May 20 2004, 07:55 PM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Doofus @ May 20 2004, 07:55 PM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
Where did you read that? Last I heard you could run HL2 on a 1ghz cpu, 256ram, and a 64+ meg 3d card, which WOULD include the Geforce 2-4MX series. Sure it won't look the greatest, but it'll run on 800x600. Do you think the guys at Valve would just turn a blind eye to a good 70% of their customers?
Get a clue.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See my first reply.
<!--QuoteBegin-MR.JEBURTO+May 21 2004, 01:47 AM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MR.JEBURTO @ May 21 2004, 01:47 AM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
heres an idea.
maybe natural selection should be finished on the half life 1 engine before any talk about it being on half life 2 even starts <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey, this is all hypothetical <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
<!--QuoteBegin-Guspaz+May 21 2004, 02:43 AM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Guspaz @ May 21 2004, 02:43 AM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
And that's the inherant problem with DooM 3' it's not scalable. Carmack designed the engine to look more or less the same no matter what hardware you run it on. Sure, there are minor differences between cards, like higher precision (less banding) on newer cards, and some newer effects you can't get (The game doesn't really use pixel shaders much if at all, last I heard).
Still... I can't help but feel that there is some way to scale down the game yourself. Surely there's some cvar in there some where to turn off per-pixel lighting, or texture resolution, or something.
Feasible for general, no, which is why we won't see 16-32 player in the integrated multiplayer. But mod makers will have it out soon enough, and people with Radeon X800s and GeForce 6800s (which won't include me, my Radeon 9700 Pro is fine, thank you) will have a ball.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can't recall any interview on wich John Carmack claimed the engine was completely static, in fact, if you have played the alpha (yea yea, shame on me) you'll know there's just the standard config.cfg with all the video\shader\texture settings in it. So i'm pretty certain that's not going to be much of a problem.
As i pointed out earlier, Doom 3 is indeed not really fit for a deathmatch galore with 32 players. Then again, that's not exactly what we want with NS now do we? (at least not at it's present state). NS games currently involve 12 to 16 players for optimal gameplay. With the possible exception of combat.
Yes, there are differences between cards. Lower or higher texture resolutions. Higher precision calculations. Etc. However, the game will look similar on all cards.
HL2, on the other hand, will look drastically different between the low and high ends.
That is one of the most naive statements I have ever read. It's already in a ton of games/engines (some released, most still in development), and is considered a benchmark of all new rendering technology.
Yes, there are differences between cards. Lower or higher texture resolutions. Higher precision calculations. Etc. However, the game will look similar on all cards.
HL2, on the other hand, will look drastically different between the low and high ends.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can imagin Doom 3 requires certain features to upkeep it's atmosphere, wich is probably the most important element of the game. It'll pretty much come down to realtime-shadows as being the most essential (and demanding) feature. Tho other settings, like texture quality or bumpmapping, can be probably be changed to a certain degree.
I think it will depend alot on how effecient mappers can go around with the lightning in their maps. Tho it's always hard to get an accurate estimate on how far you can go with it.
<!--QuoteBegin-Apos+May 19 2004, 01:50 PM --></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Apos @ May 19 2004, 01:50 PM )</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'd say that 6-8 is probably pushing the limits of the number of zombie-sized/detailed characters you'd ever see on the screen at the same time in SP, and MP characters are going to be a lot more intensive than that.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And you managed to guestimate this out of screenshots and an old alpha ran with outdated hardware? Good lad.
That is one of the most naive statements I have ever read. It's already in a ton of games/engines (some released, most still in development), and is considered a benchmark of all new rendering technology. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Funny how you din't give a single example... Also you might have noticed the "at least in a similar fashion", with wich i ment it wasn't going to be done in the same way it was done in Doom 3 (somewhat straightforward and raw), not that it wasn't going to be done at all.
Realtime shadows are indeed destined to be the next big thing There are not that many big-name engines out there that many games get based on. So far, we know two of them, Id's engine, and the Unreal engine, both use realtime shadowing.
Another big player, Source (HL2), might not use realtime shadowing, but it's closer than current games are.
It's not an outrageous statement to say that eventually, nearly all games will use realtime shadowing. To say the exact opposite, THAT is the outrageous statement.
Yay I just sent in all my info to ATI, and I can't wait till HL2 shows up at my dooooooooorrrr.... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Realtime shadows are indeed destined to be the next big thing There are not that many big-name engines out there that many games get based on. So far, we know two of them, Id's engine, and the Unreal engine, both use realtime shadowing.
Another big player, Source (HL2), might not use realtime shadowing, but it's closer than current games are.
It's not an outrageous statement to say that eventually, nearly all games will use realtime shadowing. To say the exact opposite, THAT is the outrageous statement. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Realtime shadowcalculation will indeed be a standard for future graphics, only thing to hold us back is ofcourse the hardware. Tho by the time Unreal 3 is released (or a game using it's engine), i think it's pretty safe to say it will be a standard feature. And damn is that Unreal 3 techdemo sweet...
The doom3 engine is scalable but only really upwards where as the HL2 is more backwards.. If you read some PR from Carmack they have added lots of stuff in the doom3 engine which they are not using in the game.
Make a product good enough and people will upgrade their pc's to play it and by the time doom3 hl2 comes out vast majority of people will have good pc's.
Doom3 without a doubt would be the engine of choice for NS if you had to start from scratch. Just look at the similarities in gameplay style, characters and atmosphere.
I belive the only thing the HL2 engine has going for it is the easier port.
Actually, no. Only Counter-Strike got new media, Half-Life didn't. VALVe said if somebody wants to make a mod later to port over the Half-Life 2 graphics (models, textures, sounds, etc) to Half-Life in source, they're welcome to, but Half-Life will ship with HL2 without new content.
The doom3 engine is scalable but only really upwards where as the HL2 is more backwards.. If you read some PR from Carmack they have added lots of stuff in the doom3 engine which they are not using in the game.
Make a product good enough and people will upgrade their pc's to play it and by the time doom3 hl2 comes out vast majority of people will have good pc's.
Doom3 without a doubt would be the engine of choice for NS if you had to start from scratch. Just look at the similarities in gameplay style, characters and atmosphere.
I belive the only thing the HL2 engine has going for it is the easier port. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS on DooM 3 is completely counter productive. It'd be a complete rewrite, for one thing, and ALL media would have to be redone from scratch right off the bat.
Second, the minimum requirements for even a 12 player NS game (let alone a 32 player game) would be so high that nobody could play it.
DooM 3 is the opposite from the best engine for NS. It's the worst.
Actually, no. Only Counter-Strike got new media, Half-Life didn't. VALVe said if somebody wants to make a mod later to port over the Half-Life 2 graphics (models, textures, sounds, etc) to Half-Life in source, they're welcome to, but Half-Life will ship with HL2 without new content. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
would be cool
Care to share your secret e-mail from John Carmack containing Doom3's system requirements? As there is no other way you could have possibly come to this statement.
Uh.. then why the hell are they going to charge money for it? Half-life running on source with nothing else but fancy water and ragdoll physics doesnt exactly make me want to invest more money in a 5 year old game.
I'm sure on the end of the E3 2004 video Gabe mentioned it would look better.
Uh.. then why the hell are they going to charge money for it? Half-life running on source with nothing else but fancy water and ragdoll physics doesnt exactly make me want to invest more money in a 5 year old game.
I'm sure on the end of the E3 2004 video Gabe mentioned it would look better. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
There are people who have not played HL yet. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
They will be more likely to buy a game with 'fancy water and ragdoll physics' than one without, also better skyboxes and maybe some better models ?