My Doom 3 Impressions

[dragonwillow]

My specs:
P4 1.7ghz
256 mb RAM <-- shit
Radeon 9600
Windows XP

Running the game at...
800x600, medium detail (there's low, medium, high, and highest), all "extra" graphics options on

And just because it's on medium detail doesn't mean it's ugly.
It's still looks fucking awesome.

First thing I noticed while playing the game is how fucking dark it is. Even in the intro scene, when you get acquainted (sort of like Half Life), EVERYTHING is covered in shadow. You start out with only your fists. Interacting with objects is very intuitive--there's no "action" button or anything. In fact, Doom 3 has less keys to set than most FPS's out there. When your aiming reticle is over a friendly character, console, or something like that, it just changes to a hand.

And this game is fucking scary. I'm sure you guys have seen the trailer where the portal thing blows up, and people start being converted to zombies one by one. You don't get any of that in the actual game. You go on a routine mission... go get a pesky scientist to go back to the main compound. Literally, the whole thing happens in an instant. You're talking to him, and suddenly the screen flashes a few times and everyone just turns into a zombie (with some cool skull things flying around).

Let me add that this game isn't easy. I'm playing it on Marine difficulty (there's recruit, marine, something else, and then nightmare, which is locked), and while there's definitely no short of ammo yet, health is somewhat hard to find. And you'll definitely need it. The pistol is horribly weak, and it appears headshots don't do any additional damage at this point (4-5 headshots on a zombie to kill it ). The shotgun is a fucking godsend. Once you start fighting the imps (I think that's what they call them), you're pretty much marked for death if you continue to use the pistol. Those things are nasty... they'll crawl out of shafts and vents, hide on the ceilings in the shadows, spawn right in your face... one of the parts that made me jump involved opening a door and having an imp pounce right onto me. When you get hurt, your view screen shakes around, and it's impossible to aim correctly.

Mmm... more as I play.

 

[genjiglove]

Have you tried multiplayer yet?

 

[Amix]

Have you tried multiplayer yet?

I have.

It was 4 on 4 DM. It sucks. And I swear one of the dudes was cheating - he was moving incredibly fast, like he came from UT2k4 or something.

Looks fucking sweet though - total justiification for my 6800GT. Kinda.

 

[Eric]

I have.

It was 4 on 4 DM. It sucks. And I swear one of the dudes was cheating - he was moving incredibly fast, like he came from UT2k4 or something.

I hope they don't mean multiplayer cheats.

Although I think most of the people downloading Doom3 will have to stick to their own servers to avoid needing a valid CD key.


Edit: It could be possible people are simply using the god mode cheat from single player while playing multiplayer. I remember Medal of Honor having this problem before they patched it.

 

[Buro Destruct]

Great fucking game, about 2-3 hours into it at this point, only stopped playing because I wanted to visit some of the websites they mention in the game. (At one point you come across a "promo" Martian Buddy cabinet, they give you a code on the website to win "free stuff".

Wonder whats inside of it....

 

[Chicago Cheeseburgler Crew]

well this is pissing me off.

i start the game it goes to the loading screen, then when it's done loading, it either closes out the game completely, freezes, or goes to a black screen where i can just move my mouse around. in the latter 2, alt+tab, ctrl+alt+delete don't work, i have to just shut down the computer.

time for a reinstall i guess...

 

[JHendrix]

Tommorrow is my birthday.

I was fortuneate and my one friends store got the game in today, I picked it up at lunch.

I came home, did some quick chores and then went downstairs to install.

I found a brand new 20" flat panel to play Doom 3 on; I love my fiancee.

I've been playing for an hour or so now and just took a break after the one mission was done.

The game is absolutely fantastic, I think I'm going to go mess with some multiplayer before hitting the single player again.

I'm very very very happy right now.

 

[Frame Gride 2]

I just came home from buying Doom 3.. Im about to install it after I eat. Ill give impressions later.

 

[KaedesDisciple]

Just finished the first mission, and this game is f'in HARD. But damn if it's not worth it, I absolutely adore the atmosphere id has created here, it's scaring the shit out of me lol. This game pwnz 4 phr33.

I tried the multiplayer, and so far I think it sucks. I can't get onto any servers because they're all "full" any of the other good ones with low ping are passworded, and anyone I play with so far seems invincible. I lost a stand-off shootout with my plasma rifle against a handgun? Something's not right here...

 

[Electroman]

Rig:
WinXP Pro
ASUS P4B533 FSB MOBO
P4 Northwood core, 2.26Gig CPU
1GB PC2700 DDR RAM
GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64MB video card

Install defaulted to 640 x 480, lowest settings. The game runs semi fluid until a polysprite comes onscreen, then things get choppy. I have the brightness turned up all the way, and the game is still too damn dark.

I'll be the first to say that I've had a disappointed experience so far. My PC is too damn slow to run it properly.

My expectations for this game will match the computer I run it on but for now, apples to apples its a great game...

I think though that Halflife 2 is gonna totally blow Doom 3 out of the water as far as depth, single player experience, and multiplayer is concerned.

 

[Eliza]

I hope we can get the game by this afternoon...

 

[BryLmoo]

soooooooooooooooo

does TOOL play the theme song, or not?

 

[Buro Destruct]

soooooooooooooooo

does TOOL play the theme song, or not?

lol, Its totally a rip off of Lateralus. Its really blatant actually, I wonder who's responsbile for it.

You can totally pick out Chris Vrenna's tracks, almost "Silent Hill" in style.

Setup:
XP Pro
P4 3.06 Ghz
1GB PC 2100 DDR
GeForce FX5900

Currently running at 1024x768 on High Quality. I can't for the life of me wonder why it "auto-set" to 640X480 at Medium Quality, give me a break. I only notice considerable slow-down in large detailed areas and some weird shimmering (not aliasing, its far more chunky, almost artifacting) when the heat or glass effects are present.

I'm not really bothered at all by it, doesn't detract from the experience one bit.

 

[dragonwillow]

Where the hell do you turn up the brightness?
Is it in-game, or monitor?
The darkness pisses me off the most.
I hate walking into the shadows to get some health and then having some fucking zombie bash me in the head with a wrench.

 

[Electroman]

My FPS results:

Brightness is set in the options. Look harder.

Gamefaqs.com has a working code/cheat list here.

FPS can be used by going to the console by hitting <Ctrl> + <Alt> + <~> and typing: com_showfps 1

Ok my FPS results:
WinXP Pro
ASUS P4B533 FSB MOBO
P4 Northwood core, 2.26Gig CPU
1GB PC2700 DDR RAM
GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64MB video card

640 x 480, Lowest quality: 30 FPS normal play no enemies, 60FPS when moving slowly or stopped
1024 x 768, Lowest quality: subtract 5-10 FPS from above.

Clearly, resolution doesn't really affect FPS that much.

However I ran:
1024 x 768, High quality: 5-10 FPS when playing no enemies, 20 FPS stopped


Also, not only did my videocard choke at High QUality but the colors really weren't that much better.

Lowest quality is quite good enough folks. Don't skimp on the resolution either!

For those of you who care to, please post some FPS data when you get a chance. It be great for those to know what kinds of rigs/videocards are just 'that good enough'. Some of us may want to buy new cards b/c of this game and HL2 down the road.

 

[Chicago Cheeseburgler Crew]

Currently running at 1024x768 on High Quality. I can't for the life of me wonder why it "auto-set" to 640X480 at Medium Quality, give me a break. I only notice considerable slow-down in large detailed areas and some weird shimmering (not aliasing, its far more chunky, almost artifacting) when the heat or glass effects are present.

Yea it did the same for me, and I'm running 2000 with a amd xp2000+, 1gb pc2700 ram and 9800pro.

The atmosphere of this game is great, I've only played 15 minutes and I've been freaked out a couple times. When a zombie pops out of total darkness, it's wooooo.

 

[SonGohan]

I'm on a torrent of this right now.. Hope it actually works when it's done.

 

[Setsuna1982]

I'm on a torrent of this right now.. Hope it actually works when it's done.

i already have teh romz

 

[Buro Destruct]

Does nobody understand theres a flashlight in this game? Just assign the flashlight to a button near WSAD, whenever you hit the flashlight button when its already out, it'll switch back to the last weapon you used, no problem.

 

[Setsuna1982]

Does nobody understand theres a flashlight in this game? Just assign the flashlight to a button near WSAD, whenever you hit the flashlight button when its already out, it'll switch back to the last weapon you used, no problem.

don't know why people complain about "i can use flashlight AND weapon" because in my opinion it adds to the tension of the game.

Shooting demons in the darkness and see them only by the flashes of my gun rocks in my book

EDIT: This game scares the fuck out of me. It's fun how we enjoy to be scared :P

 

[beelzebubble]

this hits the xbox soon. cant wait.

 

[KaedesDisciple]

Seems a good number of us have the game already, could anyone with a bunch of bandwidth pull together a neo member-hosted game? I'm convinced people are already cheating and I know you guys are usually on the level.

 

[JHendrix]

don't know why people complain about "i can use flashlight AND weapon" because in my opinion it adds to the tension of the game.

Shooting demons in the darkness and see them only by the flashes of my gun rocks in my book

EDIT: This game scares the fuck out of me. It's fun how we enjoy to be scared :P

I love that aspect of the game. It's so friggin scary it's great. Personally I bound it to one of my extra mouse buttons, but really since almost every other game uses Space for jump I may just rebind it to the right mouse button.

Awesome, awesome game. The atmosphere is incredible.

Anywho, the game will slow down no matter what you're running at in some areas.

I turned it down to medium at 1024x768 and it would still stutter below 30FPS for a sec or so in bad areas (not consistantly which makes me think the game was loading something).

Anywho I turned it back up to high when I went back to playing and I've noticed no drops and when I had the counter on it didn't drop down below 30 again. Ditto when I was hosting a 4 player DM for a while.

Also when you turn it to "high" it enables 8X AF so make sure you set your graphics card properties to "Application Preference" for AF.

Here's my current setup:

Athlon XP 3200+ (OC'd 2500+)
1Gb PC3200
Radeon 9800 Pro (OC'd to 400/700)

Also, the Edge 2 DM map really is nothing like the Edge Map from Quake 2. It was obviously influenced by it, somewhat, but it's not the same map redone.

BTW, the Beserker powerup is awesome, incredible, amazing. I wonder if other people can hear the scream when you pick it up.

I can't wait to get my hands on the chainsaw in the single player.

 

[JHendrix]

Seems a good number of us have the game already, could anyone with a bunch of bandwidth pull together a neo member-hosted game? I'm convinced people are already cheating and I know you guys are usually on the level.

Make sure you enable "always run" in the multiplayer options.

If not you have to hold shift to run, which is pointless because there is no stamina in the multiplayer like there is in the single player.

Also watch out when people have the beserker powerup, I'm not sure if others can hear the scream when someone has it, but if you can, run or just start dropping grenades/rockets. Otherwise you're dead.

 

[Eliza]

For better performance go to the nVidia display panel and do the following things
1.Go to Performance and Quality Setting
2.Check "High Performance"

We tested this with Call of Duty and Wolfenstien 3D(Open GL Games) and got more framerates...I dont have Doom III yet so Im not sure how this tweak would work for the game