doom3 experience - not good

[mjronline]

I had the opportunity to try out doom3 today (not beta) on the parhelia. My experience was not good at all. Even at the very lowest settings possible, movement was very choppy. Couldn't have been more than 10-15fps. About 2 minutes into the game, when I get to the first save point, the game crashes my entire computer. I have tried multiple times to get past this part of the game, but the game freezes up my computer every single time at this point.

I had hopes that doom3 would be half playable on the parhelia, but unfortunately even that does not seem possible.

My Specs:
Pentium 4 2.53GHz
512MB PC1066 RDRAM
Matrox Parhelia 128MB
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum

--mjr

[DGhost]

damn. i am suprised it even ran at all. *promptly eats hat*

not suprised the performance is so poor though. even simple engines that used similar algorithms without all the extra eyecandy that Doom3 has added ran like crap on the P.

i'll fiddle with it on my P after I snag my copy of D3, figure i am going to want to see how its running.

[mjronline]

It would seem I judged the game a bit too fast. I just realized that I did not have the latest drivers for the parhelia. I had in fact not updated them in about a year.

I updated them now to the latest drivers and amazingly enough, the game does work now. The game is still very choppy though more like 20-25fps now, but it does work!

[gt40]

hmm, 20-25 fps
almost playable - I may have to try it.

[xortam]

Originally posted by mjronline
... The game is still very choppy though more like 20-25fps now, but it does work!

That's actually surprising. This is with minimal settings huh?! What res?

P.S. To make it clear ... I'm surprised the Parhelia does that well on D3.

[mjronline]

Used lowest possible quality settings and 640x480 res.

[Nappe1]

well, the Parhelia's problem is that it is using most likely generic ARB path, which probaply means using PS and VS. And as we know, PS speed isn't parhelia's strong point.

Sadly, there isn't generic DX7 class HW path, which could be considerably faster. Instead of that there's NV10 path, which cannot be used withy other than nVidia HW. There's whole bunch of ATI Radeon 7x00 users that are quite disapointed for iD's decision to support NV1x but not R100 based cards.

but hey, it's the time. BIG software devs choose the side. John Carmack decided for nVidia, Gabe Newell for ATI. The others than nV or ATI users are minority and will suffer most likely anyways.

yeah, I know, it sucks big time.

[CaineTanathos]

If you turn the shadows off, you get more fps. But with the parhelia I also get alot of graphical errors :/

[DGhost]

I was about to mention that. depending on where I am looking, I could get between 15 and 30fps with it at 640x480 and medium quality. disabling shadows immediately bumped it to 40-60fps.

anyways, if anyone is interested here is a console log...

1994 MHz AMD CPU with MMX & 3DNow! & SSE & SSE2
1024 MB System Memory
128 MB Video Memory
Winsock Initialized
Hostname: dagny
IP: 192.168.2.3
doom using MMX & SSE & SSE2 for SIMD processing
enabled Flush-To-Zero mode
enabled Denormals-Are-Zero mode
------ Initializing File System ------
Current search path:
C:\Program Files\Doom 3/base
C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\pak004.pk4 (5137 files)
C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\pak003.pk4 (4676 files)
C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\pak002.pk4 (6120 files)
C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\pak001.pk4 (8972 files)
C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\pak000.pk4 (2698 files)
C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\game00.pk4 (2 files)
game DLL: 0x0 in pak: 0x0
file system initialized.
--------------------------------------
----- Initializing Decls -----
------------------------------
------- Initializing renderSystem --------
using ARB renderSystem
renderSystem initialized.
--------------------------------------
4966 strings read from strings/english.lang
Couldn't open journal files
execing editor.cfg
execing default.cfg
execing DoomConfig.cfg
couldn't exec autoexec.cfg
4966 strings read from strings/english.lang
----- Initializing Sound System ------
sound system initialized.
--------------------------------------
----- R_InitOpenGL -----
Initializing OpenGL subsystem
...registered window class
...registered fake window class
...initializing QGL
...calling LoadLibrary( 'opengl32' ): succeeded
Couldn't find proc address for: wglBindTexImageARB
Couldn't find proc address for: wglReleaseTexImageARB
Couldn't find proc address for: wglSetPbufferAttribARB
...calling CDS: ok
...created window @ 0,0 (640x480)
Initializing OpenGL driver
...getting DC: succeeded
...attempting to use stereo
...PIXELFORMAT 3 selected
...creating GL context: succeeded
...making context current: succeeded
Couldn't find proc address for: wglBindTexImageARB
Couldn't find proc address for: wglReleaseTexImageARB
Couldn't find proc address for: wglSetPbufferAttribARB

------- Input Initialization -------
Initializing DirectInput...
mouse: DirectInput initialized.
keyboard: DirectInput initialized.
------------------------------------
sound: STEREO
...using GL_ARB_multitexture
...using GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
...using GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
...using GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
...using GL_ARB_texture_env_add
X..GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two not found
...using GL_ARB_texture_compression
...using GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
maxTextureAnisotropy: 2.000000
...using GL_EXT_texture_lod
...using GL_1.4_texture_lod_bias
X..GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette not found
...using GL_EXT_texture3D
...using GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
X..GL_NV_register_combiners not found
X..GL_EXT_stencil_two_side not found
X..GL_ATI_separate_stencil not found
X..GL_ATI_fragment_shader not found
X..GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object not found
X..GL_ARB_vertex_program not found
X..GL_ARB_fragment_program not found
X..EXT_depth_bounds_test not found
---------- R_NV20_Init ----------
Not available.
----- R200_Init -----
Not available.
---------- R_ARB2_Init ----------
Not available.
---------- R_Exp_Init ----------
Not available.
----- R_ReloadARBPrograms -----
glprogs/test.vfp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/test.vfp: GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/interaction.vfp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/interaction.vfp: GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/bumpyEnvironment.vfp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/bumpyEnvironment.vfp: GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/ambientLight.vfp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/ambientLight.vfp: GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/shadow.vp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/R200_interaction.vp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/nv20_bumpAndLight.vp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/nv20_diffuseColor.vp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/nv20_specularColor.vp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/nv20_diffuseAndSpecularColor.vp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/environment.vfp: GL_VERTEX_PROGRAM_ARB not available
glprogs/environment.vfp: GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB not available
-------------------------------
WARNING: vertex array range in virtual memory (SLOW)
using ARB renderSystem
glGetError() = 0x500
found DLL in pak file: C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\game00.pk4/gamex86.dll
copy gamex86.dll to C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\gamex86.dll
game using MMX & SSE & SSE2 for SIMD processing
enabled Flush-To-Zero mode
enabled Denormals-Are-Zero mode
--------- Initializing Game ----------
gamename: baseDOOM-1
gamedate: Jul 8 2004
Initializing event system
...471 event definitions
Initializing class hierarchy
...141 classes, 190284 bytes for event callbacks
Initializing scripts
Compiled 'interpolateShaderParm': 1382.9 ms
---------- Compile stats ----------

Memory usage:
Strings: 79, 9648 bytes
Statements: 67720, 1354400 bytes
Functions: 2108, 250452 bytes
Variables: 147320 bytes
Mem used: 2472040 bytes
Static data: 2277552 bytes
Allocated: 3280396 bytes
Thread size: 7068 bytes

...6 aas types
game initialized.
--------------------------------------
-------- Initializing Session --------
session initialized
--------------------------------------

[KeiFront]

Had the same performance on my P, framerate fluctuates between 5-40fps (640*480) so it was not really playable, turned off shadows and I got 10-50fps (shadows off, 640*480) just playable but to much graphical errors. So I installed a Quadro 2 Pro and doom3 is playable now 15-60 fps (shadows off, 800*600) and most importantly no graphical errors.

[SaTaN^666]

I want my d3 now!!! Im still waiting and checking my mail everyday"get it checking the mail?" lol couldnt help, but seriously my d3 hasnt arrived yet . with the beta ive been running ever since i was released Ive been fidling and playing around with the config and got d3 to run at a playable framerate, maybe Ill just transfer that config to my real doom 3 folder..that is once it arrives lol.

[bsdgeek]

The artifacts are hardware bugs too, aren't they?

Anyone with a P8x?

[CaineTanathos]

no, driver bugs I bet, since it has been a long time a new opengl game (new engine I mean) came out

[bsdgeek]

Yeah, it really was not playable on my system with P, sadly. I ran the timedemo (demo1, second time, had a warmup run first) and got 15.2 fps average. It absolutely died during combat.

Borrowed my brother's GF3 Ti500, timedemo yielded 30.something fps average and was just all around better, no warmup run, 34.6 fps with. Over twice as fast.

Some tabulated results on the GF3:
640x480 'timedemo demo1'
Low quality, No advanced effects: 34.6
Med quality, No advanced effects: 32.6
- Plus High Quality Effects: 32.6
- Plus Specular: 32.0
- Plus Bump Mapping: 31.0
- Plus Shadows: 25.4

800x600
Med quality, all effects: 23.1
- Shadows off: 30.4

So, advanced effects except for shadows really don't cost much and neither do turning up to medium nor increasing to 800x600.

[DGhost]

Originally posted by CaineTanathos
no, driver bugs I bet, since it has been a long time a new opengl game (new engine I mean) came out

hrmm, except for the fact that D3 has been in development for 5 years and that he has worked with every major vendor out there on compatability, and has admited to working with Matrox years back on this very topic...

driver bugs... there are probably some of them... quite possibly it has more to do with the fact that the internal arch for Matrox cards has historically been designed almost specifically for DirectX, and that as near as I can figure out the P's OpenGL ICD has more in common with a glorified OpenGL-> DX wrapper than it does with a proper ICD.

hardware bugs... i can almost assure you that they are impacting performance... well, that and the above...


again, I am shocked to even seen Doom3 run at all. to run at even 25fps is even more shocking.