Which Graphics card will I at least need to play Doom3, and Unreal2, at high settings

[Scant7]

I was just wondering which graphics cards will be able to play Doom III, and Unreal2, and StarWars Galaxies, which all look to have very nice graphics! I will probably be playing at 1024x768, at highest detail if possible. Could I get by with a GF4 Ti4200 128MB, maybe by LeadTek or Gainward? What if I overclocked it? Would I need to go GF4 Ti 4400 or 4600 for smooth gameplay? Or will I need the Radeon 9700 Pro, or wait for NV30? I would want to get reasonable fps, without lag (vidcard/comp lag) What card(s) would be able to play those games? My cpu is not really an issue, as it is 1.9Ghz, and I have 512RDRAM. WinXP also... thanks guys. :)

[qwerty57]

I would say any ti4200 up will be fine with a 1.6ghz cpu and 512megs of ram for playable game play.. DOOM 3 by release will run better on the ti's as the beta version and benchmarks do for sure..

[nealric]

an 8500le would probably work- those are dirt cheap.

[TheFrag]

ya, even though no one on these forums played the beta, I have heard that the graphics and all the coding and stuff are crap compared to the final's. Geforce 4 ti's should work. I will explain to you in a business point of view. Creators of such a highly anticipated game would want to sell as many as possible. Now I ask you, would this be achieved if you had to have absolutley top of the line video? I think not.

[TheFrag]

Originally posted by nealric
an 8500le would probably work- those are dirt cheap.

Dont count on it for FPS. Now if you are concerned with visual quality in thse games, then thats a whole other story.
I just had an idea. Wait for the Radeon 9500. It will be around 200 I think and will provide great FPS, with reall good Visual Quality. IMO, that would be the best choice

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by TheFrag


Dont count on it for FPS. Now if you are concerned with visual quality in thse games, then thats a whole other story.
I just had an idea. Wait for the Radeon 9500. It will be around 200 I think and will provide great FPS, with reall good Visual Quality. IMO, that would be the best choice

you mean 9500Pro;)

[mirko_3]

Don't really know about doom, but any of the cards listed above will do. I personally would go for a Radeon 9500Pro, costs only 20$ more than the non-pro version, performs much better and is great with AA and Ani when compared to Geforce 4 (just check out Tomshardware's new test!)

[Hurk]

We all know how Tom's reviews and tests are ;)

[breez]

A GF4Ti won't probably run Doom3 @ 1024x768 highest detail playable.

[Hurk]

Are you on crack? Read some of the other post about marketing. It makes sense dude.

Originally posted by breez
A GF4Ti won't probably run Doom3 @ 1024x768 highest detail playable.

[Ec]-[oMaN]

Originally posted by Hurk
Are you on crack? Read some of the other post about marketing. It makes sense dude.


still reguardless of the marketing the game isnt even out yet,it will be a while and y would they want to make a game that can run on full detail when the gf4 cards are already so old,by the time doom3 comes out every1 will have at least the 9700pro,or the new gf4ti4600 superfast-8x,these cards will be just as cheap as the gf4 ti4200's now when the game finally comes out...

[Rav]

If you ask me its too early to tell what the baseline will be. Can't go wrong with a 9700 Pro, but an 8500LE or Ti4200 may or may not end up being fast enough. Wait for an 'official' release of the game demo to gauge performance.

-Rav

[mirko_3]

as I see it, a Ti4200 will definetely run it (otherwise the game won't sell, even if it's still a few months away; the average consumer doesn't upgrade video card just to play a game). But it won't be able to run it at maximux settings, otherwise it wouldn't probably be the best game with the best graphic ever bla bla bla.
I think that Radeon 9500Pro and up will probably run the game with maximum detail, and geforce Ti 4200 will have to lower the settings a bit. just a guess, though

[mbentley]

my advice: just wait! who knows... by the time it comes out, the card could cost less if you need a lesser card (ti 4200) or whatever... that way to don't spend too much on the card since it would appear that money is an issue. if you won't need the card for a little while, i would hold out for the final version...

[OC-Master]

The GeForce2 GTS / Radeon 64MB Graphics processors will be bare minimum to play Doom3.

You absolutely must have a 64MB Graphics card to play doom3 (32MB cards do not have enough video ram to display the textures properly!).

1GHz PC
256MB Ram (384MB for XP Users)


If you got a GeForce2 card, you must stay at 640x480 just to get the game to run.

GeForce3 and GeForce4 users can experiment with 800x600 with 32-bit and play fine.

GeForceFX users as well as Radeon 9700 Pro users can play Doom3 fine at 1024x768 with 32-bit color.

To venture behond 1024x768 and still keep very high fps, you will need the R350 or NV35.


OC-Master

[mbentley]

i just hope they don't make it too complex so they don't sell very many... gta III had that problem but that's because of a crappy port from ps2 to pc. it looks pretty promising... i figure that they can't just limit it to the higher level cards... i mean, how many people have gf4 mx's compared to the gf4 ti's? that's a lot of people who would like to run it who couldn't...

[nealric]

where ya getting that data oc master?

[breez]

iD promised 30 fps at 640x480 full detail for GF3. GF4 cards are more powerful, but not enough power to run it at full 1024x768 playable.

[Lazlo Panaflex]

Can you guys link me to any off this info. Its very specific for a game thats not coming out anytime soon

[batboy]

If you are seriously considering the Leadtek Ti4200, just for a few bucks more you can can get the Leadtek Ti4400 which is faster.

[mbentley]

Originally posted by batboy
If you are serious considering the Leadtek Ti4200, just for a few bucks more you can can get the Leadtek Ti4400 which is faster.

i have the leadtek ti 4400... it's a great card... oc's fairly well too... i would definitely recommend it...

[OC Noob]

Since this is all semi-educated guessing I'd get a 9500 Pro or a 9700 non-Pro. That way your games will look sweet and you will for sure be able to play DIII at decent resolution and some eye candy. Unless, of course, you can wait for the next wave of mid-ranged cards from NVidia or the ones after that from ATI etc...

[Goo Kenson]

Originally posted by OC-Master
The GeForce2 GTS / Radeon 64MB Graphics processors will be bare minimum to play Doom3.

You absolutely must have a 64MB Graphics card to play doom3 (32MB cards do not have enough video ram to display the textures properly!).

1GHz PC
256MB Ram (384MB for XP Users)


If you got a GeForce2 card, you must stay at 640x480 just to get the game to run.

GeForce3 and GeForce4 users can experiment with 800x600 with 32-bit and play fine.

GeForceFX users as well as Radeon 9700 Pro users can play Doom3 fine at 1024x768 with 32-bit color.

To venture behond 1024x768 and still keep very high fps, you will need the R350 or NV35.


OC-Master

No. R 9700 and Geforce FX will run max detail and high res with no problem whatsoever.

You can't judge anything by the leaked Doom3 thing. The coding is ****ty, completely unoptimised.

Not only that, the Geforce FX isn't even out yet. I'm sure it will outperform the r9700 much more than this board thinks it will, and I doubt even the 9700 will have problems with Doom3.

[funnyperson1]

i highly doubt that the Geforce4 Ti (any of them) will be able to play DoomIIII at 1024x768 with high detail....

here is waht doom3portal.com says:
System Requirements

Right, obviously nothing 'official' regarding system requirements have been said by id. So this will mostly be what we can piece together by the odd bit that has been released now and then and made up with educated guesses.

Bare minimum will probably an:

700Mhz Athlon/Pentium CPU
128MB - 256MB of RAM depending on Operating System,
GeForce 1 / Radeon 1 level of graphics card.

This is probably what will be needed to get playable performance out of the game, although you will be running in around 320x240 resolution and all details to low, with that graphics card. If you just shoved a GeForce 3 card in there, you'd probably be getting pretty good performance, as a lot of the work the CPU would have to do with a GeForce 1 can be performed on the GeForce 3.

Ideal spec based on some estimates:

1200Mhz Athlon / 1400Mhz Pentium 4 or higher speed CPU.
256MB of RAM + again quite dependant on how memory hungry your OS is.
GeForce 3 (original or Ti 500).

You'd probably get 30 fps with all details set to high running in 640x480 resolution. With say the current fastest graphics chip the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 you'd probably be able to get resolution up to 800x600 still maintaining a good frame rate, and you might be able to squeeze it up to 1024x768 resolution, it depends a lot on memory bandwidth, with the GF3/4 having to do at least 2 passes per surface a lot of bandwidth will be wasted. Which is where ATi's Radeon 8500 could out perform it as it only needs to do 1 pass per texture. But again dependant on how good ATi's drivers are, on paper the Radeon 8500 is faster then the GeForce 4s but in real life it just isn't the case.

The next generation of graphics chips should be much more ideal, the DOOM III demo at E3 was run on ATi's R300 chip. The next brand-new nVidia chip (not just built on the a GF3/4) has been kept quite hush-hush so it's basically wait and see. We also have some chips by Matrox and 3D Labs coming up soon as well.

Well I hope that gives you some ideas, this is just an estimate, and nothing official has come from id.



my opinion:
it doesnt mention NV30, but we know that R9700 can handle at least 800x600, and that NV30 at least 1280x1024 with high level graphics.....i would think you need at least a regular 9700 if you want good fps at 1024x768.....

notice that in interviews carmack defines smooth as 30fps....most gamers will not be satisfied with taht....i certainly am not

[OC-Master]

Remember that Carmack said that Doom3 retail will run around 30fps at 640x480x32 on a GeForce3 with a 1GHz Processor.

There is no way that the Radeon 9700 Pro could ever push out high enough fill rates to do high fps at resolutions behond 1024x768. Doom3 has millions of polygons on the screen at any given time and the more resolution you got, the more polygons you will see and need to calculate at once.


OC-Master

[Hurk]

Release something that a a few can play?
Release something that "most" can play?

Edit:

Most people out there thing that 512mb SDRAM is good.
Most people think any hard drive will do.
Most people think any powersuply will do.
Most people think .... a GeForce4 MX will do!

[mtnbikerjerry]

This is crazy. Everyone is going to assume what the future holds for a game. Until Carmack releases the true specs of the retail Doom III, for now we will just go with what he says the specs are for the moment.

Wait and see.

This is kind of like everyone in the starwars website at www.theforce.net speculating the details of Star Wars Episode III
and instead of Carmack, it is George Lucus the main man who won't reveal anything as of yet nor about the true transition of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader.


Wait and see.

[breez]

Originally posted by OC-Master
Doom3 has millions of polygons on the screen at any given time and the more resolution you got, the more polygons you will see and need to calculate at once.


OC-Master


Heh, not actually. Carmack stated a while back that Doom3 will have ~150 000 polygons on screen at any given time ;) Sure the PC has to push millions of polygons per second to make it run well.

[paulie]

I think people are forgetting about cpu speed. Without an adequate cpu that video upgrade won't do anything for you. I'll bet a good amount of us will need a cpu upgrade for decent fps.

[Ugmore Baggage]

Reviewing history, I suspect that Funnyperson is about right;

"700Mhz Athlon/Pentium CPU
128MB - 256MB of RAM depending on Operating System,
GeForce 1 / Radeon 1 level of graphics card."

Although I wonder if he meant GeForce2, Radeon 7000

There is always a lower limit, and DOOM III is planned to move the bar. ID can do this while many other companies cannot because they have a loyal following. I don't meant that requirements will double, but the change will be more drastic than others.

Other companies will probably follow with bloated software -- with only slight improvements -- soon after the release. Basically they'll be able to add more head polygons and larger textures because supporting hardware will already be owned by enough people. Designing low polygon models that also look good is difficult, so development costs may go down as requirements go up.

If you need to know exactly how individual cards (some of which aren't released yet) will perform under particular conditions in a game that hasn't been released ... nobody knows. I know you can't buy a card that will max out DOOMIV yet but there are other companies beyond ID making games that will push current technology. Don't plan for your last video card quite yet.

[Element-Xero]

I have recently....uh....come across the DOOM III Version .02 Beta (irc = :D) and it ran quite decently on my system. My sig isnt updated due to my absence from these forums, but its a 1.4ghz (not oc'd anymroe....long story) with a stock ti4200 and 512mb of pc2100 ddr.

there was an occaisional chug or two, but I DID say that it was the .02 beta...

[mbentley]

Originally posted by Element-Xero
I have recently....uh....come across the DOOM III Version .02 Beta (irc = :D) and it ran quite decently on my system. My sig isnt updated due to my absence from these forums, but its a 1.4ghz (not oc'd anymroe....long story) with a stock ti4200 and 512mb of pc2100 ddr.

if they didn't make it compatible with computers such as yours then they really wouldn't sell very many copies and that would kill their business. then it would be worthless since they might only break even... they need to make sure the average computer user (who gets a system from a retail company) can run it... they would be smart if you could make it run on somethign like a gf4 mx or something since most of the retail systems have mx's compared to the ti's. that would be a major mistake if they made it so you basically needed a ti to run it.

[Scant7]

Thanks for the replies guys.

[OC-Master]

Originally posted by Element-Xero
I have recently....uh....come across the DOOM III Version .02 Beta (irc = :D) and it ran quite decently on my system. My sig isnt updated due to my absence from these forums, but its a 1.4ghz (not oc'd anymroe....long story) with a stock ti4200 and 512mb of pc2100 ddr.

there was an occaisional chug or two, but I DID say that it was the .02 beta...

Your joking right! ?

The Doom3 beta demo that was released only supported 640x480 with 16 bit color on nVidia cards and 24-bit color on ATI cards.

At 640x480x16, I sure hope its gonna run semi decent on your rig.

Now imagine lots of FSAA, 1280x960 and 32-bit with 128-bit precision accuracy!


OC-Master

[ReDeeMeR]

Huh? it was 32bit lol I dont think there will even be option to turn 16bit and the alpha ran 800x600 default.

I ran it 1024x768 and had slowdowns when firing the rifle... due to uncompressed sounds...altho it ran oretty smooth with uncompressed textures wich will be compressed(.pak) in the final game.

press ~

r_mode 4

press enter

press ~

vid_restart

[TheGame240]

There seems to be a little bit of confusion here. I've noticed quite a few posts that seem to believe in order for a game to be playable you must be able to turn it up to 1024x768, full detail 4xAA, etc. While the game is going to look OMG sweet at those settings, you don't have to have them to play them. I've noticed that with most games there's a world of difference in frame rates between the higest/mid/low settings, while there isn't always a huge difference in detail.

What I'm trying to point out is that D3 will probably be completely playable on an athlon/P3 600+ with a Geforce or higher processor. Hopefully, if it lives up to its hype, you'll need a 9700 to play at full detail 1024x768, but that doesn't mean it can't be sold to the main stream. It just means that in order for it to be "who needs a woman, I'm satisfied with this" pretty, you'll need the latest and greatest.

As for the original question. If all the games you play NOW run ok I wouldn't worry about buying anything. Whatever you end up needing to play D3 is only going to get cheaper, so it won't hurt to wait unless you need something for now. In that case I'd try to wait till after X-mas since prices seem to drop after the holiday buying season.

[Scant7]

So is there any due date on the first official demo release to the public of Doom III?