Doom 3 Discussion

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2004-08-04 04:39pm

GAH, now I'm stuck on that stupid UAC level in the Alpha Lab! Any help please? I'm there, but I don't have the clearance needed, and I don't know where to get it! (It's after the scene where the guy's nailed to the ceiling...)

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-08-04 04:56pm

Xenophobe3691 wrote:GAH, now I'm stuck on that stupid UAC level in the Alpha Lab! Any help please? I'm there, but I don't have the clearance needed, and I don't know where to get it! (It's after the scene where the guy's nailed to the ceiling...)

Is it the one after you talk to the guy lying on the floor? You've got to backtrack a little to get it. There's a locked door earlier on that should now be open.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2004-08-04 05:14pm

Spyder wrote: Is it the one after you talk to the guy lying on the floor? You've got to backtrack a little to get it. There's a locked door earlier on that should now be open.

Alright, thank you very much

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-08-04 11:00pm

Cal Wright wrote:This is really just starting to add to my severe hatred for PC games. The total combined price of all three next gen consoles has amounted to less then I spent just to get this computer up to par to run any decent titles, and I had to shell out even more to get it to even run Doom3. Now I have to plunk out another 100 bucks just to play the game. Hell, I've got an Xbox now, I should've just waited for the damn XBox version, no matter how watered down it is.

Upgrading Windows or using Linux has other benefits besides being able to run Doom.

Besides, there are plenty of reasons to hate console games too... namely the difficult aiming.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2004-08-04 11:03pm

Pu-239 wrote:Besides, there are plenty of reasons to hate console games too... namely the difficult aiming.

I've never had difficulty aiming with console games, and find the controller much preferable to the keyboard with the WASD configuration. The non-alignment of hte buttons is hard for me to get used to.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2004-08-05 02:44am

Meest wrote:About getting hit and being annoying, why don't you just play on god mode then

No, I'm going to stop playing the game, thats what I'm gonna do.

this is meant to be more realisitic, it makes it scary, not just planting your feet and mowing shit down.

No it'd be more scary if the screen just flashed red or something thats more clean and simple than the bluring and shaking.

Besides my computer is loading the game so slowly that it starts jumping everytime I see an imp.

And remember kids, darkness doesn't make a scary atmosphere, just an irritating one.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2004-08-05 03:10am

StormTrooperTR889 wrote:I've never had difficulty aiming with console games, and find the controller much preferable to the keyboard with the WASD configuration. The non-alignment of hte buttons is hard for me to get used to.

It's really just a matter of practice. You can get yourself used to using thumbsticks to move/aim, and you can get yourself used to using a mouse/keyboard. But in the end, the mouse allows for better accuracy. Head to head, a gamepad user will be pwned consistently by a mouse user.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-08-05 07:23am

Right, tweaking time.

In your doom3\base\:

Open up your DoomConfig.cfg and make the following changes:

Add Player shadow to SP
seta g_showPlayerShadow "1"

Add unified lighting to imps' fireballs etc
seta g_projectilelights "1"

Add muzzle flash
seta g_muzzleflash "1"

Those three add a few nice little enhancements without too much of a performance drain.

Now, for improving the performance on 64 and 128mb video cards...

Create a file called autoexec.cfg in your Doom3 'Base' directory and add the relevant config

64 Megabyte Video Cards
seta image_downSizeLimit "256"
seta image_ignoreHighQuality "1"
seta image_downSizeBumpLimit "256"
seta image_downSizeSpecularLimit "64"
seta image_downSizeBump "1"
seta image_downSizeSpecular "1"
seta image_downSize "1"
seta image_forceDownSize "1"
seta image_anisotropy "0"
seta image_filter "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST"

128 Megabyte Video Cards
seta image_downSizeLimit "512"
seta image_ignoreHighQuality "1"
seta image_downSizeBumpLimit "512"
seta image_downSizeSpecularLimit "64"
seta image_downSizeBump "1"
seta image_downSizeSpecular "1"
seta image_downSize "1"
seta image_forceDownSize "1"
seta image_anisotropy "0"
seta image_filter "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST"

A list of tweaks:

http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Doom3/FPSVisuals.htm

[edit]

also in DoomConfig.cfg, something which is purportedly supposed to greatly help in framerates:

If you have 1024mb of RAM:
seta image_cacheMegs "256"
If you have 512:
seta image_cacheMegs "128"
The guy in the other forum actually said 'seta image_cacheMegs "126"' But 128 sounds a bit more plausable.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2004-08-05 07:56am

Gonna try these, maybe doom 3 will be better if it didn't jerk as much as RSA to TDiC does whenever there is an enemy around.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-08-05 11:45am

"seta image_cacheMegs" made a noticeable boost on my system. As for the shadow, unifed lighting and muzzle flash. These improve the visuals quite substantially. Fireballs now provide dynamic lighting to areas as they fly past, the muzzle flashes are simply a must have, I have no idea why they would disable them by default. The player shadow also helps improve the feel of the game as well as the visuals.

Shadowhawk · Post by **Shadowhawk** » 2004-08-05 07:27pm

Spyder wrote:"seta image_cacheMegs" made a noticeable boost on my system. As for the shadow, unifed lighting and muzzle flash. These improve the visuals quite substantially. Fireballs now provide dynamic lighting to areas as they fly past, the muzzle flashes are simply a must have, I have no idea why they would disable them by default. The player shadow also helps improve the feel of the game as well as the visuals.

I just checked those three things in my .cfg, and muzzle flash and fireball lighting were both enabled by default.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-08-05 08:03pm

Shadowhawk wrote:
I just checked those three things in my .cfg, and muzzle flash and fireball lighting were both enabled by default.

They are if you've set the graphics to high or ultra. It's best to set them manually if you're using low or medium, that way you can have some of the nicer effects without the real performance drainers.

This game starts getting really creepy in the later levels. The boo scripts you learn to expect, when it's a great big room and there's a full armour pick up in the middle you know what's coming. The harder monsters can be a little daunting but after a few encounters you learn to deal with them. What really works however are the basic monsters, zombies and sometimes imps, that are hiding in a dark corner, sometimes next to you in an area that you're totally convinced is clear. Or when there's nothing there and the game convinces you that there is and the knee jerk reaction is to throw everything you have at it, aftwards a quick flash with the torch reveals that you were firing at nothing.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2004-08-05 08:49pm

Spyder wrote:This game starts getting really creepy in the later levels. The boo scripts you learn to expect, when it's a great big room and there's a full armour pick up in the middle you know what's coming. The harder monsters can be a little daunting but after a few encounters you learn to deal with them. What really works however are the basic monsters, zombies and sometimes imps, that are hiding in a dark corner, sometimes next to you in an area that you're totally convinced is clear. Or when there's nothing there and the game convinces you that there is and the knee jerk reaction is to throw everything you have at it, aftwards a quick flash with the torch reveals that you were firing at nothing.

Haha, yeah, I'm only at the Communications level and this place is already starting to look really, REALLY fucked up. I'm getting quite freaked out as is, and I'm quite afraid of what Hell's gonna be like

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2004-08-06 01:22am

I just played this at the local gamer shop and I have to say I was not interested in runnning around without a gun for the first five minutes. The only weapons I found were the shotgun, pistol and the rifle and none of them were that great. Maybe the XBOX version will be a bit different....

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-08-06 01:56am

Death from the Sea wrote:I just played this at the local gamer shop and I have to say I was not interested in runnning around without a gun for the first five minutes. The only weapons I found were the shotgun, pistol and the rifle and none of them were that great. Maybe the XBOX version will be a bit different....

??? The first five minutes you're not even in combat. It's a Half Life beginning. You're not supposed to get great weapons early game. Balance.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2004-08-06 02:21am

Vympel wrote:??? The first five minutes you're not even in combat. It's a Half Life beginning. You're not supposed to get great weapons early game. Balance.

that is also part of the reason I did not like half life either. it is a shooter so you need a gun. HALO does it but only for the first 20 or 30 seconds of the game, much more bearable. If I am going to be killing things I want to get right to it, not plod around for no reason. And then there is the whole everything is way too dark so you can't see a damn thing with out using your flashlight, by the way I want to know what kind of pansy can't hold a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other. The multiplayer was also nothing to brag about. I also played Battlefield Vietnam for the first time and it kicked DOOM 3's ass.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2004-08-06 02:34am

My cousin downloaded the game and says it rocks. However, I decided long ago that id will get my money and I won't get it until I can afford a machine that will run it decently. Please, come to me demo.

Something that I don't understand from the recent debates is that some say Far Cry offers more freedom than Doom 3. To a small extent this seems to be true, but it amounts to a hill of beans because if you stray too far off course then you're shot down by a copter.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-08-06 02:39am

Death from the Sea wrote:that is also part of the reason I did not like half life either. it is a shooter so you need a gun.

You get a pistol in Half Life almost immediately. You have to kill about 3 monsters with a crowbar. Not liking an entire game because you start off with a crowbar is just ridiculous.

HALO does it but only for the first 20 or 30 seconds of the game, much more bearable. If I am going to be killing things I want to get right to it, not plod around for no reason.

Establishing the plot is not "for no reason". You already have a gun when everything goes to hell. You *did* pick up the gun at the security station, like you were told, right? I've *never* used melee attacks in Doom 3.

And then there is the whole everything is way too dark so you can't see a damn thing with out using your flashlight, by the way I want to know what kind of pansy can't hold a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

I agree with this. It's a stupid, artificial contrivance that annoys me no end.

The multiplayer was also nothing to brag about. I also played Battlefield Vietnam for the first time and it kicked DOOM 3's ass.

Battlefield 1942/ Vietnam are hardly appropriate analogies, since their single player is complete shit. Doom 3 is refreshingly a SP game first.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-08-06 05:19am

I'll snip the 'Dan's quite impressed with the engine, and indeed even its efficency on relatively low-end machines' spiel.

Its a shame, really, that the plot is HL over again. The whole 'base full of unnecessarily dangeous machinery conjuring deadly forces which a mysterious g-man attempts to control' has unfortunately become a bit hakneyed. I'm hoping the Mars base doesn't have a meat grinder, and I appreciate the 'why do we need chainsaws on Mars' email. At least id knows

But everyone's really complained about everything already. The smoke and distortion when hit is way overdone, and does Mars have no gaffer tape to solve the ridiculous flashlight problem? I've bounch flashlight to my frickin MOUSE! AND it forgets what gun you were toggling to after ever PDA use. That's killed me exactly six times. The shotgun spread is laughable.

I can only wish for bit more System Shock-style h4xxx0r action. The game seems pretty uninteractive thus far, although the monitor interface is kewl (until you try to use it for cover in a fight). I'm not sure the enemies are dangerous enough either, but I'm on Normal in Alpha labs, so I guess it gets harder. The demon disappointed me; only five(ish) shotgun hits.

Altogether, I'm more impressed than I expected to be, but I'm a bit tired of the genre. And its really not scary enough; I want Silent Hill level Wierd Shit(tm) going on. Hopefully later

Patch, anyone?

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2004-08-06 05:32am

Now one GREAT FPS game, No One Lives Forever 1&2, it could have used a more realistic engine and alot more gore and stuff, but dangnabbit it was a fun game.

Cal Wright · Post by **Cal Wright** » 2004-08-07 01:21am

I haven't had a chance to actually encounter any enemies yet, but DAMN does it look good. I did manage to hop on multiplayer for like ten minutes against someone. I had to obviously cut the graphics back. My first online frag was hillarious. I got some adrenaline thing and smeared the guy running around.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-08-07 01:30am

StormTrooperTR889 wrote: I've never had difficulty aiming with console games, and find the controller much preferable to the keyboard with the WASD configuration. The non-alignment of hte buttons is hard for me to get used to.

ESDF owns WASD seven ways to Sunday. I tried it, and have never looked back.

I don't think I'm going to play Doom 3 until after I play STALKER and/or Half-Life 2. I just don't feel it's worth full price.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-08-07 05:00am

Doom 3 would be awesome, with amazing gameplay... 2 years ago, when we still had alot of run and gun shooters.

Right now, I want HL2 and STALKER, but seriously, from what i've seen, Doom 3 belongs a few years ago.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-08-07 06:26am

Ace Pace wrote:Doom 3 would be awesome, with amazing gameplay... 2 years ago, when we still had alot of run and gun shooters.

Right now, I want HL2 and STALKER, but seriously, from what i've seen, Doom 3 belongs a few years ago.

I too can definitely see STALKER and HL2 being the big FPS games of this year. Personally I hope STALKER takes it.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-08-07 12:37pm

Vympel wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Doom 3 would be awesome, with amazing gameplay... 2 years ago, when we still had alot of run and gun shooters.

Right now, I want HL2 and STALKER, but seriously, from what i've seen, Doom 3 belongs a few years ago.
I too can definitely see STALKER and HL2 being the big FPS games of this year. Personally I hope STALKER takes it.

The best thing of it is, it doesn't matter which will take the cake, because the other will still be an incredibly-solid, kickass piece of PC gaming.

It's like having two birthdays in one year.

Also, computer game reviews can be like "This is a HL2 killer, but not a STALKER killer." and stuff like that. That'd be amusing.