But there are some important factors to consider. So the bottom line is this: If you were hoping that your dual-processor G5 was going to be a Pentium or Athlon-killer when it comes to Doom 3 framerates, you’re going to be disappointed. Nvidia’s 6800 tracks higher than the X800 on the PC as well, although the difference in performance isn’t as great as it is on a PC. When we ran Doom 3 itself with a frame counter, it often stayed in ranges much higher than these numbers suggest, and the game itself is throttled to 60 frames per second - regardless of how fast the demo runs, 60 FPS is as fast as you’d ever see the actual game go.Īspyr tells us that if you have an Nvidia GeForce 6800 card in your Power Mac, chances are you’ll see modestly higher numbers than what we saw here. There’s a lot of movement, a lot of texture data and a lot of animation and complex geometry. The demo really pushes the hardware, and it’s not the same as what you’ll go through in much of the game. Frames per second averages were achieved running the timedemo demo1 command the demo was run twice, and the higher average was used. And a look at Doom 3’s performance may be a good indicator of how those future games will run on the Mac.įirst, a little bit on our gaming rig: It’s a Power Mac G5 2.5GHz dual processor model, equipped with 2.5GB of RAM and ATI’s new Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition graphics card - the fastest ATI card you can get on the Mac, equipped with 256MB VRAM.Īll tests were performed at “High Quality” video settings with all Advanced Options turned on (High Quality Special Effects, Enable Shadows, Enable Specular, Enable Bump Maps) except for Vertical Sync. So by bringing Doom 3 to the Macintosh, Aspyr Media has paved the way for other games using the same technology to come to the Mac more easily and inexpensively in the future. In fact, you may remember that id Software’s own John Carmack several years ago took the Macworld Expo keynote stage with Steve Jobs, in Tokyo, Japan, to demonstrate the core technology that powers this game.īut more importantly than that, id’s gaming technology is licensed to other game developers. It is a stunningly nightmarish concoction of fire, brimstone, screeching souls and deadly baby-faced cherubs, attempting to climb up your legs and inflict damage.īe it in a film, book or game, there is always the finest of lines between laughable and horrifyingly scary, but Doom 3 triumphantly falls into the latter category.Doom 3 is bound to sell a lot of copies - id Software is hugely respected by gamers and the PC version of this game has had a lot of exposure during its development over the past few years. Speaking of Hell, that is a hotspot you end up in during Doom 3's latter stages, and it consolidates the game's mightily impressive capacity to generate a fearful atmosphere. It is clear there are dangers nearby but locking eyes on them is difficult.Īnd as in any good horror film, the sound plays a critical role, engineering yet further unease with stark industrial effects mixed with hellish screams and groans from the demonic hordes. Many moments are strongly reminiscent of the gloomy, flickery scene in Aliens where marines venture into an apparently empty base. The power goes out when the facility comes under attack, and navigating by torchlight makes the glimpsed beasties and jumping shadows even more creepy. Screeching horrors lie in wait down darkened corridors Players lucky enough to own a high-end system are in for an absolute visual feast. The game's truly stunning graphics are as impressive as anything the PC has seen. It gave way to an endless slew of first-person-viewed shooters that sought to spice up the genre with new twists.įor those averse to the more traditional, even outdated "blast your way from A to B without dying" sort of task, Doom 3's linear gameplay may seem limited.īut whilst it is simplistic in that sense, the technical excellence and unrivalled ability to generate scares add so much value that it is hard to complain. Luckily the distressingly wide array of ghoulish enemies is complemented by a variety of available weapons, from a spanner to the devastating Soulcube which steals the bad guys' souls.ĭoom 3 is ultimately a technically-sophisticated remake of a decade-old game, novel in its day but still a simplistic opus of running around corridors shooting at things. Soon enough, demons arrive through it to turn the workers into marauding zombies. The lighting is key to creating a sense of dreadĬhaos descends when you venture alone into the depths of the facility, where someone has rather carelessly opened a portal to Hell.
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