Hi,
thank you for the hint regarding the dual display configuration. After hours of researching and tweaking I finally found the solution for my inexplicably low fps in your tweak guide. :-))

Everyone with Nvidia cards..... I recently bought a GT6600 Pro 128MB and my performance was much worse than my ATI 9800 Pro 128MB. I scoured forums for a week and tried every tweak suggestion out there with no luck. I was about to give up with I found a "Doom 3 Config" utility on the D3HQ web site. It's a great GUI to all the advanced options most of which are only available via the console.

I found the magic setting was to enable image caching and crank it up to about 60MB. Voila..... now it runs beautifully.

Go here, follow instructions to load carefully...........

http://www.d3hq.com/download.php?cat=21&ref=0&subref=0

Cheers,

Kent.

Everybody with a ATI card, try this link:
http://www.megagames.com/news/html/pc/doom3enhancetheexperiencept2....

My setup:
AMD 2800+
Asus A7N8X (Nforce 2 Ultra)
768 MB RAM
WinXP sp1 (bit unsure to load sp2)
Asus ATI 9600 XT 128MB (OC'd about 10% with ATItool)

When I loaded Doom 3 I was running Catalyst 4.5
I reverted to the 4.3's because it was faster but less stable (game crashed at the loading of every second level or so)
Running the 4.8 now with the tweaks from MegaGames's website.

Anyway the point I wanted to make is that I ran the timedemo (vsync obviously disabled), got 36 FPS before the tweaks, I get 54 FPS now.
(Can't remember if it was 1024*768 or 800*600, and I didn't bother to check again since I started playing nonstop after that)

My settings in Doom 3 currently is:
Medium
1024*768
Shadows - ON
Specular - OFF (Don't like the look of it and it munches your FPS)
High Quality FX - Off
Bump mapping - ON (Saw that it doesn't make much difference on your FPS)
VSync - ON
No AA
2x Aniso (set in driver panel)

Turned on the FPS indicator (drop console [ctrl] [alt] [~] and type "com_showfps 1") and get 60 FPS normally and 30 FPS in hectic battles (my vsync is on)

Help!!! i'm getting crashes left and right. i've tried a bunch of the tweaks, and various combinations of performance enhancers, or tweaking it down, and i'm still crashing about every 5 min. it seems.

i'm running an amd athlon xp 1700+, 1GB ddr pc2100, and an ati radeon all in wonder pro 9600. not the best specs, i know, but it should still do the job.

i'm trying to run the game at 800x600, anti-aliasing is off at the moment, anistropy is set to 0, and _cachemegs is set to 96 for now. i have vertical sync enabled, and everything else is checked in the advanced section.

could someone give me some optimal settings. this is the first game that's actually pushed my system so far, i normally just jack all the settings to the max and they're fine, but this is not cool.

I've got a AIW 9600, P4 2.4Ghz and 512Mb of DDR 400, and I can't run the game in anything other than 640x480 on Low with all the advanced shit off... What gives.

What the hell.....

AMD XP 2200+, 1.25gig DDR 2700, GF4 MX 440 128 8x, win2k, 200gig 8mb, blah blah blah... i get HORRIBLE framrates at lowest setting 640x480... WTFH!?!?

I've attempted to turn everything off and only run d3 and my soundcard, still no fix. It's just dumb to try and play. I see people with less that I have running it just fine. I've installed new drivers for everything.

P4 3.0C overclocked to 3.4Ghz, Asus P4C800 Deluxe, 2 Gb KingMax DDR500 RAM, 900 FSB, stock ATI 9800XT, Catalyst 4.4, BIOS set AGP/PCI frequency at 80/40, AGP Gart set at 256

This is a tweak for those who have a fairly beefy system and want to run DOOM 3 in Ultra mode. I know that id has stated that you need a 512 Mb video card to run this one, but I just remembered about the GART function. I won't explain about this. You can look it up on the web.

If you have a mobo capable of this, go into BIOS and change these settings: set AGP GART to 256, bring up AGP/PCI frequency from stock to highest level (80/40 on my Asus). After booting up, go into your Catalyst video settings and enable triple buffering in OpenGL (Sorry, don't know about Nvidia cards - using Cat 4.4 because of texture problem in later versions)

Next, load up Doom 3 and change the graphic setting to "Ultra" and exit the game. Finally, you have to edit the DoomConfig.cfg file in the Doom 3/base folder: Change the following settings:

seta image_useCache "1"
seta image_cacheMegs "512"
seta image_cacheMinK "2048"

Note: If you have 768 K of RAM or less, don't bother with this tweak. If you have less than 2 Gb of RAM, the cacheMegs and cacheMinK numbers will have to be lowered. The cache settings can be changed dependant on how much RAM you have. Play with the numbers. id was right about overclocked video cards; don't do it for this game.

Load up the game again and be prepared to have your jaw drop again when you see the new visuals. Action may be a bit jerky during large scenes, but overall, the game is very playable in Ultra mode, at least on my system.

I had the same multimonitor issue. You can fix it by changing the multimonitor acceleration setting in the drivers from multimonitor performance to single monitor only.

Even that may not be enough. If when you start the game you are presented with white/one colored screen. Access taskmanager and kill doom3 process, then change the primary monitor in display properties to the other one and physically switch the cabels.

So what about multiplayer? Any word on what it will be like?

Sorry i dropped this Q in a comment but i just wanted an opinion cos i think if i want more fps i would need a complete overhaul of my system.
But im certainly not complaining about my current rigs performance in doom3...runs beautifully =)

But just out of interest:
Anyone reckon a boost from a 2400+ to a 3200+ would give significant gain?

My Rig:
AthlonXP 2400+
Aopen XC Cube 230W PSU
Radeon 9800Pro 128MB
1GB DualDDR400 (2x 512mb)
19" ezLG Flatron T910B
Maxtor Calypso 80GB ATA133 8MB Cache

Oh and although setting cacheMegs to 96 (and then 128) in the cfg provided me almost no xtra frames, one thing i did do that drastically improved performance was to extract the .pk4 files into the base directory then delete the original .pk4 files so d3 isnt forever unpacking files...gave a sweet boost =)) hope that helps someone out there...

i think hardcop doom3 system requirments are a lie , and even id software have suggested 512 video cards for ultra high setting and thats also a lie , just to get revenue ,sales,piece of the pie.

ask why im saying this? well i will tell you why: I have been running Ultra high settings in doom 3 and am getting 40 to 60 fps , i will break it down.

majority of the time im getting between 50 and 60 fsp [ 80% of the time ]

im getting 40 to 50 fps 19% of the time

i drop below 40 fps 1% of the time

now to the good part , my sustem isnt top of the line , however i was smart about what i bought long before doom 3 came , plz dont try and tell me im a lair , if you dont believe me then to bad , but ive been playing on Ultra High settings at 1024 by 768 and having the time of my life.

yes i have had some hitching whilst playing , usally it happens when a cyber deamon spawn in real close to me or when creatures are already inside a room when i open a door to enter a room or building, its not very often.

anyways here are my system spec :

V-Tech 465 watt Power Supply [ 2 fans , heavy item ]
athlon xp3000+ fsb 333
corsair xms ddr400 pc3200C2 [ cas latency 2] version 1.3
gigabyte VT-KT600 L [cheap ass board but obviously runs well]
7200 rpm maxtor 80 gig hardrive [ 8 meg cache buffer ]
viewsonic proffesional series P95f+2 [black,aperature-grill,300mhz,2048 by 1980 res]
Sapphire ATI 9800 PRO 128 meg card [ R350 Core]

anyways im getting great performance with just a 9800 pro 128 meg card on Ultra High Settings ,this is why im calling Harcop and Id software a bunch of liars ,so far im doing what they said can't be done , yes u prolly should have a 512 meg card to run on ultra , but why am i able to?

nothing Oc'd and 4.7 cat drivers official , also i wanna add that i set the cachemegs in my config to 100 and turned vsync off

I don't know what it is. I just updated some drivers and turned on vsynch in the game, and I've been able to play it at higher res, haven't testing the advanced settings yet. I just figured that it should really be playable on this machine instead of the one running the Ti4200

Is there any way to get this game working with a 4.1 setup in surround mode? 'Cause like, stereo is good and all, but it's not using my rear speakers at all.
:T

On-Board gf4 mx is struggling to say the least. Oh well, the 9800 Pro 128MB will be here soon to help :)

HELP ME! My audio takes a dump every few minutes and I'm forced to play the game in stereo and not surround. I've got an Audigy ZS sound card (don't know if that makes a difference). I can play for a while in surround, but if I quick save, or make any sudden moves, it stops all sound. I must then go to the main menu and re-set to stereo.

Any suggestions? I have the most recent drivers as well.

Tbird 1.2 + Radeon 7200 OC to 195Mhz = SLIDESHOW !!! :'( :'( :'(

with the lowest resolution/settings imaginable :(

Adi

i have a radeon 9800 pro people. how to do i check see if i have multimonitering enabled how do i disable or enable that option ? i think i might have 2 moniters on my pc slowing me down help. can you tell me where this option is located so i can turn it off. i look all through my catalyst 4.7 and couldnt find anything.

Anyone try to see if upgrading to DirectX 9.0c (Developer SDK avail from MS) makes any difference comparing to DirectX 9.0b?

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetdoom/topic.asp?fid=5733&tid=1438663

Can we get some TR people to do some informal testing on this and post here?

Please post resoultion, detail, and framerate if possible. Also, subjective commentary is good.

okay here are my specs now this is what i want to run it at and i was wondering whats gonna be my lowest frame rate gonna be on like supposedly the laggiest level and also wuts do you guys think the percentage will be out of the entire game that i will get above 40 Frames per second?. Okay so if i run it at 1024X768 all High settings.

ASUS K8V Deluxe K8T800 Mobo
AMD 64 Athlon 3200+ 1mb Cache
512 MB DDR-400 PC-3200 Kingston Hyper-X Ram
80gb Western DIgital 8mb buffer Hard Disk
128mb DDR Saphirre ATI Radeon 9800pro
Sound Blaster LIVE 5.1

Thanks for the head's up on the dual monitors. Don't know if you were saying it was only an Nvidia issue, but when I disabled the second monitor on my Radeon 9700, the framerates picked up considerably.

Next point may be blindingly obvious to some. But if you have an LCD, and don't get good enough framerates at it's native resolution or some even fraction thereof, you're better off grabbing a CRT. The first day of playing it, I was "wow this is way dark, and the PDA is all blurry" Well I was running my 1280x1024 native LCD at 640x480. And it looked awful. Swapped over to my old CRT, and now it looks great. Bumping up to 800x600 after finding out about disabling the second monitor helped as well. Getting decent frames most of the time on high detail.

Thought I'd make a new post because there are a few comments regarding the older genereation DX7 parts:

People having awful performance with laptop graphics and Radeon 7xxx cards are wondering why when they see Doom3 running fine on something as old/poor as a GF4 MX. The reason that the MX can hack it is because nVidia have written software pixel shaders into the drivers for those MX's. It is still a DX7 part in the flesh, but it has this DX8 emulation advantage over the GF2's and the whole Radeon 7000 series. S3, Kyro and other similar performance cards will all suffer the same fate unless they have support for the pixel shaders that the Doom3 engine is built on.

The low-end nVidia FX 5200/5600 series and the low end Ati 9xxx's have pretty much proven their worthlessness when you can grab an old Geforce3 or Ti4200 for $10-20 on eBay. A £10 (that's GBP) 8500 that I bought for a flatmate is running this perfectly on Medium detail @ 800x600. You can pick up video card capable of playing Doom3 for less than the price of a takeaway pizza and sixpack of beer so would people please stop whining about their underpowered hardware :)

asdfj;lvb

when you say slideshow when using MultiMonitor, do you mean like a frame every 6-8 seconds at the menu alone? that's what i'm getting on a Ti4200 on a 2400+ with 1GB memory... i've disabled it and even rebooted .. still didn't fix it.

i've updated to dx9b; updated drivers (to 61's whql'd set); bios is at a recent, stable release (Asus mobo, so i'm good there); latest Hyperions; can't figure it out! >=(

The dual-display heads up was a lifesaver. I bought the game at 7PM last night, got home and spent the evening re-installing Windows XP, checking out my hardware, drivers, everything. I was pulling my hair out, as my uber system was performing miserably at 800x600.

This from an Opteron 150, 6800GT, 1GB Corsair XMS DDR 400, Raptor 72GB SATA.

Finally, I saw a link to this guide, saw the "disable secondary display" hint. I tried it, and now I am playing at 1600x1200 HQ, 2xAA and in heaven (and by heaven I mean the depths of Hell !!!! :D )

Scott Wasson, if I was neither married, nor a man, I would have your babies.
I love you.

EDIT: BTW, I will have to try out MrWorf's suggestion, but really, once the linux client is out, I'll be gaming in Fedora Core 2, and I doubt I will have this issue with dual displays.

For the record, I use NVidia with dual screens, but with the spanning mode instead of windows crappy "extend my desktop", and ALL games I've played works great this way. It powers off the secondary display when not needed, and unlike the "extend..." option, no performance is lost.

This is actually the main reason why I'm never going to move over to ATI, the dualscreen support is really bad compared to NVidia (that, and the lack of dual DVI).

Give it a try, you might just like it (or atleast the games you play will work better ;)) ... Heck, you can even span the gamedisplay this way. Ever tried C'n'C Generals or GTA:VC in 2560x1024 ? Kinda funky feeling :-D

Everyone who is saying that its a "Half-Life Story" is a damn fool. Have you guys even played the original Doom? Remember the story?, well its the same here. Yet another reason it's called Doom 3.

What CPU are running there Damage? How much memory do you have? Doom 3 demands not only a powerful video card, it also needs a beefy CPUs and lots of RAM (512MB+).

I already found the first easter egg in the game. This game really rocks.