You misread the article.
They’re talking about an exclusive Xbox port, not an Xbox exclusive. The PC version is coming regardless. What Microsoft is attempting to do is to guarantee that the PS2 and GC won’t have it.
Personally I think it’s a waste of time, since the PS2 has a wacky architecture that, given past ports to and from the platform, has proven decisively unhappy with non-PS2 programming methods. The GameCube is completely irrelevant for 3rd party publishers anyway, and I doubt it has enough power to run D3. I wonder if even the Xbox has the juice. 64MB of RAM? A low-speed GF4 with certain GF FX features? 733MHz processor?
“Microsoft is offering lots of money to id to make an exclusive Doom III Xbox [b]port[/b].”
But Carmack has said from the beginning that D3 will be developed for Xbox:
It’s going to take an enormous amount of money (and even then I’m not sure id would do it) to get DOOM on a console exclusively while holding the PC release for any length of time. id may not even be willing to allow their games to come to anything but PC first just on principle.
An Xbox port is highly likely. All id games have been on consoles eventually. It usually takes a good year or two for it to happen though. I’m guessing that Microsoft would just like to close that gap so they can steal more PC gamers away for their closed system where the money ends up in their pockets and not Activision/id’s exclusively.
–Dave
Dave, “Xbox port” means it comes out on the PC first. According to this article, MSFT is just trying to make it so that D3 is ported only to the Xbox, at least for several months, after which all consoles will be able to release their versions. There is no indication in this article that Doom III will come out for the Xbox before it comes out on the PC.
As for possible restrictions with the XBox, I am not so sure. Yes, it only has 64 MB of RAM, but it is dedicated RAM…dedicated to gaming, which does make a difference. The XBox doesn’t have anything else to do with it, whereas a PC is usually running windows features and such. The whole system is streamlined which can make the hardware specs misleading (both positively and negatively).
But D3 does have some cool stuff going on and I don’t know how much of that will translate for other reasons. The biggest restriction will be the television set, but I suspect that people who use HDTV or something similar will still be in for a treat.
Also, there probably won’t be any AA or AF and the game will be designed for a standard TV resolution of 640x480.
It’s certainly possible to get a graphically intense game like Doom 3 running on an Xbox - just look at Unreal Championship and Morrowind. The question is whether they can get it looking the way it does AND running at a decent framerate. I know Morrowind, for example, suffers framerate problems even with a lot of the animations cut out (which is a shame)
I don’t see how they’d get it going on the PS2 with all the multipass stuff they’re doing though.
Either way, I’d rather see Microsoft spending cash for Doom 3. It means they’re less likely to lock Deus Ex 2 coming to the Xbox for PC. If that happens, I will be uber pissed
Morrowind and Unreal Championship are really previous generation engines, with a few next-gen features. Doom III is playing a whole new ball game.
Yes, let’s look at Morrowind.
Go pop it in your X-Box. Now, stand in one spot and spin in place… and watch how your framerate dies.
You can cheat with mipmaps, reduce shadow effects and world physics, gimp the AI a little, lower view distance…There are many ways to improve performance in ways that aren’t immediately visible, in addition to eliminating anisotropic filtering and antialiasing. Carmack claims D3 will be playable with a GF3. I’ve heard even the alpha ran fine with a Ti4200. D3 has some cutting-edge texture mapping and shadowing, but it’s not the Holy Grail of game engines.
Above post is mine, thought I was logged in.
Just played some Morrowind, actually, on the new machine. At 1280x960. With 4x anti-aliasing.
Man, how I love New Computer Time.
Well, Carmack has said that there is a good chance that the Xbox would run D3. It’s almost a moot point because the other consoles couldn’t handle the game, but it makes a great marketing angle. I should have been clearer on the post title, I meant in the console arena.
Jakub - You have to remember that you can’t judge the Xbox as an equivalent PC.
"gimp the AI a little, "
Thats one thing you don’t have to worry about with a id game.
The XBox doesn’t have anything else to do with it, whereas a PC is usually running windows features and such.
I still read about that being the main ‘hump’ to get over in porting PC games. A PC has windows and such but the average PC has 256MB of RAM these days, and the average gaming card has 64MB as much as the XBox has total.
Looking at the Halo 2 video, which isn’t gameplay but is in-engine, I can see how they can do Doom 3, sure.
Remember, when you’re doing a console port, you can do a lot of optimizations that are specific to the EXACT hardware in there that just wouldn’t be worth the time and effort on the PC.
Also - I believe Carmack’s exact statements in the past about the matter were that no Xbox development has begun and wouldn’t be started until they’re almost done with the PC version. And that the Xbox is probably the only hardware that could handle Doom3 at a quality level id would find acceptable. This was widely misreported as stating that id was developing the game for both PC and Xbox.