Ok, I know it's a bit premature to ask this, since the game DoomIII is
still months away from realise.  But because I enjoyed DoomII so much
in it's heyday (when using a tiney 14" screen, and tinny smallbKCfk6
 dual speakers, no game has succeeded in being scary)).  Goto 

http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=mo3dmark03&Number=2392164&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1

for my story (posted as adamsss).

I just want to know what's the best hardware to play this game,
nicely..recomemdations  (cart before the donkey, maybe..heh).

Also if you find any doom3 sites, discussions, updates..much
appriciated!

Hi there Summerz!

I have also been looking forward to the release of Doom 3 for a long
time and am planning to upgrade my machine just to play this game.
It's fair to say that we are going to be scared out of our minds when
we play this game!

First, lets have a look at how your card will compare to others.
I found a basic information article on the excellent Toms Hardware
site [ http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/200303061/index.html ]
which explains the capabilities of the card and contains the quote:
"The GeForce4 MX (NV7), which was, up til now, the entry-level product
with DirectX 7 technology, is now being replaced by the GeForceFX 5200
(NV34) series. The chip supports DirectX 9."
So this means that the card that you have is basically an updated
GeForce MX440 which supports DirectX 9 for extra special effects.
However, because the card uses the same type of memory interface as
the older GeForce 4 cards, full screen anti-aliasing will cause the
frame rate to drop considerably.
Faster cards such as the Radeon 9700 Pro and the GeForce FX 5900
handle quality settings with more ease.
There is also a review of the card available here:
http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?ArticleID=1279

At the popular Gamespy site in 2002, ID Software gave an idea of the
cards needed to run Doom 3. [
http://www.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/carmack/index2.shtml ]
The GeForce FX was not actually released back then so John Carmack
(creator of Doom series) could only talk about the older cards.
He says this about the GeForce family:
"The GF4-MX is a very fast card for existing games, but it is less
well suited to Doom, due to the lower texture unit count and the lack
of vertex shaders.
On a slow CPU with all features enabled, the GF3 will be faster than
the GF4-MX, because it offloads some work. On systems with CPU power
to burn, the GF4 may still be faster.
"
The card that you have at the moment though, is a DirectX 9 card which
means that it has full support for Pixel and Vertex Shaders so it may
perform quite well, maybe on a similar level to a GeForce 4 Ti4200.
The Phobos Lab site also contains a FAQ which says:
"What will be the requirement for a graphics card?
The Platform for Doom III will be Geforce 3 and above cards but
supposedly you can play it on a Geforce 1 but you will have to turn
ALOT of the visual off to play. An ATI Radeon 9700 and Geforce FX so
far are the best cards available"
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/doom/faq.shtml

Essentially, the 5200 will be adequate for Doom 3 running at a
resolution of 640x480 with the quality settings set to Performance in
the NVidia graphics driver and with details set to low in the actual
game.
Doom 3 will also be released on the XBox console which contains a
graphics chip similar to a GeForce 3 Ti500 and runs most of its games
at 640x480.

It is important to realize as well, that 3D Mark 2003 is not really a
true representation of how the system will perform in games.
At the Toms Hardware site, they have an article which explains it in
more detail (with Doom 3) :
http://www17.tomshardware.com/column/20030213/3dmark2003-01.html
Toms Hardware were at the centre of the 3D Mark 2003 controversy which
made headlines on so many tech sites around the world.

The CPU, chipset and memory that you mentioned on the Futuremark site
though are a very capable combination, especially running in fast Dual
DDR mode.
Windows ME will only recognize 512MB of memory though, so if you are
looking to add more then you should upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14967.html


In summary, the system you have now will run the game but only at
moderate quality settings.
The CPU, chipset and memory that you have will be fine for Doom 3,
it's the graphics card which makes the real difference.
If you are looking to run it at resolutions such as 1280x1024, you
will need a faster video card such as a Radeon 9700/9800 Pro or a
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra.
There is a good benchmark using the Doom 3 Alpha demo here which shows
the game being run at resolutions of 1024x768 and up, using medium
quality settings on a number of different cards (it doesn't include
the 5200 though, only the 5200 Ultra) :
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030512/geforce_fx_5900-11.html
As I mentioned before, you will probably need to run it at low quality
at 640x480.


There are lots of articles about Doom 3 on the internet, here are a
few:

Gamespy - all Doom 3 articles
http://www.gamespy.com/games/1457.shtml

John Carmack on Doom 3
http://www.gamespy.com/e32003/feature/pc/1002235/

John Carmack's diary
http://finger.planetquake.com/plan.asp?userid=johnc&id=16154

Masters of Doom: Carmack Speaks
http://www.gamers.com/news/1156460

Masters of Doom
http://www.gamespy.com/mastersofdoom/

Asus V9520 Magic-T GeForce FX 5200 Review
http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1279


I also collected some nice screenshots for you:

http://gamespy.com/e32002/pc/doom3b/screenshots.shtml
http://www.gamespy.com/e32003/gallery/pc/1002141/
http://www.gamespy.com/mastersofdoom/doom3screens/
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/doom/images/image.asp?screenshots/chainsaw.jpg
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/doom/e3screen.shtml


And a video:

http://www.fileplanet.com/files/80000/88436.shtml



I hope that helps!
Kind regards,
errol-ga.


Google searches used
=====================

"doom 3"
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=doom+3

"doom 3 site:tomshardware.com"
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=doom+3+site%3Atomshardware.com

"windows me memory limit"
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=windows+me+memory+limit

Thank you for your research, errol!  More then I expected.  
The FX5200 may make serve as good book marker in the DoomIII manual. 
This time I'll wait, a week or two before it's realised, before I rush
out and buy another video card, and then another, after its realise
(heh).  Thanks for addressing hardware issues and the bonus material

Thanks for the generous rating and tip!
It was nice to revisit the Doom 3 articles and screenshots. :)
errol-ga.

Since the card you bought just came out recently, it will do you well
to wait until D3 is actually released before you decide if you want to
replace it (as you've said). Though errol is right that the best cards
on the market will be needed to play at high resolutions, you may find
the performance of your card to be adaquate at a resolution you are
comfortable with.

I hope this is the case as well, because if the FX5200 is about as
fast as the GF4 TI4200 (a card I have now) like has been said, I
really don't want to have to upgrade it so soon for just one game.

If you're looking not to spend too much (which I gather, as the GFX
5200 is a pretty budget card), I'd recommend the Radeon 9500/9600
series of cards from ATI. They've got plenty of power and are going
for $150-$200 right now. That means they'll probably be at around $100
when Doom 3 comes out.

Wow, excellent work, very generous of you.

One quickie for ya, will Doom 3 run on a Playstation 2?

Klipsch Promedia 5.1 Ultra...wow.