After trying Doom 3 on my new Dell, with an almost twice as fast CPU (2.8Ghz), 25% more memory (1Gb), and a fresh Windows XP install, I was pretty disappointed with the performance. It was playable, unlike my old PC, 1.5Ghz and 768Mb of RAM, but still very choppy at the lowest resolution and graphics quality settings.
So, I messed around a bit. First, I updated the drivers for the video card (NVidia FX 5200 128Mb). Next I updated to MS DirectX 9.0c. A few reboots later I was back at the desktop and ready to double click the the Doom 3 Pentagram icon…
Wow, what a difference! Low quality now flies (kinda like playing the original Wolfenstein on a Pentium PC, after all those years on a 486). So, I upped the ante and bumped things up to the next resolution and quality level and surprisingly, it still flies. Kind of a drag that you have to quit of Doom to change these the qualities settings, but I guess after you find you like, you don’t change very often. Anywho, graphics are very detailed and smooth.
Unfortunately, I was so excited to actually be able to play the game at this point, that I didn’t get around to testing the next graphics level. I’ll try that next time. Back to blasting those damn imps.
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