I really want to get a new video card (using radeon 8500) but I am worried any offering now will not be good enough for the eagerly awaited doom 3. I think the consensus is that the game will be out before the holidays this winter and there will be another generation of video cards by then.
Any rumors / news about which (ati v. nvidia) card will be crowned "king" when doom 3 becomes the new benchmark?

If I'm not mistaken, ATI has announced that their new 3D chip is not due before the spring next year.

The 9800Pro will be their top product until then, and it will do quite nicely. I would be very surprised if that card wouldn't be up to running Doom3 smoothly.
Because chances are that, if Doom3 is due next winter like you say, the 9800Pro will STILL be the fastest 3D card on the planet.

nVidia will probably have a card with (more or less) equal performance as the 9800Pro by then, but I doubt they are going to have something that performs (much) better.

I really want to get a new video card (using radeon 8500) but I am worried any offering now will not be good enough for the eagerly awaited doom 3.

I'm in exactly the same boat. I want to upgrade my mobo and video card, but I want to find out what the best combination of those two things will be for running Doom 3. I want to be able to run that game with everything cranked so I can see every creepy effect it has to offer.

I agree. All the reviews say that even the 9700 is fully prepared for most games down the line, and that none of them use it to the full extent.

However, I'd have a hard time upgrading an 8500 to a 9700 or 9800, so maybe you're right to wait until it comes out. There will be plenty of other games before then that your card will play nicely.

Every day, week, or month that you can hold out will get you the same card for less, or a better card at the same price. If you guys are really just waiting for that game to come out, don't get a card until then either. If your 8500 seems to work well right now, keep using it!

Best bet would be buy them simultaneously, otherwise you'll be second guessing yourself down the road. Show some willpower and wait!

Willpower? What's that?
And what's this "waiting" thing all about?

That reminds me how much I hate it when a video game maker announces a new game and shows teasers when the game won't be released for over a year. Almost as bad as waiting for the next Lord of the Rings movie when filming has been done for a couple years now.

One year? Those are the good ones!

I've been waiting for Duke Nukem Forever for like eh... 6 years or so now I guess, and it's still coming "when it's done". It's really honoring it's name by taking, yeah...forever to release.

After this long a development period, this better be a killer game. Unfortunately history has shown that this is mostly NOT the case (Daikatana anyone?)

And Team Fortress 2, whatever happened to that?

After this long a development period, this better be a killer game. Unfortunately history has shown that this is mostly NOT the case (Daikatana anyone?)

I think this is mostly true, except in the case of Blizzard (who is in no way involved in DNF) who always seems to take forever but consistently puts out quality games (though I must admit, their graphics have never been spectacular). Other companies don’t seem to fare as well, however.

Closer to the original topic: I am wondering how "fun" Doom 3 is going to be. I hope it's more than just an exercise in showing off the newest video card. It may not matter anyway, as I haven’t had time to play anything recently and my video card is crying from neglect (or rather, the 3D parts are).

Damn, you guys are spoiled.

Just a correction however. ATI does not officially talk about unannounced products. It has not been announced that our next (flagship or otherwise) asic will only come out next spring.

Unfortunately I can't say anything about products coming down the pipe. From an employee (and stockholder) perspective, I recommend buying a 9800 now (for bragging rights if for nothing else) and then buying whatever the top ATI product is when Doom 3 comes out. If it's still the 9800, then buy another one, which will make an excellent gift for a loved one. Now that I think of it, buy a few - it's obvious everyone here has more than a single loved one in need of a top-performing video card.

But seriously, it's safe to assume that something new will be out by the end of the year. Product cycles are in the ballpark of two a year right now. Will NV have anything to compete? I believe so. I don't think anyone's underestimating them. Even if they did completely blow two product cycles.

Now go out and tell all your friends to buy ATI products. Better still, ATI stock. Buy lots and lots of it. I'd love to cash some options soon, but they're currently worthless to me.

Bruno

Well, the NV35 is starting to show up, though it won't ship till June. Initial benchmarks show it a bit better then the 5800 (NV30), but still nothing to write home about against the 9800 from ATI. Doom 3 benchmarks, well, ATI seems to have shipped most reviewers 3.4 drivers and they are showing Doom 3 down quite a bit for some reason.

So, looks to be a decision between a GeForce 5900 or a Radeon 9800 if Doom 3 ships late summer. Of course, games like Half Life 2 and Deus Ex 2 have my attention more then Doom 3. More on my impressions of these after E3.

After 8 more years of waiting, it's finally got a release date...
Get some Duke Nukem Forever on May 3, 2011

I'm still in shock.

I won't believe it (and will likely forget about it) until I see it released.

I've seen this, too. Stupid part is, I don't game anymore these days, I lack the time. My video card is easily the oldest component in my pc (nVidia 6600 GT )

Oh well, maybe this is an excellent excuse to buy myself a new one.

(I can't believe I made that last post eight years ago!)

Same here. I mean, I've acquired a wife and child since this game was first announced, and I've been married longer than most people I know . . .

I wonder how many people who remember the original are still gaming? I rarely get the time these days. They might just have missed the boat...

I feel you, exactly the same situation here! Except I've got two kids. Nowadays, I haven't got time for anyting anymore. The simplest tasks get delayed. When it comes to kids, I've learnt that 1 + 1 equals much more than two.

I still remember the original, and I still play the only game from that era that is still around: DOOM.

Perhaps if I spent more time at it I would enjoy the modern games more, but to me (with my limited gaming skillset) the modern games are just too difficult, the learning curve too steep. I don't want to work that hard in order to have fun.

Hmmm... a quick Google check tells me that the original Duke Nukem has been ported over to 32-bit... maybe I should expand my game horizons slightly.

tanstaafl.

If anything games have gotten dumber as they've become more mainstream. Some of them even play themselves.

Wolfenstein got me into the PC game world.

I played Wolfenstein in a DOS emulator on my iPad the other day, all very silly

Man, I played that game so much, I learned to beat the final boss on the hardest level with the knife.

Takes a LONG time.

It might be a challenge with the iPad controls

Ah, I remember the days of spending quality time doing stuff like that.

Kind of reminds me of something a friend of mine put on Facebook a while ago:

I find the worst part of modern games the control layouts and shear number of inputs you need. The keyboard/mouse combination isn't bad for FPS games, but some MMOs have up to 5 or 6 levels of hotkeys for your skills. That is just insane. On consoles, the key combinations are obscure and needlessly complex. It got to the point where if I don't finish a game without any significant breaks (like if I don't play for more than 4 or so days in a row), I can't remember the key combinations and just won't play it again. It drives me crazy.

Some games are getting better about this. I noticed the need for manually created hot bars in World of Warcraft shrank quite a bit when 4.0 came out, and the new character ramp up is much more gentle now. The recently released DC Universe has a limit of 8, to deal with the limited combinations on the controller. The specials are all done via the four face buttons, and using a shoulder button as a modifier. So 1-4 is left trigger and one of the 4 buttons, and 5-8 is the right trigger. The downside is the UI is a straight line, so you still have to do some symbol matching until you can remember "Ok, the 3rd over over is going to be the bottom button".

Complicated controllers did help the Wii become a success, and possibly Kinect. I'll be curious to see what the next generation console controllers look like, if they decide to try and meld simplicity with motion.

I'll just leave this here.

Sweet. Brings it all back.

Wolf3D without the risk of motion sickness! Not sure what it was about that game but I always felt awful after playing more than 20 minutes.

Yeah, and it's even playable without a 1dfx card.

My favourite game from that era was Blood - soccer with zombie heads, cultists on fire from a flare gun, yeah!

Doom got me into playing FPS and I played DN a lot back in the days. I still play FPS on a regular basis (just upgraded my video card from a GTX280 to a GTX570), these days mostly CoDMW2 since MoH and CoDBO have been overly disappointing.

-Peter

The curse continues, DNF delayed, again.

Awwww - just remembered Rise of the Triad. Basically wolfenstein with better graphics and some really trippy effects.

Yeah - that got me occupied for quite a while, too

Peter

RotT and other games of the era are one of the reasons I dislike modern shooters for multiplayer. Something about the zaniness of them just made it a blast to play with friends. It was also a time when mods were much easier to make, allowing for even more variety once the base game felt stale.

Now it's all about "realistic" combat with real weapons, instead of shrink rays, freeze rays, drunk missiles and so on. It's one reason I am looking forward to DNF, and hope that it brings some of that back to the current generation of players.

Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold. Up next, a story about how Gearbox has redefined the industries meaning of "gone gold" to entering beta, and off to the manufacturers is now "gone platinum".

What are you talking about? DNF was already long since released.

This may actually happen before the rapture . . .

Have you played it yet? Is it as lackluster and offensive as everyone is saying?

I don't own it and haven't played it -- I just thought it was awesome that someone reserved it in 2001 and cashed in their discount in 2011.

Less awesome if you run the calculations on the value of that $10 in today's dollars, though.

Having played the demo, it's just as offensive as the old Duke Nukem 3D. The only difference now is that the game industry is much larger, and there are more people to find something to be offended by. The players of the last version when it was new are also much older now.

It looks like they didn't get the discount...