I didnt realise Quake 4 was based on the doom 3 engine. I've seen doom 3 screenshots, and its cool  

Yes, it is based on the doom3 engine.  We've been getting builds of the engine from id for quite a while now.

Just goes to show you how awsome this quake will look.

Just goes to show how freakin' hard you're gonna need a new computer  

Well, I hope the DOOM III-based games take a lot of time to be released, I'm gonna need all the time for saving money I can get!  

doom 3 may look cool but will it run on your pc you have now or run like a dog

My guess is that, in order to play DOOM III @ 1024*768*32, medium detail, you'll need at least a GeForce4 Ti and AthlonXP / Pentium4 CPU. But seeing as how we're at least one and a half year away from DOOM III, my guess is as good as a donkey's. The only diffirence is that a donkey doesn't know what I'm talking about.

But for that matter... What am I talking about?

rickmus: Is it true that the DooM 3 Engine uses DirectX 8 and has hooks for OpenGL 2.0 when it comes out? Or is it using the current OpenGL plus nVidia/ATi/etc extensions for it's Vertex/Pixel Shader support?

I decided to ask at the MadOnion boards, and this is the first useful answer so far:

Carmack programs exclusively in OpenGL. So the DX8 stuff is not true.

The deal with programmable pixel and vertex shaders: There is a standard set of operations/instructions that the hardware needs to perform specified by DX8 and OpenGL1.3, and then NVIDIA, and ATI go and then make their own proprietary extensions to these operations/instructions, that only work on their own cards.

Carmack, AFAIK, is programming both for NVIDIA's, and ATI's (and Matrox's as well) proprietary features that go above and beyond what is required by DX8 and GL1.3

I dont even think that a ge4 ti 4600 on ACTUAL high ends pcs can run a doom3-engine based game even in 640*480 mode with max details:doom3 engine seems to be fit for computers in 2 years.
Just remember Quake 3 and computers from 1999: Q3 run only properly now on ACTUAL pcs...3 years after!!
Dont forget that doom 3 will be released maybye in winter 2003...My advice: buy an high end pc from 2005 !

So recommanded config:  AMD Opteron 2 (not Itanium lol! )
                                   8 Go DDRAM 2.0
                                   Win XP SE 64 bits
                                   Nvidia NV40?  

                                   Jaspion  

Jaspion, give that a bit more thought, will ya?
Quake3 ran fine on my Pentium II 400 / Voodoo2 8mb / 64 MB RAM in 800*600 (as that's the highest an 8meg V2 can go). In 1999, that machine was about a year old or something, and Quake3 ran fine on specs below mine too.

Knowing JCarmack, DOOM III will follow the same "fall back" route, and DOOM III will run fluently in 1024*768 on the current top PCs.