Anyways its exciting to see these kind of jumps in technology.

No, it's not -- seeing as how my GF4 is becoming more and more of a "golden oldie" as the Doom 3 release nears (or hovers, whatever). 

.... it's very interesting to see technology jumps, progress and improvement, both for hardware and software... but like said "bif" when you buy a PC, one week later it is "obsolete" and new games are not supported in most of cases... grrrr..
For example when the first demo of Doom3 was presented a few years ago, I didn't remember exactly when and where, but I've read this in a specialyzed magazine: the player needed 2 boosted PCs working both in parallel to allow the game running not really well.. and today, the game is not yet released and it seems there's not yet a machine that allow the game running at full speed... Furthermore, no-one knows if the game will be ported to game console (PS2, GC, XBox ??) because console have lower performances than PV... Software technology is far away hardware can perform... inn this case...
Anyway...
To my point of view, it looks like a "weapon race"... and we are the "happy loosers" of this "war".... sigh... 

Hello hello, how can I download some decent quake1 maps without going through damned damned PQ or FP?
HD has died and I want my good old maps back...well not my maps, other peoples...but you get the idea....

Ta 

Cute: http://www.theprodukkt.com/ 

No. The interesting/impressive jumps in CG technology happened over the late 80s and the 90s.

Going from this gen of cards to the next impresses me very little. 

Has there ever been an id game that ran at full fps on release time hardware?

Offhand list that could well be wrong:

Doom: 486sx25 (needed dx66)
Quake: p75 (needed p200)
Quake2: Voodoo1 (needed Voodoo2)
Quake3: Geforce1 (needed GeForce2/3)

Oh, and Doom3 is being ported to XBox. Gc dunno, ps2... bwahahah! 

Be a big girl and just get it from PQ/FP without complaining :P 

Sure... most of the "visible" progress and technology jumps were done during 80s - 90s ... today a common human being is not able to see the difference between one year PC products...
Most of the limitations come from the peripherals (RAMs, Video Card, further from the Mother Board, etc..) while processors speed increase each month... due to implementation technology size decreasing (as example, last year current techno was 180 nm, today we are able to provide 90 nm techno.... and lower for research products..)
That's why this impression of technology jumps is less impressive than 10 yeas ago.... 

BTW it's not forbidden to use a "race PC" to run pacman... 8P
Related to your Doom3 informations, where do they come from ? 

Doom3 XBox = well known, see google and news sites.

Doom3 Ps2 = complete guess. It's possible, but not without stripping down engine. 

Wow... I have never see these informations, trying to have a better look /-((..... My latest info was Doom3 previous release date: february 27 (of this year...!!!)... And the game isn't still released ... grrrr... it sucks... 

It should excite you. I doubt you've had that much experience with CG video to have experienced it's growth. This technology will effect all of us in this community if we continue to map in one way or another. From what I understand most of the community is looking forward to HL2 and Doom3. For those people, like myself, we should be excited about these new jumps in graphics technology. It only helps us better achieve our visions. On the other hand if you don't want to play any new games, which like some of the community thats stuck in the past... then you're right, you shouldn't get excited. 

Devil's advocate:

1) The change in graphics from Wolf -> Doom -> Quake brought quite fundamental gameplay changes. As far as I can see HL2/Doom3 aren't going to advance anything but atmosphere, and some people aren't interested in that.

2) The money and time investment to create a commercial quality level is rapidly increasing. I doubt something the scale of, say, Nehahra would be feasible in HL2/Doom3, and certainly not for UnrealEngine3. 

1) The change in graphics from Wolf -> Doom -> Quake brought quite fundamental gameplay changes. As far as I can see HL2/Doom3 aren't going to advance anything but atmosphere, and some people aren't interested in that.
Physics. And in the case of hl2, AI. Two pretty important areas as far as advancement goes. Also, sound. 

wth? that game is all in 96k? there must be like 5 or 6 different types of monsters, the map is of medium or so size... how does that work? O_o does it download things when the progress bar ison screen or something?

can't say i like it very much... it's beautiful, the graphics and level design are good, but the gameplay is boring... the monsters are ridiculously easy and because there aren't any settings, i couldn't invert my mouse plus the sensitivity was way to high... so i guess that made it harder...
the monsters move too slow and there attacks do little damage except the last couple of 'boss' monsters.

it is beta though, so we'll see what happens next... 

Maj, I have to wonder how you can discredit the validity of atmosphere in this arguement. With each new id game you used as examples the gameplay in my opinion largely stayed the same, beyond Quake's full 3D environments. So yes, gameplay wise the created ton's of new gameplay experiences. However, the run and gun gameplay stayed the same.

With Doom3 id isn't trying to reinvent the wheel here, but by creating the game as they orginally envisioned graphically will certainly be a creepier and more fufilling experience. Atmposhere is exactly what is created as a result of more powerwful video cards and is there reason for exsistence. I mean if your happy playing Wing Commander over say Freespace 2, you can do that. However, I feel that graphics do affect gameplay as far as emersion in one way or another.

As wrath pointed out as more calculations are taken over by the CPU, we can start to see AI improve. Also with the current generation of sound cards, you can continue to create further emersion.

Plus just you aren't forced to buy new games, you aren't forced to buy the hardware for them. So if your not interested in the current games, you don't have to worry about shelling out the cash for these types of cards. :) 

necros: the game is completely made in code, and it builds all the content like textures and maps on the fly. One of the guys who worked on it hangs out on the SomethingAwful forums and says the final will be 128k. Everything was coded in C++, except the sound 'assember' part, which was built in assembly. I don't think the focus was on the gameplay itself, more on just making something cool with so little size. 

ProdigyXL: I've been more immersed in games where 3 pixels attacked my laser shooting circle than most current games that seem to think you need to make things look real to get someone into the game. 

I already said some people are happy with what is already available, others look forward to new technology. If you were immersed with that, thats great. For others it simply takes more. 

Wrath, I was talking about graphics advances only.

Xl, I'm not dismissing atmosphere, I just think that what it adds is not on the same scale as, say, what Doom's support for freeform and variable height levels added over Wolf. Horribly subjective, true, but that's just my personal feeling. 

I have to apologize for these last few comments on my part. I typed them way to fast and didn't check them over at all. All the errors in them are even bad by my standards. 

Was really from a economical view, not necessarily a fundamental one. I just got through paying off the comp I have, and the main reason I spent the money ($2300) was so I would have a swank machine when Doom 3 was released. Not only has the release been delayed, but as of late it seems that the game has been clamoring for better and better hardware, which will ultimately cost more and more money, which sucks copious amounts of ass. I say release the damned thing already, before I have to buy another comp to run it ;)

But to be honest, I don't think my rig will have a major problem with the game -- it did fine with the leak and that code was in much rougher shape than the final version of the game would be (or at least should be by now, dammit), so I'm not really that worried -- but given the situation, I find it to be annoying at the moment. 

It's not a case of not looking forward to new games. But I'm never again going to get the same sense of wonder I got when I first played Wolf3D and could run around where ever I wanted. Or when I first played Quake and it was really 3D. Or... (etc).

Current graphical advancements, while nice, are no where near as impressive.


And please don't try to limited it to just 'really excited about the future' or 'stuck in the past'. I can look forward to things without thinking they are > sliced bread. There are more than two viewpoints in the world.

(wrath, I agree, physics and AI are what is really going to break new ground, but that's not graphics). 

wrath, I agree, physics and AI are what is really going to break new ground, but that's not graphics

Actually people are starting to figure out how to offload a lot of physics calculations on to the graphics card. I'd expect that's going to become standard in the future. 

Just played the RTCW demo. Yeah it's kinda old but I'm finally on a good system. I'm not too impressed with the demo... some little things like not being able to bloody up the dead bodies or blow off individual parts... minor gripes I guess.