"In addition to the level editor, other mod tools for Doom 3 include the sound editor, the script editor (all the AI in the game is handled by Doom 3's script code), the particle editor, the articulated figure editor (used to create ragdoll skeletons for the game's character models) and the GUI editor. Duffy said the editor was actually created by Raven Software for their work on Quake 4 but that the editor is a bit crashy due to id Software's own work on the GUI code (most of the GUI code is done by hand in Notepad, according to Duffy)."

We're looking to find someone in the 40-65 age bracket who regularly plays Doom - and is going to play Doom3! We want to explore with someone who is more the age of our listenership what you get out of computer games etc. Ideally you'd live in south-east England or London, so we can come to visit you in person, or you could go to one of the many BBC studios around the country. If this applies to you - or you know someone who it would apply to - I'd be grateful if you could drop me a line at marc.settle@bbc.co.uk. We want to do the item on Sunday 15th August, so the sooner the better!

"QuakeCon is a free convention held every year in the Dallas, TX area. Thousands of computer gamers from all over the world make the pilgrimage to play on a giant gaming network, see the latest cool technology, and compete in a world-class tournament. Though mostly volunteer run, QuakeCon is sponsored by id Software, makers of the immensely popular DOOM, QUAKE, and Wolfenstein series of games."

"First I want to go over settings enabled in the ATI drivers for OpenGL graphics settings. In the screen below you will see six sliders, we will only be messing with two in this part and the rest should be left as in the image. The Texture Preference & MipMap Detail Level affects the quality of the textures in your gaming ranging from High Performance, Performance, Quality, & High Quality. Having the sliders more to the right increases your image quality at the cost of your frame rate while moving them to the left increases your frame-rate at the cost of image quality."

"B3D: Okay, timedemo only tests graphics rendering and ignores AI and physics. Even with a high-end CPU system, I have found that timedemo is still very CPU-dependent. In demos with many monsters and/or large/complex monsters, I will have to assume this CPU-dependency in timedemos is a result of CPU skinning (since AI and physics are ignored in timedemo). Correct?

JC: CPU skinning, shadow generation, and tangent space reconstruction are the parts of Doom that take up significant time in timedemos, but there is a lot of driver overhead as well.

'r_skipRenderContext 1' will unbind the gl context, so all driver calls become null functions. You can have some timings activated, then enable this, then disable it so things draw again, and compare to see how much time is spent in the driver, assuming the scene is not hardware limited."

"The major difference between Doom 3 and the original is the pace. While the 1994 title was a fast paced shooting game with only a few dark places in the levels, Doom 3 moves along at a much slower pace for much of the time. This is due to having Doom 3¿s Mars location (and another one we won¿t reveal) be placed in almost total darkness. Your flashlight, used only occasionally in other first person shooter titles, is used almost all the time here, and the team at id Software has used that darkness to make the environments you have to go though as scary as they can make them. We were skeptical that Doom 3 would be able to make us jump out of our chair in fright but they did it."

"The FPS scale was done differently on these two tests becasue the maximum framerate of 640x480 was higher with No Shadows than with Shadows. One big note here is that my framerate always drops to 1 at the same spot for 2 seconds due to an nVidia bug. The average framerate is at times 10 FPS higher without shadows than with shadows.
These next tests will test the difference in FPS based on the seta image_cacheMegs setting in the DoomConfig.cfg file located in the Doom3base folder."

The DOOM guy - 36%
The Master Chief - 18%
Gordon Freeman - 22%
Godzilla - 7%
Pikachu - 17%

"While the cutting-edge graphics are indeed impressive, it was the presentation of DOOM 3's world and story that I enjoyed the most and kept me hooked. Early in the game, you're issued a Personal Data Assistant (PDA) that can store emails, audio logs, security codes and other bits of data. As you find other PDAs strewn among all the dead bodies throughout the facility, you get a glimpse into the mindsets of the base's former inhabitants in the weeks leading up to your arrival. It's a game mechanic that's worked extremely well in games like TRON 2.0 and System Shock 2, and it works equally well here: some characters are panicked, some are mired in political struggles, and some are just Average Joes trying to do their job."

"HomeLAN - Why was the decision made to not have a paid Return to Castle Wolfenstein tournament at QuakeCon this year?

Marty Stratton - We wanted DOOM 3 to be the featured tournament and the Q3A 1v1 is simply a tradition. The Q3A CTF tournament was a favorite last year as well, so we decided to bring that back again this year. We also had to wait to make the call on DOOM 3 as the featured tournament until we knew that it would be out, and that meant that we couldn't get the RTCW online qualifier rounds completed in time to give the teams proper travel notice. We'll definitely look at bringing RTCW and/or Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory back next year, but are obviously very excited to be able to have the first ever DOOM 3 competitve tournament at QuakeCon."

"Quakecon starts on the 12th of August and lasts until the 15th so that is the time you will see the official info about it. It's Geforce 6x00 technology but we are not sure about x for the unknown number, yet. ¿"

"The environment in which the game takes place is really the high point here, but it's a very, very high point. Not only is the technology that renders everything in the game amazing, even on low settings, but the actual art is beyond good. The design and art team kicked ass over every part of this game, even managing to throw in an ode to the old box art in an unlikely place."

"Doom 3 is essentially a remake of the original games. So it doesn't take place after the events of either Doom or Doom 2. The story takes place in the year 2145. Most of Earth's natural resources have now been used up so we need to start looking to colonize another planet. Obviously the first choice of a new planet is Mars. A former military organization called Union Aerospace Corporation has many outposts on Mars consisting of scientists, corporate individuals, and plenty of marines. Their goal is to develop machinery that can instantly turn the vast deserts of Mars into water, air, and green grass providing people with a new place that they can call home. The research is going along perfectly and most of the machinery has been developed and is being tested. However, some other experiments are going on behind the scenes."

"But the hate-mongers over at id Software aren¿t through--now they¿ve released a third installment in the Doom series. Billed as a re-imagining of the first game, Doom 3 casts the demons in an even worse light. Instead of being flat, pixilated avatars, these new demons are full 3D, highly detailed, and highly distorted views of your average, friendly creature from the underworld. For example, demons are depicted as shooting fireballs at the player character whereas it¿s well known that the noble hell-spawn uses such fireballs solely for sending mating signals. Furthermore, the game shows numerous denizens of the underworld leaping from the shadows aggressively as though they¿re unprovoked. Excuse me, but did the demons bust into the human¿s dimension first? I think not!"

"M: Do you find that working on a game is different from working on a film or a piece of music that's meant to be the focus of attention?

CV: There are all these rules, and it's a team effort. I find the teamwork fun, whether you're producing a record for somebody or doing something for a movie or for a game. There are developers and producers, and you are hired by them."