Teh Shack is reporting today’s rumor du jour, that Doom 3 is coming on August 3rd. If true (and good lord, I hope it is), that means we could be playing the game in a little more than a month. For some time now I’ve been saying that I won’t upgrade my video card until either Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 goes gold. I’m sticking to that. The second I find out that this game is gold, and therefore really, definitely shipping, then I’ll upgrade. I’ve currently got a GeForce 4200 Ti, which has been good to me, but can’t possibly run either of those two games at a decent framerate.
Of course what exactly I’ll upgrade to is a slightly harder decision. The real choice for me is whether or not I’ll buy a 9800 Pro, which is still great, and much more affordable now, or the newer, and naturally more expensive, X800 Pro (not Platinum, that’s overkill). As we’re buying an apartment (whee!) this is probably my last significant purchase of any kind for the foreseeable future, which means I probably won’t be upgrading my game PC for at least two years, possibly more. So with that in mind, I’ll probably go with the X800. It’s more than I need for now, but in three years, if I’m still using the same video card, that extra power will go a long way.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Doom 3 ain’t gold yet (as far as I know), so I’m not making this decision right this second. We’ll see how much longer it takes to get Doom 3 in the can (hopefully long enough for those X800s to come out in larger supplies).