Bought Quake IV

Money wasted. Although my PC was able to play Doom III somewhat, it's just no use to play this.

It has become sadly apparent to me after reading some published benchmarks, that anything less than a 6800GT will not do. I would have to wait quite a bit till the 6800GT card comes into a price range, where I would even consider buying it (< € 200). And then I'd need an AGP version, which doesn't exist... So I would need a new motherboard, new CPU all for Quake IV ? I don't think so.

I had a look at the remakes of q2dm1 and q3dm17. I was severely disappointed. I have no clue, why Raven thinks it's necessary to "remix" these maps.

q3dm17 in Quake III. Plain but structured textures. Weapon, upgrades and ammo stand out with simple colors, whereas the interior is multicolored, with a well chosen palette of colors that blend nicely together. Notice the simple yet effective use of lighting all over the level.

I did not make this screenshot. I grabbed it off some forum. What I saw on my lowly 9600 XT with high quality, 1024x768 and 2 FPS :) was the same. So I suppose it's not the graphic card, that's drawing this so badly. Here is an alternative screenshot of "The Longest Day" from a different source.

q3dm17 looks worse to me in Quake IV than in Quake III. Quake IV has better technology, but butt ugly textures and no taste, at least on this map. Please! This nasty, nasty looking metal texture does not go well with items and assorted pieces in all colors the rainbow has got to offer. That level hurts my eyes!

I was also very surprised that many of the items do not cast shadows, like f.e. the rocket ammo on the right side. Hey, I thought that's what the Doom engine is good at, creating shadows. I wonder what is using up all that GPU power ?