DOOM III capped at 60fps

IGN is reporting today from an "NVIDIA Editors' Day" that DOOM III will be capped at 60 frames per second. If that sounds odd to you (given some of the framerates thrown around in connection with Quake 3 benchmarks at least), then this is what Doom engine overlord John Carmack had to say about the matter:

"The game tic simulation, including player movement, runs at 60hz, so if it rendered any faster, it would just be rendering identical frames. A fixed tic rate removes issues like Quake 3 had, where some jumps could only be made at certain framerates. In Doom, the same player inputs will produce the same motions, no matter what the framerate is."

So there you have it. Now, what happens if your machine can't lug those sixty frames around every second is not discussed, but we'll hazard a guess: chug, chug, chug.

DOOM III is due out sometime next year. You can read what Kristan made of it at a recent Activision press event here.