John Carmack And Todd Hollenshead Speak

[Sunday]

And the good thing is that Todd only speak once

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm

Excellent reading!!! JC loves DX9!

 

[Geo]

Who is this "ohn" fellow of whom you speak? Swedish developer or sumtin?

 

[Sunday]

Who is this "ohn" fellow of whom you speak? Swedish developer or sumtin?

Sorry for wrong title! Please geo, edit!

 

[trinibwoy]

Decent interview. Although Carmack comes across as a little dismissive of things he's not involved in. Like how could he possibly not be interested in the things DX10 offers?

 

[Geo]

Because it's good to be King?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Is he using openGL for his next engine again?!?

 

[poopypoo]

Decent interview. Although Carmack comes across as a little dismissive of things he's not involved in. Like how could he possibly not be interested in the things DX10 offers?

Yeah surprisingly good interview But I think he's probably interested in DX10. But what sense does it make -- if MS hasn't paid you to use DX10 at this point, why would you release a game only .1% of gamers can play? Even assuming you're releasing it next year, who's going to have DX10 cards by then? 1% of the market, maybe.

 

[Skrying]

Ehh, its the gaming PC market. The chances of people having a DirectX 10 card by then I would say are more around 5%~10%. Though I would think Carmack would want to be on the leading edge like this, but increasingly I just get the feeling he's doing these games to make the money, his heart is no longer in it. Which really is not surprising, I mean the guy has invested the large part of his life to making games, at some point you'd get bored.

I tend to want to bash Carmack, but the more I put myself in his shoes the more I realize why he sometimes just doesn't seem to care where others are giddy.

 

[Davros]

i remember jc saying he was switching to dx10 as his primary dev enviroment mainly cos of the xbox 360

Carmack: Quake 3 is a problem on it?

Hollenshead: Well, it’s not that it’s a problem, but more of that we haven’t done much testing with it.

Hollenshead wispers: "sshh dont be telling people that"

Carmack: I’m pretty sure (Quake) 1 through 3 work just fine.

 

[Geo]

I think neither NV nor Microsoft is going to be terribly enamored of that interview from the 8800/Vista sales pov. AMD/ATI will love it for a little while longer, but then it will apply to R600 as well.

 

[Reverend]

Like how could he possibly not be interested in the things DX10 offers?

I didn't quite read what he said that way. What I think he said is that Vista and hence DX10 (because you need to buy Vista if you want DX10, which sounds like something he doesn't like to me from his coments in this interview) doesn't offer anything significantly better than XP+DX9.

This isn't an interview MS would use for its Vista evangelism for sure.

It's also interesting to note the kind of questions that prompted John to answer more at length.

BTW, and this surely must already be known by now but for the n00bs :

For any given targetted framerate (say, a locked 30fps), which of the two consoles (XB360, PS3) would give better graphics? Would the difference be significant?

The difference would not be significant, they are quire comparable in raw power.

John Carmack

I think he has sympathy for Kojima.

 

[Reverend]

And the good thing is that Todd only speak once

Smiley or not, what do you know about Todd's contribution to id Software and as a result to the gaming industry?

 

[Tim Murray]

I'm pretty sure Carmack means the hardware isn't there yet, Vista isn't there yet, and the drivers aren't there yet. He's certainly not saying that DX9 and XP are equal or superior to D3D10 and Vista. He's simply saying that jumping on the D3D10 train at this very moment doesn't make a lot of sense.

And he's right, although it's kind of a moot point--the 8800 cards are so good that anyone looking at the high end will probably end up with a D3D10 card right now anyway.

 

[Reverend]

I'm pretty sure Carmack means the hardware isn't there yet, Vista isn't there yet, and the drivers aren't there yet.

Personally, I'm quite sure that is exactly what he didn't mean.

He's certainly not saying that DX9 and XP are equal or superior to D3D10 and Vista.

Wait; he basically recommended that we wait for another 2 years before paying for Vista/DX10 (and we should mention these two beasts in the singular). "Equal" and "Superior" really are very subjective descriptions and have very little to do with a developer's endeavour to develop and support games - 2 years down the road - on a soon-to-be "outdated" OS and API.

He's simply saying that jumping on the D3D10 train at this very moment doesn't make a lot of sense.

At this very moment there probably isn't a single gamer or developer that is willing to jump on that expensive risk-train (Vista Professional). If you think that's what John meant, I don't think he needed this outlet (an interview) to say it.

 

[Tim Murray]

Wait; he basically recommended that we wait for another 2 years before paying for Vista/DX10 (and we should mention these two beasts in the singular). "Equal" and "Superior" really are very subjective descriptions and have very little to do with a developer's endeavour to develop and support games - 2 years down the road - on a soon-to-be "outdated" OS and API.

The question he was asked: "Do you think gamers should take the plunge now for DX10, or do you think they should wait and stick with DX9." His answer: "I don’t think that there’s any huge need for people to jump right now." You're pulling two years out of thin air, and it's certainly not related to anything he's said. And then his reason not to use DX10 on Quake Wars is because Vista penetration will not be great enough by the time the game ships. Considering they were originally shooting for fall 06 as the release date, how can this surprise anyone?

At this very moment there probably isn't a single gamer or developer that is willing to jump on that expensive risk-train (Vista Professional). If you think that's what John meant, I don't think he needed this outlet (an interview) to say it.

A single gamer who's not willing to buy Vista? Are you serious?

 

[Geo]

They’re artificially doing that by tying DX10 so close it, which is really nothing about the OS. It’s a hardware-interface spec. It’s an artificial thing that they’re doing there. They’re really grasping at straws for reasons to upgrade the operating system. I suspect I could run XP for a great many more years without having a problem with it.

That's pretty hard to argue as anything but anti-Vista.

 

[Reverend]

The question he was asked: "Do you think gamers should take the plunge now for DX10, or do you think they should wait and stick with DX9." His answer: "I don’t think that there’s any huge need for people to jump right now." You're pulling two years out of thin air, and it's certainly not related to anything he's said. And then his reason not to use DX10 on Quake Wars is because Vista penetration will not be great enough by the time the game ships. Considering they were originally shooting for fall 06 as the release date, how can this surprise anyone?

I don't quite like your "out of thin air" comment but you're entitled to it.

I could've sworn I read he said something like 2 years but I'm too lazy to search through all 7 pages of this interview for that. In the meantime, this is what I found in the interview (page 2) :

It’s a tough thing for Microsoft, where, essentially, Windows XP was a just fine operating system. Before that, there were horrible problems with Windows. But once they got there, it did everything an operating system is supposed to do. Nothing is going to help a new game by going to a new operating system. There were some clear wins going from Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really aren’t any for Vista. They’re artificially doing that by tying DX10 so close it, which is really nothing about the OS. It’s a hardware-interface spec. It’s an artificial thing that they’re doing there. They’re really grasping at straws for reasons to upgrade the operating system. I suspect I could run XP for a great many more years without having a problem with it.

Bolds in John's quote are mine. Are these related to what I said that you seem to disagree with? In the context of what I said (and what you may have misunderstood), "2 years out of thin air" seem to be rather very short compared to John's "great many years".

IMO.

A single gamer who's not willing to buy Vista? Are you serious?

I was being facetious with my comments and in the context of someone "upgrading" to Vista/DX10 mostly for the purpose of gaming (surely you know this is what I meant?!). I think you probably know that and as a site staff I find it surprising to read your sarcastic comment. I probably should've said from the beginning I don't like what MS is doing wrt Vista, DX10 and gaming compared to what we have now with XP and DX9. I am certain you and many others may disagree and would be willing to upgrade. However, the above JC quotes can be telling and very creditable advice, yes?

We're not arguing about anything, are we?

 

[trinibwoy]

Granted many of his reservations re Vista/DX10 seem to do with adoption rates and market penetration which makes complete sense if you're trying to make money. But given he's big on technology (at least I thought he was) this particular statement was surprising and prompted my commment :

there’s no huge thing where we’re dying to use any particular DX10 feature

I guess MegaTexture everywhere is enough for him to be excited about .*shrug*

 

[Rys]

I fail to see where you must adopt (or even care about) every last sliver of an API's features or ability when you're creating rendering technology. If a developer isn't hot on something (feature, ability, new technique, etc, etc), he or she isn't hot on something *shock!*

Developers aren't forced to use anything, mad about new technology or not, and it's a bit daft to read anything into it. That applies no matter the developer's name.

 

[trinibwoy]

Seems you're the one doing all the reading Nobody here is attacking the man so there's no need for you to defend him.

In any case, you don't find it strange that Carmack doesn't have any cool ideas about what he can do with DX10 features? I thought he was a big idea guy.