Carmack's Hands On Impressions of Xbox 360 & PS3

Wolfenstein wasn't actually id's first FPS - Catacomb 3D was. Although, Catacomb was still released a few months after Ultima Underworld (Carmack actually took the idea of 'texture mapping' from Ultima).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_person_shooter#Beginnings

The first one I played was probably Midi Maze, especially part two which had 16 player networked play (the first in 1987 did so also but got too slow with more than 4 players, the second didn't have that problem). Totally awesome.

Anyway, from the looks of it FPS was there pretty early in the day (1973). That's 19 years before id.

 

His presentation seriously impressed me. The comment that the demo 'rage' level was 3 man months work.. That is extremely impressive. That's 20 maps/year for a team of 5.

 

doom3 was the new quake 1, somewhat dull, limited and low res but pretty ground breaking with the unified, real time lighting and shadowing, and normal mapping on every surface. Bear in mind the game was made for geforce 3/4. Sure, as many people thought duke3D looked better than quake, many said hl2 looks better, and both opinions are valid.

 

Luckily enough 'they' haven't waited otherwise Carmack's statement about next gen consoles being just last year PCs would have been completely true.

 

Midi Maze on the Atari ST.
Or possibly 3D monster maze on the ZX81, but that didn't have shooting.

 

San Francisco, nAo?! Are you on holiday, a conference, or moved to another studio now HS is done?

 

Bah, why does the FPS segment from It Came from the Desert never gets mentioned :/

 

This thread is now barely about technology, so I move it to the main forum.

Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared and told him to go Dagoba, a surbub next to San Francisco.

And I'm only partially kidding here.

 

Guys, the topic is "Carmack's Hands-On Impressions of X360 & PS3", not his history / credentials as VG developer.

EDIT: Lol ,double moderating

 

Not too easy to find nutella around here.

 

a quantum superposition of all these 3 states

 

Although, blunt and to the point, to some extent this is true. Carmack isn't going to devote his time to understanding the Cell architecture and developing more efficient schedulers to maximize SPE utilization, come up with a new programming paradigm to revolutionize parallel programming on the Cell or even contemplate switching to a data centric view of processing where the flow and packaging of data is just as important as the code processing it. In fact, if I had to pinpoint one thing that must make him shake his head more than any other issue then I would guess it's the need to place so much more emphasis on data.

For a self taught person with decades of experience pioneering new graphic technologies, a methodology that places so much importance on data will never permeate into mind of Carmark. And who can blame him? It must frustrate Carmack to no end that the complexity of programming for these next generation CPU's is actually increasing instead of decreasing. Unfortunately, this is the trend in future CPU designs be they from Intel, AMD or IBM. In the end, Carmack is going to stick to his ways and evolve graphic technology as he has done for years without compromise and on his on terms. And as for these new CPU architectures, well, that's why you hire specialists - to free you from conforming or adapting you ways.

 

What the fuck do you think Mega Texture is all about?

Jawed

 

Uh, you need to go back and read what Carmack said again. He's most frustrated by the PS3's split memory (and how much memory is used by the OS), not Cell. Your whole point is completely off track (as Jawed also pointed out).

 

Why isn't he? You're just making it up now, and you're talking as if you're sat at his deskside going "hey, John, why aren't you doing it this way or thinking about it that way, like you should if you're going to to run on a machine with a Cell inside!", all while he just stares at you blankly, dribbling a bit, whenever you say "SPE".

I say that with all due respect, since it's clear you're at least making the effort to think about things first (unlike some). All engine developers, not just him, are contemplating a multi-core throughput-led platform as the big picture. I swear to you, and that moment happened a long time ago, too.

To say that, or that he's got no real idea about the PS3's power (I'm looking at you now, PSman) is to miss the giant big picture staring you right in the face, and it discredits the entire game industry to say so. Pull back a bit and forgot about Cell and its specific architecture for a second, or any specific developer or his or her game, and take a look around and think about what's going on in the industry just now.

 

Carmack is an incredible programmer and has an amazing grasp of technology.
How people think he doesn't know what he's talking about is beyond me.
It isn't that Carmack doesn't know how to program for Cell or he doesn't understand the technology, it's just that his point of view is that he doesn't want to waste valuable development time struggling with the system...hence his decision to just hire someone else to worry about it.
Too many people have taken the Cell hype too seriously.

 

I'm guessing the reason Carmack can speak so "freely" (I have to use quotes since he was neither drunk nor cursing, so really it was more frankly or honestly) is because no one's going to fire him for chatting outside the company's PR boundaries. I'm guessing this isn't the case with most devs. This freedom of being his own man is also what helps make him so admirable, what with the .plans and the open sourcing and all.

That's a lot of guessing for one post, though that's not a surprise in this thread.

 

I am probably going to get flamed for this but whatever

i am not in anyway biased towards any console - know me for long enough and you will relies this , but i feel i have to give my 2 cents in .

While i think carmack is a talented programmer i do think he speakes out of his ass too .

He complains about the ps3 and the lack of memory more times than i could remember but its hard to take this guy seriously when there other devs in the industry that shame his best efforts ( i am not taking a dig at him but its clear the industy has caught up and surpassed him ) .

now tell me again why shouldn't take everything carmack says with a bucket of salt when so called "inferior" developers out there have already adapted to the ps3 hardware and have proven that in the right hands is a superior console in terms of hardware ?

come on dudes read in between the lines

carmack = m$

some people really are naive.

 

I find it hard to believe you can make that post and claim to have no bias.

Carmack apparently has his engine running well on PS3, if he was really Microsoft's bitch, explain to me why he would even bother?