QuakeCon 2011's John Carmack presentation

[Zenoth]

He gave his annual address at QuakeCon about two days ago or so, I just saw the video today myself, it's approximately one and a half hour long and very interesting as always coming from the programming guru in person. If anything this thread's discussion should be entirely focused on what John Carmack talks about and nothing else, but I just wanted to post the link to the video itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zgYG-_ha28&

 

[Jules]

Thanks watching

 

[gorobei]

it's a very forthwith little speech. he's very open about what they are/aren't doing right.

his main focus seems to be corporate sprawl issues and code analysis statistics. with 40+ programmers all the stupid little mistakes seem to add up quick.

the part about memory architecture and direct to silicon calls seems to back up richard huddy's comment a while back.

sad to hear that rage isnt going to use any tessellation or any other dx11 features. it'll probably be the last opengl bruteforce polypushing game. seems like they'll milk the engine for a few games before starting a new one with more advanced features. the comment about post processing effects crapping all over the original textures sounds really sad.

carmack seems like a pretty neat guy. certainly no cult of ego like steve jobs.

 

[wuliheron]

Rage's development team is moving onto Doom 4 next. While Rage shoots for 60 fps Doom 4 is going for just 30 and Carmack claims it has even better graphics. Opengl 4.2 with options like tessellation was just released so you may see some of those graphics improvements as soon as next year in Doom 4. Since the planned Id tech 6 engine is supposed to incorporate ray traced geometry it looks like you're right and this is the last of the opengl bruteforce polypushing games. A pretty fitting ending to a legacy though if the early reviews of Rage are right.

 

[TecHNooB]

i watched this the other day. he's so much more into coding than I am

 

[Red Hawk]

I appreciated that while he knocked PCs for not being able to code directly to the hardware, he admitted that there are good reasons for the abstraction layer provided by graphics APIs. PC gaming may have a lot to gain by coding directly to the hardware, but it will take a big shake-up in the graphics chip industry to bring standardization that will allow that.

Otherwise, waaaaaaay over my head. I liked it.

 

[(sic)Klown12]

I wish more developers would do this. It's fascinating to hear about the different things that are involved with making a modern game/engine. I would absolutely love to hear all the little details about Cryengine 3 and Frostbite 2.

 

[Zenoth]

I wish more developers would do this. It's fascinating to hear about the different things that are involved with making a modern game/engine. I would absolutely love to hear all the little details about Cryengine 3 and Frostbite 2.

I agree, developers should communicate more often with their consumers in similar ways.

 

[BFG10K]

I appreciated that while he knocked PCs for not being able to code directly to the hardware, he admitted that there are good reasons for the abstraction layer provided by graphics APIs. PC gaming may have a lot to gain by coding directly to the hardware, but it will take a big shake-up in the graphics chip industry to bring standardization that will allow that.

PCs already had this once; it was called DOS. Remember when games used to hard-code themselves to individual sound cards? That’s simply not viable now given the limitless hardware combinations.

It’s also not viable in modern operating systems because they can’t allow user mode programs to take over the hardware. You need abstraction layers (e.g. APIs) for pre-emptive multitasking, security, dynamic memory allocation, and other features.

With that said, perhaps there’s an opportunity to make slimmer versions of the APIs that are leaner and have less overhead.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I don't know whether to be impressed or depressed at the technical prowess that goes into modern video game production

all that problem solving brilliance channeled into merely our entertainment

 

[Red Hawk]

Not just entertainment, art.

 

[wuliheron]

Da Vinci was an artist, but made his living designing weapons. Now we have militaries using video games and virtual reality to train troops and the 9/11 terrorists trained on a flight simulator. Art as a weapon?

 

[Texashiker]

We were promised a lot of stuff with quake II and doom III, and we see where those games went.

John can hype all he wants, I will wait for the reviews before I spend another penny on an id game.

 

[lupi]

PCs already had this once; it was called DOS. Remember when games used to hard-code themselves to individual sound cards? That’s simply not viable now given the limitless hardware combinations.

It’s also not viable in modern operating systems because they can’t allow user mode programs to take over the hardware. You need abstraction layers (e.g. APIs) for pre-emptive multitasking, security, dynamic memory allocation, and other features.

With that said, perhaps there’s an opportunity to make slimmer versions of the APIs that are leaner and have less overhead.

yeah I loved having to try and arrange a free IRQ channel for my new add on card.

 

[thegimp03]

We were promised a lot of stuff with quake II and doom III, and we see where those games went.

John can hype all he wants, I will wait for the reviews before I spend another penny on an id game.

Quake II still ended up being a great game...one of the first PC fps games I played and I was amazed at the time. Doom III's graphics were revolutionary. I remember one of the beta versions getting released on the web and 1 shotgun blast instantly crashed my computer.

 

[scooterlibby]

Quake II still ended up being a great game...one of the first PC fps games I played and I was amazed at the time. Doom III's graphics were revolutionary. I remember one of the beta versions getting released on the web and 1 shotgun blast instantly crashed my computer.

HahaI don't think a beta crash is necessarily indicative of awesome graphics, but I agree with you about Doom III's graphics. The word of mouth about the graphics got me back into PC gaming as I became really interested in building a PC that could play it.

 

[Texashiker]

Quake II still ended up being a great game...one of the first PC fps games I played and I was amazed at the time. Doom III's graphics were revolutionary.

Yea, but graphics do not make a game great.

 

[Powermoloch]

The reason I built my first pc was based on the id's games that were released back in the days (quake III, RTCW:ET, and especially DOOM III). They were really great games and got me in the pc gig.

Otherwise i'll be playing on my gamecube and be upset with the lack of games that nintendo put out recently lol.

 

[wuliheron]

New Quakecon interview with John Carmack:

http://pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/...ce-Intel-Graphics-Ray-Tracing-Voxels-and-more

Its perhaps the best interview with him I've heard yet covering the future of both the hardware and software.

 

[Shmee]

Ya, Q2 and Doom 3 were actually 2 of my favorites! I remember spending tons of time on Q2 as a kid. Anyways, looking forward to both rage and doom4