Ask John Carmack About Quake - or Anything Else 605
John Carmack is, of course, a GameGod[tm] so famous that even stuffy, all-business Forbes.com recently noticed him and Id Software. He's been interviewed about 42 gazillion times - but not by you. So go ahead. One question per post please, and since we expect a huge response, please try not to whine too loudly if our exotic blend of moderation, editorial judiciousness, and random dart-throwing doesn't pop your question(s) to the top o' the heap, which only has room for 10 - 15 no matter how many are submitted. Answers will be posted Friday, as usual, and I'm sure they'll be great, because John's a great guy!
OS preference? (Score:5)
DirectX for non-MS operating systems (Score:1)
Comments / Thoughts on Unreal Tournament (Score:2)
future directions? (Score:1)
Is there life after gaming? And if so, what would it be for you?
G4s, AltiVec (Score:1)
There's even a little mini-game where reflective balls float around. It runs for 1000 frames and then gives you the avg FPS. Supposedly the G4 version is much(maybe 2x) faster.
Would it not be possible to optimize the G4 that much since you want to really have only one code base?
Thanks.
How've you become what you are...? (Score:5)
Dan
Why did you decide to port q3a for Linux? (Score:1)
Re:OS preference? (Score:1)
G4s, AltiVec - doh (Score:1)
There's even a little mini-game where reflective balls float around. It runs for 1000 frames and then gives you the avg FPS. Supposedly the G4 version is much(maybe 2x) faster.
Would it not be possible to optimize the G4 that much since you want to really have only one code base?
Thanks.
Shoulda hit "preview" the first time.
Do you play the games you make (Score:1)
I once read in Wired... (Score:5)
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
What Next??? (Score:1)
Art (Score:4)
Re:OS preference? (Score:1)
Programming Skill Question (Score:5)
Many people consider you to be one of the best programmers in the game/graphics scene, based on your ability to keep pushing the limits of current PC hardware.
I was wondering what measures you use to gauge the skill of a programmer, and who, if anyone, you look up to and consider to be a "great" programmer.
Cheers,
Justin
Commercial video games for Linux? (Score:5)
1) When are we going to see widespread adoption of Linux as a gaming platform?
2) What should the community focus on in order to bring about this change more rapidly? Should we write gaming engines, API's, contribute to MESA, or just lake history take its course?
3) What is the best way to encourage game companies that Linux development is a sound financial decision? Or isn't it right now?
4) Public adoption of Linux has been increasing rapidly over the past year, but I don't see a lot of games coming out of large development houses, except of course for ID and Loki, and right now I don't consider Loki a large development house. Why is this?
Thanks for your time, John, and keep cranking out the killer games!
favorite game? (Score:2)
Commander Keen (Score:3)
The Keen games just don't play well with the new high speed video cards or dosemu. Wolf and Doom have had there source code released; any chance we can get the source for Keen to do a Linux port? Please?
Why was Id a success? (Score:4)
Was it dedicted people, the way you used venture funding, the shear talent you have in the group, the product (Doom) being so unique at the time...
Thanx
Carmack = God (Score:3)
I'd like to know this, did you play with the Grapple yourself before making your decision or did you take advice/opinions from other people who played with and without it then make a decision based off of that?
Secondly, Do you feel that ID is moving farther away from making the games and more towards making and licensing the engines? Is this the image you've had for the company or is it just a trend that kind of happened? Are you happy with this direction?
Assuming Q3:A isn't the last game you make will the next game be another FPS? Or do you see ID branching into other game types? Are there already plans for another game?
What has your relationship with MODmakers for Q3:A been like? Most of us have already heard about the freeze on MOD making for the tests, which is understandable since it IS a Test. Has this hurt your relationship with some of the more reputable MOD makers?
That's all I can think of right now, I may post again later if I can come up with something else...
Kintanon
Other high-tech interests? (Score:2)
Violence (Score:5)
The game industry's usual response to such allegations is to tone down the graphical violence. Parental controlls can allow you to limit the amout of blood, gibs, etc.
I think that displaying the visual artifacts of violence is to treat it more seriously, and removing them won't help as much as some other methods.
Do you think such content controlls are effective? I think that a more mature story and cast would be more effective in carrying a non violent message that a bunch of 'clean' deaths would be. Of course feel free to disagree with me, as I know ID has been a villian in many murders.
Question for John... (Score:5)
Are you guys thinking of doing a something besides first person shooters? id mades some pretty good platform games once upon a time, any thoughts of trying to go back to something like that for variety? Does it get boring just reinventing the wheel with prettier graphics each time?
Common code base? (Score:4)
Persistant Worlds and Reality Modelling (Score:5)
I was wondering if you are thinking much nowdays about persistant worlds for your games, it seems you are nearing the grail of visual realism, but what about the things that go on behind the scenes. NPC's are obvious, will they 'get on with their lives' when you aren't interacting ( gibbing! ) with them? Social groups, natural occurances, things that make our world a rich and complicated one. Sometimes its nice to have a blas t in what seems like a realistic Wild West town facade, but I'm really hanging out for complex worlds that surprise the shit out of me when I do something different.
cheers and thanks for the cool stuff you've done so far
lcs
"Your gonna get up and burn an X in your head" - Some movie via Rob Zombie
NOTE: The caps in the subject are sure to annoy pedants, aren't they?
Voxels (Score:5)
---
Don Rude - AKA - RudeDude
Game play? (Score:2)
Cars (Score:3)
DirectX, Open GL, Linux and X (Score:5)
On an almost related point... Doom was the beginning of 3D, first-person shooters, and they have lived quite happilly in the gaming market for some time. Other games have proven to be stable formats: sports, strategy and/or tactics simulations (e.g. Myth), multi-player build-and-conquer type games (e.g. Starcraft). What do you envision being the next set of technical hurldes that will lead to what sort of new game formats?
Nervana (Score:3)
Here... (Score:2)
Are you happy with your life? Do you sleep well at night? Do you have close friends? Are you content?
-Amigo
Surface representations (Score:2)
I'm a huge fan of subdivision surface representations. In my mind, they're much nicer than tensor product surfaces because they are topologically unconstrained and can have natural constraints on for sharpened edges in your geometry.
Do you see subdivision surfaces making it in to the gaming industry soon? It seems like it would be a big win for character animation at least. Would a major game need to use subdivision surfaces before we start to see direct hardware support for them? What do you think the future is for curved surfaces in games?
Contact with John Romero (Score:5)
Is it possible ID may join Ion Storm for a future project together , or are the 'artistic' differences between you too great ?
Regards
Alex
Experimentation, mods, and reverse-engineering. (Score:5)
And, what did you think of how Nitrozac portrayed you in After Y2K?
Doom wasn't the start of 3D 1st person shooters... (Score:2)
Huh? So I didn't really spend ages playing Wolfenstein 3D before Doom came out, then? That said, Doom was by far the better game, and not just because of the better graphics or game engine, either. This is borne out by the fact that I'm still playing Doom today, while I haven't touched Wolfenstein in years...
Where do you want to go (today)? (Score:2)
Where would you like 3D graphics to go?
- Voxels?
- Raytracing/radiocity? (If ever possible live.)
-
-
What could you do for the world? (Score:3)
Sometimes, after reading your
wonder what you could do if you applied your
intelligence, programming skills, and sheer effort
towards something else revolutionary... You've
often said that you like working on your games
because they give you a chance to work on many
different areas (networking, 3D graphics,
compression, etc).
My question is, if you ever gave up games, or if
you were to do something else entirely, what would
it be? Although I love your games, I'd give them
up in an instant without complaint if I knew you
were going to work on something revolutionary
outside the gaming arena.
-WW
BSP (Score:3)
Computer Vision, the future of Graphics, and Q3 AI (Score:3)
In what ways could computer vision research benefeit future computer graphics development?
-Ted
Multiplatform Games (Score:3)
Non-Wintel markets are clearly not going to produce as much revenue as Wintel, so some people would say you're wasting time and money. What is your answer to this, and what importance do you see in multi-OS and multi-architecture development?
OpenGL for Quake3 (Score:4)
What are your thoughts on nVidia's new card NV10, redubed GeForce 256? Specificially the low, 120 MHz rating? Will the low fill rate that will result from this sub-standard speed be a barrier to the next generation 3D games running at high resolutions? Or will there be some workaround for this potential problem?
Finally, do you predict that OpenGL will entirely replace Glide in the future, despite the fact that certain game companies own stock in 3dfx, and have a vested interest in keeping this API alive?
Gaming communities (Score:5)
How important do you feel a viable gaming community is to the success of a new game today?
Open Source Games? (Score:3)
-Kenton Varda
The question on EVRYONE's mind. (Score:3)
boxers or briefs??
(or panties or thongs or nothing, or whatever else. its all good here)
OS Features (Score:2)
I guess I have several questions then.
1. What are your favorite features of the UI of NeXTStep?
2. Do you like anything better about Windows NT than NeXTStep besides the fact that you can use OpenGL on NT?
3. For both NeXTStep and Windows NT, which "features" do you most wish were either not present or worked radically different than they did? (_Are_ there any such features on NeXTStep?)
4. What features would Linux need for you to switch to using it over NT?
DOOM and Quake (Score:4)
Road to ID (Score:3)
How did you do it, meaning studies, previous jobs, encounter with ultra-intelligent beings from outer space?
3d issues (Score:2)
2. Will the accelerator wars ever slow down?
3. Do you anticipate there ever being a time when we'll use one 3d engine?
4. Do you think hardware acceleration has a dark side? For example, the hardware acceleration of the GeForce 256 assumes you're playing with polygons, not voxels. Could the availability of certain kinds of acceleration influence people to write bad tech because bad tech would work faster than good tech?
Linux game development. (Score:4)
I, obviously, am not Carmack. However, I think we (linux users) need to ask ourself, why would a game company develop a game exclusively for linux, or develop for Linux first, when the Windoze gaming market is: a) definetly there b) definetly much larger? The only reason I can think of, is if the game has such nerd appeal that the Linux has more paying customers.... Or if the game is substandard by Windows standards (eg: doesn't have that 'look and feel' that windoze users seem to want).
I'm sure there are API and performance issues as well, but until the market is there, why risk it? Also another possible reason, I think, is that many of these game companies are becoming increasingly wed to Microsoft APIs (eg: DirectX, Direct3D...). I'm sure Microsoft does this intentionally to make it that much harder to port games to _any_ OS, regardless of how much better the other APIs may be. (though a better API would help).
Just my two cents. It'd be nice to hear what Carmack has to say about this.
-Fall
Matrox GLX (Score:2)
PS.
Q3demo is just pure magic.
the Next Big Thing(tm) (Score:2)
What do you see as the next major advance in 3d gaming? Something like Doom or Quake was to the 3d gaming scene when they came out? Lately it seems that all we do is get prettier graphics and cooler weapons with each new engine. What do you see as being the next advance that has an impact like those games?
What is fun? (Score:4)
Piracy prevention (Score:2)
Which car do you drive to work? (Score:5)
Open Source game development? (Score:5)
Though it unlikely that games will ever be free (ala beer), since so much effort goes into them from all angles (not just code, but also art, music, design etc), but that does not necessarily preclude open source game engines.
Admittedly (and I don't mean this as a slam against you) game engines today do suffer from many of the same problems that Open Source activists attack in Operative systems and other software: bugs, instability and sometimes even bloat and vaporware.
Do you think that Open Source will play a part in the future of game development?
-
Learning... (Score:5)
I've been following your exploits, grin, for the last couple of years. One of the comments that benefited me the most was your suggestiong to read the Graphics Programming Blackbook by Micheal Abrash(sp?). Could you give a list of books that you consider excellent source material for someone that is looking and doing high end programming. Both graphical and non-graphical.
Sincerely,
Kal Kolberg
aka Lando
Re:Doom wasn't the start of 3D 1st person shooters (Score:2)
Well, if you're going to be that picky, then Quake 1 wasn't 3D, but Descent was. As far as I'm concered, Wolf3D, Doom, Quake and Descent are *all* 3D, just different sorts. Wolfenstein was a 3D game with 2D levels. Doom added the ability to go up and down, but not to look up and down. Quake (and indeed, Heretic before it) added that, but Descent was the first mainstream game to have 6DOF (i.e., full 3D movement).
Is id helped by being a small company? (Score:5)
A Challenge (Score:5)
My challenge to you is this:
Say something positive (as in 'kind', 'upbeat', 'flattering', etc.,) about John Romero's contribution(s) to the astounding success of the early Id games, up to and including Quake, and tell us what, if anything, you miss since his departure.
If you respond with something clever ("He made great coffee") or something bitter ("He never made coffee") I will surely chuckle with the rest or nod in solemn understanding, but will consider the challenge a failure on your part. If you manage to say something positive and insightful about his technical/design/whatever contributions, without retracting it or qualifying it, I will touch my head to the floor in respect and say "Wow. There goes a Man."
If you truly believe that he contributed nothing, then by all means say so and we'll call it a draw.
In any case, I will continue to be an avid admirer and follower of your efforts to continuously raise the bar of Sheer Amazingness in Computer Gaming Quality(TM).
How do you find the time (Score:5)
1) I often take a look at your
You obviously understand the ins and outs of the varous platforms you develop on, and their development tools. You're fixing bugs and working with networking issues. How do you find the time to learn all of this stuff to a useful level? Do you hire consultants to help you out for initial advice and direction?
You're the head programmer: how do you even find time to code so much when you have project management responsibilities? I find that taking on the leadership of a team can reduce coding time to 20% or less of my schdule. I find that I can't work on anything on the critical path. I find that that I am more useful if I keep myself free of coding responsibilities so that I can help others on the team and prototype high-risk or unknown tasks. Finally, on top of all this, how do you find the time for a personal life outside work?
2) Are you going to be like Bill Gates and just keep going, even though you're already extremely successful? lol! Really though, what keeps you motivated and drives you to work so hard for so long, especially now that you've earnt enough to retire, travel the world, do something else, etc?
3) I guess that this stems from 1)... how much project management and team leadership do you have to do? You have a small team of developers, do you have somebody to handle all of that for you?
Linux, Programming, and being Well-Rounded (Score:2)
1) You were once quoted as saying something to the effect that "Being well-rounded is overrated." I've always been interested in learning more as to how and why you have that perspective. Could you elaborate?
2) I understand that your specialization and ability to make the most of your area-specific knowledge has taken you to the heights of the game industry (and kept you there for years), but is your espousal of specialization mutually exclusive with the fact that id supports multiple platforms? In other words, given your statement, one would think id might concentrate solely on one platform and "mine" it for everything possible -- yet in reality you support other OSs than that predominate Windows (thanks for doing this, btw). Does that run counter to your original notion?
Thanks for your time.
-Lil' Billy
Q3A weapons + lag... (Score:2)
-
"In the flesh, on the phone and in your account.... You shouldn't have called you know."
Hardware Too Powerful? (Score:5)
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
Re:I once read in Wired... (Score:2)
Seriously...i'm not entirely sure people WANT virtual worlds on the Internet. I've played with MS-Comic Chat and it's just not that great. ;-)
Re:Your thoughts on Bungie's Halo? (Score:2)
Those WERE actual game shots. 2 of my friends (The people behind www.dailyimac.com) were at the demo showing and got to see it on the huge screen as the people were playing it. They said it was AMAZING. According to them they were running on G3 350s and didn't skip at all. I'd say when Halo does come out it will be serious competition for Q3, and when Bungie gets it out for Win32 I'm grabbing a copy to go right beside Q3:A and UT.
Kintanon
Gun control - (Score:2)
Open source games (Score:2)
--- Dirtside
What about 3d -AUDIO- ? (Score:2)
Bart "My account was the wrong size so I had to send it back" Grantham
***** VOICE COMMUNICATION ******** (Score:5)
"It's hard, so hard, to make you look so bad."
And if you're a player that feels you don't want to hear a bunch of people screaming into a mic while you play, you can just goto the option menu and turn voice communication off. There's no reason why the rest of us should do without.
"dude, I only have 5 rockets."
"ok, what impulse is it again?"
"22"
Multiple monitors (Score:2)
If it's a hardware limitation issue, would SMP help with this?
Thanks for your time
_damnit_
OS/2? (Score:2)
I'm a long-time OS/2 user and would like to know:
- OS/2 will have hardware OpenGL support(via the Sci-Tech drivers)
- OpenGL apps port extremely easily
- and Id is behind OpenGL big time
what is the possiblity(In light of the response to 1) of seeing future products ported to OS/2?I also run Linux and BeOS(my Thinkpad 1452 is set to Quad-Boot 98[for DVD movies], OS/2, BeOS, and Linux), but I prefer to use OS/2.
Why did you never bother to fight pirates? (Score:2)
Concepts of Halo and new graphics tech (on /.)?'s (Score:3)
Answers... (Score:3)
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters is like wine, but everybody drinks water."
Who is John Carmack... (Score:2)
I was never any good at this whole celebrity thing, even in this bailiwick.
--
Re:YES!!!:***** VOICE COMMUNICATION ******** (Score:2)
One can be found here: www.frag.com/qvoice
There are others out as well, but I can't find all of the URLs right now.
Kintanon
The Un-Quake? (Score:2)
Will polygon-based rendering last much longer? (Score:5)
Well... (Score:2)
I'm not agame developer. But I am familiar with MS tactics. Obviously having to change APIs makes any porting effort significantly tougher. I doubt MS did this to make a quality product, or to improve the windows experience for the sake of improving it. They do it to make it that much harder for developers and users to switch. Thus I doubt the quality is all that good. It may be sufficient, it may be a good idea. Though from what little I've heard from other developers, and Carmack's
Even if it is a good today. Do you really think MS is going to keep improving on it? Another product such as *GL* can be better in the future, but because the developer base already has so much committed to MS APIs, the advantages of switching aren't sufficient to merit an actual switch. MS will continue to get away with "good enough" (aka: mediocre), with just enough development or hype to prevent an exodus. Meanwhile precious dollars and resources that could have been spent on other efforts never make it...
No matter what you personally feel about MS's ethics, it can't be good in the long run to have one company with all the balls in their court. If for no other reason; you kill the threat of up and coming players developing their "skills", and thus nothing to keep MS on their toes.
What type of setup do you use for quake? (Score:3)
Ok there is a holy war in the quake world of what is better...using the keyboard and a 3/2 button mouse or a trackball? what type of setup do you use?
JediLuke
Re:YES!!!:***** VOICE COMMUNICATION ******** (Score:2)
One can be found here: www.frag.com/qvoice
There are others out as well, but I can't find all of the URLs right now.
Kintanon
MY bad guys, the link is gone now... I can't find another place that has QVoice... I know there are add ons for voice comm out there, I just can't find them again.Sorry.
Kintanon
Re:roger wilco is pretty cool as well. (Score:2)
Most excellent program.
Kintanon
id Gaming input device (Score:2)
what do you think would be the best device to
play ego-shooters like Quake? Keyboard just
can't be the solution, kbd+mouse is dumb be-
cause there's never enough space on the mouse
pad.
Maybe keyboard plus trackball? Or do you have
ideas for a special input device that would fit
exactly to the needs of your ego-shooters?
What did you think about the Q1 leak? (Score:5)
How did you feel when you learned that the Quake 1 source had leaked and that people were using it to create unauthorized ports for previously unsupported platforms? Outraged? Interested? Amused? Litigous?
---
Consoles (Score:2)
What's next for the Ferraris, eh? (Score:2)
John,
What are your future plans for your F50? Is there any future tuning and tweaking to be done? Also, are you interested in the new F360 Modena and seeing what it can do if tweaked a bit more?
(Note to /. Please post this question! We need some question-diversity here. Besides, John's a renowned Ferrari man!)
Sincerely,
bAz
Re:Imagine... (Score:2)
Tempting, but this would be very bad. Think about it. While you are online doing interesting things, the script kiddies are making sure that they are the most well-armed, trigger-happy morons in cyberspace. You'd be hard pressed to even touch them before they paint the wall with you. What's more, they are just the sort of people to go around shooting random bystanders just for the hell of it, so you'd probably never even see them coming. The problem is that anything a well-adjusted human being can do to get the better of a luser/AC/script kiddie, the kiddie can learn to do better, because they have nothing better to do. Thus, the only way of dealing with them is to ignore them.
Weapons have no place in a virtual world, except in specially designated places, precisely because of what the haX0rs would do with them.
Programmers and Teams (Score:2)
*What interesting effects have Brian and Michael's departures affect past and current development? During a turnover time at id Software, you made posts about trying to hold on to Michael Abrash, expressing how you enjoy "bouncing ideas off of him" and how losing "one of the best assembly programmers in the world" was going to "suck" (I thought that was the world you used...). While some other posts originating from id postulated that remainents(sp) of the team were transformed into a focused machine, Abrashe's departure likely had an impact, as does the recent loss of Brian Hook and his developer relations duties.
*How will you fill the gap left by Abrash and Brian's departure? Could you comment on the following choices without offending anyone?
In one of Paul Steed's realaudio interviews, he mentions your high praise of Corinne Yu, how she's "one of the smartest people [you've] ever met", through quoting what Brian Hook overheard you say. (www.allgames.com) When asked who you'd like to get on board, after your reassurance that there are many qualified brilliant people in the industry you'd want, you went on to say that the Build engine creator was one target due to his experience as engine , editor, and level creator. He was off limits because he's back finishing school while 3dRealms has a hold of Corinne after her departure from Ion Storm.
*Did you ever try to get those two characters? Or try to get Abrash to return? Did you hold back from contacting Corinne because she was an employee of a previous workmate, and engine licenser, John Romero?
*Have you ever had second thoughs about your small team approach? Numerous times, you emphasize preference for small development teams, in both interviews and .plan updates expressing agreement with books like "_The_Mythical_Man_Month_" which analyzes problems with large development teams.
*But, like programs that have parts ideal for parallelization, aren't there parts of game design that would benefit from larger teams, without all the problems (ie level design research/photography; not engine coding?)
-vchen(at)micron.com
What about repetitive gameplay? (Score:2)
Going hand in hand with this, what made you choose to try to balance gameplay versus stick in lots of cool new stuff? To be sure, Q3A is almost perfectly balanced when I play it - no more respawn instafrags, a rocket launcher without too much splash or speed, even a decent spawn weapon. However, I can't help but feel a little bored when playing Quake now - it's more challenging and fair, but not as exciting as firing five rockets at a time in UT or egonning nineteen people in a row in Half-Life. Do you think that, given a choice, people will choose balance over excitement?
Tim Sweeney and other game programmers (Score:2)
I would like to know who you see as a threat to you as the #1 game programmer and to id as the #1 company in FPS's? Any comments on Tim Sweeney(Unreal/Unreal Tournament fame) who has made amazing progress in this genre very quickly. Any others?
Math Background (Score:2)
The Network Is The Game (Score:2)
Can you see a time when different providers offer different portions of what me might now term a game, using interchangeable components?
Networking and distributed object technologies seem to make this feasible. Quake might have only been simple rules for movement and scoring for a game played in an existing online environment.
Where would this technology come from? Have you heard of suitable standards efforts under way?
Re:Learning... (Score:3)
Programming Pearls? The Art of Computer Programming? The Mythical Man-Month?
What's the complete contents of your bookshelf!!??
CK 7? (Score:2)
On the techie side (Score:2)
So what is your favorite pet hack that you haven't yet revealed to the world?
Linux as id's primary development platform... (Score:4)
Anyway, what I'm wondering is, "what would it take for Linux to become your preferred development platform?"
Obviously, better 3D hardware support is paramount, but what other issues are there? Would you need a feature-full, cohesive IDE? Better support for the vector instruction sets (MMX, 3DNow!, SSE)? A simpler GUI?
At the time of Quake's development, Linux as a game (development) platform would have seemed pretty silly, but with Quake[123], Kingpin, and Unreal Tournament making Linux appearances, as well as Loki's ports of Civ:CTP and Railroad Tycoon, Linux-as-game-platform is starting to seem quite viable...
MoNsTeR
Player View Models (Score:2)
Since the early days of Quake, and with nearly every FPS since, I have always wondered "why isn't the model that you see the same as what everyone else sees?". Or more simply "why can't you see your feet in games?".
I figured it had something to do with poly counts - you want more detail on your weapon than what you want to see on every other player. But in these days of GPU's (geforce) and MRM (multi-res mesh - see TF2), poly counts are going to be increasing by a huge amount anyway.
What I would ultimately like to see is firstly, my own feet, and secondly, the same animations on other players that they see on themselves, eg reloading sequences. Is this ever going to happen?
Thanks,
nick
John Romero once said in Wired... (Score:2)
How do you respond to that? Do you forsee a time when id will concentrate more on making unique games than on just building the next cool engine? Do you see building first-person games that are more like RPGs with more involved in strategy and puzzle solving, ala Heretic only with things like NPCs and more role-playing and interaction than "attack-and-slash."?
XFree86 4.0 Ramifications? (Score:2)
What are the major ramifications for the gaming industry going to be when XFree86 4.0 comes out based on the information we have now?
nVidia promises full support and acceleration of their cards. 3dfx seems to be coming along ok. Mandrake and other excelent programmers have been working to make the Matrox cards the best supported cards out there.
Will the speedup of the free X server lead to a lot of improvement in the area of 3D acceleration or will the speedup remain confined to desktop applications? What of the cooperation between game companies, id, Loki, etc, and the Mesa/SGI team. What do these players bring to the table to help us all enjoy a fully functional, fast, reliable X environment.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Best regards,
Jon Webb
P.S. Maybe you could hookup with American Magee again for some new influx of level design
Question for John C. (Score:2)