|
|
 |
|
|
Pages: 1
Carmack Addresses nVidia, ATI, and Doom In His Latest Plan
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: TotalRecall
John Carmack, one of the lead creators for id software, has released a new .plan addressing nVidia and ATI's new drivers and technology along with Doom 3. Here's a snip:
ATI had been patiently pestering me about support for a few months, so last
month I finally took another stab at it. The standard OpenGL path worked
flawlessly, so I set about taking advantage of all the 8500 specific features.
As expected, I did run into more driver bugs, but ATI got me fixes rapidly,
and we soon had everything working properly. It is interesting to contrast
the Nvidia and ATI functionality:
The vertex program extensions provide almost the same functionality. The ATI
hardware is a little bit more capable, but not in any way that I care about.
The ATI extension interface is massively more painful to use than the text
parsing interface from nvidia. On the plus side, the ATI vertex programs are
invariant with the normal OpenGL vertex processing, which allowed me to reuse
a bunch of code. The Nvidia vertex programs can't be used in multipass
algorithms with standard OpenGL passes, because they generate tiny differences
in depth values, forcing you to implement EVERYTHING with vertex programs.
Nvidia is planning on making this optional in the future, at a slight speed
cost.
(Later, this statement is made: )
On the topic of current Nvidia cards:
Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom.
Nvidia has really made a mess of the naming conventions here. I always
thought it was bad enough that GF2 was just a speed bumped GF1, while GF3 had
significant architectural improvements over GF2. I expected GF4 to be the
speed bumped GF3, but calling the NV17 GF4-MX really sucks.
His boldness is certainly admirable, especially in the situation where you know nVidia and ATI are all over him. Blue's News is hosting the entire .plan here.
Posted by: iTaL
GEFORCE 4 Ti
all the way 
weeeee
Posted by: JANNA
its just whats expected from carmack " dont get it the name suxxors" heh. after Q3 i want his advice??????....
Posted by: Null Actor
His point, in case you missed it, was that the GF4 MX is NOT a GeForce 4, and lacks even basic GF3 features.
It doesn't even support VERTEX SHADERS. Even the GF2 does that.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
Sounds like a Voodoo card.
Posted by: SKYHN
I visit IGN boards from time to time and I like how people are bragging about their GF4 MX Cards or their GF2 MX Cards. One guy actually said he can run RTCW at 1024x768@32 with full character, terrain and texture details, Light Map high lighting and Dynamic Lighting and gets no slowdown and it runs smooth. Oh and that is on a GF2 MX 400.
Its amazing how such ignorance lingers about video cards, especially those designed for 2D office applications.
Posted by: JANNA
its not like i was going to get a Gforce4 anyway but carmack isnt anywhere close to being on my list of folk that i think know what they are doing. just because u can write code doesnt mean u can make games. afterall every game based on the Q2 and Q3 engine have been waaaaay better than the original game the engine was intended for. carmack is good at one thing and one thing only: he is good at designing game engines. games on the other hand elude him.
Posted by: Null Actor
But this thread has nothing to do with games.
It has to do with 3d rendering, on which topic John Carmack is one of the top guys in terms of know-it-alls.
He's the guy who ushered in the 3d accelerated era of games. You should thank him for it.
Posted by: Outlaw
Thank you John!
Posted by: tremor
Janna, you're entirely correct. Which means Carmack has exactly the job he should - designing and programming game engines. He doesn't do the graphics. He doesn't do the "storyline" - if you could call it that. He's a game programmer, which means he writes 3D algos, AI algos, all day long, he writes algorithms. And he does it well. You may not think this - but trying writing some high-end gaming algos yourself sometime. (Tip: you'll want to go to the library first and pick up a dozen or so books on gaming and 3D algorithms, a couple of good trig books, and a couple of good books each on C/C++ and assembly.)
Believe me, game programming on the scale that Carmack does it is no easy task, and is definately not something that can be done without a fair share of brains.
|
|
|
|
|
