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Yep, no one plays it... and note, that announcement was made more than two months ago.

Mentioned in his .plan file, seen here, for example, on Webdog.com:

http://www.webdog.org/cgi-bin/finger.plm?id=1/

TuxGames is preselling a Doom3 DVD with Linux binaries, quoted to be coming out October 1st. So Linux server should be out, and client soon after once Dustin is finished.

It's in progress... patience...

I'm just going out on a limb and quoting Todd Hollenshead here:

Mac and Linux: Unfortunately I don't have dates for either of these. However, Linux binaries will be available very soon after the PC game hits store shelves. There are no plans for boxed Linux games.

As seen in his plan update on the release of Doom 3 Todd plan file.

So I'm wondering what this is? Tux games buys a win32 game, repackages it on dvd along with the linux binary and an installer?

Hmmm. I'm still keeping an eye out for it. Hollenshead's .plan file (July 14th entry) states "Last, but not least, the id Store: we will have copies of DOOM 3 available, but only after we get them. I'm sure that some of the hardcore game retailers will get them even before we do. Check our website for updates on this. We certainly appreciate everyone who has helped to make the id Store a huge success this year."

Maybe another few days. My guess is they'd want to give the mainstream retailers a chance to cash in on the early purchases exclusively.

Long ago John Carmack said in Jan 2003 Doom3 was going to have a ARB1, nv1x, nv2x, R2x0, nv3x, and ARB2 path. We recently heard the nv3x path was dropped now that nvidia's driver compiler does a good enough job on optimizing a ARB_fragment_programs (Pixel Shader 2.0 in D3D terms) that the nv3x isn't needed. But is the ARB1 path still around?

The article says the min spec is:
*Supported 3D Graphics chipsets:
ATI: Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
NVIDIA: GeForce 3, GeForce 4MX, GeForce 4 Titanium, GeForce FX, GeForce 6
It doesn't list other manufacturers, but I don't know if this really implies other manufacturers currently can't run it.

What about the PowerVR Kyro (no cube map support), Radeon 7x00, Intel Extreme Integrated, SiS Xabre (useless drivers), Matrox Parhelia, 3DLabs P10/P9? Without the ARB1 path they wouldn't be able to run the game. Well 3Dlabs used to support nvidia's register combiner extensions so could use the nv1x path if their drivers are up to snuff. It is one thing to be able to run the game quickly (the reson the GeForce4MX is supported when it is technically just a quicker version of the older GeForce/GeForce2/GeForce2MX) to ensure the game is enjoyable, but it is another thing to not be able to run it at all due to not supporting modern OpenGL extensions. It would be nice if older cards could run Doom3, slowly and without specular, instead of not at all.

Also what about GLSL? Even longer ago Mr. Carmack said in June 2002 (wow, they've been working a long time!) "I am now committed to supporting an OpenGL 2.0 renderer for Doom through all the spec evolutions" in refernce to the GL shading language. Will there be a Doom3 renderer which uses the high level GLSL extension instead of the fragment program extension? I get the impression there won't be, and it would be pretty pointless with the fragment program support, but 3Dlabs currently only supports the high level fragment shaders, not the low level fragment programs...

http://www.webdog.org/plans/314/ I wonder if Justin Frankel was talking about Creative in this .plan??

June 27, 2004
It has been an interesting weekend.

Too much drinking for me, indeed, but feeling ok.

Friday night's conversations tended to that of jewelery making and politics, and taxes (estate, brackets, why we need them, bla bla bla).

But last night, due to the nature of meeting people you have multiple potential connections with (if that's not too obfuscated),I met someone who works for (and probably started or something) a company that I was familiar with, one that really has pissed me (and many people like me) off in the past. This is all a very drunken party context, but we had a conversation that dragged on,
him with his fifth of tequila and me with a small glass of scotch.

(keeping names out of this -- sir, you know who you are, and if you wish to rebutt and let it be known who you are, I will gladly give venue. mostly I'm just venting feelings here, so don't take
it personally. we just disagree on shit. oh, and I would also like to apologize to my new neighbor who had to hear most of this and was probably a buzzkill)

At the time the conversation was a little bit amusing, but in retrospect I get pissed off thinking about certain elements. Namely:
This company I speak of is one that is very patent-centric so we had much differences on the subject of patents. One line he used multiple
times in defending his stance (no doubt he had used it many times before, likely with more success):

"when you go and invent something, you'll understand" "you'll want to protect the things you invent, you won't want people to STEAL it from you".

I don't know how to write my response to this, having tried writing a big paragraph that just made me dizzy. So here are some thoughts:

1) The patent that this company was biggest on enforcing (as far as I could tell) was one that they didn't actually invent, they BOUGHT. So
yeah, they have to get return on investment. Fair enough.

2) I don't really consider myself to having invented anything, but I do realize that I could have patented things that I had developed. No
doubt. SO DONT FUCKING TELL ME I'LL UNDERSTAND IF I EVER INVENT SOMETHING.

3) Maybe I'm not enough of a capitalist, or maybe I'm too much of one, but I think that if you come up with some new idea, in this age, I think
the way to exploit it is by building it, not patenting it and preventing other people from building it.

4) Worrying about protecting patents and having other people STEAL them from you seems wrong. I mean, why make shit if you're just going to be
freaking out about what other people might be doing..

5) It seems to me that having an idea or technology that is unpatented will encourage more improvement on the underlying idea/technology, as well as competition and incentive for improvement (his response was something to the effect of "and we have the best of breed technology", and I'm like "best of breed because you'll sue anybody who competes?".)
If Intel had a completely valid all-encompassing patent on the microprocessor and anything like it, that doesn't seem like it would be healthy, nor does it seem like we'd be where we are today.

6) As someone who really enjoys writing code and making things, I feel like it's art. Being able to sit down, make something that's completely
new to me from scratch, and infringe on a patent owned by a huge multi-national corporation, that hoards patents as a leveraging tool for other huge multi-national corporations, who patent as much as possible, just sems like a really bad situation. I mean, it's been said before, but it's fucked up. Very.

That is about all. Maybe more later.

(edit: we did manage to agree on one thing, that a certain other company
that we both had experiences with sucked).

Also: I'm finding that "A Perfect Circle - 13th Step" is a quite good album.

Yes

I am now committed to supporting an OpenGL 2.0 renderer for Doom through all the spec evolutions.

From Hollenshead:


Mac and Linux: Unfortunately I don't have dates for either of these. However, Linux binaries will be
available very soon after the PC game hits store shelves. There are no plans for boxed Linux games.
More remains to be done for the OSX version of DOOM 3 and that will take some time. We won't release
the OSX version until it's just as polished as the PC version. The date for OSX DOOM 3 remains "when it's
done", but I can confirm that it's definitely coming.

His .plan has a link to a picture of Winamp being used on the space station. woot.

Both NYTimes and slashdot jumped the gun there, he certainly does still work for AOL. Read his .plan.

Doom rocks.
Quake rocks.
Doom III rocks.
So listen what Mr. Carmack says and don't bother me with for-sale company reports.

At the moment, the NV30 is slightly faster on most scenes in Doom than the
R300, but I can still find some scenes where the R300 pulls a little bit
ahead. The issue is complicated because of the different ways the cards can
choose to run the game.

"In 1991, coding a game called Hovertank, Carmack faced a challenge no programmer had yet tackled: how to get a computer to quickly render a three- dimensional world from a first-person perspective."

"Carmack presented the idea to id in early 2000, not long after he finished Quake III Arena, but all he got was blank stares. His colleagues wanted to make Doom III, a sure-fire hit, not some futuristic environment the market might not embrace."

"You do that by surprising people. And you do that by grossing them out." (Tim Willits)

Go and read Carmack's .plan file, archived here; he's already said the Xbox can run Doom3 equivalently to a PC. Doom3 only has no support for high level shaders used in DX9 class hardware.

Well, in the case of OGL, you have the core API and then each manufacturer can add various extensions to the language to suit their particular cards. They have to be approved by the ARB, but that's really only a superficial concern. So it's not uncommon to have a general ARB approved method of doing something, and then also have proprietary nVidia and ATI calls optimized for their general chipsets. Read Carmack's .plan if you want to get a bit more in-depth with this than my puny /. post :)

To distinguish yourself as a programmer you just have to be really good. It's the same as in any field.

Rank | Real name | Occupation | /. nickname | # fans
1) Rob Malda - Slashdot founder - "CmdrTaco" - 975
2) Wil Wheaton - Actor/Activist - "CleverNickName" - 784
3) John Carmack - Programmer, id Software - "John Carmack" - 606
4) Eric Krout - Bucknell engineering major - "ekrout" - 535
5) Bruce Perens - Writer - "Bruce Perens" - 516
6) Josh Marotti - J2EE consultant - "FortKnox" - 381
7) Jeff Bates - Slashdot co-founder - "hemos" - 318

Please notify me of any corrections. Updates: Added Wil Wheaton per AC comment; Added Bruce Perens; Added John Carmack; Moved Eric Krout up one spot to #4 after overtaking Bruce Perens

As it stands, I'm more than halfway there toward gaining more fans than Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. That would be a neat accomplishment and one that I'd be very proud of.

If I can come through (I was on sabatical for a week), I think it would only be proper for Rob to give me some leadership position here at Slashdot. Perhaps I could serve as a liaison between the members and the editors/coders to ensure that Slashdot continues to develop and "scale" with its increasing membership and database size.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you all and enjoy the time I spend here at Slashdot. If I can help any of you with anything (even non-Slashdot related), please let me know. I'm always there for friends (and fans ;-D).

Rank | Real name | Occupation | /. nickname | # fans
1) Rob Malda - Slashdot founder - "CmdrTaco" - 975
2) Wil Wheaton - Actor/Activist - "CleverNickName" - 784
3) John Carmack - Programmer, id Software - "John Carmack" - 606
4) Eric Krout - Bucknell engineering major - "ekrout" - 522
5) Bruce Perens - Writer - "Bruce Perens" - 516
6) Josh Marotti - J2EE consultant - "FortKnox" - 381
7) Jeff Bates - Slashdot co-founder - "hemos" - 318

Please notify me of any corrections. Updates: Added Wil Wheaton per AC comment; Added Bruce Perens; Added John Carmack; Moved Eric Krout up one spot to #4 after overtaking Bruce Perens

As it stands, I'm more than halfway there toward gaining more fans than Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. That would be a neat accomplishment and one that I'd be very proud of.

If I can come through (I was on sabatical for a week), I think it would only be proper for Rob to give me some leadership position here at Slashdot. Perhaps I could serve as a liaison between the members and the editors/coders to ensure that Slashdot continues to develop and "scale" with its increasing membership and database size.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you all and enjoy the time I spend here at Slashdot. If I can help any of you with anything (even non-Slashdot related), please let me know. I'm always there for friends (and fans ;-D).

Rank | Real name | Occupation | /. nickname | # fans
1) Rob Malda - Slashdot founder - "CmdrTaco" - 975
2) Wil Wheaton - Actor/Activist - "CleverNickName" - 784
3) John Carmack - Programmer, id Software - "John Carmack" - 606
4) Bruce Perens - Writer - "Bruce Perens" - 516
5) Eric Krout - Bucknell engineering major - "ekrout" - 513
6) Josh Marotti - J2EE consultant - "FortKnox" - 381
7) Jeff Bates - Slashdot co-founder - "hemos" - 318

Please notify me of any corrections. Update: Added Wil Wheaton per AC comment; Added Bruce Perens; Added John Carmack

As it stands, I'm more than halfway there toward gaining more fans than Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. That would be a neat accomplishment and one that I'd be very proud of.

If I can come through (I was on sabatical for a week), I think it would only be proper for Rob to give me some leadership position here at Slashdot. Perhaps I could serve as a liaison between the members and the editors/coders to ensure that Slashdot continues to develop and "scale" with its increasing membership and database size.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you all and enjoy the time I spend here at Slashdot. If I can help any of you with anything (even non-Slashdot related), please let me know. I'm always there for friends (and fans ;-D).

> I have a GF4 MX on a duron 800 and I was getting 7 FPS

I'm not surprised. Carmack has already stated that you should not buy a GeForce 4MX for doom.

now they come up with some alleged interview with carmack

Uh, that's the finger.planetquake.com .plan archive. The same text's also here and here and here and ... well, you get the idea.

I think Carmack's working from an OpenGL 2.0 draft and providing input to help define it.

"since a GeForce4 MX is a stripped down, cheaper version of the real powerhouse GeForce4 TI, "

As posted many times by many people, the GeForce MX 4 is a GeForce 2 core with a higher clock speed. The only reason it has GeForce and 4 together at all is because the marketters at nVidia knew they could sell more parts.

Read Carmack's .plan about it: http://webdog.org/plans/1/.

From reading various bits of info on the web, there seem to be four different code paths. An nVidia codepath, an ATI codepath, a default codepath, and now the OpenGL2.0 codepath.

So Matrox and 3DLabs pretty much have to put out OpenGL2.0 drivers to run Doom3 or they can implement nVidia/ATI OpenGL1.3 extensions. But the interesting case is the nVidia codepath.

The Geforce3/4 has 4 texture units. The Radeon8500 has 6 texture units. You would have to assume that the next line of nVidia cards would have more texture units. To take advantage of the extra texture units, it would seem that nVidia would have to write OpenGL2.0 drivers. This is definitely a good thing.

The following pure speculation, but given the following:

1. John Carmack has been a proponent of virtualized texture memory for some time (using system RAM as texture memory and only fetching small blocks of textures as needed, as opposed to uploading an entire texture + mipmaps).

2. Nintendo GameCube's video hardware was designed by ArtX, and is a proven working example of hardware using virtualized texture memory.

3. ATi owns ArtX.

4. DOOM III was demoed on ATi's next-generation R300 chipset.

The speculation bit: R300 has some ArtX influences, including virtualized texture memory. If so, this is a good thing (for reasons Carmack outlines in the linked document above).

y

Aside from the original .plan update from Carmack, there's been at least one official press release announcing Doom III before. This is just one of those "it's getting closer to release date so let's announce it again to make sure people haven't forgotten about us" press releases.

Total FUD. NVIDIA has been quite good about OpenGL support. I've played several of the first-person shooters (Quake, SoF etc.) using NVIDIA hardware and haven't had a single OpenGL related problem. Also, a person I have a lot of contact with at work uses SolidWorks (a nice 3D CAD package for Windows) which is exclusively OpenGL display with both consumer and professional level NVIDIA cards under Win2K. He hasn't had a single card-related crash, and he has some very complex models.

You should also read some of Carmack's recent .plan updates. If anyone knows how to stress an OpenGL implementation, it's him. A direct quote: 'Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my "gold standard", and it has been quite a while since I have had to report a problem to them'. That is stellar praise from an ISV. Also you should give NVIDIA credit for it's great OpenGL support under Linux and MacOS X.

In short, if you're seeing blue screens using the NVIDIA OpenGL drivers, you very likely have a hardware problem. Otherwise, they are very good.

Now, with OpenGL 2.0, if they have to support three different API's, isn't driver quality going to suffer even more?

How so three different APIs? There will be OpenGL and Direct3D. What other one do you count?

Oh well, ATI has been getting a lot better recently, I guess we can always switch to them. :-)

Good luck...and do read Carmack's .plan carefully first.

299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!

Quote from John Carmack's recent .plan entry:

Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my "gold standard", and it has been quite a while
since I have had to report a problem to them, and even their brand new
extensions work as documented the first time I try them. When I have a
problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else's
drivers, I assume it is their fault. This has turned out correct almost all
the time. I have heard more anecdotal reports of instability on some systems
with Nivida drivers recently, but I track stability separately from
correctness, because it can be influenced by so many outside factors.

Read the rest of the plan for yourself to see his comments on ATI's drivers.
Note the comment about anecdotal reports of instability.

Robert Duffy and Graeme Devine. Looks like an OSX build is coming down too, cool.

Robert Duffy and Graeme Devine. Looks like an OSX build is coming down too, cool.

The OS X build is looking good. On my G4 dual 800 with a GeForce 3 card I get 90fps in game, while on my P3 dual 800 with a GeForce 3 I get 30fps on the same settings.

For those wondering where Graeme's claim about the framerates were, that was in an earlier update. You can find it at QuakeFinger as well.

Alternate .plan URL since the one listed is busted. Just in case you can't use a finger client.