John Carmack on the X-box Advisory Board?

Prabhjeet Singh writes "Voodoo Extreme reports that John Carmack is on the X-Box advisory board. Here is the scoop. "According to PlanetXbox, id Software's John Carmack is now on the technical advisory board for Microsoft's X-Box console system". Check it out." The original source is on PlanetXBox. I tried reaching id for comment, but was unable to get through - this is still unsubstantiated.

Comments

Carmack on Many Technical Advisory Boards

[Caballero]

John is on several technical advisory boards, including 3dfx and nVidia. It isn't surpising that he'd be invited and accept one for the X-box as well. (I have no first hand knowledge either way.)

Why? Microsoft gets feedback from an industry expert. John gets early access to information about hardware. It is beneficial to both parties.

Is that selling out? No way. From what I can tell, John is perfectly happy to speak his mind regardless of what the hardware manufacturer wants to hear. He still does care about Linux. He joined our (PI) technical meeting a few months ago. You're just seeing less of him recently because he's busy with his next product.

- |Daryll

Re: This is a load of garbage

[korr]

I just though that I needed to point out the insane amount of technical inaccuracies with your post.

• First of all, polygon rates have absolutely nothing to do with the resolution. It doesn't matter wheter your running at 1600x1200 or 320x200, the number of polygons in a scene will remain the same. Fast fill rates is what is needed to run at high resolutions.

• The theoretical maximum resolution of a television is 720x480 interlaced. While it is true that most of today's game consoles run at a resolution of roughtly 320x240 non-interlaced, the majority of games on Sega's Dreamcast, Sony's Playstation 2, and Nintendo's Dolphi will run at 720x480 interlaced.

• Television fields are refreshed 60 (or more acurrately 59.998) times a second. When the TV is running in non-interlaced mode like most current consoles, (240 vertical lines progressive scan), the entire screen is refreshed at 60Hz. When viewing interlaced video, all the odd lines or all the even lines will be refreshed alternatively 60 times a second, emulating the feel of 60Hz.

• The XBox will be using Nvidia's upcoming NV25 chip, which is significantly faster than today's PC 3D accelerators.

• Games written for the X-box will be able to take advantage of the fact that every single X-box is the same, getting rid of cumbersome compatibility issues. This will also allow developers to 'stretch the capabilities of the hardware', much like how current playstation games look much better than the games that came out during it's release.

Editorial Kudos...

[emerson]

...for making an effort to validate the story, and stating very clearly that it's currently unsubstantiated. That's such an improvement over the standard quality of research around here. Congrats and thanks.

(Of course, it's kind of sad when standard journalistic due diligence is such the exception that it sticks out like this....)


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Carmack worship

[Shoeboy]

John Carmack will make the X box a great platform!!
John Carmack has officially sold out!!! OpenGL is dead!!!
Get a fucking grip. Carmack is just a developer. He's the best at what he does and he's got a lot of expertise, but he's hardly capable of making or breaking a console platform. Additionally, nobody has said anything about DirectX vs. OpenGL wrt this deal - which is just a rumor anyway.
You guys sound like JeffK -- John Carmaeke is SMARtey ProraEMIng WiZARD MaN!!!!!
--Shoeboy

Substantiated.

[John Carmack]

Geez, I don't think this really rates a news story...

I put off an interviewer with questions about the X-Box by saying that I was on the X-Box Advisory Board, and probably shouldn't discuss specifics, instead of just my usual "sorry, too busy" reply.

Here is the longer answer:

At last years CGDC, Tim Sweeny and I had a meeting with Bill Gates about the X-Box. It was not handled well.

For weeks ahead of time, I had been pressing for technical information so I could have something useful to comment on at the meeting. A couple days before the meeting, I finally got an email directing me to "look at this EETimes article, they are pretty close". Yeah. Ok.

So, we just wound up just talking about generalities.

A while later, I was contacted about being on the formal advisory board, with a promise that it wouldn't be like that "trophy meeting" at CGDC, but would be making critiques of real documents.

I am on a lot of advisory boards, and they vary quite a bit in level of participation.

3DFX's advisory board meets every quarter, and we go over detailed technical things. Unfortunately, the very first advisory board of over two years ago discussed a part that still hasn't shipped, so it is hard to say what the impact is.

Apple's gaming advisory board has met three times, and was moderately productive.

Nvidia listed me as a member of their technical advisory board in their IPO filing, but there has never been a group meeting. I meet with them a couple times a year privately, but I haven't had a whole lot to complain about or suggest to them since they got past the RIVA 128 (until the recent push for 64 bit color)-- they have been doing a great job.

All of the other companies just informally stop by everey once in a while to discuss things.

I had made some suggestions to microsoft about DirectSound and DirectInput in past years that were always at the wrong time to ever get acted upon, so I don't know what to expect from this board.

So far, microsoft seems to be sticking to the plan -- I got a big fat binder of stuff in today to look over before our meeting next week.

I'm all for the X-Box as a console platform. The graphics hardware is a lot cooler than PS2, and there are a lot of other things going for it. I am still uneasy about all the market protection issues that go with consoles, but I tend to think that microsoft is a more open company than many of the traditional console companies.

I want microsoft to make good products. Heck, I want everyone to make good products. Even at the height of the D3D vs OpenGL antagonism, I had always given them source drops of what I was working on, and freedom to use it for demonstrating new features.

I had hoped that they would use it as a real-world testbed for new features, rather than just dreaming them up and making the industry follow their plan without ever really testing things out.

In any case, talking with MS has no bearing on my development decisions. I'm still using OpenGL, and we are still planning simultanious releases for linux and MacOS-X. If things work out well with X-Box, that may be added to the list.

John Carmack

Re:Substantiated.

[OnlyNou]

you know what really sucks is we can't assume what you're thinking or doing. that takes all the fun out of it. i mean, if you weren't a damn geek, we could poke fun at you all day. we could call you a monster and a traiter or even a java lover.

but no, you have to express your opinion and debunk our myths and speculations.

shame on you.

You miss something!

[Otis_INF]

1) Michael Abrash (you know... quake bsp code!) works for MS, and works on the XBox dx implementation
2) nVidia will provide a full OpenGL ICD for the XBox. (as stated in numerous newsitems). Therefor: it's totally logical that Carmack is an advisor for the XBox, because he is advisor for several OpenGL Driver implementators. He knows what's needed to get performance on the thing.
3) So what! Just because it's a microsoft product doesn't it make bad. When it's from Sony it's cool but from MS it's bad? What do you want then... a bag of parts and elements and a manual to solder, fiddle and build the thing yourself ? (plus write the 3D api layer yourself, because all you have is a chipset layout). Sometimes stuff that just comes out of a box and works directly is pretty ok :) Try it. :)
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The big picture;

[jafac]

The XBox is simply another front on the "API wars".

If XBox is successful, Microsoft has another extremely powerful tool to further wedge DirectX into the minds of developers. Instead of OpenGL.

Microsoft's goal, in this, is to get developers writing primarily for the most popular platform - theirs: DirectX on Windows9x/NT/CE/XBox. Ports to other platforms, Unices, MacOS classic/x, ps/2, dreamcast, amiga, os/2 (I included the last two to illustrate what's going to happen to all the others) will be done later, if at all, there will be no parallel development if the gaming company has to get it to market fast and cheap, which is a necessity in this competitive world. Porting a DirectX game to OpenGL later will be a financial liability if you're talking about 30% or less of the combined market. The end result, less games on the minority platforms, less sales for minority platforms, market dominance, once again - didn't we learn this lesson in the 80's?

Why is the game-console important? Because, in the future, game-consoles will pick up other functions, they will get the non-PC market onto the internet - they will be the control-valve for all media - they will morph into settop boxes.

Maybe Carmack wants to get onto the advisory board to try to strongarm Microsoft into supporting OpenGL on XBox. At least that's what I'd like to believe. I'd like to believe that Carmack is still dedicated to cross-platform development, open standards, and a world where there's choice other than MS.

Obviously, by how Bungie got bought, Microsoft has some pretty compelling material supporting why developers should consider XBox. I hope that Carmack didn't bite that fishhook too.

if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!

Not news, and not surprising ...

[SuperRob]

Folks, you're all sheep. :)

Not only is this not news (Carmack IS on the board for XBox), but it's not surprising, since he is/was part of the committee that consults on DIRECTX.

And to top it off, it means NOTHING. So he's on the board? So what. Maybe they listen to him, maybe they don't. It's an ADVISORY board, and you can ignore advice.

All of that being said, The xBox folks are a bunch of smart people. I'm sure they'll listen to Carmack when he makes smart comments and suggestions. Frankly, Carmack might try to muscle people around so that everything works the way HE wants it to. What does it matter? It's a closed platform! But if his suggestions are good for the platform, then I'm sure he could be an asset.