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John Carmack On Consoles Vs. Personal Computers
Dave 'Fargo' Kosak writes "John Carmack addressed an audience of roughly 1,000 gamers this past weekend at QuakeCon 2000. This year he decided to speak on the issue of PCs vs console gaming -- and he proceeded to do so, for nearly an hour and a half, sans notes. He also discussed id Software's plans regarding the new console generation, the X-Box, mod-making, different operating systems and more. GameSpy has posted a full four-page
writeup."
That's sad really, I had thought Linux game sales were doing well, looking at Loki's numerous ports of Windows games. But reading this article and hearing Carmack saying how he was disappointed with Quake 3 Linux sales was a bite of reality. I wonder if Linux graphics and drivers will eventually mature to the point where relatively new users to Linux can just pop in the install CD and be playing the game in 15 minutes, instead of fiddling around for a couple days and giving up.
I really think that Linux won't take off on the desktop, until this obstacle is overcome. How many people here are forced to run Windows solely because of games (that or a lack of a decent, mature web browser) or know someone that is in the same predictament?
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Because there would be no way to know how many copies are being sold to linux users, hence no way to know how much demand their would be for future linux ports.
Well this is probably flame bait, but I thought that compatability was what the Mac was all about.
For the most part, with the Mac, programs will run the first time, even if you have non OEM stuff in the boxes, and thats because there is a standard that third party manufacturers attend to. This is also true with hardware. As a couple of months ago I installed a two disk Ultra160 array in all of about 20 minutes. And the damn thing works first boot!!! I hate to say it, but sometimes standards are good things.
And as for the buy one every two years mentality, I have got a Apple Powerbook from 1995 that still sees relatively heavy use in my wifes class that she teaches at the local community college. Granted, the latest games are a non issue here but it does run presenataion software quite nicely, and as soon as she decides to upgrade, the Powerbook will soldier on quite nicely as a Linux server.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Dear John,
I too bought Q3A for Linux to support Linux games in general. I'm very proud to have the Linux version of the game.
On the other hand, I was never able to get it installed and running. I know the fix for this now, getting Mandrake Linux 7.1 which has TNT2 support, which I'll be doing in the near future.
Why can't we have an installer right away? Don't all the file names stay the same the last week or so? If yes, someone could be working on the installing while everyone else is cleaning up the rest of the killer bugs. I just don't get that.
I agree with others. Linux will never have the same thrust as Windows if the versions aren't released at the same time and at the same price. Yes I also understand the bean counter side. I've been there, but am now a Systems Analyst.
For those of you working on the GUIs for Linux. Take a look at OS/2 and you will a clue as to what I'm looking for. Yes IBM (bleep)s and is (bleep)ed up. That doesn't mean the interface and OS weren't and aren't better in a lot of ways. If only IBM would fully release OS/2 to open source. Of course there is that little part about MS owning part of the technology. How about getting the judge to force MS to give up their rights to that?
Sabon
As I was laying in bed thinking about my previous post (#5), it all became clear to me why the X-box is so feature rich. Microsoft is exempt from the Gilette wager [to refresh, "Give away the razor, make it back on the blades."]. Play along: Let's say you buy the X-box with the intent on making it your own little computer. It runs WinCE (MS software quickly available... for a price: and they know that you WILL use MS software. The price that you drop on Office 2035 will quickly recoup any loss that they might have had). They know that no matter what, you will buy the blades. Okay, let's say you buy it to be a linux box... Okay, now you can't play those nice Xbox games. The 4000 (highball) people that do buy the box for that purpose are just a drop in the bucket anyway.
Bill Gates is like Cartman: you really should respect his authority. It must feel good to sit down at the craps table knowing that you made a winning roll before the dealer even hands you the dice.
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-E. W. Dijkstra
...did a number on your sales. I went out of my way to get it when I saw it over a Fry's in Garland. Works decently and relatively painlessly with all but the latest CVS for the ATI RagePRO (Thanks to you and Gareth!). It's still quite painful and unstable for some out there.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A vast majority of the HDTV sets are widescreen. As such, I think widescreen gaming will have more apeal than multi-monitor gaming. Not many people will go to the trouble(cost, deskspace, etc) of multiple monitors for a game or two they might play whereas HDTV is the future of television in the USA(NTSC is scheduled to phase out in 2006-info from the HDTV FAQ).
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Tag line: Utilising GeoCities to subvert humanity.
wrighty.
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Think about it this way. You turn mouse-look on which is practically a default in games now. This means you move the mouse to physically turn your viewpoint and angle of vision. With one calculated move you can spin your character 180 degrees around and 40 degrees down.
Most expert FPS players set their mouse resolution insanely high so that the slightest twitch moves the character quickly. This means minimal movement, a fraction of an inch, to accomplish gymnastic moves you simply CANNOT do with a device that provides upper-limit movement like arrow pads on consoles and arrow keys on keyboards. They both provide no analog feel to movement. You are either turning or you arn't. No fast turns, no slow turns except by controlled tapping which decreases your accuracy.
That is just mouse movement. I set up my keyboard bindings to provide compass movement. N S E W. There is no turning with the keyboard that is all handled with the mouse.
If you have dual input movement you can accomplish such feats as circle strafing, attacking your opponent while he is chasing you, midair snipes, ect.
You can always tell a one-input movement player because they can't effectively circle strafe. In other words, you can circle around them, always pointed at them, and fire at them. If you are fighting somebody that is using a gamepad or keyboard input only you can stay behind them and they can't do a thing about it.
The other advantages were brought up in another message. I have a five button mouse (wheel counts as three) I bind macros to the wheel such as firing off one missile and returning to the previous weapon. You can't even make or bind macros with a console.
On the keyboard I don't use the default 1-9 numbers for weapon selection. That is too slow because it requires moving my hand from the movement keys. So, I've bound three keys around the movement area for weapon macros that alternate between similiar weapons (nail gun, shot gun - supernail gun, double barrel - grenade launcher, rocket launcher) ect.
Everything else I need is bound right within that district so I never move my hands.
You simply cannot do this stuff with a console.
I had a friend that swore by keyboard input alone. He wouldn't use a mouse because it was too weird. He was a GOOD player with just the keyboard, but there were obvious limitations to what he could do. I finally converted him to dual input and he became one of the best Quake players I've ever seen.
V
You can get the linux binaries by downloading the linux patch. Just install the patch to the windows installation.
I can't actually buy half these games in the UK. Civ:CTP and QuakeII are the only Linux games I've seen actually sat on shelves. (And yes, I bought CTP.) Loki's stuff just isn't here: even stores that WANT to sell the stuff can't. "Game" just dropped their Linux section because after four months of having CTP and Quake on it (and selling some), they couldn't get hold of new products: Railroad Tycoon II apparently STILL has no UK release date and the Windows version is in the 10 quid bin. Trouble is that now they've tried it and it didn't pan out, they're not likely to give it another go. It's no good people pointing at 30 available games if they're not actually available at ground level. If they're not on shelves, they're not going to have casual purchasers and mail ordering stuff from California is not quite the same.
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Reminds me of an old Gary Larson cartoon, of parents watching kids playing on their consoles while in a thought-bubble above their heads are their dream "Employment Ads" sections:
Wanted: Super Mario player, $70,000 plus benefits
Can you rescue the princess? Join our team: $80,000.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
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I always thought the real difference between console games and PC games is the social part. Often you fire up the consol to play with your friends (I recently spent 6 VERY fun hours playing WWF Smackdown with a friend...).
;-)
Then on the other hand most PC games are made for playing alone or over LAN. While the LAN gaming can be a social experience (LAN parties, etc.), you are mostly playing by yourself.
With a console, you and a couple of friends could have a bud... Playing the game...
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
(like a DVD player into it why the hell do you need to run a DVD player on a video game machine?)
Erm, to play DVDs?
Really what ever happened to having graphics good enough that when you look at your hand in the game it looks like your hand in real life...
;-)
Huh???
Are you talking about going back to sprites and bitmap graphics instead of real 3D graphics? I hope not.
The reason the game devlopers started using real 3D is that the bitmaps and sprites are static. If you want an object or a player to perform a new action you have to render a completeley new bitmap for each movement, distance and angle, while in 3D you just apply some transformations to the model (Very roughly spoken).
This is much easier to handle ingame and looks better, at the cost of details. The 2% advances you are talking about are the slow, but steady advances in making real 3D graphics as detailed as your mentioned photo realistic hand.
WowTIP, stating the obvious...
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
On page 3 of that interview, there's a photo of Carmack fragging - on a Mac! Looks like a G4, plus a sweet LCD screen. Hope he brought his own mouse ;)
I'm pretty sure they played on G3s last year.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I had no desire to buy the Windows version. Besides, I wanted the game as much as a reference app for Utah-GLX as I wanted it for what it was.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Metal Gear Solid should be out on the PC in September. It comes with all of the VR Missions as well. Good enough? :)
Ok I still don't understand how that can help you with anything but a narrow spectrum of games which include: 1. Things with a MUD style interface (albiet with graphics) where it could let you do things similar to what a Diku codebase could do and allow for groupings of characters in various situations. 2. Confrontational situations (FPS deathmatch, battles, challenges, chat) where some lonely stupid 10 year old will make you look stupid. Really I don't like having to pay for access to a mud (I get that for free now with a mud I play on and a free ISP, and I really don't want to deal with little billy and him making an ass of me).
Respond to s
I picked up a Q3 Linux Tin Box in little old London, Ontario from Electronics Boutique *very* shortly after Loki released them.
However,*sigh*
I pretty much exclusively play it on Win98 for performance reasons but my money will always go to the Linux guys in hopes that one day things will be better.
Kudos to id and Loki.
sTrAiN
I hate -- absolutely HATE -- NTSC...it is just aweful and I am still amazed we tolerate it daily.
I can tell by the context that you don't actually mean that NTSC fills you with awe
But what about John Carmacks Brains?
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
All I get for the third page is the the gamespy logo and a banner ad.
I can see it on the source though...how odd.
Here it is:
id Development and Consoles:
It was a natural progression at this point for Carmack to let the audience in on what direction id Software would be taking in the console market. "Our primary platform is still Windows 2000 right now, with simultaneous support for Mac and Linux," he began. "But with consoles, we are spending quite a bit of time looking at what we want to do there." Because the Xbox uses nVidia technology, he did say that it's likely to be a development direction id will take--the Xbox's technology specs are almost "spot on," he said, with what he's designing the new technology around, and so it's a natural direction for them to take.
He also discussed the consequences of developers working their titles around Xbox technology, and thus potentially favoring one hardware developer (nVidia) over another, therefore putting twice the amount of development time towards one manufacturer, possibly shortchanging those users without the same hardware. It's a tough issue, Carmack says.
While simultaneous development for the Xbox will be a trivial issue with id, the other console systems will be a different matter, simply because out of all the upcoming consoles, the Xbox happens to have system specs so close to what Carmack is currently developing for in the PC arena. The bottom line, Carmack explained, was that id remains a PC-focused developer--cutting back on the technology simply because one of the platforms they might be interested doesn't have the right feature set is not something that id is willing to do at the moment.
Windows, Macs, Linux, and id:
Porting games to different platforms has always been a contentious issue in game development, with some developers deciding not to support Mac or Linux ports of their games for varying reasons. Carmack diverted the discussion for a bit into the subject of id's support in making games for Windows, Mac, and Linux, saying that id is indeed happy to support the Mac OS/X, but that Linux is a bit more complicated.
"Quake III sales on Linux were disappointing, below what we were hoping to see on that," he said. "A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that the infrastructure is set up so that to play a 3D game is just really tough on Linux." At the game's release, it could only be played with one of two drivers: the 3dfx Voodoo drivers or the Matrox drivers. It's Carmack's hope that by the time id's next game is released, most Linux users will be running distributions of Linux that have proper 3D support.
The fourth page seems to work.
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I wear pants.
"Did you know that Wolfenstein had acceptable 3d like graphics and ran on a 286?"
Acceptable? Nevermind resolution or frame rate, the features that future games added are well beyond looks: six-degrees of freedom, arbitrary map geometry, programmable physics, truely dynamic scenery (destroy stuff, put stuff back together), and then on top of all that, the improvements in graphics are beyond looking more realistic. Games now are really more asthetically pleasing than they were "way back when". Look at Need for Speed (a driving game) or Jane's F15 sim, or Unreal. These games are beautiful. It's beyond alpha channels and lens flare.
Maybe your point is that noone has come up with a new plot? So what? There hasn't been a new story since humans started writing stuff down. The Greeks outlined all the possible stories that could be (father-son battle, gods vs mortals, etc), and everything else is just a variation on that. There hasn't been anything new in Hollywood except actors and technology since the 20s. So what?
I don't know what 2% increase you're talking about, but as much as is possible right now, humans are advancing everything they know how. Just because we haven't gotten to Mars doesn't mean a 2% increase in rocket speed isn't important.
If you want to go play Wolfenstein, be my guest, but good luck trying to modify it to change the behavior of the AI, or add new rules to the game, or change the physics, or add the ability to see through a stain-glass window and still have it run on a 286.
Now, throwing out all the technical aspects, there have still been advances in gameplay itself. All the ID games are basic "kill everything that moves", but as many have already posted, there are dozens of games which deviate from this: half-life, thief, and Tomb Raider, and dozens of non-FPS. There are sims, sports games, strategy games, tactical games, RPGs, MMORPGs, and many games that defy classification (tetris clones, for example).
You could take the stance that none of these are original, and that the creators lacked immagination, but why would you want to? There are pleny of fun games, even if they all have roots in greek comedies and tragedies. Life is fractal: it repeats itself at every scale. There's no point in calling that a lack of immagination. It's just too easy to say "this is just like that was."
So, prove me wrong and go make a game noone has ever thought of before with a story noone has heard and technology noone has seen. That would be cool.
Multimedia Technologies in Vancouver also carries some Loki's games for linux (in addition to just about every linux distribution under the sun, office suites and even BeOS, and how about XIG X-servers...).
The problem is: PRICE!!!!
I mean, it's a nice metal box, but $70 Canadian is way too much. Well ok, maybe not so bad when the game came out but they still have some older Loki games at insane "recommended retail" prices. Since Multimedia is the cheapest store in town, you have to walk about 5 meters and pick up windows version of the same game for 1/2 price. No wonder a single linux copy is sitting on shelves for months.
I disagree, though not about NTSC sucking as a video standard. I take our continued acceptance of NTSC as a positive sign - a sign that TV is not yet so important that we must spend billions just so we can watch the local news at such a high res that you can count the hairs in the anchor's nose. Long live NTSC!
I can run Quake3 at 1280x1024 -- four times NTSC resolution...why would I ever play it on a console?
Maybe because the cost of a 40" TV is actually reasonable compared to the cost of a 40" monitor?
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
As long as it can do 480P, I'm happy.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
The whinny rich kid who wants more glitzy crap? The company that is in a pissing match with another company for loosers to buy their flimsy wares? The lazy programmer who just ran out of ideas and just wants to give a game with 2% better graphics that only maybe Rembrant could really destinguish against. Take the PS2 they are going to charge up the ass for some system that will cost 3x the current selling price of the current playstation to play games that still don't look photorealistic and will probably cost more just so they could cram more crap (like a DVD player into it why the hell do you need to run a DVD player on a video game machine?) These are the problems I see. Why should people be so god damn serious about their free leasure time? Why should it cost thousands to deck yourself out. I thought mass production and modern manufacturing were supposed to drive costs down not increase them.
Respond to s
A "stateless" console system--one with the typical console hardware and no additions like a hard drive or peripherals--makes for a much more standardized gaming experience for the user--if the game you make works on your Dreamcast, it'll work on everyone's Dreamcast, because there's no worry that the user might have a different video card than you, for example. But if consoles go the way trends show, utilizing hard drives, peripherals, and other PC-like features, then, Carmack explains, "it's not a matter of a game console versus a PC, it's more a matter of PC versus another gaming platform."
With the evolution of OSs, software, and hardware on PC's i feel that eventually pc's will eventually be used primarily for development, mission critical applications, and serving a broad range from home network administration to asp's.
game consoles on the otherhand, with their extreme user-friendly-plug-it-in-and-you-have-mastered-uti lizing-it-in-10-minutes design, and the evolution of its multimedia counterparts, it will eventually be the workstation.
it may sound far fetched but both have come along way from their beginnings and will never end, technology has the darwin effect, it always evolves to survive.
pardon the spelling if it is off ;)
will work for food
I want a computer that is cheap and that works well is that too much to ask and maybe works well with current software long into the future. I really don't care if my computer is pretty or not.
Respond to s
Also, I was under the impression that everyone here was pretty much dyed-in-the-wool Windows haters. Obviously games come before principles, 'cause a lot of people here bought the Windows version rather than wating a couple of weeks for the Linux version.
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and you'd boot your computer if you wanted to play others (Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein, MS Flight Simulator).
;)
For shame! It was SubLOGIC Flight Simulator!
Still, I did love Karateka, Elite, Kabul Spy (ok, I hated Kabul Spy), Infocom.*..
*reminisce*
Your Working Boy,
Carmack doesn't intend for the best FPS graphics engine available to be used at below 640x480 Not until the Xbox is released (if it's ever released) will there be a console platform worthy on Carmack's attention Aren't you contradicting yourself here? I mean the Xbox will have the same resolution as the other consoles, right?
It's probably the video cards you've seen on the PC side that was the problem. Many 3dfx cards I've seen deliver a very washed out appearance, while many Nvidia cards deliver very vibrant colors, and I hear the picture quality of the Matrox G400 is excellent.
I have a 3dfx V3, which isn't too bad.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Sorry about the formatting, I hit submit a bit too fast.
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"And there's also the possibility of hybrid PC/console machines (like the Amiga was).
Please explain to me in which way amiga was a hybrid PC/console machine. I always thought of it as a PC, only better (at the time). The fact that the games on the amiga kicked most console games ass doesn't make it a console.
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
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The X-Box runs a stripped down Win2k kernel. I would say that about 75% of the full functionality is there, but ALL apps run in ring0. That is why they call it a 'game' machine.
What a joke, eh?
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
CBS was promoting a field sequential color system, which received FCC approval and began limited operation in 1951. It soon died and was replaced with RCA's system, color NTSC, in 1953. RCA did hardware, CBS did not. The original NTSC system used three electron guns and a shadow mask CRT. Sony invented the single gun Trinitron CRT. NASA later used a field sequential color system for Apollo and other manned missions.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This is exactly what happened to me. As soon as Q3A for Linux was released, I was all over it. Unfortunately, my Linux box is just a bit underpowered to play it, so I'm kinda stuck until I can get a new system.
A lot of Linux users have underpowered systems simply because you can run Linux very respectibly on them. Windows 2000 users are going to always have to have the latest hardware, therefore its not an issue to them. Compounding the problem is that the Linux version of Q3A was benchmarked to be about 10-15% slower then the Windows version.
Some people have commented on the fact that the game was hard to setup and run. I found the Q3A betas very hard to keep from SIG11'ing, but the final gold version was pretty stable for me.
At any rate, I'm hanging onto this CD. It won't be long before I get a new Athlon and life will be good again : )
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
There are a number of problems with both formats, truth be told. Here's how I see it:
Computer games:
Console games:
I'm an old-time console gamer, having owned consoles since before the days of the NES. Until a few years ago, the only computer games I played were Maxis-style simulations or strategy games (the one type of game I feel is suited to a mouse-driven interface). Since getting my new system, I've been delving more into the computer gaming world, but I do think I get more enjoyment out of my Playstation than my computer in gaming terms. This may change, but I'm not ready to give up my consoles yet.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Carmack pointed out a lot of interesting points about how the console folks make their money. They seem to follow the Gillette "Give away the razor, make it back on the blades" principle. With the growth of the internet and superfast network connections coming into many homes, it is not a surprise that the Game console manufacturers are a little bit hesitant to support all of the neat little gadgets available. It is sort of like the Netpliance system- they sell you the console with the expectation that they are going to make something back on it. If you go and buy a playstation, hook a a keyboard and a printer up to it, and maybe throw linux on it, they don't get anything in return for their wager that you are going to keep them alive. In the end, I don't really see how computers and consoles can really coexist peacefully... at least it is apparent that it gets harder every day.
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-E. W. Dijkstra
S is required.
Isn't the one at the end of jumps enough, or does it take two 'S's to rock your world?
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Cheers
Cheers
Jon
It may not be 1280x1024 but you can get a VGA adapter for the Dreamcast that does 640x480. You can also buy the keyboard for the Dreamcast. As far as wanting a mouse for Quake, it's simple, don't buy it for your console, buy it for the computer. I agree that each platform has it's specialities, but not everyone can afford a computer and every console that comes out.
>It's that half step ahead that will keep PCs out there as gaming hardware. They
>will always have the advantage of being able to try out new hardware ideas sooner
>than the "standard" consoles will. They will also be able to support many alternate
>hardware options that the consoles can't.
Total and utter bullshit. This is precisly the crap that has turned me off on PC gaming. PC gaming and PC gamers have little or interest in supporting older hardware with their "you need rush out and get the latest hardware" to run the latest crappy release of some lame PC game with pretty graphics.
With that said, there will always be certain genres of games I will want to play on consoles rather than PCs. Sports games, racing games, and 2 person fighting games, I'd much rather play on a console. Real Time Strategy games (ala Starcraft), First Person Shooters, and adventure games, I'd much rather play on a PC...I mean seriously, how on earth can you play a RTS or FPS on something with no mouse and low resolution??
Ahwell, I suppose all those damn Pokemon games will keep the consoles indefinitely alive, and in fact, twice as popular gaming platforms as the PC.
it seams like every one is falling for the hype. the chip (nv25) that will be in the X-box will be out next spring for the pc, and the X-box will come out 6 months later right about the same times as Nvidia releases nv30 for the PC.
Every now and then consoles jump ahead, but in the long run, the pc always catch up. I remember when playstation came out, back then every body stated it was the death of the pc as a gaming platform.
It didn't happen and it wont for a long time a head.
the pc people newer show any thing a year and a half, before they release it. So when the console people do, everybody thing they are ahead of the pc. the ps2 is currently more power full then the current pc (for graphics) but it wont stay ahead that long. the X-box wont even be better then the hi end pc at launch day.
Does anyone have a transcript of his speech?
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I like the trend toward so-called "stateless" console systems, but inevitably there will be strings attached. Let's face it, unless you have a complete monopoly over the video game market, you're going to run into the same problems with either the paradigm of stateless systems or gaming on a PC.
-- wd
I dont know about everyone else, but I don't think about shifting my attention from translation (keyboard) to rotation and up/down viewing (mouse). I just do it. Maybe that means I play FPSes too much.
Now that I think about it, I absolutely can't stand playing FPSes on consoles. The controls just aren't quick enough. I mean, how can you snipe someone with arrow keys (what the d-pad essentially is)? I can track moving things (people) much much faster with a mouse.
Mmm. Getting closer, at least.
It's gonna be a royal bitch to fit a sofa in front of my desk, though...
The real Karma Gigolo has Slashdot ID #3.14159265358979323846...
I don't see the problem with resolution. I have 20/20 and see everything fine and I don't have a problem with the actual picture unless it's from interference but when the signal is good it dosn't matter.
Respond to s
The Amiga was kind of like that. Although you could get a faster CPU, HD, memory and video card (not always though... kinda hard to stick a video card in an A600...), most games were written for the stock hardware: an A500 with 1MB RAM (the machine came with only 512K, but the extra RAM was not really a big deal). But despite this, the games kicked ass.
This kind of thing probably wouldn't work with a PC though, since the hardware isn't specialized enough. The Amiga was really a cross between a PC and a gaming console.
It's called a Mac. The more you standardize the computer, the less it becomes a PC thus defeating the point of having a completely (well, nearly) open platform and market. I think the PC would suddenly realize the limitations in some ways that the Mac and obviously a console has due to more standardization. Less software and hardware choices. The PC will never be standardized, because if it changed at such a fundamental, it would no longer be what we call a PC.
-Vic If you can't figure out my email, then don't.
I know many of us techs look for cool cases, and some of these friggin rock. The grand prize winner is a *great* idea, with PVC and all. Hope it doesnt get brittle from heat (not like there's much with that fan).
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If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
The only thing that I can add to this is the following: CompUSA started out supporting games for linux -- Civ:Call to Power was available at the one here for several months, and this is Baton Rouge, LA, not a hotbed for linux users I would think. But the best place to buy linux games is Electronics Boutique. Apparently, they get all of Loki's games in, without question. The last time I was there, there were at least 4 titles just begging to be bought, and displayed in a prominent place. So find an EB and buy linux games there. BTW, does anyone know the final sales totals for Q3A for the win, linux and mac versions? I was kinda interested in seeing where they stood at the 6 month mark.
GT is Epic's publisher (Unreal Tournament). And GT wouldn't even put the linux verion in the box, you had to download it (and I believe Loki now supports the Linux UT). Activision was the Win32 publisher for Q3A and Loki is the Linux publisher for Q3A.
Hope that helps.
I read a complaint about low sales on the Linux
...
platform. Perhaps the sales would have been better
if the Linux version had been available for sale.
You may think I'm joking, actually I've looked
in a lot of stores around here and have not
found a single one where the linux version was
available. Of course it's available on the net
but at at lest $10 to $15 more than the
winblows version.
It turned out that I bought some other kind of
games for my son, on the playstation
True, there are a lot of controls on a dual shock, but you can't access them all at once without some major hand dexterity. In particular, using both the analog and the digital movement controls at once is a joke. (never mind keeping your fingers in position near the buttons!)
Those controllers are good for some games, but I couldn't imagine playing a FPS with them.
Wherever there's a will, there's a motorway.
That's not what he was talking about. With a mouse, you can move that thing...well, about as much as you have cord, if necessary, in a fraction of a second, in order to execute that 164.5 degree turn and 17.4 degree pitch that you want (followed, of course, by the soft click of the left mouse button, sending yet another opponent flying).
The analog sticks on consoles indeed provide gradated input -- good for driving games, especially. But there is a limit as to how far you can move the sticks -- and the sensitivity cannot be set to a satisfactory level to achieve the same degree of control you get with a mouse.
Out of curiosity, have you played a PC FPS with the keyboard and the mouse? Most people who try it quickly realize there's just no other way to play a FPS...
Wherever there's a will, there's a motorway.
If I remember correctly, Tomb Raider actually jumped from PC to console, not the other way around. The sequels came out on console first because they were having more success there but the original started as a PC game...
I bought the Windows version. I did this because at the time 3D support for my TnT2 was crap. Since then I have downloaded Xfree86 4.0.1 and the Nvidia drivers and the Q3A Linux patch 1.07 and it works perfectly. I personally think that a hybrid CD would be brilliant, after all you are paying for the game not the OS. Besides most of the people I know who use Linux use Windows as well and would prefer to be able to run the game in both OSes.
Ah, but i'ts pretty obvious assertation . . . .
I disagree.
I think there are plenty of original games coming out. It's just harder to find them, because the market is so glutted with crappy games. Original is a relative term. It's like people who complain that all Hollywood's movies are unoriginal and stupid. What are you comparing to? Are you looking back at the first video games and noticing that the jump in originality from no video games to early video games was more significant than that from last year's games and this year's game? Well duh.
I also think that comparing Wolfenstein to say, Quake III on strength of the 3D graphics and finding them close is laughable. I guess I am one of those people who claim graphics have increased "soooo much." Download the latest trailer for the Final Fantasy movie and tell me we aren't advancing significantly in 3D graphics. Sure, that's not real-time gaming, but in a few years, maybe it will be. Quake III's quality would have been movie-special-effects quality a few years ago.
If you think the existing games suck so much, why don't you go make one, and we'll see if we like yours better. If we do, then you'll make lots of money and the gaming community will be happy. If not, maybe you'll stop complaining about the better games that are coming out.
Moderate this one up!!
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
One of the big advantages of consoles is the standardization they provide. Plug in a game and it works...no questions asked. One of the big advantages of PCs is their ever increasing processing power (and upgradability).
In order to simulate reality, PC gamers stay near the bleeding edge of technology, to get the most processing power and best simulations. But the cost is reliability, standardization and stability. Movement away from the bleeding edge improves standardization/stability, but degrades the ability to simulate reality.
Obviously we are heading toward incredibly inexpensive computing power. Raw processing power doubles every 1.5 years. Hard Storage capacity doubles every 1.0 years. Graphics Capacity doubles every 0.5 years, and RAM continues to drop, but in a more erratic fashion.
As this happens, there will come a point where we have enough processing power to do ultra-realistic real-time virtual reality simulations. Once our machine's ability to generate information matches our eye's ability to absorb the information, then we will have little need for additional game processing power.
As we move in that direction, there will be less incentive to stay near the bleeding edge of PC technology. Therefore PC systems should become more and more stable and standardized. This will reduce the incentive for using consoles rather than PC games.
Thats exactly what the x-box is. Its just a pc, only you know what the hardware will be for gfx and sound.
the ppl that do go to linux switch because they recognize its affordable development capabilities, portablility, and the fact that it can still be thrown onto a 386. while many of these ppl to infact 'game', the majority of the ppl that go down to the local comp store and buy games off the shelf aren't very tech-inclined. im not knocking gamers stupid or anything, many are quite brighter than i am, but no matter what field you look into, whether it be gaming, coding, drawing, even cooking, for every 1 person that knows alot about what they are doing, there's 3-4 people that just know how to do it, and nothing else.
will work for food
try a 19" monitor (i got mine for about USD$300), some decent computer speakers (maybe with a subwoofer) and a comfortable chair.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
:wq
I also own both PC and PSX. My PC is being used for all kinds of stuff: trying out WinME and SuSE, playing Quake3, UT and Diablo II etc. My Playstation however has only two purposes in life: to play Square RPG's on (bigscreen hooked up to stereo kix azz) and to kick peoples buttocks! There's nothing as fun as playing games like Tekken, Soul Blade or Street Fighter Alpha 3 with 4 people or more. The tension, the competition (winner stays) the frustration in the opponents face when I'm at 15+ straight wins.. irreplaceable. Don't get me wrong, I love deathmatch! There's just one thing missing: you don't see your opponents face. I want to see his/her face when the inevitable announcement comes: "Perfect!" That's what makes gaming fun: showing your skills to other people. The 'look what I can do' feeling. Shooting someones head off is fun, but IMO not as fun as bashing him senseless with a 15-hit combo he's never seen before. So, in conclusion: a PC is cool. A console is cool. But to get complete gaming satisfaction, you need both. One for hours of lone gaming with the lights dimmed.. and one for beat 'em ups fests where the weakest leaves crying.
I'm not ugly, girls nowadays just don't have taste!
I to am in a country that did not see a single copy of the linux version made available for sale. While the numbers had been low, the linux version unavailable for purchase is going to squew that further. This is not a problem with the shops themselves, but the importers that did not bother to give anyone the option of a linux version. Kal
Back in my day, the only thing we had to play with was a rock and a stick. And the stick was made out of rocks!
Don't mind what others say, think by yourself, is a nice saying.
:-)
According to this article, the story was this:
As the machine developed, there was increasing conflict between the financial backers and the developers. The Amiga team wanted to create a computer but the management simply wanted a game console. Amiga were under obligation to create a console, leading to the addition of a cartridge port in the Lorraine prototype. Alongside this a number of 'features' were added, including a keyboard interface and room for expanded memory.
That tells me that amiga was designed to be a computer. I know others won't always find it necessary finding all the facts, but...
I think Jay Miner, one of the original hardware developers, had previously worked on the Atari 400 & 800...
So??? If you developed some consoles, you can't ever develop anything else ever? C'mon...
My belief is that you in a case like this, look at the product, think for a while and then make your own judgement. The only reason I can see naming the amiga a hybrid, would be that it's possible connecting it to an ordinary TV? But that was the fact with most home-computers these days.
so you can see why this design is sometimes also considered a computer/console hybrid.
No, but I can see why this design is sometimes misconsidered a computer/console hybrid, by people that doesn't know better.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Indeed, there are merits to have the resolution set lower to provide greater accuracy. Don't underestimate the macro features built into most PC FPS games. My setup had two macros made, I bound them to the wheel on the mouse.
The macros basically did three things. If you pull the wheel towards you, it set the sensitivity to a low level, tells you that it did so, and binds two new macros to the mouse wheel. The two new ones are the next stage of settings. So in other words if you pull the wheel towards you again it will execute a macro that makes the mouse even slower, ect.
What is this good for? Take the TF Sniper, 3 clicks up...high sensativity 'dual mode'...run to an opening...4 clicks down...ultra-high precision...BAM...4 clicks up and run to a new spot.
You get the necessary sniper/railgun accuracy plus the high powered speed you need to dual. You have to get used to the sensativity shifting all of the time, that is a little weird at first.
V
In addition, it unfortunately wasn't released at the same time as the Windows version. I don't think many people bothered to wait...
I was talking about the pads with arrow keys alone. The ones with mini-joysticks are better, but still not good. The mini-joysticks are too small and provide much less of a tactile feedback than mouse movement.
The same thing goes for standard joysticks on the PC. You won't find many good FPS players using a joystick. Why? You have full analog build-up sure! But you are still stuck with the upper-limit.
Technically a mouse DOES have an upper limit, but in practice you'll never find it. You'd have to move your hand faster than is humanly possible.
Obviously then, there is a much wider range of precision, and this precision is guided by a very menmonic -- the faster you move the faster the character moves -- feel. Sliding a joystick toggle over until it hits the edge and maxes out, really doesn't do this.
V
in some respects it was way ahead of it's time
Yeah, sure. Too bad it was such a huge PITA to code for. There's a reason some cool-but-too-hard-to-use technology often finds its way to the landfills of America...
Carmack's noteworthy comment in his talk that id's plans to port Doom III to the X-Box are pretty much set, but it's less likely for PSX2 or other consoles demonstrates one big point in the X-Box's favor...easy to develop for for PC game programmers.
Well, I don't know about everyone, but you pretty much listest the reasons that I haven't yet bought Quake 3 yet. I have a nice Voodoo3 card sitting at home waiting to be installed in my main computer. It isn't installed yet because XFree3 doesn't support it, and I haven't been able to get XFree4 working with the millenium card in the machine. Until I get that working I don't want to even think about putting in hardware that would break XFree3. And even when I get XFree4 working in 2D mode, I'm not looking forward to configuring stuff that requires a kernel recompile, because that always mean a week of lost time to me due to trying to get all my accesories working again.
And if I had all the hardware set up, no local stores sell the linux version, so I'd have to find a place to buy it over the internet that will take a Money Order.
-- Superlame http://catpro.dragonfire.net/joshua/
Interesting article by Mr. Carmack regarding the Linux gaming market, and, I suspect, the Linux industry as a whole, right now. Not terrifically encouraging, given his comments. But he does make very valid points that need to be addressed by the Linux community as a whole, before they can step up and be called a true player in the OS wars. The unfortunate truth is, time is money; and hardware costs money as well, and one cannot spend time on something that does not feed himself and his family. So, for Linux to spread beyond the hobbyist and programmers, it has to be profitable for any company, and it has to be easy to use for the casual non-power, non-programmer user. So, methinks it's time for the Linux community to address these issues, and soon, before they die on the vine. IMHO.
Traditionally, it's been more than a half step. PS/2 and X-Box are the first consoles ever that will be/are all that close to being as powerful as their PC rivals.
The next closest thing was the Sega Saturn. Playstation was never as powerful as PCs when it shipped, largely due to the low resolution and the poor little 38mhz R3000 32-bit MIPS processor. (MIPS being a company here, for those that don't know, now part of SGI I believe?)
The up side of PCs is that they are upgradable, as you said. The down side, of course, is just the same point. You get developers making it so that their games only work with a 3d accelerator (This is called "laziness" or "marketing schedule" since it takes time and effort to do a software 3d engine) and so that they require the latest and greatest Pimpium Processor with Increased-Level-1-Cache-X technology. But again, this is also the strength; You can wring more performance out of a PC with every new upgrade. Console systems don't HAVE upgrades.
Or at least, they didn't. Now you'll be able to add more peripherals including hard drives (PS/2 will have an IEEE1394-connected disk; X-Box will have one internally) and ethernet NICs (What's taking Sega so long?) but it's important to realize that these are very limited numbers of upgrades. I don't know anything about how these boxes are doing things internally, but I'd assume they're just using TCP/IP for the networking, so you as a game developer don't have to care about what the connection type is, just about metering your bandwidth usage. On a side note, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft also included NetBEUI support on the X-Box's version of Windows Whatever; In fact, I'll be kind of let down if they drop it. It's really useful on small, non-internet-connected LANs. Being able to buy a 10mbps hub and hook three or four X-boxen up to it and not have to do any configuration would be slick.
Also, there's been a lot of talk about USB, but it's important to recognize that most USB devices will not be usable. Period. Oh, you'll be able to use the most common cameras and such, any standard USB hub should work (But that's pure speculation) and of course there's the ubiquitous Zip USB, which I suspect will be supported by everything just because everyone and their great-grandmother has a Zip drive, seemingly even if they don't have a computer. I kind of doubt anyone will adhere to a filesystem standard, but if they do, for the record, it should be Fat32 or Fat16.
It really is nice just how stable console systems tend to be. I do say tend because there are always crashy games on console platforms. Even Driver, one of my favorite PSX games, has a crash bug I've run into. But all in all, console games don't have those problems, and that makes them very attractive. Also, consoles are instant-on (some of them have really annoying splash screens you can't skip, though, are you listening Sony?) and hook up to your TV. For those who hate NTSC, the current generation of consoles all have VGA built in or as an add-on.
Are consoles going to kill PCs? Not any time soon. Will they shrink the PC market? Most definitely. What do I think Console makers need to do to shrink the PC market? Get a good standards-based web browser that supports DHTML, Flash, Shockwave, Windows media, Real media, mp3s, Java, and HTML 3.2. This one thing alone will make many, many people forget about their PCs and move to a console.
Everyone look out for Microsoft.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
. . .is Carmack's EXCELLENT point on how the X-box--if it IS the 'future of gaming'--will force games to be written around propietary NVidia chips. Does this disturb anyone else? I have nothing against Nvidia (other than the usual), but I think that in the extremely limited graphics card-technology marketplace, this will slowly stamp out 3dfx (who're half dead already) and any startups.
'Course, from a programmer's perspective, maybe its good news--no more diverging standards, huh? But I'll miss debating which is the hotter card during class!
-s
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
Well, there was the CD32 console-type machine.
Later...
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
And why shouldn't they? Easy creation schedules (the hardware never changes, no need to catch up during a product's construcion) and easy support paths make the console a dream. Plus, after licensing fees constructing a couple million GD-ROMs, with almost intrinsic copyright protection (until recently, noone could really break them) is a cinch.
According to some gaming magazines, PC gaming might be going the way of the dinosaur. Not too many actual hard facts, but it gets you thinking, with this much power and copyright protection on tap for the next generation of consoles, why wouldn't developers go that way?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
> At 32, since the day I first got my hands on an Apple ][+
:-)
;-)
;-(
:)
Ah, the good old days, when a person could ACTUALLY understand the whole computer / OS / Hardware.
> When I wasn't playing games on my Apple, I was either cracking their copy protection and disassembling them
Aye, like figuring out how to make a backup copy of Br0derbund's "Wings of Fury." I actually un-write protected the disk, by punching a hole on the side of the disk. Then after modified the boot sector, I was able to do nibble trace to see what exactly it was trying to read off the disk. FINALY was able to make a backup copy of the disk with Copy II Plus
Or figuring out in Captain Goodnite, that whenever your pressed the 'T' key to show your time remaining, to reset the time back to 24 Hours
I never did figure out how the change the landscape in "Rescue Raiders"
>, or making lame-ass attempts at writing my own. > I learned how the Bresenham line algorithm worked by poring over the entrails of Ultima II's DNGDRAW.OBJ
The early ultimas were great for learning about graphics. Tile-based graphics? Wazthat? hehe
> and Karateka taught me what good sound and animation code looked like.
Does that ever sound familiar !
One of my best hacks, was ripping the end music from Karateka and converting it to real music notation. I "shadowed" the ROM into the 16K language card, and made the Reset ALLWAYS dump into the "monitor." Since Karateka only used 48K, it left the shadow'ed rom/ram alone.
Had to love that timely Nibble article on "Duel Voice"
Anyone want the the Karateka MIDI file ?
If msft made a computer today "optimally designed to run Winders 2x" the DOJ would probably send old Bill to Levenworth. The solution, therefore, is for msft to get into the hardware racket via the backdoor. It's a simple concept of thin-edge-of-the-wedgery really:
1. Make a console, give it some net connectivity.
2. Establish a hefty marketshare.
3. Offer web/email/yattayatta as enhancements or a 2.0
4. Bring out a new copy of Office with some web-connected features (like, oh, a power-point driven email reader... msft's had worse ideas...)
5. Offer this new Office for the X crowd.
6. Gotta have a keyboard and mouse for that... make those too.
7. Throw in a monitor for that hi-res everyone wants
8. Announce that the next X-thingy will have the option to run winders
9. It's a computer... but it's still a "game console".
10. Version 4.0 is "optimized to run Winders 2003"
Since the "total Microsoft solution" seems to be actually popular with people, the Xcomputer will sell a tonne. Why buy from Dell? It's essentially only a partially-supported platform by the time we get to point 10. It runs winders standard but those "extra" features require the optimized Xcomputer.
But it's still a game console if the DOJ comes knocking.
Am I paranoid or what?
2 1337 4 u!
My first game machine was a NES system and my first computer an intel 80386
Respond to s
At 32, I'm already something of an old fogie, relative to many of my peers in the PC game business. I've been a programmer ever since the day I first got my hands on an Apple ][+ at the age of 14. Even with the threat of encroaching senility on the horizon, I can still remember debating the merits of 8-bit home computers vis-a-vis the primitive game consoles of the day. Those debates sounded an awful lot like the debates we're having today. The ultimate answer back then was that most gamers were better off keeping both platforms handy. I think that's still true.
:)
:)
There were giants in the earth in those days. The "PC" platforms were the legendary 8-bit Apples, Ataris, and Commodores, while the "console" guys owned Colecovisions, Intellivisions, and Atari VCSs. The IBM PC platform hadn't made any significant inroads into consumer space by the early 80s, at least not in my neighborhood. Just as today, though, practically all of the people who had a home computer also owned a home videogame console. And just like today, you'd crank up your Atari if you wanted to play certain games (Missile Command, Space Invaders) and you'd boot your computer if you wanted to play others (Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein, MS Flight Simulator). I don't remember anyone complaining about not being able to play a decent game of Zork on their Colecovision or Kaboom! on their Apple. Games that required more than the 'twitch and dodge' level of user interaction were played on the home computer, while those that relied on bright, colorful animated sprites were a natural fit for the consoles of the time.
I was (and am) different, though -- I didn't own a console as a kid, and never felt the slightest stirrings of desire for one. Still don't. When I wasn't playing games on my Apple, I was either cracking their copy protection and disassembling them, or making lame-ass attempts at writing my own. I learned how the Bresenham line algorithm worked by poring over the entrails of Ultima II's DNGDRAW.OBJ, and Karateka taught me what good sound and animation code looked like. When my friends and I would discuss the relative merits of console versus PC gaming, it would always come down to that: my platform of choice was a genuine creativity tool, and the other was just a thing they hooked up to their TVs to play a bunch of games I sucked at.
I could not have become a professional programmer and game developer if my folks had bought me a Colecovision instead of an Apple for Christmas in 1982, and neither could Carmack, Romero, Garriott, or many of the other eminences grise currently duking it out on JeffK's SmartyMan Gaem Designar Survivor Island. We all got our start more or less the same way: by making the most of an open platform.
So it's with some regret that I see PC game developers flocking to the PS2s and XBoxen of the world, cheerfully paying Microsoft and Sony ten bucks a box or more in hopes of deliverance from the PC's tech-support hassles and platform variability. The magic of the Apple ][ was that it was a general-purpose computing device that could do anything you wanted -- you could run the assemblers and editors you needed to build your game on the exact same piece of hardware that Nasir Gebelli, Richard Garriott, or Ken Williams had on their desks. There were no excuses -- you could do anything those guys could do, assuming you didn't suck.
Fortunately, that's still true of the PC world today. Even though our machines are close to five orders of magnitude faster than the old 1 MHz 8-bit home computers, any high-school kid with a PC still has access to an inexpensive, ubiquitous, open platform fit for nurturing new talent. (Microsoft bashers may object to my application of the term 'open platform' to a Wintel PC, but as far as I'm concerned, any machine I can write and sell code on without paying platform royalties is 'open' enough.)
My lengthy rant will have served its purpose if it inspires some of the die-hard console advocates out there to give a second thought to their own history. Few games more interesting than Super Mario Brothers really owe their origins to the proprietary arcade/console side of the business. Almost all the good stuff came from some bored, geeky kid fooling around on a home computer, or from college students with more access to general-purpose computer hardware than their professors knew what to do with.
I don't think PC gamers and console gamers are genuinely trapped in an us-versus-them situation, but if I'm wrong, and we really do have to draw battle lines in the sand, I know what side I'm on.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
It's a trade-off for all involved, and for many ppl I know, 1/2 the fun is in playing games, and the other 1/2 love the fun that the challenge of getting everything to work together that he the "ultimate" PC system entails. Two different crowds for the most part.
The Mac, in it's first few generations, was never intended to be upgraded. Thus the same hard-core following that console games have garnered. When Apple decided that expandibility was a potentially "good-thing" for their Mac line, they unleashed ADB, SCSI I, and Universal Bus *cough*. Lessons not learned from the Apple I and on. x86 systems suffered from the same add-on hardware problems back then (and now), so go figure. They all suffer from the same standards problems. Which was really my whole point.
Anyhow, no flame bait intended.
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
You can excuse Nintendo for that stuff though. None of it costs more than $30 (find me a GeForce 2 for that) and the N64 is going to be competing with the Dreamcast and the PS2 for awhile so they have to do something to keep up. And they aren't doing that bad. Some N64 games are almost as pretty as Dreamcast games (almost). And there are a bunch of N64 games that are a lot more fun than any games on other consoles, if not as pretty (ok, just Perfect Dark and Goldeneye).
You can probably put some blame on the late release of the Linux version. Too many linux users just went and got the windows version. And I blame them if no more games are ported to linux and Loki goes out of business:)
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
People have no responsibility to the console manufacturer to fit into their revenue projections
Sure, but try making a phrase from these words: kill, goose, egg, golden.
Am I the only person on the planet that thinks that the Xbox will make a nice cheap Linux workstation? It's going to be built from commodity hardware; Intel CPU, hard disk etc! Look what happened to that i-opener thingumy.
It'll have to compete with existing console hardware in terms of price so we're talking £100 or so. All subsidised by MS. They expect to lose money on the hardware and make it back on software. Well, Xbox + Linux distribution + star office makes for some extremely cheap systems.
VARs could kit out entire corporations for a fraction of the price of current desktops.
Deleted
By the way, you didn't get first post, asshole. ;-) Next time just show your true colors and shout "f1r5t p0z7!!" with pride and dignity.
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All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
If you want to nuture the linux market, don't release linux binaries on the net to download, only do patches (for a while at least), But do provide windows binaries on the net for all to download. Therefore when people want to play on both platforms, they buy the linux copy and download the windows executables. It is also important for the casual gamer to easily buy a copy of the linux version at the store. Most people won't shop online for it because they want it then and there. Most people don't want to wait for shipping.
I am not a "hard core" linux guy and I like to be able to play the games in multiple OS. I thought about buying the q3 linux version however, unlike UT if I don't get it working correctly I can't just play in win98. The thought of having to buy two games to work on my PC, is not something I enjoy. Zyrod
Actually, XFree86 4.0's pretty stable- once you get the damn thing up and running. They shipped when they said they were on that- but they shipped it without everything in place. Config tools and a fuller set of drivers were (and to some extent, still are) lacking. As I put to my friend, you're really pretty well off in the hardware category (He's got a TNT2...). If you're brave, go for it. If not, sometime by the end of this year, the distributions will have the issues mostly nuked from orbit and you'll be seeing plug-and-play (not plug-and-pray) operation of 2D and 3D stuff.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If John Carmac uses the new Mac Cube, no geek can be ashamed of lusting after one!
been out for 5 years, time to comment again...
For a short time, CompUSA carried the Linux version of Quake and QuakeII on the shelves around the time it shipped last year. They got 10 or so of each at the Dallas North Tollway and at the Lewisville stores (most of the other stores didn't seem to have them...) over Labor Day I think. They sold almost all of them out on that day and then never had another set of any units of any of the games from Loki on the shelves. The only place that I was able to locally obtain Civ:CTP was Electronics Boutique. The only place I was able to locally obtain Quake III was Fry's. In fact, it seems that the only ways you can get Linux games in my area is to:
1) Go to Fry's.
2) Go to Electronics Boutique and hope a manager ordered a copy.
3) Go to Electronics Boutique and have the manager order you a copy.
4) Go online and order it from one of several sources.
You can get Linux itself (Incl. Mandrake!)at all the resellers.
You can get WordPerfect and Applix at all the resellers.
Something's broken down with the distribution chain here- not sure what.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Yes, the linux sales figures were low. Low enough that they are certainly not going to provide an incentive for other developers to do simultaneous linux releases, which was a good chunk of my goal. The sales would cover the costs of porting, but they wouldn't make a bean-counter blink.
I think Loki did a fantastic job - they went above and beyond what was required, pestering us (a good thing in this case) about the linux deliverables, taking pre-orders, doing the tin box run, shipping CDs first, then boxes when available, etc.
There are a number of possible reasons why you might not have bought the linux specific version:
You couldn't find the game in stores near you. This is going to remain a problem for quite some time.
The game is available earlier for windows. Even with a simultaneous release, this is going to continue. Big publishers making large lot runs get priority, and that is just life.
The game costs more for linux. This is probably also not going to change. The wholesale prices are probably the same, but big stores severely discount popular titles and advertise them to bring customers in. This won't happen with linux versions.
Configuring 3D on linux is a significant chore. I expect this will largely be gone by the time we ship another game. As the DRI drivers mature and XF4.0 becomes standard in distributions, people should start having out-of-box 3D support.
The game runs slower in linux than under windows. While we did have a couple benchmark victories on some cards, the general rule will still stand: a high performance card on windows will probably have more significant effort expended on optimization than it will get from an open source driver. Nvidia's drivers may be the exception, because all of their windows optimization work immediately applies to the linux version, but it is valid for most of the mesa based drivers.
Trying to change this would probably have negative long-term consequences. There are certainly coders in the open source community that are every bit as good of optimizers as the driver writers at the card companies, but I have always tried to restrain them from going gung-ho at winning benchmarks against windows. Mesa is going to be with us five years from now, and dodgy optimizations are going to make future work a lot more difficult.
Loki's position is that the free availability of linux executables for download to convert windows versions into linux versions was the primary factor. They have been recommending that we stop making full executables available, and only do binary patches.
I hate binary patches, and I think that going down that road would be making life more difficult for the people playing our games.
That becomes the crucial question: How much inconvenience is it worth to help nurture a new market? We tried a small bit of it with Q3 by not making the linux executables available for a while. Is it worth even more? The upside is that a visibly healthy independent market would bring more titles to it.
The fallback position is to just have hybrid CD's. I'm pretty sure we can force our publishers to have a linux executable in an "unsupported" directory. You would lose technical support, you wouldn't get an install program, and you wouldn't have anyone that is really dedicated to the issues of the product, but it would be there on day 1.
John Carmack
Not on a playstation dual-pad. Thats got 8 buttons, one digital pad (which I often uses as buttons for weapon/item switching or banking in space games) and 2 full analog pads (1 for aiming, 1 for strafing). Personally, I've always really hated the 10-key-weapon switching system. In Q2, I always bind 3 keys to use the inventory (left, right, select).
Perfect Dark? ok so it doesn't require the rumble back but it does require the memory add on as does the new Zelda
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However, there are third party companies working on bringing better graphics hardware to the Mac. It's still not as open as the x86 world, but it is getting better despite Apple's efforts to keep the platform closed.
And while the PC user has more choices about the functions of his or her computer, there are more games available for consoles than for PCs.
I haven't tried Perfect Dark, but I played Turok 2 for n64, and while the single player is weak, its damn good for multiplayer. Since it separates the aiming (analog pad) from the moving (c-pad) it makes it handle much more like a traditional mouse+keyboard FPS combo. Its got a really fast weapon-switching system (hold the key then push the direction of the weapon on the display) so no cycling through a long list, just quick click+select. Because of its improved control system, you can actually aim up or down without switching to aimer mode (one reason I can't stand goldeneye). Theres also a really wide weapon spread. Its not PC Q3a, but I think it comes the closest to feeling like a proper PC FPS game.
Assuming your gaming world consists of nothing but carbon-copy first-person shooters. Mine doesn't. :-b
As someone else mentioned, NTSC color goes back to the early '50s. There are great resources on the web detailing the history of the development of the system. Non interlace RGB? With what bandwidth are you going to broadcast this with. Even with the new HDTV standard, it has to be compressed to fit within a 6Mhz slot.
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
Some games are better off in 2d, for exemple Lemmings, Populous, etc. I never really liked the 3D versions of these games. I'm not even sure of Blizzards move, releasing Warcraft2 in 3D.
But if we are still talking 3D shooters, it would be a pretty bad move to go back to sprites & bitmaps.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Funny, but five years ago, Sega Saturn was able to connect to the internet...and it wasn't just for head to head play (since few games even offered that), you could buy a keyboard and a mouse and surf and send email. Five years ago. On a "gaming" console.
Maybe it didn't have the lion's share of games, but in some respects it was way ahead of it's time. Anyhow, I like how people think that something is new because they haven't seen it before...
Yes, I know who Carmack is, doesn't make him perfect.
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Yes, and there was the Amiga CDTV too. But they were practically stripped down versions of the full computer. The CDTV was an Amiga500 with a CD-rom, without the keyboard and mouse (optional). The CD32 was an Amiga1200 with CDROM + special video chip, without a keybord.
I bet you could make a console out of an IBM compatible PC too (Sounds like the xBox, doesn't it?), but that wouldn't make your standard PC less PC, right?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
>Carmack is master of the gaming world.
:-b
Assuming your gaming world consists of nothing but carbon-copy first-person shooters. Mine doesn't.
Carmack is the master of PC gaming graphics. Or was, back before most PC developers knew mucb about 3D. These days, Quake III looks pretty run of the mill next to lots of games, technology-wise (ditto for Unreal Tournament).
Does your mom know act like this?
2 1337 4 u!
The other problem, of course, is all that information is packed into one wire. Unlike your monitor, where your R, G, B and timing signals are seperate from each other all the way from your video card to your monitor's phosphers. NTSC has everything multiplexed down a single channel. Color is defined as an angle around a color-wheel!
Basicly, NTSC sucks. It was a compromise 20 years ago, and should NEVER be thought of as a serious output device for anything above bad movies, talking heads, and low-detail games. On the other hand, I'm not going to be buying a HDTV receiver for a long time. 16Cx12C multiheaded does just fine. 9-)
Carmack said "Quake III sales on Linux were disappointing, below what we were hoping to see on that," Personnaly i own a pentium pro 233 with a Voodoo3, and with Windows i get approx 35fps. With Linux i am at approx 28fps. I would have preferred to buy the linux version of Quake 3, but this difference in the frame rate is what makes Q3 playable on my computer or not. I am -forced- to play under Windows.
Maybe not, but it was well-designed. And the storyline might have been cliched, but at least it existed. I mean, with Quake 3 they just got rid of even a semblance of a story.
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echo "your text" | tr AETSO 43750
which changes A's into 4's and so on.
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
How would it be possible to use the PS2 as a peripheral for a computer? What for? Any ideas on this?
(Was Carmack getting at this in his speech?)
John, thank you for contribution to this discussion. I really appreciate seeing the producer's side of the argument once and a while.
That finished, I'd like to say that I disagree with Id's recent release decisions with Q3, which I view in the same context that the software industry in general supports: it's lack of committment to simply proving a software licence indepenent of operating system platform. The very fact that Id charged money for each platform-specific release of Q3 rather than supplying three versions of the software in one package (take Terminus for example), displays this very same capatilistic agenda.
Note that in the above paragraph, I referenced Id's release decisions in how they can be perceived by the public. It is obvious that from John's post here to Slashdot that he understands and addresseses these issues, a very nice thing to see. I don't want to belittle that point.
Continuing on with the discussion: why would software companies license their product in a platform-independent manner when they can make so much more money by forcing the user to license multiple copies?! It's a great money-making scheme that's not focused on the best interest of the consumer. We all really appreciate Id's commitment to contributing to the Open Source and Free Software communities by releasing the Doom and Quake code, but I would like to keep the context of this discussion to the recent release of Quake 3. (In other words, handing out candy while stealing money out of our pockets is not acceptable, even if we really like the candy.)
Certainly, it costs money to develop software for each platform, but the benefits of a larger market also open up. Will the costs of developing that software be recovered in its sale? Perhaps, but what will the costs of loosing customers because of this ridiculous licencing policy be?
As an avid fan of Id software -- having purchased and played each of the games since Wolfenstein 3D -- I am no slouch when it comes to dolling out another $40 for an excellent quality game. I did so for Quake 3. I rushed out and purchased the version of the game that came out first, Windows. However, as a Linux enthusiast, I'm working on removing any need to reboot into Windows for any reason. Games are the only thing tying me to Microsoft at the moment, and unfortunately for me, Quake 3 is in that category. Not because the Linux version isn't available, but because I'm not going to shell out yet another $40+ just to get the Linux binaries!
John, if only Id had done this in the first place, the company would be in a much better light amongst it's consumers than it currently is over this issue, including myself.
Chad Walstrom
"CDR drives are a wonderful thing..."
assert(expired(knowledge));
Double your pleassure.
Ryan
You're right. Incurable, intense, constant agony or terminal illness are both exceptions to this rule.
But saying "choose the end of pain!" is pretty damn dangerous IMO.
"Oh, I'm in pain. Everyone hates me. I should go kill myself."
"Those damn bullies never leave me alone. My life sucks. I think I'll go find dad's gun and off myself."
"Life is horrible. I want to leave it, now."
These are indications of sick minds, not actual representations of someone's reality. If you don't like the way life is going, you can remove yourself from it (except in the case of terminal and/or excruciatingly painful illness) in many more constructive ways than killing yourself. It is utterly illogical and self-destructive, and therefore pathological.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
NT == No text.
Is what I had here in the first place but the stupid 'ascii art' filter caught it.
Sigs are awesome huh?
This is the biggest drawback against PC gaming; there are millions of different possible hardware combinations, and support all of them is impossible.
On the other hand, while PCs can be upgraded to support the "latest and greatest" bleeding edge hardware (and software); once you buy a console box, you're pretty much stuck with that technological platform except for upgrades that are based on that technology level and no higher.
It's basically a competition between the ever-expandable PC, or the "buy one every 2 years" console. Depends on how much fun the gamers have staying on the bleeding edge of performance.
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
Innovative doesn't only mean you've come up with a three letter acronym for some new gaming system, FPS, RTS, etc. Real Time Strategy wasn't very innovative. There are 20 year old board games which are nearly Real Time Strategy. First Person Shooter... well that one was pretty much obvious. The innovation was in the code that allowed people to realize this obvious game system on a computer screen. Starcraft was innovative because they made the first RTS involving 3 balanced forces. I was very impressed when I first saw this, I think that is something very hard to do well. I also hear they may be adding one or two more forces to Starcraft II, and I'm already doubtful that it will be well balanced.
It's that half step ahead that will keep PCs out there as gaming hardware. They will always have the advantage of being able to try out new hardware ideas sooner than the "standard" consoles will. They will also be able to support many alternate hardware options that the consoles can't.
Right, and that's the gripe, that they got rid of having a story.
planetqueake sucks now that they dont have lowtax
his humour kept the site alive in my opinoin becaus he would usually take a creative standpoint on stuff and he wasnt all about sucking john carmacks dick. i try to look at things positivly but quake3 was just quake2 with psuedo cuved surfaces and no single player. but most people dont look at id software the same way they look at "big bussiness" when in reality they do alot of the same things . as usual the arcticle was mostly hype and it wasnt even funny hype cuz they fired lowtax . also do how many people here think that id will start decilining because their games arent as easy to pirate anymore ?
"Quake 3 is in that category. Not because the Linux version isn't available, but because I'm not going to shell out yet another $40+ just to get the Linux binaries" Er, but you missed one key point - you DONT need to go out and buy a second copy of Q3A simply because you want to dual boot. Read what JC wrote again - they simply delayed the release of the conversion binaries, they didnt not release them. This was mentioned in JC's .plan from way back, before the release.
The first Q3A linux binary was available for download around about 6 months ago (although IIRC the 1.16 releases had a bug-fix related to the cdcheck which is relevant)
If you want to show support, buy it. If you dont, you can still play.
Though this is a good thing, the other news in the article was much more interesting.
The unwritten story is the Linux-on-a-console initiative that has more promise than the recent Linux-on-a-watch stories.
How about some sites that get Linux on a PS2/Dreamcast? Byebye rooting around for cheap PC hardware, just buy the latest subsidized console and get some very respectable hardware with the company taking the loss (Sony was selling PS2's at a huge loss, mostly because of the DVD player),
blah blah blah
games nowadays suck
blah blah balh
I remember when..
blah blah blah
Don't you have anything better to do, like purchase your burial plot maybe?
Sigs are awesome huh?
On page 3 of that interview, there's a photo of Carmack fragging - on a Mac! Looks like a G4, plus a sweet LCD screen. Hope he brought his own mouse ;)
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Killing people ala deathmatch style play isn't exactly the end all be all thing to do. Also not everyone has or can afford broadband. Why don't PCs just stabalize on hardware specs so that people can just buy a computer and guarantee that they can play a game at any future time down the road
Respond to s
I have movement bound to the mouse (mouse 1 is backward, mouse 2 is forward, mouselook enabled fulltime) and keyboard (jump, crouch and strafing).
I never turn on/off mouse look, because it is always enabled, so, really, there is no issue of a shift.
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Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
This means minimal movement, a fraction of an inch, to accomplish gymnastic moves you simply CANNOT do with a device that provides upper-limit movement like arrow pads on consoles and arrow keys on keyboards.
This is false.
Have you ever seen a Dreamcast or N64 basic controller? They each have an analog stick, would could be used in the same way that you describe. Maybe better, even, since you'll never reach the end of the mouse pad.
I own both a Playstation and a fairly asskicking computer. I play games on both. However, I have found that I much prefer sitting on my nice cushy sofa with my feet on my coffee table, playing my game on my decent-sized TV, whose sound is run through my stereo with the nice Infinity speakers. I can kick back and relax there much easier than when I'm sitting in my usual half-lotus position in my marginally comfortable computer chair, unable to put my feet on anything except maybe the dead printer under the desk, playing my game on a 15" monitor that's right in my face.
And, well, it just seems that the best games are on console. Gimme Xenogears or Tekken or MGS on PC, and I might reconsider that...and it is just me, or are the vast majority of PC RPG's devoid of plot and character development beyond "here's some live steel, go here and kill this?"
The real Karma Gigolo has Slashdot ID #3.14159265358979323846...
if you buy a console game, you are POSITIVE that it will work. No 'do I have enough ram?' questions, video card drivers, or hard disk space.
From what I've heard about the X-BOX, this is the whole point. Consoles are more stable, which gives developers something stable to develop for and gamers something that they are sure of. The thing that gets me going about the X-BOX is that it is basically a short cut to getting standards hammered out for the PC.
Anyone remember setting up soundcards before SoundBlaster was adopted as a standard? I'm personally hoping the X-BOX is adopted and used for a hardware and software standard for PCs. At least then we can build on standards, not having to worry as much about if your hardware will work.
I seriously doubt that they'll want us to plunk our own hardware in, or install a different OS. However, I'm sure it will be done, just not supported.
There are only a couple of genres now, there were more when 2d was the norm. In five years time will it still just be doom-like-games and racing-vehicle games?
What about God-games, sports games, real-time strategy, RPGs, 3-D platform games, puzzle games, flight sims, space combat sims, Resident Evil clones...
Lots of people seem to come up with this 'there's no innovative games around any more', but remember in the days of the SNES when every other game was a 2-D platformer? Or 10 years before that when it was mostly Space Invaders rip-offs (Galaxians, Zalaga, etc.)?
New technology means new gaming styles, it's inevitable.
If you're a jock, inflict some pain / If you're a nerd then use your brain - DAPHNE AND CELESTE
Good article, assuming you don't spam it all over the damn place. There's one thing you don't take into account, though:
You won't be saying, "hey world, kiss my ass." See, the vast majority of the world doesn't care, because they've never heard of you. The vast majority of the world doesn't give a shit. This is something you learn when you get into high school, usually. It's rather liberating, really. The downside of realizing this is that you suddenly understand that the only people you hurt in a self-destroying action like suicide are yourself and the people who love you - your friends, family, girlfriend, wife, husband, whatever. Which makes suicide pretty useless for anything.
If you don't like your place in the world, change it. Don't throw it away.
My 2c. Not a troll.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
--
Any game that could be done with multiple players, could be done online. But, it makes things a lot easier to set up. I usualy play quake3 with frends, rather then with random, unknown people
The real Eric S Gaymond is #216600. Everyone Else is a liar.
I recently bought some games (Diablo, Starcraft) that run on both the Mac and PC. I quickly noticed that the color rendition on the Mac looked much better than what was displayed on the PC. The Mac versions looks good without any tweaking of the computer. The PC versions looks terrible, even with the gamma setting cranked up to the maximum value. I've seen similar problems with Doom and Quake on PCs. I'm not sure if it is a problem with the operating system, device drivers or video cards. The Mac has the advantage that it was designed as an integrated system, and Apple has to keep all those graphic arts people happy. On the PC there are multiple companies designing the hardware and software components. I wonder if they ever talk to each other. The video card driver in my PC allows the user to tweak the gamma, but somehow this setting is ignored by the DirectX video drivers used by many games. I wonder how game developers keep their sanity when they have to deal with broken drivers and non-standard hardware, not to mention the endless combinations of operating system versions and DLLs. It makes a standardized console platform look very attractive. Why is it so hard to do graphics on a PC?
By the way, I see the same problems with graphics on PCs running Linux. So it isn't just a problem with Microsoft software.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
With a console you're stuck with what you're given. Games like the upcoming Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 have a "Create a skate park" feature which is great, but unlike the PC where you go off, grab a map and start playing in under 5 minutes, on systems like the PSX you need a Dex drive, plus memory cards up the wazoo to transfer stuff to your Playstation. If nothing else Internet connectivity on consoles would be useful for downloading user created levels directly into the machine.
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Even ignoring those precision problems, there just aren't enough buttons to play effectively. Any console FPS with more than a dozen weapons will end up using a horrible switching mechansism a la Turok 2 (which would be a joke to use in a modern online multiplayer FPS).
When playing Quake 3 on a PC, I use
- 9 keys to access individual weapons
- 4 keys for horizontal movement
- 1 key each for crouch, run/walk, and jump
- 1 key each for chat, console, and "use"
- 3 mouse buttons and a mousewheel for switching weapons and other functions
- 1 mouse for aiming/climbing/steering
You just try to duplicate the functionality of ~25 buttons and a mouse on the current crop of gamepads! Not gonna happen. If console manufacturers get a clue, they'll bundle a mouse and keyboard with their new systems. Combine that with Internet access and a DVD player, and you've got a pretty schweet entertainment system/web appliance... competition for both PC games and WebTV-type stuff.Playing on a PC, I get a superior interface, much higher video resolution, much better graphics, and much faster action. (Goldeneye feels like walking through molasses after playing even the original Quake!!)
I am happy to hear that at least someone enjoyed an N64 port of an id game. You're the first person I've met that has. :-)
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
too bad no one will read this...
i have a much easier time going back to my old favorite console games than to my old favorite computer games. while i can play zelda any day of the week, my old favorite computer games, zork, castles, doom, and the better king's quests feel so sadly dated.
i guess its in that two button controller.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
a) The arrow keys if the game doesn't have that many binds, due to their isolation; it is difficult to hit the wrong key. Or
b) The numeric keypad. This is, in effect, vary similar to WSAD in the number of nearby keys for other binds, but they keep a grid formation, making it easier to find keys, rather than the misaligned main keybard setup.
All configurations listed, however, use the mouse for aiming.
One last config that I've only ever seen one person use successfully, was two joysticks (one for movement the other for aiming). That would require alot of dexterity.
I'd rather be pepper-sprayed by a mountie,
I find that the PC is a much more versitle system. It allows, and, in may respects, encourages, people to customize the hell out of it. Different video cards, memory, operating systems -- it all blends together in a nice, personalized machine.
Consoles, on the other hand, are a set thing. You plunk down your 200 bux, and you know that you are getting exactly what your buddy got. You can do some VERY basic customizing (mod chips, etc) but it is discouraged by the manufacturer.
HOWEVER, there are some positive points for consoles.. for one, if you buy a console game, you are POSITIVE that it will work. No 'do I have enough ram?' questions, video card drivers, or hard disk space. It's a very efficient system in that respect.
I'm curious as to how the X-BOX will turn out.. will MS let us plunk our own hardware inside it? Install a different OS? Well, probably not.. I'll wait and see though.
But, for now, just give me my PC -- posting to Slashdot using a PSX2 would be pretty weird =)
What about Mac sales (that "other" alternative platform)? Were they poor/adequate/encouraging compared to Linux sales?
I've noticed that lately the MacOS game market has really picked up steam, with Deus Ex, The Sims, and Diablo II all getting released in the last 2 months... perhaps one way to indirectly stimulate sales of Linux games is to point to the fact that another alternative OS has a burgeoning game market...
-Stu
I have played Quake II for N64 and found it to be quite a good experience at that. I really think that a mouse is hard to use in any of those FPS games on the PC. I mean how do you shift your attention from moving (I assume via a keyboard to rotational movement via a mouse)? It's just clumsy and hard to deal with. Primarily the refusal of major game companies to actually standardize on some form of easily upgradeable hardware or else it just dosn't really make any difference. However I guess the best I can hope for is to just buy the game and wait about 5 years to play it on a machine I might then have. That is the unacceptable thing.
Respond to s
could I drive 3 hours to get a copy, or compromise my desires to not order off the net, in order to order a game for linux instead of windows? yea, but would most people (including myself, as someone who was just a casual user at the time) do it? no.
It's too bad.
Linux version sitting beside the windows version on the shelf in the software store, and you bet your ass I'd be right there buying the linux version. Hell, I only play Q3 in linux. But as it is, it's not just a slight inconvenience to get the linux version, it's a MAJOR inconvenience. Which, if that isn't bad enough, People end up comparing the two.
Would not releasing a linux patch have made me buy linux q3? no, it would have made me not buy Q3 at all.
Loki is a good company, and they are doing all they can. But, without proper distribution (not a single retail outlet supported by loki in my town of 110,000 people) you can't possibly get an accurate representation of the interest. It's the same with releasing old, outdated games. Of course you can't generate the same interest.
Obviously, the problem here is that you can't get the marketshare without interest, and you can't get interest without marketshare. major hurdle to overcome, no good solutions.
________
The trend is away from stateless game machines (IE, you just plug in the game and go, no external things to worry about) to more of a PC type system with expansions, and network connections, and all sorts of other potential problems.
The PC's gaming advantages are in its capabilities. Networking, persistent storage, expandability, etc. Stateless game machines can't do that. But as networking is becoming important for the game play, consoles need to adapt to it, and lose their 'statelessness'
One possible solution to the revenue question JC posed is in the free internet model, where the game machine shows ads or whatever from Nintendo to the users when they log on. That market might even yield more revenue then straight game sales...
The real Eric S Gaymond is #216600. Everyone Else is a liar.
- No licencing fees. To develop something on most console systems, you have to pay the company who makes the system a licensing fee. If you want to write psx games, you need to give $$ to Sony. If you want to make PC games, you just write it. So in general, more games get made on PC. (Granted, a lot of it ends up crap, but there are usually still a few gems to make it worth it)
- More controls. PCs come equipped with a MINIMUM of a keyboard and a mouse nowdays. Usually a joystick too. That's a LOT more buttons than any controller I've seen on a console. This gives PC games quite a bit more flexibility in designing interfaces. (if you don't believe me, just try any FPS game on a console, and tell me that interface on consoles isn't a problem)
- Different evolution rates: PCs are sort of constantly evolving, as soon as a technology comes out, it is available on PCs... Consoles on the other hand, only come out every couple of years. So consoles are usually supperior when they come out, but within a year or two, PCs have caught up. (And a couple of years after THAT, PCs have usually progressed to the point that someone can write an emulator that plays console games better than the console system did!)
- Upgradability: PC games have the advantage that they can be modified, even after they are released. Patches are one side of this. Buggy games can be fixed. (Although some companies abuse this ability by releasing TERRIBLY buggy games before they're ready to be released, and then trying to patch them after release... *cough* daggerfall battlecruiser300AD *cough*...) On the other hand, for companies like Blizzard, who generally release fairly solid games, the ability to patch after release is quite useful. They can respond to cheats and exploits, fix the few bugs they have, and even tweak game balance, as the need arrises. You can't really do that on console systems. (and don't tell me console games never have bugs. Granted they usually have fewer (because ones WITH bugs don't sell) but heck, even FF6 (FF3 U.S.) had a bug capable of crashing the game and destroying save games.) The other side of this coin is mods. After a game has been released, people can do COOL things to it! Look at how long halflife has survived, thanks to mods! Counterstrike, TFC, etc... People keep playing, since they are given more things to try. You can't DO mods on consoles. (well, you sort of can, if you count the little cartridge feed-throughs like sony used to put knuckles into sonic 3. But they're a lot more expensive.)
- And finally, PCs have assurance of existance: PCs will ALWAYS exist, since they are used for a lot of vital things besides games. (or so I've been told.
;) As long as these uses exist, PCs can never go the way of the dodo. Since of course, even if you've got the most kick-a$$ accounting computer on the planet, there will always be the temptation to see what kind of framerates you can get out of Quake3 on it...
So I think it's safe to say that PC gaming isn't going anywhere any time soon.--
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The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs
S is required.
Ryan
The consoles beat the PC when it comes to cost and convenience. The cost of a playstation is a 100 dollars and a memory card 15. With the PC, there is the video card 150+, RAM upgrade 100+, gamepad 20+, and a monitor (19+ for 1280X1024).
Add to that the problems of getting PC games to work and consoles are superior for those with little time.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
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That's not what he was talking about.
:)
:) But regarding the topic, I would say that it's the best way to play a FPS right now, not that "there's no other way to play FPS." A subtle distinction, but important.
:)
Actually, I was just updating his outdated console input data. He based his assertion on the fact that consoles only had digital input, which isn't true.
The analog sticks on consoles indeed provide gradated input -- good for driving games, especially. But there is a limit as to how far you can move the sticks -- and the sensitivity cannot be set to a satisfactory level to achieve the same degree of control you get with a mouse.
When I hear something like this, I think that there is more work to be done, not that the keyboard and mouse need to be ported.
Every time I "rev" my mouse, due to turning greater than my sensitivity and the width of my mouse pad can accomodate, it's a failure in the input scheme, and my brain wrinkles. I guess I could increase of both, but I already have an Everglide Giganta.
Out of curiosity, have you played a PC FPS with the keyboard and the mouse? Most people who try it quickly realize there's just no other way to play a FPS...
I have, and I fairly enjoy the keyboard/mouse combo. I'm not bad, either... I can rail someone in mid rocket-jump occasionally.
I often dream of better inputs/interaction with computers, and what a breakthrough in pervasiveness and appeal would be if we could get past that. I think that one of the main reasons that we haven't advanced as quickly as we could is that input is primarily a secondary concept in technology, everyone just goes with what we have, and makes it fit... which prevents new, possibly better ways of thinking from emerging.
Do you think that the keyboard/mouse was designed as the input for games? Why do you think it became so? Because it was there, and it happened to be a better match than keyboard alone. Could you imagine a day where someone comes up with an interface better? I can, and I keep hoping that someone'll do it.
This tangent just explains why I need to reply when someone says that some particular interface is hands-down, end-the-issue the _best_ (or worse, when they don't have all the facts regarding the current state of input). Someone, somewhere is going to need to come up with something better, or we're going to be slaves to the clunky keyboard/mouse combo forever. And somehow, figuring out how to control an FPS with a console controller is adding to the global input/control accumulated knowledge, and bring us all closer to the input nirvana I dream of.
Nyet!
Caffeine for mind.
Pizza for body.
Sushi... for SOUL.
Really it seems that most games are not at all original in the least. And they justify the use and application of more hardware to cover up the fact that they don't have any new ideas. Did you know that Wolfenstein had acceptable 3d like graphics and ran on a 286? Hell I can run the original doom on an old 486/33 with no problems. Then people claim that these graphics have increased soooo much and it's totally obvious? Really what ever happened to having graphics good enough that when you look at your hand in the game it looks like your hand in real life (assuming they are modled after the same thing?) Hardware upgrades that increase graphics that humans can see by a 2% increase and give the game some mp3 player and they thing that really counts for an actual advance?
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Fun games on the N64? Are you on crack? The PS2 has only been out in Japan for like 3-4 months, and already there are more good games that I'd play for that than I ever found in the entire current library of N64 games. On top of that, no idiot would try and argue that Perfect Dark looks anywhere near as good as Final Fantasy 8 on the PS, Soul Calibur on the DC, or Deus Ex on the PC.
The N64 blows as a console. It isn't competing with the Playstation by any means except financially, and that's only because of Pokemon. Ask any real game player, and they'd take a PS or a DC over an N64 11 times out of 10.
As far as console gaming vs. PC. With my PC, I've got a chair and a mouse, two important things I don't get with a console. In addition, the N64 and DC controllers are REALLY uncomfortable. I can play UT or Counterstrike for several hours before I get any sort of discomfort. But I was playing Virtua Tennis for an hour the other day, and I wound up with this big "A" imprint in my finger from volleying, and I decided that was a sign I should stop.
Have any of you played Gundam 0079: Side Story, for the DC? It's nearly impossible because the torso twist and the movement controller are on the SAME FRICKING SIDE of the controller. There's NO way you can guide the thing with any sort of fluidity. On a PC it'd work just fine.
Also, sitting/lying on the floor in front of a TV elevated 6 in./1 ft. off the ground gets your neck, back, what have you, a lot more tired than sitting in a chair looking at an eye level monitor. Sure, you could sit on the couch, but you're farther away, and if you have an apartment with roomates, they get angry because they need somewhere to sit, too.
Consoles are neat because it facilitates multiplayer, and like everyone has said..no patching. (Unless of course, you're the N64, in which case, you release 3 different versions of Turok 2 with different framerates for each of them, and don't tell anyone. But we're talking REAL consoles here, so we'll just ignore that.) However, I'm getting really irked with the fact that I have to buy an extra controller all the time, especially with these systems that support directly plugging in 4 controllers. You'd think they'd at least give you 2 if their product was so "ready" for 4 controllers.
But the consoles definitely have their good points. Most of the good RPGs are on consoles, (Although Septerra Core came out only on the PC, and it was sweet.) because PC gamers need to use their computers for other tasks, and you can't always save in any place in RPGs. In addition, I guess the non-twich action just doesn't fly with the average PC gamer.
So, give me a PC for my FPS and RTS games, and I'll take a console for the RPGs. If I want to play Pokemon Does Your Mom or Pokeballz...I'll just turn on my N64...and shoot myself.
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PCs will always have the potential to create better games simply because they're more flexible. All the great time-wasting games, from Infocom to Wasteland to Ultima to Starcraft have been great not because they had state-of-the-art graphics, but because they were well-designed. Now PC game makers have fallen into a pit where it's only about the graphics. Considering Id is probably the worst offender, I guess I shouldn't have expected any innovative design ideas in Carmack's speech.
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