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Carmack About Q3A On Dreamcast
andr0meda writes: "C|Net's GameCenter recently interviewed John Carmack about Q3A's Dreamcast conversion. The interview was conducted after the QuakeCon talk John gave last weekend, which was Slashdotted earlier. Here are both parts of the lengthy interview: [1,2]"
Make no mistake -- the PS2 is definately more powerful than the dreamcast. For some types of things, it is easier to get a dreamcast game to look better due to a better back end filter, autoamtically working mip-mapping, and larger addressable texture space, but the second generation PS2 games should really start showing off the increased power. Dreamcast should be able to undercut the price, but I don't know how significant that will be. There are few things that I would really call "revolutionary", but that doesn't mean that Sony didn't build a good machine. It just happens to be built with a set of tradeoffs that I don't completely agree with. John Carmack
"Can you seriously imagine playing multi-management games like Civilization, Myth 2, or StarCraft without a mouse and keyboard? "
Perhaps if strategy games did not involve so many redundant repetition, and allowed you to concentrate on strategy, you would not need very many controls.
Really, why can't you tell the UI/AI you want marines in perpetutity with a 1000 credit reserve, and forget about it?
Many people don't realize that:
- There will be a keyboard and a mouse that you can attach to Dreamcast, they were shown at QuakeCon (here is a pic of the mouse and you can see the keyboard here).
- Sega does plan to release a "LAN adapter" that will allow LAN/DSL/cable modem connection, as stated in this interview.
Just wanted to clarify on that.
-jfedor
You gotta love somebody who's willing to REWRITE the networking code for a console game system just to eke out better performance. Question is, will John ever get tired of writing games and turn that brain of his towards writing something like a financial planner package or some other business-oriented software?
Hell, if he can port X Window System to Mac OS X in his spare time, why couldn't he work for a few weeks on StarOffice and turn it into an Office-killer?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Does anyone know where the advantages of vector quantization compression are when it comes to storing textures for a game (as mentioned on page 2 of the article)? Can they be decompressed very fast? Can different levels of detail be accessed easily to be mapped to surfaces at varying distances?
As it seems to be implemented in hardware in this case, is there a software package of some VQ compression algorithm that comes close to wavelets or similar state-of-the-art compression? I just wonder because lately anyone seems to use wavelets...
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Not be cynical or bent on criticism, but what's the big deal about q3 getting onto a dreamcast? It seems like a logical step as a software company looking to capatalize on a most likely popular gaming system. In the interview, Carmack states that porting from the DreamCast to the PC and vise versa are very simple, and to me, it seems very logical, because the DreamCast is just a PC in a smaller box with a controller.
Personally, I don't understand why people believe that the Dreamcast and furthermore, any other console will cause the end of the PC as a viable gaming system. Can you seriously imagine playing multi-management games like Civilization, Myth 2, or StarCraft without a mouse and keyboard? Or a game that requires precise placement like Quake 3 being played with a controller? I had enough trouble playing Street Fighter 2 on my SNES, and any game more challenging will just cause blisters and frustration, not a genuine challenge. Both the PC and console markets have niche games that suit both systems, and I believe that the convergence two will promote creative game design, not hinder it.
Help me through college please!
If it doesn't impress Carmack, meaning that he doesn't think it's revolutionary and that he won't develop for it, it's a sad statement for Sony. I think the Xbox is going to whup up on the PS2's ass. It's going to be easier to develop for and it offers more avenues for developers to explore.
I agree with John that it is a shame what Sony has done to the Dreamcast with its incessant and unwarranted hype of the PS2. I think Sony will get a taste of its own medicine with the torrential $500 million marketing campaign for the Xbox.
Any way this shakes out, competition is good for us. We'll get cheaper consoles faster and better games. I just hope we don' get into the stupidity that Sony began with locking down developers to one console. EA and Square made a deal with the devil. I hope it doesn't turn around to bite them in the ass. Actually, being a Dreamcast owner, I hope it does.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to