Doom3 and OpenGL2.0

Screaming Lunatic writes "John Carmack has decided to write an OpenGL2.0 rendering path for Doom3. You can read his .plan or you can finger him. This will be huge for the development of OpenGL2.0. Video cards are typically benchmarked with respect to the framerate when running Quake3. Future benchmarks will be based on Doom3. This means IHVs will be somewhat forced to write good OpenGL2.0 implementations."

Comments

And why would this be a good thing?

[PissingInTheWind]

DirectX has already won. OpenGL is dead.

Why people can't just agree that it's a nice, easy standard, very powerful, flexible and open?

oops, excuse me for a while, I think I forgot to take my medication today.

Re:And why would this be a good thing?

[MrResistor]

Maybe because it isn't open?

I'll believe OpenGL is dead when I can run all my DirectX games on Linux.

Fingers

[Wrexen]

..or you can finger him...
*pictures thousands of /.ers fingering him at once*
I think this is going to be a very uncomfortable day for someone

A Proverb

[GigsVT]

You can finger your girlfriend,
You can finger John Carmack,
But you can't get your girlfriend to write good vertex shading code!

Re:A Proverb

[Bruce Perens]

Hold out for a girlfriend who shades higher-order surfaces. Also, hold out for a girlfriend with higher-order surfaces!

Thankyou ! ! !

[Anonymous Coward]

That could make the difference between life and death for Open GL in the face of Direct X etc. Thankyou ID, even if I don't like your games!

OpenGL 2.0 and OpenSource

[dmarien]

Well firstoff I'd like to commend Carmack on his choice to utilize the new OpenGL extensions -- I think this is the absolute best thing for graphic cards to be focusing on. It levels the playing field and doesn't favour certain chipset manufacturers with propietary extensions.

Also, what are the (linux ported) open sourced applications (read: games) which use OpenGL for rendering?

Are they common? Would this possibly mean that a future port of Doom3 would be (more) easily done once the game is finished?

Also, does anyone know if there will be a supported version of Doom3 for Linux, or will we be relying on ported versions? If the latter is true, didn't Loki games file for Ch. 11? If they did, what is the likely hood of another company/group making the transistion. By the time Doom3 comes out I'll prolly buy a brand new system, and if I could throw linux on that brand new hardware and still play Doom3, well heck - that would be peachy :)

Re:OpenGL 2.0 and OpenSource

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

Also, does anyone know if there will be a supported version of Doom3 for Linux, or will we be relying on ported versions?

id has released nearly simultaneous Linux binaries for all of their games (client and server) since Quake 1, and released Linux patches for Doom 1 and 2 as well. Loki was involved inasmuch as they published a retail box of Linux Q3; however, this was never really important because you could always get Linux Q3 by buying the Windows version and downloading a small patch from id. (Indeed, the retail Linux version sold poorly, probably because it was released a couple weeks after the Windows version and thus many people went the buy-Windows-and-download-patch route.)

I believe id has officially announced that Doom 3 will available for Linux (and Mac), but if not it's still a virtual certainty. id has always been a tremendous supporter of open standards; Carmack chose OpenGL over DirectX for Quake (and thereby single-handedly created the consumer OpenGL market), and in addition to working on Mac, Linux and Windows versions of all 3 Quake games simultaneously, released Doom ports for Next (id developed on Next workstations back then), Solaris, IRIX (I think, or maybe that was unofficial), and I believe even Linux on Alpha in addition to the already mentioned x86 Linux ports.

Again, id has always done the port themselves; most likely, you will have to buy the Windows version and download a patch which will almost certainly be available within days of release.

Don't mod parent up before reading this.

[GigsVT]

http://www.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/carmack/index2.sh tml

I wish I could rip off Carmack's words and present them as my own, that would make me uber-leet like you.

Isn't it about time

[CaffeineAddict2001]

You made a carmack icon? Impale it on a stick for extra grins.

Not as great as it sounds for OpenGL 2.0

[VenTatsu]

This won't force companies to write good OpenGL 2.0 drivers, it will only force them to write drivers that impement those functions that DOOM 3 uses, the other functions may not even be implemented properly or implemeted at all.

As a former VooDoo (various versions) owner this is just fine if you only want to play games made by a few big name companies, but if your like me and looking to play smaller or indy games you'll find that your lucky if the games even run.

You'll need more to bring about OpenGL support...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because DoomIII uses OpenGL I don't believe card manufactures will race out to upgrade their OpenGL support. If a dozen or so games do, that's another story but to bend over for one game just doesn't make sense financial, especially since the other 95% of games use DirectX.

Sure my Nvidia 4400 might not get Doom to run as well as Serious Sam, Unreal II, Star Wars Galaxies, Neverwinter Nights, etc. etc. but who honestly cares? If Nvidia increases their support of OpenGL more power to em, that would be great, but one game won't decide the future, even if it is Doom III (Which I believe will fail to live up to hype).

Not intended as a flame by any means (it seems anything with a negative viewpoint is a 'flame'...whatever....) but there's a lot of hype on Doom III and some of it is deserved and some of it is just hype. I'm guessing it won't meet expectations when it does come out and won't be in the same spirit of the original Doom games (which were frag fests and fun not horror and lighting).

Let's also not forgot a general user who will have a higher end machine and not comprehend how their other games look gorgous and run exceptionally well and Doom III just doesn't meet their framerate and effects expectations due to the fact its in OpenGL instead of DirectX.

I hope they support both standards as DirectX isn't going away anytime soon and like it or not, it is a great set of tools which have helped bring about computer gaming to what it is today.

Nothing like a little Carmack...

[mbourgon]

...to make me feel both ignorant and stupid at the same time. Really puts things in perspective. Sure, I may be smart, but there's no comparison.

Re:Nothing like a little Carmack...

[Dr. Awktagon]

No kidding..

their implementation of hardware displacement mapping is NOT quad based. ... so even if we don't use it because of the geometry amplification issues, I think it will serve the noble purpose of killing dead any proposal to implement a quad based solution.

Yes! I was thinking the same thing myself! Geometry amplification is key here.

support for both the fallback ARB_ extension path (without specular highlights), and the NV10 NVidia register combiners path. ..... They don't support NV_vertex_program_1_1, which I use for the NV20 path, and when I hacked my programs back to 1.0 support for testing, an issue did show up..

Definitely, any fool could see that! Watch those extension paths!

A GL2 driver won't give any theoretical advantage over the current back ends optimized for cards with 7+ texture capability

It certainly won't! 7+ is definitely not the optimized back-end texture capability quad rendering shade vertex OpenGL. Specular highlight.. Phong.. wireframe.. raycasting ... shadow cache.. texture map.. bump map... uh.. BFG 9000!!

Re:Nothing like a little Carmack...

[tswinzig]

Don't feel too bad, when you ask Carmack to speak about something other than 3D graphics, it sounds something like this:

John: My underwear have my name in them. Aye'm. They say John Carmack. These are definitely not my underwear. I get my underwear at K-Mart in Cincinatti, Ohio. Aye'm.

You: Did you fart? Did you fart, John? Did you fucking fart? How can you stand that, John? How can you fucking stand that?

John: I don't mind. Aye'm.

You: I'm gonna let ya' in on a little secret, John. K-Mart sucks.

John: Five minutes 'til Wapner.

You: OK, back to your area of normalcy, John. If you were going to draw a cube, what lengths for x, y, and z would you use?

John: 82, 82, 82.

Re:Nothing like a little Carmack...

[Forkenhoppen]

Quad-based geometry has to be converted back to triangles at some point for rendering anyways. Since this can be done two ways (quads don't have to be square, or even equilateral, but imagine a sandwich on texas toast; you can cut it top left to bottom right or top right to bottom left) geometry can look slightly different with different implementations. If the points don't exist on a plain, then the normal won't be correct either, which is another problem. (ie; What do you do if your quad's warped?)

Also, if your triangles don't map perfectly with the texture, you'll get tearing along the crease between the two triangles. To fix this, you have to subdivide the triangles further until it's no longer as noticeable. It's a real bother..

ARB_ path refers to what we're used to; multiple texture rendering stages, dot3 bump mapping and the like. Stuff that works on Geforce 2s, ATi Radeons, etc. These are standards agreed on by the OpenGL Architecture Review Board, usually extensions that will be promoted to being part of the standard in the next version of OpenGL.

The NV20 path is for Geforce 3 and up. A vertex program is NVidia terminology for vertex shader. Assuming the OpenGL version numbers reflect the DirectX ones, version 1.0 was a holdover from pre-release; it's missing a register that's required to do index/palette-based matrix skinning. 1.1 has this register. Other than that, there is no difference.

Whatever became of Precision Insight?

[dpilot]

That was where much of the Linux Mesa and OpenGL work, especially the hardware stuff, was collected. I remember seeing a while back that they had laid off a bunch of workers, including Brian Paul. The Precision Insight URL no longer responds, but a quick Google shows Mesa work ongoing, and Brian Paul now at Tungsten Graphics doing largely the same type of stuff he's been doing all along.

Maybe there's hope of OpenGL 2 for Linux, after all. Next will be pursuading Carmack et al not to use Microsoft lock-in compilers.

You think that's bad

[wrinkledshirt]

Go read some of Abrash's Black Book. The guy makes jokes out of assembly language. The only laughing I ever did was that nervous kind that you do while thinking, "Boy, am I out of my league..."

Re:You'll need more to bring about OpenGL support.

[HalifaxPenguin]

Just because DoomIII uses OpenGL I don't believe card manufactures will race out to upgrade their OpenGL support.

New game engines from id are Big Deals in the game industry. These are what most people benchmark on, these are what people can't wait to get their hands on, these outsell anything claiming to be competition. It's make-or-break for video card companies. If their cards are shown to be poor performers compared to the brands that did race to upgrade GL support, their sales will plumit while the others escalate.

If a dozen or so games do, that's another story

A new game engine from id does not mean just one game. They license their game engines out to many companies, and from there many games are made. ...Maybe even "a dozen or so", enough to make any video card makers that handn't already... take notice.

Re:What I would really like

[Jondor]

I bet that a zillion gamers would install Linux just to be able to test Doom3. They have been waiting for>years!!

Yeah, and they would rush back to windows at the release of the next big title. In the meantime they would endlessly complain about everything which was to complicatied for their single-minded view.

If you want get people to use linux, they have to come for a better reason. That they can play their games under linux too is a very nice bonus.

Re:OpenGL patents

[uncleFester]

Didn't MS buy OpenGL patents from SGI recently?

Hard to tell... (more stuff found here). The opengl.org Licensing page links back to oss.sgi.com...

It's not easy to tell who currently owns the rights to OpenGL.. er, the OpenGL API. *gak*

-fester

Re:You'll need more to bring about OpenGL support.

[be-fan]

Two things:
1) Its Doom 3. It is guaranteed to sell like crazy, whether its good or not. If you're card doesn't run Doom 3 well, you might was well just not release it.

2) ID licenses the engines. Doom 3 will be *the* engine to have over the next year or two. If you're hardware can't run all those games (definately more than a dozen) again, don't even bother releasing it.

Direct3D against OpenGL

[krogoth]

"I'm sure D3D will suck less with each forthcoming version, but this is an oportunity to just bypass dragging the entire development community through the messy evolution of an ill-birthed API." - John Carmack, 1996

You are so wrong.

[Karellen]

Get a grip dude. Doom is not evil.

I have to admit, that is a tragic story and something no-one should ever have to go through.

That said, it's a fucking computer game. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not a physically addictive chemical. It wasn't created from a pact with the devil, in an attempt to lure people to sinful (suicidal) deaths. It's pixels (blocky ones at that) on a screen, and a pretty limited set of sounds being repeated through a set of (normally pretty crappy) speakers.

Your friend got addicted to it - well I'm sorry, but don't go blaming anyone else, even the people that made it.

Your friend started skipping work and playing 18+hours/day? Shit, didn't that clue him into the fact that something was getting a bit fucked up with his priorities and he ought to stop? When I started playing CivIII until 3:00 in the morning and I had to get up at 6:30 for work, I realised that it was time to delete the thing. Do I blame the writers for making such a great game? No. I congratulate them. And then I deleted it. When I realised that I was really _needing_ a drink to get me going some days a while back after I'd started drinking heavily for a month or so after a girlfriend left me, I realised it was time to stop drinking completely for a while and just get over her. Do I blame beer for being a seductive place of solace, or the brewers who made it? No. Do I blame by girlfriend? No. She didn't see a future for us and ended it. What was she supposed to do? Stay in a relationship she didn't like for the sole purpose of not hurting my feelings? Hell no. That's part of being an adult. You realise when your life isn't doing what it should, and sort it out. It's your life, and you gotta take responsibility for it.

Shit, didn't it occur to _you_ that you oughta talk your friend out of this sort of behaviour? Or force him out of it? Get rid of the source of his fix? Some fucking friend you turned out to be.

All Doom had to do with your friends unforunate demise was be there.

It's not `wrong'. It's not `evil'. Neither is it `right' or `good'. It just is. And you or your friend or anyone else on the planet can take it or leave it. What they get out of it is entirely their own responsibility. That's one of the breaks of being an adult in a free country.

Stop blaming other people for your friend's death. It's not their fault. Get. Over. It.

K.