Slashdot Mirror
Gamers Don't Need Vista or DX 10 Says Carmack
Freshly Exhumed writes "In an interview with Marcus Yam at Daily Tech legendary PC/Console game creator John Carmack holds forth on DirectX 10: 'Personally, I wouldn't jump at something like DX10 right now. I would let things settle out a little bit and wait until there's a really strong need for it.' and then zings Microsoft's marketers over DX10's mandatory use of the Vista OS: 'Carmack then said that he's quite satisfied with Windows XP, going as far to say that Microsoft is artificially forcing gamers to move to Windows Vista for DX10.' There are a few good tidbits on Xbox 360 vs. PS3 development, and a fairly clear disinterest in Wii as a platform for his company's products is shown."
Considering that he's got a long history of doing incredible graphics on relatively garbage hardware, e.g., real scrolling, platformer style on a PC that just couldn't do it using conventional means, using ray tracing to render a 3d looking scene in 2d, I'd think that pushing out gorgeous graphics on the Wii would be a nice challenge for him. Then again, why tackle that problem for the third (fourth, fifth?) time. It gets old hat after a while.
This is a summary of an interview conducted by Game Informer.
Not only does he make kick arse engines, he's a straight talker in a world a spin merchants. He's helped Microsoft improve Direct X (while supporting OpenGL), praised them for their Xbox 360 development tools, but can call a spade a spade. Objectivity. Love it, live it.
All I know for sure is Linux / OpenGL wont have an opportunity like they have now for at least 5-10 years. No DX10 on WinXP could be a real killer for DX, if developers feel the need to target both Vista and XP users, OpenGL could be the way to go.... Which AFAIK makes portability to Linux easier.
He may still be a little angry towards Nintendo because of Wolfenstein 3d for SNES. Id Software had to remove blood, Nazi stuff and more in order to port the game. I still remember he said he will never port a game to a Nintendo platform again, but then again Quake and QuakeII eventually got released for N64.
You need to keep in mind that Id Software has made a business out of driving better graphical performance out of more and more advanced hardware, generally planning their engines to target the hardware available in the future rather than at the time of engine creation. So for them, the Wii is 90 degrees offset from their core competency while the XBox 360 and PS3 are more along the lines of what Id has long been interested in. To that end, the Wii is going to seem like too simplistic a device to be of interest to Id.
I think you'll find that it will take quite a while before the industry as a whole gets used to the idea of the Wii. It was a somewhat unexpected development (in comparison to the years of advance notice they're used to), leaving developers wondering what exactly should they be doing with this thing? If the Wii continues to deliver in the long term, however, you may see Id warm up to the idea a lot more. Not to mention that the next generation of consoles will be fought without a gamepad in sight.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Nothing they've talked about would explain why it requires Vista... it's an API for talking to your graphics card, not some mystical operating system component like Internet Explorer!
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Since day one Carmack disliked DirectX and promoted OpenGL...
Things aren't the same as they used to be. The video game landscape has changed. Nintendo has plenty of games with blood now, and probably wouldn't stop you from killing Nazis in a game, which I fail to see anything wrong with. If you're going to have a shooter where you kill people, you might as well be killing Nazis. And not all of Carmacks games were bloodfests either. There's plenty of games that he could have ported to Nintendo without making any changes. Think of Commander Keen. Anyway, Nintendo isn't the family friendly system it used to be. Well, it's probably still the most family friendly system, that contains the most games playable by the entire family, but that doesn't stop it from having it's share of violent games.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Not really, Carmack is a polygon guru. The Wii is decidedly not about the graphics and more about the gameplay and usability. Thus, Carmack is not interested because his skills lay in making games that use traditional interaction methods.
I sincerely doubt that. For one thing, we talking about something that happened over a decade ago. For another, Carmack strikes me as having too much character to hold a grudge that long. Nintendo got their comeupance during the N64 and Gamecube generations. As a result, they reinvented themselves into a very different company. A company that is a bit more tolerant of Id's brand of gaming than they were in the past.
I'm sure that Mr. Carmack is still *wary* of dealing with them (they're still the most "family friendly" of the console makers), but I sincerely doubt that he's being childish in his dealings with them.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The video game landscape has changed. Nintendo has plenty of games with blood now, and probably wouldn't stop you from killing Nazis in a game, which I fail to see anything wrong with.
Evidence - Wii Launch title: Call of Duty 3.
That just shows he's objective. I work in game development, and back when he said OpenGL was better (vs. DX6) I believe he was right, and now that he prefers DX9, I believe he's right too. His integrity is pretty good. He focuses on the technology right in front of him, without being distracted by politics or favortism.
Um... he did?
http://www.doomrpg.com/
Here's an interview with him on his role in its development:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=6
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
From Carmack's comments regarding DX10 and the Xbox 360, I wonder what Microsoft is really up to here. On the surface, tying DX10 to Vista, looks like a strong armed tactic to force gamers to Vista. Clearly, game developers aren't likely to abandon XP anytime soon. Carmack also had good words to say about the Xbox 360, so could the real plan be to nudge developers into more Xbox 360 development and off of the PC? I know, strange plan, but games made and sold for Xbox 360 = royalties for Microsoft, games for the PC do not. Of course, there may not be a plan at all. This could be evidence of different parts of Microsoft pulling in different directions.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Exactly. It also shows that the slowness with with OGL incorporates new features in a huge hinderence. Back when he was making those statements OGL was much better to develop for than DX. DX though didn't stand still and has eclipsed OGL for the most part.
Not even DOOM music could make that cool.
Why bother.
Yes, I noticed that. I suspect he switched at some point during the long hiatus while the ARB failed to finalise OpenGL 2.0. Things seem to have picked up a bit in the OpenGL camp recently, so maybe he will switch back in a few years.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
DX10 by itself doesn't require Vista, but they decided to get rid of the legacy cruft and re-wrote the entire graphics system. This allows neat things like multi-tasking and virtual memory handling for GPUs, but requires completely new drivers. This also supposedly enables a much higher performance, a game running on DX10 should be a lot faster than the same game running on DX9, assuming that they both use the exact same shaders. So yes, they could port DX10 to XP, but this would require two different kinds of DX10, with different features (no virtual GPU memory on XP = lame), and with different levels of performance. IMO the clean break is a good thing, but the HDCP bloat makes me hesitate to upgrade.
"You can get ten times the graphics power, and you can make a prettier picture, but when somebody makes a new IO device that really changes the way that people interact with the game, that's going to have a larger benefit there.
"So I'm really pleased with what they're (Nintendo) doing with the Wii and with the DS-and they're doing innovative things,"
"But our current generation of game technology is not targeted at the Wii. Maybe that was a mistake on our part originally, but we have been looking strictly at the 360, PS3 and PC as what we want to simultaneously develop on. We probably aren't going to be able to hit the Wii with the same technology platform."
I think he is very interested in the Wii. Just the projects and engines they have are not a fit for the platform.
Personally I believe the GFX on the Wii are grand. I luv the controller and the who package is sweet.
and there's no good reason to not use it in favor of XP. Well.... aside from the $400 price tag for the non-crippleware version?
...... trial period where they work the kinks out.
Or perhaps it's because they've finally managed to copy the Macintosh's interface design more closely with Aero? Not to say that it dosen't make sense since every major and minor player out there has been offering better alt-tab and/or 3d functions on their desktop for some time. The only -touted- difference is the new driver model (which is why DX10 can't work on XP), but I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet that once DX10 cards actually start coming out there's going to be a bit of a
In either case, getting eye candy, a questionable update in the driver/kernel and a higher price tag don't exactly make an 'upgrade' to Vista an obvious choice, at least right now.
That's not going to stop Microsoft from REQUIRING it, though... Then we won't have a choice.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Source.
This is actualy a dupe of an older
So yes. Carmack (and thus ID) have stayed away from Nintendo because of bad dealings, and no real NEED to work with them. This time around he is thinking it might have been a bad idea to stay away from the Wii.
My bet is that once they have the current Tech that they are working on up and running he will look into making stuff for the Wii. And I for one look foward to it.
Also, he is looking to port Orcs and Elves to the DS. Source
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
...and suddenly, all users of Linux, Mac OS X, PS3, and whatever platform that isn't Windows or XBox started to scream "Oh noes !"
The Use of OpenGL is what have enabled games from Id to be ported to almost any powerful enough platform under the sun.
Should he switch to DX, fans will be stuck to Windows and XBox (and maybe a couple of WinCE compatible device).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Personally, I haven't figured out why game companies don't use their own bootable linux distro w/ OpenGL and end their dependence on the ever shifting MS platform once and for all.
Games used to be on bootable floppies, and worked. If you consider that currently Linux distros work pretty well, and can be highly customized to boot, it seems a reasonable approach.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
What if he had said DX10 was absolutely necessary and that everyone should go out and buy Vista on Jan 30? How many people would have listened to him? (This is not intended to be flamebait or trolling. This is a genuine question as I am not an graphics savvy geek)
I don't think OGL is eclipsed by D3D. Just look at the most recent OGL version, which is 2.1. It supports pretty much the same features as D3D9. And with the new extensions, like EXT_geometry_shader4 and EXT_gpu_shader4 and others, OGL is on par with D3D10.
Also this year we will see OGL 3.0 which will be a thorough revamp of OGL.
So in conclusion, I have to disagree that D3D eclipses OGL in any way of functionality. In way of market share though, that's another matter.
I can understand John's sentiment. I just started doing Wii development this week. It doesn't have stencil support, pixel shaders, or vertex shaders -- even the PS2 had vertex shaders; which I'm already missing the general "funkiness" of the PS2. Faking the stencil with such hacks as the alpha buffer is getting kind of tiring.
One of our other developers jokingly called it a "GameCube 1.5" -- which is very appropiate.
The nunchuck (controller) is cool, and while it would be up to design to come up with some innovate uses, the hardware by itself, just isn't that impressive. Of course, it is always the games (or lack of them) that make (or break) a platform.
Cheers
Not only that, but he's said in an interview that he enjoys programming for phones, that working with the limited resources is fun. He also codes ordinary hardware drivers to "Ground" himself if I remember correctly. So yeah, he does everything from drivers to simple games to brain liquifying 3D awesome. I would not put coaxing a little more Uberness out of a Wii past him.
...I got nothing.
As it stands, that's all irrelevant.
World of Warcraft IS the bulk of the MMORPG market. World of Warcraft has an active OS X user base. The OS X client uses OpenGL, exclusively.
World of Warcraft will never require DirectX 10 exclusively; it will always have an OpenGL client.
Ergo, the bulk of the MMORPG market will not require DirectX 10.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
What you're forgetting is that the mentality of using a PC has changed over the last 10-15 years. Back in the standalone DOS days, people typically would boot up a PC to perform a specific task - use a word processor OR work on a spreadsheet OR play a game, and turn it off when they were done.
These days, people tend to use a PC as an always-on, networked multifunction device that is booted once at the beginning of the day and left running as they switch back and forth between tasks - check email THEN use a word processor THEN look something up with Google THEN play a game THEN check email again THEN play the game some more THEN search the web for a walkthrough...
Forcing the customer to turn his PC into a single-function device to play a game makes him change his entire routine, and would likely be a dealbreaker for most people outside the hardcore gamer crowd.
One is bringing the PC in line with the 360 and making ports easy. Apparently it's pretty minimal effort to port from the 360 to a Vista/DX10 system (I say apparently because the information is second hand to me, I'm not a game programmer I just chat with them).
However the main thing is just new API with new features for new hardware. Graphics card companies want to keep pushing forward with more features, game devs need an easy way to use those, DX10 is the answer. The biggie is unified shaders. The idea is rather than having discrete pixel and vertex shaders, which are kinda two sides of the same coin, with different APIs you unify all that. In the case of nVidia's 8800 card it's not just unified in the API but the actual hardware. There's just general shaders on the card, that can be tasked to do whatever's needed. That means that if you have a scene that's geometry heavy but pixel effect light you get more shaders working on that, and you can swap around in teh very next scene.
So it's just more new shit, like all the past DirectXs. DX7 brought hardware T&L, DX8 brought programmable shaders, DX9 brought fully programmable shaders (there were more advances in them as well) this is just the next step.
Didn't Microsoft get SGI to start working on a new, joint path for OpenGL? 'google'ing for it I found this:
y _dumps_windows_opengl/A PI
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/29/ms_quietl
and this nugget on the joint project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_graphics_
The project was called Fahrenheit and was initiated around 1997. Knowing, from history, how Microsoft works it would appear that Microsoft wanted to teach their developers a thing or two about 3D graphics and steer 'the competition' in another direction to slow their momentum. IIRC, there was a bit of interest in 3D on the desktop in the mid 90's with SigGraph and Comdex vendors showing VRML and even some OpenGL extensions to Java. Definately enough motivation for MSFT to throw a million or two at a diversionary project. At the same time, they're likely to also have driven any of their development 'partners' like gamers or CAD vendors away from OpenGL and toward D3D. I think even Carmack was getting pressure from MSFT to use D3D instead of OpenGL around that time but I'm just guessing there.
Oh, and ZDNet has always been a Microsoft mouth piece and you've got to put on some thick filtering glasses when reading their articles/marketing materials. DataQuest was very good at putting together 'reports' tuned to shine a good light on Microsoft and darken out the competition. I've seen them called DataGuess more than a few times.
IMO, Microsoft did get involved with OpenGL and used their time tested methods of pushing it sideways as it found ways to market and purchase marketshare for their replacement product(s). I've been impressed with how resilient OpenGL has been. Xgl/Compiz run quite nicely on a little laptop and I've seen more than a couple of Java applications using Java3D with performance being quite good.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I'm not really sure what you mean by "Carmack's style of games" since he doesn't write games.. he writes game engines. I don't think even back in the days of the original Doom did he actually do much in the way of game design. His views of games and game systems has always been primarily focused on the graphical capabilities of a system and how to make a really good game engine that others can then place their own games inside of.
I'm sure he could probably find a way to pull a lot of power out of the Wii, but I doubt that's what he's interested in. Working with advanced graphical hardware and being able to pull out all of the power of the newer and underutilized systems is probably more in line with what he prefers to due, hence the focus on the 360 rather than the Wii.
Well, there's also the issue of how much of OpenGL is actually supported by the drivers you can get.
I don't know what it's like on the Windows side of things, but on the Mac even basic OpenGL stuff like smooth polygons and lines is totally broken. You have to resort to horrendous hacks involving textures just to get an antialiased line.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I think most people skipped over this because the primary focus of the article was about Carmack discussing why they would rather develop for the XBox360 over the PS3, but this was still a gem. In fact, this article seems to be a reiteration of this very quote.
If you want impressive hardware, you're going to go for a cutting edge PC, not a console at all. Buying a console is always about price, convenience, and game availability. The average person buying a console doesn't know what a gigahertz is, much less how many each console has.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Actually, it's the other way around. If you've got enough mobility to use a gamepad, you've got enough mobility to use the small motions that the Wii requires. (The whole "standing up and jump around" thing is just for fun.) Since many games only require the Wiimote and not the Nunchuck, it represents the first time in history that one-armed players can use a video game console - with some footnote exceptions like light guns.
I forget exactly where I saw it, but there was a fellow doing charity work who saw a one-armed kid get a Wii to play with. He said that the kid enjoyed it immensely, and that it was the first time he had ever been able to actually play video games. The problem was that Gamepads and Joysticks had been inaccessable to him because they required two, fully functional arms and hands.
Something to think about, anyway.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Game makers who think they can't make good games without best available graphics and/or CPU power aren't giving very convincing image of their self esteem.
They may say that gamers won't buy their games without good graphics or that boobs sell and 1k poly boobs sell even more. Well... I don't know about other gamers but I have GC with GB adapter so that I can play modern 2D games and I'm buying Wii because it has the ability to surprise me positively. It doesn't even try that fake realism that supposedly sells so many games these days.
Take Gears of War on XBox360 as an example of typical teenager shoot'em up: its graphical realism is so high that I might as well be watching Platoon or Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse now.. And you better believe I'm going to choose those movies any day over a game which targets teenagers as its main audience.
Why? Because its realism is sadly only graphical and the story is... uhhh, compare the story of any graphically realistic game to some classic war movie, let's say Saving Private Ryan, and you'll get what I'm after here. Graphics is all nice but unless the game has same level of realistic intensity as a classic war movie, forget it. Or try sell it to teenagers, they don't care if the story is crap as long as there is boobs, guns and monsters.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
All hard core gamers need is a unix box, and serial TTY
I fear the Y2038 bug
For the record, I never mentioned having the -best- hardware, just _basic_, functioning hardware. It's 2007, and we have hardware that _still_ doesn't support stencils?!
Supporting multiple platforms, all with features sets that vary, with little commonality, is a real PITA.
Cheers
You can turn data execution prevention off, you know. No Playstation emulators work with it turned on.
The sega genesis was 16bit and competed with the SNES. The Sega CD addition was marketed as two 16 bit processors... the 32x addition was a bit weak, but I loved star wars arcade and NBA Jam TE. Doom locked up on it about halfway through.
The Saturn was killed in part by the additions to the genesis. My mother wouldn't buy me one since she just spent all the money on the Sega CD and 32x. I was in high school then. I also went to buy one myself but the only store in town who sold saturns was out (Toys R US) I never did find one.
The dreamcast failure was a real bummer. Its a great console. My genesis, dreamcast and xbox are the most played systems I have. I also have almost every Nintendo system except the Wii and DS. I like the dreamcast over my xbox. Both run a form of windows.
Nintendo will sit on the Wii for 3 years or more. Graphics don't matter anyway. The playstation had terrible graphics and people loved that. Games are the most important thing. In many ways the SNES was superior to the Genesis and yet Sega had a huge following because the games were fun.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone