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[J-Rzez]

Maybe he should get on Sonys world wide studios for some help because other programmers are getting awesome results. Carmack is not the God he once was and he has to stop making excuses. [Now Gaf the man can program his ass off but only for things that fit his mole]. Maybe team Crysis can give some multicore pointers? Take them off the ppu to the spu Carmack.

I have to agree... Sony's First-Party titles are pretty much outstanding from what I've seen... Like it or not, Resistance, a launch title, was incredible and nearly matching the "supposed" pinnacle of graphics... Gran Turismo, F1, Heavenly Sword in motion, Motorstorm, I'm sure LAIR is looking all the more spectacular, from what we've seen from WKS; they're all incredible looking in their respective regards... And these are all first-gen games... I can not wait to see stuff from the next Rachet and Clank, ND's Big, etc...

Carmack created games I'll never forget... I still can que-up the opening sound from Doom in my head at any moment... but, from his latest D3, and Quake... well, you can't help but think he's losing touch... He needs to swallow his pride, get back into a classroom, and learn what he needs to on these new processors schemes... You would think after seeing what Epic has been doing would inspire him to get back into the books...

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

That's 90% of the reason why I didn't bother with Xbox in the last generation. I played 90% of Xbox hits on the PC.

What are the system requirements for Panzer Dragoon Orta?

Seriously though are you 100% confident...or even 90% confident that the Xbox360 won't have any exclusives?

 

[theBishop]

Carmack created games I'll never forget... I still can que-up the opening sound from Doom in my head at any moment... but, from his latest D3, and Quake... well, you can't help but think he's losing touch... He needs to swallow his pride, get back into a classroom, and learn what he needs to on these new processors schemes... You would think after seeing what Epic has been doing would inspire him to get back into the books...

I don't think this is fair to say. By the accounts I've seen, Carmack didn't have much to do with the actual game-design for Doom3. He played the dominant role in the technology development, and then other people created a game with it.

And the Doom3 engine is still pretty damn good today. When Prey came out last year, it was a nice reminder of how far ahead of the curve Carmack is as a programmer.

You make a fair point about parallel programming and how other studios seem to be getting better results, but that does not detract from his proven skill.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Carmack isn't a game designer, he's a programmer. He makes engines. The Doom 3 engine may not have ended up the predominant choice in next generation engines, but it's still an amazing piece of programming work. In this area, Carmack is still and will likely always be relevent.

 

[SaggyMonkey]

Carmack isn't a game designer, he's a programmer. He makes engines. The Doom 3 engine may not have ended up the predominant choice in next generation engines, but it's still an amazing piece of programming work. In this area, Carmack is still and will likely always be relevent.

Not to mention all the games still coming out on Q3 core tech.

 

[speculawyer]

I guess I don't picture Carmack as the kind of programmer who gives a damn about Microsoft's heavyweight IDE and tools.

I do remember that MS courted Carmack quite a bit and Bill even talked to him directly. They got a lot of his input in creating various DXn releases.

And there is always that MS moneyhat . . . Perhaps there are MS stickers on that ArmadilloAerospace rocket?

 

[speculawyer]

but, from his latest D3, and Quake... well, you can't help but think he's losing touch...

I think he went out on a limb with the D3 engine. The lighting it can do is amazing . . . but it sucks up so much CPU power that it isn't a good engine for outdoor environments, multiple enemies, and online play. The D3 engine should be used for Resident Evil type suspense games . . . but it doesn't really work for the big open fast-action combat games that are more preferred by gamers these days.

 

[theBishop]

I think he went out on a limb with the D3 engine. The lighting it can do is amazing . . . but it sucks up so much CPU power that it isn't a good engine for outdoor environments, multiple enemies, and online play. The D3 engine should be used for Resident Evil type suspense games . . . but it doesn't really work for the big open fast-action combat games that are more preferred by gamers these days.

you will be proven wrong when Quake Wars is released

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

I think he went out on a limb with the D3 engine. The lighting it can do is amazing . . . but it sucks up so much CPU power that it isn't a good engine for outdoor environments, multiple enemies, and online play. The D3 engine should be used for Resident Evil type suspense games . . . but it doesn't really work for the big open fast-action combat games that are more preferred by gamers these days.

Yeah, the tech is going to have to catch up to the engine. This is normal for Carmack engines, but he really overshot it this time.

 

[Xamdou]

you will be proven wrong when Quake Wars is released

Quake Wars! Thats the true sequel to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and I can't wait to see it in action .

 

[theBishop]

Quake Wars! Thats the true sequel to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and I can't wait to see it in action .

It will burn through all other games like a pure white laser of justice.

Yes.

 

[KTallguy]

What are the system requirements for Panzer Dragoon Orta?

Seriously though are you 100% confident...or even 90% confident that the Xbox360 won't have any exclusives?

No, I'm not 100% confident of anything! I don't want to derail the thread (not the best day for me), but 9 out of the 10 best selling games on the original Xbox went, or are going to PC. On Gamerankings.com, out of the top 10 best rated games for Xbox, 5 went to the PC.

Honestly, in my mind the best exclusive games for the original Xbox were Steel Batallion and Ninja Gaiden.

 

[vireland]

That's the gift and the curse of the PS3. It's harder to program for, but if you master it you could probably get better performance out of it than it's competitor.

Yeah, and we saw how well that mantra worked out for SEGA Saturn...

 

[speculawyer]

I don't think this is fair to say. By the accounts I've seen, Carmack didn't have much to do with the actual game-design for Doom3. He played the dominant role in the technology development, and then other people created a game with it.

And the Doom3 engine is still pretty damn good today. When Prey came out last year, it was a nice reminder of how far ahead of the curve Carmack is as a programmer.

Prey is better showcase than D3 . . . but it still isn't an amazing game.

BTW, Venom did a great job porting the D3 engine . . . they did a better job than Raven did . . . that is impressive!

 

[mckmas8808]

Yeah, and we saw how well that mantra worked out for SEGA Saturn...

So what are you saying their vire?

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

So what are you saying their vire?

Hmm????

Sony Playstation 3 = Sega Saturn
Microsoft Xbox360 = Sega Dreamcast

I think I'm in heaven. Saturn vs Dreamcast, the ultimate dream-match. Now if only Nintendo Wii could become the Sega Genesis.

 

[theBishop]

Hmm????

Sony Playstation 3 = Sega Saturn
Microsoft Xbox360 = Sega Dreamcast

I think I'm in heaven. Saturn vs Dreamcast, the ultimate dream-match. Now if only Nintendo Wii could become the Sega Genesis.

Nintendo wasn't able to get the Blast Processing working under $300.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Yeah, and we saw how well that mantra worked out for SEGA Saturn...

Well, I was wondering if *someone* was going to say it. I don't think it's a cut-and-dry comparison, but the way that sentence was phrased instantly brought the Saturn to mind for me as well.

Complicated architecture is fine, but you have to have a compelling reason for a company to want to work harder (aka spend more money). Sony had that last gen with the amazing success of the PS2, which encouraged devs to spend the cash to max it out. Time will tell if they can get enough marketshare to make that approach work this gen as well.

 

[speculawyer]

Complicated architecture is fine, but you have to have a compelling reason for a company to want to work harder (aka spend more money). Sony had that last gen with the amazing success of the PS2, which encouraged devs to spend the cash to max it out. Time will tell if they can get enough marketshare to make that approach work this gen as well.

That is actually another good comparison . . . the PS2 was very difficult to develop for initially and there was a fair amount of grumbling from developers. But since it was the big winner of the generation, there was a lot of effort to create great dev tools, libraries, and middleware for it. If the PS brand is strong enough, there will be lots of PS3 sales and thus developers will work hard on it. But with the PS3 price so high and the xbox 360 doing reasonably well . . . Sony is in a tough situation. They need to put out better dev tools and buy some more exclusives.

 

[theBishop]

That is actually another good comparison . . . the PS2 was very difficult to develop for initially and there was a fair amount of grumbling from developers. But since it was the big winner of the generation, there was a lot of effort to create great dev tools, libraries, and middleware for it. If the PS brand is strong enough, there will be lots of PS3 sales and thus developers will work hard on it. But with the PS3 price so high and the xbox 360 doing reasonably well . . . Sony is in a tough situation. They need to put out better dev tools and buy some more exclusives.

Yeah, but relative to their time, PS3 isn't nearly as "out-there" as PS2 was. You still have essentially a G5 and an Nvidia GPU to get started with. Of course, the real potential is in optimizing for the SPUs, but at least getting started is significantly more straight-forward.

Also, there's Toshiba and IBM working with the processor too, and i'm sure all three companies are putting a lot of work into compiler optimizations, which with any luck will improve dramatically over the next few years.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

His major complaint is a distaste for asymmetric processor design though. I don't quite understand how the PS3 is asymmetric myself

Means it has multiple different cores. 360 has 3 of the same core. Cell has one of those, plus 8 (7, or 6 if you must) of another type.

By comparison PS2 had 1 each of 4 different cores (IOP, EE, VU0, and VU1), so it's no wonder he hated it. Personally I found it fascinating, and am almost (but not entirely) sorry to be leaving it. It still has some really nice low-level features that neither of the two next-gen heavyweights have. Sure the tools suck at times, but I've used worse.

 

[speculawyer]

Means it has multiple different cores. 360 has 3 of the same core. Cell has one of those, plus 8 (7, or 6 if you must) of another type.

Hmm . . . that is an interesting simplification. .
xbox = 3 x PPC
PS3 = 1 x PPC + 6 x SPU

That ignores the GPU differences though . . . but are those differences mostly hidden by software libraries?


(Yes, it is 6 SPUs . . . 8 - 1 bonded out dead core - 1 OS dedicated core = 6 SPUs)

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

The PS3 really does have beefy processing power...I can't wait to see the game that makes it sing like VF2 did for the Saturn.

 

[speculawyer]

By comparison PS2 had 1 each of 4 different cores (IOP, EE, VU0, and VU1), so it's no wonder he hated it.

Holy crap . . . no wonder Renderware was so popular. :lol

 

[theBishop]

Means it has multiple different cores. 360 has 3 of the same core. Cell has one of those, plus 8 (7, or 6 if you must) of another type.

By comparison PS2 had 1 each of 4 different cores (IOP, EE, VU0, and VU1), so it's no wonder he hated it. Personally I found it fascinating, and am almost (but not entirely) sorry to be leaving it. It still has some really nice low-level features that neither of the two next-gen heavyweights have. Sure the tools suck at times, but I've used worse.

The thing that makes the Cell processor different from the PS2 CPU is the stream model where the SPUs are really doing the bulk of the processing. So the PPC core will basically act as a hypervisor, managing the data for the SPUs to process. In this model, most of the processing is handled in a uniform way.

So strictly speaking, Cell is asymmetric, but its sort of a hybrid compared to Saturn or PS2's CPUs.

 

[Lord Phol]

Could it be!? a PC developer thinks the 360 is easier to develop on than the PS3?
Isn't this shocking news!

*Yawn* wake me up when something interesting happens.

 

[bishoptl]

You see, this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Could it be!? a PC developer thinks the 360 is easier to develop on than the PS3?
Isn't this shocking news!

*Yawn* wake me up when something interesting happens.

Well, with the rising cost of next-gen software and the prevalence of relying on licensed engines, I'd say that Carmack's opinion on things is interesting, being one of the major creators of 3d engines. It's not like he just tossed it out there.

Also! Wake up, sir! We are having a good talk about internal processing structures in here ok!

 

[Tenacious-V]

Could it be!? a PC developer thinks the 360 is easier to develop on than the PS3?
Isn't this shocking news!

*Yawn* wake me up when something interesting happens.

How many times do we need useless garbage posts like this in threads like these. Why post at all if you've got nothing contructive to add.

 

[GreekWolf]

Silly me... I thought there would be at least a brief mention of Wolfenstein 360 in his comments.

 

[PistolGrip]

Not surprise at his comments. He's a PC developer who is now coming to grips with multi-core development. Unfortunately for him this is the future. There are limits to the amount of GHZ you can physically get out of a processor. The best way to deal with it is through parallel processing.

Multi-threaded development is actually simple, the problem comes when sharing data between those threads and thinking asynchronously (order is undetermined). Games are perfect for this type processing. Physics, Particle, AI can all be separated talking to each other though a synchronized bus. I think the reason most developers in the gaming world fear this concept is simply due to lack of experience in it. Sure it hell to debug but we have been developing parallel processes for more than 30 years and the tools and patterns are there. This industry just needs to familiarize itself with it.

To be honest the fact that MS provides all of these IDE dev tools and frameworks helps productivity but it definitely doesn't help much with performance. It adds a performance hit and the layers of indirection make it harder to fine tune it actually (have any of you ever dealt with MS studio using VB or VC++ ). MS dev tools used to be the joke of server development world however .net is making things a bit better now. I haven't explore their latest offerings as of late but true performance nuts like Naughty Dog would kill themselves at the thought of using a cluttered dev environment.

You guys should check out www.cellperformance.com for some enlightenment.

 

[Lord Phol]

Well, with the rising cost of next-gen software and the prevalence of relying on licensed engines, I'd say that Carmack's opinion on things is interesting, being one of the major creators of 3d engines. It's not like he just tossed it out there.

Also! Wake up, sir! We are having a good talk about internal processing structures in here ok!

Aye that that is true, but wasn't this pretty much facts already? It's not like people thought he would be all over the PS3 all off a sudden ^^'.
Feels like this just as much could be a post about "Breaking NEWS! Children in Africa are still starving".
And sorry if I was being rude, didn't notice that discussion of yours,
keep it up, it's good read *thumbs up*.

How many times do we need useless garbage posts like this in threads like these. Why post at all if you've got nothing contructive to add.

And I feel the same about these "news". Just as you think my post was trash and unnecessary, I think the same of this thread.
The same things being said and concluded over and over again everytime these threads are being posted, most things have already been said and discussed to death before (just not about this particualar persons thoughts, but about the topic in general).
But a good read is always a good read, so I guess in the end your right, keep at it.

Peace out.

 

[Dylx]

Seeing how terrible quake 4 was, terrible loading, and sub-par graphics.......Carmack doesn't have alot of speaking room, i hope quake wars change my opinion.

 

[Srider]

Americans will support Americans, Japanese will support Japanese....

I guess it is that simple.


Some people should stop living in the past.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Americans will support Americans, Japanese will support Japanese....

I guess it is that simple.


Some people should stop living in the past.

Yes, this is clearly a racial issue.

 

[GreekWolf]

Seeing how terrible quake 4 was, terrible loading, and sub-par graphics.......Carmack doesn't have alot of speaking room, i hope quake wars change my opinion.

You might have a point, except that Carmack didn't have anything to do with Quake 4. It was developed by Raven.

 

[TheIkariWarrior]

That's the gift and the curse of the PS3. It's harder to program for, but if you master it you could probably get better performance out of it than it's competitor.

but only in certain aspects. don't forget that in some ways, the Xbox 360 is much more powerful than PS3, just like PS3 is more powerful than Xbox 360 in other ways.

 

[speculawyer]

You might have a point, except that Carmack didn't have anything to do with Quake 4. It was developed by Raven.

My thoughts exactly. Carmack was behind the original engine for the PC version of Quake 4. But other than that, he had nothing to do with it.

 

[Mojovonio]

but only in certain aspects. don't forget that in some ways, the Xbox 360 is much more powerful than PS3, just like PS3 is more powerful than Xbox 360 in other ways.

Honestly, who cares. Look at the minimalistic gap between this generation and last. We don't have anything close to a PS1-PS2 difference. Its fine, games like Gears of War look amazing. My point is, that even if the PS3 is more powerful than the 360, how much of a difference will we see?

 

[speculawyer]

but only in certain aspects. don't forget that in some ways, the Xbox 360 is much more powerful than PS3, just like PS3 is more powerful than Xbox 360 in other ways.

In what ways? It has a little more memory and it can read data off the DVD faster . . . but other than that, but other than that doesn't the PS3 win?

 

[Mojovonio]

In what ways? It has a little more memory and it can read data off the DVD faster . . . but other than that, but other than that doesn't the PS3 win?

Apparently, the GPU is a bit better on the 360. But its all subjective, because it comes down to the developers, not the sideline programmers at Beyond3D.

 

[bishoptl]

Americans will support Americans, Japanese will support Japanese....

I guess it is that simple.


Some people should stop living in the past.

what

 

[slidewinder]

I used to dream of 41FPS in quake, as I chugged along between 17 and 25.

Me too. DAMN YOU CYRIX!!

 

[Srider]

I just realized how out of context this can be taken..

Americans will support Americans, Japanese will support Japanese....

I guess it is that simple.

MS really knows how to support the primarily PC based Western Devs. This is evident throughout all of MS's technologies.

While Sony and Japan devs are largely the opposite. Japan devs never really had support when you compare it with western dev environment.

Some people should stop living in the past.

Parallel processing is the way of the future. Like what Carmack said, it's unlikely that we can get more gigahertz out of what we have. It's time to deal with reality.

 

[PistolGrip]

Apparently, the GPU is a bit better on the 360. But its all subjective, because it comes down to the developers, not the sideline programmers at Beyond3D.

There are devs that said the Ps3 video card was better do use see a lot of Gaffers claiming the PS3 one is a bit better... /rolleyes

 

[gutter_trash]

am I the only one of the few here that is happy that the PS3 is harder to work with?

hear me out. It will force shovelwarers to not waste their time porting shovelware onto the PS3.

if a 3rd party is serious on multi-console and porting onto the PS3, then they will be serious to put it on the PS3 in the end.. wich is good

u see,, less shovelware in the end... this is good. So no Sopranos junk and such.

Meanwhile, the games that will shine bright will be the exclussives. And in time we will compare the multi-console ports to the exclussive and be amazed at the quality difference

 

[PistolGrip]

am I the only one of the few here that is happy that the PS3 is harder to work with?

hear me out. It will force shovelwarers to not waste their time porting shovelware onto the PS3.

if a 3rd party is serious on multi-console and porting onto the PS3, then they will be serious to put it on the PS3 in the end.. wich is good

u see,, less shovelware in the end... this is good. So no Sopranos junk and such.

Meanwhile, the games that will shine bright will be the exclussives. And in time we will compare the multi-console ports to the exclussive and be amazed at the quality difference

Nothing wrong with your logic but less games = bad incase you had not come to that little dilema.

 

[gutter_trash]

I like less games,
keep the cartoon and movie licenses elsehwere.. especially the TV series licenses.

it makes life easyer when browsing in a game retailer when you are not drowned in a sea of licenses.

 

[speculawyer]

am I the only one of the few here that is happy that the PS3 is harder to work with?

That is a bizarre theory. Who cares about the shovelware? Just don't buy it.

If the console is easy to develop for then the good titles will be all that much better since the developer won't waste time trying to figure out weird technical quirks of the console.

 

[Grayman]

Seeing how terrible quake 4 was, terrible loading, and sub-par graphics.......Carmack doesn't have alot of speaking room, i hope quake wars change my opinion.

Quake 4 had subpar graphics?