id Software debuts new engine at Apple conference
by Christopher Grant 
{ Jun 11th 2007 at 1:37PM }
Carmack introduced the technology, saying, "So the last couple of years at id we've been working in secrecy on next-gen tech and a game for it ... this is the first time we're showing anything we've done on it publicly." He describes the demo happening on screen: "What we've got here is the entire world with unique textures, 20GB of textures covering this track. They can go in and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with no impact on the game."
Carmack finished off the tease saying, "We're going to be showing on a Mac, PC, PS3, and Xbox at E3, we'll have another Mac announcement at E3." Wow, talk about multiplatform. Check out some pics of the id Tech 5 demo from Engadget after the break.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Joe @ Jun 11th 2007 1:59PM
The pictures do not look bad at all. I can't wait to see the real game though. So after seeing these screen the game could turn out really great. So I can't wait.
Slax @ Jun 11th 2007 1:46PM
Nifty.
Hatchetforce @ Jun 11th 2007 1:48PM
Return of the king.
sheppy @ Jun 11th 2007 1:49PM
well, it can do shiny. UE3 can't do shiny but this can. Other than that... ummm, yay Carmack?
Hasan @ Jun 11th 2007 1:50PM
yes we believe you apple, mac can game too.
austin @ Jun 11th 2007 1:56PM
Shiny like DOOM3, yuck. Am I the only one to think it looks... well, ugly?
3cubedminus3squared @ Jun 11th 2007 1:56PM
This looks nice.
I just want a game where there is no invincible wall.
Where if you keep walking, you end up on the other side of the world.
That would awesome.
Anam @ Jun 11th 2007 1:56PM
It probably refers to the 5th iteration of true 3d engines:
1. Quake
2. Quake 2
3. Quake 3
4. Doom 3
5. id Tech 5
This looks pretty awesome if that's in-game graphics (I'm assuming that's what we're talking about).
.:BiQ:. @ Jun 11th 2007 1:58PM
Hmm, looks to shiny for my liking, or at least the last one does.
sm0ke @ Jun 11th 2007 2:10PM
Keep in mind that these are photos of a video, not frame grabs, so the quality isn't quite there. I'll wait to judge until there's a video of the engine I can watch.
Geo @ Jun 11th 2007 2:04PM
O Wow the return of the graphic guy.....
sheppy @ Jun 11th 2007 2:01PM
"Am I the only one to think it looks... well, ugly?"
Nope, no you're not.
estomped @ Jun 11th 2007 2:02PM
This looks too much like Doom 3...
Crono @ Jun 11th 2007 2:03PM
"What we've got here is the entire world with unique textures, 20GB of textures covering this track. They can go in and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with no impact on the game."
Maybe I'm just developer dense, but I don't get it. What is he trying to say here, and how is this cool?
rom @ Jun 11th 2007 2:04PM
If I could see it in motion it would give me a better idea of how good this is going to be. But for now, it looks like MotorStorm.
arnulf @ Jun 11th 2007 2:06PM
I think it's not so much about the technology (don't like the look either), but more the message behind it. You don't need windows vista to play a game, I think thats an important sign. Especially with the recent behavior of microsoft like making directX 10 vista only. it's always good to have an alternative, even if it's a small one.
(sorry for the bad english, i'm not a native speaker)
Mika Tan @ Jun 11th 2007 2:06PM
An how is this going to make playing games better?
I'm sorry, but this is all just eye candy to me. Eventually the magic will wear off.
One reality is enough. Why are developers trying to make another one?
rp @ Jun 11th 2007 2:07PM
Motorstorm is prerendered unlike this game
sheppy @ Jun 11th 2007 2:07PM
"But for now, it looks like MotorStorm."
Looks worse than Motorstorm, actually. Unless somehow Motorstorm got it wrong and all surfaces in the real world look like wet pottery clay. Seriously, too shiny and little tip for Carmack in the future. Bloom does not equal INSTANT GOODUR GRAFIX.
Rooster @ Jun 11th 2007 2:09PM
I recommend reserving any comments on how it looks until you see a proper demo.
Regardless, anybody else sense the great importance of this new game tech being announced at WWDC?
Rubix42 @ Jun 11th 2007 2:11PM
does anyone else think these pic's look like they were taken from a Star Wars podracer rip-off?
DWells55 @ Jun 11th 2007 2:13PM
rp, what are you talking about? Motorstorm is not prerendered, seeing how you can play it.
noway @ Jun 11th 2007 2:15PM
how can you people even comment on screens so low in quality, and there is nothing wrong in pushing the graphic futher.
As to the people saying they should stop focusing on graphic, the wii or DS has not revolutionized the gameplay, there is no game on either that couldn't be done on old controllers.
[.sm0ke.] @ Jun 11th 2007 2:15PM
#12, I think Carmack meant that game worlds can be modified (like from carving your name into the rock) without any impact on performance. AFAIK, in most other game engines, bullet holes, scorch marks from explosions, and other environmental effects take up system resources.
Basically, I think id Tech 5 streamlines the way the environment is changed so it renders faster.
Geo @ Jun 11th 2007 2:22PM
I hope this to be a FPS game....
Geo @ Jun 11th 2007 2:25PM
We are getting closer and closer to Hollywood movies graphics rendering a la Crysis experince............
J.Goodwin @ Jun 11th 2007 2:32PM
.sm0ke.
I think you're right. What we're talking about here is a massive, dynamic texturing system. Presumably it has several layers, so you've got color, a bump map, perhaps another light map, a secondary displacement map for landscape deformation etc.
You could edit in engine (like Unreal or Far Cry), compress that state down and then load that into a user game, then the user's actions could further alter the zone.
Systems are fast enough to essentially dynamically calculate small maps now, which are used because the systems aren't able to dynamically calculate EVERYTHING. But you can layer those small precalculated maps in with the ones generated before the session.
I would imagine that most of the session generated content will be stored procedurally and generated anew when it comes into viewable range. You could do some serious ass kicking with a system like that.
That's just me talking out of my ass though.
The 20 gig blah blah blah shit is utterly incomprehensible though. It probably doesn't mean anything, other than that this is the "equivalent" of 20 gigs of textures. No user system could handle that much actual texture data today, obviously.
sheppy @ Jun 11th 2007 2:42PM
Geo, it's a racing game.
@noway
"how can you people even comment on screens so low in quality"
And yet second hand Gears, UE3, Motorstorm, MGS4, FFXIII, Lost Odyssey, and Lair shots still look better than this.
Look, these shots have one thing for for it, high polys. Meanwhile... well, let's just go over the shots, shall we?
First shot, the geometry is high res, definately. However, certain things make no sense. None of the surfaces could be considered phtorealistic in the slightest. This is a dirty, dusty environment and yet here we are, every surface clean and shiny. The rock formations don't even look like rock. They look like watered down pottery clay. The rock face itself lacks plantlife which would form in those cracks. Platlife, I might add, which has found it's way in both Gears and Motorstorm. In other words, you have overly slick rock surfaces that just look like looming mud. Let's move on...
Picture 2: The best shot of the four. Mainly because of the fogged in draw distance and that oily sheen everything have is removed. However, bloom lighting removes the sharpness of such an environment and leaves us with a blurry mess. The sheer polycount is impressive, however, the shadows. Several objects don't cast shadows and those that do, even being close to the ground, have was too blurry of shadows. And once again, the textures are simply too clean for this environment.
Picture 3: Apparently they had a wet t-shirt contest. And wet buildings, and wet banners and cars and rocks and pipes and grounds and air... also the textures look like they've been AA'd to hell and back. I can show you sharper textures in WOW. Once again, he's tooting his own horn over polys but the days of sheer polys being the impressive part is long over. Nowadays, it's about textures and what you can add to those polys.
Pic4: The most disappointing of all. Apparently in this racing game of his, everyone is covered in vegtable oil, cloths is starched while thrown in a hamper, and light springs mysteriously up from the ground.
[.sm0ke.] @ Jun 11th 2007 2:43PM
#24: Give me Trauma Center on the NES pad, and then we'll talk.
Diskoboy @ Jun 11th 2007 2:44PM
I have to say: I'm not impressed. It still looks vaguely like a slightly upgraded Doom 3 engine. Everyone looks like a mannequin dipped in wax, and polished to a nice mirror shine.
Word of advice - cut down on the bloom lighting effect.
Emerson @ Jun 11th 2007 2:47PM
Awesome !!
Rulother @ Jun 11th 2007 2:48PM
id seems to have a problem with going way way over board with the bitmapping on pretty much everything since Quake 3. I hardly see the next gen look of this engine, graphic-wise anyhow. However the whole enviromental rendering streaming and all seems pretty nice. I'm not saying it looks like crap because it does look pretty decent.
Geo @ Jun 11th 2007 2:52PM
the problem with carmack engines is that they look better in levels inside than outside, but i think enemy territoy quake wars will make a difference on outside levels......
Eclipse @ Jun 11th 2007 2:53PM
Sounds like the big thing is non-repeating textures. The fact that Carmak has found a way to put up a scene with 20 gigs worth of textures on modern hardware is insane. Those keen to remember will not that the most texture memory any video card has is the new ATi HD 2900XT with 1GB of texture memory. This engine can throw up 20 times that, on apparently modern hardware.
Only problem I have with this is he's showing it on a Mac. Why the hell would you debute this technology on a platform whos fastest GPU is a GeForce 8600. I mean, seriously? And what high-end gamer cares about Mac? From a marketing standpoint, this is moronic.
Eclipse @ Jun 11th 2007 2:57PM
One other thing - if you guys can't see the graphical fidelity in those scenes, your blind. That's the most complex cliff face I've seen since 3dmark 06 (In the canyon flight, that cliff face is supposedly the most sophistocated surface in the entire demo, taking many passes from the GPU to render on screen).
If you don't have much of an eye for graphics then it's hard to see how kick ass this is through the blur. But if you know what to look for, you'll see something more advanced than anything else on the market.
Geo @ Jun 11th 2007 3:01PM
@ Eclipse
Hey Eclipse how good is the new ATI HD 2900XT compare to the top dogs Nvidia GTS and GTX....?
Rod Oracheski @ Jun 11th 2007 3:03PM
They're still going with the "made from wet clay" humans, huh?
sheppy @ Jun 11th 2007 3:03PM
"One other thing - if you guys can't see the graphical fidelity in those scenes, your blind. That's the most complex cliff face I've seen since 3dmark 06"
You could have a 300 billion polygonal surface if you want, but if the surface treatment, textures, post processing, and blooming effects all take away from those numbers, why bother? What he's doing there CAN be done in Zbrush, exported as a normal map, and UE3 can handle it just fine. But instead of the oily sheen, we have a dull clay surface.
Denkigrve @ Jun 11th 2007 3:06PM
@Eclipse:
The thinking of "who cares about the mac" is old thinking. More and more users are moving to the Mac, and you know that the Quadro in the Mac Pro is the same as the 8800 right? The 8800 is right around the corner too as well.
With the EA and iD announcements I'm expecting a shift, and hopefully a massive one. Windows Vista offers NOTHING to gamers right now. The Mac OS offers a better OS, a more secure OS, an affordable OS, and consistent hardware. It's a developers dream. Hopefully more and more developers jump on board as well. I'm tired of Windows as my gaming platform, and most "next gen" consoles are "meh" without an HD TV. This is a much better option.
So I think it's time to retire the old "Who cares about the Mac" thinking. Leopard and the new intel machines are putting it in a better place than Windows. Much better.
Denkigrve @ Jun 11th 2007 3:16PM
Actually I hope Nvidia skips the 8800 for the Mac and just goes with the 8900 or whatever is next on the Mac.
Michael @ Jun 11th 2007 3:19PM
You guys are getting all bent out of shape over a graphics engine that looks very 2003.
And woo, hes showing it 1st at a mac expo.
I remember another "wow" graphics engine back in the day that was debuted at a mac expo, it was called HALO, and we all know how that turned out.
Shift my ass. LOL.
Give it 2 years and then lets talk.
Dud @ Jun 11th 2007 3:20PM
Still feels like I'm on Mars.
How about a field of grass with a million rendered blades swaying to the breeze for a change? Something more.. colorful.
Microdot @ Jun 11th 2007 3:23PM
agree 100%.
can i get a hallelujah
nagglerdamus @ Jun 11th 2007 3:31PM
macs still suck for gamers. you dont use a quadro to play computer games - its a professional rendering card, but if you do, its no 8800.
macs and PCs are still both computers - they compute. which one can compute variables relative to games faster? PCs. a developers dream.
denkigrve @ Jun 11th 2007 3:34PM
@Michael
Hardcore PC gamers account for a small percentage of PC users. More and more users are moving to the Mac. People said the same tired "give it 2 years" 2 years ago, in that time Apple has shown increased market share. How many years will people go on saying that until the realize that MS's stranglehold is over. There is a viable alternative, and this gaming change is a good move to offer something to gamers.
Most consumers like Macs and like the idea of a computer that does what a Mac does. To most companies that matters more than you and I the hardcore PC guy that goes out and shells out 500 bucks on a top-end GPU. It sucks, but the only thing we can do is just hope that in the end gamers can still get the high end options from either platform.
I just shelled out for a new Core 2 Extreme, with an 8800 GTX and went for the best I could get. Why? Cause I like playing games at 1900x1200 on high. I'm a quality snob. Sucks to be my bank account... so I know how you feel, but...
Personally I'll jump on the Mac side of the fence if things go they way they are looking to be headed. I'd rather not deal with Windows anymore. I already use a Mac for everything else other than gaming. I'd like to do gaming as well.
GoonieGooGoo @ Jun 11th 2007 3:38PM
Macintosh has no penetration in the SMB arena.....hence they will never really be a threat to Microsoft....
If you recall....MS has kept them around to prevent them from being called a Monopoly (remember the great Apple bailout of the 1990s by Microsoft??)
Get real.
Geoffrey @ Jun 11th 2007 3:40PM
@Denkigrve:
First of all, at what point in time did the Quadro line of graphics card become "the same as" the GeForce line?
Second, by "more and more", you're of course referring to the ~6.5% of the market using an Apple OS? I bet you EA and iD just salivating over the size of that market. More likely, they're enjoying the prospect of being the only people catering to the market (after accounting for Blizzard and a few others that support both OS lines equally), and thus having a somewhat captive audience. A "massive" shift? Away from Windows platforms? Ha. Maybe towards a more equally supported market.
"The Mac OS offers a" "OS, a more" "OS," (let's talk security when they're splitting the market 50/50, thus giving hackers equal incentive) "an affordable OS," (I won't even get into a value-proposition debate) "and" "hardware." Right, I think that was what you meant to say. ;)
Don't think I'm sitting here defending Vista, as I agree with you that Vista offers basically no incentive to gamers. But, your analysis of Mac's "better place" in comparison to Windows is woefully inadequate. Plus, in a sick twist of irony, I think Apple would be brought to their downfall by no longer being the underdog. They do what they do, and they do it relatively well. If you are a happy Mac user, I think the LAST thing you want is for them to be dominant in the marketplace. More developer support? More power to you.
Geoffrey @ Jun 11th 2007 3:43PM
"The Mac OS offers a" subjective qualifier "OS, a more" obscure "OS," (let's talk security when they're splitting the market 50/50, thus giving hackers equal incentive) "an affordable OS," (I won't even get into a value-proposition debate) "and" zero choice on "hardware." Right, I think that was what you meant to say. ;)
Interpreted my comments as non-functioning html tags. Silly, silly joystiq. BAD!
Eclipse @ Jun 11th 2007 3:44PM
@ Geo
The 8800GTX is better than the HD, the point I was making is it had more texture memory
@ everyone else
I'm not hacking on the Mac platform. Mac's are fine. Point I'm making is that I hardly consider the Mac to be much of a gaming platform.
Looking at the shots again and then thinking about the Crysis movies I've seen I think I can safely say I was wrong. It's too hard to tell through the blur right now what this engine can do, and as sheppy pointed out unreal engine 3 can do pretty much any of this.
That said though, I think the big point is that the whole world uses non-repeating textures, this scene has 20 gigs or so of textures and this is impressive because current hardware can't all hold that in memory, so carmak must be using voodoo magic to make it work. I think this is really similar to the mega texture techology he's developing for quake wars.
Basically, from what I can tell, it should looks as good as Unreal Engine 3 or Cysis, but it'll do it with non-repeating textures which might be a bigger deal than you think, but then again it might not be that big of a deal in the end.
One other thing:
"Windows Vista offers NOTHING to gamers right now. The Mac OS offers a better OS, a more secure OS, an affordable OS, and consistent hardware."
What gamer actually runs vista right now? Give them time to fix up the code, then it'll be good. The idea of Mac OS being a better OS is a highly subjective opinion, don't state it as though it's fact. It's not more affordable - MS upgraded XP for free from it's 2001 launch. I've gotten 6 years out of that OS, and it's far better now than it was in '01. How many iteration os Mac OS have you had to buy to stay modern? We windows users do that upgrading thing for free in between major releases.
Thanks to the more consistant hardware, I agree that Macs are more secure and as an added benefit, they are more stable. It's a great platform, it really is.
It isn't for me, as I prefer to build my own PC's, overclock them, liquid cool them ect. It's a platform you can "play" with more. Even windows allows power users to do more odd little twieks here and there. It's a personal prefrence thing, both are great platforms, you have to buy for your needs.
GoonieGooGoo @ Jun 11th 2007 3:49PM
I'm a gamer...I run Vista....
And yes HALO 2 and SHADOWRUN are worth it....with an AMD Athlon X2 6000+ and SLI 8800GTS 640MB SuperClocked....with a RAID 5 and Custom Case and Watercoolign System....
High end system assembled for less than 1300$ (with rebates and extra parts)
Try doing that on a mac....and at that price....I'll laugh in your face.