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[IMG News]

Game Informer recently posted a new interview with id Software's John Carmack. The interview covers a range of topics including discussion of the new id Tech 5 engine, the company's plans for Quake Zero, and the growing number of Macs infiltrating id's offices.

GI: So why did you choose a Mac show to first debut id Tech 5 for the first time, and then show it all off at QuakeCon. I know you showed it to a few people at E3, but not the masses.

Carmack: The Mac thing was just this weird happenstance. Macs have been sort of infiltrating our office. They’ve been sprouting up a lot and people are getting Macbooks and they’re generally pretty well regarded. Robert Duffy who’s the programming lead has four Mac’s or something. He was like, “I’m going to port Rage over to the Mac.” Okay, that’s a good thing. We learn something every time we move over to a new platform. It was always a good idea there. As it was going over we had a meeting with Apple and they said, “What about doing some of this for Steve’s keynote.” I’ve had ups and downs with the whole relationship with Apple and Steve, but we thought it was probably a decent thing to do because it was going to be the first crunch point for the team. It’s a good team building exercise. The time where you get everyone there working at 2am trying to get things done. In the large scheme Mac Worldwide Developers Conference isn’t the hugely important thing to do. It was a good point to see what we could do, because we knew at that time we were already aiming to be showing at E3. So then we were like, “Can we limit features a bit and show something a month before E3?” We figured it was a reasonable thing to do and in hindsight it was a worthwhile technology path to take.

Check out the rest of the Q&A at the link below.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[PeopleLikeFrank]

Good interview.

Quote

The PS3 still does have in theory more power that could be extracted but it’s not smart. We don’t feel it’s smart to head down that rat hole. In fact, the biggest thing we worry about right now is memory. Microsoft extracts 32 megs for their system stuff and Sony takes 96. That’s a big deal because the PS3 is already partitioned memory where the 360 is 512 megs of unified and on the PS3 is 256 of video, 256 of memory minus 96 for their system…stuff. Stuff is not the first thing that came to my mind there. (laughs)

The PS3 is not the favorite platform but it’s going to run the game just as good. To some degree there’s going to be some lowest common denominator effect because we’re going to be testing these every day on all of the platforms, and it’s going to be “Dammit it’s out of memory on the PS3 again, go crunch some things down”

Looks like what Mark Rein was predicting (and what we've already seen with console->PC ports). Annoying, but I'm hoping they can do good things with content streaming so the PC/Mac players don't have to suffer too much.

[teflon]

note how theyre hitting on the PS3.

one good thing about this though is that the graphics will scale that much better on PC and Mac because of having to engineer around the PS3's awkwardness.

and not to forget that the mac and pc will inevitably get higher res textures and will be able to turn up the glitz that extra level or two.

[Ichigo27]

teflon, on August 10th 2007, 10:14 AM, said:

note how theyre hitting on the PS3.

one good thing about this though is that the graphics will scale that much better on PC and Mac because of having to engineer around the PS3's awkwardness.

and not to forget that the mac and pc will inevitably get higher res textures and will be able to turn up the glitz that extra level or two.

Pointing out the obvious. Woot!

No really, it's not like John Carmacks bias towards microsofts hardware is out of the ordinary.

[teflon]

Ichigo27, on August 10th 2007, 07:15 PM, said:

it's not like John Carmacks bias towards microsofts hardware is out of the ordinary.

huh?
but Carmack doesnt like Direct X (though hes admitted that DX9 ended up being good, but that DX10 now has to be rewritten a few times to get good too), and is still using OGL where he can. The fact that hes hitting on the PS3 is cos its difficult to work with.

[Ichigo27]

teflon, on August 10th 2007, 01:23 PM, said:

Huh?

But Carmack doesn't like Direct X (though hes admitted that DX9 ended up being good, but that DX10 now has to be rewritten a few times to get good too), and is still using OGL where he can. The fact that hes hitting on the PS3 is cause its difficult to work with.

However it's mere fact that he and his development team still have a stronger relationship working with microsoft and the first and second generation xboxs.

Speaking of epic games since nobody mentioned mark and epic, the announcment of custom content support for sonys console, I'm very curious to see how well the optimization for the playstation 3 version of unreal tournament 3 will pan out, given that epic announced earlier is working with sony engineers to get unreal engine 3 to perform well on the playstation 3's hardware altogether.

[jeffbax]

Its too bad that the only Mac that will play the game worth a damn is the Mac Pro which is so much more expensive than a PC gaming rig it just doesn't make sense  

[teflon]

Ichigo27, on August 10th 2007, 07:27 PM, said:

However it's mere fact

yeah, but a fact which by and large doesnt really mean anything. If the X360 was a beatch to code for, and the PS3 was a delight hed be saying that. If the PS3 was a huge success and teh X360 hed be saying that. If the Wii was an uber powerful console and has the wiimote, then hed be saying how he was having a difficult time getting through to Nintendo because of their difficult relationship.

what you said was purely circumstantial, and doesnt really pan out when you shine some light at it.

Quote

Speaking of epic games since nobody mentioned mark and epic, the announcment of custom content support for sonys console, I'm very curious to see how well the optimization for the playstation 3 version of unreal tournament 3 will pan out, given that epic announced earlier is working with sony engineers to get unreal engine 3 to perform well on the playstation 3's hardware altogether.

i believe that Mark also said that it was much less work getting UE3 working on the PS3 compared to getting it going on the X360, because a lot optimisation had already gone into the engine for it to work within the 512mb limitation. Also, if you remember, Gears of War pushed the X360 very very hard, and UT3 will no doubt do the same once again when it comes to it. Finally, UT3 was one of the first games really shown off on the PS3, and it was done in real time. Since then, no doubt, the engine has evolved, and the game has gotten heavier, but the fact that it ran well all the way back then and that its got relatively little time left in development leads me to think itll run pretty well upon release.