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John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

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Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#11

Post by waterlesscloud »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #3

I'm not all that excited about John Carmack's antiquated view of the video game market. While there are companies releasing swaths of titles in different genres, he's got... Doom 3. Yay, whatever. Most people will not spend $500 on a peripheral. You can get some hardcore gamers to do it, but unless the VR gear also includes a wireless headset, you're shit out of luck. So now you're looking at close to $600 bucks a un…

Well, the kit cost $500. Once it's in the hands of a company that can mass produce, the price could be substantially lower. And with console manufacturers, there's always the possibility they'll sell hardware at a loss to move software. The point being we don't know the final end price yet.

The real concern there is the Big Corp will compromise the design just enough to make it uninteresting.

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#12

Post by phoboslab »

I love how Carmack is constantly pushing the industry forward.

He made raycasting engines when everyone else was still doing 2D stuff. He made fully 3D games when everyone else was still using raycasting. He built a game engine with completely dynamic lighting, when everyone else was still relying on lightmaps and some cheap hacks.

Arguably Duke Nukem 3D looked better than Quake, but polygonal was the future. Half-Life 2 looked better than Doom 3, but dynamic lighting was the future.

While everyone else keeps iterating current technology (often to astonishing results), Carmack does something new - something that may have a lot of drawbacks initially, but will be the future. I see the same happening in other industries - take Tesla vs. any other automobile industry out there for an example.

I haven't been this excited about a new piece of gaming hardware since I got the N64 for my birthday back in 1996. I'll buy it!

(Of course it's not only Carmack who is doing research in that department. This post isn't so much about praising him, as to praise innovative thinking.)

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#13

Post by pestaa »

phoboslab wrote: post #12

I love how Carmack is constantly pushing the industry forward. He made raycasting engines when everyone else was still doing 2D stuff. He made fully 3D games when everyone else was still using raycasting. He built a game engine with completely dynamic lighting, when everyone else was still relying on lightmaps and some cheap hacks. Arguably Duke Nukem 3D looked better than Quake, but polygonal was the future. Half-Li…

Exactly. First I didn't understand why MegaTexture was implemented in a production-ready game (Rage) because it made lots of texture look like a decade old, but I guess Carmack sees the future in it.

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#14

Post by its_so_on »

slurgfest wrote: post #6
MPSimmons wrote: post #2

Not to be cynical, but if I'd just released a 3d VR headset, I'd be pitching it, too.

And if I were as wealthy and respected as Carmack in the industry (and as sharp) I would also be building rockets, supporting Linux gaming and similarly quixotic but awesome enterprises.

I love that supporting Linux gaming is "quixotic" and up there with rocket science. Too true.

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#15

Post by motters »

It doesn't sound as if anything has been done about the VR sickness problem. Wearing bulky screens in front of your eyes probably doesn't have much of a future, but I think that augmented reality using something like the EyeTap device has a much bigger future which extends significantly beyond gaming.

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#16

Post by JVIDEL »

SwellJoe wrote: post #9
JVIDEL wrote: post #8

Dude, Carmack was never a consoles guy, he didn't like the Genesis nor the SNES, he didn't like the Playstation, Saturn and N64, etc... If he was excited by nextgen consoles, now THAT would be news...

Did you read the article, at all? The point is what he is excited about, which is developments in VR.

Yeah, 5 days ago, with next-generation he means consoles, not VR HMDs

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#17

Post by 6ren »

I knew someone working in VR about 20 years ago, and the big problem then was latency - if there's too much delay between when your head moves and the scene is rendered at the new orientation, it just doesn't work. IIRC the eyes are sensitive, in this respect, to delays of less than a movie frame's 1/24 sec.

Carmack is both very concerned and very knowledgeable about latency in rendering, so it seems likely that he's solved this problem... but I haven't seen it explicitly addressed in anything I've read about his recent work. It might help his advocacy if he explained why this tremendously exciting thing failed last time, and that he's solved it, to overcome the "VR winter".

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#18

Post by Negitivefrags »

pestaa wrote: post #13
phoboslab wrote: post #12

I love how Carmack is constantly pushing the industry forward. He made raycasting engines when everyone else was still doing 2D stuff. He made fully 3D games when everyone else was still using raycasting. He built a game engine with completely dynamic lighting, when everyone else was still relying on lightmaps and some cheap hacks. Arguably Duke Nukem 3D looked better than Quake, but polygonal was the future. Half-Li…

Exactly. First I didn't understand why MegaTexture was implemented in a production-ready game (Rage) because it made lots of texture look like a decade old, but I guess Carmack sees the future in it.

Rage was a huge shame (tech wise). They needed to be able to ship more data to make the tech really shine. The game was 3 DVDs as it was but it needed to something more like 8 or 9 DVDs.

It just feels like such a shame for the graphics to look bad for want of the ability to ship data to the customer.

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#19

Post by staunch »

6ren wrote: post #17

I knew someone working in VR about 20 years ago, and the big problem then was latency - if there's too much delay between when your head moves and the scene is rendered at the new orientation, it just doesn't work. IIRC the eyes are sensitive, in this respect, to delays of less than a movie frame's 1/24 sec. Carmack is both very concerned and very knowledgeable about latency in rendering, so it seems likely that he's…

He's talked about this exact issue and is addressing it.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/06/john-carmack-is-making-a-v...

Re: John Carmack "not all that excited" by next-gen hardware

#20

Post by nohat »

6ren wrote: post #17

I knew someone working in VR about 20 years ago, and the big problem then was latency - if there's too much delay between when your head moves and the scene is rendered at the new orientation, it just doesn't work. IIRC the eyes are sensitive, in this respect, to delays of less than a movie frame's 1/24 sec. Carmack is both very concerned and very knowledgeable about latency in rendering, so it seems likely that he's…

He addressed that in a video here http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/06/john-carmack-is-making-a-v...
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