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Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform

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Re: Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform

#6

Post by ChrisClark »

pjmlp wrote: post #2

Well, those of us that were already coding for Windows back then, remember that what brought game studios to Windows was WinG, the percursor of DirectX. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinG Gabe Newell had nothing to do with it.

I completely forgot about WinG. I think I remember a test it ran when installing to find the fastest way to blit bitmaps. A tiled curvy red line that would flip tile directions back and forth.

Re: Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform

#7

Post by Auguste »

lazyjones wrote: post #4

That's a bit simplified. More details about this story can be found in the very entertaining book "Masters of Doom" (about John Carmack and John Romero).

This is an excellent book. It's not just about Carmack and Romero (although it focuses on them) but also about id Software as a company, from its inception through to a few months before Quake III came out, if I remember correctly. A very insightful read.

Re: Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform

#8

Post by sbarre »

ekianjo wrote: post #3

OMG, the comments below that first post are full of ignorance. It's just so painful to see what people think and say of Linux (even the ones who defend it).

Was this your first introduction to NeoGAF or other gaming boards? It's pretty depressing isn't it?

It's the primary reason I stopped frequenting video game communities.. Which is a shame because I've been a gamer all my life, and I wish there was a vibrant (and large) community for intelligent discussion like Hacker News but that was game focused.. I'm sure there is somewhere, but I haven't found it..

Re: Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform

#9

Post by sbarre »

I would think that times were a bit different back then, and it's not really a fair comparison to make.

Companies today that are the size of id software back then, and that are making games of relatively equal complexity, are already publishing to Linux.

There were no 200-person studios cranking out $10 million dollar (or more) game projects when Doom came out, and that's a much more complex issue to address..

We're barely seeing OS X ports of major titles now, so while I think SteamOS is great, I don't think it's going to suddenly mean an influx of AAA Windows titles appearing on Linux.

Re: Newell's history of porting Doom to Windows to show it can be a gaming platform

#10

Post by nekopa »

sbarre wrote: post #8
ekianjo wrote: post #3

OMG, the comments below that first post are full of ignorance. It's just so painful to see what people think and say of Linux (even the ones who defend it).

Was this your first introduction to NeoGAF or other gaming boards? It's pretty depressing isn't it? It's the primary reason I stopped frequenting video game communities.. Which is a shame because I've been a gamer all my life, and I wish there was a vibrant (and large) community for intelligent discussion like Hacker News but that was game focused.. I'm sure there is somewhere, but I haven't found it..

It may take a while, but have you thought about starting one yourself like lobste.rs did? I think the code for HN is available somewhere(an older version at least) then just troll the gamer sites and give invites to those who contribute well to discussions.
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