CES 2007: John Carmack Interview

[The Continental]

GameInformer (http://www.gameinformer.com) recently sat down with John Carmack and id CEO Todd Hollenshed at this year's CES to discuss all things gaming (http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm?Page=1), from Quake Wars and id's latest project, to Vista and the latest generation of consoles.GI: After Enemy Territories: Quake Wars ships with the highly modified Doom 3 engine and the MegaTexture support, is it time for you guys to move on from that engine?

Carmack: Yes, the in-house development project that we’ve been working on is all new technology. It still has some roots in the Doom 3 technology, but almost everything is new in there. We’re still not talking about exactly what the project is, but it’s a new IP, it’s diverting a little bit from the standard id formula and it’s not just a first-person shooter. Technically, it’s build around an advancement over the MegaTexture technology from Quake Wars. Where that was applied just to the terrain, the version of the new technology applies it into everything, so we can have that level of rich detail on all the surfaces on the entire world. That’s the push that we’re making with graphics technology. The gameplay is somewhat different from anything that we’ve of done before. The company is pursuing Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake franchises with other partner developers and all, but we’re trying to develop a brand-new franchise with this new one. Hopefully, we’ll be talking about that sometime this year, and we’ll be able to go ahead and come out of our own little cone of silence about it.Thanks VE3D (http://www.ve3d.com).

A lengthy, but very good interview.

[Slack3r78]

On a related note, I just got done watching Carmack's Quakecon 2006 Keynote (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=carmack+quakecon+2006) the other night. It's a couple of hours total, but well worth it if you're in any way a graphics or hardware architecture geek.

[TrackZero]

Maybe Carmack's finally refering to the "Trinity" IP he's tried to get going for years (last I heard).

[Captain Awesome]

Love The Carmack.

[Dag Nasty Evil]

Man, for some reason I love Carmack interviews.

edit:WEEEEEEEEEEE 400th post bithes!

[Midda]

Hahaha, bithes...

[Ludoc]

GI: Two more quick questions. Is there any game or tech that you’ve seen in the past year that’s made you say, “Wow”?

Carmack: I think Gears of War looks great. I really do. I think they did an excellent job with that. They did a lot of things really well. That’s the best-looking thing that I’ve seen in a while.

Hollenshead: The Crysis stuff looks pretty good, too. I don’t know if you’ve seen that.

Carmack: Yeah, that’s not a shipping product yet.
It's nice to see developers give credit to rival games and engines.

I laughed after reading Carmack's response to Crysis.

[Captain Awesome]

It's nice to see developers give credit to rival games and engines.

I laughed after reading Carmack's response to Crysis.

Yeah that was funny.

Carmack has always been open who he admires and dislikes. They asked him one time after the launch of Doom 3 who he respects the most in the industry, he said "Valve". Must have been flattering. But thats what I like about him, how frank he is in responses to things he likes and doesnt.

[Schnoogs]

On a related note, I just got done watching Carmack's Quakecon 2006 Keynote (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=carmack+quakecon+2006) the other night. It's a couple of hours total, but well worth it if you're in any way a graphics or hardware architecture geek.

I could listen to him talk all night...he reminds me of why I love to code.

[Draft]

John Carmack is one of my favorite industry figures. No bullshit, no spin, just tons of truth with lots of confusing vocabulary words.

[Schnoogs]

John Carmack is one of my favorite industry figures. No bullshit, no spin, just tons of truth with lots of confusing vocabulary words.

Watching him talk reminds me of how average my intelligence is......this guy is sharp plain and simple.

[SaintArnold]

Maybe Carmack's finally refering to the "Trinity" IP he's tried to get going for years (last I heard).

Trinity was the code name for the engine Carmack was researching after Quake 2. Some of the ideas were not incorporated when they decided to go for a fast-paced multiplayer game, and were put off for the full Doom engine rewrite. This info is all available in old .plan file updates.

There is no Trinity "IP".

[Jart]

Excellent read, I wish all game devs were so candid in their interviews.

[kraemer]

"the carmack" is not the be all end all of programming. When I talked to him in 1996 about OpenGL he completely poo-poo'd the idea of using it for quake. Then miraculously 8 months later he was all over it.

Now, the Carmack craps on multicore wanting faster serial processors. This is so "Carmack centric", if its not good for me, then I don't like it...
He hates thread syncronization and dependencies, unlike other programmers (valve has embraced it).

He just cant get his head around the thought that in the not too distant future (its being worked on now) a new paradigm for simultaneous instruction execution programming that isn't "thread based" will change the whole workflow making multicore that much more efficient and easy to use. But don't try and tell him that....

[Captain Awesome]

Trinity was the code name for the engine Carmack was researching after Quake 2. Some of the ideas were not incorporated when they decided to go for a fast-paced multiplayer game, and were put off for the full Doom engine rewrite. This info is all available in old .plan file updates.

There is no Trinity "IP".


It'll most likely be "Quest" or some iteration of it.

[Schnoogs]

"the carmack" is not the be all end all of programming. When I talked to him in 1996 about OpenGL he completely poo-poo'd the idea of using it for quake. Then miraculously 8 months later he was all over it.

Now, the Carmack craps on multicore wanting faster serial processors. This is so "Carmack centric", if its not good for me, then I don't like it...
He hates thread syncronization and dependencies, unlike other programmers (valve has embraced it).

He just cant get his head around the thought that in the not too distant future (its being worked on now) a new paradigm for simultaneous instruction execution programming that isn't "thread based" will change the whole workflow making multicore that much more efficient and easy to use. But don't try and tell him that....

I'm probably not alone in thinking that Carmack is 100x smarter than you when it comes to this...go troll some other thread! ;)

[kraemer]

I'm probably not alone in thinking that Carmack is 100x smarter than you when it comes to this...go troll some other thread! ;)
Well, then why don't you back up the Carmacks stance that multicore blows and faster serial CPU's are better? Really, if Carmack is entitled to his opinion, then I am entitled to criticize it without being called a "troll".

[Draft]

"the carmack" is not the be all end all of programming. When I talked to him in 1996 about OpenGL he completely poo-poo'd the idea of using it for quake. Then miraculously 8 months later he was all over it.

Now, the Carmack craps on multicore wanting faster serial processors. This is so "Carmack centric", if its not good for me, then I don't like it...
He hates thread syncronization and dependencies, unlike other programmers (valve has embraced it).

He just cant get his head around the thought that in the not too distant future (its being worked on now) a new paradigm for simultaneous instruction execution programming that isn't "thread based" will change the whole workflow making multicore that much more efficient and easy to use. But don't try and tell him that....And yet he went on to basically invent the 3D game engine.

[kokyunage]

Well, then why don't you back up the Carmacks stance that multicore blows and faster serial CPU's are better? Really, if Carmack is entitled to his opinion, then I am entitled to criticize it without being called a "troll".

Maybe because Carmack is right. Faster core single processors are more important for games. Why? Because games are still essentially all graphics processing. Yes, you have your AI, your physics, and sound programming but at 80% of game code execution is the graphics engine. That is why shit like the physics addon card is failing, why there is no "AI" card but people still pay $600 dollars for a graphics card to match their $700 dollar CPU.

He hates thread syncronization and dependencies, unlike other programmers (valve has embraced it).

"Unlike other programmers" implies other companies like it. Nobody likes it. In fact, when the Next Gen consoles were announced and the dual core cpu's came out everybody bitched. Did they eventually deal with it? Yes, because they have do. But nobody likes it. Don't confuse "liking" something with just dealing with reality that you can't change Intel's/AMD roadmaps.

[Draft]

btw I'm not saying Carmack is right or wrong about multicore CPUs but I do think its very funny that we have a guy here who's all like, "Quake written in OpenGL? Yeah my idea."

:)

[Schnoogs]

btw I'm not saying Carmack is right or wrong about multicore CPUs but I do think its very funny that we have a guy here who's all like, "Quake written in OpenGL? Yeah my idea."

:)

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carmack has his own chapter in the book on game engines...yet kraemer is the real genius behind it all.

[kraemer]

Maybe because Carmack is right. Faster core single processors are more important for games. Why? Because games are still essentially all graphics processing. Yes, you have your AI, your physics, and sound programming but at 80% of game code execution is the graphics engine. That is why shit like the physics addon card is failing, why there is no "AI" card but people still pay $600 dollars for a graphics card to match their $700 dollar CPU.



"Unlike other programmers" implies other companies like it. Nobody likes it. In fact, when the Next Gen consoles were announced and the dual core cpu's came out everybody bitched. Did they eventually deal with it? Yes, because they have do. But nobody likes it. Don't confuse "liking" something with just dealing with reality that you can't change Intel's/AMD roadmaps.
Two things:
Valve has "multicored" the source engine. They aren't the only ones that like more cores. Go look for the PR on it. Magic things happen with more cores.

Do a google search for the phrase "embarrasingly parallel". It refers to 3d graphics. The vertex data can be sent to the GPU in massively parallel streams, and doesn't need to be serial.

I think the carmacks fixation on serial processing is counterproductive in a world thats not going back.

[kraemer]

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carmack has his own chapter in the book on game engines...yet kraemer is the real genius behind it all.
Nice try, but until you can fathom a technical argument you wont be allowed out of the kiddy pool.

[Schnoogs]

Nice try, but until you can fathom a technical argument you wont be allowed out of the kiddy pool.

You suggesting that it was you and not carmack who thought OpenGl was a great idea is anything but a technical argument.

[ElectricMonk]

I don't think he's actually bitching about multicore systems. Faster single core systems would have been better but the world didn't work out like that so there is no point in bitching is the general tone I got from the article.

It's not like he doesn't understand why things must be multicore.

And yeah, he's not the greatest programming mind ever, I'm willing to bet that somebody like Stroustrup has more coding knowledge than Carmack. But Carmack just has some nerd charisma that makes everybody like him. Stroustrup comes off more like a pretentious ass every interview I read with him. Plus Carmack is living the nerd dream. Makes games, gets rich, starts a ferrari collection, hangs with trent, builds a rocket ship.

[Schnoogs]

Any way you slice it carmack is a genius. He's cut from a very rare cloth.

[kraemer]

You suggesting that it was you and not carmack who thought OpenGl was a great idea is anything but a technical argument.
I never said that. isn't it past your bedtime?

[blankoboy]

Any way you slice it carmack is a genius. He's cut from a very rare cloth.

A similar one to the cloth that Tim Sweeney was cut from no doubt. ;) I would love to see some Carmack versus Sweeney action.

[Schnoogs]

A similar one to the cloth that Tim Sweeney was cut from no doubt. ;) I would love to see some Carmack versus Sweeney action.

totally...Sweeney and Carmack are my two game programming heros.

[Slack3r78]

Kraemer, I highly suggest you go watch that Quakecon keynote I linked. What you're saying he thinks about multicore, for example, and what he actually has to say about multicore are very different things.

[ElectricMonk]

A similar one to the cloth that Tim Sweeney was cut from no doubt. ;) I would love to see some Carmack versus Sweeney action.

Carmack/Sweeny slash fiction anyone?

[Oblivion]

Carmack/Sweeny slash fiction anyone?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo oooooooooooooooooo

[Vyzov]

Carmack/Sweeny slash fiction anyone?
*shudders*

You should be hung from a tree, shot, gutted, then run over by a Buick.

[Telefrog]

"Thread my multicore, you pale god!" Sweeney gasped as Carmack's gentle hands caressed his thigh...

[Furious Wang]

"it’s diverting a little bit from the standard id formula and it’s not just a first-person shooter."

Yes. It will be a third-person shooter similiar to Gears of War.