id's Tech 5 is not meant to push graphics cards to the limit
Saturday 14th July 2007, 02:02:00 PM, written by Farid
In an interview with IGN, Tim Willits, co-owner of id Software, developer of some of the most famous and advanced for their time 3D engines, says that his company’s latest engine was not created with the goal to make latest PC graphics cards beg for mercy. This time, the engine is definitely tailored for consoles and the PC, whereas id used to create PC engines and let its licensees handle consoles port down the lane.
At this year’s E3 Media and Business Summit, id only demonstrated its long since announced Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, a game currently in beta test. Nonetheless, the Texan ISV did not mind talking a bit about it long awaited and recently presented technology, Tech 5.
With these E3 interviews, we got learn that id’s engine and new IP were not promised to be high end PC showcases, but we also learned about the current state of the engine across the three platforms it currently supports.
Steve Nix, director of business development at id, on his end answered Gamespot’s questions. Some of these answers shed some light on Tech 5’s flexibility. According to Nix, the engine currently runs the same content in 60Hz across all the platforms --PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Nix insists that the exact same assets run on the three platforms and that no extra steps were required.
This easy-to-use interoperability of assets across platforms in id’s solution contrasts with what developers experience with other engines, such as Epic’s Unreal Engine 3. The maturity of the engine on every platform, if verified in the facts, should be noted and appreciated by publishers and developers alike.
id is expected to reveal more information about its new game, engine and the new Wolfenstein game, Raven Software is currently developing, at the Quakecon taking place in early August.
At this year’s E3 Media and Business Summit, id only demonstrated its long since announced Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, a game currently in beta test. Nonetheless, the Texan ISV did not mind talking a bit about it long awaited and recently presented technology, Tech 5.
With these E3 interviews, we got learn that id’s engine and new IP were not promised to be high end PC showcases, but we also learned about the current state of the engine across the three platforms it currently supports.
Steve Nix, director of business development at id, on his end answered Gamespot’s questions. Some of these answers shed some light on Tech 5’s flexibility. According to Nix, the engine currently runs the same content in 60Hz across all the platforms --PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Nix insists that the exact same assets run on the three platforms and that no extra steps were required.
This easy-to-use interoperability of assets across platforms in id’s solution contrasts with what developers experience with other engines, such as Epic’s Unreal Engine 3. The maturity of the engine on every platform, if verified in the facts, should be noted and appreciated by publishers and developers alike.
id is expected to reveal more information about its new game, engine and the new Wolfenstein game, Raven Software is currently developing, at the Quakecon taking place in early August.
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graphics ± tech5, id
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They hired what's-his-name from Sony that worked on a spiffy PS3 tech demo to use libgcm on the PS3 (they were using OpenGL ES before) so I expect the PS3 to hold its own at least (JC even said because of the memory split the PS3 version might have slightly higher quality texturing compared to the X360 - OTOH they would have to work harder getting the game memory requirements into the 256 - OS part of ram).
From what we know thus far the engine is pretty much API agnostic running through libcgm/OGL/DX depending on the target platform.
I'm expecting cross-platform games to look nearly identical, but if they're supporting the hardware at the lowest levels, their engine might make some nice exclusives as well. I'd expect most of their business to be cross-platform though.