by Bill S » Feb 22, 2001 @ 1:50am
Doom is in fact a 3D game. The characters are bitmapped onto flat polys, but the environment is true 3D. I don't know what you guys think it is when you run down a corridor, look through a window or go up and down stairs that are texture mapped objects, but it's all 3D. Construction of Doom levels involves manipulation of basic 3D objects - not stretched 2D bitmaps. "Pseudo 3D" is where you have a very basic 3D environment (like a flat plane) with 2D characters (often pre-rendered to look 3D) laid on top of it. The only thing pseudo-3D about DOOM are its characters and the objects and enemies you find, like health kits, barrels, creatures, etc. But make no mistake, DOOM is a 3D game. Quake is a more complicated version of the same concept - it has 3D characters and more elaborate environmental geometry. That's it.<br><br>As for the iPAQ being so different from the Casio, I disagree. The CPU is different and I'm sure the way it handles code is different, but the systems access RAM in a basically similar way, have the same hardware configuration (color LCD, CF, RAM type, IR, audio, button function and controls, etc.). They cannot be so different and yet be so similar in what they do and how they do it. I think 12 times is an exaggeration for floating point functions. Besides, without trying, how do you know it won't work? <br><br>I've been developing video games for 12 years. I'm not a programmer, but I've been doing it long enough to know that if you can get something to run at all on the first pass, you can likely get it to run faster if you work at it a while. This has been true of every single 3D oriented engine I've ever worked with. If there were NO floating point emu support on the MIPS I'd have to agree - the outlook would be grim. But there is, and I doubt it's so vastly inferior as to negate trying. Sometimes, working around a deficit is part of the job... And since you're not really getting paid, I can understand why you wouldn't want to bother with it yourself. Please don't mistake my comments for lack of appreciation for the work you've done thus far. I just am a bit tired of the iHype and wish people would support the platform most people still use (MIPS). I just bought an EM-500 (upgraded from an E-100 and traded in on E-125). I didn't get this to have someone tell me it was so inferior that porting Quake was not even worth the effort.<br><br>Your Microsoft analogy is pretty weak. Microsoft updates their products because they make more money with costly updates and upgrades than improving the existing code. <br><br>Quake may be a well written program, but you're talking about an adaptation. We're not talking about optimizing it on a Pentium III 500, we're talking about optimizing it on a pocket PC. I'm sure there's a way if someone just takes a good crack at it.<br><br>b<br><br>
Regarding PQ for non-iPaq Devices
<br><br>Sorry, I just got lost in that rant there.<br><br>
