More on Creative and DOOM 3 - Blue's News Comments

[Jul 28, 2004, 10:44 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

A post to the Beyond3D Forums (thanks ASLayerAODsk) follows-up on news that id Software has made a deal for shadow technology that will be used in DOOM 3 (story). The article offers the site's disapproval of patents in general and expresses some skepticism about the legitimacy of Creative's claims, but the accompany quote from John Carmack positions this all as a matter of practicality:

The patent situation well and truly sucks.

We were prepared to use a two-pass algorithm that gave equivalent results at a speed hit, but we negotiated the deal with Creative so that we were able to use the zfail method without having to actually pay any cash. It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3dlabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users.

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96.

Re: No subject

Jul 30, 2004, 01:52

Camaro76

Well I guess that does it for me. Creative will not get any more money from me. Can anybody recommend any other good sound card companies?

http://www.google.com/search?q=m-audio+revolution

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[No pixels were harmed in the making of this post.]




-------- BOOBIES Filter Greasemonkey script: http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/BOOBIES_filter.user.js Punk Buster (Ignore Trolls) Greasemonkey script: http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

95.

Thanks guys

Jul 29, 2004, 18:44

Creston

I wasn't aware that the nForce 3 had shitty sound, and the sound is one of the big reasons why I'd get it. I may just go with an nForce 2, can it still mount along the lines of a 3Ghz processor? Appreciate the info. Creston

94.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 29, 2004, 08:05

Jim

So what, my choices are "Or death"?

I'll take the chicken.

The dinner options were steak or fish. It turns out half the people on this flight are getting sick. Find out what they had for dinner.




Jim

93.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 29, 2004, 02:13

Sixis

/me shivers Calculus....some things are scarier than Doom

92.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 29, 2004, 02:10

Propagandhi

...because otherwise you should not have been able to come up with that reference. Unless you were a math major

Or maybe he took Calculus

I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a calc prof that didn't mention this fact somewhere in the sylabus (I can't spell that correctly because I don't go to school

).

The advent of the internet makes the situation far stickier, IMHO, as its now possible to hack the other guy and steal his work (in theory) so it casts doubt on whoever announces the process second.




I eat pasta!

91.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 29, 2004, 00:25

Sixis

"Seeing the ruckus that this is causing, i can only imagine back when Liebnitz and Newton published their works on calculus (also an example showing that it is indeed possible for 2 people to come up with the same idea)." God, Virus, I hope you've been reading Stephenson's books, because otherwise you should not have been able to come up with that reference. Unless you were a math major /me reads the zfail gobbledegook part of Virus' post. /me hates it when people look smarter than him.

90.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 28, 2004, 21:52

Virus

Hmm if I recall correctly someone came up with the idea of zfail shadow rendering in like 1993 or so, way before it was reasonable to implement it or it even seemed like it would be necessary. Carmack then developed a similar concept during early development of doom3 without having heard about this (which is reasonable, since there are jillions of algorithms flying around in the world). The technique is refered to as "Carmack's Reverse" since he was the first person to come up with a practical inmplementation. Bill Bilodeau and Mike Songy also developed the algorithm independently of Carmack around the same time, i guess they had some connection with creative and that's where creative is basing this claim. It's totally rediculous either way. There are thousands of algorithms that go into a modern 3d engine and most of them aren't really attributed to any one person. And of all those this algorithm is NOT the most extravigant or complicated (in the same way that a rotary engine isn't complicated, once someone has developed the idea and explained it to you). It just a piece of the entire shadow generation process, and any high school student fiddling around with 3d API's could stumble on it and implement it (ex. http://www.gamedev.net/columns/hardcore/shadowvolume/page2.asp, http://www.flipcode.com/cgi-bin/msg.cgi?showThread=00010130&forum=3dtheory&id=-1) Not to mention the fact that it's just an evolution of an algorithm that has existed for over 25 years (http://www.gamedev.net/columns/hardcore/shadowvolume/page1.asp if you read through there you'll find some history). Seeing the ruckus that this is causing, i can only imagine back when Liebnitz and Newton published their works on calculus (also an example showing that it is indeed possible for 2 people to come up with the same idea).

89.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 28, 2004, 21:41

Blackglass

Little red cook book, little red cook book! Thank you for flying Church of England airways

88.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 28, 2004, 20:44

nin

So what, my choices are "Or death"?

I'll take the chicken.

See you in Hell! http://www.doom3.com/




RollinThundr Apr 17, 2013, 12:25: Eh really tossing stuff like that in there only to get your panties all bunched up. If you really want to call that trolling sure. Mr. Tact Apr 17, 2013, 12:33: Pretty sure that's the definition of trolling...

87.

Re: Pie vs. Cake

Jul 28, 2004, 20:08

m00t

Sorry, we're all out of cake. So what, my choices are "Or death"?

86.

doh, i got b3d slashdoted

Jul 28, 2004, 19:56

kyleb

i posted on b3d to get the skiny on this after i saw Blue's post from the other day, here http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14428 then Rev emailed Carmack and made a news post on response, now Slashdot picked up the story and i can't read my favorite forum.

85.

hmm

Jul 28, 2004, 19:51

sadef

i think somehow M$ is behind this and is trying to choke Linux out. heh, all kidding aside software patents must go.

84.

Re: what fucking Books vs Movies

Jul 28, 2004, 19:05

Calabi-Yau

Noforce3 has crappy analogue 5.1 sound from whatever shitarse chips they put on the respective mobos. None of the Dolby Digital Soundstorm niceness of Nforce2. Nforce 4 promises to put the Soundstorm tech back in.

83.

Re: what fucking Books vs Movies

Jul 28, 2004, 18:58

Awesome Spume

...is there some problem with the nForce 3...? The Nforce 3 HAS 5.1 sound (hell, maybe 7.1) but won't do Dolby Digital. I think that's been the main sticking point with Nforce fans. There aren't many DD games yet and they're system intensive but over the next few months it'll be an issue. I'm waiting. The guy, (Flip?) who questioned what state the games industry would be in if people had been patenting coding techniques years back hit the nail on the head. It is going to happen. Apparently the US has 300,000 patent applications a year and 3000 patent officers so prior use searches just aren't happening with any kind of thoroughness. It rests on someone with an issue with the patent (or patent application) to go out of their way to prove prior use. This can end up in million dollar lawsuits so it favours the bigger corps. There's a growing trend in patent lawyers spotting an internet business practise, patenting the process and then hitting websites or companies using the technology for licensing fees. So it's either license or lawsuit. Effectively what SCO is attempting right now with Linux. EDIT: here we go, a BBC Online news story about patents and the Internet: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3920793.stm This comment was edited on Jul 28, 19:02.

82.

Re: Contact info to complain to Creative

Jul 28, 2004, 18:46

B M

Contact info to complain to Creative, WTF? That's like complaining to Hitler to stop killing the Jews. Just boycott Creative.

81.

Re:

Jul 28, 2004, 18:45

Rseman

I love my nforce2 soundstorm and it's allowed me to use my audigy in my other computer as nvidia's solution is just as sound:P However, does anyone else find the sound seems to get weaker if you dare leave the machine running more than a few days straight?

80.

Outsourcing King

Jul 28, 2004, 18:43

B M

-Creative sued A3D out of business. -Creative has completely outscored their operation. -Creative has software patients that they use to terrorize software developers. -Creative kills puppies (*).

79.

Contact info to complain to Creative

Jul 28, 2004, 18:34

telstar

Phil O'Shaughnessy Director of Corporate Communications poshaughnessy@creativelabs.com Lara B. Vacante Public Relations Manager Lara_Vacante@creativelabs.com Jennifer Ellard Senior Public Relations Specialist Jennifer_Ellard@creativelabs.com Katie Meyer Public Relations Coordinator Katie_Meyer@creativelabs.com

78.

Re: POO ASS

Jul 28, 2004, 18:32

ASLayerAODsk

ill 2nd that motion! This comment was edited on Jul 28, 18:42.

77.

Re: what fucking Books vs Movies

Jul 28, 2004, 18:15

Creston

Can you really imagine JC asking for Creative Labs advice on how to optimize a high performance real time 3D graphic engine???? Heh, the thought of it is just very humorous for some reason. Creston Edit : nForce 3 vs nForce 4. I'm (hopefully) going to be upgrading in a few months time, I guess I might wait until Xmas. Judging from a comment somewhere below, is there some problem with the nForce 3, or is it just that there will be New Stuff(tm) in the nForce 4? I was thinking of getting an nForce 3, mostly because of the Soundstorm chip. Which, coincidentally, still happens to be the ONLY sound system that can properly do 5.1 sound in Ex Deus : IW and Thief 3. Creative's system only works in 5.1 when you turn on that fucking emulation crap. Doing 5.1 is REALLY hard, isn't it, Creative? This comment was edited on Jul 28, 18:22.

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