Re: Quake for the GS

[skaratso@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Stavros Robert Karatsoridis)]

Daniel Webster (dwebster@monmouth.com) wrote:
: Philip Stephens wrote:
: > 
: > Matt Portune wrote:
: > 
: > >Here's a novel idea.  Let's get the source code for Linux Quake, and
: > >recompile it for GNO, and have it make use of the Number Cruncher
: > >since the game heavily relies on an FPU.
: > 
: >   Ugh!  The GS is barely capable of running a Doom port, let alone a
: > Quake port!  Both of those games are real CPU hogs.
: > 
: >   I ported my Doom-style engine to my GS a few months back.  After
: > rewriting the critical parts of the code in assembler I got it
: > rendering one frame every 10 seconds on a 7 Mhz Zipped GS, at
: > 320x200x256 resolution on a Second Sight display.  True, I wasn't
: > using an FPU, but I wasn't using floating point either--all the
: > arithmetic was done in 32-bit fixed point with table-driven integer
: > multiplies.  Of course, integer arithmetic beyond 16-bits is still
: > too slow for this kind of program anyhow, even when using table-driven algorithms.
: > 
: >   I probably could have gotten it faster given enough effort in the
: > optimisation, but I wasn't ever expecting to get sub-second frame
: > rates.  The GS simply doesn't have the grunt for it.
: > 
: >   Quake in comparison requires significantly more CPU time.  I would
: > expect it to run at least three times as slow as my Doom port on the GS,
: > although in some respects the rendering algorithm is actually simpler
: > and cleaner than the Doom one.  Hmmm, maybe for the hell of it I'll
: > port my 3D polygon renderer prototype to the GS and report back on
: > how fast I can get it to run.  It's not likely to be very quick,
: > since it requires floating point or 48-bit fixed point arithmetic
: > (requiring 96-bit intermediate results).

: I am interested in seeing this 'Doom' port for the GS.  Did you
: ditribute it, and if so, where can I get a copy?

: Thanks

Careful. He said he ported a "Doom" style graphics engine to the GS.
He didn't port the actual game. That would not be feasible.

	Stavros