idtech4 licensed to one game, Prey. UE3 has already been licensed to over 100 games. On this fact alone, you can see why all idtech4 games have failed.

1 of the greatest engines which i think should be mentioned tho u may not agree is the CS source engine, its stupidly scaleable on many many systems and in my opinion still holds well in a graphical perspective. UE3 is a good engine but as usual its all eye candy and so on, bioshock looks great but but hitting 63 fps on high settings sucks! I always think that scalability is more important then eye candy thus likely why ID left metal shaders out of an already at the time eye candy dominant doom3 game.

hehe, source engine have done a great job with the shader work
UE3 engine have potential but it is not tweaked like source engine is
and imo quake3 looks nicer than doom3 because the lighting is much better, forget about models but don't forget about bumpmaps d3 have and q3 don't have, but to me a good lighting is more important than having or not bumpmaps.
But Id software had the courage to try new things with the new lighting system, people have to admire them because they tried something new .
What would be a shame would be Id trying to sell their engine to others instead admitting it was a failure as game engine.
At least somebody there had the brains to make money out from this unsuccesssfull engine, using a big name (DOOM 3) and doing the right commercials for it. Maybe they had a little bit of luck also because doom3 appeared in a time when consoles industry was growing up and Id won all the stupid console users out there, users which were finding doom3 gameplay great, it was not a big success of course but they had their part of benefit from consoles (or most from there? dunno the numbers)

In my opinion Id should just better implement bumpmaps, increase model resolution, create nice water shaders, make quake3 with directx support and focus on gameplay.
I would have like doom3 much more if it would have been created on some source engine clone, have some FEAR AI kinda in it and put some rpg elements also, dunno, give some liberty and make the game not linear ?
They wanted to be the leaders once again but this time they failed, seems now Carmack is orienting towards MAC hoping to win the places where there is no competition.

It seems all game companies which become more obsessed with the administration and commercials instead focusing on games creativity die in the long term, even big ones.
Let's hope Id software won't have the same story.

Source engine looks ok, but it has more to do with artistic quality than the engine itself. Sin episode 1 runs on the same engine and looks mediocre while running slow. The only really good thing about source engine is that it runs good on older hardware even if it is very CPU bound. Of course alot of static lighting in the maps helps this. If you turn on dynamic lighting (their "HDR" version) then your framerate takes a massive dip.

HDR is a killer engine whatever engine you choose
I think source engine is able to give you the best visual effects without indecent system requirements

I find graphics in source engine based games to be a bit flat and lifeless compared to those based on the best engines. When playing something like episode one I'm running 1600x1200 everything maxed and 2xFSAA, but it still doesn't blow me away like the best can do.

AFAIK most of the lighting in the half-life 2 maps is prerendered which saves a lot of GPU power. That is why turning on HDR in HL2:episode 1 makes your framerate take a massive dip compared to say FarCry where it has about the same impact as 4xFSAA.

I think it is mappers fault that engine looks flat, I never seen a hl2 map (SP or DM) having the same level of detail quake 2/3 has (the shape of the brushes, number of models and so on, you got the idea)
also if I understand corectly the resolution of source engine polygons is a little bit lower compared to other games and this have a negative impact to the maps

HDR, an engine? wtf are you talking about? seems you don't have slightest idea about stuff you are trying to elaborate about. and plz, source engine scalable? 10% between top hardware and an outdated one makes a scalable engine? don't make me laugh xDDD

You should take your own advice too. The source engine is easily one of the most scalable engines out.

another one? where do you see scalability in source engine? you mean guys who run it on their dual cores and still cannot enjoy stable 100fps in cs:s ? don't make me laugh

Alright alright, we promise we won't make you laugh.

thanks for your attention

you can't discuss anything because every time must an agressive moron come here and say "you have no slighty idea", and other stupid shit

I just installed Hammer a few days ago, playing a bit with the editor and I talk a lot with the guy that made the Source wiki documentation, I was asking him why all hl2 maps look so empty compared to other game maps, and he told me Source don't support many polygons or smth like that, if I remember correctly

hl2 might not have been the best fps game but hell I know it was giving me the best looking playable game on my gf3 equipped system back in 2004 (or was it 2005? the wise guy could open a new debate about when was the game releases and try lookin' smart)

it just proves that you weren't right in your previous post, talking about scalability of source engine.

on OLDER SYSTEMS source games work well on high settings, unlike other games which ask for much better system configurations, for same image quality, of course it won't get 100 fps on a geforce fx5200 on high settings, are you out of your mind ?

about the scalability...:

-afaik first (I did not ever consider episode 1, just the classical hl2 ) hl2 have support maximum for pixel shader 2, not PS3, so it is enough to have a geforce fx to have the entire hl2 graphic features
-if you look inside game files you find the directx 7 shaders for older PCs
- "What about system requirements?!?!?

Heh, one of the good things about Half-Life 2's Source Engine is that its scalable from a 3ghz/DX9 card system to a 1ghz/DX7 card system, so Half-Life 2 should work fine with balanced configured settings on most modern machines. For more known information on system requirements, please visit the system requirements section of this site. To find more info on the Source Engine, please visit and read/view our Source Engine preview and and the Game Engine feature list sections of this site."
(http://www.halflifeportal.com/info/faq.php)
so it says here it is scalable
but hey, what do they know ? nothing compared to what you know; so let me guess: neah, that is only market bullshit and it is a lie

-PC Gamer magazine even said, "More amazingly, HL2 will not only take advantage of the next-gen capabilities of a P4 3Ghz-level system running the newest DX9-powered 3D cards from NVIDIA and ATI, but it'll also reportedly be fully scalable all the way back to a mid-range PC running a DX6-compatable TNT card."
(http://halflife2.filefront.com/info/HL2_Requirements); maybe you missed the words, let me spell for you: "it'll also reportedly be fully scalable all the way back to a mid-range PC running a DX6-compatable TNT card.", there were no further complains that this statement would have been a lie, well not entirely a lie, but Valve did not bring support for directx 6, directx 7 is the starting point

-The engine has been designed to be scalable all the way down to DirectX 7.0 hardware
(http://www.halflife2.net/2005/05/18/half-life-2-review/)

-Half-Life 2 performs much, much better with its scalable graphics
(http://www.progamesnetwork.com/Reviews/GameRe...l&g=77)

you must have a very big sense of humour if all these comments, reviews, etc. makes you laugh

AFAIK GeForce FX still defaults to DX 8.x shaders, atleast they did when HL2 was released.

I said "afaik first (I did not ever consider episode 1, just the classical hl2 ) hl2 have support maximum for pixel shader 2"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_FX_Series
directx 9 and pixel shader 2 in fact
geforce fx was not the end of the road towards low requirements but was good enough to bring it all in graphics

I don't understand what's your point

Valve came out publicly and said GeForce FX was shit in sm2.0 and they would default it to sm1.x mode, same as GeForce ti-4xxx series. When HL2 was released you had to force sm2.0 in command line if you wanted to run it on FX series, otherwise you would get same code path as non-sm2.0 cards.

Read under valve presentation in the wiki you posted.

and this don't mean hl2 is scalable ? I don't know what you wanna prove or say yet :-|

You said that GeForce FX was enough to get full features, however I pointed to the fact that it doesn't run HL2 without forcing it even if it's considered "sm2.0" hardware by NVidia. This was because even top of the line GeForce FX ran like shit with SM2.0 so if you only start HL2 without editing the command line you get same shaders as a GeForce 4 TI series card. If you had anything less than a 5900 card, the game was pretty much unplayable in SM2.0 (directx 9.0 mode).

yeah, fx series were full of shit, I remember somebody came with a fx to replace my geforce 3 ti, just to make some tests in doom3, and I got about 5 fps more than on gf3, but sometimes the game was freezing for about 1-2 seconds (when it was using directx 9 effects-some smoke effects I did not have on gf3)
so I said, wtf is this geforce fx 5600 piece of crap doing? so I did not buy it

where the f* did I say HDR is an engine ?
fuckin' retard!

HDR a killer engine would make no sense so it was obviuos I was sayin' HDR is killing any engine, why do u hurry up to jump into stupid conclusions ?

"HDR is a killer engine"

Yeah, how the fuck could anyone interpret that wrong?

"HDR is a killer engine whatever engine you choose"

if don't read just one word a smart guy like himself might have at least an idea what was all about, it is not a secret my english is pretty bad, just read the rest of my reply
:))

Still, stop going off on people for mistaking what you said when you actually fucking said the words you said you didn't say. That's like me calling you a stupid cock sucker and you getting offended and then me having a go at you because what I meant to say was really nice man with large penis.

even if you consider >HDR an engine< the rest of the reply might give it the idea of engine in engine, so he should figure it out there is something not right

and if I would have be wrong it doesn't mean I don't have "the slightest idea about stuff you are trying to elaborate about", maybe I wrote in very bad in english all my words or maybe he get bored, whatever is the true the whole idea is this:
Id did not made good job with their engine and I found out why they did not implement some stuff in their engine, it was almost my obsession why all materials look that bad, I made some crappy mapping in doom3 and quake4, I made a small modification for doom3 (random monsters health, I won't call it a mod), I played doom3 SP and MP many times, Doom3 DM is one my favourite despite bad critics, I consider doom3 DM great and SP "too pale", I'd like to play doom3 again sometime, I am almost addicted to the d3 shotgun, I was watching all doom3 commercials and was expecting great things from it some years ago, greatest dissapointing game to me, in a time when most people thought d3 will be a big succes (as a game, I don't care about its financial crappy success), I got my hands on that leaked doom3 version and tried the editor and observed many stupid things and started to criticize that game, the more close the date of release was, the more I was sure it's gonna suck monkeyballs, my critics made the whole planetdoom community angry on me, now look at their site, 2 members online every day, this is the number of people which remained devoted to doom3, so I KNOW A LOT about this fuckin' game.
,so in no way should he become so agressive, the fact he replied this way prove he have his preconcepted (I don't know if this word exist in english) ideas in his head already

We were talking about source engine, not tech4. And you have already proven that you don't know much about this engine. I'm not into going off on people and I haven't attacked you, just your opinion. I can't stand posts where people are trying to speak about something like a pro when they simply don't have enough expertise.

There's no way I'm reading that so let's just call it a draw shall we.

it is not a fight and who win, I made some statements where instead bringing me facts he just tried the psychoanalistic methods on me and other people

Try: 'HDR is an engine killer'

"get too dah choppah, now!" -Arnold Schwarzenegger

queeeeek! getto da chapaaaa

:D
WORD !

i think he meant 'engine killer'...

his english is quite terrible in case u hadnt noticed

Strangely enough Prey is the only D3 engine game that doesn't look plasticy. In fact I think it looks pretty fucking awesome.

indeed

i can't wait to play it when i finally build a new pc in a couple of months :D

ummm.....
:-|
:-|
:-|

I finally got over 90 frags on t4 against visor (20 years later, yeah)
:))

and yeah, you are right, Prey use excessive specular effects, still it looks ugly, turn on the flashlight then look to the walls
they use a lot of fog and SF monitors and other stuff to mask that problem and they had a lot of work to do with that I guess (focusing on gameplay more instead)

pt4 or t4?

pt4
:)

haven't looked at the shader, but if it's envmapped, which seems extremely likely, then yeah - it'll totally shaft framerates.

there's nothing to stop someone making a shader that just fakes the envmap a la q3 tho, which would give you metal surfaces that don't suck and actually run fast. q4 could certainly do with some of that, cos as you say it's very plastic-y, and it looks like ass.

Yes, it use envmaps.
But the thing which was upseting me was I created some metal materials for 2 crappy maps I made for quake4 in the past using envmaps, but they failed to look like the q3 shader, I was doing some research and I found out that they removed some gl instruction they have in q3 engine when they made q4.
I did not have Internet at home that time but now I have so I have access to a lot of documentation now and I intend to try recreate that shader for quake, just to my amusement.
I am right now playing with the source engine a bit and I want to try find a way to recreate the great metal shader source engine have support for, for quake4.
Seems I have to find the gl shader language equivalent to the advanced shader language (ASL ?) instruction "$normalmapalphaenvmapmask", which means it use the alpha channel of the normal map of the texture to mask the envmap (or glossmap, whateva' the syntax).
What I find interesting is source engine don't use so much more resources when it use glossmaps.

You should ask the guy behind 3mood and quak4, afaik he calls himself tertsi. Those mods give much better metal look than the original doom 3 and quake 4 shaders. http://www.skenegroup.net/fornvidiots/

I made a material test by myself, but game should not be modded just to create basic things are missing
[IMG]http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3756/uploadcw3.th.jpg[/IMG]

I don't entirely know the shader instructions so I don't know what should be done to reduce the (faked) reflection of the material

Turning on the enhanced shaders costs a few FPS compared to running the original quake 4/doom 3 ones. About 20-30% on my old graphics card (6600GT), which is probably why they didn't make proper metal shaders. Seems to really be an engine problem. I have an overclocked X1950pro now, so can't use the shaderprograms anymore since they are for nvidia instruction set. There are some for vertex and fragment modifications out there that work with ati, but they also cost a lot more fps IMO than they are worth.

Hopefully id-tech5 will solve the problems, id-tech4 was probably too focused around doom 3 which hurt it in the long run. The Megatexture technology shows great promise in quakewars, so I have faith in their next engine. Hopefully it will be a quality SP game which is something id hasn't released in a long time (D3 and Q4 were ok, but nothing special).