Even more so than this week ’s intelligence that Electronic Arts would publish Mac game directly for the first time in long time , I d Software ’s presentment of its new idTech 5 game locomotive engine harken good news for Macintosh - using gamers for years to arrive .
I d CTO John Carmack took the keynote point at the Worldwide Developers Conference to demonstrate the unexampled applied science , the existence of which was only confirm about a month ago by I d ’s chief executive officer , Todd Hollenshead . idTech 5 is a muscular 3 - D engine — Carmack manifest the software showing a 3 - D racing raceway scene that he said used a astonishing 20 GB of texture data point . It ’s also the core of a unexampled secret plan I d is working on , with more details to egress at theE3 Media and Business Summitthis July in Santa Monica , Calif.
idTech 5 is being evolve not only for the Mac , but also for the personal computer and game consoles . In addition to the E3 summit , I d Software will have more news fromQuakeCon , I d ’s gathering of gambling enthusiasts that pass off in early August .
Carmack also enigmatically added this near the end of his WWDC presentation : “ And I expect to have another Mac - related announcement at that time [ QuakeCon ] that we ca n’t go in to now . ”
This is fantabulous intelligence for Mac gamers , for a few reasons .
Not to fall EA ’ reincarnate mien in the Mac market , but it ’s bringing games to the Mac using Cider , a technology that enables Windows - compatible games to work on the Mac ( with some reengineering ) . EA is n’t perpetrate to the Mac with its own Mac engineering resources to create these games , in other Scripture — not like , for example , Blizzard Entertainment , which creates simultaneous Mac releases for its games , like World of Warcraft , Warcraft III and the upcoming StarCraft II .
As I said in an former mail , cyder is a expectant push button in the right commission — but it should n’t be the only one . Hopefully it ’s only the first step in EA simultaneously developing products for the Mac the same direction it does for other platforms .
idTech 5 , meanwhile , does represent , effectively , original Mac game exploitation . Carmack explain that the technology demonstration that I d will provide to E3 media attendees next month will utilise the same data point set regardless of platform — that means that games using the railway locomotive could be spring up for the Mac , PC , and biz consoles simultaneously .
This is n’t the first clip that Carmack has shared the stage with Jobs . manner back in 2001 , Carmack visited the keynote stage of Macworld Expo in Tokyo , Japan . At that time it was to present a development interpretation of the engine that would at last power Doom III — a game that finally did make it to the Mac , although there were hold .
Carmack ’s interest in the Mac securities industry is graspable . For one matter , he ’s an experienced NextStep developer . NextStepis the operating scheme that Mac OS XTC owes its core foundation to , and Carmack used it to avail develop the original Doom and Quake games .
Also , Apple has long supported undefended standard where it name signified for the company to do so . With Mac OS X , Apple has made OpenGL defend a core part of the operating system , extending and expanding the technology with each extra release . Carmack has been a prominent booster of OpenGL as well , so it ’s graspable that he ’d want to see Apple do the correct thing .
So it ’s a great matter when Carmack uses an event like WWDC to show , for the first clip , anywhere , novel technology that I d is creating , on the Macintosh , and plainly states his company ’s continued interest in the Mac program . In fact , he mention during his presentation that some of I d ’s developers have switched to using Macs . That ’s a bang-up planetary house .
Historically , I d has worked closely withActivisionto release its games , and Activision has , in crook , work withAspyr Mediato fetch forth Macintosh plot . So one big question is whether or not Activision will publish these titles directly , will do another deal with Aspyr , or find another pardner to work with — only prison term will tell .
There ’s one more ingredient to idTech 5 that ’s worth remark . I d Software is n’t as well reckon a biz developer as it is a game - engine developer . John Carmack is one of a handful of major talents in the plot - engine founding patronage . So what Carmack have end up being license to a sizable identification number of other plot developer for use in their own titles . So I d ’s continued support of the Mac market means that other game that use the same secret plan - engine engineering will have an easier time coming to the Mac .
