Id Software (Doom) responds!
George Sanderson
Yo... I wrote a plea letter to Id software for them to port Doom to
Amiga and got the usual "can't be done" response.
I would appreciate people out there who have coded anything texture
mapped and/or chunky2planar routines (or even copper screens) to convince
them otherwise... Their main concern is the speed of the game (they
say the 68040 is just enough) and that the c2p process would totally
kill that anyway.
The porting doesn't seem to be a problem ( 99% of Doom is written in C )
as they recently did a port to the SGI (Silicon Graphics) machine
(the market there isn't that great), and Doom was developed on the
NeXT... (btw, contrary to popular belief, Doom is still playable on a
40MHz 386 - not exactly a speed demon).
It would be good if your responses were mailed to me - i'd like to mail
as many responses to Id as possible in one hit, but if you decide to
mail Id software directly, be polite and explain your point of view
thoughtfully. The last thing we need is some Amiga fanatics abusing Id.
Anyway, below is my original letter to Id, and after that is their response.
----
[original letter to Id Software]
Hi. I would appreciate an answer to this letter from you or someone
who is able to do so... I noticed that you have recently released a
version of Doom for SGI, meaning that porting isn't a difficult task.
Perhaps a port of Doom for Amiga would also be a good idea ? I
realize that the Amiga lacks a chunky graphics mode and it is a
relatively limited market compared to IBM clones, but the game market
for Amiga is quite large. The lack of the chunky graphics mode has
been solved via fast conversion routines (which can be found in
ftp.wustl.edu:/pub/aminet or any other Aminet mirror) or as in the
case for Amiga CD32, the conversion routine is provided in hardware.
There are numerous texture mapping demos available showing that a
Doom-type game is possible on the Amiga. The market for Doom on Amiga
is also fairly large. The Amiga CD32, which is basically a games
console with a CD drive built in, together with the SX-1 expansion
unit could provide sufficient memory and speed requirements. Many
owners of Amiga 1200 have upgraded their systems with high speed
accelerators, bringing their machines performance similar to the
A4000, which has more than enough horse power to handle Doom. These
machines mentioned are the ones equipped with the AGA chipset, and by
including the old generation, (but still fast) A3000, the market is
large enough for a port of Doom to take place.
If you have any further specific questions, I would be happy to answer
them.
----
[response from Id software]
From jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com Sun Sep 4 02:52 EST 1994
From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
Subject: amiga doom
The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
would have on the majority of the amiga base.
John Carmack
----
Sumaleth
>graphics and it would be in Id's accountant's best interest to have it
>run on the majority of machines like many game companies seem to think.
I honestly think that Id made enough money from the PC version to not
even worry about how well it would sell on the Amiga. After all, it
WOULD sell, and it could even possibly make people upgrade their
machines. I imagine it's more of a case of not -wanting- to port it.
As far as I'm concerned, there is a big enough market on Amiga for
030+ games, so long as the game is GOOD.
>Heck, Id could even make some
>sort of deal with the graphic board companies as package deals to help
>sell the them to the game players.
Thanks a cool idea.
>If not, heck, it would be kinda cool to have our own written by our great
>coders and rub it in their face. :-)
Well, there's many reports about clones being done, so who knows.
Row.
Eddie Edwards
: : [response from Id software]
: : The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
: : speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: : pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: : it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
: : would have on the majority of the amiga base.
: I don't think anybody should flame Id, but the above statement doesn't
: seem logical when because they're are porting it to the Atari Jaguar.
The Atari Jaguar does the whole of the 3D graphics, including texture-maping,
in hardware.
What JC is talking about is the fact that the Jaguar's processor is only just
fast enough to run the game *logic* - i.e. the movement of all the monsters and
so on.
If you hand-compiled the C into 68040 assembler it would be more feasible, but
Id don't have time for that.
You don't want to ask Id to *DO* the port, you want them to let one of you lot
do the port - even if it is feasible in theory it's still a far, far bigger
job than an SGI port ...
--
Eddie xxx
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Juergen Rally Fischer
In article <34c3n4$5...@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au>,
aiss...@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (George Sanderson) writes:
[ asking ID to do Ami-Doom ...]
>----
>[response from Id software]
>From jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com Sun Sep 4 02:52 EST 1994
>From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
>Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
>To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
>Subject: amiga doom
>The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
>speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
Well, I had fun playing Doom on a 386....
>pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
>it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
I heard of c2p costing almost nothing on A4000 when doing it while
copying the buffer from fastmem to chipmem. And c2p on A1200-fast
is said to need 0.09s, well....
>would have on the majority of the amiga base.
Turboboards would be sold, most Amigas would at least have fastmem.
Maybe soon the Amigas of the still active Amigians would be A1200-30s.
Would be a big step.
>John Carmack
>----
I'd like to know the real reasons, I think it's not only the hardware.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// fisc...@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Juergen "Rally" Fischer)
//
\X/ AMIGA Coder =:)
AMIGA: More fun per MHz
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael J. Bond
: pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
: it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
: would have on the majority of the amiga base.
: John Carmack
My God, is this guy for real???
Matthew D Wilson
Why do we have to have Doom on the Amiga - why not develop something that
is stunning on our machines eh?
- Matt.
------------------------------------------
()() Matthew Wilson, Final year student, ____
(..) Brunel University (Runnymede), /|o |
/\/\ Egham, Surrey, England. / | o|
c\db/o... ------------------------------------------ /o_|_o_|
Eddie Edwards
: Why do we have to have Doom on the Amiga - why not develop something that
: is stunning on our machines eh?
Yeah, lots of sprites and parallax scrolling - that'd look kewl ;->
Joe
: >From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
: >Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
: >To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
: >Subject: amiga doom
: >
: >The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
: >speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
[FLAME ON]
This is pretty funny stuff. BSP v1.0 gets over 11 fps on my A3000 -
*WHILE MULTITASKING* running the DOOM.WAD from the 1.666 distribution....
And it's still got some floating point stuff in it! Why don't they just
let someone else do it, since they obviously don't know much about the
Amiga (and don't seem willing to learn)....
I mean, all they basically have to do is say 'yes' and let other
people do the work.... And yet, NeXT, NextStep, DOS, SGI, OS/2, WinG all
get versions while Mac waits *forever* (still don't even have Wolf3D!)
and Amiga gets nothing?
[FLAME OFF]
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Matthew D Wilson (ed9...@brunel.ac.uk) wrote:
: : Why do we have to have Doom on the Amiga - why not develop something that
: : is stunning on our machines eh?
: Yeah, lots of sprites and parallax scrolling - that'd look kewl ;->
with copper background, 5 layer parallax... wow!!
..it might even have some gameplay! ;)
alan
From Alan, replies appreciated!___ __ _ __ ___ _ WWW - soon
.----------------------. ///\\ |\\ /| || // ' /\\ __ __ 32
| Alan Buxey | __ /// \\ | \\ /|| ||(( __ / \\ // ||\\
|kc...@solx1.susx.ac.uk| \\\///----\\| \/ || || \\_||/----\\ \\_ ||//
`-I use PGP...do you??-' \XX/Amiga - Now There's A Reason For Not Owning A PC.
-------I also read the InterNet Amiga magazine, "Amiga Report", do you?-------
Zsolt Szabo
> This is pretty funny stuff. BSP v1.0 gets over 11 fps on my A3000 -
>*WHILE MULTITASKING* running the DOOM.WAD from the 1.666 distribution....
>And it's still got some floating point stuff in it! Why don't they just
>let someone else do it, since they obviously don't know much about the
>Amiga (and don't seem willing to learn)....
Then you better have a 68040 or higher in your Amiga. Because my 68030/50
gives me just about 2-3 frames/second.
Manuel Dekker
>: John Carmack
Another "PC-Expert" hits the dust.. Look dudes, if you make doom in assembly instead of on your C-Compiler, you can actually get surfacemapping on '020, look
at the latest demos around for the AGA Amiga's. It's a start!!
--
Manuel Dekker
cspa...@sus.edu.eur.nl
Zsolt Szabo
Don't forget that the only impressive features about Poom are the great
textures. It cannot use different textures for the ceiling and floors
(because they're mirrored) and, aside of the transparent and animated
textures, it really is in no way better than Wolfenstein 3D. I am quite
curious how fast it will be, once every feature of DOOM is implemented
in this demo as well, especially once the c2p routine as well as every other
aspect of the texture mapping engine is perfected.