So how do Games do it?

J Gwinner/VisNet, I (75162.514@compuserve.com)
08 Dec 95 21:35:24 EST


Games basically make certain 'assumptions' about the world, that as a result of
hand tuned code (sometimes even self modifying assembler), can be much faster
than general purpose code.

As a result of this though, you can't edit most game 'levels' from within the
game; level editors can take hours (Id software, on Quake editors) to build a
level. We can't afford such parse times in a VRML world. (although a pee-parsed
binary format might help).

The 'simplification' can dramatically speed things up. Castle Wolfenstein 3D
(the first 'Virtual Reality' game, IMHO) made the assumption that walls were 8
foot cubes. DOOM makes the assumption that you can only have one floor, one
ceiling, and that walls are vertical and floors and ceilings are horizontal.
You can't have a bridge in DOOM.

The other thing about games, is that there are some really, really, good
peogrammers out there. John Ratcliff, for example, writes 1Meg+ executables in
hand tuned assembler. He doesn't start with C, he writes everything in
assembler. That's an extreme example, but some of these games peogrammers are
good. (not that the people on this list aren't :-)

== John ==


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