Carmack has a great way of explaining basic technical jargon and gradually going deeper and deeper into more advanced topics, but bringing it back right before it becomes incomprehensible to 99.9% of the audience. And he's never bragging or trying to impress; he's a humble, honest person who takes pride in his work.
This was a great way to spend an hour and a half. I didn't understand many of the things he said, but it was clear that he was knowledgeable and important to the game industry.
How could anyone have clicked "dislike" to this video? It just boggles the mind... There is no one programmer in the games industry who has continually innovated and grown the industry through his works as Mr Carmack has. He is straight forward and honest about the realities of what his company is doing ,as well as their goals, and above all else takes the time through his works to show appreciation for the not only the product his company is making, but all gamers & programmers w/ open source
John Cormach has become one of my all time favourite personalities somehow! I just love the way he looks simultaneously very awkward and very comfortable.
I have never heard someone be this honest about his own code/project. When I listen to this dude, i realise how little I know, but at the same time I still understand enough to realize how brilliant he is.
Re-watching this in 2020, it strikes me that the direction that upcoming consoles are taking with their hardware design is pretty much exactly what John yearned for when making Rage. File size limits from the manufacturers have been pretty much lifted with 100GB+ games becoming the norm, and both consoles will come with fast SSDs and hardware decompression that allow to fetch data with minimal latency, decompress it on the fly and plonk it directly in VRAM. Hell, Mark Cerny even described in his PS5 hardware keynote a use case that is basically what Carmack was doing with virtual texturing in Rage. Fascinating stuff.
This video really drives home the sobering fact that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how videogames are built. I'm really glad there are people like John Carmack out there to do all that complicated stuff for me and i'm more than happy that we fill his pockets with enough money to buy twin turbo Ferrari F50's and rocket ships.
I'm not really gamer but I am a programmer (not in games though), and I absolutely loved hearing him ranting away here. Was nice to get a little insight into their development practices and the stuff about the static analysis was interesting. Also, that build server with 192GB of RAM - WOW! I can't believe he was able to talk about all that without the aid of any notes or anything too - guy is a true genius. Much respect!
I'm not a programmer, but the way he talks is incredible. It gives you a glimpse into the way he thinks, which is categorical and organized. I'm a 3D artist (and amateur writer) and very interested in how I think and how I can make my self think better, and how that affects my art. It's very inspirational to listen to someone that is so self-criticizing and makes abstract concepts seem like simple mental hurdles. He reminds me of other great thinkers such as the Dalai Lama and Steven King.
I worshiped this guy as a kid. An orphan kid off the rails turned founder of an entire industry. I still remember people criticizing him when he claimed he was going to do true 3D texture mapping on a Pentium. 6 months later quake was born.
terrific video, I love how he doesn't shy away from any of the details. Also how he doesn't fail to bring up the "short-comings" he encountered. I'd like to see Todd Howard do the same..
In regards to the comment about keyboards, he's talking about not having direct access to a debug environment on the console hardware itself. It's one thing to have a compiler on a workstation tell you things that might go wrong at compile time, but often entirely more useful to be able to watch what is happenning on the real hardware step by step to fix bugs. This has nothing to do with using a keyboard to control a game.
for better or for worse, John Carmack made me the man I am today, mainly because of how many hours I spent playing Quake 2 and Quake 3, which can i just say were A LOT! good, good times!
He makes a good point with static analysis. This has saved me hours or work tracking down obscure issues gcc didn't throw a single warning about with all warnings turned on.
Being a programmer, this is very interesting. Some people may find technical issues boring and difficult to comprehend, but for me, these issues are probably one the most interesting things when it comes to computer games.
Genius... thank you, for sharing your wisdom and knowledge. We can only hope other developers are inspired by your determination to improve in every way. Thank you.
The longest video on youtube I have ever watched, but I surprisingly wasn't bored. Carmack spoke about some really interesting problems that industry having right now: like a 10x horse power of the GPUs on PC and how its going for a waste, lack of unification. And of course the release of the Doom 3 source code. What I liked the most that he spoked about the things that developers don't usually speaking of: the drivers, the directx problem.
Great speech! The part at 50.00+ is brillant. And 6 years to make a game and he was almost spot on with the tech it seems. He needs to be on the dev board for the next xbox. Triangles. Triangles everywhere.
Thank you very much for this. Much better than last year, where we didn't get a recording. When is the recording of the Q&A part coming? And what about Rage for the Mac?
Please stream it live next time ID. It really stunk to not see this live. We could only get the news from "reporters" who were unable to understand any of the tech talk.
@hansonkewl06 Carmack is a pioneer and a programmer. His ideas about where gaming will be is always on point. He lobbied for the source code of this game to be released. He wrote Quake, Doom, Wolfenstien and all the original FPS'. His ability to stay one step ahead of all other game programmers is legendary. He is a true scientist and an inspiration to all programmers. Steve Jobs was NOT a programmer he was a thief. "I'm not glad he's dead but I sure am glad he's gone" - Richard Stallman
@warwize I agree. I can tell, but only looked at it once you pointed it out. Do you often look at clothes? I would've seen it eventually... watching this thing for over an hour.
@SuperHappyCow I see, i really can't wait to try out rage, i wonder what they've accomplished after spending all these years working on it, should be interesting. I'm now really excited to see how beautiful rage looks.
Carmack is a god amongst programmers. There are some things i disagree with him on, but he does know what he is doing, and i can't wait to see more from him and his team!
@Merth667 You mean Steam-works enabled? "Steam Exclusive" means its only sold on steam. I'm seeing it listed on Direct2drive and physical retailers. I'm not trying to be a jerk its just I'm just trying to get a definite answer. Their are some hints it will use steam-works but not confirmed at the time of this post.
Is there anyway I can DL this or is this included in a DLC or on disc? cause I love whatching this on how they have done stuff and what choices they have done
@Daracus I meant that you will only be able to run it through Steam. It's like buying the game in a brick and mortar store but you still need to register the game to your steam account, and you can only play with steam.
@TheSwitche The fact that he doesn't "talk down" to you is awesome and also refreshing. Too many people (ie Steve Jobs) talk down to their audience, "It's shiny and has a lot of cool features".. Carmack makes me appreciate all the work that goes into games. And frankly it's insulting when someone presenting tech explains it like they're talking to a five year old. Though Carmack often makes me feel as if I'm five :)
@TadejVig trying to post a link, but it just says "error" when i do, but a google image search for "carmack long hair" gives you an image of him sitting in a book festival tshirt with a pony tail.
A pladoyer for static code analysis !! great ! "even if you can proof, that your code is correct, if the analyser cannot determine it, another developer most probably will not understand it aswell ... and that will probably cause error ..." great guy !! thank you
@42:44 when we build our virtual textures for the dynamic stuff, it is this process that @42: 49 at one point it just took hours. I rewrote it to be such a way that it used huge amounts of memory mapped files and it got down much much faster @42:59 but it really started swapping on any system that we had. @43:02 So we said "Well let's find out what the actual limitations here are." @43:07 So we took one of our servers and we put 192 gigabytes of ram in it
Carmack has a great way of explaining basic technical jargon and gradually going deeper and deeper into more advanced topics, but bringing it back right before it becomes incomprehensible to 99.9% of the audience. And he's never bragging or trying to impress; he's a humble, honest person who takes pride in his work.
This guy did so much for this industry, I can't even imagine the worth of his work.
Carmack is god TBH alot of gamer should be thankful how doom and quake gave birth to other games and other engines like h-l1/source etc.
This guy has an infectious positivity, I love listening to his thoughts even though not everything he says means that much to me
A man fuelled by passion. Constantly raising the bar. Insightful video, especially the latter half.
Fantastic talk. It's so nice hearing someone just laying it all out on the table for those that care to learn or want to know!
Is it me or does this guy get it? he seems to articulate so well what gaming is all about.
This was a great way to spend an hour and a half. I didn't understand many of the things he said, but it was clear that he was knowledgeable and important to the game industry.
How could anyone have clicked "dislike" to this video? It just boggles the mind...
There is no one programmer in the games industry who has continually innovated and grown the industry through his works as Mr Carmack has. He is straight forward and honest about the realities of what his company is doing ,as well as their goals, and above all else takes the time through his works to show appreciation for the not only the product his company is making, but all gamers & programmers w/ open source
John Cormach has become one of my all time favourite personalities somehow! I just love the way he looks simultaneously very awkward and very comfortable.
I have never heard someone be this honest about his own code/project. When I listen to this dude, i realise how little I know, but at the same time I still understand enough to realize how brilliant he is.
Steve Jobs is the salesman, it's Steve Wozniak who did all the early Apple designs (and never got as much credits as he deserved).
Thank you id and who ever helped making and posting this video, especially since last year didn't work out :) (and only ~24h delay!)
Re-watching this in 2020, it strikes me that the direction that upcoming consoles are taking with their hardware design is pretty much exactly what John yearned for when making Rage. File size limits from the manufacturers have been pretty much lifted with 100GB+ games becoming the norm, and both consoles will come with fast SSDs and hardware decompression that allow to fetch data with minimal latency, decompress it on the fly and plonk it directly in VRAM. Hell, Mark Cerny even described in his PS5 hardware keynote a use case that is basically what Carmack was doing with virtual texturing in Rage. Fascinating stuff.
This video really drives home the sobering fact that I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how videogames are built. I'm really glad there are people like John Carmack out there to do all that complicated stuff for me and i'm more than happy that we fill his pockets with enough money to buy twin turbo Ferrari F50's and rocket ships.
I love how Carmack's muscles form into the Quake symbol. Now THATS dedication.
It's always fantastic to hear John talk. I really enjoy this, and it seemed like he enjoyed talking, too.
Awesome keynote. I loved watching the whole thing. People working with Carmack are very fortunate.
This guy is a god to be able to speak for so long and stay so consistently interesting
This man... may he live another 200 years at least.
I could listen to him for houres. He's such an awesome legend!
@mrbitbot Absolutely. Just let Carmack ramble, it's all golden.
I'm not really gamer but I am a programmer (not in games though), and I absolutely loved hearing him ranting away here. Was nice to get a little insight into their development practices and the stuff about the static analysis was interesting. Also, that build server with 192GB of RAM - WOW! I can't believe he was able to talk about all that without the aid of any notes or anything too - guy is a true genius. Much respect!
Gaben and Carmack both belong in the pantheon of gaming gods, obviously. Gaben as the god of storytelling (?) and Carmack as the god of game-tech.
I'm not a programmer, but the way he talks is incredible. It gives you a glimpse into the way he thinks, which is categorical and organized. I'm a 3D artist (and amateur writer) and very interested in how I think and how I can make my self think better, and how that affects my art. It's very inspirational to listen to someone that is so self-criticizing and makes abstract concepts seem like simple mental hurdles. He reminds me of other great thinkers such as the Dalai Lama and Steven King.
I worshiped this guy as a kid. An orphan kid off the rails turned founder of an entire industry. I still remember people criticizing him when he claimed he was going to do true 3D texture mapping on a Pentium. 6 months later quake was born.
I could listen to John all day.
I could listen to this guy talk for years :)
terrific video, I love how he doesn't shy away from any of the details. Also how he doesn't fail to bring up the "short-comings" he encountered. I'd like to see Todd Howard do the same..
This man never stops talking, and I can't stop listening
In regards to the comment about keyboards, he's talking about not having direct access to a debug environment on the console hardware itself.
It's one thing to have a compiler on a workstation tell you things that might go wrong at compile time, but often entirely more useful to be able to watch what is happenning on the real hardware step by step to fix bugs.
This has nothing to do with using a keyboard to control a game.
for better or for worse, John Carmack made me the man I am today, mainly because of how many hours I spent playing Quake 2 and Quake 3, which can i just say were A LOT! good, good times!
I gain some kind of strange pleasure from listening to John Carmack talk about things I don't understand.
Carmack doesn't have a filter. He never dumbs anything down, because he doesn't realize it needs to be... that's what makes him so awesome.
He makes a good point with static analysis. This has saved me hours or work tracking down obscure issues gcc didn't throw a single warning about with all warnings turned on.
listening to carmack is like listening the inventor of the computer graphics.... he knows his work pretty damn well!!!!
I love how he explains to us how the consoles work in depth. And how they are so limited.
he is the best speaker I have ever seen he never stop talking amazing
john carmack is awesome he is seriously always ahead of his time
He's a very brilliant guy and what a legacy he will leave behind for us..
Being a programmer, this is very interesting. Some people may find technical issues boring and difficult to comprehend, but for me, these issues are probably one the most interesting things when it comes to computer games.
yes youre very special
10:28 "We have a report of a bug in the microphone system"
John "Legend" Carmack
Genius... thank you, for sharing your wisdom and knowledge. We can only hope other developers are inspired by your determination to improve in every way. Thank you.
it's just because ur grate Mr Carmack, thank u so much.
One of the superstars of the gaming industry, impressive!
The longest video on youtube I have ever watched, but I surprisingly wasn't bored.
Carmack spoke about some really interesting problems that industry having right now: like a 10x horse power of the GPUs on PC and how its going for a waste, lack of unification.
And of course the release of the Doom 3 source code.
What I liked the most that he spoked about the things that developers don't usually speaking of: the drivers, the directx problem.
This is the very first time i have that transcribe audio works perfect with John Carmack's voice.
I don't think there could have been a better video to convince me to get Rage. Carmack is a legend!
Listened to all of it. Understood 1/4 of it.
Carmack is a genius. I'm pretty sure he is the most talented programmer in the whole world. Respect to this man.
hey, hes just a guy who loves what he does and it shows when he talks about the games. i envy that with a passion!
yes and we love him for it.one of the smartest guys alive
Great speech! The part at 50.00+ is brillant. And 6 years to make a game and he was almost spot on with the tech it seems. He needs to be on the dev board for the next xbox.
Triangles. Triangles everywhere.
AWWW YEAH, QUAKECON.
Thank you very much for this. Much better than last year, where we didn't get a recording. When is the recording of the Q&A part coming? And what about Rage for the Mac?
Please stream it live next time ID. It really stunk to not see this live. We could only get the news from "reporters" who were unable to understand any of the tech talk.
How it all flows..wish I had a clear mind like that.
@hansonkewl06 Carmack is a pioneer and a programmer. His ideas about where gaming will be is always on point. He lobbied for the source code of this game to be released. He wrote Quake, Doom, Wolfenstien and all the original FPS'. His ability to stay one step ahead of all other game programmers is legendary. He is a true scientist and an inspiration to all programmers.
Steve Jobs was NOT a programmer he was a thief. "I'm not glad he's dead but I sure am glad he's gone" - Richard Stallman
Fun fact: John Carmack talks while sleeping too.
A living legend.
@warwize I agree.
I can tell, but only looked at it once you pointed it out.
Do you often look at clothes?
I would've seen it eventually... watching this thing for over an hour.
I don't understand how this video can be disliked.
thank you, for fucks sake this took forever to upload...god damn...
Man I remember making a Quake 3 map. Such memories
@SuperHappyCow I see, i really can't wait to try out rage, i wonder what they've accomplished after spending all these years working on it, should be interesting. I'm now really excited to see how beautiful rage looks.
He is a genius...PERIOD!
Carmack is a god amongst programmers. There are some things i disagree with him on, but he does know what he is doing, and i can't wait to see more from him and his team!
First of all, John Carmack invented graphics ;3
Second of all, goddamn I want that RED cap at 0:59:09
I am a hardcore experienced developer,...but this guy is the shit!
@Merth667 You mean Steam-works enabled? "Steam Exclusive" means its only sold on steam. I'm seeing it listed on Direct2drive and physical retailers. I'm not trying to be a jerk its just I'm just trying to get a definite answer. Their are some hints it will use steam-works but not confirmed at the time of this post.
Is there anyway I can DL this or is this included in a DLC or on disc? cause I love whatching this on how they have done stuff and what choices they have done
@Daracus I meant that you will only be able to run it through Steam. It's like buying the game in a brick and mortar store but you still need to register the game to your steam account, and you can only play with steam.
@DroneGrinder It has co-op AND online multiplayer so I don't understand what you're talking about?
Did id ever release the source code to Doom 3 like he suggested they would? Just curious, if anyone knows?
Thanks for uploading!
Woo I've been waiting for this since yesterday :)
John Carmack is my hero, just awesome.
this guy is my hero...
He's a legend.
His tech talk is extremely fascinating, especially when he discusses the methods to overcome the PS3's and 360's limitations. xD
@TheSwitche The fact that he doesn't "talk down" to you is awesome and also refreshing. Too many people (ie Steve Jobs) talk down to their audience, "It's shiny and has a lot of cool features".. Carmack makes me appreciate all the work that goes into games. And frankly it's insulting when someone presenting tech explains it like they're talking to a five year old. Though Carmack often makes me feel as if I'm five :)
Im nerding ouuuutttt!!!! Love him
@Vnix actually there'd still be drivers involved
he's thinking of the whole idea of taking advantage of their unification (i.e. less memory transfers)
I love this dude.
thx for uploading this its usually alittle annoying to find ;p
I really can listen to him talk for hours even though I dont understand half of what he says.
1:23:56
Been waiting sooo long to hear these sacred words :DDD
I just watched all of it... damn...
Keynote 2012 please! Need to watch it again :)
I feel so god damn fucking stupid, but I just can't stop watching........
@TadejVig trying to post a link, but it just says "error" when i do, but a google image search for "carmack long hair" gives you an image of him sitting in a book festival tshirt with a pony tail.
listening to john carmack talk is like listening to a computer talk about its day.
John Carmack = The reason I enjoy being alive.
what is the tera(?) line graphics artefact he's talking about?
A pladoyer for static code analysis !! great !
"even if you can proof, that your code is correct, if the analyser cannot determine it, another developer most probably will not understand it aswell ... and that will probably cause error ..."
great guy !! thank you
knows what he's good at and sticks to it. id is Blizzard of the FPS world
@42:44 when we build our virtual textures for the dynamic stuff, it is this process that
@42: 49 at one point it just took hours. I rewrote it to be such a way that it used huge amounts of memory mapped files and it got down much much faster
@42:59 but it really started swapping on any system that we had.
@43:02 So we said "Well let's find out what the actual limitations here are."
@43:07 So we took one of our servers and we put 192 gigabytes of ram in it
Two decades later: Carmack is STILL the pimp daddy of PC gaming.
Amazing.
Great. But, and the Q&A session? It's always interesting.