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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Can Id Give Apple Gaming A Boost?

In a strange but ultimately attention-grabbing move, John Carmack chose the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to officially reveal Id's new games engine, 'Id Tech 5', which promises an end to texture memory constraints and "virtually unlimited visual fidelity" - you can read more of this posturing at the official Id site.

Id is developing its own title to premiere the technology, which will support Mac, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Tech 5 will also be available to third-party developers.
-- Id reveals Tech 5 engine [Guardian]

In related news, The Girl brought home a shiny new MacBook Pro last night. I didn't get too close to it for fear of my extremities, but it looks like a screamer. I haven't seen any specs on that new GPU it is sporting - but I'm guessing it is a darn sight better than the Mini. Possibly faster than my PC, considering the Santa Rosa chipset and all (I'm finding Oblivion is a very CPU hungry game).

Carmack's always had a soft spot for Macs, Doom III is still one of the better flagship titles for platform. The real problem is Microsoft's hold over core technologies like DirectX will constantly be a thorn in the side of developers looking to truly cross-develop. How much of a solution something like Cider will be remains to be seen.

Still, if Tech 5 runs smoothly on at least MacBook Pro's and above - and is anywhere near as developer friendly as the Doom III engine was, with its slick scripting concept, then at least Apple will have one more gaming feather in the cap.

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