John Carmack from id Software made some interesting remarks when it came to the severe shortcomings of the PC version of RAGE and the general outrage from the gaming community.
In speaking with Kotaku, Carmack explains how he and id are working closely with ATI and Nvidia to iron out as many driver bugs as possible. But he notes that the entire issue with the PC drivers have been a bit of a "cluster !@#$" (his exact usage).
On to more pressing matters, that of why some PC gamers went in expecting the PC version to be a shining beacon in what many consider to be a bunch of "console port releases" in recent memory. The answer probably won't make many PC gamers happy.
Ouch. That hurts, Carmack. That hurts. I tend to enjoy both consoles and PC games quite equally, but when there are some very basic oversights and shortcomings in the PC version of a title, things that gamers have come to expect in a PC release, there really is no excuse.
In speaking with Kotaku, Carmack explains how he and id are working closely with ATI and Nvidia to iron out as many driver bugs as possible. But he notes that the entire issue with the PC drivers have been a bit of a "cluster !@#$" (his exact usage).
"We were quite happy with the performance improvements that we had made on AMD hardware in the months before launch; we had made significant internal changes to cater to what AMD engineers said would allow the highest performance with their driver and hardware architectures, and we went back and forth with custom extensions and driver versions."
"We knew that all older AMD drivers, and some Nvidia drivers would have problems with the game, but we were running well in-house on all of our test systems. When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work. The fact that the working driver has incompatibilities with other titles doesn't help either. Issues with older / lower end /exotic setups are to be expected on a PC release, but we were not happy with the experience on what should be prime platforms."
"We knew that all older AMD drivers, and some Nvidia drivers would have problems with the game, but we were running well in-house on all of our test systems. When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work. The fact that the working driver has incompatibilities with other titles doesn't help either. Issues with older / lower end /exotic setups are to be expected on a PC release, but we were not happy with the experience on what should be prime platforms."
On to more pressing matters, that of why some PC gamers went in expecting the PC version to be a shining beacon in what many consider to be a bunch of "console port releases" in recent memory. The answer probably won't make many PC gamers happy.
"You can choose to design a game around the specs of a high-end PC and make console versions that fail to hit the design point, or design around the specs of the consoles and have a high-end PC provide incremental quality improvements," Carmack replied. "We chose the latter."
"We do not see the PC as the leading platform for games," Carmack added. "That statement will enrage some people, but it is hard to characterize it otherwise; both console versions will have larger audiences than the PC version. A high end PC is nearly 10 times as powerful as a console, and we could unquestionably provide a better experience if we chose that as our design point and we were able to expend the same amount of resources on it. Nowadays most of the quality of a game comes from the development effort put into it, not the technology it runs on. A game built with a tenth the resources on a platform 10 times as powerful would be an inferior product in almost all cases."
"We do not see the PC as the leading platform for games," Carmack added. "That statement will enrage some people, but it is hard to characterize it otherwise; both console versions will have larger audiences than the PC version. A high end PC is nearly 10 times as powerful as a console, and we could unquestionably provide a better experience if we chose that as our design point and we were able to expend the same amount of resources on it. Nowadays most of the quality of a game comes from the development effort put into it, not the technology it runs on. A game built with a tenth the resources on a platform 10 times as powerful would be an inferior product in almost all cases."
Ouch. That hurts, Carmack. That hurts. I tend to enjoy both consoles and PC games quite equally, but when there are some very basic oversights and shortcomings in the PC version of a title, things that gamers have come to expect in a PC release, there really is no excuse.
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