Xref:	news2.mv.net comp.os.msdos.djgpp:2774
From:	alexlehm AT rbg DOT informatik DOT th-darmstadt DOT de (Alexander Lehmann)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: QUAKE and DJGPPy
Date:	15 Apr 1996 16:58:32 GMT
Organization:	Technische Hochschule Darmstadt
Lines:	49
Message-ID:	<4ktv7o$i3c@rs18.hrz.th-darmstadt.de>
References:	<3170CE61 DOT 68C0 AT chat DOT carleton DOT ca> <1996Apr14 DOT 192154 AT uctvms DOT uct DOT ac DOT za> <4kscau$8uq AT freenet-news DOT carleton DOT ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	hp62.rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Paul Derbyshire (ao950 AT FreeNet DOT Carleton DOT CA) wrote:

:  (stwand07 AT uctvms DOT uct DOT ac DOT za) writes:
: > In article <3170CE61 DOT 68C0 AT chat DOT carleton DOT ca>, Paul Derbyshire <pderbysh AT chat DOT carleton DOT ca> writes:
: > 
: >> I read that ID Software's sequel to DOOM, Quake, was written using DJGPP! I am 
: >> somewhat incredulous and ask if this is indeed to be taken at face value.
: >> 
: > 
: > AFAIK it's true. The Quake demo has some text files, which mention DJGPP v 2.0.
: > Anyway, it comes with CSDPMI, so no prizes for guessing what compiler was used!
: > I don't quite see why you are so incredulous, although it is nice to see Djgpp
: > being used by large-scale commercial developers! It proves that free stuff can
: > out-class expensive products anyday!
: > 
: > I think one advantage of using DJGPP was that they could cross-develop their
: > code on Unix boxes, and then compile the game for the PC once they had it
: > working.

: And their cross developed code on a unix box was going to make sound with
: what, and graphics with what? Even if Unix boxes typically had graphics
: and sound cards (I guess Linux boxes do anyways, but every "real" unix
: I've seen runs on little vt100 terminals connected to a big black box
: somewhere with flashing lights and disk drives...) wouldn't they be
: saddled with completely rewriting the graphics and sound routines to
: finally port it over to DOS? Lastly, the aforementioned graphics and sound
: routines probably comprise the bulk of their work!

Well, a possibility is to keep the display/sound routines separate from the
game code, this way it is possible to crossdevelop and maybe run the game on
X11 for testing (there's usually even a sound server).
After all, Doom is available for DOS, Linux, Sun, SGI and NeXT (maybe I missed
one). AFAIK the game was crossdeveloped on NeXTstations.

As for Quake, it seems that ID intened to support users to write auxilary
game code to implement new features (as happened with Doom, but without
support from ID) by releasing parts of the server in source code, so that you
can write extensions in C and compile them in. Since they have to include a
compiler with this, they choose DJGPP and supported the development (e.g. one
of the beta sites was ftp.idsoftware.com).


bye, Alexander

--
Alexander Lehmann,                                  |  "On the Internet,
alex AT hal DOT rhein-main DOT de  (plain, MIME, NeXT)         |   nobody knows
alexlehm AT rbg DOT informatik DOT th-darmstadt DOT de (plain)     |   you're a dog."
<URL:http://www.student.informatik.th-darmstadt.de/~alexlehm/>

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