John Carmack talks about Wolfenstein, cannot comment on Doom 4’s development, prefers Intel+Nvidia


John Carmack QuakeCon 2013
During his QuakeCon 2013 keynote, John Carmack revealed some interesting information about the ID Tech 5 version that will be powering the new Wolfenstein title. According to Carmack, id Software is currently trying to un-optimize and clean up the core code of the engine as Wolfenstein is a cross-platform title.
Carmack was a bit disappointed with the fact that id Software had to make specific decisions in order to run RAGE at 60fps on current-gen platforms. Although Carmack admitted that those ‘optimizations’ were necessary and that it was great that the company achieved something like RAGE, Carmack stated that id Software is now removing some of the optimizations – that were made specifically for PS3 and X360 – from the ID Tech 5 Engine.
Carmack is also disappointed with the disc size as it is limiting its company to ‘play’ with what he would want to.
When a fan asked about a comment for Doom 4, Carmack said that he had asked whether he would be able to talk about the game’s development. Unfortunately, though, Bethesda did not give Carmack the green light. In short, there is no Doom 4 – yet again – in this year’s QuakeCon, so don’t get your hopes up for any possible news.
Carmack also revealed that he prefers Intel’s CPUs and Nvidia’s GPUs. Carmack believes that AMD is catching up and that its GPU hardware is really fast, but lacks when it comes to its drivers software. At least when that is compared to Nvidia’s. Carmack did not like the fact that he was asked to take a side, but his personal preference – right now – is a Intel + Nvidia combo system.
Last but not least, Carmack believes that ray tracing is the future for lighting systems.