Talk:First-person shooter engine

Misinformation
While the Jedi Engine later supported room-over-room in the the 1997 game Outlaws and its updated true 3D form the Sith engine, the version used in Dark Forces did not support room-over-room.

Title
Perhaps this article would be better named as first-person shooter graphics? If no one disagrees, I'll move this article within a few days. --Mrwojo 23:33, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I object actually. I think the name "First-person...." is too specific when the article lists non-fps games such as GTA and Max Payne. Perhaps "Graphics engines", "Timeline of graphical engines", or something similar should be used instead. K1Bond007 19:35, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * Any of those would be fine, I was more concerned by the missing hyphen. :-) It could be moved to graphics engine and have 3D engine point there (and merge in its old substub content that languishing at the top of game engine).  Rendering engine would be a disambig that would point there as well. --Mrwojo 20:14, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * That sounds good, but the article might be a bit big if we merge with that. K1Bond007 21:23, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * Actually that's how it started. It was an article on game engines with heavy emphasis on FPS engine history, but at some point it was split. May be it's time to combine it back. I certainly don't mind. :)

3DFX & the 32bit color
I noticed a huge lack of talk about 3dfx, a major pioneer which helped games improve in the late 90s. Someone needs to rework it to better make use of 3DFX's role.--It seems like they try to talk more about the "mighty" nvidia, before they start talking about 3dfx and the glide api.

I also noticed the 32bit section is flawed, that they need to relabel it. They should be saying "24bit color". 32bit color is not real 32bit, bit but 24bit color and a 8bit alpha channel.

Grouping by engines
During whatever era, I think it would be best to group certain games by engines. Specifically, Quake/Unreal and their games. K1Bond007 19:35, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. Perhaps the engine could be listed first or somehow set off from the rest of the text in a different way? Some lists, such as RotCW/W:ET/CoD (Quake 3), are a tad hard to read. --Mrwojo 20:20, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Quake3 example you listed was why I wrote that in the first place. I'm thinking either:

1) 2) I also think that we should keep the games down to the "notable mentions" and leave pages like "Unreal engine" to list all the games. (So far I think we've done this) K1Bond007 21:23, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * Quake 3: Arena
 * Call of Duty
 * RTCW
 * Quake 3 Engine
 * Quake 3: Arena
 * Call of Duty
 * RTCW

UT2K4
It doesn't matter what the game attempts to be, the engine is what matters (UE2.5), which is different than what Unreal 2 is running on. UT2K4, while not attempting to be photorealistic is just as capable of turning out semi-"photorealistic" environments comparable to Doom3 and Half-Life 2. See games like Pariah, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and the website on Unreal technology. K1Bond007 22:12, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * Doesn't it mean that we should include one of these games (metioning that it's based on Unreal Engine)? And I am still not sure that it included shaders and bump/normal mapping (I haven't played these two games you mention). Paranoid 08:22, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

weird classification
wikipedia has weird classification on graphics and game engines. I'd risk to say it doesn't make much sense. first of all we should have the 'graphics engine'. a type of it, is the '3d engine' or 3d graphics angine. then on top of that are built network, interface, etc. engines or parts that form a game engine. that is extra important since various of those engines are not used only for specific game types or even only for games.

Red Steel is misclassified
The game 'Red Steel' has been classified in the 'The approach to photorealism' category. It should be deleted from this category. The game was claimed to be designed with the 'Unreal Engine 2.5', but seriously, did you take a look at it's graphics?

Generations really necessary?
I just cleaned up this section, but as I was doing so I was wondering if it was really necessary. It's essentially a repetition of what was said above, using the "generations" classification that seems to be in vogue now. I say remove it. -- Koblentz 03:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
This article is poorly written, has many lists and is confusing to the reader. I suggest that this article recieve much cleanup. Should anyone wish for a complete rewrite, they should replace the tag. GreaterWikiholic 04:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

FPS?
There is many absolutely non-FPS games (but TPS instead) in lists. Max Payne, GTA, etc.

Too large lists
Wouldn't it be enough to list the engine and the first game made using it?78.27.66.116 (talk) 14:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm late, but I support that. This article has slowly became a list of video games. Hervegirod (talk) 15:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Serious Engine 2 is missing from diagram
There is a Serious Engine mentioned on the diagram at Year 2001. There is a Wikipedia article about Serious Sam 2 which mention, that this game is based on a 'Serious Engine 2' debuted in 2005. The diagram did not show this newer engine. --Hardzsi (talk) 12:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The diagram is also very incorrect. For example the doom engine giving rise to the doom 3 engine is very incorrect.  Quake engine--->id tech 2--->id tech 3---id tech 4--->id tech 5.  This one shows the ID tree correctly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Quake_-_family_tree.svg.Chris H (talk) 05:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I made a new diagram.


 * I don't include it in the article because the "chart is a mess, improperly referenced, arbitrary and without precedent," according to someone who edits the First-person shooter page. IsaacAA (talk) 20:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Scope of article
This article's scope is vague or misleading. You have a lot of games that aren't really "first-person shooters" as the genre is generally taken to mean -- some of the earliest games on this list are actually vehicle/flight sims. This article should either be cleaned up so that it only contains the first-person shooter genre proper, or you should rename and expand the article to include all first-person games. It's also unclear whether the article is about every *game* utilizing a first-person engine or about *engines* that have been used for multiple titles (i.e., if an engine isn't responsible for a dynasty of games, does it really count as an engine or just a monolithic part of the game?). Ham Pastrami (talk) 15:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

DX10 and the approach to Photorealism
It is interesting to note that some of the games that were in the previous generation may also apply to the next. For example, the Source engine now have motion blur, had very good physics system (also depending on materials) from the beginning, also debris and small objects were very well managed by the engine (you always can use them, props could be destroyed, etc...). Maybe it is worth mentioning it, not only for Source, but generically say that some of the engines of the previous generation already had the capabilities touted by the next, or acquired them later. Maybe it is because there are less differences between the two last generations than developers are advertising ? Hervegirod (talk) 12:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, The Conduit's Quantium3 engine hardly fits the "DX10 and the approach to Photorealism" category. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.19.166.77 (talk) 05:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You are right, the article says that High Voltage Software created the engine to make The Conduit a comparable experience visually to games on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 despite the Wii's hardware limitations.. Considering that, it can hardly be put in the "DX10 and the approach to Photorealism" category. Hervegirod (talk) 00:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

DirectX??? - mostly OPENGL!!!
Most of the mentioned engines: Unreal Engine 3, ID engines, Relent ... are OpenGL and have nothing to do with DirectX. Talk about antialiasing and stuff but not about DirectX. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.45.224.224 (talk) 14:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, UE3 and Relent use DirectX for Windows and Xbox 360 platforms, and OpenGL for the rest. Also Id Tech 5 probably uses DirectX for Xbox 360. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.93.97.180 (talk) 03:11, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if most of the games use DirectX, the article is not about First-person shooter engines using DirectX specifically. Hervegirod (talk) 15:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

X-Ray engine
I think the article should mention the X-Ray (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) engine. It really fits "The approach to Photorealism" category despite the actual game having clearly last-gen quality models and animations. The engine's lighting model and geometry are quite advanced, also S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC was one of the first games that had deferred shading.

New article for the lists
It has already been discussed in this Talk page before. I propose to remove the list of games inn this article and just putting some examples of games and engines. The information in the lists is valuable, so I just created a new article List of first-person shooter engines. It it not finished because I had to put the bulleted lists on wikitables. I also discovered that some of the games cited were not FPS at all. Hervegirod (talk) 16:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, the article is complete now. I propose to remove the full lists from this main article and just keep some Engines as examples. Hervegirod (talk) 19:59, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 are not listed??
Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 are both FPS/TPS engines; they can be played in First person and third person. Why are they not on there? someone should edit them in. They use pandemic's zero engine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apollo777 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I just added them in the new List of first-person shooter engines article (linked to this one). Having a long list of games is not the aim of this article I think. However, I'm not able to find a source anywhere about the fact the Battlefront 1 & 2 are using zero engine (there is no link in the wikipedia article). If someone is able to find one... Hervegirod (talk) 17:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Clean up
Cleaned up as of Mid-1990s: 3D Models and hardware acceleration. The remaining paragraphs still need work. Hervegirod (talk) 13:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Cleaned up as of Late-1990s: 32-bit_color, GPUs become standard. However, I'm not happy with the last paragraph rewrite. I think it does not explain what breakthrough was the first Unreal at the time, and it's not very well written, I'm afraid. Hervegirod (talk) 20:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, tweaked the Late-1990s: 32-bit_color, GPUs become standard paragraph. Now up to the next. Hervegirod (talk) 11:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Early 2000s: Increasing detail, outdoor environments, and rag-doll physics done. Hervegirod (talk) 12:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Mid 2000s: Lighting and Pixel Shaders, Physics done Hervegirod (talk) 11:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, all the article is done. It still requires attention though, I may have introduced or failed to fix a number of errors in it. Hervegirod (talk) 13:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Fictitious Unreal Engine versions
There never was an Unreal Engine 1.5 (UT1's engine still was the "Unreal Engine") and similarly there is no Unreal Engine 3.5 (ask the guys at Epic Games, they'll confirm that). Officially there was the original Unreal Engine, from which Unreal Engine 2 derives. Unreal Engine 2 was upgraded to Unreal Engine 2.5 and Unreal Engine 2.X (a special Xbox version for e.g. Unreal Championship 2) was branched off. UE2.5 was then further upgraded to Unreal Engine 3, which powers games on PC, Xbox360 and PS3, with recent ports to mobile devices. Not sure what exactly Unreal Engine 4 will be and how much UE3 is used as base. --Wormbo (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

enough with the id worshiping already
id is dead it's bought by a mediocre company that forces distribution through them, id is not the technology driver since id tech 4's release. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.54.216.168 (talk) 06:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

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No Marathon or Forge/Anvil?
I wouldn't know how to write it, but I think Marathon and the apps to make it--"Forge" and "Anvil"--should be mentioned in this article, as they provided many firsts to the FPS genre. (At least, last time I checked they did...) -- 71.141.96.129 (talk) 06:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

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Timeline
At this point the timeline is 8 years out of date, and even within the timeline depicted it's missing some important objects. There are a few games released, especially on the Unreal Engine, that were not technical first person shooters but were vital to FPS game engine history. In particular I'm talking about Gears of War. Since Unreal 3.0 and up until somewhat recently, GoW has been one of the primary driving factors of the engine's growth and development, despite it not being a first person game. I'm sure there are other examples for other engines, but that one stood out in particular to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.105.43 (talk) 18:08, 16 January 2018 (UTC)