The early days of FPS
This table compares the technical capacities of 5 different games whose engines were developed by John Carmack, from 1991 to 1993.
John Carmack, from id Software, was a pioneer in rendering a 3D environment for PC games, as was the team from Blue Sky Productions behind Ultima Underworld (1992).
This table shows clearly a rapid evolution, from untextured to textured walls, from orthogonal to non-orthogonal walls and from grid-based to free-form level.
Damien Gouteux, 2020-02-21
| Games and engines | |||||
| Game name | Hovertank 3D | Catacomb 3D | Wolfenstein 3D | ShadowCaster | Doom |
| Genre | Science Fiction | Fantasy | War | Fantasy | Science Fiction |
| Engine name, offical or not | Id Tech 0 | Raven Engine | Id Tech 1 | ||
| Company | id Software | id Software | id Software | Raven Software | id Software |
| Links | Mobygames, Wikipedia | Mobygames, Wikipedia | Mobygames, Wikipedia | Mobygames, Wikipedia | Mobygames, Wikipedia |
| Source code | Github FlatRockSoft | Github CatacombGames | Github id Software | Red Shadow Software | Git id Software |
| Release date | April, 1991 | November, 1991 | May 5, 1992 | 1993 | December 10, 1993 |
| Release of the source code | June, 2014 | June, 2014 | July 21, 1995 | - | December 23, 1997 |
| Programmers (engine programmer) |
John Carmack John Romero |
John Carmack John Romero Jason Blochowiak |
John Carmack John Romero |
John Carmack (id) Victor Brueggemann Kurt Schallitz Carl Stika Ben Gokey Rick Johnson David Stildolph |
John Carmack Mike Abrash John Romero Dave Taylor |
| Artists | Adrian Carmack | Adrian Carmack | Adrian Carmack | Shane Gurno Brian Pelletier Scott Rice James Sumwalt |
Adrian Carmack Kevin Cloud |
| Editing Tool | TEd | TEd | TEd | TEd | DoomEd |
| Technical information | |||||
| General | |||||
| Colors | 16-color EGA | 16-color EGA | 256-color VGA | 256-color VGA | 256-color VGA |
| Resolution | 320x200 | 320x200 | 320x200 | 320x200 | 320x200 |
| Levels | |||||
| Level form | grid | grid | grid | grid | sectors |
| Rendering | wall span | wall span | raycasting | raycasting | raycasting |
| Hub | no | yes | no | yes | no |
| Automap | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Things | |||||
| Scalable sprites | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Multiangle sprites | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Polygonal things | no | no | no | no | no |
| Walls | |||||
| Orthogonal walls | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Non-orthogonal walls | no | no | no | no | yes |
| Free length of walls | no | no | no | no | yes |
| Doors | no | Disappearing walls | yes | yes | yes |
| Transparent walls | no | no | no | no | yes |
| 3rd Dimension | |||||
| Different heights per levels | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Different heights per walls | no | no | no | no | yes |
| Sloped floors and ceilings | no | no | no | yes | no |
| Elevators | no | no | no | no | yes |
| Texture-mapping | |||||
| Textured walls | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Textures floors and ceilings | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Animated textures | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Skybox (parallax) | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Lighting | |||||
| Distance diminished lighting | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Different lighting per levels | no | no | no | yes | yes |
| Different lighting per sectors | no | no | no | no | yes |
| Dynamic lighting | no | no | no | no | yes |
| Usage | |||||
| Other games using the engine
(with additional capabilities) |
- | Catacomb Abyss Catacomb Armageddon Catacomb Apocalypse |
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold Blake Stone: Planet Strike Corridor 7 Operation Body Count Super 3D Noah's Ark Rise of the Triad (different heights per levels, elevator sprites), animated textures, skybox, fog) |
In Pursuit of Greed | Doom II Heretic Hexen: Beyond Heretic (hub) Strife (hub) Chex Quest |