> 2. Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
I'd temper one's expectations on this one. It's a massive, unwieldy book, mostly speaking to old PC VGA graphics programming techniques, in pages taken verbatim from Abrash's previous Zen of Graphics Programming book.
It definitely isn't focused on a specific game, but it does go a bit into the BSP tree stuff used in Doom, if memory serves.
Maybe it's just because I had already read both his Zen of {Code Optimization, Graphics Programming} books, but I was rather disappointed upon acquiring and skimming the Black Book.
Fabien's deep dives are more interesting IMHO, if looking for stuff about tech in classic id games.
edit: BTW, if old [34]86/pentium-era PC optimization and VGA programming books is what you're after, the aforementioned Abrash books were goldmines at the time, and much more conveniently sized, physically speaking. I don't intend to throw shade on Abrash, it was just the Black Book that disappointed me, largely because of the high expectations set by his previous books. You can still find used copies of the Zen books readily on Amazon...
Abrash wrote about Quake in Dr. Dobb's Journal while he was working on it. These columns weren't in the earlier printings of the book but were added as Chapter 62 onwards in later printings (by which point it'd be fair to label the earliest chapters historical). PDFs at: https://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/graphics-programming-black-...
Yeah, the start is essentially Zen of Code Optimization, which was also a great book, but pretty much dated in 2021... but it's interesting to see how he thinks. The best thing to take away is not about picking the right instructions, but to use your brain to pick the right algorithms and use benchmarks
On the spirit of Masters of Doom, I recommend "It's behind you - The making of a computer Game" by Bob Pape.
The author explains how he made the R-Type conversion for the ZX Spectrum 48k and provides an interesting view of the "bedroom coders" and the early video game industry in the UK back in the 80s.
Another upvote for this. borrowed a copy and ... have never given it back (ed z - if you're reading this, that's who has it!)
It may only appeal to a certain niche audience, but it's so full of great details. It's a good balance between describing the technical challenges and then the hacks/tricks/wizardry that got around the sometimes insane limitations!
There is a small part about the departure of ID Software guys from Softdisk that is inaccurate and has been corrected by John Remoro himself when he spoke to the blogger who writes the famous CRPG Addict series (btw, completely out of topic but this blog is EXCELLENT if you want a COMPLETE view of pretty much every RPG out there since the 70s). The correction (as the blogger wrote) was a correction about a mistake he made in writing one of his earlier post about Dark Design, but I think it also corrects the claim made in Master of Doom.
You will need to scroll down to the second part, or just search "But since I was only able to get 1,200 words out of Goodcode's Cavern" on the page. To simplify things I'm pasting the paragraphs:
>I had consulted several sources to assemble that paragraph, including one that purported to have interviewed both Carmack and Romero in detail, and I was pretty confident in what I had. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when John Romero (who I didn't even know was aware of my blog) invited me to participate in a podcast interview of Stuart Smith. (We're recording in mid-September; I'll let you know when it's out.) I took the opportunity to run the paragraph by him and found out that almost everything I'd written was wrong. To wit:
- I was a year late; 1990 was the year most of this happened. Romero worked at Softdisk prior to Carmack and was actually the one who hired Carmack, not because of Dark Designs but because of a tennis game plus his obvious facility with programming.
- Romero and Carmack loved working at Softdisk and only left because it was the wrong sort of publisher to take advantage of the horizontal scrolling technology that the duo would use in Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM.
- It was actually the president of Softdisk, Al Vekovius, who suggested that Carmack, Romero, and Tom Hall start their own company. There were no lawsuits and no threats; Carmack and Romero kept working for Softdisk for a year to avoid leaving the company in a lurch.
- The reason Carmack and Romero are credited on so many Softdisk titles stretching into the mid-1990s is that those titles used technology and code that Carmack and Romero had created. They otherwise had no involvement in games like Cyberchess and Dangerous Dave Goes Nutz!
I'd temper one's expectations on this one. It's a massive, unwieldy book, mostly speaking to old PC VGA graphics programming techniques, in pages taken verbatim from Abrash's previous Zen of Graphics Programming book.
It definitely isn't focused on a specific game, but it does go a bit into the BSP tree stuff used in Doom, if memory serves.
Maybe it's just because I had already read both his Zen of {Code Optimization, Graphics Programming} books, but I was rather disappointed upon acquiring and skimming the Black Book.
Fabien's deep dives are more interesting IMHO, if looking for stuff about tech in classic id games.
edit: BTW, if old [34]86/pentium-era PC optimization and VGA programming books is what you're after, the aforementioned Abrash books were goldmines at the time, and much more conveniently sized, physically speaking. I don't intend to throw shade on Abrash, it was just the Black Book that disappointed me, largely because of the high expectations set by his previous books. You can still find used copies of the Zen books readily on Amazon...