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Doom’s 386 Trick: The Lie That Made 3D Run Without a GPU
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bat1000 sh.itjust.works bat1000@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2026-10-01
Quote

Doom ran on a 386 with zero 3D hardware because it was never truly 3D. Every wall is a column of pixels, every floor a row. Carmack didn’t build a 3D engine. He built the best lie in gaming. What’s the cleverest cheat you know?

24   Original
Cypher aussie.zone Cypher@aussie.zone
Joined: 2023-06-14
#2 · Quote Reply

The fast inverse square root used for Quake III Arena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root

From back when developers were actually coming up with clever optimsations rather than treating customers like poors who needed to upgrade their PC to play.

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rockSlayer lemmy.blahaj.zone rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2025-02-24
#3 · Quote Reply

My favorite is Level of Detail algorithms. Invented with Spyro, it creates a great illusion of a much larger world. Only downside are LOD pops

3
not lemmy.dbzer0.com not@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2025-03-28
#4 · Quote Reply

The fast inverse square root used for Quake III Arena https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root From back when developers were actually coming up with clever optimsations rather than treating customers like poors who needed to upgrade their PC to play.

That thing is black magic!

2
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