Gaming engine

[Fuze]

I always hear the term, I know what it refers to and what it means. However, what is the actual definition of a "gaming engine". When people say a game uses the same engine, what is it actually using? The code for what?

[Force Flow]

It's the core of game that makes it run. It holds all the "rules" that apply to the game. Physics is a large part of this.

The main part of it tells the game how do display textures and polygons.

[v1r4L fr3nzy]

Its similar to the kernel of a OS or the interpreter of say Perl. What it is is the underlying skeleton of the game. It governs how a character can move in a game. For example, in some games you can't kick, while in others you can; this is an example of differing engines. UT2K3 for example, uses the Quake III engine and if you play Q3 then you would se certain similarities in game play. Some say that the Half-life engine was the best of all time because it could do almost everything which is why the mods for half-life: counter-strike, team fortress, etc, were so different from one another. HTH.

[Nuclear Krusader]

The HL engine is a modified version of the Quake II engine.

[ryanatalie]

Originally posted by v1r4L fr3nzy
...UT2K3 for example, uses the Quake III engine... I thought UT2K3 had it's own engine. Doesn't Rogue Spear uses the UT2K3 engine?

Here are some basic concepts of a gaming engine. (http://www.3dactionplanet.com/features/articles/gameengines/)

[Force Flow]

Interesting link :)

[kcbhiw]

UT2K3 for example, uses the Quake III engine and if you play Q3 then you would se certain similarities in game play.

UT2k3 uses it's own engine, which is more or less a refit of the original UT engine. Just because it has the eye candy of Q3, doesn't mean it is ;) .

As far as a game engine goes, kind of think of it as the CPU of you computer, it dictates how the system is to operatate and how everything is to interact with each other.

[v1r4L fr3nzy]

are you sure? I heard from my friend that it uses the Q3 engine, and hes rather credible. If not, Im sorry for the misinformation.

[aym]

UT2K3, Unreal 2 and Unreal Championship use the Unreal warfare engine, and it has nothing to do with Quake III's one, I read this somewhere on Unreal 2 site.

[Fuze]

So a gaming engine doesn't affect graphics output? Because when I hear it has the same engine, I think the same graphics as well...

[mutant-goldfish]

It doesn't mean you will get the same graphics, the engines are usually customised quite well from game to game. However, I would think it was fair to say that you will get the same style graphics.

To use an example, the engine in Doom 3 will produce the best graphics we've seen yet. Doom 3 itself will probably only render a few enemies at any time because its so good current hardware couldn't support any more polygons on screen. However, a year after Doom 3, it is quite possible that other games will use the Doom 3 engine, but with more enemies at a time (in a year, the hardware will have improved significantly). The graphics will be the same stlye as Doom 3, but might appear a bit better because of increased hardware and more detailed textures.

I'm not sure if that made any sense at all!!! :)

[Nuclear Krusader]

Yes it did.

Take for example Deus Ex, it uses the Unreal engine, but if I hadn't read that in a web site I woulda never found out. The graphics are very different.

[Force Flow]

Heck, Lucasarts was still using the old JK/MOTS engine for the longest time until they switched over to QIII.

[Fuze]

I see, when's QIII slated to release?

[LordofEchoSide]

it's been out

[Fuze]

I mean Doom III or whatever that one game is that is supposed to be godly.

[LordofEchoSide]

Originally posted by Fuze
I mean Doom III or whatever that one game is that is supposed to be godly. I don't know :(

[v1r4L fr3nzy]

according to amazon, its shipping on March 31, 2003. Not too far from now. :D

[Fuze]

Yeah, that's the one.