John Carmack has expressed his frustration over the graphical glitches that have plagued the PC launch of id Software's new FPS, Rage. From all reports, Rage is thing of beauty on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but not on the PC, where many gamers have suffered bugs so bad that the game is almost unplayable.

Speaking to Kotaku, Carmack said the issues were not id Software's fault. Rather, he blamed inadequate driver support from AMD and Nvidia:

"The driver issues at launch have been a real cluster !@#$. We were quite happy with the performance improvements that we had made on AMD hardware in the months before launch; we had made significant internal changes to cater to what AMD engineers said would allow the highest performance with their driver and hardware architectures, and we went back and forth with custom extensions and driver versions."

"We knew that all older AMD drivers, and some Nvidia drivers would have problems with the game, but we were running well in-house on all of our test systems. When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work. The fact that the working driver has incompatibilities with other titles doesn't help either. Issues with older / lower end /exotic setups are to be expected on a PC release, but we were not happy with the experience on what should be prime platforms."

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Rage's creative director, Tim Willits, backed Carmack's comments, saying the team was very upset by the issue.

"Unfortunately, we have had video driver issues that have caused problems and frustrations with our PC fans. Everyone at id Software is very upset by these issues which are mostly out of our control. We are working with both AMD/ATI and Nvidia to help them identify and fix the issues with their drivers. We've had assurances that these problems are being addressed and new drivers will be available soon."

Rage was created using id Software's new id Tech 5 engine, which is designed to operate across PC and consoles. However, so far it seems the tech is only working properly for consoles. Carmack conceded that id Software's focus during Rage development was on delivering a console shooter:

"We do not see the PC as the leading platform for games. That statement will enrage some people, but it is hard to characterize it otherwise; both console versions will have larger audiences than the PC version. A high end PC is nearly 10 times as powerful as a console, and we could unquestionably provide a better experience if we chose that as our design point and we were able to expend the same amount of resources on it. Nowadays most of the quality of a game comes from the development effort put into it, not the technology it runs on. A game built with a tenth the resources on a platform 10 times as powerful would be an inferior product in almost all cases."

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/id-tech-5-project/1199038p1.html

Wow. Can u believe this guy. Suddenly he thinks PC Gamers as second-hand material. **** him and id.......

How is this even remotely the appropriate section?

This section is for people that need help. Not crybabies who don't understand that a game comes with bugs. Is it really that hard to wait for a patch?

It is related with id's response to the problems everyone is facing here. Instead of taking responsibility, they are throwing the blame on AMD/nVidia and the PC in general. And judging by his attitude, do you believe we see a half-decent patch coming in the future. I don't think so........

This isn't a software problem, or solution. You are complaining about ID. Plenty of people have a working game so it's quite possible it DOES have something to do with the graphics card.

Plenty of people DONT have a working game. Only a handful have got it working. Also, even the guys who somehow managed to get it working are riddled with Texture bugs, CFG fixes, etc. Stop living in a dream and admit it this is an epic fail of a port of a game. All because of id. So many better games come out on PC. All have some minor bugs here and there. But this one takes it to the limit. Its just not playable. You cannot blame the graphics card because the problem persists across a range of models in both the manufacturers.....

What an anus. So instead of creating masterpieces on a more powerful platform, he just wants to make what sells. If he wants to make games exclusively for the console audience, then so be it. I am sure plenty of other game developers will take his place making great games for the PC.

Way to live the greedy, sellout, American dream... [censored] bag.

Maybe his next title will be for the Wii... because more people own a Wii than a PC.

How strange.. It's kind of like he owns a business.

It's called being greedy. He would have made more than enough money of creating a great PC game. He just sold his entire fan base for a quick buck.

Lol this thread is funny...funny pointless.. Who cares patch is coming. Game is optimized on PC they did relieved a great experience. If your PC couldn't handle the game now or when it came out, I suggest switching to Xbox or Playstation as I hear you just put the game in and it runs. Easier than educating yourself on that $1,000 machine you bought there.

*That's me taking a shot at everyone complaining about having to use console commands and rageconfig.cfg It's better to learn these things now, then never to learn them. Consoles & configs come in handy in a lot of games. its something every PC Gamer should know. New or old.

You say that like he doesn't know how to run a business. He made the game with money in mind. If making it with the changes you had in mind would have made more money it's quite probable he would have made it that way. You don't make games for them to be good. You make them to sell. It's a business, not an art.

This was already posted and well responded to yesterday as Kotaku had the interview up first

I believe those people didn't make it work. I believe they just gave up and settled with little changes made.

Dude not everyone is facing problems. You do realize this kind of stuff is a problem in its own right? Wheres the patch for you?

Pssh, this game is not optimized for the pc. are you brain damaged? Have you not read about the multitude of game breaking problems people are having? And, no people should not have to alter game files to make the game they payed $60 for run.
Do you also suggest that people who buy a new car take mechanic classes to fix broken things on there new car when they get it home? This is a consumer issue. When we purchased this game we entered into a contract with id. they said we have this FUNCTIONING game or sale, we said we will pay for a FUNCTIONING game. They broke the contract.

I can understand if id Software wants to develop for consoles over PC because of money or whatever. I have my own opinions of it being a long-time id fan but those opinions don't matter much here. However, if you're going to develop a game and boast PC as one of the platforms it is being developed for, it should work and take advantage of that platform, especially if you're going to charge the same price as the console version. The PC version is crippled in comparison, which makes no sense since it should be significantly easier to develop for (especially over the PS3), we haven't been given mod tools yet despite id Software claiming they would be usable out of the box, there obviously wasn't much play-testing done given the large myriad of problems people are having on all different kinds of setups (texture pop-in, crashing, video errors, auto-balancer detecting weird setups, no video options, no 64-bit executable, etc.) and they're basically redirecting blame at both ATI and Nvidia, which seems pretty ridiculous.

OHHHH BOY lets read that EULA! I bet you there is no gurantee that the game will work on your specific setup.
My nissan had 12 recalls btw and that was considered good!

Comments like that destroy your reputation as a company, good job John Carmack. On another note he claimed that the graphical issues were out of their hands? What kind of lie is that? Every issue of mine stemmed directly from the game itself and the only way to fix it was to edit the game file themselves. So thank you for lying to the public in an open manner John Carmack.

This is your rude opinion man. Maybe you've got some terrible OS settings or BIOS settings you don't even know about. Why dont you turn that pointing finger right around to yourself.

You are kidding me.
He can't be serious. I refuse to believe he says such things.

Really Carmack ??
PC version got problems because Ati uses old drivers ?
Well I guess that you made that statement thinking that we don't know that the consoles use Ati graphics cards too,with Ati drivers....
6 year old drivers that is.


What kind of audacity is this ?

1) He sells us a not working product.
2) He's making fun of us.

With you 100% there. He is too quick to judge. I had 11.9 on my system before the game came out and they were blaming it on 11.8 so it looks like he is trying to justify a lack of testing by blaming the general public rather than working with us to fix it. So far it has been all users making fixes by editing the game files themselves, i.e. rageconfig.cfg and the sorts. The fact that id didn't come up with it is a mystery to me.

But we aren't supposed to fix anything..
We are supposed to be costumers,not aplha testers.
If mr. Carmack wanted to use us as testers,he should be the one paying us,not us him.
Since the game plays on consoles and consoles are 6 year old machines,he can't say that PCs have old drivers,except if somebody tried to play Rage at a 7 year old machine,which is not the case.
If for some reasons our hardware or drivers really had a problem,then we would also had similar problems in other games too.
But we don't,do we ?

What are you, some narrowminded really devoted fan that's just got to defend ID every chance you get?

They [censored] up. Period.

/E:
Yeah, "really devoted fan", nice touch.

Very true. I am just bewildered that John thought it was a smart thing to do and blame the PC gamers as a whole for being PC gamers.

I would move this to the appropriate Rage General section of the forum but it is too filled with flames and flamebait.