I find it odd - all this talk of id abandoning it's pc roots etc and I just read this on twitter (following today's Skyrim pc high res pack release): "We want to send a special thanks to all our long time PC fans. Today is for you, and thanks for helping us get here." posted by @BGS_devs (Bethesda)

All the talk of abandoning the PC isn't grounded in reality, IMO. From the evidence it seems that many long-term id fans took grievance at Rage being focussed on consoles first, but everything else is just wild extrapolation. Carmack has already admitted that the focus on consoles was a mistake, and it would be highly unlikely that we'll see them doing that again.

I also don't think that ID is abandoning its PC customers...I think its a way for Bethesda to thank its PC fans.

As with all things you live and learn and experience teaches all what works and what doesn't.

In all fairness I think the gaming universe (at this moment in time) is big enough for both console and PC gamers.

Gimmie a break. It sounds odd because there isn't any more truth to it then a conspiracy theory or UFO abduction story.

Well I've personally no objection to the next one focussing on consoles too (the developers gotta make money after all, so that they can continue to make more games) so long as it doesn't compromise the quality of the PC release. I don't think that the focus on consoles was what made Rage a poor PC release initially; some things could certainly have been better but the primary technical problems with it definitely came from elsewhere. I think id seriously underestimated the shoddy state of OpenGL drivers in 2011, and that mistake is what cost them. I think that if Rage had worked out of the box for the majority of AMD users (there will always be a few failures, that's the nature of PCs) the ensuing events would have been quite different (and in particular the accusations of abandoning the PC and of Rage being a console port would have never happened, or - at worst - have been considerably milder).

As far as i know, Rage is ID's own first real multi platform title that is not just a port.
All other ID console titles where ports of their respective pc versions made by other companies.
Except for Doom on the Atari Jaguar which was done by ID themselves.

Developing games has become a very expensive activity compared to the 90s where small teams and short periods of time where sufficient to develop a great game.

Today, it makes sense to supply as many different platforms at the same time to generate maximum profit. Especially since console titles usually sell better than their pc counterparts.

Just the fact that ID also supplies consoles with their games right from the start doesn't make them discard PC development, right?

i don't think so, the latest patch 1.2 gave me the best boost of rage using max settings including 16xaa. its more stable and no crashes, bugs and flickers. although i use beta drivers.

I stll think id should had added extra effects to the pc version.

1 HDR which id tech 5 suports, has been around since 2004 when far cry came out.

2 Mostion blur and depth of field are not only in the engine, they were running 5 years ago in a tech demo.

There are arguments for and against this approach. You've already outlined the foundations of the argument for - the PC folks get to have more eye-candy (although given the AMD driver situation I'm not entirely convinced that would be wise). The most obvious argument against is that the developers may want to provide a reasonably consistent experience on all platforms, and it looks as though id chose that option.

I don't see that as any kind of deliberate crippling of the PC version in favour of consolitis (there are other arguments against which may also swing in favour of this option, with driver quality being one), although I guess some might.

Every game id ever made was the best looking game to date untill rage. Battle filed 3 and crysis 2 look better. Thats a huge shame becuase most the effects not in rage are in the engine. Most people did not expect id to hold the grafics back this much for the sake of the consoles. I am not seeing the big win for id not adding these efects.

Depends on how you define "best looking". BF3 and Crysis 2 look better in some ways, worse in others. Rage trumps both of them, and absolutely everything else, in terms of non-repeating textures and insanely huge polycounts, both of which are positive features of the engine that have been all but ignored in the hysteria over textures-up-close and post-processing eye-candy.

Every id engine to date has taken huge risks in doing something completely different and looking nothing like it's contemporaries, and Rage is no different in that respect. Classic id in fact.

The original Quake was missing translucent water, mirrors, and used polygons for enemies at a time when almost everything else still used sprites.

Quake II was just an evolution of Quake, missing some still, some things corrected.

Quake 3 had no software renderer.

Doom 3 had a radical and performance intensive lighting model that had never been done before.

All of these chose one particular set of tradeoffs, ignored the other things, and were unfavourably compared to contemporary engines (Build, various Unreals) as a result.

How is Rage any different? Cos I'm not seeing it.

They don't know how to make a console game and shouldn't bother again, no one's going to buy it after Rages crappy outing.

All these effects that you want so much is done in those games for realistic feeling, kinda "wow like in life" and some of those done to hide cheap design moments! Both BF 3 and C2 are modern heavy tech games, but they are just the improved versions of what have already been done! Rage offers new aproach, weather you like it or not, it is there and will be expanded even more in future id products. And finally, id never made realistic games, but fun and hardcoe. Rage is a living canvas, a sketch came to life.

The poly count fluxed greatly depending on the area you were in. Some places svcked, and others were good. Nothing out of the ordinary good. The diffrence is id tech 5 already has lots these effects. Past engines did not support these features.

I did not mention global iluminattion and teselation because they will not work with id tech 6 sparse voxel octree. It makes sense to leave the features out since id tech 5 is a hybrid engine that id tech 6 will be built on top of.

Everyone should know this by now, and I hope they do.

Id will NEVER abandon PC. End of story

The Xbox 360 version has some form of HDR implemented!
But it looks far more realistic and less annoyingly "in your face" than in most other games that used this technology before.

If you know someone who owns the 360 version, take a closer look at the Jackal Canyon map.
This map not only has an extreme polycount and perfect resolution textures, it also has the most realistic(hdr) lighting i've ever seen in any game.

The light constantly changes when your moving from higher level open- to cave like areas below.
It constantly adjusts and looks VERY convincing.

In fact, i replayed this map several times to understand what ID is really doing their technically as i've never seen anything (on every imaginable platform) like this before.
It looks crisp, clear, sharp and always perfectly lit with a fair amount of contrast without this annoying cheap "bloom" effect that is so prominent in other games.
I'm sure they use some combination of different shaders that give the proper results.
Again: It's not as obvious as in most other games but therefore way more realistic.

As for motion blur and depth of field:

In my opinion, motion blur is an effect that i consider to be heavily overused but rarely makes sense in game context.

Depth of field is hard to implement gameplaywise as it might soften areas in the graphics that the player wants to look at and doesn't where it is needed.
The depth of field effect in a movie can be easily used for dramatic composition when the director determines the camera position and viewpoint.
This fails in most games as you never know where the player is looking at. Using depth of field just to soften objects in the distance, like most games do, kills all the detail.
I remember that lots of gamers complaint about the depth of field effect in Duke Nukem Forever for that reason and wanted this to be switchable.

The nice thing about Rage is, that you really can see EVERYTHING, no matter how far away.

We had this before: I guess ID made an engine that is closer to reality than all other engines before.
Reality is less spectacular than what modern computer games (or even movies) throw at you yet it demands a way higher amount of math calculation.
Maybe Rage's rendering approach is too "real" and less spectacular for the average consumer that got used to weird in your face effects.

The megatxture non-repeating texture stuff just isn't as obvious as some weird shader that twirls or colorizes the on screen pixels.
The same applies to the lighting. Read my predecessing post if you like.

I think you make be mistaking bloom for HDR. Tim Willests of id confirmed id tech 5 has HDR, but rage does not.

Nope. That is what i exactly what i wanted to point out: Rage on 360 has no "in your face" bloom at all. This is more subtle.

There's some shaders running that dynamically change the color and brightness of the screen depending on the area your actually moving through.
This is pretty obvious when moving from the second wastleand area for example (which looks kind of warm colorwise) into the entrance path (the cave with the stalactites and mites) to the distillery where coloring changes to a cold blue. They also adjust the brightness there on the fly.

Same effect is prominent in the Dead City when leaving the entrance area and moving out into the open where the first big "cannon" mutant is attacking you.

This might not be your typical hdr approach like everybody else is using, but it serves the same purpose and is actually more realistic assuming they are simulating a healthy eye and not the vision of a 60 year old man like all other games using hdr do.

Thats not HDR thats Dynamic Color Correction. Not the same thing.

Right, but that's why i said "some form of hdr" as it serves a similiar purpose.

HDR blows up or decreases pixel brightness values at a certain time based degree depending on where the player is and what he's looking at to simulate iris contraction.
What ID does here is simulating different reflection intensities of indirect light hitting the retina depending on where the player is moving through which is givingRage it's natural look.
Both are related to a humans visual perception of light entering the eye.

I've never seen an engine before where this type of color and light correction was used in this way. That's why i mentioned it, as i think this belongs together.

Its not a form of HDR its color corection. Thats why I did not understand you.
Rage does not Use color corection like HDR. It can't. Rage uses color corection to imitate bloom and eye adaptaion.
I am pretty sure Left for dead has used color corection this way.

That's what i meant with "some form" of HDR. I'm sure they are using different algorithms than those used for HDR.
Looks like they are permanently changing some post processing shaders(values) for creating this effect.
But what they are doing in Rage is not just changing the color values, they also manipulate brightness and/or gamma on the fly similar to HDR but without it's massive overdriving of brightness/darkness values.

If you descend into the Jackal Canyon, the ambient lighting constantly changes from bright and contrasty at the top to dark at the bottom.

Even if this method is called color correction in technical terms, the word "color" is slightly irritating me in this context, that's all.

I didn't notice anything like this in Left for Dead but maybe there's differences between PC and 360 versions.

We're not abandoning PC support. Right now the team at id is working to prep the level editor tools for release on PC.

Once we have a clearer picture on when they'll be ready, we'll let you guys know.

It's kinda too late. Have you any idea how many people play the game on PC where this will used? Not many now.