Fabien Sanglard

Street Fighter II, Spin when you can't

This article is part of a series about Street Fighter II and the CPS-1. It is recommended to read the previous entries before reading this one.

Driving Compilers

I remember how pleasant it was to learn to program in C. There were so many good books explaining not only the language but also the standard library. I devoured both The C Programming Language (K&R) by Kernighan/Ritchie and The Standard C Library by P.J. Plauger. Then came Expert C Programming by Van der Linden and…

An History of Nvidia Stream Multiprocessor

I spent last week-end getting accustomed to CUDA and SIMT programming. It was a prolific time ending up with a Business Card Raytracer running close to 700x faster [1] , from 101s to 150ms. This pleasant experience was a good pretext to spend more time on the topic and learn about the evolution of Nvidia architecture…

0xF Rules

I have been writing articles on this website for twelve years. If you were to look at the early versions , you would think it is a fresh-out-of-school project with icons drawn in Microsoft Paint. And that is exactly what it was. The site started in a world before smartphones and tablets at a time where Apple products…

Why WinQuake exists and how it works

When I took a look at the history of Quake binaries, they all made sense to me. quake.exe was the original release, able to run on DOS and Windows 95. Then came vquake.exe to support the hardware accelerated chip Vérité 1000. Later, glquake.exe generalized hardware acceleration to any vendor providing OpenGL drivers…

QuakeWorld by John Carmack (1996)

Street Fighter II, Sound System Internals

This article is part of a series about Street Fighter II and the CPS-1. It is recommended to read the previous entries before reading this one.

How the SNES Graphics System Works

Last week's article discussed how the Super Nintendo's Video system feeds the TV's CRT. Today I'll summarize what I understand of the hardware generating these graphics.

My favorite keyboards

When I started using computers, we had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum at home and a nano-reseau of Thomson MO5 s at elementary school. I distinctly remember how unpleasant it was to type with them. These must have been the worst keyboards I ever used [1] . Ever since, I have paid close attention to the keyboards I use. Here…

Git Source Code Review

Since its release in December 2005, git has taken over the software industry. In combination with GitHub it is now a powerful tool to publish and share code: From big teams ( linux kernel , id Software , Epic Unreal ) to single individual ( Prince of Persia , Another world , Rick Dangerous ), many have adopted it as…

The Polygons of Another World: IBM PC

This article is part of a study about the ports of Another World. It is highly recommended to read Another World 101 before reading this.

The Beautiful Diablo 2 Resurrected Machine

The last game I played extensively was "Diablo 2" during the year 2000 when Internet finally became affordable in France. I loved that it was a difficult game to master, I loved the mandatory grinding which made accomplishments meaningful. I loved to trade and the economy players invented.

10NES

I am a big fan of Street Fighter 2. Certainly not the greatest but likely among the nerdiest since I wrote an entire book about its platform [1] . It won't be a surprise to learn that, back in December 1992, I was eagerly waiting for the Super Nintendo port so I could stop sinking my rare 10 Francs coins into the…

Capcom CPS-1 Graphic system study

As I keep on exploring the internals of the machine that animated so many hours of my childhood, I came to study its GFX system.

Quake Engine source review

I happily dove into Quake World source code . Here is what I understood, hopefully it will help someone to swim. This article is in four parts : Architecture section Network section Prediction section Rendition section

Quake 3 Source Code Review

Since I had one week before my next contract I decided to finish my "cycle of id". After Doom , Doom Iphone , Quake1 , Quake2 , Wolfenstein iPhone and Doom3 I decided to read the last codebase I did not review yet: idTech3 the 3D engine that powers Quake III and Quake Live . The engine is mostly an evolution of…

Street Fighter II, subtile accurate animation (2021)

This article is the final part of a series about Street Fighter II and the CPS-1. It is recommended to read the previous entries before reading this one.

The Making of Stunt Island

It is human nature to pick a hero, place it on a pedestal, and forget everybody else. We have limited memory after all so remembering only a few things may not be a choice but a necessity. If you were to ask players for the name of a game made in the 90s, unmistakably Mario, Sonic, and DOOM would come up over and over…

Reverse Engineering Strike Commander

Back in the early 90s, one company was on the bleeding edge of PC gaming: Origin Systems . Their motto was "We Create Worlds" and boy did they deliver: With the Ultima series, Crusader series and Wing Commander series, they consistently took gamer's breath away. One of them took four years and more than a million man…

The Computer Graphics Library

Back in the 90s, one book was ubiquitous in the world of Computer Graphics. Commonly called "The CG Bible", Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice gathered a huge part of the knowledge of the time. It was commonly referenced by the best programmers of that era in interviews and articles . By 1998, the book…

Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D

How was Wolfenstein 3D made and what were the secrets of its speed? How did id Software manage to turn a machine designed to display static images for word processing and spreadsheet applications into the best gaming platform in the world, capable of running games at seventy frames per seconds? If you have ever asked…

Revisiting the postcard pathtracer with CUDA and Optix

Last week, I revisited Andrew Kensler's business card raytracer to make it run as fast as possible [1] . It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot in the process. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to revisit Andrew's follow up, the postcard sized pathtracer [2] . I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of that code…

John Carmack on shadow volumes (2000)

Wolfenstein 3D for iPhone engine code review

For once, developers were able to read the source code of an id software product just a few days after its release. I spent a week in my spare time reading the internal of the Wolfenstein 3D for iPhone engine. It is by far the cleanest and easiest id source code release to date. This review is far from being…

Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D, 2nd Edition

The Game Engine Black Book Wolfenstein 3D, 2nd Edition has shipped. It is available at the following locations: - Amazon ( US , UK , FR , CA , and many more). - Google PlayStore ( here ). All errata which readers kindly took the time to report have been addressed. Adrian Carmack has retired from anything related to id…