More from SlashDot - the crew from Dr Dobbs have released a digital version of Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. Abrash, of course, worked with id Software doing a lot of optimisation for the original Quake engine, and a lot of the book draws practical examples from things that he implemented in the Quake engine.

Michael Abrash's classic Graphics Programming Black Book is a compilation of Michael's previous writings on assembly language and graphics programming (including from his "Graphics Programming" column in Dr. Dobb's Journal). Much of the focus of this book is on profiling and code testing, as well as performance optimization. It also explores much of the technology behind the Doom and Quake 3-D games, and 3-D graphics problems such as texture mapping, hidden surface removal, and the like.

As you all know, I can't resist any opportunity to talk about how awesome id is, and I think the existence of this book is another example. While most companies would have been getting all this technology patented and copyrighted as much as possible, they went and followed their philosophy of sharing information (pour encourage les autres) and allowed Abrash to document it.

... it's a shame the information in the book is a couple years old now ;)

its also a shame that id make crap games now. their best games were made when graphics wasnt everything. id, good programmers, nfi about gameplay.

sif quake 3 gameplay didnt own, but thats off topic.

id dont make games, they make engines. It takes companies like Raven to turn those engines into real games.