Creative Labs: The Microsoft of Sound - The Sound Engine for DoomIII
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A recent, fairly popular game you might have heard of is called "DoomIII". id Software decided that for this game they would create their own sound engine, with the idea for it to be able to use all of the effects they put in on any audio hardware, from integrated audio to the most expensive sound card. Granted it would require CPU cycles for that, but in many cases those are available anyway without adversely affecting game play. id planned from the start to not use any patented software algorithms, because that locks in users to specific products as opposed to having choice.
As you can guess, a company such as Creative Labs would be interested in attaching their own game engine to what would likely become a popular title. It wouldn't say much for their engine, if id could come out with quality audio that was equal to or better than their own product. Especially when you consider the numerous offshoots that will come later off the DoomIII engine. Creative Labs I'm sure was aware of this through the product's development, as id has stated its desire to stay away from proprietary products, meaning no EAX support.
Now, CL does happen to hold a certain patent relating to stencil buffers used in shadowing. This patent happened to be filed with "prior art" in evidence, yet somehow still got through. That prior art turned into what is known as "Carmack's Reverse", and this technique is used in DoomIII to allow for shadow effects where the camera (eye) is within that same shadow.
Creative Labs sat on this patent until just before the release of the game. Then they let id know they had a patent for a technique used in the game, and threatened legal action. The solution ended up being Creative Labs gets EAX shoved into DoomIII, and all the games that license that engine. Gee, I wonder if that will end up being a cash cow in terms of sound card sales?
So why wasn't this fought by id Software? Because with a desire to get the game out and in the hands of customers, this was the quickest solution. Legal action would have prevented the release, whether it was instigated by either party. And changing to another method of creating the shadows would also have delayed the release.
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