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how was quake's console coded?

Started by amemorex Dec 2, 2001 at 12:36 PM 3 replies 350+ views

Original Post

Dec 2, 2001 at 12:36 PM

im going to refer to the console in FPS games as the "quake console" because id Software was the first company to ever put that in an FPS game (not to mention first company to make a 3D FPS game anyway..) well anyway, how were strings handled and everything? for instance, lets use quake3''s console. i doubt carmack/whoever wrote it used STL strings, because everyone here says it was mostly coded in C and a little asm. so did he use his own string class/type/whatever, did he use simple means of pointers, character arrays, what? and if you were coding your own console, how would you do it? stl? you''re own methods? this is just curiousity, im not actually coding a console for any game..im just wondering

FurryKef

Dec 2, 2001 at 12:43 PM

There were no classes in C or ASM (unless you count structs). So he probably fiddled with raw char pointers/arrays.

(Note that a char pointer and a char array is kind of the same thing, except a char pointer COULD be used to point to a single char (this is probably rare).)

- X

KwamiMatrix

Dec 2, 2001 at 2:26 PM

There is an article somewhere at GameDev.net that is about command line(console) systems. You will want to read it. Search gamedev.net articles. As a matter of fact, I need to read it. I will try and find it. you should try also.

Edem Attiogbe

AdmiralBinary

Dec 2, 2001 at 2:33 PM

Hi amem, did u get my email? I don''t think my hotmail account is working at the moment...

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I finally got it all together...
...and then forgot where I put it.

Kylotan

Dec 2, 2001 at 8:00 PM

quote:
Original post by amemorex
im going to refer to the console in FPS games as the "quake console" because id Software was the first company to ever put that in an FPS game (not to mention first company to make a 3D FPS game anyway..)

<pedantic>Wasn''t Elite technically an FPS? And that''s about 8 years older than Doom

You could probably go back further still... wasn''t Star Raiders first person? Hmm.

</pedantic>

quote:
well anyway, how were strings handled and everything? for instance, lets use quake3''s console.

As already stated, using C and asm means you can''t really create your own classes. Most C systems that do a lot of string handling just use a large buffer (1024 bytes for example) and call sprintf to use it. Some of them even do some bounds checking!

If I was making a console, or indeed any kind of software, it would use the STL. There''s virtually no reason not to, if you can.

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