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During that time, I had a job for a major games company doing nothing but developing Windows graphics card drivers. They were moderately complex beasts (enormou
by JohnFen 1y ago
During that time, I had a job for a major games company doing nothing but developing Windows graphics card drivers. They were moderately complex beasts (enormously complex compared to other device drivers), but not really that huge of a thing.
The biggest effort about them was reverse-engineering certain cards. The games often used very strange video settings, and the card manufacturers had poor, sometimes no, documentation about their operation at a low level.
- ferguess_k 1y agoThanks for sharing. I'm surprised that game companies would do that. Is it the Voodoo era or slightly earlier (S3)? Does that mean you actually ship drivers with games? What did the card manufacturers say about this?
- JohnFen 1y agoEarlier. The standard video drivers didn't support video modes needed for more advanced video game graphics, making custom drivers necessary. The card manufacturers didn't mind. Why would they? If a hit video game supported their card, they sell more cards. Even better when they didn't have to put any substantial resources into that support.
- prox 1y agoDo you still write video drivers or is it mostly covered like with Nvidia drivers?
- JohnFen 1y agoIt was a long time ago. The trajectory of my career took me in an entirely different direction.
- ferguess_k 1y agoThanks for sharing JohnFen.