id Tech is a series of separate game engines designed and developed by

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

. Prior to the presentation of the id Tech 5-based game '' Rage'' in 2011, the engines lacked official designation and as such were simply referred to as the ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

'' and '' Quake'' engines, from the name of the main game series the engines had been developed for. "id Tech" has been released as

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

. id Tech versions 0 to 3 were released under GPL-2.0-or-later. id Tech versions 3.5 to 4.5 were released under GPL-3.0-or-later. id Tech 5 to 7 are proprietary, with id Tech 7 currently being the latest utilized engine. According to ''Eurogamer.net'', "id Software has been synonymous with PC game engines since the concept of a detached game engine was first popularised." However

id Tech 4 id Tech 4, popularly known as the ''Doom 3'' engine, is a game engine developed by id Software and first used in the video game ''Doom 3''. The engine was designed by John Carmack, who also created previous game engines, such as those for '' Do ...

had far fewer licensees than the

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of g ...

from Epic Games, and id planned to regain the momentum with id Tech 5, until they were bought by

ZeniMax Media ZeniMax Media Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Rockville, Maryland, and founded in 1999. The company owns publisher Bethesda Softworks with its development unit Bethesda Game Studios (developer of ''The Elder Scrolls,'' ...

which intended to keep the id Tech engines exclusively for id's sister studios.

Predecessors

id Software had developed 3D engines for several games before ''Wolfenstein 3D''. Each engine had progressively more advanced 3D technology. * '' Hovertank 3D'' (1991) used solid-color drawn polygonal walls and scalable sprites. The source code was released by Flat Rock Software in June 2014 under GPL-2.0-or-later. * '' Catacomb 3-D'' (1991) added

texture mapping Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color. History The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974. Texture mappi ...

to the walls. The source code was released by Flat Rock Software in June 2014 under GPL-2.0-or-later.

Wolfenstein 3D engine

Wolfenstein 3D ''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game '' Castle Wolfe ...

'' (1992) increased the color palette from 16-color EGA to 256-color

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...

and also adopted

raycasting Ray casting is the methodological basis for 3D CAD/CAM solid modeling and image rendering. It is essentially the same as ray tracing for computer graphics where virtual light rays are "cast" or "traced" on their path from the focal point of a came ...

. The game engine was also licensed out to other companies. The source code to Wolfenstein 3D, along with its prequel ''Spear of Destiny'', was released on the 21st of July 1995 under a proprietary license, and then later under GPL-2.0-or-later. ''

ShadowCaster ''ShadowCaster'' is a first-person role-playing video game developed by Raven Software. It was published in 1993 by Origin Systems after Electronic Arts acquired them. A CD-ROM version was released in 1994, featuring two additional levels with ...

'' (1993) was built upon the Wolfenstein 3D engine and was licensed out to

Raven Software Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many of the stu ...

. It features diminished lighting, texture mapped floors and ceilings, walls with variable heights, and sloped floors. This Raven engine was later also used by '' CyClones'' and '' In Pursuit of Greed''. ''Rise of the Triad'' uses an enhanced engine of ''Wolfenstein 3D'' and was meant to serve as the sequel to it. The source code was released on the 20th of December 2002 under GPL-2.0-or-later. Other games using this engine are: '' Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold'', '' Blake Stone: Planet Strike'', '' Corridor 7: Alien Invasion'', ''

Operation Body Count ''Operation Body Count'' is a 1994 first-person shooter that uses the ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine. It was developed and published by Capstone Software. Plot Terrorists have taken over the headquarters of the United Nations and have seized the gover ...

'', and ''

Rise of the Triad ''Rise of the Triad: Dark War'' is a first-person shooter video game, developed and published by Apogee Software (now 3D Realms) in 1995. The player can choose one of five different characters to play as, each bearing unique attributes such as ...

''.

id Tech 1

Originally known as the "''Doom'' engine", this engine powers the id Software games ''

'' (1993) and '' Doom II: Hell on Earth'' (1994). It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by

John Romero John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, Dave Taylor, and Paul Radek. Initially developed on

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

computers, it was

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

for ''Doom'''s release and was later ported to several game consoles and

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

s. The source code was released on the 23rd of December 1997 under a proprietary license, and then later on the 3rd of October 1999 under GPL-2.0-or-later. ''Heretic'' and ''Hexen: Beyond Heretic'' were developed by

and published by id Software. Their sources were released on the 4th of September 2008 under GPL-2.0-only. Other games using this engine include '' Strife: Quest for the Sigil'' and '' Chex Quest''.

id Tech 2

Originally known as "''Quake'' engine", it was originally written to power 1996's '' Quake''. It featured

true 3D 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...

real-time rendering Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) to ...

and is the first id Tech engine to use the

client–server model The client–server model is a distributed application structure that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers communicate ove ...

. The source code was released on the 21st of December 1999 under GPL-2.0-or-later. The Quake engine was updated with a new executable titled ''

QuakeWorld ''Quake'' is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux in 1996, followed by ...

'' that contained code to enhance the networking capabilities of ''Quake'' in response to the demand for across-internet network games that arose as a result of ''Quake''s usage of UDP for networking. id Tech 2 was later updated for the release of ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

'' in 1997, with enhancements such as colored lighting and a new MD2 model format. id Tech 2.5 is the last to include a

software renderer Software rendering is the process of generating an image from a model by means of computer software. In the context of computer graphics rendering, software rendering refers to a rendering process that is not dependent upon graphics hardware AS ...

. The source code was released on the 22nd of December 2001 under GPL-2.0-or-later.

id Tech 3

Originally known as the "''Quake III Arena'' engine", it was used to power id Software's ''

Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...

'' in 1999. The ''Quake III Arena'' engine was updated to patch 1.26 and later versions are called "Quake III Team Arena engine" with a new MD4 skeletal model format and huge outdoor areas. id Tech 3 is the first in this series to require an OpenGL-compliant

graphics accelerator A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mob ...

to run. The source code was released on the 19th of August 2005 under GPL-2.0-or-later. id Tech 3 was updated with the 2001 release of ''Return To Castle Wolfenstein'' which included a single-player scripting system, and was eventually used to power the first ''Call of Duty'' title in 2003, ultimately spawning the

IW engine The IW engine is a game engine created and developed by Infinity Ward for the ''Call of Duty'' series. The engine was originally based on id Tech 3. Aside from Infinity Ward, the engine is also used by other Activision studios working on the se ...

. It was also used for '' Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory''. The source code was released on the 12th of August 2010 under GPL-3.0-or-later.

id Tech 4

Commonly known as the "''

Doom 3 ''Doom 3'' is a 2004 survival horror first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. ''Doom 3'' was originally released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004, adapted for Linux later that year, and ported ...

'' engine" which was used to power ''Doom 3'' as it released in 2004, id Tech 4 began as an enhancement to

id Tech 3 id Tech 3, popularly known as the ''Quake III Arena'' engine, is a game engine developed by id Software for their video game ''Quake III Arena''. It has been adopted by numerous games. During its time, it competed with the Unreal Engine; bot ...

. During development, it was initially just a complete rewrite of the engine's renderer, while still retaining other subsystems, such as file access, and memory management. The decision to switch from C to the

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

necessitated a restructuring and rewrite of the rest of the engine; today, while id Tech 4 contains code from id Tech 3, much of it has been rewritten. The source code was released on the 22nd of November 2011 under GPL-3.0-or-later. Other games using this engine are:

's ''

Quake 4 ''Quake 4'' is a 2005 military science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the fourth title in the ''Quake'' series, after the multiplayer ''Quake III Arena'', and a sequel to ' ...

'' (2005) and '' Wolfenstein'' (2009),

Human Head Studios Human Head Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer located in Madison, Wisconsin. History Human Head Studios was founded in October 1997 by a group of six developers formerly from Raven Software: Ben Gokey, Chris Rhinehart, Paul ...

' ''

Prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

'' (2006),

Splash Damage Splash Damage Ltd. is a British video game developer specialising in multiplayer first-person shooter video games. The studio is best known as the creators of '' Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory'' and '' Enemy Territory: Quake Wars''. History ...

's '' Enemy Territory: Quake Wars'' (2007) and ''Brink'' (2011). id Tech 4 was updated with the 2012 release of '' Doom 3: BFG Edition'' with some features from id Tech 5. The source code was released on the 26th of November 2012 under GPL-3.0-or-later.

id Tech 5

Used for id Software's '' Rage,'' the engine is based on the file system frameworks. Some technologies included are the GUI system from

, including a new renderer,

MegaTexture id Tech 4, popularly known as the ''Doom 3'' engine, is a game engine developed by id Software and first used in the video game ''Doom 3''. The engine was designed by John Carmack, who also created previous game engines, such as those for ''Doo ...

2.0 technology, soft shadows and more. id is requiring companies that use the engine to publish their games through id's sister company, Bethesda Softworks. The engine has since been used to power

MachineGames MachineGames Sweden AB is a Swedish video game developer based in Uppsala. The studio was founded in 2009 by seven former employees of Starbreeze Studios, including founder Magnus Högdahl. After unsuccessfully pitching game ideas to several ...

' first two ''Wolfenstein'' titles; ''The New Order'' in 2014 with its standalone expansion '' The Old Blood,'' which released in 2015. It was also used for Tango Gameworks' ''

The Evil Within ''The Evil Within'' is a survival horror video game developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game was directed by ''Resident Evil'' series creator Shinji Mikami and was released worldwide in October 2014 for PlayStat ...

'' (2014).

id Tech 6

Used for ''Doom'' released on May 13, 2016. While the engine uses some of the features from id Tech 5, id has also added support for

Vulkan Vulkan is a low- overhead, cross-platform API, open standard for 3D graphics and computing. Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications, such as video games and interactive media. Vulkan is intended to offer higher perfor ...

rendering. Development of the renderer is led by Tiago Sousa, who had previously worked on

CryEngine CryEngine (stylized as CRYENGINE) is a game engine designed by the German game developer Crytek. It has been used in all of their titles with the initial version being used in ''Far Cry'', and continues to be updated to support new consoles and ...

, following previous

technical director A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. This person usually has the highest level of skill within a specific technical f ...

John Carmack's resignation in 2013. id Tech 6 was also used in '' Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus'' (2017), and '' Wolfenstein: Youngblood'' (2019) again by

. It was not used for '' Quake Champions'' however, which combined id Tech features with the Saber3D Engine.

id Tech 7

QuakeCon QuakeCon is a yearly convention held by ZeniMax Media to celebrate and promote the major franchises of id Software and other studios owned by ZeniMax. It includes a large, paid, bring-your-own-computer ( BYOC) LAN party event with a competitiv ...

2018, id Software announced the release of a new game in the Doom franchise called Doom Eternal. Powered by the id Tech 7 engine,

Doom Eternal ''Doom Eternal'' is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. The sequel to ''Doom'' (2016), and the sixth main game in the ''Doom'' series, it was released on March 20, 2020, for Windows, PlaySt ...

was released on March 20, 2020. The new engine is capable of delivering an increase in geometric detail without drops in frame-rate vs. id Tech 6. On PC, id Tech 7 supports

rendering only.

References

External links

Source code of open source engines released by id Software
{{Video game engines Game engines for Linux Video game engines