First person shooter graphics engines - Definition and Overview

This page gives an overview of FPS graphics engines and the games that use them. Engines that included games that have first person view and a third person view are included. Some these hybrid TPS/FPS run on what are othwerwise FPS graphics engines. For more on graphic engines in general and other types of game engine see Game engine.

Early FPS graphics engines

An Imp from Doom - a pixelated sprite

1992-1996 Planar worlds (rectangular grid in Wolfenstein 3D, sector-based plane levels in Doom) with sprite objects. Average Video Hardware requirements: CPU powered software rendering.

• Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
• Doom (1993) (Doom engine), Doom II (1994)
• Duke Nukem 3D (1996) (Build engine)
• Quake (1996)

The rise of 3D

Gunner from Quake II - a texture skewed over a 3D model

1996-1999. For the first time, game engines recreated true 3D worlds with arbitrary level geometry. Instead of sprites the engines used simply textured (single-pass texturing, no lighting details) polygon objects. Average Video Hardware requirements: first 3D-accelerators (Voodoo, Voodoo 2).

• Quake (1996)
• Quake II (1997)
• Unreal (1998) (Unreal engine)
• Half-Life (1998) (modified Quake engine)
• Quake III Arena (1999)

New capabilites, increasing detail

A Skaarj warrior from Unreal 2 - texture filtered and textured mapped polygons in plain light

2000-2003. New graphics hardware provided new capabilites, allowing new engines to add various new effects, such as particle effects, fog, coloured lightning, as well as increase texture and polygon detail. Many games featured large outdoor environments, vehicles, rag-doll physics. Average Video Hardware requirements: GeForce 2 (or similar).

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (2003), Call of Duty (2003) (Quake 3 engine)
• Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
• Max Payne (2001), Max Payne 2 (2003)
• No One Lives Forever (2000), No One Live Forever 2 (2002) (Lithtech engine)
• Battlefield 1942 (2002) (Refractor 2 engine)
• Unreal II: The Awakening (2002) (Unreal engine)
• Mafia (2002), Vietcong (2003) (same engine)

The approach to photorealism

A Hell Knight from DOOM 3 - self-shadowing and bump mapping

2004-2006 (est.). Developers of this era of 3D engines often tout their increasingly photorealistic quality. The maps may feature seamlessly integrated indoor-outdoor environments. Some, or all of the Pixel shader-based textures, bumpmapping, vertex shaders used for animations, lighting and shadowing technolgies are common. Average Video Hardware requirements: GeForce 3 (or other cards with shader support).

• Far Cry (2004) (CryENGINE)
• Battlefield Vietnam (2004) (All new rendering engine)
• Unreal Tournament 2004 (2004) (Unreal engine)
• Painkiller(2004)
• Doom 3 (2004)
• Half-Life 2 (2004) (Source engine)
• Halo 2 (2004)
• Battlefield 2 (Q1 2005*)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (Q2 2005*) (X-Ray engine)
• F.E.A.R. (2005*)
• Operation Flashpoint 2 (2006*)

Titles marked with * are not released yet. Release dates are estimates.

The future

Berserker from Unreal 3 technology demo - a detailed model, bump-mapping, and real-time soft self-shadowing

2007+ (est.). According to Epic Games, games based on Unreal 3 engine can be expected around 2006. These games are likely to include some of the technology showcased in existing technology demos (including those from graphics card manufacturers), including realistic shader-based materials with predefined physics, environments with procedural and vertex shader-based objects (vegetation, debris, human made objects such as books or tools) universally destructible and interactive levels, procedural animation, cinematographic effects (depth of field, motion blur, etc.), realistic lighting and shadowing.

John Carmack, the lead programmer for id Software, has repeatedly stated his opinion that it will likely be possible by 2010 to do a real-time video-realistic rendering of a static real-world-like environment. According to development plans announced by id Software, their second next 3D engine may attain such capabilities.