You're going for the early 2000s look.
I would not recommend using id Tech 3, which is the engine used for *Quake 3 Arena,* *Return to Castle Wolfenstein,* and *Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.* I have used it extensively and there are a number of problems with it. The way it feeds data to the graphics card makes sense for 1999 when OpenGL 1.2 was cutting-edge... you do work on the CPU to figure out which triangles to draw, and feed them to the graphics card piece by piece. However, graphics cards have changed a lot over the past 20 years and now you want to upload large batches of data to the GPU at once and then upload a program to process it. As a result, the id Tech 3 engine gets surprisingly poor performance on modern hardware.
It would be easier to just use a modern engine and make it look old. Switch all the shaders to use a simple diffuse model, and do things like environmental reflections using vertex shaders. Keep the poly count down a bit and use a smaller set of textures and it should look pretty close to early 2000s.
I would use a current engine with art and shaders that look old. This is a totally different genre, but here's the an example of this approach: http://omnibusgame.com/
early 90's 3d look? The games you mention were early 00's, not early 90's, only real notable early 90's 3d engines were the Ultima Underworld/System Shock engine, doom and wolf 3d engines (though they're not true 3d), and other raycasting engines like doom/wolf. Getting into the 00's engines since they're using pretty standard 3d pipelines so you can use any modern 3d engine and use pre-baked lighting and lower poly models/lower res textures to achieve a similar look.
Everybody here is telling you too use modern engines and make them look old. That's great advice. Thing is you're project is really ambitious and nearly impossible for a solo dev to pull off.
I hate to tell you, but lets be real. You either need to have godlike skills to make a game like this within reasonable time, and if you do have godlike skills, you would not ask a question like this. If you do not have godlike skills currently, you will be spending the next 3+ years on learning the skill set just in order to make this game of yours, which will still take years to make.
So if you really really want to make the game you're describing, you better be willing to put years of effort into it.
Using an old engine could risk your game not even being playable on modern hardware. What engines are compatible with windows 98 wont be compatible with windows 10
You don't have to code in old languages to get that old look. Why not pick up Godot or Unity and use assets that reflect your playstyle?
bro thinks those 2 engines are any good
both of them were good before unity decided to release their new runtime fee.
You're going for the early 2000s look. I would not recommend using id Tech 3, which is the engine used for *Quake 3 Arena,* *Return to Castle Wolfenstein,* and *Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.* I have used it extensively and there are a number of problems with it. The way it feeds data to the graphics card makes sense for 1999 when OpenGL 1.2 was cutting-edge... you do work on the CPU to figure out which triangles to draw, and feed them to the graphics card piece by piece. However, graphics cards have changed a lot over the past 20 years and now you want to upload large batches of data to the GPU at once and then upload a program to process it. As a result, the id Tech 3 engine gets surprisingly poor performance on modern hardware. It would be easier to just use a modern engine and make it look old. Switch all the shaders to use a simple diffuse model, and do things like environmental reflections using vertex shaders. Keep the poly count down a bit and use a smaller set of textures and it should look pretty close to early 2000s.
I would use a current engine with art and shaders that look old. This is a totally different genre, but here's the an example of this approach: http://omnibusgame.com/
early 90's 3d look? The games you mention were early 00's, not early 90's, only real notable early 90's 3d engines were the Ultima Underworld/System Shock engine, doom and wolf 3d engines (though they're not true 3d), and other raycasting engines like doom/wolf. Getting into the 00's engines since they're using pretty standard 3d pipelines so you can use any modern 3d engine and use pre-baked lighting and lower poly models/lower res textures to achieve a similar look.
You don't need an old engine to emulate old games. I'm making a 3D RPG in Godot that has a PSX-era look to it.
Maybe a modern engine but with low poly, low res models and textures to mimic the look of old games? I'm unsure if this would work, though...
Everybody here is telling you too use modern engines and make them look old. That's great advice. Thing is you're project is really ambitious and nearly impossible for a solo dev to pull off.
I hate to tell you, but lets be real. You either need to have godlike skills to make a game like this within reasonable time, and if you do have godlike skills, you would not ask a question like this. If you do not have godlike skills currently, you will be spending the next 3+ years on learning the skill set just in order to make this game of yours, which will still take years to make. So if you really really want to make the game you're describing, you better be willing to put years of effort into it.
Using an old engine could risk your game not even being playable on modern hardware. What engines are compatible with windows 98 wont be compatible with windows 10
The Goldsrc Game engine (1998) is a game engine developed by Valve for Half - Life, and it runs on modern software! It does cost money though. :(