Chapter 183: Emma’s Surprise

Vincent could feel Emma's hand gripping his own unconsciously tightening, even squeezing hard enough to make him hurt. 1

"Thank you for coming to our exhibition, sir. Please collect your commemorative souvenir merchandise to your right." 

The young lady in charge of reception thoughtfully guided the player whose visiting time had ended out of the central area of the booth, only then turning her attention to the crowd waiting in line. 

She smiled sweetly and gestured politely for Emma and Vincent, who were at the very front of the line, to enter. 

"Please, you two, come in." 

Emma didn't hesitate for even a moment and went straight for the PC that had just become available. Vincent, after getting Emma's permission, went over to the NovaXeno and happened to take the place of a player whose allotted time had just ended. 

"This is actually a DOS game." 

Although Emma wasn't an industry professional, she at least knew what a computer was. A game running under DOS was on an entirely different level from the games on GAMENOVA's consoles. 

And yet, it completely outperformed the NovaBox in graphical performance and, in some areas, could even rival the NovaXeno. It was simply unbelievable! 

The game itself was much simpler than she had imagined. It was easy to tell that this wasn't a complete game, but merely a demo meant to showcase its capabilities. 

But that was already more than enough for Emma. In fact, for any player of this era, even this simple demo was astonishing enough to leave them speechless. 

After briefly familiarizing herself with the mouse controls, Emma lightly tapped the start key and waited for the game to load. 

At first, there was nothing but a blank screen. Then, pillars began to appear, tall, vertical pillars. More and more pillars rapidly materialized, fitting together to form an entire world. 

Naturally, this was the BSP tree technology that Carmack had adopted. Under the BSP system, the engine could efficiently determine the spatial order of the level's geometry, making it far easier to determine which walls and surfaces needed to be rendered. 

The BSP tree could then be traversed in a suitable order, allowing the renderer to process visible geometry efficiently. The image was no longer rendered in the form of ray projection. Instead, the visible wall segments were rendered column by column, making the entire rendering process far more flexible and controllable. 

There was a great deal that could be done with this. The most obvious improvement was that Ethan, and the other developers could freely decide what content to render in different areas and apply different levels of light and darkness to each area. 

These technologies were ultimately what made possible the scene Emma now saw before her: a ceiling and floor that were no longer mere blocks of solid color. 

The floor had textures, and so did the ceiling. 

Brick floors, metal floors, dirt floors... the entire scene was filled with all kinds of different surfaces, presenting a blatant display of performance, trying to show as much content to the players as quickly as possible. 

Combined with the lighting effects, the moment Emma truly saw this world with her own eyes, she was stunned. It took her a long while to recover from the shock. Only then did she slowly regain her senses and glance over at Vincent, who was excitedly playing Civilization. 

She suddenly understood why that player earlier had been waving his arms around and celebrating so wildly. If it were her, and Vincent weren't there reminding her to maintain the dignity of an adult, she would have jumped up and down in excitement long ago. 

This... this was a miracle of the next generation! 

"This is a love letter dedicated to every Wolfenstein 3D player!" 

As for its content, it still followed the usual Wolfenstein style. If anything, it was even more extreme. 

It carried the original bloody violence to an even more thorough degree, and it spared no expense with its graphical capabilities, desperately rendering every scene of demons being torn apart and blasted to pieces. 

But Emma didn't feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. Instead, it felt amazing, so amazing that she could barely contain her excitement." 1

The collision between ferocious demons and powerful weapons, combined with a game speed far beyond anything the NovaBox era had ever seen, made DOOM's gameplay experience feel like a massive leap forward. 1

The more familiar a player was with Wolfenstein, the more terrifyingly they could appreciate just how significant this was. 

This was no longer a simple version upgrade. This was evolution, a complete and utter evolution! An art piece that pushed the aesthetics of violence and high-speed combat to their absolute limits. 

For a full ten minutes, Emma slaughtered her way through a sea of demons like a killing machine that knew no fatigue, using nothing but a shotgun and chainsaw to tear apart every demon that came charging at her. 

Until... the door to the room, which had remained tightly locked until then, suddenly opened. 

Emma's movements paused for a moment. Only then did she slowly make her way toward the doorway. She passed through the corridor, and what awaited her was a huge, empty room. 

At the center of the room stood a massive sphere, its metallic surface gleaming as it slowly rotated. The moment Emma saw it, she suddenly snapped back to reality, her entire body jolting. 

At that moment, the purpose of the demo became completely obvious. Just like the manufacturers she had seen on the way here, it was showcasing its graphical capabilities, only in a far more violent and purer form. 

From software algorithms to hardware capabilities, every single detail seemed to be telling Emma: this is fucking awesome. 

"Miss, your demo time is up." 

Emma simply stood there, quietly staring at the sphere on the screen, until a staff member finally reminded her that her time was up. 

"DOOM... when will it be released?" 

"The full game isn't available yet. But you can pick up a free copy of the demo at the front desk or get one from a software store." 2

"Wait, so this isn't the full game?" 

"Mm! Mr. Hayes said this is only a technology demo. The finished version will have much more content, and their next full-fledged title will push the technology even further." 

The staff member pointed toward the front desk, where another line had already formed. People were waiting to collect their commemorative souvenirs, including floppy disks containing copies of the DOOM demo. 

Emma stared at the disks for a moment. So, what she had just played wasn't the finished game at all. It was only a demonstration of what DOOM was capable of. 

"But, Miss, DOOM has fairly demanding hardware requirements. You'll need a 16-bit-color graphics card to run it properly, and if you want the highest game speed with all the settings maxed out, you'll also need a system equipped with our SDRAM memory architecture." 

Hidden beneath DOOM's demonstration was the true purpose of Ethan's trip: SDRAM and graphics cards. 

It wasn't just GAMENOVA's booth. SGI's booth also featured demonstration machines equipped with the latest graphics cards. However, over there, the machines were simply showcasing graphical performance, without using DOOM as a showcase. 

Something this significant naturally couldn't escape the attention of the reporters. Within two hours, the astonishing technologies showcased by GAMENOVA had spread throughout the entire exhibition hall. 

A revolutionary new 3D game that completely overturned everyone's understanding of what a game could be, featuring lighting effects and complex three-dimensional environments. 

A dedicated 16-bit graphics card designed specifically for 3D graphics acceleration, and a new memory architecture called SDRAM that was several times faster than DRAM. 2

According to insider rumors, all of these were derivative technologies developed from the technology brought down from the NovaXeno. For a time, whether they were geeks, buyers, or rival manufacturers showcasing their own 3D capabilities, everyone in the exhibition hall had heard the news.