Quake III Arena's Unknown Algorithm Explained

A programmer and computer whiz David Plummer has released a video where he explained the amazing speed of Quake III.

Back in 1999, id Software has released Quake III Arena, a multiplayer-focused first-person shooter. It differed from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing on multiplayer gameplay. Back then, it blew everyone's mind with its speed, and nobody knew how the developers managed to achieve it.

When the game's source code was released to the world, it contained a previously unknown algorithm called the Fast Inverse Square Root. A retired Microsoft software engineer David Plummer has released a video where he tells the story of this strange algorithm, explains how it works, and talks about its possible creator.

David William Plummer is a Canadian-American programmer and entrepreneur. He is primarily known for creating the Task Manager for Windows, the Space Cadet Pinball ports to Windows NT, Zip file support for Windows, HyperCache for the Amiga, and many other software products. He has been issued six patents in the software engineering space.

Right now Plummer codes in his free time and manages his YouTube channel Dave's Garage where he creates a variety of content regarding computer programming, so if you are into this topic, you should definitely visit his channel.

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