John Carmack Shows Rage Running At 60FPS On iPhone 4 At QuakeCon

There have been rumors of late that Android 3.0 will be Google's first major swing at the gaming market when it comes to smartphones. If this video demonstration is any indication of what's to come on iOS, the battle may already be over by the time Android 3.0 hits the airwaves. John Carmack, one of the most famous game designers in the history of the industry, is responsible for such famous titles as Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D. He's also responsible for the development of Rage, a highly advanced and complex (in terms of polygon count) video game that has yet to hit the market. The PC version is expected sometime soon, but an iPad and iPhone version could land even sooner.

At an event at QuakeCon in Dallas, Carmack blew everyone away with a beautiful demonstration of Rage running on an iPhone 4. Aside from having an A4 processor, Apple has kept the video processor capabilities of the phone a secret from the public. Whatever is in there has some serious power behind it, as Rage was shown running at 60 frames per second, complete with MegaTextures enabled. John said that the game looked best on iPad, but would actually still run on even the iPhone 3GS. That's totally impressive, and it's probably just as impressive to think of the coding that had to be done to make this happen as it is the GPU system within the iPad and iPhone families.



According to reports, the iOS version of Rage will debut this year on the App Store, and it will be available for a lower price in line with what other high-res games are selling for. A second Rage iPhone game is expected to ship alongside the PC and console version next year, but Carmack is still evaluating the demand on Android before committing to making a Google-enabled port. The video below shows the demo, which is mind blowing on a number of levels. And it begs the question: if Carmack can do this with Rage, what other amazing iPhone and iPad games could be created with the right coding?