CSSQuake

542 points by msalsas 5 days ago|114 comments

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jedberg 4 days ago

This is an awesome achievement, but I can't help but notice that Quake ran smoother on my Pentium-133 PC in the 90s than it runs on my Mac M1 Pro...

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poisonfountain 4 days ago

This engine is not optimised for performance. It's using CSS, after all.

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Insanity 4 days ago

Yeah this is a case of “not the right tool for the job”.

It is awesome though.

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jedberg 4 days ago

Of course, but you'd think after 30 years the compute power should be enough to overcome any lack of optimization. It's a testament to the engineering that went into the original Quake engine.

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culi 4 days ago

Decades of optimizing a toaster to make better toast will not make the toaster any better at making meatloaf

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billfor 4 days ago

We haven't had a toaster that makes better toast since 1997 (Sunbeam radiant control).

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culi 3 days ago

Is this you? https://www.timstoasters.com/

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qmr 4 days ago

Toaster you say?

https://philip.greenspun.com/humor/eecs-difference-explained

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libria 4 days ago

Is this the right analogy? The product is the same, the appliance is different.

It should be "Decades of inventions from toasters to IOT AI Smart Air Fryers will not make better toast than the original"

But I'd argue the IOT AI Smart Air Fryer should make really good toast. Which is what GP is saying.

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matt_kantor 4 days ago

It'd be like if the IOT AI Smart Air Fryer had a constraint of only being allowed to use friction to create heat.

CSSQuake uses an intentionally-absurd rendering pipeline. It's not surprising that the result is sub-optimal.

(Though I agree that the meatloaf analogy is not very good.)

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culi 4 days ago

I stand by my analogy.

Both a toaster and an oven might benefit from improved electronics but in the end—whether its a toaster from the 60s or a toaster from 3008—you are still using a toaster to make a meatloaf.

CSS is not remotely comparable to a game engine. It's not even a programming language.

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rustystump 4 days ago

I am on the ground. This is great.

Still, why css is as slow as it is given what tech like imgui can do is a little wild.

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harrall 4 days ago

CSS is a general rendering solution, not something built for rendering 3D games.

And no one has spent any time optimizing 3D transforms to make a game workable because no one would be able to justify the use of their time like that. It wouldn’t even give you brownie points ‘cause most people would just ask “why?”

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Akronymus 4 days ago

Id assume "a fun challenge" could be enough of a reason

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amatecha 4 days ago

Err, strange, what browser? I'm using Firefox on a ThinkPad from 2018 running Linux, and cssquake was running at a smooth 60fps just now (and at 1080p resolution vs the 320x240 or 320x200 someone would likely be running on a P133)

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jamal-kumar 4 days ago

For what it's worth it works like smooth butter under Chrome on an M2, on Safari it's clunky and seems to clip alot

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jeroenhd 4 days ago

Zero issues on Firefox + Linux. Gnome Web is stuttery and weird, though. Must be a WebKit/Safari thing.

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jedberg 4 days ago

Possibly, I did it on Safari. Trying it now on Chrome and it's fine.

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arendtio 3 days ago

Maybe try Firefox.

Most of the time, things seem to be optimized for Chrome, but with this, I actually had the impression that Firefox ran a bit smoother, but I tested it on Linux.

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api 4 days ago

Quake compiled in C will run insanely fast at 8K full resolution on an M1.

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jedberg 4 days ago

You wouldn’t happen to have a pointer on where to get this version would you?

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itvision 4 days ago

Runs perfectly fine at over 60fps on my Intel Core 358H at roughly 2560x1600.

Perhaps there's something wrong with your web browser. Try Firefox - it works beautifully there.

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DanielHB 4 days ago

Wait, did Quack run on Pentium-133? I had a Pentium MMX 233mhz and I always assumed it didn't ran well so I never bother to get it.

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iamphilrae 4 days ago

If you had a 3dfx card it would run silky smooth on a Pentium-120 (what I had at the time)! Quake 2 ran pretty well too if I recall.

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jklp 4 days ago

Yep 3dfx was a game changer. Was night and day on my 486 DX4 100 with and without

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DanielHB 4 days ago

Yeah I didn't have a 3dfx so I assumed the software renderer required a more powerful CPU

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lightedman 4 days ago

Quake ran on a P75 with 8MB RAM in DOS mode. Not the best but it worked at 320x200.

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bluedino 4 days ago

Bare minimum for it being playable was a 486DX4 100MHz or similar, but with the floating point Quake really wanted a Pentium

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Garlef 4 days ago

I played it on a Pentium with 60mhz - it was allright

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MrFurious 4 days ago

I played quake in 486dx100.

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bitwize 4 days ago

I ran it on a Pentium 60. If you stuck to 320x200 it ran fine.

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jedberg 4 days ago

It must have, because that's what I had in 1996 and I played it.

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lizknope 4 days ago

Ran fine on my Pentium 90 with 16MB RAM

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UltraSane 4 days ago

Quake ran well on my 100Mhz Pentium.

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to11mtm 4 days ago

Either you had a Voodoo on your P133 or whatever the M1 is doing is having a bad time...

On my 7945HX this is plenty fast.

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jonplackett 4 days ago

I think you’re missing the point

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jojogeo 4 days ago

This is the first thing I've seen on the intertubes for a /long/ time which genuinely makes me smile, thank you op.

Checked out https://cssdoom.wtf/ and loved it too, both are far lighter than current affairs. \o/

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AzzieElbab 4 days ago

Awesome! Harder to exit than vim.

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pgt 4 days ago

In case you want to view the menu, press Tab. Click outside menu items to resume game.

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deskamess 4 days ago

how did you exit? because nothing seems to be working.

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ChrisClark 4 days ago

I pressed escape, then just closed the tab

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calgoo 4 days ago

Back button worked for me

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axus 4 days ago

I pressed Esc key, click quit. And then closed the browser tab.

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badsectoracula 4 days ago

Impressive. I guess this isn't only the renderer made to use CSS but also a full recreation of the engine and logic right? My guess is because a bunch of things do not behave like the original game, e.g. some buttons need to be shot instead of touched to activate, some secret doors open by touching them instead of being shot, etc.

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rofko 4 days ago

Hi there! Thanks for the report, buttons should work properly now.

Regarding the game logic, the build step has a small JS extractor over QuakeC/progs.dat to generate JSON source facts: states, models, attacks, sounds, etc. The browser runtime is TypeScript and consumes those for Quake-ish gameplay.

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slopinthebag 4 days ago

No it’s just the renderer. The game itself is Typescript.

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remix2000 4 days ago

It seems like this CSS Quake needs JS to run…

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zamadatix 4 days ago

CSS does the rendering, the game logic is TypeScript.

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rikschennink 4 days ago

Maybe possible with https://lyra.horse/x86css/ ?

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rebane2001 4 days ago

(author of x86css)

Not possible, but it would be possible to reimplement Quake's logic and controls in CSS to have it run without JS. I was considering doing that for my next CSS crime project, though now that CSSQuake has hit the hn frontpage there is little point in doing so.

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criley2 4 days ago

Really cool experiment. A lot of jank. It would sometimes rubber band me back, movement was grid aligned in a way that made accessing the secret room challenging, and the whole tab unexpectedly crashed with no error. 5 star would play again

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ChrisArchitect 4 days ago

Show HN: from the dev (who's also in here, maybe a title update) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571117

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itvision 4 days ago

Source code: https://github.com/LayoutitStudio/cssQuake

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divan 4 days ago

As someone who passionately and ardiently hates prolifiration of this set of _hacks on top of hacks_ called CSS (and CSS/JS/HTML aka Web-stack), I must say this is good and valid use case for CSS. :)

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edwinjm 4 days ago

Is this a rip from https://github.com/NielsLeenheer/cssDOOM

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OuterVale 4 days ago

Separate projects. Niels Leenheer who made CSS Doom has seen Agustin Capeletto's CSS Quake.

https://bsky.app/profile/html5test.com/post/3mok5febchs2g

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pantelisk 4 days ago

And I think both have seen these much older handcrafted css3d engines

- https://pantel.is/projects/css3d/

- https://keithclark.co.uk/labs/css-fps/ (the original)

but quake and doom took it to the next level :)

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degamad 4 days ago

The source appears to be <https://github.com/LayoutitStudio/cssQuake>

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sgt 4 days ago

Very cool. I wonder what the limitations are? I see the dog I shot is floating in the air. Is that maybe a CSS thing or is it fixable?

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freakynit 4 days ago

.dog { display: float; }

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skvmb 4 days ago

You win! I laughed way too hard at this. Boss man is now giving me the side eye.

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amatecha 4 days ago

Damn, always gotta deal with these accursed z-index issues with CSS ;)

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msephton 3 days ago

This is a great showcase of both the PolyCSS library and CSS itself!

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jdw64 4 days ago

I wish I could use CSS this well too

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MattCruikshank 4 days ago

Don't worry, OP still can't center a div.

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qingcharles 4 days ago

I was centering divs just fine, but now they took away Fable and I'm lost.

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jdw64 4 days ago

I think I've finally found something in common between OP and me

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koolala 4 days ago

Using the Inspector on it is awesome. You can select each map piece.

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gpderetta 4 days ago

Nice, but the view keeps clipping out to far ahead of the map (but the character seems to still be in its original position as I can die from monsters). It snaps back in place when I shoot.

edit: both on chromium and firefox, desktop linux.

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zftnb666 3 days ago

This is what I show my friends when they say CSS isn't a real programming language.

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rvba 4 days ago

After leaving the first area to the bridge... was the sky really so close to the ground in the original game, or the old monitors made it look differently?

Also nice achievement...!

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alexb_ 4 days ago

Doesn't work at all for me. I keep jumping around and clipping through objects, can't even leave the first room without being stuck in the doorway to the elevator.

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ekaryotic 4 days ago

have to shoot the elevator buttons in this, in the original you could move into them.

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jacobgold 4 days ago

No light theme though?

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system2 4 days ago

My dark reader was on, and half of the map was black, but I played the first level from my memory. Amazing stuff, thank you.

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crimsonnoodle58 4 days ago

Amazing and impressive use of CSS. But at the same time, makes me appreciate what feat Carmack achieved 30 years ago on early Pentiums.

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glerk 4 days ago

Wow this is really awesome. Really really smooth. It's insane how after 25 years or so my muscle memory is still intact.

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ulrischa 4 days ago

Though this is impressive, I think this is something that should not be possible with a declarative styling language

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slopinthebag 4 days ago

Its just using CSS for the rendering, not the game logic.

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stoobs 4 days ago

Seems like you get stuck on corners and it really doesn't like running up/down slopes, neat though.

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aggregator-ios 4 days ago

Wow, this is impressive. 60FPS, MacBook Air M1. I was instantly hooked and so much nostalgia.

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justaj 3 days ago

If this is CSS only, then why does in need JS to run?

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xenophonf 4 days ago

Every time I click in the window, the menu disappears. I tried both Firefox and Chrome.

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rofko 4 days ago

Thanks for that report! It is hopefully fixed now.

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casey2 4 days ago

Pretty fun to go into f12 and delete the enemy's face.

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boredemployee 4 days ago

I still play quake (world) to this day. I just can't quit it.

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amatecha 4 days ago

Hell yeah, I still see it as the optimal arena FPS. The sequels add too much IMO. Quake 1 (QuakeWorld) was such a raw competitive arena shooter that is just pure action, no weird extra mechanics. Pick up items, get some health, shoot people. Q2/Q3 are totally fine too, but I feel like QW really just nailed everything.

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boredemployee 3 days ago

Yes. Quake 3, "rebranded" as Quake Live, is the second best for me. I can play both for hours.

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elinear 4 days ago

I noticed my cursor was continuously sliding upward first in Neal.fun's latest canvas multiplayer game and I experienced it here as well. Anyone else see this behavior?

And maybe a skill issue but I was unable to jump out of the slime...

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iandanforth 4 days ago

Crazy, such memories. Thanks!

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xyproto 4 days ago

Has science gone too far?

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cynicalsecurity 4 days ago

If this is what CSS has become, it means at some point its development went the wrong way.

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senfiaj 4 days ago

It still needs JS. It just avoids using canvas and does DOM manipulation + CSS instead.

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Rohansi 4 days ago

The game logic here is running in JS. Only the rendering is handled by HTML and CSS. Is it really wrong that you can do this? All it requires is 3D transformation of elements.

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Vaslo 4 days ago

But can it play Crysis?

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joehabeebs 4 days ago

Really impressive

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zuzululu 4 days ago

this is crazy i didn't know css could do this

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kiyeonjeon 4 days ago

how long does it take to develop this game?

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Snoopfrogg 4 days ago

This is dope.

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ronbenton 4 days ago

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should

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aruametello 4 days ago

Then Tresspasser CSS next

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trespasser_(video_game

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vldszn 4 days ago

lowkey amazing!

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buffer_overlord 5 days ago

is there no sound?

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amarant 4 days ago

Is there a way to produce sound using CSS?

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pwdisswordfishq 4 days ago

    @media speech {
        body {
            cue-before: url(/path/to/sound.ogg);
        }
    }

https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/aural.html

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Waterluvian 4 days ago

Only screams.

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circadian 4 days ago

Best. Comment. Ever

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rofko 4 days ago

You should be able to enable sounds with the M shortcut or through the Options menu.

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AndorinaAI 4 days ago

lol that's crazy. Good job.

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AbraKdabra 4 days ago

Bro how tf.

This is insane.

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ikari_pl 4 days ago

Wow, this will be a great project for the forever-upcoming VRML /s

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perilunar 4 days ago

Well, Quake and VRML were contemporaneous, but VRML was a plugin in the browser — it was never as fast as Quake, and not intended as a game engine, though there were many worlds and models built in VRML that were at least as detailed as the Quake maps.

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thenthenthen 4 days ago

Wow