Older Tesla Cars Get Faster Performance Thanks To Legendary Video Game Designer John Carmack

John Carmack is best known for games like Doom and Quake that have been staples of ID software the legendary video game company from the 80s and 90s. Most recently, he become the CTO of Facebook owned VR hardware maker Oculus where he is still a consulting CTO. Now he is helping Tesla breathe new life in some of their older vehicles. Elon Musk actually tried to hire Carmack in the past and finally he managed to get the 51-year-old to help Tesla. Musk actually didn't recruit Carmack for the job but he instead volunteered for the job. Carmack, who himself is a Tesla Model S owner, said he is working with Tesla engineers to improve the interface performance.

The new Tesla Model S actually uses chipsets used in the PS5 and Xbox Series X

“I did kind of volunteer to help them fix what I consider very poor user interface performance on the older model S (that I drive). Their engineers have been sharing data with me,” revealed the legendary video game designer.

The older Tesla Model S infotainment screen has had some user interface issues and the automaker has also offered many customers an upgrade but that costs $2,500. Carmack has stepped in to improve the codebase which could improve the performance.

Carmack of course is legendary for his ability to use frugal computing hardware and yet extracting insane graphical fidelity out of what he has. Games designed by Carmack in the 90s like Doom and Quake were known for their graphical fidelity. And then he did the same at Oculus with VR headsets working within the constraints of limited computational power on headsets.