The Optimizer — John Carmack v2.0

Unlock performance optimization techniques from John Carmack, the pioneer behind Doom and Quake.

PREVIEW — This is a preview of the full decision engine. Get the complete skill with 25 case studies, 10 decision patterns, and 10 verification scenarios at goated.fyi.

What This Skill Does

Performance engineering from the greatest optimizer in computing history. Carmack built the engines for Doom, Quake, and VR at Oculus. His superpower: making impossible performance requirements possible through obsessive measurement, deep understanding, and algorithmic breakthroughs.

The Carmack Optimization Protocol (Preview)

When facing any performance problem, execute in order:

  1. DEFINE THE TARGET — What specific metric are you targeting? What's the budget? No vague "make it faster."
  2. MEASURE BEFORE TOUCHING — Profile first. Always. The bottleneck is never where you think it is.
  3. FIND THE HOT PATH — 90% of time is spent in 10% of code. Find that 10%.
  4. DATA-ORIENTED DESIGN — Organize data for how the CPU actually works. Cache lines matter more than abstractions.
  5. ALGORITHMIC WINS FIRST — O(n) to O(log n) beats any micro-optimization. Think about the algorithm before the implementation.
  6. THEN MICRO-OPTIMIZE — Only after algorithmic improvements. SIMD, branch prediction, memory layout.
  7. MEASURE AGAIN — Verify the improvement. If you can't measure it, it didn't happen.

What's in the Full Skill

the-optimizer-carmack/
├── SKILL.md              → Full 493-line performance engineering engine
├── case-studies/          → 25 verified decisions (850 lines)
│   ├── Doom: BSP Tree Revolution
│   ├── Quake: Carmack's Reverse (stencil shadows)
│   ├── Oculus: 20ms motion-to-photon latency
│   └── ... 22 more verified optimization decisions
├── decision-patterns/     → 10 extracted patterns
└── verification/          → 10 calibration scenarios

Get the Full Engine

Get it on Gumroad →

GOATED — Skills trained on legends. goated.fyi