Quake 1,2,3 ReBirth?


gotwake424

Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
380
Quake-Album-Cover.jpeg


One of the main things that enticed me to buy a pandora was native quake 1,2,3;

Also there is so much nice and free homebrew like Super geometry Dust, VVVVV, Quake1-3, etc. and even commercial games start showing up.

If we're being honest here, you should point out that only Quake 1 is playable - Quake 2 crashes at inopportune and random moments, and Quake 3 has serious control issues.


D.

He sums it pretty well; the current state of the quake games is pretty sad except for Quake 1


So here is the deal, A lot of users here want to be able to comfortably play quake 1,2,3 with out crashes and major glitches


So i'm proposing the Quake Rebirth project - to get these amazing games back on track


We have amazing talent in these forums when it comes to unix and coding be it whatever language.


Quake ReBirth will give a little motivation to these talented members to get these games up to shape!


I myself am pledging 20usd for quake 2,3 that meet the following requirements. Donation will be made using paypal to the developers account. Please do not pledge if you do not intend to pay


REQUIREMENTS:


Full usb gamepad support


Nub support and d-pad support with map'able buttons - be it a config file or what have you


Color gama? - all of these games are way way to dark even with the pandora screen on full brightness


Standardized exit controls - pandora button/ escape - whatever the majority would like


windowed/full screen mode


pnd icon - of quake - most of the games we have already do this


minimum 30fps


Nub soothing algorithm would be nice - but i doubt that would be implemented ;)


Pledges: 20usd


If you would like me to add anything into the requirements list if you decided to pledge let me know or don't input is always apprecited , thats about all of the important features I could think of.


So what do you guys think? Good idea/Bad idea/worth the developers time?


In short would you like to see the Rebirth of these games?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My plans:


Original Work was using nanoGL, which never was very stable on pandora for whatever reason.


Quake1 : I have been working on my own conversion of the GL API. Its going good for the most part. I tried to combine TRI_FANS with the TRI_STRIPs but it appears to have some glitches. Uses SDL for input and sound. I did rework on the texture loading. The alternative for now is my zquake GL conversion, but its slower.


I think i was up to 45 fps on the demo run. I dont think there is much else I can do to improve it.


Quake2 : I have been working on yamagi quake2, which I find has been much more stable and even runs on the caanoo. There are some issues with nubs via SDL mouse. But i just havnt had time to look into them.


Quake3 : Once I had finalized q1 and q2 I had plans to go back and do this port right. I would probally start with ioquake3 and do my own conversion. I also started some work on RTCW, but had issues i havnt been able to get back to.


Full usb gamepad support : shouldnt the usb whatever work through SDL?


Nub support and d-pad support with map'able buttons - be it a config file or what have you: quake123 already support remapping keys to whatever


Color gama? - all of these games are way way to dark even with the pandora screen on full brightness : gamma works with q2, i dont know about q1


Standardized exit controls - pandora button/ escape - whatever the majority would like : escape and the menu has been the standard way to quit quake for years now


windowed/full screen mode : Techincally using SDL this is supported, but whats the point other than for people like me to debug.


pnd icon - of quake - most of the games we have already do this


minimum 30fps : quake1 yes, quake 2 maybe in some cases, quake 3 not likely


Nub soothing algorithm would be nice - but i doubt that would be implemented ;) i guess
 
My plans:


Original Work was using nanoGL, which never was very stable on pandora for whatever reason.


Quake1 : I have been working on my own conversion of the GL API. Its going good for the most part. I tried to combine TRI_FANS with the TRI_STRIPs but it appears to have some glitches. Uses SDL for input and sound. I did rework on the texture loading. The alternative for now is my zquake GL conversion, but its slower.


I think i was up to 45 fps on the demo run. I dont think there is much else I can do to improve it.


Quake2 : I have been working on yamagi quake2, which I find has been much more stable and even runs on the caanoo. There are some issues with nubs via SDL mouse. But i just havnt had time to look into them.


Quake3 : Once I had finalized q1 and q2 I had plans to go back and do this port right. I would probally start with ioquake3 and do my own conversion. I also started some work on RTCW, but had issues i havnt been able to get back to.


Full usb gamepad support : shouldnt the usb whatever work through SDL?


Nub support and d-pad support with map'able buttons - be it a config file or what have you: quake123 already support remapping keys to whatever


Color gama? - all of these games are way way to dark even with the pandora screen on full brightness : gamma works with q2, i dont know about q1


Standardized exit controls - pandora button/ escape - whatever the majority would like : escape and the menu has been the standard way to quit quake for years now


windowed/full screen mode : Techincally using SDL this is supported, but whats the point other than for people like me to debug.


pnd icon - of quake - most of the games we have already do this


minimum 30fps : quake1 yes, quake 2 maybe in some cases, quake 3 not likely


Nub soothing algorithm would be nice - but i doubt that would be implemented ;) i guess
Thanks for the input Pickle, as I am by no means a dev I have no idea what is actually possible


It sounds to me like we are on the same page as far as revamping these games for the pandora.


I would like to get a little incentive to direct your attention to this project B)


I never have been able to set the color gama to what I feel like is comfortable. Most of those request are implemented/somewhat implemented like you said - but I figured i'd put some stipulation on the prize :D


What do you think about the nub soothing algorithm?


I could never get my xbox corded controller to worth or any other gamepad with any of the quakes


Thanks for the reply


Cheers
 
I find the latest yamagi Quake 2 to be very playable with the Pandora and an external mouse (now that I figured out that for some reason my wireless mouse made the framerate drop dramatically). I'd love to be able to play the other Quakes using a similar setup! :) I was able to adjust the gamma settings in Quake 2 to be a playable brightness (for me anyway)
 
What do you think about the nub soothing algorithm?


I could never get my xbox corded controller to worth or any other gamepad with any of the quakes

make sure when you say quakes you distguish which one your using, if its nanogl then it uses hardcoded kernel input code. So it would make sense that the usb devices dont work. If your using something more recent then SDL is used and the usb device may work.


do you just mean nub filtering?

now that I figured out that for some reason my wireless mouse made the framerate drop dramatically

I need to look into this, i suspect the original SDL code is doing something very intentsive for each mouse event.
 
At the time when I looked into it, I tried a few different hubs just to eliminate that possibility, then it seemed to work fine with the wired mouse. I've not encountered the same issue so far with any other software...
 
Quake1 : I have been working on my own conversion of the GL API. Its going good for the most part. I tried to combine TRI_FANS with the TRI_STRIPs but it appears to have some glitches. Uses SDL for input and sound. I did rework on the texture loading. The alternative for now is my zquake GL conversion, but its slower.


I think i was up to 45 fps on the demo run. I dont think there is much else I can do to improve it.

This is Quake 1. 45 FPS for a game that I can run on a 166 Cyrix? Seriously? Is there some reason we're even bothering with GL in Quake 1? Is it easier to port than the original software renderer? Seriously, I would love to know why you're getting 45fps on a game written for early Pentiums with no 3D acceleration running on a 600MHz+ CPU.

Quake2 : I have been working on yamagi quake2, which I find has been much more stable and even runs on the caanoo. There are some issues with nubs via SDL mouse. But i just havnt had time to look into them.

There's worse issues that just the mouse not working. There's that whole "play for two minutes at most and then lock the Pandora up so hard that it requires a hardreset to unstick it" issue needs addressing first. Don't get me wrong, I love Quake 2 and especially Level 1, but it would be nice to be able to get to level 2 at some point.

Quake3 : Once I had finalized q1 and q2 I had plans to go back and do this port right. I would probally start with ioquake3 and do my own conversion. I also started some work on RTCW, but had issues i havnt been able to get back to.

I dunno, there's nothing wrong with the port itself - it's fast with a decent framerate and all the graphics are where they should be - it's just unplayable due to the controls (unless you play it like DOS Doom with forward/back, turn left/right and fire keys). It's almost as if someone has left the nub assignments set to mouse mode or something. You know, something totally unsuitable.


D.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
45 fps average, so it can be higher or lower. I think the X adds some overhead. Its not the CPU that is the bottleneck, its the GPU. So all your comparisions to CPU's is really meaningless. Also software rendering is not necessary faster, the quake2 software render was very slow, especially getting up higher in the resolutions.


Seriously have you tried yamagi quake2? It doesnt lock up.


I know the quake3 nanogl controls are borked, and the ioquake3 has render issues. Id rather have the ioquake3 working right.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I get lockups in yamahi quake2 sometimes, too. As mentioned in the thread about it.
 
45 fps average, so it can be higher or lower. I think the X adds some overhead. Its not the CPU that is the bottleneck, its the GPU. So all your comparisions to CPU's is really meaningless. Also software rendering is not necessary faster, the quake2 software render was very slow, especially getting up higher in the resolutions.

I was talking about Quake 1. Given that the software renderer managed 320x240 at at least 60fps on my old Cyrix 166MHz with S3 Virge graphics card, I'd have thought that a port of the Pandora could manage that!

Seriously have you tried yamagi quake2? It doesnt lock up.

I turn to look down the slope to the left of the first window, and start to move forward. The first bad guy I meet either gets killed... or the game locks up. If it doesn't lock up at that point, it usually does so later just after ducking through a hole to a hidden enemy, and if not there then later on as I move into the area with the flags. So yes, it certainly does lock up - it's Yamagi q2 that I've been talking about all the time.


D.
 
I can't pin point the locking up thing with Yamagi Quake2 to a single event.. It was bad for a while, then It just works without issues,it's been working good for a while for me.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I turn to look down the slope to the left of the first window, and start to move forward. The first bad guy I meet either gets killed... or the game locks up. If it doesn't lock up at that point, it usually does so later just after ducking through a hole to a hidden enemy, and if not there then later on as I move into the area with the flags. So yes, it certainly does lock up - it's Yamagi q2 that I've been talking about all the time.

Are you using the nubs at all? Really it should be going farther than what you describe.
 
I turn to look down the slope to the left of the first window, and start to move forward. The first bad guy I meet either gets killed... or the game locks up. If it doesn't lock up at that point, it usually does so later just after ducking through a hole to a hidden enemy, and if not there then later on as I move into the area with the flags. So yes, it certainly does lock up - it's Yamagi q2 that I've been talking about all the time.

Are you using the nubs at all? Really it should be going farther than what you describe.

Well, yes - of course I am - that was the whole point, wasn't it? Quake 2 is pretty hard to play if you can't use some sort of freelook mechanism, and I have no way of attaching a mouse to my Pandora :)


D.
 
I turn to look down the slope to the left of the first window, and start to move forward. The first bad guy I meet either gets killed... or the game locks up. If it doesn't lock up at that point, it usually does so later just after ducking through a hole to a hidden enemy, and if not there then later on as I move into the area with the flags. So yes, it certainly does lock up - it's Yamagi q2 that I've been talking about all the time.

Are you using the nubs at all? Really it should be going farther than what you describe.

Well, yes - of course I am - that was the whole point, wasn't it? Quake 2 is pretty hard to play if you can't use some sort of freelook mechanism, and I have no way of attaching a mouse to my Pandora :)

Its important to know since there is a problem with the SDL mouse code which is triggered by the nubs, the game is actually not crashed. If you move the nubs again it should come back, or at least thats my experience so far.


I plan to look into this more, i just need more time.
 
I turn to look down the slope to the left of the first window, and start to move forward. The first bad guy I meet either gets killed... or the game locks up. If it doesn't lock up at that point, it usually does so later just after ducking through a hole to a hidden enemy, and if not there then later on as I move into the area with the flags. So yes, it certainly does lock up - it's Yamagi q2 that I've been talking about all the time.

Are you using the nubs at all? Really it should be going farther than what you describe.

Well, yes - of course I am - that was the whole point, wasn't it? Quake 2 is pretty hard to play if you can't use some sort of freelook mechanism, and I have no way of attaching a mouse to my Pandora :)

Its important to know since there is a problem with the SDL mouse code which is triggered by the nubs, the game is actually not crashed. If you move the nubs again it should come back, or at least thats my experience so far.


I plan to look into this more, i just need more time.

I eventually get the chance to play Quake 1,2 and 3 as the lords of ID originally intended, then I shall wait. Take your time, I'm not going anywhere. :)


D.
 
I was talking about Quake 1. Given that the software renderer managed 320x240 at at least 60fps on my old Cyrix 166MHz with S3 Virge graphics card, I'd have thought that a port of the Pandora could manage that!

IIRC, Quake I ran at 320x200 by default (not 320x240).


(800x480)/(320x200) = 6. You have to render 6x more pixels in the Pandora native resolution that in Quake default resolution. If we take the 166 MHz of your Cyrix CPU and multiply it by 6, we have almost 1GHz. I know there are a lot more things playing than the MHz of the CPU (specially since the port uses HW acceleration), but the comparison between the Pandora and your Cyrix machine is just pointless. Also have in mind PC Quake has a lot of code highly optimized for x86 assembly, and AFAIK, the Pandora port is 100% C.
 
I'll be honest with you, I'd be happy to run at original or near original resolution and have it scaled.
 
IIRC, Quake I ran at 320x200 by default (not 320x240).

You did know that there was a video menu, yes? Even better, it remembered your chosen resolution! The best bit was that it reported video modes based on card compatibility. Which brings me to...

(800x480)/(320x200) = 6. You have to render 6x more pixels in the Pandora native resolution that in Quake default resolution. If we take the 166 MHz of your Cyrix CPU and multiply it by 6, we have almost 1GHz.

Crikey, and there was I playing Quake 1 at 1024x768 on my 366MHz AMD K6-2. I had no idea that I was unable to do that. Maybe there was more to it than CPU? Ahhh, yes:

I know there are a lot more things playing than the MHz of the CPU (specially since the port uses HW acceleration), but the comparison between the Pandora and your Cyrix machine is just pointless.

There certainly was. Your graphics card. Mine had 2MB of RAM on it and a decent set of VBE extensions. I recall a magazine article about Quake and performance of CPU/GFX combos which reported that the best available (a Matrox card with a Pentium 120MHz CPU) was easily capable of 640x480, but that 800x600 was out of reach with current hardware. Pretty certain your "a lot more things playing than MHz" is bang on the money. Graphics card fill rates and such were far more important. What were you saying about the Pandora not being able to perform software rendering at 800x480 again?

Also have in mind PC Quake has a lot of code highly optimized for x86 assembly, and AFAIK, the Pandora port is 100% C.

Oh dear. Looks like we have a pretty poor C compiler then, don't we?


D.
 
As the only compiler available is GCC, It's not uncommon for GCC to suck pretty bad on anything but x86 in certain cases.


Also I don't know how well C codepath was done on quakes, they could optimize the hell out of x86 hot code with asm and leave C version in "correct, but slow" state.
 
Back
Top