What are you working on?

[ceriux]

terrain deformation and colored lighting test =)

[Mad John]

Hey just wondering which engine is the best? just wanna try to create a test mod....oh yeah if i use other peoples code [i have to state their name on the credits right?]

[mh]

Hey just wondering which engine is the best? just wanna try to create a test mod....oh yeah if i use other peoples code [i have to state their name on the credits right?]

There's no such thing as "best"; they've all got their own advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses.

For the most functionality with mods it's probably DarkPlaces, but you'll very quickly lock your mod into being DarkPlaces-only which might limit it's accessibility to other people. Your choice.

[Mad John]

Well...if i want an engine to work for most people even with older com's

[Spike]

Well...if i want an engine to work for most people even with older com's

older comps or cheap comps? :P
any engine will work with older computers.
but if you want your engine to work well on intel embedded cheap badly supported chips, then mh's directq is awesome, if only because of intel being unable to write an opengl driver which does not suck. :P

[Mad John]

not likely older computers i meant like cheap ones with weak graphic card and poor performance for games

[leileilol]

A Pentium II with a Voodoo2 card can run the latest build of Darkplaces around 20fpsish using the latest Mesafx GL ICD under Windows 98. This is 1997 technology still working. However, for newfangled half-assed technology, Darkplaces has a work-in-progress DX9 renderer, possibly better for intel chipsets. (vid_dx9 1)

That should set your worries down a bit, but here's some performance tips in general:

- Low poly! Quake has no LOD system so don't bother shoving 2000 poly wavy mans in.
- 8-bit sounds play back faster as there is optimized x86 assembly functions for their mixing
- Alpha blending kills ATI Rage Pro (1997's second crappiest tech) so use RGBA sparingly
- don't findradius a lot

[mh]

DirectQ was written for Intels and it's performance on them wallops everything else. The upcoming work-in-progress version - with full vertex buffer and HLSL armament loaded - can easily hit 100 FPS in the open canyon area of the Marcher Fortress on a weak Intel (even when using software T&L and software emulated vertex shaders).
http://mhquake.blogspot.com/2011/02/mar ... l-945.html

If by "weak graphics card" you meant something like an older low-end pre-2002/2003 part then DirectQ is not for you. If nothing else the upcoming version won't run on it at all. Maybe try something like FitzQuake instead?

[Irritant]

The posts about low end/weak gfx cards got me to thinking, is it even worth the effort to worry about those anymore with extra checks and engine bloat?

Seriously, how many people even use these ancient/crappy hardware and are even remotely avid gamers? Case in point - I needed to build a quick and dirty game rig the other day for a conference and so I built the following:

Biostar ATX mini MB
Intel 2.93 ghz Dual Core CPU
4 gb 800 mhz Patriot Ram
1TB HD
530 watt Raidmax PS
GeForce 450 GTS GPU

Total cost: $435!!!!!

The rig runs UT3 at 1920x1080 at it's highest settings, smooth as silk.

[mh]

I think it's probably not worth your while supporting any pre-DX9 class hardware any more, at least not for something like AlienArena. I've also dropped pre-DX9 support from the upcoming DirectQ but part of that is that there are now plenty of D3D8 ports available for anyone who has that requirement. Assuming that at least ps2.0 and VBOs are always going to be available is hugely liberating; you can start writing sensible code now! DX9 class hardware does date back to 2002 after all; it's old.

The Quake community is however different. There's lots of cruddy old kit out there, and people who seem to have no interest in spending the price of a few beers for at least a Gfx card upgrade. At the same time, we've agreed to drop support for GL_VERSIONs less than 1.3 from RMQ because (a) it makes the code a lot cleaner (no alternate single TMU path - yayyy!) and (b) that class of hardware is going to run the content so poorly anyway that there's no real point in supporting it.

There's another different user base and that's people with laptops, business-class PCs and el-cheapo generic "home entertainment" systems. These commonly come fitted with Intel chips and - especially in the case of laptops - there is often no upgrade option available. That's the niche I initially targetted DirectQ at, and you can't really argue with over 2000 downloads for a less-well-known engine for what should be a dying game.

After that it's down to you whether or not you want to include that latter user base in your target audience I reckon.

[leileilol]

Seriously, how many people even use these ancient/crappy hardware and are even remotely avid gamers?

You'd be surprised what those 'pro gamers' are running on. They can trick it with high precision input devices yet still use a FX5200, even for UT3, then bitch at how they're terribly betrayed by it.

Why they haven't used their 'pro' money to get something adequate like at least a Geforce3 is facepalming. Probably picmip excuses like it's their birthright. These are the kinds I have to put up with whining about OA being too slow even and now I have to remake half the game just for their precious super high fpses.

The even more embarassing is... Quake. Voodoo2s have enough texture memory for the game at full detail (paletted, but still) why do they even need to touch picmip there?!!?! Even software quake's not immune to d_mipscale abuse. d_mipscale is only super effective on the 486 platform, using it on a 5th gen Pentium or better has absolutely 0% speed gain. Abrash really busted ass getting that ASM to perform like a champ.

[Irritant]

Why they haven't used their 'pro' money to get something adequate like at least a Geforce3 is facepalming.

Yeah, kinda makes you wonder, lol

As for the picmip issue, yup, highly annoying, I removed it from our menu long ago, haven't gone as far as completely removing it, but it's tempting.

[Spike]

small observation about software rendering in quake.
quake draws distant player models using logic that draws each vertex individually, so distant models (note: players) are basically drawn only by their verticies. This works fine if there are lots of verts. But one thing that this means is that such players are drawn with their largest possible size, so software rendering will draw players half a pixel larger than gl rendering, on average (across a large range of distances, anyway, common distances in quake are imho likely above average). at 320*200 this can be rather significant when the player is distant.
why do you think software rendering lasted as long as it did? :P

picmip is obviously useful because it makes the walls more of a single block of colour, so moving/brightly-coloured stuff stands out more easily, but without making it a true single block of colour as that makes guaging distance hard.

by all means implement the stuff, but require sv_cheats to be set, just to get the point across. :)

From a practical perspective, expect the user to be running WinXP with some GL2 capable card. Maybe it won't run shaders very well, but it can almost definitely run them.
From a portability perspective, there are a lot of people trying to play quake on non-pc hardware. I know for a fact that someone was trying to get my stuff working on a VAX. But there's also psp and a few dreamcast users. They're weird, but its fun to try homebrew. There are a few ports of quake to Android and iOS, though not many that can be released via app stores...
So yeah, I completely agree with mh, assuming the mod or engine targets PC/mac hardware exclusively, but there's also a satisfaction in knowing that it'll even run on a toaster... if only I had a toaster that let me...

[Spirit]

After 4 exams in 4 days I needed a little relaxation and thus cleaned up 4 years old code and directories and am rather determined to finally finish this until easter.



Take that, you violent killing machines!

[Spirit]

in motion http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/hdgdl3d ... 264mp3.avi

I thought 4 years later I would have more luck getting into QuakeC, but damn, is this stuff complicated and confusing.