Last changes: 2000-07-24

News from 2000

July 24, 2000

A lot of bugs have been added to the bug list, including wrong grenade watersplashes, a DOSQuake crash, more sourcecode typos, piped output blocked by Sys_Printf(), some map bugs, etc.
Check out the whole list (especially if you are a coder), and let me know when a bug is missing, if you have a fix for any remaining bug or an existing solution/workaround is not "the right way™" to do it.
To report anything for the bug list use the bug report form, which I recently fixed as the option "Do not publish email address" got unintentionally checked when recalling your data from the cookies. Please check if you really do not want to get your email address published on the bug list.

After nearly a year (due to time constrains) version 1.05 of the Ultimate Regular Quake Patch is finally released. Get it along with new Quake binaries/sources for seeing an example of the Network Versioning System, which I developed for the QSG. Also check out the example map (E1M8GRAV) for custom gravity in maps.
URQP and the new binaries include all the fixes and enhancements which got developed during the last months. The corrections, additions and changes are too much to list here, check out the downloads page for the download locations and readmes. With this package Quake is becoming really nearly bug-free.
All this coding will be added to the QuakeForge CVS Tree in the next weeks.

Don't think that's all you can download, according to the added map bug entries you can download map fixes for E2M3, E4M5 and E4M8.

There's a new recommended QuakeC de-/compiler: FrikQCC from Frika C.
As it is based on QCCX from JP Grossman (which is based on Lee Smith's ProQCC) it features QCCX's pointers and string manipulation in QuakeC, plus compiler warnings, labels/goto, break/continue for loops and a lot more. Frika C also promised me to add precompiler directives from Mr. Elusive's MEQCC sourcecode soon, then it will be the first choice for compiling URQP.
Frika C is a long-time support of the Quake Info Pool with lots of bug reports and fixes, last but not least he is the creator of the FrikBot, a QuakeC bot which can be easily added to any existinng QuakeC addon. If you want to enhance your addon with bot support then go get it.

Al Hardy responded on my Nvidia Detonator information and told me that the 5.08 drivers give him much higher framerates than later drivers (70fps vs. 40fps). The only disadvantage is that console transparency does not work until 5.13. Just want to let you know.

If you are German or can read German I suggest to check out Martin's Grimoire, he has always up-to-date reviews of the latest addons for the Quake series and also reviews Indie, Metal, Industrial and Gothic CDs. Really worth a look.

July 12, 2000

I'm searching for Hendrik Lipka, you reported a bug about dedicated server output not being flushed which disturbed your log parsing. I lost your mail, please contact me immediately.

Lots of bug reports have reached me the last weeks, so expect a bigger update to the buglist soon.

June 24, 2000

Long time no update on the Quake Info Pool as I had several real life™ issues, including an awful jaw infection with a succeeding teeth/jaw surgery, but that's the past. You can expect the typical monthly updates from now on.
I also decided to stop any efforts related to Quake 3 Arena, as I want to spend my limited leisure time on the game I prefer: Classic Quake (especially NetQuake). Hence all related information to Q3A was removed from this site.
By the way I updated the bookmarks. Corrected many links, removed dead ones and included all my other game links too.

I finally finished the SVC/CLC Network Versioning (NV) for the QSG in early May. It allows you to add and modify SVC (Server to Client) and CLC (Client to Server) messages in the engine without loosing backwards compatibility. The system allows coders to use enhanced messages from within the engine or QuakeC by adding just a few lines of code and it cares about all the converting for old clients. It's possible to reject clients depending on their Network Versioning version through the engine or within Quake. You can switch a client to a different NV version on the fly to easily test the differences of several NV versions. It's very powerful and easy to use, coders will love it. When it will be released? Please read on...

Further I decided to stop developing on my own, this does not mean I stopped development at all. I already read some CVS documentation and joined the QuakeForge community. This group works with the QSG just like me and also merged with the QuakeWorld Forever team. So you can expect a lot of good and standarized releases from these people. Have some patience and all of my fixes and enhancements, including my Network Versioning, will be included in their code base.
If you are interested in joining the QuakeForge team too, then you should read this text file about how to setup WinCVS accordingly.

After adding my engine code to the QuakeForge project I plan to finally finish URQP 1.05. You may remember that this is my QuakeC project to create a bug-free (or bug-less) Classic Quake. If my experiences with CVS on the QuakeForge project are positive, I may put URQP on a CVS repository too. This way everybody can join the URQP development, and whenever I have to stop coding for Quake then there is a place where URQP will live on. After the release of URQP 1.05 I will hopefully start with reengineering Defusion.

On the download page you can find an 'inofficially' GPLed version of the QuakeC sourcecode v1.06. Unfortunately or mistakenly id Software released a GPLed version of the old QuakeC sourcecode v1.01 with the Q1ToolsGPL package.

The newly released WorldCraft 3 can not be used for Classic Quake mapping as it outputs a new map format, which can not be processed by Quake's QBSP. A reminder for 3Dfx users that they do not need my OGL16BIT package anymore if they use a Quake port based on the released sourcecode, just use the "-no8bit" parameter. I updated the readmes accordingly.

Last but not least, some important information for Classic Quakers with Nvidia cards.
You may recognized that a lot of new detonators have been leaked to the public, and maybe you even recognized problems with them and Classic Quake. So I tested all versions up to 5.30 and I currently recommend the 5.13 detonator drivers for Win9x and Win2K.

With the 5.13 Detonator drivers WinQuake does not flicker, the desktop is not corrupted after exiting WinQuake and the transparent console in GLQuake works fine. Only GLQuake and also Half-Life and Quake 2 flicker in the beginning for nearly a minute, because the OpenGL buffer flipping mode is set to "auto". To avoid this just set OpenGL buffer flipping mode to "Use Block Transfer".

One problem is still left, when you run GLQuake with a resolution that differs from your desktop resolution and switch back and forth to the desktop, then GLQuake is not correctly displayed. The display of GLQuake does not start at the top of the screen, but somewhere in the middle (depending on the resolution difference).

I do not recommend 5.14 or 5.16 as they crash WinQuake when it is first started, the second start works, the third not, the fourth works again and so on and so on... The general protection fault occurs in DDHELP (NVDD32.DLL) and you have to throw the WinQuake task out of the system.
I do not recommend 5.22 or 5.30 as they make all flashblends greenish..

Please help and report those problems to Nvidia by using the support form on their drivers page.

You can get the latest leaked drivers at 3DChipset or ReactorCritical.

January 20, 2000

My latest engine fixes are available for download including binaries. You will love the glowmaps in GLQuake, the new cvarlist and cmdlist commands, the cvar scorelimit for team addons, etc. etc.
Included are most QSG tutorials, which I enhanced much more. Don't expect that my solutions are perfect, although I try to accomplish this. If you have an odd feeling about my solution please mail me. I also keep contact with the QSG team to keep our efforts in sync (not that kiddies group who pretend to be musicians).
The QSG versioning scheme is still under development, code changes and many tests are still to be done, but it looks very promising.
The bug pages have been updated accordingly.

A copy of the QSML FAQ is now available too.
Where you will find how to compile Quake with optimizations and no weird gameplay problems, e.g. monsters seeing through doors, shooting through doors or clients get stuck in floor on new compiled QW servers.
You have to remove the /Ow optimization and add the /Op optimization, just search these options in VC's help and especially note the comment about possible wrong data with the /Ow option. Unfortunately disabling all optimizations does not avoid the FOV 20 bug, so it must be a code problem.

Don't worry about that there are currently 10 or more different groups working on Quake. The groups need time to get used to the sourcecode and to concentrate on their special abilities, e.g. bughunting (me :), OpenGL rendering and other stuff.
Most groups know of each other, and I try to visit them once a week to see their new results like the shader implementation of QER or the new Direct3D Quake Port. Many of these developers are also present on the QSML and keep contact with the QSG. I expect combined versions in nearly two months, when people will have done what they want and can concentrate on merging their code.
Trust the community and have some patience.

Updated the Quake 3 Arena bugs list. (Yeah, this is off-topic :)

January 04, 2000

Update:
The MASM 6.14 update didn't helped either :(
Mark O'Hara also mentioned a MASM FAQ.

Thanks to all the news pages for mentioning my site in their news and people flooding with mails of information. A special thanks goes to my reliable hosts: Inside 3D and Telefragged for supporting me (and the rest of the Telenation) as much as they can.

Due to heavy request I will release the executables with my next sourcecode update.

Unfortunately the SP3 for VC++ 5.0 (including the new separate CVTRES.EXE) didn't helped to avoid the FOV 20 bug, but I was finally able to compile WinQuake without modifying the original optimizations and had no problems (e.g. players get stuck on new QWSV, VC hanging in "mathlib.c" of WinQuake).
So if anybody could send me a GLQuake executable of the original(!) id code compiled with the latest VC++ 6.0 version (zipped please), this would be great.

I really have to check out GLQuake compiled with LCC-Win32 soon, and may look for MASM updates.
Although I still assume that it is a problem of the sourcecode (the rendering preparation not "gl_vidnt.c") or the project settings, as FOV works perfectly when I recompile the OpenGL QW client with VC++ 5.0.

To show the FOV bug in its extreme, set gl_clear 1, set fov 75 and load the start map in single player or watch the demos - butt-ugly (as many people in the mails prefer to call it :). Also the status bar gets cleared with gl_clear enabled.

Other things I got mailed about the released sourcecode:
- Someone (unnamed by request) told me that M$ itself recommends to avoid "Optimze for speed" as it is buggy, but that "Minimize Size" also speeds up programs (for cache and other reasons)
- Lower performance in v1.00 than in v0.97 mailed by Perttu Lahtinen
  But my compiled version gets 79fps against 84fps in v0.97, not that much of a performance hit (6% loss)
  Settings: AMD K6II-400 @ 100MHz, TNT 16MB SGRAM 90/110MHz, VSync disabled, Page flipping enabled, run in 640x480, gl_clear/gl_keeptjunctions/gl_triplebuffer enabled, demo1
- Monsters can see through doors/walls by Koma Yu (VC++ 6.0 SP3 and MASM 6.11, e.g. silver key door in E1M2)
  Which I also couldn't reproduce.

January 03, 2000

I had a mail exchange with the GLQuake man himself, Zoid, about the FOV 20 problem, and he assumes it is a VC++ 5.0 problem. I will try to get VC++ 5.0 SP3 tomorrow and we'll see if it solves this problem. Otherwise I have to ask somebody to compile it with the lastest VC++ 6.0 version and send me the executable.
Zoid also told me that the released GLQuake sourcecode is indeed version 1.00 and mentioned some things which were changed/fixed:
- proper FOV (hopefully :)
- texture cache mismatch was fixed
- the 'creating inverse palette' dialog on startup was removed because a better method was found and its a lot faster -- it creates the inverse palette on the fly at every start up now (see VID_SetPalette in gl_vidnt.c)
Hence the bug with the annoying fucked up colors (which I always forgot to put on the bug pages, sorry) is gone. So I updated the bug pages accordingly again, and will check all other remaining bugs later.

Zoid also mentioned an issue of the WinQuake/GLQuake source:

You may notice that in the QW code, all references to the progs strings (pr_strings) are wrapped in functions called PR_GetString and PR_SetString. This was required to make the source 64 bit clean. You may want to copy this to the WinQuake source so that you can compile on platforms like the DEC Alpha Linux (which has 64bit pointers).
Last but not least Jeff Ford told me that he cooked up an tutorial to compile GLQuake with LCC-Win32 (I assume that WinQuake will be compilable with it too).

Although the texture cache mismatch bug has been fixed, I recognized a bug in BSPTxRen and fixed it. If you used BSPTxRen before, you can now undo the changes.
Download version 1.21 of my BSP Texture Renamer here.

January 02, 2000

Last Update:
The download package was updated, please download again.

Fast Update:
I had a discussion with some coders on ICQ, and they convinced me that keeping compatibility should be done through a new console variable similar to my QCVERSION variable. This way the QC coder can decide what to do when the wanted feature is not available, giving more flexibility for newer PROGS.DAT to run on older engines. Also got a hint that the EndFrame function should be implemented like the spectator functions of QW, where the engine scans for the spectator functions and executes them if available.
It's good to have some programming geniuses at hand :)

I hope you all survived Armageddon :)
While I was offline the last days, I took the time to read a Windows programming book (nearly finished) and also lent a book about Visual C++ to code better and faster for the Quake Engine.

As usual I updated the engine fixes again and the bug pages plus engine pages accordingly.
I removed the multiple "-game" parameters and added support for multiple "-data" parameters to avoid misunderstandings that multiple PROGS.DAT can work together, also added R_WATERWARP by Radix to GLQuake.
But more important is that I enhanced QuakeC with an EndFrame function without breaking compatibility for older PROGS.DAT, I hope this system works out for everything and will be used by the Quake Standards Group. I ask you to have a look at my solution and tell me your opinion.
Neal White's fix for fullbrights in GLQuake is not implemented yet, but will be delivered soon.

News: Current, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997