Playable Quake Preview

rgrzywinski · November 3, 2003, 7:10pm

A playable Quake demo is available at:

http://www.realityinteractive.com/software/alpha/index.html

Just to forewarn you, the QuakeWorld^TM license requires that you have a registered version of Quake^TM. Since the demo requires a QuakeWorld server, you will need the registered version of Quake. We have not spent a lot of time making the demo “production ready” (in fact we haven’t spent any time since February) as the barrier to entry is simply too large. We felt that there was benefit in making it available to the community if only to provide the motivation for others to finish (or even start) their own Java based games.

If anyone has redone content (i.e. pak files that contain NO Quake content) then it will be possible to have a demo that does not require the registered version of Quake. Any leads are appreciated.

To answer the question that’s on everyone’s mind: When’s the source code going to be available? Soon! Finishing up the Simulation Container v1.0 is consuming all of our time at this point. Once that has been released, 100% of our time will put into systematically releasing components of the Quake architecture to the OSS community via:

http://www.realityinteractive.com/software/oss/index.html

Enjoy! Oh, and please don’t send us bug reports on the playable demo. We know about them and we will fix them as we release the code.

tom · November 4, 2003, 4:02am

Got it to run. Nice.

Although it is very choppy when I move. I assume it’s because of lack of prediction in the network layer?

rgrzywinski · November 4, 2003, 12:57pm

If you run it locally (with a 2.33-005 server) it should run as smooth as silk. If you run it across a network, yes, it runs like dog meat. Reverse engineering the prediction layer was a non-trivial task that we failed at miserably. I should point out if you use a 2.00 or anything other than a 2.33-005 server it’ll run like crap as the network protocol was different and it spends most of its time being confused.

Were you running it locally or across a network and what type of hardware are we talking about?

BTW: http://www.quakeworld.net has the windows 2.33-005 server. As far as I know, all of the non-windows versions are 2.30 and should NOT be used.

tom · November 4, 2003, 7:39pm

I use v 2.33-005. Here is the printout from the server after connecting once:

Added packfile ./id1/pak0.pak (339 files)
Added packfile ./id1/pak1.pak (85 files)
PackFile: ./id1/pak1.pak : gfx/pop.lmp
Playing registered version.
IP address 192.168.1.125:27500
UDP Initialized
Exe: 13:45:01 Dec 17 1998
16.0 megabyte heap

Server Version 2.33 (Build 0005)

======== QuakeWorld Initialized ========
FindFile: can’t find server.cfg
couldn’t exec server.cfg
PackFile: ./id1/pak0.pak : maps/start.bsp
FindFile: ./qw/qwprogs.dat
PackFile: ./id1/pak0.pak : maps/start.bsp
Building PHS…
Average leafs visible / hearable / total: 111 / 239 / 1128
PackFile: ./id1/pak0.pak : progs/player.mdl
PackFile: ./id1/pak0.pak : progs/eyes.mdl
Updated needpass.
rob entered the game
rob WARNING: non standard player/eyes model detected
rob dropped
rob left the game with 0 frags
Client rob removed

I’m running it locally (I connet to localhost).
My pc spec:
Windows XP
amd athlon xp 1800
Radeon 9500 PRO, driver: CATALYST 3.8
Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet NIC

The fps is between 58 and 61. Idle is between 0 and 250.

rgrzywinski · November 4, 2003, 8:40pm

Since all of the developers have good machines, we use my wife’s machine as the worst case – a PII with 512MB and a GeForce2 – and it runs like a champ. She just reads emails on it so don’t be calling me a bad husband or anything.

Krazy.

So as to not clutter the board would you email me at rgrzywinski@realityinteractive.com so that I may get a few other particulars from you? Thanks!

rgrzywinski · November 4, 2003, 8:49pm

Oh! I just remembered something (see what happens when you don’t touch code for more than 6 months?) … try lowering the priority of the qwsv process in the task manager (Windows Task Manager -> Processes -> Right click on the qwsv -> Set Priority). The QuakeWorld server just gobbles up CPU. We were having a helluva time getting the JVM’s process to play nice with the server process … and then we wrote a QuakeWorld server in Java (but we’ll get to that at a different date )

tom · November 5, 2003, 3:28am

Setting the qwsv.exe priority to “realtime” fixed the problem.

rgrzywinski · November 5, 2003, 2:14pm

You had to increase the server priority ? ! ? Seriously? That’s the first case of that that we’ve ever encountered.

Did it work on any lower of a priority?

And did it affect the frame rate in any way?

An aside, did you like the modifications that we made (essentially Quake 2’d the client)? When we would go back to the native QuakeWorld client to check for gameplay bugs, we were continually amazed at how bland it was. The addition of colored lighting really makes a difference.

tom · November 5, 2003, 6:36pm

[]At “BelowNormal” and “Low” it’s unplayable. I can hold down forward, but I will stand still. After 5-10 seconds I move across the room.
[] “AboveNormal” is the same as “Normal”. One or two pauses a second.
[]Haven’t tried “High”
[]“AboveNormal” works fine.
The frame rate is the same no mather the priority on the server. Looks like it’s synced to the monitor at 60hz.

The graphics looks great. The original is a bit dark and gray. But then it only uses 256 colors

rgrzywinski · November 5, 2003, 11:00pm

Thanks Tom for all your help on this.

In playing with the server I remembered that the native QuakeWorld client needs to lower its priority when running with the Java server whereas the native server needs to have its priority increased when running with the Java client. It’s enough to make one go bonkers!