Is there an existing GL engine that accurately fakes the software look? 

Qbism super8 I think.

quakespasm with all the graphics settings nerfed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtDBQ333KEo 

Quakespasm is not 8bit. 

I thought super8 was a software engine? Besides, I tried super8 and it fucked with so many basic things that I never wanted to open it again (weird particles, stupid weapon swaying etc, and it had some pointless palette-bend on by default which screwed up all the colours. 

quakespasm with all the graphics settings nerfed.

I'm talking about an emulation of how the software engine takes the texture pixel and the lightmap and then uses a LUT (quake's colormap) to output a colour still in the quake palette. There's something about the final look which is just magical to me, and it's not just nostalgia talking :} 

I am sure that Mark_V has a winquake style version now? Not tried it a great deal but might be worth checking out 

MarkV WinQuake looks great but is a software engine and thus I get single digit framerates on modern maps.

I was just hoping someone may have tried to emulate the software look using a modern graphics API, that's all. 

Well, I know you don't like DP but Nahuel recently uncovered a GLSL shader for DP that aims to emulate the retro look. I haven't tried it so I don't know how accurate it is, but you might want to give it a try. You can find it here: http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-mod-releases/finished-works/12469-hgszs-retro-quake-glsl-retro-shaders-darkplaces.html
Note that the 2016 DP builds break this shader, so Seven has fixed it (scroll down to post #10 for link). 

Read baker's last post in the mark v thread. I just shat myself with excitement. 

Read baker's last post in the mark v thread. I just shat myself with excitement.

Wait.

What.

Windows WinQuake through Open GL for KillPixel

You mean that? Because if that means what I think it means, then consider my dungarees dung'ed and my breeches browned also! 

damn just realised a few posts up people are talking about FTE doing this - I'll have to have a look. 

not sure if it was mentioned, but FTE has r_renderscale, too. 

I thought you were talking about the markv thread. I'm fucking brilliant. 

fte with r_softwarebanding 1 uses 8bit rendering for the world and models, except for coloured lighting (where each colour channel is performed as a separate lookup) so disable lit support if you want strict 8bit colours.
this applies to world(gl+vk renderers) and models(gl renderer). other things including particles etc are unaffected by this, but at least fte's particles can follow palette-based ramps too. 

Thanks - just had a look and r_softwarebanding looks lovely and I even like how it looks with fog and coloured lights on top of it too!

There's a lot of stuff I'll need to turn off though to make it look and sound more vanilla - is there a "proper oldskool" config somewhere? 

how do i turn off the mouse smoothing in FTE? 

m_filter defaults to 0 so reset that if its no longer 0. there isn't any other mouse smoothing.
m_accel 0 maybe? again defaults to off.

'fps_preset vanilla' should disable(and in some cases enable) all the stuff to make fte feel like vanilla's software rendering, including the demo reel, nq sbar, nq player physics, software banding, square particles, disables lerping, etc.
complete list of cvars changed with the presets: https://sourceforge.net/p/fteqw/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/engine/client/m_options.c#l818 (each preset is cumulative with the prior ones, so you'll need to consider the settings above the vanilla preset also, if you want the complete list)
the problem with lots of settings is figuring out which ones you actually want set. :s 

quakeforge's glsl renderer should also render much like software rendering (unlike its regular non-glsl gl renderer).
that said, I don't know how easy it is to get quakeforge to actually run, hopefully taniwha has fixed it up a little since I last tried. 

m_filter "0"
m_accel "0"

I have those set but it makes no difference - the mouse just feels weird and laggy compared to quakespasm, like the movement is being interpolated or something. QS feels immediate... 

I'm sure you've checked, but is vsync enabled, either in the client or forced by your gpu settings? 

I'm sure you've checked, but is vsync enabled, either in the client or forced by your gpu settings?

No I hadn't checked, and that was indeed the culprit.

vid_vsync "0" now added to my config. Cheers! 

 

Can anyone recommend a tool I can use to profile the cpu / gpu usage of quake engines on my pc? I have noticed that when using Quakespasm, my laptop is silent, but on other engines I've tried (FTE, MarkV), running under the same config I use for QS, my laptop's fan blows like a foghorn for some reason... 

Gonna have a punt with a tool called HWiNFO. Will report if I see anything interesting 

This is almost certainly happening because QS is using a Sleep call every iteration of it's main loop, whereas other engines are not.

There are valid arguments to be made that running flat out is actually correct behaviour for a game engine.