also need the alfa channel.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/drags.gif

It grew drags on me untill they were really transparant, as in FimG the pictures would add the alphachannel, but didn't save them! I had a hard job to avoid a white screenblock. 

fitzquake should be the standard

Bah! to weird engine users

I see what you guys mean, but remember

a) not everyone uses Windows
b) DP runs on linux but is a bit resource-hungry
c) choice is good
d) does all this stuff work on Mac OSX and *BSD...?

As far as supporting software, I can see that it's not always practical, and it will slowly die. But today there are still laptops out there that have no working 3D hardware, so give it 2,3 more years and then I'd say it's safe enough to assume 95% of computers will be 3D capable. It's clear that software will eventually die.

It's OK IMO if mappers start dropping it.

But I'd hate to see Quake mapping go Windows-only with the possible exception of Darkplaces. The original Quake was cross-platform for a reason. Please try to think of others.

Major Linux GL engines are DP, tyr-glquake and Joequake.

There is also still Proquake, which Baker just took over from JPG and he's working to fix the Linux support he broke somewhere along the way :-)

- Darkplaces we all know, IIRC it also supports OSX.

- Tyr-glquake is a conservative GL engine, supports Windows/Linux/*BSD, and it would be easy enough to up the entity limits. It runs most mods and has a number of nice options. In a word, this is THE candidate for a more conservative cross-platform engine (after some maxentity tweaks.)

- Joequake is the only active Linux engine that supports Nehahra. The other is Qudos' dead port of nehquake-bjp. JQ is enjoyed by speedrunners it seems.

- Fruitz of Dojo, _the_ OSX port, is NOT crossplatform (just like some Windows ports...) so unfortunately, that makes it a bit hard to test your map in unless you own a Mac ;-) I guess Mac Quakers can blame themselves on this one. Their problem. 

Hold your breath, SleepwalkR is porting Fitzquake to crossplatform (SDL). Then we will be in eternal bliss.

Darkplaces is way too modern and bugfixed to classify as proper singleplayer quake engine. Joequake depends on that shitty fmod for sound (iirc). Tyr-glquake is nice but kinda buggy. And no-one needs Proquake, it's a multiplayer optimised engine. 

I don't really want to drag this argument up again, but the other day I loaded a map in another engine that had less of the awesome fixes metlslime added to FQ and all I could see were blurred textures, bland lighting, cracks on water, the geometry of the skybox and to top it off it didn't support widescreen, so everything was stretched :(

FQ made Quake feel alive again for me when most maps being released didn't work properly in software due to the slightly restrictive limits, and most GL engines were not concentrating on improving the engine so that SP maps could be enjoyed to the fullest.

So good luck to SleepwalkR with the SDL conversion of FQ, and I hope linux and mac users will enjoy playing with such a great little engine as much as I do. 

I guess the only thing I can say on the software/hardware-only engine subject is ... if you're going to abandon software users and require a specialized engine, please make sure that it's worth it.

What I mean by that is, make sure that whatever you're doing to your level that is going to shut out software renderers (translucency, huge edict counts, mega surfaces, etc), make sure that you can say with confidence that "Yes, this map NEEDS this".

I love Quake but I'm a traditionalist. I was never a fan of even GLQuake - I don't like the texture smoothing. I like raw pixels and chunky geometry in my Quaking.

Maybe that makes me a nutbar but that's where I'm at. :)

We software users love to play new maps as much as the hardware-only specialized engine guys do. Don't shut us out unnecessarily. 

Yeah, there are some purists who like it, and that's OK, but they should really use a 'modern' software engine then, like aguirRe's enhanced Winquake or the one that comes with Tyrquake. 

Edicts

I think that the only limit which can really be justified breaking is edicts. 600 just isnt quite enough! If your carefull with your brushwork, you can make massive maps, with 64 lightmaps, 32k marksurfaces etc, just literally tailor the map to its maximum within these hard limits.

Isnt there a JoeQuake software renderer which allows more than 600 edicts?

If FitzQuake is successfully ported to OS X then that engine supports more than 600 edicts, but its a GLQuake engine...

I just think that its possible to make some really great maps, which dont require Darkplaces/AguirRe's GLQuake to run, but edicts are the only thing which holds mappers back from fully realising the potential of the original software engine paramaters... 

Well, I'm a Mac user so until SleepwalkR gets done with FitzQuake I can't just switch engines willy nilly. :) I like software so this works for me at the moment.

Just to add some context to my preferences.

However, if his port of FitzQuake supports the ability to have the game render the same as the software renderer (pixelated, monochrome lighting, etc) then I'll definitely use it! 

r_overbright 1
r_oldwater 0
r_oldsky 0
gl_texturemode gl_nearest 

Nice! Now I just need an engine on OSX that will support higher edict counts and such. :) 

gl_flashblend 0
I don't know why that is on by default 

Or do you mean another engine/one which is already availiable...

Fitzquake can be made to handle (I think) 4000 - odd edicts!! It just requires a console command. Edict limit can be changed with each map loaded!

Its like the glass thing - I wouldnt want to use brushmodel transparency for a map if it didnt work in FitzQuake, which it DOESNT. If I made a map with transparent brushmodels and coloured lights, the only engine I could really use would be Darkplaces, and I really wouldnt want to make a DP-only map!! :D

As for software 'style' in Fitz, what czg said!!

gl_texturemode (1-6) - different effects, one is definately pixelated textures...

:D :D 

Yep, that sounds great!

Hurry up, SleepwalkR. :) 

I took some shots from my setup of a few maps.

http://than.leveldesign.org/files/fq_swlook_01.jpg (WIP map)
http://than.leveldesign.org/files/fq_swlook_02.jpg (gmsp3)
http://than.leveldesign.org/files/fq_swlook_03.jpg (dm3rmx)
http://than.leveldesign.org/files/fq_swlook_04.jpg (Quoth start)
http://than.leveldesign.org/files/fq_swlook_05.jpg (WIP map)
http://than.leveldesign.org/files/fq_swlook_06.jpg (WIP map)

btw, you might want to check out gmsp3, dm3rmx and quoth if you have been away from Quake for a long time and haven't played them. There are tons more maps that have been released in the past 5 years or so that come highly recommended. I won't mention any in particular because there are so many fucking great maps that I wouldn't like to pick a favourite.

...although I did pick some here: http://qexpo.quakedev.com/booth.php?id=29&page=118 

dunno if it's actually doing some harm to those absolutely deliciously crisp pixels!

I think old CRT:s did a bit of natural smoothing but with the hard image of the LCD:s, the pixelity gets a bit too strong for me at times.

Also if one is a pure traditionalist, can one really play quake with an optical mouse? I think the rough rolling of the ball is an important part of the classic quake experience, that is, if you're not a keyboard player.

Just kidding. 

Hey, for me, part of Quake is unfiltered texels. YMMV! Heh. 

Try gl_nearest_mipmap_nearest, mipmapping does help and software quake had it too!

Also, you can use anisotropic filtering with any texture mode, not just trilinear. So you could experiment with gl_nearest and maxed-out anisotropy, for example.

Personal opinion: I play with trilinear and anisotropic filtering, but I do recognize that trilinear comes at a cost -- the swimming, sparkling, moire effects of nearest filtering go away, but at the cost of more averaged/blended color on the screen and less of the pure texel colors. With nearest filtering, you get a scene full of the actual texture colors, which tend to be more vivid. 

Willem, I also use software right now, because I'm on one of the mentioned older laptops. I will switch to GL though ASAP, I tested it using mesa. I have noticed the difference in lighting, but "what czg said". It looks as if TQ, JQ and PQ (Proquake can be used for singleplayer, and if I'm not mistaken Baker would gladly extend some limits or is already doing so) aren't going to drop software support anytime soon.

The Fitzquake sdl thing sounds great. ^^ If that happens, I'll radically stop all bitching :-E

I hope I didn't come off again like I demanded anything, I was just sayin'.

Concerning TQ, things are being fixed, for example breakfast.bsp produces no more blah_overflow messages even on skill2. And a nice manpage is in the works ;-)

Joequake's FMOD dependency: The only place where fmod is included is in nehahra.c :-( That's the only reason. Since only the GL client includes nehahra support, software does NOT depend on FMOD (anyway, isn't it a simple matter of "emerge fmod" or "apt-get install fmod"?)

The "problem" (*g*) is that Joe didn't think of #undefining Nehahra support, you have no choice if you want it or not. But hey, it plays Nehahra! (at least rudimentary)

He probably ripped that out of Nehquake and the FMOD stuff just came with it.

edicts limit: I'd dare to quietly say that MAX_STATIC_ENTITIES is rather easy to break even in small maps (ex. TPOF) so edicts is not everything. Torches! :-D 

WIP those maps into releases, word. 

Fruitz of Dojo, _the_ OSX port, is NOT crossplatform (just like some Windows ports...) so unfortunately, that makes it a bit hard to test your map in unless you own a Mac ;-) I guess Mac Quakers can blame themselves on this one. Their problem.

I don't understand what you mean by this, goldenboy. The Fruitz of Dojo port is straight-up vanilla glquake, how is that not cross-platform? Of course they didn't make a PC version, that was id software's job.

Personally, I prefer pOx's mac glquake ports ( http://macglquake.sourceforge.net/ , and http://developer.chaoticbox.com/quake.php ), as they feel more like a mac application and do some minor things better like mouse smoothing and anisotropic filtering. He also ported the Nehahra engine, which I often enjoy using, as it has a good mix of quake faithfulness and well placed new features (skyboxes, colored dynamic lights, fog). I think it has some raised entity limits too. However I should note that pOx's glquake engines were coded in Carbon, not Cocoa, so you guys on Intel/Leopard machines might not be able to run them. 

The Fruitz of Dojo port is straight-up vanilla glquake

OK. They don't say on the site what it actually is, and in how far it was changed or had stuff added. They just say "Requirements: Mac OS X."

Does the same source compile on Linux and Windows? That's what I meant. :-) 

But I've never tried. I read through the diff once though, and all the changes are really minor, apart from the addition of os x video and sound code. 

Then I apologize. I'll download it and try to compile.

If those non-DP Mac clients are really just Macified GLquake, that would mean we'd have to keep to the limits while mapping, or they won't run the maps.

:-/ 

but raising the edicts limit is probably the most useful thing, and dead easy. 

They would have to do that, though. ;-)