DCEmulation

Here is some information about porting Quake 2 for the Dreamcast.

Info about the Bero's port of Quake 2 may be added later.

Engine:

The engine can be ported, but the data files (maps, models, sounds) are too big to fit into the RAM. The data files would have to be edited to reduce their size, and this would take a huge amount of work. And as we can't distribute the files of the full version, only the shareware version could be worked out. It would be needed to make a patch program to convert the data of the full version.

Mods:

Quake II mods are programmed in DLLs compiled for x86 processors, so they woudn't work in the Dreamcast. The only way would be if the mod is open source, so it could be ported, but this would require some extra programming work. And then we fall again in the problem that the data files of the mod may be too big to fit into the DC RAM.

Resuming:

1- The Quake 2 engine alone can be ported by experient DC coders with no much trouble.

2- If someone really interested in porting the whole Quake II game would work full-time on it, it could be done, but would take years.

3- Only a few open source Quake 2 mods would work, and only if the data files of the mod are small and/or the original data files have their size reduced (read #2).

Due to this, Quake 1 is better for the Dreamcast, because it is easier to develop games for it and it is less limited.

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Makaqu engine blog / website.

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Plus Quake 2 simply isn't as fun as Quake 1.

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"I'm convinced RenegadeC is in fact not a human, but rather an experimental IRC/QuakeC bot who has the ability to randomly formulate mods and code them, programmed to have a distinct Canadian personality as well."

Sooo.... no q2 for dc ... personally, I wasnt holding my breath .... there is a guy porting it (and quake) to ps2, though.

http://ps2quake.ps2-scene.org/index.html

Interestingly enough, memory is an issue with Quake 1 as well, but only if you're using GLQuake instead of the software renderer.

I think porting Quake 2 itself wouldn't be a problem, if we could get hold of the source for the maps and models, and didn't mind heavily modifying them. I could probably do it, but it's a hell of a lot of work, and I couldn't distribute the modified version anyway.

Hrm.

Quake and Quake 2 for PS2.

Seems familiar.

Oh yeah...
http://psx.ign.com/objects/012/012020.h ... gamefinder
http://psx.ign.com/objects/010/010446.h ... gamefinder



...Am I the *ONLY* person who considers the PS2's backwards-compatibility important? The main reason I HAVE a PS2 is so I can play the PSX ports of all those old PC games like Warcraft, Descent, etc. that won't run on my modern rig.

If you check that IGN link, the Quake port never actually made it out.

And whilst Quake II made the best of limited hardware and gave you a pretty cracking Playstation game, it's nothing compared to it's PC counterpart. The added power of the PS2 could easily make a more complete port of Quake II possible - with support for mods, too.

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No:

Maybe the XBox port can run Quake II mods, but I don't have a XBox to test.

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Makaqu engine blog / website.

⇈ ⇊ ⇆ ⇆ B A Start

Yeah... the xbox ports can run mods...
but we are back to doing it the old QuakeDC way... Drop the files into the baseq2 directory and hope it works.

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Actually, you could do mods, but they'd have to be compled for an SH-4. So you could create Dreamcast-only mods, but there's probably not much point. Considering the effort required to get Q2 working well enough with the limited memory available, you may as well just use Quake 1 and enhance it some. If I can get the thing working correctly with hardware acceleration, we should be able to match Quake 2 fairly easily.

Was wondering...if re-mapping the game is a problem, maybe I could help out. I'm a Q2 mapper with over 4 years of experience and would love to help out with a project for creating maps for Q2 if it's possible. The original maps don't need to be used as long as the entity set is the same and Quake2DC can use maps that were made using QERadiant, new maps and new episodes can be created. Let me know if anyone is interested being that I have no coding skills...

*EDIT*

Forgot to mention, if anyone is interested, hit up PlanetQuake and look in the Level of the Week section for Q2. I have a couple of entries there under the name Panzer and one entry, "Solar Winds" under the name Neal&Bob

I took a quick look at PQ and couldn't find your stuff -- do you have a direct link ?

If you're interested, we're still looking for content -- http://www.bobbeetec.com/meat.php

Regarding your content:
http://www.bobbeetec.com/support.php?ac ... id=9#item9

Rand.

If you were looking for maps by my forum name here, that is why you didn't find any. I've used the name Panzer for mapping since 2001. Here are some links to the LotW reviews:

Deadly Oasis
Q3DM17 remake...with Egyptian themed textures
Solaris created for Silver@cer's Q2 mapping contest
Solar Winds was a geocomp style mapping project with Jester using the name Neal&Bob

It's a pretty wide variety of styles there but I definitely love that Egyptian themed texture set. Hope you like them!

I've downloaded them and I'll take a look -- Lots of praise on the various sites, though

Any idea if "Sock" is still around and answering EMails? (Similar and/or replacement textures will need to be obtained if the original author isn't willing to allow use.)

Please PM me so we can continue this off board.

Thanks,

Rand.

If anyone is still interested in remapping Quake 2 and need someone who can build a level by just looking at it, then take a look at my little project site called Degeneration. I set out to faithfully recreate the Q3A maps for Quake 2 and if I can do this with Q3A, then rebuilding Q2 shouldn't be terribly difficult. I'm hoping someone is still interested in this because I would sure love to play some Q2 on my Dreamcast!!!

Forgot to mention...I still use the name Panzer for mapping in the Q2 community...HomerCIDAL is an alias I use for playing sometimes

I am interested... hows your progress? i am an avid Q2er. specificly Q2 railz mod fast hook. i'm also inlove with my DC. so if you can give me Q2 my DC quake collection will be complete (save quake 4 but wen will that ever happen).

my e-mail is mailto:quake2sniper@hotmail.com lemme know how its coming...

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I kinda set the Degeneration project aside for a while. The texture sizes for the maps made them almost unplayable, but it was the only way to make it look like Q3A. regardless, I am constantly working on something and if this project ever took off for the Dreamcast (rebuilding Q2...and it's now open source )I would be ready to roll with it!

Sorry to keep dragging this topic up, but I have nothing better to do Here are two sample pics of what can be done with the Q2 engine if you open her up:



No this is not on the Dreamcast...sadly...but it could be if someone would just get that Q2 port up and running!!! It's a little on the high side of r_speeds (around 1600) but it's also a very open level despite it's small volume of area with a lot of intricate geometry and numerous transparent brushes that dramatically increase r_speeds but were necessary to get the look and feel of what I had envisioned. I'll have to check it against a limit of about 9mb to see how it runs.

Using a Q1 engine like nxMakaqu is a better option if you want to make a custom FPS, because the engine is already ported, and it has support for several features and graphical improvements not available in the standard Q2 engine.

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Makaqu engine blog / website.

⇈ ⇊ ⇆ ⇆ B A Start

I found this while browsing around : http://jdolan.dyndns.org/jaydolan/quetoo.html
Its supposed to be an optimized version of the Quake2 source. I don't know if this is easier to port to DC since the main problem still is the memory, but it might be a better start to build on if someone wants to try.

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