for those interested in quake 2...

[Zensunni]

oh damn, i knew i should've shutup :-)

ok, i started a port of q2 to the dreamcast, after i saw the port to pocketpc..

i've been monitoring the dcdev scene for a while, and was looking for a project to take on, and this seemed challenging enough :-)

i haven't had too much time lately, due to moving, but seeing the amount of people interested i'll try to increase my effort a bit :-)

whatever happens, I wont promise anything!!!!
i know myself, things go really well when i am motivated, but when i loose that motivation, i'm knows to give up fast :-)


now for the technical details:

the pocketpc version can run with the software rasterizer and all sounds stripped out of the pak file in 13 megs of memory, with the original levels.
this also means that the textures are in main memory.

I'd be really dissapointed if i cant achieve the same thing on the dc :-)

initially i'll use the software rasterizer, to speed up development ( it's to be ported relatively easy), but in the end, i want to port it the pvr natively (with the help of kgl)

this would mean that we have more free ram for sounds, because the textures would be stored in videoram, so i do think that in the end we'll have a full featured q2 port

i'm going to use KOS for this port, which is really improving every day..
On the mailinglists i heard that dan potter would take a stab at integrating lwip soon, which would mean lan/internet capabilities, but once more, i promise nothing

basically, the current status (really haven't worked that much on it so far)

i ported gamex86.dll to gameSH4.a
i ported most of the software rasterizer over, i should write a small application to test it's functionality though

everything else : to be done

so there's nothing world shocking, nothing promising, and i'm not trying to get anyone's hope up here


about Mod's : they require to be Ported (or just recompiled in the easy cases). there's no way around it, live with it ;-)

what i envision:

you're capable of making your own quake2 cd, including the sound track and mods, with some tools or scripts, this is more of a release solution

there will be some added console variables to redirect the root to your harddisk, if you have a broadband adapter at least.. this would allow for testing mods and levels without having to burn a cd :-)

We'll see what happens, weekend ahead, I might spend some quality time on this :-)

[ZTx3]

I wish you the best of luck

An interesting thing to look at might be the fact that in the Video options in Quake2 there is a PowerVR OpenGL mode and since the DC use's a PowerVR 2 GraphicsChip(or simlar) it might have some interesting code for speeding things up

[Zensunni]

but i don't think it will help too much

i don't have the source here, but i don't think the source to that renderer is supplied

i checked which opengl function used by the ref_gl, and we're still not quite there with KGL, the polygon mode needs to be added, just as gl_scissors and some other assorted stuff, not to mention lightning

i'll take a stab at that later, provided i get it to work in the first place, and that i'm feeling up to it

[I11umin8ted]

They did manage to make a version of QII for the PSX which is obviously less powerfull than the DC without cutting much (if any) out of it, and they got 4 player on it without any slow down (at least that ive noticed).

[Slamoid]

Hot damn, the DC is/was such an awsome system. All Sega needed to do to keep it alive was force all the new games created to use GB-Roms. That would have saved them....

[Wetflame]

If you can get Q2 working on not only a PS or pocket pc, but on my crappy 133 with the original Power VR Apocalypse 3dx card, you can do it on Dreamcast.

Remember, the original port of Quake 1 was done in a week, probably even on and off! Mods are only modifications to the game physhcis, weapon and item code, rarely ever the engine and certainly not the graphics engine, so I don't see why mods should be a problem, mostly a recompile.

Don't bother releasing it until you've got bots, though, not to bring your spirits down, but the Multiplayer mode is so much better! And the splitscreen mods, and Chaos and maybe the Goldeneye mod.

Best of luck! Any help I can give I will.

[Pxtl]

Holy living fsck that would be cool. As for getting the old Q2 mods going, I think you wouldn't have much trouble getting support, many of them still have coders working on it - I know for a fact that Transformers Quake still has a few active devs playing with it.

I would just love to get the awesome, ever goregeous plug-in Quake 2 models in - anyone here a fan of Slith? Winter's Fairy? Dragon Knight? Oy the list goes on.

As for levels - fine, don't use the default levels. There are tons of small levels made by ID and independants that would be just as cool. Match1 comes to mind. As long as some form of deathmatch (get a botmod or get one of those "monster spawning" things that spawn monsters onto deathmatch leves, or maybe just get the splitscreen going) is in there, who needs the singleplayer levels?

AirQuake2 probably wouldn't be good then, their levels are really big and high-poly. Ditto some of the Transformers maps.

I'd rattle off the list of awesome Q2 mods I'd love to play on DC, but someone already managed to name every single one of my faves (tho Matrix was annoying in some ways). Action Q2 is also notable, though I'm not a fan, and lets not forget about Chaos Q2. Superhero Q2 is the best thing since bread, period.

[SlimDady]

the problem is is someone has to step up to the plate and take the challenge.

Also quake 2 uses more ram then the dreamcast has.. Gona havve to cut down on sounds, textures, and model quality to make it run ok

[404NotFound]

It seems that if this were made then the coders would also have to make a self boot tool for it.

[Wetflame]

If you cut down on model quality, that's a little silly. SOme of the extra models have 1.5 times the polys as well, my custom one has nearly 1000!
THat's not very much though, is it? IF you have 8 bots, that's only 8000 polys(And the MD2 format uses a morphing deform animation system, where the animinations are not limb based but still interpolated, which would further save on ram), why would model quality have to be reduced? The textures are only 256 colour so they'd be small I don't know how that translates ram wise though. Most mods don't mess with the core engine code, so they should be mainly a recompile.

There should be no reason for a majorcut down, I got Quake 2 working on a 16 meg machine before (Keeping in mind that most is taken up by windows) and since consoles run more efficently, I see no reason for a cut down.

[asdfasdf]

this is kinda nuts, if someone can get quake 2 ported 2 DC, then think of all the other games u can get ported?? sure its maybe a little illegal, but it would make the dreamcast only THAT much better 2 own.
wish i could code, or do anything for that matter, so i could port. but eh. hope 2 see quake2DC soon tho.

[XantiaX]

perhaps in another 3 years, we'll get the Quake 3 engine

what do you mean in another 3 yrs?!??! we already HAVE quake 3 for the dreamcast!...

[mankrip]

what do you mean in another 3 yrs?!??! we already HAVE quake 3 for the dreamcast!...

We have the game, not the source...

[Code-Red]

Well, I would be glad to help with anything I could. Im a pretty good QuakeC coder (dont know if that would apply to Q2), and I have made many a mod on Quake.

[Midgar]

There's the source code to Descent, Descent 2, Descent Freespace 2, Hexen 2, Aliens vs. Preditor Gold, and more...

If you were to port and optimize the engines for Dreamcast (the content wouldn't need to be changed as most old games have tame models, maps, sounds, etc etc) they'd run as good if not better on the PC's they were designed for back in the day.

I'd really like to see Descent 1 & 2 + Freespace ported to Dreamcast, I think that'd be neat. If I was capable of doing a port, I'd already be working on one, but I stink at programming.

Sucks there's no source code for Quake 1 (DC).. unless someone wants to do their own port. ;p

[yodanut]

Yeah, the Descent games would be awesome! Granted, they're graphics are software, so it'd look more like DcDOOM than DCQuake, but it'd still be cool.