Quake Issues under Windows 7

[foq]

I've got some issues trying to play this game on Windows 7.

The first client I tried, Proquake 4, runs, but it gives me random FPS drops. The second client, Qrack, simply refuses to start. I get the "program name (glQrack.exe in this case) has stopped working" error.

I'm off to try Darkplaces, I'll let you know how that goes.

I just tried Darkplaces. It worked, but the performance was terrible. It was unplayable.

[lennox]

use compatiblity mode for winxp sp3 in win7 for qrack to work

[MH]

Different clients behave differently. I'm thinking that the primary cause is older headers and libs that they may have been compiled with, in particular those that are Visual C++ 6 projects. Quake also contains a lot of evil and ugly old code inherited from it's origins as a DOS program, and which really needs to be cleaned out.

In the specific case of qRack there are a number of things wrong with it. Firstly it does an OS check for Vista which only checks against version 6.00; obviously any special code required for subsequent higher version numbers will break there. (In fact it's OS checks are a good example of how NOT to do it...) Secondly it links against a lot of ancient libraries which may or may not have been tested against Windows 7; it may be a libjpeg or zlib or whatever problem rather than a qRack problem. It also seems to be doing something strange in it's video routines as I can recompile with Visual C++ 2008 and get it to run, and even hear sounds, type console commands, etc, but nothing draws on screen, at all.

These are problems that Rook may be addressing in his forthcoming 1.90 version; I know he's running on Windows 7 now so I think it's reasonable to expect a fix.

In the case of FitzQuake and GLQuake (and even WinQuake) I can simply recompile on Visual C++ 2008 and they run fine, and without needing any compatibility settings.

I can't compile ProQuake from the released source at all, so I don't know what's happening there. Ditto Enhanced GLQuake.

I personally develop DirectQ on Windows 7 and with Visual C++ 2008 so I know that works fine (again without needing any compatibility settings).

I've never attempted a DarkPlaces recompile, but I might try one soon.

I've experienced some choppiness running Debug builds on 64 bit Windows 7, but once outside of the debugging environment the choppiness goes away. I think this is most likely a result of hosting a 32 bit app in a 64 bit debugger, but I haven't done much investigation.

[ninjamonkeyz]

sorry bout bein off topic but im thinkin about upgrading to win 7 from vista, just wanting an opinion is it worth the trade off? quake aside*? ?_? ... quake runs on vista fine but vista eats the fuck out of resources, when i have trouble making stuff work i just take "uac" , user account control off, its in the control panel under user accounts, what that does is gives everything admin access without having to right click and do run as admin. the only time i do that is for trouble shooting shit. so if win7 has that try that

[MH]

Windows 7 is a lot lighter on resources than Vista; not quite XP levels but somewhere towards the low end of inbetween. CPU is actually idle when the PC is supposed to be doing nothing (never saw that on Vista) and there's always plenty of memory headroom, even on a 1GB machine (typically uses about 400MB).

UAC has been changed and there are now 4 levels available:

• Full Vista level.
• Notify only when programs make changes (don't notify when I make changes) - the new default.
• As above but doesn't dim the desktop.
• Off.

The default will be good enough for most people; the only notifications you generally get are when installing drivers or playing around with regedit. I use it, it's never given me any problems, and it's nice to be warned when a program is doing something behind my back. The really nice thing is that there is a proper control panel for it, and it's one of the first things you see in your Start Menu after you install.

[foq]

So what can I do to cure the issue?

[MH]

Try DirectQ for starters; it's known to work fine on Windows 7, and without needing any compatibility fixes. DirectQ

Otherwise I'd say hold tight - people developing engines do have Windows 7 and will be aware of any issues, and will be working to fix them.

If that doesn't suit you I'll make a working FitzQuake build for you.

[foq]

DirectQ worked.

I think it's a problem with OpenGL. A lot of people are having issues with OpenGL games in Windows 7.

[MH]

Intel graphics?

Either way, it would be interesting to see if a recompiled FitzQuake also gives problems (I'm choosing FQ cos I know it recompiles reasonably clean). I'll put up a version later on today.

[Baker]

Intel graphics?

No, he has a great video card whatever it is. He's not using Intel.

[MH]

No, he has a great video card whatever it is. He's not using Intel.

Odd that.

Here's my recompile of FitzQuake 0.85 for Windows 7. The only code change I made was to remove the splash screen, as Visual C++ 2008 Express doesn't like it. This runs smoothly on my machine with no hitching or stalling or frame drops. No compatibility settings needed.

[foq]

It's a 9600GSO. 96 shaders, 12 ROPs, 384mb memory on 192-bit interface.

I only list the specific specs of the card because there are 3 versions of the 9600GSO.

[foq]

Well, there's a few things that don't settle well with me with directq.

No ping in scoreboard
Scoreboard stays after I let go of tab, I have to hit tab again to make it go away (not really a big deal, minor annoyance)
no pq_whatever functions (I use pq_drawfps and pq_waterblend)
Blue guys were appearing as white in CA
Still uses the oldschool HUD scoring system. In CA, I see the top players instead of the team scores.

-ed: just tried your rebuild of fitzquake. It worked fine. I'll try the origional fitzquake and see what happens

the origional fitzquake worked fine.

I tried D3D Proquake 4 and it crahed when I went to go to the advanced video settings menu. I tried Proquake 3.5 and it rendered in all white.

-ed again: I remembered there being countless threads about quake rendering in all white so I tried the -no8bit switch and it worked fine. Proquake 3.5 doesn't randomly drop FPS on me like Proquake 4 does...

[MH]

Hey it's cool

I don't aim to please everyone, and I do have a position on certain things (I think ping in scoreboard is a hack, for example - a good hack, but still a hack). Other things were deliberate choices (scoreboard not going away when you release TAB, although I accept that different behaviour for SP and MP would be the right way).

I believe that Windows Vista and 7 have officially deprecated all versions of D3D prior to 8, so I'm surprised that D3DPro even worked at all (assuming my belief is correct) as it uses 7. I'm dealing with Baker on this matter even as we speak, and - while I can't guarantee anything definitive, and won't make any further comment yet - there might be movement towards modernising things a little (but only a little, as ProQuake needs to run on a very wide range of hardware).

Good to hear that even original GLFitz worked fine, but metlslime has set up his project very intelligently - it's one of the few that's almost instantly VS2008-ready, for example, so it wouldn't be that surprising if he's tested on the Beta and/or RC and had already dealt with any potential probs.

Overall with Windows 7 being a new - but very popular - OS I think it's gonna take some short time before things shake out in the major engines. I'd say expect fixes in the next releases.

[foq]

I'll just use glpro 3.5 in the meantime. It has it's quirks (no gamma control, it still has the texture cache mismatch error) but fixes are being made