DirectQ 1.8.8

[R00k]

In case anyone has missed this, MH has released a new version of his awesome directX 9 Quake client. I can't find a complete changelog, though this version incorporates more ClanRing support for avid DM/CTF/CA players, fixes to gamma control, player skin colors, and of course it's super fast, and optimized for all machines.
So if you are still using wqpro3.50 (Frenzy), give this a try you will not regret it!

Make sure you have these prerequisites installed:
DirectX 9
Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable(x86)

And if any troubles do arise check this page here : mhquake: The FIRST thing you should do if DirectQ crashes

[rev]

way to go rook. 24-hour, round-the-clock news-hounding. time is not a concern among the dedicated, 1:00 a.m. is like, a dead language.

lol thanks rook, i like DQ (and the other DQ, dairy queen, mmmmm) and wasn't aware a new one was out.

[Mr.Burns]

I thought I would take R00k's advise to give DQ another go and just downloaded the latest version.

Now it's probably just me or my ageing [but hopefully soon to be replaced] desktop (Win XP Pro, DirectX 9.0c, Gforce 4 MX440 64Mb) , but unfortunately I encountered an error when I tried to run it (see attached screenie). I downloaded and installed the latest edition of Dx (and ran dxdiag to make sure it had taken effect). Fortunately I already had the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable(x86) on this machine.

I've heard such good reports about the newer version of DQ so if MH happens to come across this page and it's something simple I'm missing or doing incorrectly I'd be grateful if you could fill in the gaps . This is assuming of course that it will run on an older machine such as mine - if not then there's no harm done as I can always stick with Qrack, EngineX and PQ

Update:I've noticed the 2 memory flags I've inadvertantly left in the command line and wondered if that was grenading DQ. Unfortunately changing it to "directq.exe -nocdaudio -width 640 -height 480 -bpp 32 -heapsize 131072 -game directq " didnt help

Kind regards

Monty

[MH]

A GeForce 4 MX won't be able to run it - two texture units, no shaders. DirectQ needs at least 5 texture units and shader model 2 (3 is better) support. That card was crap when it was originally released, and is even more crap today. Not certain why it gave you the unhandled exception message though; it should be something more descriptive. Even spending beer money on a GeForce 6600 GT would be a worthwhile upgrade and will get you all the shader model 3 goodness.

The memory flags have no effect by the way; DirectQ has a completely different memory system and they don't need to be used. You can still use them if you really want but they'll do nothing.

[Mr.Burns]

Thanks for taking the time to respond MH. The card, in fact the whole PC, was one of my training pc's from around the office hence it's low spec. At the time it was a case of either the kids eating or me upgrading. hmmm that's a toughy.. it was a difficult choice but alas the kids won I know what you must be thinking, "this man just has no sense of priorities".

I must be honest, I had no idea that the cards were now so cheap so fortunately as my position has now changed I'll remedy that ASAP and feast upon all your DQ scrumptiousness

Keep up the good work my friend.

Kind regards
Monty

[Magnus]

If it wasn't for MH's DirectQ, I would have quit quake when I upgraded to Windows 7.

I can't say enough great things about DirectQ!

[VGAce]

Big problem with big maps

Hello i love directq because it lets me play quake in nvidia 3D Vision i cant use any other client because that needs direct3d
I am having this problem where on big maps the environment collusion somehow randomly gets broken and every enemy/player slowly sinks into the ground and dies
and it stays like this until i close and restart directq (save load does not bring back collusion)

i am having this issue mainly on big mapsizes i played The Unforgiven and on the last huge map i had to restart directq about 10 times for an hour gameplay

[VGAce]

CD Audio

CD Audio does not loop/silence after track is played 1 time

This is a problem of original and ALL quake ports as of this day:
In Win7/Vista the MCI is broken (commands work but it does not MCI NOTIFY SUCESSFULL quake after ending to play a cd audio track which is needed by cd_win.c to loop/play the track again)
hexen2 and quake2 and all other games using MCI for cd audio play suffer from the same broken MCI
This problem has been around since vista so apparently Microsoft is not fixing it that means for quakes cd audio to work right cd_win.c needs a rewrite to directsound or another cd audio playing solution

[MH]

I'll check out the sinking problem, thanks.

Wasn't aware of the CD problem. It's not that big a deal to rewrite the code to use something other than MCI, and the only reason I haven't done so to date was a case of "it's not broke so don't fix it". Obviously now that I'm aware it is broke, I do need to fix it.

[VGAce]

DirectQ already became my favorite quake client. it works great in 3D vision and with all the extra gamma options you are sure to get quake running how you want it to look which we all now can be tricky due its lowly lit graphical appearance

the only problem for me is the sinking bug which can break a whole level progress if you save after it happened (you dont always notice the sinking at once sometimes only parts get broken or invisible walls arise) usualy followed by the sound of all enemys in the level gibbing at once so if you hear it splashing beware with saving and make sure first it hasnt happened
anyone else having this bug? i play a lot of quake sp and in big levels its more likely randomly to happen than in small but does not mean it wont happen in small maps at all

Please add a metal shader like the software quake one for the axe/quad/weapons i think that might also fix some black objects like in shrak (which seems to run best on directq of all other clients, no missing gib texture) the shotgun pickup or this one picture with the fan in the other thread but thats just a guess.

I love the underwater shader in directq! even if its quite eye bending with 3d vision

[VGAce]

256 Color mode

MH Could you please add a 256 color (or lookalike) mode that makes directq look exactly like software quake? i hate how in 16bit+ gl/d3d there is no real darkness it has an "surfaces with light shun onto" look rather than software quakes rough style where everything seems to be one picture and it has real darkness plus the limited lightmap shades make everything look more detailed in 256 color software
hard to explain but obvious if you compare the two. i dont know if this is possible but would be great

[VGAce]

it should never display any other color than the ones specified in the original palette.lmp (directq doesnt make use of the palette.lmp in pak0.pak at all which can lead to problems with mods btw)

[MH]

It does actually load palette.lmp, but the code is hidden in the WAD loader. Doesn't touch colormap.lmp though. (There is also a hard-coded Q2 palette in the texture loader for .wal files, which may lead to some confusion.)

Doing an exact software-Quake-alike is possible but it's a lot of work and would need a total rewrite of some code. What you're actually talking about here is megatexture, which software Quake's surface cache is the direct ancestor of. The way it would work is to create a really big texture, then eval the colours to draw from colormap.lmp (using the exact same surface cache code as software Quake uses) and write them into the really big texture. It would have all of the benefits and drawbacks of megatexture, of course.

[VGAce]

Ah, i see interesting with the megatextures though. maybe in the future

As for the palette.lmp: when i exchange it with a custom palette directq color is not affected just looks the same
how can i make directq use a custom palette ? (the one from pak0.pak i exchanged)
i have no difficulties getting the custom palette to work in fitz,gl and software/winquake

[monoz]

is there a changelog?