Reminder that since yesterday, Quake 3 is free on Bethesda.net launcher. Also forgot to reply in past days:
Putrid Pete, on 10 August 2020 - 10:06 AM, said:
This is in response
to a post by RunningDuke in another thread, in order not to derail it.
I've used QuakeSpasm since around 2016, but nowadays I prefer
vkQuake. It's based on QS but using Vulkan instead of OpenGL for rendering. There's also
vkQuake2 but I believe that's developed by somebody else that has nothing to do with vkQuake. Anyway, I only use it nowadays if I feel the itch to play Quake on a modern setup or if I want to experience more recent mods designed with current sensibilities in mind, but for OG Quake I usually hook up my CRT monitor to my computer using a VGA to HDMI converter or if I'm really in the mood for some old school styled sessions, simply fire up the old Win 98/SE machine under DOS, or use winquake in the regular OS.
I was never a big fan of GlQuake even back in the day; the brightness slider didn't work and it had flickering textures galore. The look was cool for the time but not worth the hassle. Most ports like QS and vkQ are based on GlQuake in how they look and play. In fact, if you use the command line parameter -fitz with them it restores demo playback and all the flickering textures as well. So when I discovered
Mark V I was happy to have a software rendered port with convenient improvements, but development is withheld until further notice and the latest version has a terrible issue in which the mouse becomes unresponsive at random times. It also doesn't perform that great in my computer anymore. There's also QDOS, essentially a more improved version of Dos Quake that also has an improved WinQuake version that supports WAV and OGG. However it hasn't been updated since 2016 (at least the winquake variant) and it has issues with displaying certain textures in Scourge of Armagon that aren't present in the original.
Alas, I've given up on a more modernized software rendered port for the time being and have reverted back to using WinQuake.
With the patch I mentioned in the other thread, I was even able to restore the classic 320x200 resolution of the DOS version while playing with the benefits of current hardware. Keep in mind that this patch also fixes the music loop issues of Winquake.
As for why music was stored on the CD and not the computer, I can only speculate as I'm not well versed on the subject, but I'd figure is because it would have been seen as advantageous to not have to store what was considered at the time, large files on the limited hard drives of that period.
Interesting. I will check out vkQuake as I heard that people started using QuakeSpasm forks like QuakeSpasm-Spiked and vkQuake rather than QuakeSpasm itself. And yeah about the CD music I understand now. And heard about the -fitz parameter as well but it not only re-enables the demos at start but also changes few other things as far as I know. Honestly I just recommend playing QuakeSpasm as it is, it's a great port for sure but I would mostly recommend for newer mods like the ones that came since 2000s and especially the more recent Arcane Dimensions (the greatest Quake mod ever made, which I hope to play someday). Does vkQuake re-enable the intro demos by default or it still requires -fitz parameter?
To be honest, I never liked GLQuake either. The first time I tried GLQuake, I just hated it and I also remember not being able to adjust the resolution in game. I just preferred WinQuake and this is what I will use to play some old maps/mods. I was thinking to also replay original Quake in WinQuake on either 320x200 or 640x400 resolution. Yes I said 640x400 and not 640x480 because I noticed the aspect ratio isn't quite right (considering game was made for 320x200) and although I used 640x480 in past (and even 1024x768), I just noticed recently that 640x400 looked much better IMO. I use 640x480 in Quake 2 and 3, however for Quake 2 I run it in windowed mode because in newer OSes it doesn't work well in fullscreen, I get colors bug or it keeps minimizing. I never found decent source ports for Quake 2 other than KMQuake2. I know there is Unofficial Patch 3.24 (from the same guy who made KMQuake2) but it still suffers from same issues as the original 3.20 exe and Yamagi Quake 2 I remember lagging on my old laptop (haven't tried on my recent laptop) but I think it worked nicely on my PC. I will have to experiment with some more ports for Quake 2. What are people's recommendations?
As for Quake 3, all versions run fine on my PC, however on my current Win 10 laptop, I found only versions 1.11 (both full and demo, basically the initial version of the game) and version 1.32 (latest, with Arena & Team Arena installed) run fine without any problems (other than a bit of lag but mostly because my laptop uses Intel graphics). But stuff like Team Arena Demo (which uses 1.27b) and the Quake 3 Gold install (1.30) and even Return to Castle Wolfenstein (which is based off Quake 3 Team Arena engine, meaning Quake 3 1.27g), don't work at all on my laptop, the game starts but then shows white image and exits without any error. Any idea to make these work? The only solution is to play on PC. Interestingly, Doom 3 works fine on my laptop but I had to patch it to version 1.3.1 because whatever version was from CD was old and that way I also got rid of the CD requirement. I think this is true for every id software game since Quake 2 or 3. I know the initial Quake 3 version asks for CD but later patches don't require CD anymore.
I haven't installed Quake 4 yet because my PC had trouble reading the Quake 4 DVD (from my Quake 4 Special Edition), for some reason the CD/DVD driver doesn't recognize it (only reads CDs fine), however I then tried on my father's PC and the DVD worked fine, it could get recognized and realized it's the fault of the CD/DVD reader. I guess it's time to repair my PC because I've had some issues with it as of lately. I know it's kinda old (from 2012) and desperately need to buy a new PC. I would prefer to buy a gaming laptop, though. But even if I manage to find a laptop that has a CD/DVD driver in it (the current one I use lacks one, so I transfer my games with my USB stick), then I will run into incompatible setup.exe, while my PC uses Win 7 32-bit and it is still compatible with most setup.exe from old games. I'm a bit lost at the moment...
On topic: over the past weeks I played Quake 1, 2 and 3. I have finished Quake 1.01 (initial release of game in DOSBox 0.74-3) on Normal difficulty this time (I usually play on Hard and I have even beaten as kid even on Nightmare difficulty but using a trick that allows to enable COOP mode in Single Player so you can respawn upon death) and I'm ashamed that I died a lot more times this time around. Because the game runs like ass in DOSBox, too fast and it feels like nightmare difficulty. I died once in first episode (in penultimate level before Chthon boss), about 5 or so times in episode 2, at least 10-15 times in episode 3 and probably 50 times in episode 4. Oh yeah and about 20-25 times in final level because a fucking VORE at end of level kept killing me when I was like 30% health (and got every single health pickup), out of nails and lightning (even though I started level with 68 or so cells, due to a bug in initial release where cells aren't cleared between episodes) and was trying to kill with Double Barrel Shotgun and didn't think to use any of my 50 rockets (because I was always under impression that Vores also have resistance to rockets, only Shamblers have it) and then finally made it with 3 HP after getting frustrated and on my nerves. And got the quad damage secret as well (if this fucking vore didn't block my way, I would have gotten the quad and got rid of it quickly) and finished game.
I HATE to say it but didn't enjoy playing through Quake this time, only because of my obsession to play the games as they are meant to, this came at a big cost as unfortunately due to a no new release of DOSBox in a fucking decade (other than two maintenance releases that do nothing to fix the issues I'm having), we are stuck with 0.74 outdated bullshit which means Quake still runs like crap (and also I can't play Duke Caribbean without that unofficial fix from vogons, this also means other games don't run correctly or even at all such as older versions of Shadow Warrior). Before you ask how I dare to say that about the almighty Quake, let me say that Quake is one of my favorite games of all time, I actually like it better than Doom but not as much as Duke3D, however as a series, Quake is my favorite.
Even with all the secrets I've found (I knew majority of secrets and how to access them, had only to look up for the secrets I was missing) and even with picking up health when I actually needed and saving armor pickups for later (except those that I picked up because they were in the way), I was still getting ass kicked many times and had to look for health, mostly because of the game's fast speed, I was eating ogre grenades at almost every encounter and other monsters were also often hitting me with their attacks. Was Quake ALWAYS this brutal? Remember: I played on NORMAL difficulty, not HARD or NIGHTMARE. Why was so fucking hard even though I know the whole game like the back of my palm? And I was supposed to have an easier time on NORMAL skill, last time I played Quake was on Hard skill and died once or twice in the whole game, this time I had to die so many times only because of game running way too fast!
Oh wait, I forgot to mention an important detail: Quake runs like crap in dosbox on the DEFAULT 320x200 resolution, it runs fine on higher resolutions, though on my laptop is still running fast even on 640x400/640x480 as far as I remember a year ago, only at 1024x768 runs fine. But I just wanted this time to play on default resolution since I missed the normal sized menus and text, I was used with the tiny ones from higher resolutions. And please don't suggest me QuakeSpasm and other stuff, I'm not stupid, I wanted to play Quake in various ways, it's not like I choose 1.01 in DOSBox to torture myself, I haven't played the initial 1.01 version in nearly 15 years. I was used to version 1.08/1.09 WinQuake in last 10 or so years. Oh and I played with KEYBOARD controls only (arrow keys and such) so of course it was also harder to aim and dodge the attacks. Don't accuse me I suck because I don't.
OK enough ranting: I'm going to replay Quake in two ways:
Quake 1.06 in DOSBox on Hard difficulty with the COOP respawn glitch (assuming this glitch still exists in later versions, I know it worked in the initial 1.01 which is what I only had as kid) so if I die I can just continue from start of level without bothering with save/load.
WinQuake on Hard difficulty without any glitches, I guarantee I will finish with little to no deaths! Because you know, WinQuake actually runs fine even on my laptop and on 320x200, it runs at normal speed!
Then I will play mods like the 5th episode (Dimension of the Past) and certain older maps and mods because I never played them before.
As for Quake 2, a while ago I finished the test (beta) and demo versions on medium, hard and nightmare. Died once on hard and nightmare difficulties on the demo 3.14 version (fucking shotgun guys at beginning) but other than that Quake 2 is still really easy, though a bit harder with keyboard controls only. I finished the full game last time on Hard difficulty (back in 2018) without any deaths (however I used Mouse + WASD keys), this time I'm playing on Medium and default keyboard controls (arrow keys and such). I'm currently on the second chapter/unit. Only thing I hate is the game sometimes crashes when I'm about to surface from water. I will see when I will play the expansions, I only finished them once in KMQuake2 port (probably on Medium difficulty and probably with infinite ammo cheat/trick that I found as kid) because the original exe had issues with loading the saved games, have no idea why but the error was "function pointers have moved" or something like that. I hope I can finish them legitimately this time, as before I using KMQuake2, I beat them in original exe with warping to final level from multiplayer menu, meaning I played in coop mode and with Blaster only. Was a pain in the ass. Though to be fair this is how I also played Quake 2 first time, after I got killed in first few levels and giving up, since I was already playing first Quake in SP COOP mode at that time, I tried to see this glitch works in Q2 as well. It doesn't but you can start game directly in COOP mode (offline multiplayer) and it still lets you save game with the caveat you can't pause your game.
As for Quake 3, I finished the initial 1.11 release on Bring It On and latest 1.32 release (both Arena & Team Arena) on Hurt Me Plenty difficulty and wasn't too bad, although I finished each map in first try (on first place), I did get frustrated when I died often in some arenas (this applies to HMP difficulty where I finished 11 maps without dying, while on BIO I finished 22 maps without dying), like for example I remember dying few times in a row from Hunter (because when she uses Lightning Gun on you, you are fucked even with full health and 150+ armor!) and Klesk with his fucking aimbot railgun at few meters away (yes really) but somehow I even beat Xaero perfectly without dying and I admit my Railgun aiming isn't the greatest but I did get a fair amount of Impressives as well. I know Xaero becomes an aimbot on the two hardest difficulties but to be honest, I didn't bother completing Quake 3 this time on Hardcore or Nightmare, I never even managed. The closest I got as kid was beating half of maps on HMP, then the other half split between Hardcore and Nightmare. But otherwise, I never beat ALL levels on Hardcore/Nightmare (except with some cheats/tricks like kicking the bots from the server with /kick command and then adding easy ones, the level still counts as completed on chosen difficulty). Interestingly, a few years ago I played OpenArena and beat all levels on Hardcore difficulty, only one level took me like 3-4 tries but rest I did in first try (and only one level I had done without dying). So that means I'm pretty good at Quake 3, I think I should beat it entirely on Hardcore next time.
One tip I can give is try to time the pickups (powerups and armors) and grab as much ARMOR as you can because armor stacks until 200 (though it goes down to 100 over time just like with the health) and absorbs 2/3 damage, I found it much more useful because the mega health/regeneration powerups are rather rare (some maps have the +5 health globes but be sure to pick those as well) and I found you can easily survive many shots and you can just restock on health/armor after a fight, if you survive and know the map and item placement.
For Team Arena, there isn't much to comment on the Team matches (CTF, One Flag, Overload and Harvester) and they were easy for the most part (the bots on your team are pretty good and helpful), the tips I can give is try to grab one of the two best runes, which are Doubler and Guard. If a map has a lot of armor available and even health (mega health, regeneration) try getting Doubler before other bots get it and get as much health/armor as possible, Doubler will also be great for countering other bots that have the guard rune (I hate whenever a guarded bot gets the flag! it takes forever to kill it.), also Doubler + Quad Damage = Overkill! And if a map doesn't have much health/armor available, get the Guard rune and you will mostly become a walking tank with maxed health/armor (you get instantly 200 HP/Armor regardless what you had before picking up, kinda like Megasphere from Doom 2) and you should survive most encounters but the best thing is you have unlimited regeneration (if you pick up a regeneration powerup while having Guard, it doesn't do anything in this case) and health is maxed to 200, meaning you can pick up the regular health pickups and the armor doesn't go down to 100 if you have more than that. The two other runes are Ammo Regen (makes ammo regenerate and also makes attacks slightly faster) and Scout (makes you run and shoot faster but prevents you to get any armor and discards any armor you currently have). If the bots got every useful runes and only these two are left, it is better to get one of them than none but if the map has a decent amount of armor available, it may be wise to ignore the scout rune and just go without any rune and grab the armor, so you aren't too fragile in a fight (though Scout can be used to easily dodge enemy attacks and also just grab the flag and run with it while ignoring enemies). Also for the 4 tournament maps against bots, I got a bit frustrated at the maps where you fight Fritzkrieg and Janet. I beat them both 10 to 5. On the other hand, the fight with Pi was easiest, beat 10 to 0 and perfect! I also beat James, 10 to 0 but I died like 2-3 times (one time I fell into pit and so did the bot two other times he killed me) and the game still awarded me with "Shutout Bonus" (this happens when the opposite bot/team has 0 score).
Overall, I really recommend Team Arena, it's underrated and REALLY FUN! I actually think some things are even better done than original Quake 3 Arena (for instance CTF was already there since the initial release of Q3A but the TA version made it even better with the new weapons and runes). I know Quake Live is based off both Arena & Team Arena but too bad it's no longer free, I used to play it back in 2010-2011 and it was fun! I liked some of its features and training maps and even those community maps as official maps (that's basically the equivalent/precursor of the addons becoming official for the recent Doom ports). Sadly the 2014-2015 updates kinda killed it (with loadouts and the removal of TA weapons, though they added the new Heavy Machinegun to compensate which was pretty good but I will miss TA weapons) and the fact the game was migrated to Steam and no longer free and also added Steam Workshop which I never liked (due to the fact anyone can upload anything here and some people claim maps as their own. And yes I know it was free even on Steam for a year but I no longer have that Steam account which had Quake Live. It's a shame.
If anyone is wondering about on what difficulty I play (and why I find some games too easy/hard), when I was a kid, I played mostly on easier skills and had fun but I also found them often too easy (in case of Quake 2 I refused to play on Easy as it was way too easy and noticed you take half damage, I was doing fine on Medium and even with keyboard controls, while for Doom games and Heretic and Hexen I also found easiest too easy, in case of Heretic and Hexen noticed how the Quartz Flasks and Mytsic Urns get automatically used when you are about to die), so I played these games on second difficulty I think, while since 2010 or so until last year usually I played on harder skills, this includes the Hard equivalent for Quake games, CGS for Duke3D, UV for Doom and so on.
This time I decided to go toward the normal difficulties and I'm having a better time in certain situations. Because I often get frustrated when I die and lose in video games, you can say I have no patience these days, which is true but then again I wasn't a very patient person. Although Quake 3 has always been a frustrating game (even when I was kid I was raging so much at it when I was losing and even when playing online) but these days I keep my calm and only get frustrated if I unfairly die (if a bot somehow seems to kill me quickly even after I shot at him a lot of times) and even lose a match but thankfully this hasn't happened these days when playing Quake 3.
Sorry for this long post, I didn't intend to write so much and taking me 1-2 hours to write. Oh and that Arcade version of Quake seems interesting, I just read about its existence last year for first time and I'm glad to see there is finally a way to play it on PC! I will think about it in next days/weeks after I finish with my regular Quake playthroughs and see what's this version about.
Help
Then few days later saw that listing with Quake CD (WinQuake release) and the expansions as separate CDs and sealed but the catch was it was a bit more expensive and well I had to buy this and I don't regret the decision too much. That combo CD with the mission packs would have been an excellent addition to my collection and could have sit alongside my Duke3D Kill a Ton CDs which are sealed (though I unsealed last month CD 2 because it was a bit damaged inside, the CD is fine thankfully). I still intend to buy that Mission Packs CD combo again (I actually got it once in 2014 or so from eBay but it was in used condition and the CD was quite scratched and eventually sold it as it was barely read by the CD/DVD driver, remember sometimes having trouble copying the mission packs folder from the CD because it failed to copy one of expansions). I will talk about my video game collections another time, if anyone is interested.
Duke4.net
DNF #1
Duke 3D #1
