Sometimes they're just a #define away, sometimes increasing one limit will just exceed another and worst of all, sometimes you'll need to change the client/server protocol which may break a lot of interesting things ...

As for Linux non-GL build, check out TyrQuake at http://www.planetquake.com/tyrann . You might need to ask Tyrann for the executables.

Kinn: Thanks for the kind words :) 

Tyr-Quake seems to work nicely. Didn't even take very long to build... thanks for the pointer.

Now I need to remember what all the huge maps I haven't been able to play yet were... some of them were by necros, I think :) 

...hm, maybe the real reason people dislike DP is because there isn't any documentation to let people know that they can turn things off

Its not just that. The problem, as with many other engines, is twofold. Sure, there's a lack of good documentation, making it hard or impossible to figure out how to turn off all the shitty graphical 'enhancements' that you don't want (and that often kill performance, too). But the real problem is that said shitty graphical effects are enabled by default, thereby requiring people to figure out how to turn it off, which they can't figure out because of the lack of adequete documentation... so they just delete it from their system and that's the end of it.

As an engine programmer I'm sure you're asking 'but how are people going to know about and see all my spankworthy new effects if they're disabled by default??'

Well the answer is to have good documentation so the user knows about, and is encouraged to try, all the new options. And put the stuff in the menu where possible.

I'd explore new engines a lot more thoroughly if my first reaction wasn't 'this looks like ass, how do I turn off all these shitty effects!' followed by 'can't figure it out, just delete the shit!' 

what frib said! 

Again, what Frib said.

Sometimes though, extra graphical effects actually fundamentally override existing effects. Take the rocket trail in DarkPlaces, for example. Now, I'm a big fan of DarkPlaces - it's Q3BSP support is what will keep me making Quake levels for years to come - however, it is not possible (at least not with the current version) to make it look exactly like (or close enough to) "Real" Quake, for many people's (including my) tastes.

Ok, I understand that DarkPlaces is meant primarily as a "Total Conversion" engine, so it is assumed that modders will use so many custom models and stuff that the radically different appearance of the built-in particle effects will be irrelevant. However, I feel that nevertheless, there should always be an option to at least "emulate" Quake's classic look and feel, to cater for the purists (or pseudo-purists, I guess if you're into custom engines). 

what frib said 

That bunny hopping bug you reported in DarkPlaces might have its origins in QuakeWorld - check this out: http://www.inside3d.com/qip/q1/bugsqw.htm

Scroll down a bit. Sounds awfully familiar doesn't it? 

meh :\
i'm so *not* surprised. 

Frib - there other people in the world, you know. People who use DP because they think it looks pretty and they *want* the custom effects to work out-of-the-box. If you cared that much, you could take LH up on his offedr and email him, instead of whining in forums that he hardly reads. 

And those people should be culled, to prevent further corruption. 

http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/index.html

Awesome, awesome stuff - LH has been really improving the Q3BSP stuff recently - most shaders will at least load a texture now, and the curve loading has been rewritten. To test it, I fired up Sock's POM map, and played Aard's DMSP mod in it. Seeing the quake monsters running around in that environment was pretty cool, I must say ^_^ 

i just tried the same, and it looks very nice.. plants seem to glow fullbright though, but the implementation of the q3bsp format in darkplaces is very effective, judging from having loaded this level 

If I had to name one problem with Quake, it was that my Radeon 9800 gave a framerate which was too playable. 

Well, in DarkPlaces, I get a consistent 60 FPS in 1024x768 (yes, in Sock's map) on my crappy 2 year old Dell laptop, with a graphics card that can barely play UT2K3, so try fiddling with the graphics options. 

turning off the bump mapping helps a lot. you won't miss it anyway.

i get ~120fps with 1000wpoly on a radeon 9600np. 

did anyone else notice the clipping bugs in POM? there's a few areas where there were invisible walls and such from, what seemed to be the floor edges.

i thought using q3bsp meant no hulls = no clipping problems... apparently not... i don't remember it happening in q3 though, so what's the deal? is the collision detection somehow different from q3 then?
also, the torches were completly white and the plants were fullbright. 

Does this mean that DP can run Pom directly or do you need Q3? 

Necros: Clipping problems - I didn't really notice any when I gave POM a thorough spanking - can you describe any specific locations where this occurs?

Of course, one would assume that the collision detection does not use the exact same algorithms as Q3, so there might be some areas where it "feels" different.

The torches, plants and some other shaders are not displayed correctly (the terrain textures don't blend together either), as complete Q3 shader support has not been added to DP (yet). This is cool for people like me who just want to make classic quake stuff, but in the Q3BSP format (and who aren't particularly fussed about spangly shader effects).

Mike: just the POM .pk3 should suffice, Although bear in mind that many shaders will not be displayed correctly. DP is NOT intended as a Q3 replacement engine - it is designed to allow Quake mappers to make classic Quake maps in the Q3BSP format.

Caveat: All of the above is pure conjecture on my part, and quite possibly a load of old bollocks - consult LordHavoc if you need proper answers to these questions. 

UK Teletext reports that British director Paul W. S. Anderson ("Alien vs. Predator", "Resident Evil") is to write the sixth movie in the "Alien" franchise, according to sources close to the film maker.

Newcastle-born Anderson, 39, has apparently been asked by Twentieth Century Fox to pen a new script featuring the creatures on their own (ie. no Predators). Whether that includes the return of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) however is unknown.

The offer for the moment is simply to pen the script, not to direct as such although that may happen thanks to the success of AVP 

that shouldn tbe there, please ignore, it's meant for the Film Thread. 

There are a few reasons DP has Q3BSP support:
1. Nexuiz really wanted to use it.
2. Usually less compile errors; since detail brushes do not result in BSP errors.
3. More flexible collisions; ability to have more than just projectiles, players, and shamblers.
4. Potentially faster rendering; more triangles per surface usually, however ydnar refuses to do the additional merging I requested to make detailed walls render faster. (Technical note: it merges multiple brush surfaces but only if they are flat, all one big flat surface, I wanted him to merge non-flat surfaces in the same room)
5. Patches make curved architecture easier; although good collisions against them are a nightmare to code. (Hence the mentioned collision problems I would like to find a solution to)

I will admit it is rather fun to run around Quake3 maps (both stock and usermade) in Quake1, but this isn't the intent, only a fun toy.

The intent of the Q3BSP support is that people may use it if they wish, just like all features in a modding oriented engine.

As for the darkplaces effects, DarkPlaces is not meant to be Quake, making an engine look intentionally identical to Quake seems largely a waste of time to me.

DarkPlaces is an engine by a level designer/modder (me), for modders and level designers to enjoy, I was not satisfied with the other engines available in early 2000, and still do not see any other engines designed to add new features for modders and level designers to use, so I still see this as a necessary project in the Quake community.

I redid the particle effects because I thought they could be improved, and to improve benchmarks, I feel I succeeded at both of these, some disagree. (Note: as mentioned later the rest of the darkplaces renderer is still slower than Quake however)

My biggest disappointments in darkplaces are currently:

Speed - it pales in comparison to Twilight (which benchmarks over 2x faster than glquake with its skillful design that I have not yet managed to match in darkplaces despite years of optimization, it is very hard to adapt to the Twilight design while preserving the full feature set modders and users have come to expect).

Features - There is so much more to do.

Enhancement criticism - some people rant against all Quake enhancements, I assume they want to play all mods in stock WinQuake even though WinQuake is not capable of the designers' artistic vision. I guess this is similar to wanting a watercolor version of the Mona Lisa because you don't like oil paintings. 

I'm going to be redoing my website here in the next few months and would like to actually offer screenshots of my maps. Is there a particular engine that gives the best image quality? I'm not looking for any of the advanced engine lighting ones really as none of my maps take advantage of those features.

Also do any of the engines offer higher DPI? I don't even know if thats possible to up the DPI in a game. But if one of them were able to give higher dpi then 72 that would be nice as I'm also working on a photoshop collage for my lame art class and i was going to use some shots as backgrounds to it.

Anyways, thanks for any advice you guys might have 

Go with a GL engine with overbrighting and 32bit colour depth (FitzQuake, DarkPlaces are two examples). I'm not sure of the maximum screen resolutions for these engines, but they're pretty high I'm sure. You'll also probably want .tga screenshot output for maximum quality.

Of course, you'll want to do a bit of post-processing in Photoshop (I find a simple curves correction ussually suffices). 

...making an engine look intentionally identical to Quake seems largely a waste of time to me.

I think most engine coders would agree with you, which is why I had to make Fitzquake. We all have our niche, I guess. 

I assume they want to play all mods in stock WinQuake even though WinQuake is not capable of the designers' artistic vision. I guess this is similar to wanting a watercolor version of the Mona Lisa because you don't like oil paintings.

Well, if I'm making a new Quake level, not a Total Conversion, I think it is important that graphically, it looks as close to Quake as possible (and by that I don't just mean WinQuake - I'd consider FitzQuake as a better Quake "renderer", whilst GlQuake is not).

Then again, DarkPlaces excites me, because it's Q3BSP support is just too cool for words.

I guess I have to find the balance between using DarkPlaces' powerful engine features, whilst still keeping it "Quakey".