The game variable "r_wateralpha" allows for water transparency - but most maps don't have the necessary "vis" information. There are two ways to get this. After setting r_wateralpha < 1.0, issuing the console command r_novis 1 enables the game to calculate it's own vis information at the penalty of cpu cycles. Alternatively, vispatch is a utility that patches your Quake/QuakeWorld levels to support transparent water.
To do this you'll need the vispatch utility, as well as the vispatch data files for the game you are patching.
Vispatch was originally written by Andy Bay but has not had much support since and is finicky to use. Old Linux binaries on the web won't work, and the utility itself has a rigid structure. To patch the main data files in "id1" - from your Quake directory - type vispatch -dir id1 -data id1.vis
Vispatch Homepage (outdated)
These tweaks are for users with a GeForce video card (or better) and Nvidia's proprietary drivers. They are accessed using the bash command export {variable}={value} and then starting the Quake engine from the same command line. Alternatively, recent drivers have a nvidia-settings command which starts up a user-friendly control panel.
Full details of these tweaks are in the Nvidia README, normally installed at "/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README"
export __GL_FSAA_MODE={value}
video card effect value
=====================================================
all disable 0
-----------------------------------------------------
GeForce, GeForce2 1.5x1.5 Supersampling 3
2x2 Supersampling 4
-----------------------------------------------------
GeForce4 2x Bilinear 1
2x2 Supersampling 4
-----------------------------------------------------
GeForce3, GeForce4 Ti, 2x Bilinear 1
GeForce FX 4x Bilinear 4
-----------------------------------------------------
export __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1
Synchronizes GL output with your monitor's vertical refresh, giving a more stable image especially on slower video cards.
The author has limited experience with this OS and currently uses FreeBSD 5.3 with Nvidia's proprietary drivers. Darkplaces and Hammer of Thyrion work well with this system.
QuDos has recently ported several engines to Linux and has recently started work on FreeBSD compatibility. His great Quake II project is also now BSD friendly.
For basic GLQuake support, you can find a hacked FreeBSD binary and source tarball here.
QuakeForge is a comprehensive Quake project, but may have installation issues with newer FreeBSD releases. The memory allocator routine "alloca" is not correctly detected on FreeBSD 5.3. The fix is, after running "configure", to add "#define C_ALLOCA 1" to "include/config.h" and undefine other ALLOCA variables. Another issue is the opening of plugins. If the project builds, but you can't get the console or menus, you may have to enable static plugins using configure LDFLAGS=-lpthread --with-static-plugins.
QNX is a commercial real-time operating system, probably most notable to hobbyists as being a successful microkernel OS. SDL Quake-1.0.9 compiles and runs on QNX-NC-6.2.1 after running configure --host=QNX and then making these changes:
Makefile: -LIBS = -L/usr/local/lib -lSDL -lm -lph -lasound
+LIBS = -L/usr/local/lib -lSDL -lm -lph -lasound -lsocket
net.h: -extern unsigned long htonl (unsigned long hostlong);
-extern unsigned long ntohl (unsigned long netlong);
sys_sdl.c: -#include <sys/shm.h>
-int psize = getpagesize();
+int psize = _SC_PAGESIZE;
Quake's in-game console is a great feature and has been adopted by many other games. Now you can also use the 'tilda' key to access X terminal windows. Both Yakuake and Tilda are projects inspired by this idea.
Unfortunately neither are easy to install from source. Yakuake is a KDE application and needs the KDE development packages, and compiling Tilda is more complicated. It requires a couple of unusual libraries, and gave this author compilation errors, so perhaps looking for a RPM package is a better choice. The author can recommend Yakuake as a very handy X terminal.
... this ... now officially labels this guy as a badass graphics programmer. I can hear it now: MR. BURNS: "I need a programmer! Get John Carmack on the line!" SMITHERS: "He's unavailable sir." MR. BURNS: "Then get me his non-union Belgian equivalent!"
Application Program Interface. The computer libraries which are used when programming, and link the game to the hardware.
A computer generated player with artificial intelligence (cough), in a multiplayer game. Used to play multiplayer when no-one's around or not connected to a network.
This word is used in two subtly different ways. In single player, the Quake game is known as a client, with different clients using their own graphics libraries (for example, the GL client "quake.glx" or the X11 client "quake.x11"). The usage is similar in multiplayer games, but also means the per-user program which connects to a single "server" program which lets all the players exist in the same world.
First Person Shooter. A shooting game viewed from the "first person" perspective.
Modification to the original Quake game varying from a complete game overhaul (total conversion) to simple map/model reworks. Quake was designed to allow for ease of platform portability with it's own computer language "Quake C" giving mappers control over most every aspect of their Quake world.
Newbie. Someone new to a computer related topic.
A software patch (or diff) is a single file used to alter a source code tree before compilation. It is often used to fix bugs or add new features that the original author didn't include.
Usage of the GNU patch utility is of the form patch [--dry-run] -pNUM <FILE where NUM is the number (usually 0 or 1) of directories to strip from the patch file. This number is not obvious except to unix gurus, but using the "--dry-run" option will let you test run patch so you can find the correct NUM. ...Using the wrong number will make patch output all sorts of cryptic messages which can be terminated with a control-C character.
Of course you could always type man patch and learn for yourself how to use this powerful unix command. ;-/
Simple DirectMedia Layer cross platform hardware API widely used in Linux games.
A broad term indicating a program is faulty and terminated abruptly. Depending on the bash shell's ulimit -c setting, a dump of the program's image (coredump) may be left behind for examination with the GNU debugger (GDB).
A program central to multiplayer games to which every player connects.
An archive file such as somefile.tar created by the "tar" program. It is often compressed using the programs "gzip" or "bzip2", in which case it will normally end in the letters .gz or .bz2. The extension .tar.gz is often shortened to .tgz.
Thanks to:
This webpage was constructed using Linuxdoc-Tools-0.9.20 (currently unmaintained), Vim and Bash.
impulses, ezquake.
Miscellaneous link updates.
A small section for 64 bit cpus.
Moved "Links" to it's own section.
Added some troubleshooting hints for Quake IV.
A new section for (gcc-4.1) compilation issues.
Links to the Quake III Cell Shading project.
Changed order of game engines, added extra compilation notes, and expanded the Tenebrae, SDLQuake and wmQuake sections.
New multiplayer entries for ProQuake, XQF and Tremulous.
Reorganised several categories in the "Other" section, including new Nvidia Tweaks, License, Changelog and Vispatch sections.
Updated the author's patched Tyr-Quake binary, with a few new hacks added to TyrQuake-0.54.
Some small changes to the featured mods.
This document is released under the GPL.
The Quake How-To is also available as a text file and a single html file.
The latest version should be available here.
Version v1.0.1.14 (30 August 1998) of the Quake How-To is located at the original author's site.
Steven A.