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Open source Quake 2 port emerges Published: 13th Jan 2007, 23:07:55. Big Freaking Gun meets XScale-powered Iyonix A free port of 3D death match game Quake 2 is on the cards after a programmer married the game's source code with the Iyonix's graphics acceleration. The alpha-quality RISC OS port, produced by Dave Brown, uses the OpenGL-compatible IyonixMesa library - which employs the 3D features in the Castle Iyonix's PCI GeForce graphics cards. Dave uploaded his efforts to the Internet earlier today, complete with source code and a pre-built version using the GCCSDK. Published in December 1997, Quake 2 was made open source in 2001 by developers id, although you need to buy the game to get the official level designs, textures and other data to play. Dave admitted that the software needs speeding up to be playable, but suggested a number of ways in which this could be achieved - such as including DMA support in IyonixMesa and tackling the library's use of floating point math. IyonixMesa developer Simon Wilson has said he will look into the DMA issue, and added that a fixed point OpenGL ES driver is possible and would be sufficiently quick on the 600MHz Iyonix. Simon also reported a show stopping problem with the newer GeForce FX cards used in the Iyonix and his IyonixMesa software, although he believes DMA support will address this. According to Dave, the game currently "crashes a fair bit and is pretty slow", requires RISC OS 5.10 and a GeForce2 MX card, doesn't support sound, leaves dynamic areas behind, and has yet to be documented. The port was first started on Dave's RiscPC, but was shelved until he bought and Iyonix and made the software 32bit-compatible. An A9home and RiscPC version may also be possible using a software OpenGL driver. Development of the port was first discussed on the Iconbar forums. Dave said: "It's very difficult to say how long it will be until it's fast enough to be properly playable. It also needs a fair bit of tidying up to make it 'consumer grade'. I guess the best thing to do is just watch this space. As they say, in Duke Nukem Forever style, it'll be done when it's done. "Personally, I've no interest in attempting to make any money out of it. THe port is for my own and hopefully others' entertainment. As Quake 2 was released under the GPL, this port will be under the same licence." • According to Jeffrey Lee, punters need to download a PC demo installer, set its type to &DDC (Archive), open it, and copy Install.Data.baseq2 to somewhere on your hard disc. Then edit !GLQuake2.!Run so that the Dir command is set to the directory containing your baseq2 file. Then at the game's console, type 'map demo1' to start a new game. The same can be done with the official game CD, and the Install.Data directory on it. A screenshot of the Quake 2 RISC OS port from Dave Brown Links Read the original thread here, or download the pre-built game. For programmers, the pre-built libraries and the source code (all downloads are zip files) What is Quake 2? Discussion Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date | Skip to the end Nice! highlandcattle on 14/1/07 2:02PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] wow, very exciting news. This could be the most graphicaly adanced game the RISC OS platform has ever seen.... BTW what happened to the Duke Nukem Port? leeshep on 14/1/07 3:37PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Great effort guys! I know it'll sound crazy but I almost wish it was a commercial release as it would be facinating to see what sort of sales you could get. It's good to see this pushing/helping development of IyonixMesa - especially as I have a FX5200 ^_^ I can't assist with the coding but I'll certainly give it a test drive when I'm able! JohnB on 14/1/07 4:45PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] The Duke port is sitting on David's/my hard drive - it never quite got finished as I recall. We had it in demo form at one of the SW shows I think. It basically worked, but I think there were some occasional crash bugs and maybe something audio-wise as well. I'd like to support a commercial release of Quake2 (we have our updated quake1-32bit source etc) but sourcing the Q2 data in any retail form is likely to be tricky these days. Iyonix game sales have been pitiful, (as in under 20 sales total) but it has been said (rightly) that we don't do much promotion on them. Quake, Descent and Descent2 are all 32bit safe right now. arawnsley on 14/1/07 7:01PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] As a side note, I think it is brilliant that Mesa is usable for real OpenGL games. I wasn't sure how comprehensive Mesa was, but this is proof that it is pretty solid - granted Quake2 only used a small subset of stuff, but it is very nice to see hardware accelerated stuff on the Iyonix. I guess the next step is for Mesa to become something akin to a system resource, preferably shipped on every Iyonix. That way the Iyonix can claim to be shipped with GL-based hardware accelerated 3D, which is rather nice! arawnsley on 14/1/07 7:05PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Ohhh now I'm remembering that GLquake1 source is also available... (begins to fantasise about moving some of the 300? quake boxes still stuck in the loft). arawnsley on 14/1/07 7:09PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Well if the Iyonix could have GL 3D does anyone know if the A9 graphics processor is also an area that could benefit as well. After all RISCOS, what ever flavour, shipped with GL hardware acceleration sounds even better. bluenose on 14/1/07 8:09PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Would the Q1 GL source facilitate a RPC conversion of Quake 2? AW on 14/1/07 8:53PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] The A9's graphics processor does 2D only to the best of my knowledge. The original Mesa will run on any RISC OS machine using software rendering only. However, it is extremely slow and thus unusable for games. IyonixMesa shows a lot of promise with Quake - it renders at approx 3-6 frames per second making extensive use of floating point, so a fixed point (integer) version will run a great deal quicker. The slow frame rate is only due to the rate at which the ARM can calculate each frame and send the data to the grpahics card - the NVidia GPU itself is not the bottleneck here. ksattic on 14/1/07 11:40PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] I must confess myself disappointed to see Drobe use the bowdlerisation "Big Freaking Gun". Whilst this weapon is apparently described as "Big, uh, freakin' gun" in the Quake 2 game manual, Tom Hall's original design document for Doom leaves no doubt as to the true meaning of 'BFG': [link] thesnark on 16/1/07 1:31AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Please login before posting a comment. 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Login Username Password Create a new account Forgot your password? Search this website This week's poll Recent developments have left me feeling... Assured ROS will appear on new hardware 55% Pleased OS desktop features are being developed 10% ROL and ROOL will eventually kiss and make up 5% App developments are critical 10% Dave Holden sleeps easy at night 19% Discuss this | Archives Featured articles Wakefield 2009 wrap-up, photos and video The weekend's RISC OS event has been and gone and we've got the rest of our lives to look forward to. Here's a round-up of extra news and Drobe's show-related coverage and some photos taken from Wakefield 2009 - plus a video from the show floor.  16 comments, latest by AW on 29/4/09 7:41PM. Published: 27 Apr 2009 RISC OS 5 pictured running on ARM Cortex-A8 kit Picture exclusive - This grainy photograph shows a port of RISC OS 5, sourced from the RISC OS Open project, running on a Beagleboard - a device powered by a 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor with a built-in graphics chip. The port, developed by Jeffrey Lee with help from Uwe Kall and ROOL staff, is seen as a major breakthrough for the shared-source project as it proves the OS can be ported to new hardware without the need for a large team of engineers.  75 comments, latest by rjek on 30/4/09 3:15PM. Published: 25 Apr 2009 Open documents from Windows-using pals with handy online tool It can be a pain when someone sends you a file that can only be opened on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux - but with the help of a free-to-use website and NetSurf, Paul Stewart reveals how these documents can be viewed on RISC OS.  6 comments, latest by AW on 8/5/09 12:12AM. Published: 19 Apr 2009 Useful links News and media: Iconbar • MyRISCOS • ArcSite • RISCOScode • ANS • C.S.A.Announce • Archive • Qercus • RiscWorld • GAG-News Top developers: RISCOS Ltd • RISC OS Open • MW Software • R-Comp • Advantage Six • VirtualAcorn Dealers: CJE Micros • APDL • Castle • a4 • X-Ample • Liquid Silicon • Webmonster Usergroups: WROCC • RONE • NKACC • IRUG • SASAUG • ROUGOL • RONWUG • MUG • GAG • RISCOS.be Useful: RISCOS.org • RISCOS.info • Filebase • NetSurf Non-RISC OS: The Register • The Inquirer • Apple Insider • BBC News • Sky News • Google News • xkcd • diodesign

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