joshd2012

Those of you who splooged on the DVD edition of Quake 4 received the added gift of Quake 2 and the Quake 2 expansions: Ground Zero and The Reckoning (the net pack Extremities was not included). This is great for Q2 fans, because it provides a WindowsXP capable installer, and installs all 3 games at once. The bad news, the original soundtrack is not included (for some reason). And while the version includes the last upgrade, there have been many more advancements with Quake 2 since it was released so many years ago.

Installation

Insert the Bonus DVD into your computer and install Quake 2. Make sure you install it to the C:\Quake II folder (at least until the engine gets its fix). This process will do a full install of the game, including all movies. You will not need the DVD to play this game after it is installed. The version installed will be the latest v3.20, so no need to upgrade. Don't put any links on your desktop, because you won't be using that executable to play the game.

Unlocking the Power

Go to Quake2Evolved and download the latest version (v.40). Unzip the contents. Go to C:\Program Files\id Software\Quake II and copy/paste the contents of the zip file here. It will warn you that the folder baseq2 already exists and that you will overwrite files. Click 'Yes to All'. You will now use the q2e.exe file to play the game. To create a shortcut, right-click on q2e.exe and select 'Send To' and click on 'Desktop'. You are now ready to play the game.

A New HUD

A HUD or Heads-Up Display is graphic which shows you how much life and amo you have left on the bottom of the screen. I prefer the Q3 HUD over Q2. To install, once again visit Quake2Evolved and download the HUD you want to use. Unzip the contents. Copy/paste the .pk2 file into the baseq2 folder. The game will now use the new HUD in place of the original.

A New Look

Quake 2 textures are old... real old. The game was limited by what was possible at the time, but we are no longer restricted by such limitations. Download texture pack built for Q2E, you can find one here, and unzip the contents. Install the contents in the baseq2 folder. The majority of the textures will now be replaced with more detailed versions which replicate the original patern.

Old Sound

This very of Quake 2 for some reason does not include the soundtrack - which in my opinion is one of the best game soundtracks of all time. If you happen to have the original Quake 2 CD, you can rip the tracks off of here (they are encoded just like it was a regular music CD) or find them on the Internet. Convert the tracks to OGG format and label them track02.ogg through track11.ogg (track01 is the actual game). Make a folder for them called 'Music' and copy/paste this folder into the baseq2, rogue, and xatrix folders. The game will now cue up the correct track from the soundtrack for each level.

Getting Sound

This program does use a unique codec, so download the file from their website, otherwise you will have audio problems.

The next release of Q2E will support new models for the items and characters, as well as relit maps to make use of per-pixel-lighting. Explore the forums and check out what these guys are doing, and help support the effort.

After making these mods, Quake 2 is much more playable while still retaining what made the game so great.

DVDTalker76

The guide is much appreciated. You might want to double-check your opening wording, though.

PixyJunket

I played a little bit with Quake II Evolved this weekend, mainly just to enable my monitor's native resolution, so I haven't tried any of the new textures or anything but I'm having a blast playing the single player game again. It's almost got me in the mood to host another Q2 LAN party at my new place.

Is there a Quake I Evolved, or something similar?

Were there ever any RPG styled Doom/Quake mods?

slop101

Does Q2evolved also work with the expansion packs, if so, how?

PixyJunket

Yup, there's an option on the main Q2E menu that says "Add-Ons".
You can select an expansion from that menu.

joshd2012

There are actually a lot of them out there, but the most respected right now is: FUHQuake

To play the expansions in Q2E, there tab called "modifications" I believe - its the last option. If you click on that, it allows you to pick which game you want to play, as well as any demos or dev maps you may have.

There is a weird error some people are having with saving and the Q4 version of Q2. I'm sure it will be fixed once the guys who work on this project get their copies. They are in Great Britian, so they have to wait longer to get a copy. But, if you aren't having the error, then no worries.

PixyJunket

Thanks for the link Josh! Great resource considering GLQuake won't run on my machine (only WinQuake will of the official builds). It looks damn good too.. I played through Episode I last night, still remembered a lot of the secrets, but DAMN I forgot how great the mood in this game was, especially the soundtrack. I hope id revisits this style of Quake at some point with their newer graphics engine and Trent in the audio chair again. It sends shivers up my spine just thinking about it.

joshd2012

No problem Pixy. There is also a retexturing and restructuring project which you can add to FUHQuake, but as I understand it, there are already a lot of new texturing in there already. Anyway, if you are looking for more new textures for Q1, check out the FaceLift Project:

http://facelift.quakedev.com/

Another good Q1 project is called DarkPlaces which actually allows for great lighting effects on the maps. It is a little more intensive - as you need to add a lighting script for each map - but the end result is very nice.

GreenMonkey

Great post

I still have Q2 installed and play it online sometimes when UT2004 pisses me off. I didn't know about new fancy textures though, I will try to find time to give it a shot.

lawyer goodwill

This is great stuff! I've been wanting to bust out some original Quake for a few months now. It is time! This thread is delivering the goods! (Three exclamation points=much excitement)

Fincher Fan

Why? I splooged on the DVD when I saw it running.

PixyJunket

Can anybody recommend some good single-player TCs for Quake or Quake II?

I found an X-Men one.. but, no.. just, no.

joshd2012

Now its time to fix up Quake.

Engine

The first thing to do, obviously, it get a modified engine. Besides the fact that the original executable doesn't run on Windows, the original version doesn't allow for any 32bit modificatons. Go to DarkPlaces and download the latest version (b20050818). Unzip the contents into your Quake folder and create a shortcut on your desktop for darkplaces.exe. When you doubleclick on that shortcut, it will refresh your screen and then show you your desktop in the new resolution. Don't worry, in a few seconds the game will come up. This engine has a lot of customization in it, so take your time going through the menus. This engine - when fully maxed out - can bring the highest performance computers to a crawl.

Real Time Lighting

The next thing to do is add some real time lighting. Go to KGB|Romi and download the id1.zip file (and the others if you have those mission packs). Unzip the contents into your quake/id1 folder. To use the lights, go to the Graphics menu in the Options and select 'ON' for RT World.

Textures

Those old 8bit textures just don't hold water anymore. Head over to The Facelift Project and pick up the latest version of the textures. Create a folder in 'id1' called "textures" and unzip the contents here. Note: don't get the structures as they don't work in this engine.

Structures

Time to make those heath packs look like heath packs and not blobs. Go to Quake Remodeled and download the Ammo Box and Deathmatch packs. Unzip these into your 'id1' folder. You will now have to rename these paks to "pak#.pak" where the # is the next pak number available. With a full Quake install, you should have pak0.pak and pak1.pak already there. So rename the ammo box pak to "pak2.pak" and the deathmatch pak to "pak3.pak". For a few more, head over to Plague's Pak and get the TF pak. Do the same as you did with the first two paks, and rename it to pak4.pak.

Skins

With a realtime lighting engine, you need new skins to take advantage of the new technology. Go to OgrO's and download each of the new skins. They were designed to be used in Tenebrae (an inferior mod), but work well in Dark Places. After you download all the zip files, create a folder in your 'quake/id1/texture' folder called 'progs' and unzip the contents here.

Sound

Similar to Q2, this game requires the CD to be in your drive to play the soundtrack - well, not anymore. After ripping the soundtrack to ogg format, and renaming as track02.ogg - track11.ogg, create a folder in id1 called 'sound'. In the newly created 'sound' folder, create a folder called 'cdtracks'. Place the soundtrack here and you will no longer need a CD to hear NIN while in the game, or create your own soundtrack. Even use the Q2 soundtrack you are using in Q2E if you want. When the game loads, the track will skip for a few seconds before playing fine.

That's pretty much it. With all the new textures, skins, and what not, this engine can easily take down your computer to a crawl. While setting up the game, the demo will be playing in the background. It is advisable that you turn on Frames per Second (available in the Options) to see how your changes affect the gameplay. You want atleast 30fps. Enjoy.

joshd2012

The error is in the directory structure. The game must be installed to the C:\Quake II directory (original default) instead of the C:\Program Files\id software\Quake II directory that the DVD points to. Hopefully we will get a fix soon, I'll keep this thread updated.

PixyJunket

Great work again! I actually just finished an Easy run over the weekend on FuhQuake and I thought that was pretty enough. I'll check this out for my next run on Normal. Do you happen to know off-hand if it'll work with the expansion packs? I know for a fact that FuhQuake does not. Glad to hear that Dark Places will use .ogg encodes, I can put my CD away now, I wasn't sure if FuhQuake did that or not (since its main purpose is on multi-player).

I found a copy of Hexen II complete in box at Half-Price Books for $6 this weekend. Here's an updated engine for that as well but I don't think there's much beyond this like there is for the Quake games (new textures and models, etc.). But it allows it to run under XP without issues and that's all I'm asking for.
http://newhexen.raven-games.com/

Playing that again I'm almost saddened that Raven didn't make another fantasy style FPS behind the Doom 3 engine.. but the Quake name and marines with guns probably sells a thousand times better than swords and magic.

areacode212

Wow, sounds good. I won't be getting Q4 anytime soon, but I still have Q2 from back in the day--still one of my favorite games ever thanks to all the different mods that were out back then (though the SP game was pretty dull, IMO). I'll have to check out this Q2E and play my favorite maps with the new textures.

joshd2012

I'm not sure about the mission packs, because my Mission Pack 1 is on its way to my house, but as soon as I get it I'm going to try it out. I know there are RTLights for it, so I imagine yes. It may require a separate install of DarkPlaces, but I couldn't say for sure until I get my CD.

I'll ask my friend about the possibility of a new Hexen game, but I know right now he is working on the new Wolfenstein game. He probably won't be able to tell me if one is in works even if it was, but I'll try.

jeffdsmith

Pixy and Josh getting along, I believe this is another sign of the gaming apocalypse. Oh my.

joshd2012

Pixy,

I just checked out the read me file, and it says that the following are supported add-ons:

Supported games:
Quake : -quake, this is active by default, gamedirs: id1
Quake: Scourge of Armagon : -hipnotic or hipnotic in executable name or path, gamedirs: hipnotic, id1
Quake: Dissolution of Eternity : -rogue or rogue in executable name or path, gamedirs: rogue, id1
Nehahra : -nehahra or nehahra in executable name or path, gamedirs: nehahra, id1
GoodVsBad2 : -goodvsbad2 or gvb2 in executable name or path, gamedirs: rts
BattleMech : -battlemech or battlemech in executable name or path, gamedirs: base
PrydonGate : -prydon or prydon in executable name or path, gamedirs: prydon

What I can't figure out, is how to get them to play. Do you know what it means to put something in the executable name or path? Does that mean I need to enter it in the console? or change darkplaces.exe to darkplaces-hipnotic.exe?

PixyJunket

You need to enter it on the command line or in a shortcut. Shortcut is easier in my opinion. Create a shortcut to darkplaces.exe and then right-click and go to Properties, then go to the Shortcut tab. Where it has Target simply add the commands after the filename. You can also set your default resolutions here too among other things, for example my FuhQuake shortcut reads "D:\Games\FuhQuake\fuhquake-gl.exe -width 1280 -height 1024 -conwidth 480 -conheight 360 -bpp 32 -cdaudio".

PixyJunket

CHRIST! Dark Places brings my computer to its knees. Turning on RT World gives me a solid 10 FPS at 800x600. I'll be messing around with the numerous effects until I can get a good FPS at 1280x1024.. if I want to play the expansions I'll have to get it running.

joshd2012

Pixy,

Thanks for the help. I'll definitely give that a try when I get home.

Yeah, DP is a beast. It is not nearly as optimized as Q2E, but a whole lot more than Tenebrae. That, and all the AA and gloss texture buffing, it can really take down a system if you aren't careful. I got it running at ~40fps, which means if there is a lot of stuff happening on the screen, it can sink to ~22fps. This is at 1024x768 with everything on. You can disable some things like the sky texture or the gloss mapping or all those enhancers and just enjoy Quake with the new textures if you want.

But I tell ya, the real time lighting does have a huge visual impact on the game. The guy who wrote them spent years developing them, and it shows.