Quake 2 was released 14 years ago!!

[eckeroo]

How old am I!!

1997 it was, and this game was one of the first major games to utilise 3d hardware acceleration. I'm using an ASUS A7M266 motherboard, which is I've been informed by the lm-sensor people, an old motherboard. Yet this old mobo and an nvidia titanium 200 graphics totally pimped Quake 2.

I bring up Quake 2 because I've just tried Wine for the first time and I was impressed at how successful it was at running my copy of Quake 2. I was expecting to do all sorts of fiddling around to get it to work, but nah, worked straight away. I'm going to try half-life next.

I don't want to talk games nostalgia, I just want to ask about present day home computer technology. What is DDR2 and DDR3?, what on earth is SATA?, when did 64bit come into play? what sort of machine would you need to play, say, World of Wafrcraft or the latest Medal of Honour? How powerful does a machine need to be? PC3-12800C8 !? And what sort of monster needs a 1GW power supply? I'm a little bit bewildered to be honest.

I think my yet-to-be-installed ASUS A7N8X Delexe motherboard with its 400MHz FSB to be the daddy. It's got an 8X AGP port yeah...8-)

[jerenept]

How old am I!!

1997 it was, and this game was one of the first major games to utilise 3d hardware acceleration. I'm using an ASUS A7M266 motherboard, which is I've been informed by the lm-sensor people, an old motherboard. Yet this old mobo and an nvidia titanium 200 graphics totally pimped Quake 2.



I bring up Quake 2 because I've just tried Wine for the first time and I was impressed at how successful it was at running my copy of Quake 2. I was expecting to do all sorts of fiddling around to get it to work, but nah, worked straight away. I'm going to try half-life next.

cool.


I don't want to talk games nostalgia, I just want to ask about present day home computer technology. What is DDR2 and DDR3?, what on earth is SATA?, when did 64bit come into play? what sort of machine would you need to play, say, World of Warcraft or the latest Medal of Honour? How powerful does a machine need to be? PC3-12800C8 !? And what sort of monster needs a 1GW power supply? I'm a little bit bewildered to be honest.

DDR2 is twice as fast as DDR, whic is twice as fast as those archaic PC133 sticks some people still use.
SATA- Serial ATA. Transfer rates of up to 6 Gbps. Most modern computers, HDD's and optical drives use SATA rather than the older PATA (Parallel ATA)
64 bit came into play a while ago AFAIK.

A 1 GW power supply? holy hell..... :P
that's the output of some power stations buddy.....
OTOH, there are 1000 and 1500 W power supplies, typically used in gaming machines with 2 or more graphics cards, and an overclocked CPU.


I think my yet-to-be-installed ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard with its 400MHz FSB to be the daddy. It's got an 8X AGP port yeah...8-)

whoa. I assume you speak of this? (http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=TmQtPJv4jIxmL9C2)

[eckeroo]

A 1 GW power supply? holy hell.....

I meant to say '1 kW' but hey, the way these computers are going, it won't be long before they do require their own hydroelectric dam to power em.


whoa. I assume you speak of this?

That's the one, except without the 'E'. Ain't she a beauty. I'm looking into buying PC 3200 DDR for it. Although I don't know how much better it is than the PC 2100 which I have spare already.

I mean seriously, if a 200 MHz Pentium II processor can play DVDs and do Microsoft Office, why this exponential increase in raw computer power?

[AndyCinDallas]

A 1 GW power supply? holy hell..... :P
that's the output of some power stations buddy.....
And almost enough to power a flux-capacitor :mrgreen:

[Dustin2128]

I mean seriously, if a 200 MHz Pentium II processor can play DVDs and do Microsoft Office, why this exponential increase in raw computer power?
There are two forces driving the exponential increase in computer power. One is MS windows' system requirements, the other is crysis.http://brutalgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/crysis2_screen.jpg

[Lucradia]

But I bet you don't know when the first 3D MMORPG was. :P

[Dustin2128]

But I bet you don't know when the first 3D MMORPG was. :P
Isometric or true, and MUD or MMO?

[Lucradia]

Isometric or true, and MUD or MMO?

It was an MMORPG, had GMs and everything. It used doom-like graphics (only a bit worse)when it first released for the 3D portions. You entered commands and everything to talk with characters and other players, and more.

It was massively updated to use Direct3D Later.

It released in 1995 originally.

Its name is Meridian 59: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_59

[Philsoki]

There are two forces driving the exponential increase in computer power. One is MS windows' system requirements, the other is crysis.
Ah, Crysis. The ultimate benchmark. I remember when computers used to struggle with Quake 3 - now it runs your smart phone. Give it a good ten years or so, and it'll be the same with Crysis.:D

[rajeev1204]

What a great coincidence.

The Asus a7n266 was my first motherboard and my next one was the a7n8x . :)

And quake 2 is one of my fav single player games of all time.I still play it sometimes, there is a lot to explore.

Have you tried observing how the stroggs fight among themselves,and such other details?

Quake 2 also has a native linux port btw.

I still find the graphics in quake 2 quite amazing.Those days i remember quake 2 winning 10/10 in all departments,it is indeed a ground breaking game.

Do you know there are many many servers still running quak2 mp.i have been trying to play online but i have massive input lag.

[Dustin2128]

It was an MMORPG, had GMs and everything. It used doom-like graphics (only a bit worse)when it first released for the 3D portions. You entered commands and everything to talk with characters and other players, and more.

It was massively updated to use Direct3D Later.

It released in 1995 originally.

Its name is Meridian 59: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_59
Huh, I was going to say Ultima. I was only 2 years off at least..

[Wiebelhaus]

omg...that was a long time ago.

[eckeroo]

Quake 2 also has a native linux port btw.

It's not in the Ubuntu repositories, so is it still proprietary software?

My original Quake 2 CD needs to be in my CD drive for Wine to run it.

Quake 2 is a lovely game. I do not like Quake 3 much with the arena deathmatch running around type FPS. Most of my gaming time was spent playing counter-strike. FPS had reached its pinnacle with counter-strike and it should have been left there. I don't think Half-Life 2 brought in any significant improvements in gameplay over half-life, so I imagine counter-strike source isn't that much of an improvement other than better graphics. That crysis looks incredible, but it isn't for me.

[Lucradia]

It's not in the Ubuntu repositories, so is it still proprietary software?

My original Quake 2 CD needs to be in my CD drive for Wine to run it.

Quake 2 is a lovely game. I do not like Quake 3 much with the arena deathmatch running around type FPS. Most of my gaming time was spent playing counter-strike. FPS had reached its pinnacle with counter-strike and it should have been left there. I don't think Half-Life 2 brought in any significant improvements in gameplay over half-life, so I imagine counter-strike source isn't that much of an improvement other than better graphics. That crysis looks incredible, but it isn't for me.

Who said Quake, the game, had a linux port? Pretty sure they mean the engine: http://www.quakedev.com/

[Spice Weasel]

It's not in the Ubuntu repositories, so is it still proprietary software?

The engine is free software but the gamedata (models, textures, maps, etc) is proprietary.

[annoyingrob]

Quake 3 and 4 are the same way. You can go to ID's website, and download the source code, and/or linux installers for them.

[rajeev1204]

Who said Quake, the game, had a linux port? Pretty sure they mean the engine: http://www.quakedev.com/


More or less the same, it has always been the same for id games since doom, the installer is downloaded separately.Gamedata is always same either for windows or linux.

So yes, it has a linux port.So did quake 3 and quake 4. All of them had native linux versions.They never merged the installer with the data except for the demos.

So as per your logic, all id software demos are linux ports.But yes it is a part of the engine .Their engines have always been multiplatform.but the link you mentioned is for development work on the engines which are now open source.Except quake4/doom3.

[rajeev1204]

Quake 3 and 4 are the same way. You can go to ID's website, and download the source code, and/or linux installers for them.


quake 4 source code is still proprietary.Probably will go open soon though.It will be a massive leap in graphics quality for the free games out there if they use it.