Build status
Overview
This is the official Quake 2 code v3.21 with Vulkan support and mission packs included. The goal of this project is to maintain as much compatibility as possible with the original game - just pure, vanilla Quake 2 experience as we knew it back in 1997. There are, however, a few notable differences that made the cut for various reasons:
- world colors have been slightly upgraded - the game's original, darker look can be toggled with the
vk_postprocess
console command - 64-bit support, additional screen resolutions and DPI awareness have been added
- underwater vision warp effect similar to software renderer has been implemented and enabled by default
- antialiasing and sample shading is now natively supported
- anisotropic filtering toggle has been added
- players can now change texture filtering modes from within the video menu
- mouse acceleration has been disabled
- console contents can be scrolled with a mouse wheel
- HUD elements, menus and console text are now scaled accordingly on higher screen resolutions (can be overridden with the
hudscale
console command) - viewmodel weapons are no longer hidden when FOV > 90
- Vulkan renderer fixes broken warp texture effect (water, lava, slime) seen in OpenGL
- software renderer has been completely replaced with KolorSoft 1.1 - this adds colored lighting and fixes severe instabilities of the original implementation
- triangle fans have been replaced with indexed triangle lists due to Metal/MoltenVK limitations
- on Linux, sound is now handled by ALSA instead of OSS
- support for OGG/FLAC/MP3/WAV music has been added in addition to standard CD audio
- music volume slider has been added (OGG/FLAC/MP3/WAV only, CD music still plays at full volume as originally intended)
- game menus have been slightly improved
- added Nightmare/Hard+ skill to the game menu
- added the
aimfix
console command, backported from Berserker@Quake2
A more detailed description of the thought process behind this project can be found in my blog post, where I explain the overall design, how I attacked some of the problems and also how things developed after the initial release.
Building
For extra challenge I decided to base vkQuake2 on the original id Software code. Because of this, there are no dependencies on external SDL-like libraries and the entire project is mostly self-contained. This also implies that some of the original bugs could be present.
Windows
- download and install the latest Vulkan SDK
- install Visual Studio Community 2022 with C++ MFC for build tools and Windows 10 SDK
- open
quake2.sln
and choose the target architecture (x86/x64) - it should build without any additional steps
Linux
Unfortunately, Linux code for Quake 2 has not aged well and for that reason only the Vulkan renderer is available for use at this time. Build steps assume that Ubuntu is the target distribution:
- install required dependencies:
sudo apt install make gcc g++ mesa-common-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libxxf86dga-dev libxxf86vm-dev libasound2-dev libx11-dev libxcb1-dev
- Install the latest Vulkan SDK - the easiest way is to use LunarG Ubuntu Packages - just follow the instructions and there will be no additional steps required. If you decide for a manual installation, make sure that proper environment variables are set afterwards by adding the following section to your
.bashrc
file (replace SDK version and location with the ones corresponding to your system):
export VULKAN_SDK=/home/user/VulkanSDK/1.3.224.1/x86_64
export PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export VK_LAYER_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/etc/explicit_layer.d
- make sure your graphics drivers support Vulkan (run
vulkaninfo
to verify) - if not, you can get them with:
sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers
- enter the
linux
directory and typemake release
ormake debug
depending on which variant you want to build - output binaries will be placed inlinux/releasex64
andlinux/debugx64
subdirectories respectively
MacOS
- download and extract the latest Vulkan SDK
- install XCode 10.1 (or later) and add the
VULKAN_SDK
environment variable to Locations/Custom Paths - make it point to the downloaded SDK - open
macos/vkQuake2.xcworkspace
- it should build without any additional steps - alternatively, you can compile the game from the command line - modify your
.bash_profile
and add the following entries (replace SDK version and location with the ones corresponding to your system):
export VULKAN_SDK=/home/user/VulkanSDK/1.3.224.1
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=$VULKAN_SDK/share/vulkan/icd.d/MoltenVK_icd.json
export VK_LAYER_PATH=$VULKAN_SDK/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d
- enter the
macos
directory and runmake release-xcode
ormake debug-xcode
depending on which variant you want to build - output binaries will be placed inmacos/vkQuake2
subdirectory - it is also possible to build the game with Command Line Developer Tools if you have them installed: enter the
macos
directory and runmake release
ormake debug
- output binaries will be placed inmacos/release
andmacos/debug
subdirectories respectively
This project uses the Vulkan loader bundled with the SDK, rather than directly linking against MoltenVK.framework
. This is done so that validation layers are available for debugging. Builds have been tested using MacOS 10.14.2.
FreeBSD
- install required Vulkan packages:
pkg install vulkan-tools vulkan-validation-layers
- make sure your graphics drivers support Vulkan (run
vulkaninfo
to verify) - if not, you should either update them or find a package that is best suited for your hardware configuration - enter the
linux
directory and typemake release
ormake debug
depending on which variant you want to build - output binaries will be placed inlinux/releasex64
andlinux/debugx64
subdirectories respectively
Raspberry Pi 4
Thanks to the effort of Igalia and their V3DV Driver, it is possible to compile and run vkQuake2 on Raspberry Pi 4. Same build instructions as for Linux apply.
Running
Windows
The Visual Studio C++ Redistributable is required to run the application: 32-bit or 64-bit depending on the chosen architecture. These are provided automatically if you have Visual Studio installed.
All platforms
The release package comes only with the Quake 2 Demo content to showcase Vulkan functionality. For full experience, copy retail .pak
, model and video files into the baseq2
directory and run the executable. For mission packs, copy necessary data to rogue
("Ground Zero"), xatrix
("The Reckoning"), zaero
("Quake II: Zaero") and smd
("Slight Mechanical Destruction") directories respectively. You can then start the game with either ./quake2 +set game rogue
, ./quake2 +set game xatrix
, ./quake2 +set game zaero
or ./quake2 +set game smd
.
Music
This project uses Miniaudio for music playback if the original game CD is not available. For standard Quake 2, copy all tracks into the baseq2/music
directory following the trackXX.[ogg,flac,mp3,wav]
naming scheme (so track02.ogg, track03.ogg... for OGG files etc.). For "Ground Zero" and "The Reckoning", copy the tracks to rogue/music
and xatrix/music
directories respectively. For additional control over the playback, use the miniaudio [on,off,play [X],loop [X],stop,pause,resume,info]
console command.
Console commands
The following commands are available when using the Vulkan renderer:
Command | Action |
---|---|
vk_validation |
Toggle validation layers:0 - disabled (default in Release)1 - only errors and warnings2 - full validation (default in Debug)3 - enables VK_VALIDATION_FEATURE_ENABLE_BEST_PRACTICES_EXT |
vk_strings |
Print some basic Vulkan/GPU information. |
vk_mem |
Print dynamic vertex/index/uniform/triangle fan buffer memory and descriptor set usage statistics. |
vk_device |
Specify index of the preferred Vulkan device on systems with multiple GPUs:-1 - prefer first DISCRETE_GPU (default)0..n - use device #n (full list of devices is returned by vk_strings command) |
vk_msaa |
Toggle MSAA (multisampling):0 - off (default)1 - MSAAx22 - MSAAx43 - MSAAx84 - MSAAx16 |
vk_sampleshading |
Toggle sample shading (supersampling) for MSAA. (default: 0 ) |
vk_mode |
Vulkan video mode (default: 11 ). Setting this to -1 uses a custom screen resolution defined by r_customwidth (default: 1024 ) and r_customheight (default: 768 ) console variables. |
vk_flashblend |
Toggle the blending of lights onto the environment. (default: 0 ) |
vk_polyblend |
Blend fullscreen effects: blood, powerups etc. (default: 1 ) |
vk_skymip |
Toggle the usage of mipmap information for the sky graphics. (default: 0 ) |
vk_finish |
Inserts a vkDeviceWaitIdle() call on frame render start (default: 0 ).Don't use this, it's there just for the sake of having a gl_finish equivalent! |
vk_point_particles |
Toggle between using POINT_LIST and textured triangles for particle rendering. (default: 1 ) |
vk_particle_size |
Rendered particle size. (default: 40 ) |
vk_particle_att_a |
Intensity of the particle A attribute. (default: 0.01 ) |
vk_particle_att_b |
Intensity of the particle B attribute. (default: 0 ) |
vk_particle_att_c |
Intensity of the particle C attribute. (default: 0.01 ) |
vk_particle_min_size |
The minimum size of a rendered particle. (default: 2 ) |
vk_particle_max_size |
The maximum size of a rendered particle. (default: 40 ) |
vk_lockpvs |
Lock current PVS table. (default: 0 ) |
vk_clear |
Clear the color buffer each frame. (default: 0 ) |
vk_modulate |
Texture brightness modifier. (default: 1 ) |
vk_shadows |
Draw experimental entity shadows. (default: 0 ) |
vk_picmip |
Shrink factor for the textures. (default: 0 ) |
vk_round_down |
Toggle the rounding of texture sizes. (default: 1 ) |
vk_log |
Log frame validation data to file. (default: 0 ) |
vk_dynamic |
Use dynamic lighting. (default: 1 ) |
vk_showtris |
Display mesh triangles. (default: 0 ) |
vk_lightmap |
Display lightmaps. (default: 0 ) |
vk_aniso |
Toggle anisotropic filtering. (default: 1 ) |
vk_vsync |
Toggle vertical sync. (default: 0 ) |
vk_postprocess |
Toggle additional color/gamma correction. (default: 1 ) |
vk_underwater |
Toggle player vision warp when underwater. (default: 1 ) |
vk_restart |
Recreate entire Vulkan subsystem. |
vk_mip_nearfilter |
Use nearest-neighbor filtering for mipmaps. (default: 0 ) |
vk_texturemode |
Change current texture filtering mode:VK_NEAREST - nearest-neighbor interpolation, no mipmapsVK_LINEAR - linear interpolation, no mipmapsVK_MIPMAP_NEAREST - nearest-neighbor interpolation with mipmapsVK_MIPMAP_LINEAR - linear interpolation with mipmaps (default) |
vk_lmaptexturemode |
Same as vk_texturemode but applied to lightmap textures. |
vk_fullscreen_exclusive |
Windows only: toggle usage of exclusive fullscreen mode (default: 1 ). Note that when this option is enabled, there is no guarantee that exclusive fullscreen can be acquired on your system. |
Acknowledgements
- Sascha Willems for his Vulkan Samples
- Adam Sawicki for Vulkan Memory Allocator and tips on how to use it as efficiently as possible
- Axel Gneiting for vkQuake which was a great inspiration and a rich source of knowledge
- LunarG team and the Khronos Group for their invaluable help and resources
- Dorian Apanel and the Intel team for technical support, inspiring email discussions and blazing-fast reaction to driver bug reports!
See also
- SauRay - a server-side anti-wallhack solution using hardware accelerated ray-tracing, using vkQuake2 as a PoC
- yquake2/ref_vk - Vulkan Renderer Library for Yamagi Quake 2 based on vkQuake2
- vkQuake2 Miniaudio - vkQuake2 fork with added spacialized audio using Miniaudio library
Known Issues
- some Intel GPUs may ignore texture filtering settings in video menu if anisotropic filtering is enabled - this is the result of anisotropic texture filtering being implementation-dependent
- macOS using Vulkan SDK 1.2.162 or higher: the application may hang on some MacBooks if
vk_sampleshading
is enabled due to a potential bug in the Metal driver causing a deadlock during shader compilation