NDS - QuakeDS Preview 2 released

[DanTheManMS]

New release from simonjhall (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/member.php?u=147963):

http://nintendo-ds.dcemu.co.uk/current_status.jpg

DIGG THIS NEWS (http://digg.com/gaming_news/Quake_Full_Speed_on_DS)

http://digg.com/gaming_news/Quake_Full_Speed_on_DS


I'm delighted to announce the latest version of QuakeDS for public consumption - pre-release two!
I was going to do several releases over the last two months, but I'm kinda glad I held back as I think that "one more feature" thing really helped!

Changes from pre1->pre2:

- faster rendering
- vertex lighting and light animations (proper lightmapping may be in the next build)
- Alias model texturing
- proper timebase, so no variable speed
- a crosshair and a HUD
- the Quake font (or whatever font is available in the mod you're playing)
- a nearly-proper sky
- sky, water, lava, sludge animations
- full control configuration
- game save saving/loading
- every level works - I have played from beginning to end with no crashes or thrashing
- wifi network play, via an access point (build coming in a few days after more testing)
- adequate support for mods/TCs in this build - full compatibility in the EXRAM build (coming in a few weeks)
- much improved sound system on the ARM7 (no music yet...)
- transparent water support via r_novis or VIS'ed maps
- hardware fogging for a light depth cue, or thick fog for underwater
- LOADS more little things (eg the end-of-episode finale messages)


The bad,

- if you had problems getting pre1 to run on your card before (say you had a DS Link) then it ain't gonna run this time! Same goes for cards which have no DLDI driver.
- you will only get textured models if you use pak files - loose files won't work any more
- if you have a slow flash card then loading textures on the fly may really annoy you
- particles and sprites still haven't been fixed
- there's an occasional sound glitch
- no on-screen keyboard in this build


To run (the quick way),

- download the zip file, and put the NDS in the root of your card
- DLDItool it with the DLDI driver of your choice
- make a directory in the root of your card named id1
- put the config file (downloaded from the site) in the id1 directory
- put your two pak files in that directory too
- plug into DS and power on.


As I said before, wait a few days for the networking build (full co-op and deathmatch) and hang on a little longer for the full TC compatibility.
Don't forget to actually read the web page as there are a bunch of options to change stuff like loading textures etc.

Anyway, a big thanks go my testers - I couldn't have done it without you! Oh and the 20000+ people who downloaded pre1 in the first few weeks after it came out ;-)

Legal: I take no credit for the development of Quake, that all goes to the guys at id Software. I also claim no copyright, trademark etc. Again, all work, copyrights, trademarks are owned by them.
I just made the patch which coaxes the game into running on the DS.

Download Shareware Version of Quake from ID Software (http://www.idsoftware.com/games/quake/quake/index.php?game_section=demo)

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

[kcajblue]

cool. another release. :D
keep up the good work. :thumbup:

[wraggster]

awesome work again Simon, its so impressive seeing the likes of Quake and Quake2/Duke Nukem 3D ported to a handheld such as the DS :)

[Junixx]

Sweet this is very nice, runs good and customizable controls :D I can actually play it now (left handed)

[Hansie]

Great release, it's almost perfect.

Things to fix:
- weapon, blood sprites
- Light effects (level1 when you enter the stairway where there isn't supposed to be light but when you walk forward the lights would jump on)

How's it going for quake2 DS? Made any progression?

[Mr_Biggs]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

downloading now.

[Himura]

Absolutely amazing. I commend you.

[Mr_Biggs]

this is some prime shit here! the majority of graphics are present, all controls are configurable ingame, and it runs at normal speed. there are still some texture bugs, such as part of a door texture being displayed with a portion of another door texture below. i like the way graphics get loaded from the beginning of the game, with all 3D being white, and textures popping up. that's probably a bug, but if it could display wireframe, and then textures as if it was being assembled, that would look way cool. i also like how projectiles come out white, then have it's texture appear. amazing work simon, get those texture bugs fixed for floors and walls, and this game will look commercial.

[nad101]

WICKED! I can see where it need polishing but lets face it, i'm no coder so I cant say shit! Exelent progress fellows!

Keep up the good work

[iceman100]

game does not work

[crookedmouth]

game does not work

Wow thats a lot of information there!
I'm guessing you mean, your having difficulty making it work or your hardware doesn't support dldi?
It most certainly does work. I assure you.

On root of your card make a folder named ID1
inside this folder you need at least the shareware data files called PAK0.PAK, for full version you'll additionally need PAK1.PAK. Also you need theconfig.cfg file.

http://quake.drunkencoders.com/downloads/config.cfg

Extract QuakeDS.nds to the root of your card and patch it with the DLDI patch for your card. that's it


\ID1\PAK0.PAK
\ID1\config.cfg
\QuakeDS.nds

[XDelusion]

My DS is down atm. Does this have free look via the touch screen?

[simonjhall]

@XDelusion: yeah, use the screen to do free look. You can change the sensitivity (and invert) in the menu if you want.
If you're not a fan of that you can set up the controls so you never have to touch the screen...

@iceman: err - more info?

@Mr_Biggs: thanks for the comments! No, the rendering of stuff in white whilst the textures are loading is not a bug. If you don't want to see the white textures whilst stuff is loading, look in your config file for ds_alias_imposters/ds_brush_imposters/ds_draw_imposters and change from 0/1 to taste! I've got them set to on by default as some people may have slow cards...

@Hansie: I was wondering about that light thing until I had a go myself - you're right! It IS working correctly, it's just that I add a bit too much ambient light in conjunction with the fog (in the menu) and it makes it look a bit too bright there! I'll fix this in a later build... Thanks!

But anyway - thanks everyone for the comments :-D

[bassCore]

This is really nice, previous build was way to bright for me. But now when you can adjust the brightness I can make i QUAKEDARK ^^. nice for us lefties with the ability to change the controls to :D

[Xcliber]

OK, I got some major problems. I load it and it runs fine but the textures are all missing! Instead they are replaced with a black and white checkered pattern.

Aside from that, THIS IS F*CKIN AWSOME!!!!!

[simonjhall]

Are you using loose files or pak files? You'll get a checkerboard textured output if you use loose files (this is by design).
If you want proper texturing you've got to use pack files...

[Sin-07]

wow! its a very good release, it makes me very happy, but we need blood to live!!!:)
(hey simon i don´t find your homepage)

[Mr_Biggs]

ooh, i see now. i wasnt complaining though, it looks a little cool. thanks again simon!

[XDelusion]

simonjhall: In that case you rule! Finally a first person shooter that gives you choice! Either I can play in sloppy mode, like I'm playing Quake on the Sega Saturn or on the GBA, or...

...I can get real and take advantage of the DS' main feature which is the Touch Screen support that (pr)DOOMDS and DukeDS have neglected for unknown reasons!

Thank you a million, I can't wait to pick up a new DS now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Xcliber]

...o

I'm using the loose files for the same thing we discussed with the previous pre-release 1.
I assumed that I would still have the same problem(plus those were the only files I had on my PC at the time that i set up DS quake release 2. so i guess ill try the actual .pak files today...
TY if it works...
OH will this fix the garbled menus too?

[xenoid]

running this on an R4, it works excellently!

thank you very much for your hard work!

its funny because yesterday I was thinking, I wonder how this project is going!

[Echo1]

Great work Simon. I'm very impressed with your hard work.:)

[stormwolf18]

Its not working for me

The Necropolis
client loading level...
making new lower sky
making new upper sky
done
cliet loading models...
19%,,,39%...58%...78%...98%...done
freeing precaches

and nothing else after that

im using G6 lite with dldi latest version, tried with shareware and full version. help me

[simonjhall]

I'm sorry to hear you're having problems. Could you PM me your email address and we'll try and sort out what the problem is? Then hopefully we can fix it for other people who might have this problem...

To the others - so, who fancies some DS clans? :-D

[simonjhall]

@Xcliber - yeah, I remember you needed to do this with pre1... What hardware do you have? Maybe there's a newer DLDI?
But if not, I'm really sorry but I decided not to support extracted files with the new texturing system - it would have taken too much memory or would have slowed the game down too much...

[Mr_Biggs]

oooh, ds quake clans! too bad i cant get wifi in my area of operations.

[Pyro2Z]

Wow, this is awesome! Quake, so great! I'm saddly enough having some issues right now. When I hit it to play it says...

started up
fat init...ok
passed fp tests!
Using default command line
Init Arm7...done
Host_Init, memory base at 0x020f
ba80
3.0 megs of memory available

Any solution to my problem, perhaps? Any help would be extremely appriciated.

[simonjhall]

Sounds like a DLDI problem to me, as that's the point at which it loads the pak files. If it couldn't find them, you'd get an error.
Which card are you using? Maybe there's an alternate driver you could use...

[jammet]

I'm ordering a DS-X now that I've seen this. Now I'm sure it'll be worth it.

[DanTheManMS]

Meh, a DS-X is really overpriced for what it does, and its homebrew compatibility isn't the greatest now that DLDI is out. I'd suggest looking around for a device with removeable storage.

[MasterMan]

So, what mods run with 3MB heap?
Asked Tyne and he said me "mostly weapon mods..." :(

Simon, keeping my breath for the EXRAM build... TAoV hell yeah \o/

[MagnumKain]

To the others - so, who fancies some DS clans? :-D

I would so join your clan :D

[Xcliber]

Umm... On my SupercardLite (Micro SD - 1 Gigabyte)

fat init...ok
passed fp tests!
Using default command line
Init ARM7...done
Host_Init, memory base at 0x020fa9b0
3.0 megs of memory available
/id1/pak0.pak has 424 files

X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+ X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X...etc.........

and nothing happens...

this is with the actual pak0.pak and pak1.pak files
and I did DLDI patch it for the latest version of my flashcart...

[Tripsk8er333]

You are the Man! This is awsome. Keep up the Good work.:thumbup:

Is it possible to have DSdownload Play in the Future

[Pyro2Z]

Sounds like a DLDI problem to me, as that's the point at which it loads the pak files. If it couldn't find them, you'd get an error.
Which card are you using? Maybe there's an alternate driver you could use...

I have a DS-X, actually. And now that you mention it, I seemed to of skipped of the DLDI step completly... IS there a DLDI driver for the Ds-X? I couldn't really find one. Any alternatives? Hit me back, much thanks.

Edit: Well, I found the DLDI for my DS-X... but how to "patch" and or work it eludes me completely.

[simonjhall]

@xcliber: your pak 0 is much too large. Is there an error message at the end? Of the two paks used in Quake, the largest one has 340-350 files...
I've capped the maximum pak size to save memory :-D

[Dominik93]

Can't get mods to work. :(
Otherwise it's running perfectly. :D

Could someone post an qdsopts.txt with following game in it ?
rally
or maybe
skate

^^

[Sin-07]

it works perfect, but i got no crosshair.
great work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[simonjhall]

@dominik - what mod do you want to run? How *exactly* would you run it on the PC? Tell me and I'll tell you what you have to do for the DS version.
Make sure it does actually work with the given options on the PC though :-)

And Sin, no crosshair eh? Err... Do you get the rest of the game?! Is it textured? Do you have crosshair turned on in the config file?!

[Sin-07]

Config-CFG-file crosshair "0" what shall i do? I´ve got textures and everything, its the Full Version of the game

[Sin-07]

Config-CFG-file crosshair "0" I Got it!!

crosshair "1" = Crosshair in the game

[latoshi]

its awsome all it needs is more speed i think

like my sig?

[simonjhall]

Change the number from zero to one. Save, restart game.
EDIT: just saw you got it!

[Dominik93]

@dominik - what mod do you want to run? How *exactly* would you run it on the PC? Tell me and I'll tell you what you have to do for the DS version.
Make sure it does actually work with the given options on the PC though :-)

And Sin, no crosshair eh? Err... Do you get the rest of the game?! Is it textured? Do you have crosshair turned on in the config file?!

Skate and Quake rally.
Rally will not work on ds but skate isn't that big.

i run it in this way :
Shortcut
and then under running options or so :

QUAKEPFADHERE" -game skate

^^

[Mr_Biggs]

just beat the whole game, friggin awesome work simon! aside from texture bugs, i discovered the occasional 3D glitches in some levels, i.e. what would appear to be barriers stretched across the screen, yet have no collision values. yeah, i know i point out a lot of crap, but i dont mean any disrespect, considering the most i could do is make a dual screen pic of quake displayed through moonshell.

[simonjhall]

@dominik, hello mate I just had a go with skate - it's easy to get going!
As per the instructions in the skate readme, make a directory (in the root of your flash card) named 'skate'. Extract the zip file into that, with full directory structure.
Now you've gotta tell QDS how to start this mod: make a text file in the root of your card named 'qdsopts.txt'.
Open that file in notepad.
On the first line type '-game', without quotes
On the second line type 'skate' without quotes, then hit enter to put a newline. Save the file, plug into DS and turn on. When you start a new game you'll be on a skateboard! The demos don't show you on a skateboard though - but then again it doesn't when running on the PC...
Btw the model texture is way too big for the DS, so you'll get a checkerboard.

[simonjhall]

@mr_biggs: that's great! I'm glad you can get all the way through! Some of those levels took a lot of effort to fit into 4 megabytes :-S
Anyway - the texture bugs, yeah I know - that's the non-power of two textures that the designers sometimes used. They're used *loads* in ep4, so I'm not surprised you see lots of corruption! And those funny walls you're seeing in the later levels - that's due to the level being too big for the DS' 3D hardware. I'll fix that in a later build.
But yeah no biggie - keep finding them bugs!

[Sir_Voe]

I was on the level "The Wind Tunnels", and I got a message saying something like "you are out of the fake stack, contact me if this happens". It was right as I got shot out of the 2nd to last tube. I'm using an M3 Simply. While I'm here, thanks for all the hard work. It works great besides that one occurance.:D

[simonjhall]

The wind tunnels eh? Yeah, that level performs pretty poorly! But thanks for getting in touch - any way you could replicate this for me? What would be really awesome would be if you could make a game save just before it happens, so I can fix it...

I'm just trying to cobble together random fixes for the game so I can pop them in the multiplayer build.

[impulseGUNK]

having the same error as stormwolf18
it gets stuck at freeing precaches

using an m3lite microsd (slot2)

[pduin]

nice to see the coder of the project here :)
wanted to let you know i have the same problem as stormwolf18 and impulseGUNK, the game is stuck at "freeing precaches".
i am using M3 minisd in a fat ds

(stormwolf you forgot to mention prerelease 1 was working :p)

[aaronblood10]

Im having the same problem...freezing at "freeing precaches" ... i use gbamp
It worked for prerelease 1

[jonboy25]

I'd like to know more about what mods work and how to get them to work. Game works great on my M3!

[wizard]

I'm having trouble with saving and loading. I saved at "The Ogre Citadel" and when I tried to load, it said " 'parm4' is not a field ". I tried to just go to the first level and see if I could save there ("The Slipgate Complex"), but when I tried to load that it said " '. 000000"' is not a field ". I'm using a Supercard Lite and have it DLDI patched. On the upside though my settings are saved and loaded properly so I don't have to change the controls each time I play. This is looking great. It's quite an improvement over your first release. Thanks a lot and keep up the good work!

[simonjhall]

Right, I'm cooking up a solution for the 'freeing precaches' problem with stormwolf at the moment, so if you've not done so already, PM me your email address and I'll get back to you.
Basically it seems to be a timing problem with the graphics core...

And the people who are getting corrupt saving, that's because there's a bug in your DLDI driver. I'm trying to see if I can hack around it but I'm not having a lot of luck at the moment.

If you want to play mods - it's easy! Rather than starting the game via the command line (with a special -game option) you just put those options in the qdsopts.txt file instead. Read the web page!

[Wii60_FTW]

Deosn't work

"Starting up
fat init...failed!"

poop

[simonjhall]

Deosn't work

"Starting up
fat init...failed!"

poop

Have you patched it with your DLDI driver?

[Wii60_FTW]

Yes, sir.

Maybe this is my problem, though. I'm not sure. You see, I patched it with the M3 SD version. I assume SD is the 1 gig card that goes in there. If so, then yes.

Quake doesn't work. Neither does Hexen. Doom. Nothing. So, maybe I'm doing something wrong. I was more than surprised to see the SNES games working. Weird.

[pduin]

what does your card look like? is it all rectangle or does it have a slanting edge?
compactflash cards are all rectangle, sd have that edge. you could in any case patch the nds file with the m3 compactflash dldi and see if it works (or if your m3 is a slot-1, nds-card sized, type you can try the R4ds dldi which is compatible with the m3)

[Wii60_FTW]

what does your card look like? is it all rectangle or does it have a slanting edge?
compactflash cards are all rectangle, sd have that edge. you could in any case patch the nds file with the m3 compactflash dldi and see if it works (or if your m3 is a slot-1, nds-card sized, type you can try the R4ds dldi which is compatible with the m3)

Huh! The R4 driver worked. :confused: errrr uhhhh, was I not supposed to use the m3 SD version? I have an M3 Simply with a small-than-thumbnail-sized stick o ram. I assumed that was SD. Maybe not.

Well, it looks good. Kudos to simon!

[Junixx]

Im having the same problem...freezing at "freeing precaches" ... i use gbamp
It worked for prerelease 1

Try patching it with DLDI, it's works fine on mine, oh and im using moonshell to boot it also (saying that because sometimes DSO wont load things right for me)

[Dominik93]

@dominik, hello mate I just had a go with skate - it's easy to get going!
As per the instructions in the skate readme, make a directory (in the root of your flash card) named 'skate'. Extract the zip file into that, with full directory structure.
Now you've gotta tell QDS how to start this mod: make a text file in the root of your card named 'qdsopts.txt'.
Open that file in notepad.
On the first line type '-game', without quotes
On the second line type 'skate' without quotes, then hit enter to put a newline. Save the file, plug into DS and turn on. When you start a new game you'll be on a skateboard! The demos don't show you on a skateboard though - but then again it doesn't when running on the PC...
Btw the model texture is way too big for the DS, so you'll get a checkerboard.


Sorry that I answer so late. ^^

Yes , it did work. :)
Was fun skating on the DS. :D
Do you have any plans when you are releasing the RAM Build ?
As i have an Supercard SD it would be great to play these mods correctly.
I could help you test these builds if you want , I don't care if they crash alot. :D

[aaronblood10]

I trying patching it several times...it still doesn't work. Oh and I use moonshell to boot too.

[simonjhall]

For those people who are having problems with the game starting the game (eg you're having the freeing precaches problem) I've got a fix for you, so it'll run fine. Mail me if you're interested.


And I've also just posted a YT vid of Malice running on the Supercard build of QDS, for those people who are interested in playing some total conversions and mods :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iEBpuuKkTI
Coming soon...

[Bingo]

Hey I've got Team Fortress working - but the music doesn't play in the intro demo?

Just need that networking build now!

[F2bnp]

THIS IS GREAT!

I can play it now!
The old prerelease sucked but this is very good indeed,

[simonjhall]

Hey I've got Team Fortress working - but the music doesn't play in the intro demo?

Just need that networking build now!

Hello, I know there are several types of team fortress (eg half-life, quakeworld, etc) - which one do you have? Where do I download it and how are you running it? :-)
I know it's a networked game, so I'm just wondering how you'd run it without the wifi build!

Also, I assume the game didn't come on a CD, so where does the music in the intro normally come from?

[Wii60_FTW]

Would it be possible to get single player HL1 on the DS? lol... Is that a stupid question? I mean, I assume the DS can render it since it's so old and ugly.

[Mr_Biggs]

no, the source code for HL1 hasnt been released so you cant port it. but im sure you could make clones

[Bingo]

Hey I still got my original team fortress (before classic) that I played with QuakeWorld all them years ago, but I believe you can play it on a lan or whatever using the normal quake, which is why it works.

Btw a port of QuakeWorld would be great cause that would allow easy PC vs DS play? :thumbup:

Instead of spoiling the surprise you get when it loads, I'll just give the download links I found. I think you'll want the "2.8 full zip":

http://www.filefactory.org/index.php?game=1&page=author&author=TeamFortress%20Software
http://www.fileplanet.com/filelist.aspx?s=74193&v=0

[simonjhall]

Ok, I've been running TF on the DS for a couple of days now and it runs pretty well on the wifi build against a PC, but there's not enough memory for a single player game. Which makes a change!

I don't think I can be bothered with QuakeWorld any more, so I won't be porting that.

[flyingbaconking]

how do i patch? because i get everything else, my computer is just being ugly and wont let me patch, can anyone tell me how to do this patch? i already have the dldi thingy

[XDelusion]

Is there a way to double tap the screen to jump?

[Mr_Biggs]

i havent seen that in any homebrew FPS so far. that would have to be programmed into the engine as a type of button press. tapping the screen is currently mouselook, i think.

[carlitor4]

brilliant job, quake ds is just superb! After all those years, I can play my quake wherever I want, it's just fabulous!

[Sir_Voe]

i havent seen that in any homebrew FPS so far. that would have to be programmed into the engine as a type of button press. tapping the screen is currently mouselook, i think.

The other version (DS Quake) has this feature, so I think it's possible Simon will do that eventually.

[XDelusion]

That would be grand! More FPS need to take advantage of that...

...and virtual buttons for games with many buttons Like Duke 3D!

[Mr_Biggs]

The other version (DS Quake) has this feature, so I think it's possible Simon will do that eventually.

Oh, that Other one. egh. i never even touched it, since it doesnt support original PAK files and ive heard the enemies move like a crappy online match.

[XDelusion]

Regardless, if it can jump with a double tap to the touch screne, then its source has some value!

[simonjhall]

I originally did have tapping for jump, but I didn't like it and it had similar problems to the tapping in the other Quake, so I dropped it.
There's gonna be an interim release hopefully in the next few days (wifi, better mod support, on-screen keyboard, bug fixes) - if I have the time I'll see if I can rig in a crappy jump code...

[addyb]

im having problems running this on my M3 CF setup. I get the error msg "FAT init failed"

Now i have a DLDI patcher but im not sure if its the right one. It patches whatever file i choose fine but do i also need a DLDI file placing on the root of my CF card as well?

Can anyone point me in the right direction to get the right files/tools. I have been to: http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/

But im unsure which files i need. BTW i have doom and hexen running fine!

[fook123]

I LOVE YOU. . . . . . . i grew up on quake. now just port diablo one onto the DS and youll be the coolest person eva.