QUAKE2DS prerelease 1

[simonjhall]

I said I'd never actually work on this game, but here I am releasing it!
So here it is, Quake II for Nintendo DS: http://quake.drunkencoders.com

To play the game you require a homebrew-enabled DS, and some kind of way of playing homebrew on your DS.
You also require a slot-2 card that has a minimum of 16 megabytes of RAM on it. When playing, you do not however need to place the data files and the program on your slot-2 card - if you also have a slot-1 card then you will have better load times if you play the game with both cards in use. You will still need to the slot-2 card inserted to make use of the RAM, though.

To install:
- make a directory named baseq2 in the root of your card
- copy the pak files from the baseq2 directory of your CD or Q2 install into this baseq2 directory
- download the config file from the web site and place it in the directory
- from the game archive file take the quake2.nds file, dldi patch it and place it in the root of your flash card
- plug in your slot-2 RAM card into your DS
- turn on your DS.

To reiterate - you'll get better performance if the game and it's data files are on something like and R4 in slot-1 than if you put your data files on your slot-2 RAM card. Unless your slot-1 card is a GnM...

Overclocking memory:
The performance of the game heavily depends on the speed of your RAM. Slot-2 RAM is very slow, but you can overclock it to make it up to 40% faster if you have the right type of flash card. When the game starts, try changing the speed option from slowest to slower or slow and see if the game starts ok. If it does then you're in luck :-)
Don't forget to try memtestARM to see more reliably if you card can be overclocked.

Lurchy gameplay:
If you experience delays when the game plays a sound for the first time, you should reformat your flash card with the largest block size that you can; I recommend 64k. This is because seeking within 250 megs of pak files is much faster when the block size is larger. Doing this will also improve your load times. Do it!

About the game:
- every level is playable in single-player mode
- there is no multiplayer
- nearly all graphical effects are done by the DS hardware
- there's auto and manual saving
- there's no mod or TC support (not my fault, I'm afraid)
- there's an on-screen keyboard as well as eight touch buttons (so you can bind functions to them)

The bad stuff:
- again, no multiplayer
- some levels are poorly coded and the performance will hit the floor (in particular security.bsp)
- GUI Z sorting is broken
- no sprite rendering
- some textures are misaligned
- cinematic rendering is disabled
- bits of the world will often pop in/out cos the DS GPU is SO overworked by this game! Some boss models have more polys than the DS can render in a frame...

Reasons I'm releasing this early is cos a) I'm too busy to work on this properly b) my computers all have faulty PSUs! c) most of my flash card readers have disintegrated!

Finally, if you enjoy the game and want the bugs sorted please drop some pennies on THIS LINK (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=simonjhall%40gmail%2ecom&no_shipping=2&no_note=1&tax=0&currency_code=GBP&lc=GB&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF&charset=UTF%2d8)

Thanks for playing
Simon

http://quake.drunkencoders.com/q2/images/right_image.jpg
http://quake.drunkencoders.com/q2/images/right_lower_image.jpg

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments

[bah]

I'm mostly a PSP user for homebrew, but when I see something like this......

Huge amount of respect for what it must have taken to get this thing running man.

[Nold]

Realy awsome work!

I never even thought that it could run so fast ever on a DS...
Even if i can't overclock my RAM T_T

sick just sick! keep it up!

[pcwzrd13]

I just downloaded it and it works great! I made a video of it on YouTube. Check it out here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ianqSOCKTok

Keep up the good work! :D

[jhhoward]

Didn't work for me. Using Supercard lite with commercial quake2 .pak files and supplied .cfg file

Output:
Init ARM7...done
ARM7 is initialised
vram initialised
texture system initialised
profiling has been enabled
Added packfile //baseq2/pak0.pak
(3307 files)
Added packfile //baseq2/pak1.pak
(279 files)
Added packfile //baseq2/pak2.pak
(2 files)
execing default.cfg
execing config.cfg
basedir is write protected
Console initialized
Changing console font
about to die:
Couldn't load pics/colormap.pcx
DS video shutting down
...done
Sys_Error:Couldn't load pics/colormap.pcx
link register is 0202a398

On 'slowest' memory setting. I tried running the memtestARM and no problems with RAM extension.

[simonjhall]

Howdy. Thanks for the kind comments :)
@jhhoward, I've seen this before (I've had it with my SC) and it's a dldi problem, where the driver corrupts data as it's reading it out. On my Supercard, what I did was extract all the pak files into the baseq2 directory (but maintaining the directory structure), then deleting the pak files.
This may impact on load times, but it should hopefully make the game work ok.

Alternatively, you could try the demo pak files which are much smaller, and are less likely to have this problem.

[jhhoward]

OK I unpacked all the .PAK files and the game runs nicely. It's particularly impressive, I thought Quake I was about the limit of the DS!

I noticed that some polys appeared flat shaded for a few seconds before the texture gets applied. Are all the textures being streamed into VRAM? I also noticed the screen flicker a little when walking around sometimes. This is usually when the write to texture VRAM hasn't finished in the VBLANK.

Overall, kudos! Any plans for multiplayer support?

[simonjhall]

Wow that is a relief! Glad it works for you.
In answer to your questions,
1) when a surface is white for a moment, yes you're right - that is when the textures are getting streamed into VRAM.
I want to remove the thing where if you shoot a monster of that type for the first time it'll flicker white as the 'hurt' texture loads. It should really show the previous texture until the new one is loaded. However, doing that will probably break multiplayer support.

2) the flickering is (as you say) due to me uploading the texture during the time that the GPU is using it. Making this work without flickering is really, really hard. Maybe version 2 :)

3) multiplayer will be in version 2. I tell you now, the framerate when in running the multiplayer maps is, in the words of one of my testers "stellar" - 30fps, easy!

[jhhoward]

Fixing the flickering during the texture upload should be possible. I'm unfamiliar with the homebrew API but if you make sure that you only upload on the VBLANK interrupt, and stop uploading when you run out of scanlines this should be possible.

[Echo1]

Great work Simon. It's amazing how you've managed to get it running at all on the lil'DS.

You mention overclocking the expansion memory. I have the 3in1, can it be done safely on that cart? And what settings? I got the tool that you suggested.

[da_head]

you have to buy extra ram...? rofl i never knew you could do that for ds. how much is it for this slot 2 ram? and what would be the best brand? (so you can overclock it?) this looks really awesome, and i wanna c if it worth the money for the ram. btw, does this ram help out for other games as well? make em run slightly faster, or no?

[simonjhall]

You mention overclocking the expansion memory. I have the 3in1, can it be done safely on that cart? And what settings? I got the tool that you suggested.You should be able to use the fastest setting. When the game starts up choose the third speed option, 'Slow'. Enjoy the better load times and frame rates!

[wizard]

Awesome! This is excellent work Simon. Thank you!

jhhoward, I have a Supercard Lite and have this problem with about 50% of the homebrew I play that requires a DLDI patch. My solution in these cases is simply not to apply the DLDI patch. Everything usually works fine, and this was no exception.

[pcwzrd13]

Great work Simon. It's amazing how you've managed to get it running at all on the lil'DS.

You mention overclocking the expansion memory. I have the 3in1, can it be done safely on that cart? And what settings? I got the tool that you suggested.

I have the 3in1 and I can run Quake2DS on all three speeds (slow, slower, and slowest) without overclocking.

[K1ckass]

Sweeeeeet man, really good job!
Respect! ;)

[Echo1]

I have the 3in1 and I can run Quake2DS on all three speeds (slow, slower, and slowest) without overclocking.
But does that tool (memtestARM) work okay? Could I safely use it?

[pcwzrd13]

you have to buy extra ram...? rofl i never knew you could do that for ds. how much is it for this slot 2 ram? and what would be the best brand? (so you can overclock it?) this looks really awesome, and i wanna c if it worth the money for the ram. btw, does this ram help out for other games as well? make em run slightly faster, or no?

I use the EZFlash 3in1. You can get it here for $19.04 with free shipping:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1894

It also has Rumble and the ability to store a GBA game. It comes from China so it'll take a couple weeks to come unless you pay extra for shipping. They also sell a black one if you have a black DS. Some other homebrew apps and games use it but it depends on if the programmer added support for it.

[da_head]

I use the EZFlash 3in1. You can get it here for $19.04 with free shipping:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1894

It also has Rumble and the ability to store a GBA game. It comes from China so it'll take a couple weeks to come unless you pay extra for shipping. They also sell a black one if you have a black DS. Some other homebrew apps and games use it but it depends on if the programmer added support for it.

hmm i c..so after u put it in, do u have to configure anything? or does the quake pick it up itself?

[pcwzrd13]

hmm i c..so after u put it in, do u have to configure anything? or does the quake pick it up itself?

You don't need to configure anything. It works automatically. I do recommend downloading this utility to put on your flash card:
http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/rudolph/nds/3in1_ExpPack/

It allows you to put GBA games on the 3in1, change the rumble level, and turn the RAM on and off.

[pcwzrd13]

But does that tool (memtestARM) work okay? Could I safely use it?

I don't know. I've never overclocked it.

[Echo1]

I don't know. I've never overclocked it.
I have just done it. No problems so far.:)

[wraggster]

what an awesome release :)

i have a toptoyDS and another one that escapes me (hey been working allday)

that ill gladly send to you infact i may have a few that i wont use again that ill gladly send you simon :)

let me know via pm if u wont and ill find them tonight.

what a great release though :)

[simonjhall]

Quake will auto-detect the speed and the amount of memory, but not the maximum speed the card can run at. You'll have to figure out the speed the card can run out yourself!
Just try selecting 'slower' or 'slow' when the game starts and see if it makes it into the demo. If not, just drop it to a slower speed.

[fook123]

this is great...... time to buy an expasion pack......

[firedemon727]

This is really good, keep up the good work.

[iofthestorm]

Wow, that's amazing. I think I'm going to have to buy an ezflash or something now. Which slot2 card is the best for overclocking the RAM? Within a reasonable price though, i.e. under $30 hopefully.

[Echo1]

Wow, that's amazing. I think I'm going to have to buy an ezflash or something now. Which slot2 card is the best for overclocking the RAM? Within a reasonable price though, i.e. under $30 hopefully.
The EZ-Flash 3in1 allows for maximum overclocking and costs less than $20.:)

[Pilot_51]

I ordered the EZ-Flash 3-in-1 from DealExtreme a month ago right after Simon indicated the release was soon and after a delay in shipping I got it just 5 days ago, just in time! Overclocking is working great.
I don't know if this is a bug or what, but in both the QuakeDS exram build and Quake2DS when I select EZ-Flash for the card type, it doesn't work, but it works fine on Auto-detect.
My microSD card was originally FAT32 with a 4KB block size and I formatted it to FAT with a 64KB block size (FAT32 doesn't support 64KB) and I'm pretty sure I noticed a boost in loading speed. Thanks for the tip.

I'm very happy to finally see this released and I'll be playing with it for awhile while I wait for the next release with the much-wanted multiplayer support.
You did an awesome job on it, Simon!

[gronne]

I hate that my DS is bricked, now more than ever :/

[acevampire]

Uhhh, will the MMD act as an appropriate slot-2...?

[DanTheManMS]

The MMD has no RAM, so no.

[iofthestorm]

The EZ-Flash 3in1 allows for maximum overclocking and costs less than $20.:)

Sweet, I think I'll get one since $20 is pretty much nothing for all the stuff it lets you do. Rumble sounds cool too, although it might be kind of awkward for a handheld.

[tirges]

Hmm, I had no luck trying it on the M3DS-Real with its Rumble-RAM PAK

I tried with shareware version Q2

It gets to somewhere loading map: demo2...
Then I get the red screen Guru


When running memtestARM it thinks its a G6Flash (they are related) but gives an error (same mem-address on 2 devices I tried, they both work fine with DS-Browser)


Any chance of supporting it in the future?

(oh, no luck with Quake1 exram version either, though it works without the ram, so DLDI seems to work...)

[wraggster]

which carts support this release ?

ie the ones with extra ram

[DanTheManMS]

According to the website:

Supported cards:

* 'Proper' SuperCards, eg the Lite, SD, MiniSD, and CF. The SuperCard Rumble and SuperCard One are not compatible.
* 'Perfect' M3s, eg the Lite Perfect, the Mini SD Perfect, and the SD Perfect. The Mini SD Pro, SD Pro, and Lite Pro are not compatible.
* EZ-Flash cards which have a slot-2 component and can play GBA games over 32MBit, eg EZ 3-in-1, EZ 4, EZ 5
* G6 Flash

[Akoi Meexx]

Even more reason now why I need to get an EZ Flash 4 Lite Deluxe.
Thoroughly impressed with this, Simon! Why someone hasn't snapped you up yet for commercial game programming yet is beyond me, because you'd really rock the DS world off its socks. Thanks for sharing this release with us.:cool:

[Cimi]

Which Extra Ram to buy?

3in1? Ewin? M3 Real?

Just to make the right buy... I guess my question is interesting for many users.

[simonjhall]

Buy the EZ 3-in-1. It's my card of choice.
I have *no idea* if the M3 real or ewin work (I haven't got the cards and I know nothing about them) so if they do, then that's fab!
Also re: the G6, again I haven't got a G6 myself (nor do any of my friends) so don't know which G6 is supported. All I know is the unlock code for 'the G6' and where its RAM lives in the address space.

For the people interested in the 'overclocking', I'm afraid it's not overclocking per-se. RAM takes a certain number of clock cycles to access a line of memory: it takes a number of cycles to access a given row and another number of cycles to read the next row.
What I do is tell the gba bus - based on what you select from the menu when the game starts - what values I want to set for these two numbers. The RAM always runs at 16 MHz. Some flash cards can handle these tighter timings while others cannot. Slot-2 RAM at the slow timings gives roughly 4.5 megs / second, but at the tighter timings gives more like 7 megs / second. Internal memory has a fixed performance, and gives ~12 megs / second.

I recently demonstrated (on gbadev) that the game is bound by the speed of the memory by running the bsp renderer on the ARM7 and found that it's the exact same speed as when run on the ARM9! Yet the ARM9 has twice the clock speed of the '7, and the ARM7 has no data cache whatsoever.

@Akoi Meexx, who says I'm not already a commercial game programmer?:rofl:

[Sonny_Jim]

Good work Simon! I haven't have a chance to test it yet but I'm sure it'll be as good as your other releases.

[noname1]

This is amazing!
I waited so long for this release and here it is.
I never tought it will work so fast.
I can't wait for the second release.
I have a question is it possible to play quake2ds "slow" on my m3 perfect sd?
I only managed to get it working "slower" and if i choose "slow" it will say this and freeze with a blinking *

*etting RAM speed to 6, 4
finding extra memory
0.4.8.12.16.20.24.28.32.megs
extra mem malloc init:
32mb in use
Init ARM7. . . done
ARM7 is initialised
vram initialised
texture system initialised
Profiling has been enabled


p.s my english is bad.

[rehbock]

goodjob!
i dont have a ds but prolly own q2psp and i can really say nice work...
i hope crossover gonna work on ds like it does on a psp (psp vs pc) . :)
I'm looking forward for psp vs ds matches :)

[simonjhall]

Well that's a given - we KNOW that the DS owns the PSP!
@noname, with the M3s I've tested you can only overclock to the full speed when you have the data files on a slot-1 card. If you have both data and RAM on slot-2 you can only make the middle setting.
Dunno why!

[Tripsk8er333]

Nice Work can't wait for the next release

[warioswoods]

Great work; you're really pushing the bounds of what can be done on the system.

Now if only you could give the guy porting duke3d some tips -- if this can run so well, there's no reason why duke should be stuck at 3-5 fps :)

Also, on the subject of shooters for the DS, doesn't Dark Forces essentially use the Doom engine? I wonder how much work would need to be done to the Doom port in order to play it. Then we'd have just about all my favorites on the DS.

Your work, however, is by far the most polished and impressive of all the above. I'd put maybe Descent as second best.

[noname1]

Ok thanks anyway. I hope you will fix that on your next release.

It took 3 hours to get quake II on my ds.
So long how is that even possible?
I had to search for 2:55 minutes for my quake II cd

[Homerun]

It won't install DX for me (Shareware)

[neilgalloway]

Looks good, I have been a big fan of QuakeDS (actually wrote an article on it...http://thoughtsfrommylife.com/article-261-QuakeDS_-_Quake_for_the_Nintendo_DS).

I am still having problems after reading through this thread. I did all the instructions, picked Auto-Detect and Slowest for settings. It counts up the memory, displays some messages that go through too fast to read, and then it displays a red screen saying

"Guru Meditation Error! data abort!"

along with a bunch of register values.

I have the Supercard Lite and Super Key and I see some people have written that they have got it working on that hardware.

I'm using the demo pak files.

[bah]

Guru, nice :)

Amiga user I take it.

[Hyrule_boy]

This is just simply awesome! You have done a really good job on this.

[simonjhall]

Thanks :)
To the boys and girls who are getting the guru meditation and don't get to read what the actual error message is, here's a special version!
http://quake.drunkencoders.com/q2/downloads/quake2_121008.nds
EXACTLY THE SAME, but without the crash drump screen.

[anthonyharris]

This is amazing. I have g6 slot 2 card, it has 32 megs of mem. runs on slowest, but even that is pretty fast, v.playable. well done

[Mourningstar]

It doesnt work that well on my G6. :(

A lot of lag/slowdown and pop-in textures...

Oh, and I can only get it working on the "Slowest" setting.

[neilgalloway]

Thanks for the new NDS file Simon, but it goes through the same steps and then ends up at a black screen. In the top left hand corner of the top screen there is a blinking white block cursor.

If I press a few buttons I can get the keyboard to pop up, then it just shows grey blocks on the side of the screen. I ended up getting out my camera and trying to capture some screen shots on rapid fire.

Here is the final screenshot I captured before it went to the black screen.


Here is the screen shot of the screen afterwards.
I notice it says "basedir is write protected". Does this matter. I can't seem to change the folder properties. I will try to make it non-readonly but it reverts back when I look at it.

http://neilgalloway.com/images/screenshot1.jpg

[chanmasta]

Hey I need help. I downloaded Quake II DS and done the baseq2 and all the pak files but can't find the config file. What is it called? It won't let me download it either. Plus I can't find the Quake2.nds file.

[simonjhall]

@neil, what happens if you run the build from the original zip file - if you get the guru meditation, a) what's the message at the top b) what's the $pc, c) what's the $lr, d) what are $r1, 2, &3?

@chanmasta, visit my web page (in the q2 downloads section). The config file I use is in there.
in fact (off the top of my head) the url is:
http://quake.drunkencoders.com/q2/downloads/config.cfg

[SweetFA]

Works great on my CycloDS evo with the 3-in-1 on slow speed.

[tirges]

Hm, for my M3DS-Real with Rumble-RAM-pak it reads:

top screen, just 1 character:
]

bottom screen:
X (a flashing X/+) ata at ARM7: 02697400
...sound enabled
==== InitGame ====
----- Server Initialization ----

spawning entities
0 entities inhibited
0 teams with 0 entities
--------------------------------

====== Quake2 Initialized ======

0.0.0.0:0: client_connect

_____________________________

Installation
Map: demo2...

ds_abort()

Not very helpful I reckon but hey ;-)

What kind of info would you need to be able to support this RAM pak?
Or could you only add it if you physically had one?

cheers

[neilgalloway]

Hmmmm, now that I have been messing around with it, I have different symptoms. Simon, I tried the original Quake2.nds file and it stalls on the load screen. Here is the message when it starts to turn bad..

about do die:
Couldn't load pics/colormap.pcx
DS video shutting down
...done
Sys_Error: Couldn't load pics/colormap.pcx
link register is 0202a398

Here is a screenshot since I'm in photo mood.

http://neilgalloway.com/images/screenshot2.jpg

[wiseguy109]

Any chance of getting rumble support in this or Quake 1? Also is there any way to configure it so that you jump by tapping the touch screen? also great job on this I never thought it would be possible to get Quake 2 running on the DS.

[neilgalloway]

Okay, I wiped my original install and went from scratch with the original instructions and the original quake2.nds file.

The values you asked for Simon are:
- message at the top: Guru Meditation Error! data abort!
- the $pc: 02011CD0
- the $lr: 02079308
- the $r1: 00000000
- the $r2: 0000005D
- the $r3: 00000000


Here is my screenshot again (the top screen is completely white BTW):
http://neilgalloway.com/images/screenshot3.jpg

[bobtheninjaoffood]

I'm using a SC lite (original not rumble) and I've got commercial PAKS, and I've tried three different DLDI drivers, and I have no controls, no backgrounds, everything is just black except for enemy models, and my main menu is screwy. It's in the upper left hand corner of the screen, so I cant read what I'm hitting. Why is it doing this?

[noname1]

Will quake2ds run smoother and will it have shorter loading times if i degrease the texture quality in the .PAK files or if i make them smaller?

P.S my English is bad

[masterchief_117]

this freakin great!! quake II is my favorite quake in the series!!

thnks!!! :)

[anónimo]

Hi simonjhall, these are awesome, you really have a good work done.
Thank you that you have made it possible Quake 2 on the DS to play.
Do you think it is possible different mods or maps (D-Day, Warsow, CS)
for Quake 2 has been made to play? Or have you already tried.
I have already over 50Wads for DSdoom rebuilt (and published) and find
the Quake 2GFX looks much better. For this reason,
I would be very interested.

Regards
-=B@ndit=-


@All Quake2 works perfect on Supercard Lite

I will answer no questions, about the Wads of me for DSdoom,
all Wads of me on 3 sites linked. Search with Google

[moro123]

Hi,

I have a problem running Q2 on my ds Lite... I have a R4 Revolution and The DS Browser exp. pack.

After starting the game i can choose the browser exp. pack.
the game tells me that its not enough memory... :(( is there a way to play q2 with this card combination or must i buy me another card?

thx 4 help

[Echo1]

The official browser pack is only 8mb. Q2 needs a minimum of 16mb. Best buy an EZ Flash 3-in-1 for $20/£10 from somewhere.

[simonjhall]

Yo sorry for the delay, y'all - I've been busy at work and with other things, my birthday and looking to move house... Plus I actually hate Quake :)

anyway,
@moro, no you can't play with the opera ram expansion (hence the message). I'd really like to make the game work with that card but supporting the card is a PITA as I don't own one. Every flash card has its nuances which need to be resolved, so it's not just a case of selecting another card "and only running with 8 MB".

@anónimo, thanks for the comments! Mods and maps will work with the game *as long as* the mod does not require or supply a gamex86.dll file. Although games were cross-platform in Quake1 they are not in Quake2. Sorry!

@masterchief, thanks mate.

@noname1, sorry but you will get no performance increase from decreasing texture sizes. You may get slightly faster load times though. The biggest speedups come from a) buying a ram card that can be overclocked and b) reformatting your flash card with the largest block size you can (normally 64k)

@bobtheninjaoffood, err, sounds odd! First of all, have you downloaded the config.cfg file from my website? For some reason it's not hosted here on this forum...

@neilgalloway/tirges, I'll take a look at this soon. But again I am still super-busy (hence me releasing the game when I did) but I will look at this!

Thanks to everyone for playing btw. Kinda makes writing it worthwhile-ish!

[moro123]

kk. thx for the answer. i´ll buy me a new card, this great piece of homebrew needs to be on my ds!

[noname1]

thanks for the reply :) i think i'll buy a fast slot 1 card which one do you suggest?
i have a m3 perfect sd with 32mb RAM build in it so that's good enough:p

[bah]

noname1:

Buy the EZ 3-in-1. It's my card of choice.
I have *no idea* if the M3 real or ewin work (I haven't got the cards and I know nothing about them) so if they do, then that's fab!
Also re: the G6, again I haven't got a G6 myself (nor do any of my friends) so don't know which G6 is supported. All I know is the unlock code for 'the G6' and where its RAM lives in the address space.
...

[Cimi]

@Simon:
Few Questions (I'm not forcing you to another update :) I'm just asking for your opinions on what can be done in the future):
1) Is there a change to improve the rendering, gaining more framerate?
2) Is there a change to avoid the problem of the *white texture*, I mean improving the memory management or making the engine lighter...
3) New features (wifi, but do it will reduce the amount of ram available? Like in yours Quake1 build without Exram)?
4) If I will take a look at the code, which parts you think will need some work on, and which of them you're written well?

[simonjhall]

@Simon:
Few Questions (I'm not forcing you to another update :) I'm just asking for your opinions on what can be done in the future):Cool, no problem. I might come back to Quake/Quake2 in a couple of months. At the moment I'm really enjoying not programming at home! (I program games for a living, so its nice not programming 24hrs a day)

1) Is there a change to improve the rendering, gaining more framerate?Yes, totally. There was a lot of work that I could have done (taking months) but I thought that it was more important to get a release out rather than dragging it out forever.

2) Is there a change to avoid the problem of the *white texture*, I mean improving the memory management or making the engine lighter...Not really. Could be a way to not flash white when you shoot a bad guy though.

3) New features (wifi, but do it will reduce the amount of ram available? Like in yours Quake1 build without Exram)?Yes there are lots of things that I want to get in (I stuck a big list in a post a few pages back)
Not sure how it's going to work with the whole "RAM thing". We'll reach the bridge when we get to it. I want to avoid separate builds, though.

4) If I will take a look at the code, which parts you think will need some work on, and which of them you're written well?I know of some crap bits, but it's really just a case of moving those optimised bits from QDS into Q2DS...
If anything was to be re-done, it'd be some of the levels. 'security.bsp' is a particular good example. Some levels are just massively CPU intensive for no reason.

[Pilot_51]

I might come back to Quake/Quake2 in a couple of months. At the moment I'm really enjoying not programming at home! (I program games for a living, so its nice not programming 24hrs a day)I feel you. I'm sure I didn't work nearly as hard as you (because I didn't do real programming), but after spending 4 months researching for and developing a realism mod for BF1942 by myself, I wanted a couple weeks break from any developing stuff.

[sepro]

I feel you. I'm sure I didn't work nearly as hard as you (because I didn't do real programming), but after spending 4 months researching for and developing a realism mod for BF1942 by myself, I wanted a couple weeks break from any developing stuff.

Same problem here too. During the day I develop software applications (not games though but scientific software for my phd research). I'm wanting to create a 2x2x2 version of my rubik's cube program for months now but I simply don't have the strength to start programming again when I arrive at home in the evening. :(

[Necrotek]

First of all - thanks a lot that you changed you mind and released Q2DS:) It's amazing to see this game on NDS.
Second - I'd like to write some bugs and requests (sorry if somebody had already written them):
1)Zone visibility - sometimes enemies are able to see and attack me though they are too far from me to see them. And because of it I'm able to see them if I look at them under certain angle and attack, remaining invisible.
2)On the map "Torture Chamberg" (jail4) I got game freezed when I destroyed tank-looking guy - game logged that text - "couldn't load sound/7" and "failed to open sound file 7" (but I met them before and nothing was wrong). I get a photo of this if you want to see it.
3)Is it able to add jump using touchscreen (as it was in Metroid Prime Hunter)?
Well, that's all for now.

[simonjhall]

Yo,

1)And because of it I'm able to see them if I look at them under certain angle and attack, remaining invisible.Haha, I didn't know you could do that! This visibility testing is done with a piece of the 3D hardware that isn't very well documented. It's also got other artifacts which surprisingly no-one has mentioned!

2)"couldn't load sound/7" and "failed to open sound file 7"It's a weird bug which happens once in a blue. I can't replicate it but if I could I'd fix it...

3)Is it able to add jump using touchscreen (as it was in Metroid Prime Hunter)?If you bind a button on the OSK or the touch buttons to jump you'll be able to jump by touching the screen.

[Pilot_51]

I'm able to see them if I look at them under certain angle and attack, remaining invisible.Isn't that the same or similar problem that I find many modern games still have? Unreal Engine 2 is one of the engines I notice the problem in the most and I've seen it in several other popular engines/games, especially when there's dense (near) fog.

[Necrotek]

Well, I got "sound bug" 2 times more, but it was written ";" and "h" instead of "7". I found them in other maps.

And one other sound bug - when I stand near lava (and able to hear its sound), sometimes I able to hear a loop of random previous played sounds of this map. It happened in the elevator room in "Borehole" and in the end of "Lower Mines".

[Necrotek]

One more error:
When I try to return from "Toxic Waste Dump" (after appearance of barricades) to "The Reactor", during first second of loading I get this message:
"failed malloc of 3052748b
118.00 kb of heap available
about to die:
Z_Malloc failed on allocation of 3052748 bytes
==== ShutdownGame ====
writing key configuration
...done
ARM7: S_Shutdown
DS Video shutting down
...done
Sys_Error : Z_Malloc: failed on allocation of 3052748 bytes
link register is 0202a398"

After it game doesn't do anything though it seems to be still working (according to moving cross in up-left corner).

[simonjhall]

Could you zip up the saves and send them to me? Thanks.

[Necrotek]

The problem of changing map is fixed after I reformatted MicroSD so it's useless to send a save now. I think that it happened because microsd was too fragmented.

[neilgalloway]

Thanks for the help so far Simon.

Well, I have played around with it for a few weeks. Tried reformatting the microSD card (it is the cheap Kingston brand), played with file permissions, and reinstalled a few times. Still not working.

It it still the same error I reported earlier in this thread with the red guru screen.

If you have time to look at it Simon, that would be great. I will check back to this thread periodically. I'll stick to QuakeDS for now.

[Necrotek]

I've got level changing error again in "Launch Command" :( I'll try to catch bug moment again and send saves (I got it after leaving map but I didn't save game during it)

[Necrotek]

Here it is - http://www.sendspace.com/file/frws0u
I've zipped the whole save folder. Bug save is the first (not autosave). If you try to return the previous map, sometimes LC error. And now I got a new one when I tryied to go next map:
"about to die:
Map has too many planes, 14594
********************
ERROR: Map has too many planes, 14594
********************
==== ShutdownGame ===="

[OneQuarterLife]

Hey Simon, is there any chance of GBAccelerator DS (http://www.division-6.com/store/gbaccelerator-ds-pr-8.html) support? You could make a separate build that allows us to change the clock frequency in options (So that it doesn't speed up like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8xi_CgIJ4), much like you did with your QuakeDS EXRam build.

Could be very helpful to Quake2DS, especially for the floating point operations.

Anyway, great job Simon, Quake2DS is looking and playing great. Keep up the amazing work.
I'll donate $20 to this project when I can.

[simonjhall]

Ooh, money! Good timing, cos I was just about to order a bunch of flash cards! $20 would be very helpful.

re: the gba accelerator, I've heard about it. I didn't know you could control it in software, though. I thought it just changed the crystal oscillator on the DS mobo or something. If you do have it installed, I'd love to know the details!

[OneQuarterLife]

Ooh, money! Good timing, cos I was just about to order a bunch of flash cards! $20 would be very helpful.

re: the gba accelerator, I've heard about it. I didn't know you could control it in software, though. I thought it just changed the crystal oscillator on the DS mobo or something. If you do have it installed, I'd love to know the details!

No, sadly you cannot control it via software. What I meant was something along the lines of creating a separate build of Quake2DS (Much like the Quake ExRam build) with time based limiters, possibly controlled via the options menu, so when you set your GBAccelerator (Or more specifically, the ARM9) to 92mh (1.4x) or 116mhz (1.8x) it doesn't speed up the gameplay.

The only way to change the overclocking modes on the GBAccelerator is through button combos.
The link below should explain what I mean by faster gameplay. The DS games don't have any limiters because they're made to run on one hardware config.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8xi_CgIJ4 (This was in my other post, in case you missed it.)

[simonjhall]

I wonder how many people out there have actually done this mod? It does sound like a cool idea, but I doubt that it'd improve the game speed too much - that's something for me to fix in the next build!
The game is very limited by the speed of the memory and if the memory isn't made to go any faster then the game won't either.
But if anyone out there has done this mod - please get in contact with me! I'd like to know how the game plays ;-)

[Pilot_51]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8xi_CgIJ4If you look closely, you'll see that it's fake. He just changed the speed of the video when he pressed Select. I mean look at the LED blinking and his fingers, you can't take excuses like "watch the power LED to see what mode you are in" or "You mean you don't move your fingers faster when the game you are playing is faster? How do you win?"; if you believe it, that almost eliminates all the clear evidence that it's fake. Prove me wrong, show it in action in real-time (either show me the software to do it or show me in a live video stream).
Mind you, I'm not saying anything for or against what you say about overclocking, I'm just saying the video is fake, as in attempting to make people believe something false.

[OneQuarterLife]

I wonder how many people out there have actually done this mod? It does sound like a cool idea, but I doubt that it'd improve the game speed too much - that's something for me to fix in the next build!
The game is very limited by the speed of the memory and if the memory isn't made to go any faster then the game won't either.
But if anyone out there has done this mod - please get in contact with me! I'd like to know how the game plays ;-)

This mod has the potential to nearly double the framerate, give you a lot of extra clock cycles, and improve the floating point speeds.
I'm a little reluctant at this point to test this on Quake 2, Mine locked up while overclocking Quake DS and I lost my whole MicroSD. Wasn't the first time I overclocked while playing Quake, but apparently overclocking while the MicroSD is in use causes a whole lot of problems.

EDIT:

Tried it, gameplay does speed up quite a bit. Still little stutters and the like while loading and accessing from the slot2 ram, but it does help. If the speed up could just be fixed, the two or three people who actually did this would get a huge FPS boost.

EDIT:

Nintendo underclocked the ARM9 to 66mhz from its intended 200mhz clock for the sake of battery life.
The mod is harmless in terms of heat and or the life of your DS. The only negative side to it is that it doubles the battery usage.


If you look closely, you'll see that it's fake. He just changed the speed of the video when he pressed Select. I mean look at the LED blinking and his fingers, you can't take excuses like "watch the power LED to see what mode you are in" or "You mean you don't move your fingers faster when the game you are playing is faster? How do you win?"; if you believe it, that almost eliminates all the clear evidence that it's fake. Prove me wrong, show it in action in real-time (either show me the software to do it or show me in a live video stream).
Mind you, I'm not saying anything for or against what you say about overclocking, I'm just saying the video is fake, as in attempting to make people believe something false.

/facepalm

Chip Its self (http://www.division-6.com/store/gbaccelerator-ds-pr-8.html)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGEPeZtk4I8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590t14cwhtk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-ocqeuOJaU

One if it's functions is the blinking LED, it shows you what overclocking mode you're in.
Strobe = 1.4
Faster Strobe = 1.8
Slow fade = .6

[DanTheManMS]

I thought it was the PSP that was underclocked from 333 MHz to 222 MHz for the sake of battery life, which is why "overclocking" it to 333 is safe and normal, and why some PSP games are now allowed to use all 333 MHz if they need to. The DS however I thought was designed to be 66 MHz on the ARM9 (+33 MHz ARM7) from the beginning. I could be wrong of course, but that was my understanding of the situation.

I've always been interested in the GBAccelerator and GBAccelerator DS, but I've never done the procedure myself.

EDIT: The FAQ on that site does say the DS was meant to run a bit faster than it currently does, so I guess there probably is some truth to the statement. Still, 200 MHz to 66 seems like a rather extreme underclock.

[OneQuarterLife]

EDIT: The FAQ on that site does say the DS was meant to run a bit faster than it currently does, so I guess there probably is some truth to the statement. Still, 200 MHz to 66 seems like a rather extreme underclock.

Check out the specs of the ARM9 in the DS, they list it as a 200mhz processor.

Edit:

http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM946E-S.html

[noname1]

Cool! i formatted my sd card to 64 k and the game runs 30% better what happens if i format it to 128 K ?

P.S: tell me if this isn't possible.

[adhdyoshi]

Cool! i formatted my sd card to 64 k and the game runs 30% better what happens if i format it to 128 K ?

P.S: tell me if this isn't possible.

Neither FAT16 nor FAT32 support that cluster size I believe.

[bobtheninjaoffood]

Hey Simon, I got it to work. It was just the cfg. Freaking amazing work. Do you have a PSP? If so, you should help Emergency Exit with the PSP port.

[simonjhall]

Yeah I should really have included the config file within the zip as 99% of sites that host the game has only got the nds! So there must be plenty of people out there like you who have had problems!

And I tried to get in contact with the guy who did the PSP ver but no luck. I had no problems fitting the game into 8-16 meg, so if they're having trouble with 24 then there's something wrong!

[bobtheninjaoffood]

The PSP port kinda died. :( But it would be really cool if you did a PSP port. The Quake on PSP right now is cool becuase its GL Quake, so the graphics look like PS2 graphics. By the way, I can't seem to get Quake 2 DS to save my key bindings. I keep having to configure it every time I play. It's not too big a deal, but if you know how to fix it that would be cool. :)

[Pilot_51]

By the way, I can't seem to get Quake 2 DS to save my key bindings. I keep having to configure it every time I play. It's not too big a deal, but if you know how to fix it that would be cool. :)Have you tried changing them in config.cfg rather than in-game?

[bobtheninjaoffood]

Good idea. I'll try that. :)

[some_guy_named_matt]

mmmmmmmmmmm, cant wait for multiplayer <3333

[Matt]

[DSmanic!]

Is it possible to make it faster than 'just plain slow'?

for quake 1 & 2

[Dayun]

Didn't work for me. Using Supercard lite with commercial quake2 .pak files and supplied .cfg file

Output:
Init ARM7...done
ARM7 is initialised
vram initialised
texture system initialised
profiling has been enabled
Added packfile //baseq2/pak0.pak
(3307 files)
Added packfile //baseq2/pak1.pak
(279 files)
Added packfile //baseq2/pak2.pak
(2 files)
execing default.cfg
execing config.cfg
basedir is write protected
Console initialized
Changing console font
about to die:
Couldn't load pics/colormap.pcx
DS video shutting down
...done
Sys_Error:Couldn't load pics/colormap.pcx
link register is 0202a398

On 'slowest' memory setting. I tried running the memtestARM and no problems with RAM extension.

I get the exact same error message when trying to run it. I have EZFlash V Plus slot 1 card and the EZ 3 in 1 expansion pack. Has anyone overcome this problem and if so what was the solution?

Also a question regarding memtestARM. I downloaded it and extracted the contents. Do i only copy the nds file to my mem card and run it or do i have to do anything with the other files in the archive?

Thanks in advance.

[sepro]

I get the exact same error message when trying to run it. I have EZFlash V Plus slot 1 card and the EZ 3 in 1 expansion pack. Has anyone overcome this problem and if so what was the solution?

Also a question regarding memtestARM. I downloaded it and extracted the contents. Do i only copy the nds file to my mem card and run it or do i have to do anything with the other files in the archive?

Thanks in advance.

Extract the pak files (and delete them afterwards), that fixed the problem for me. However saving/loading doesn't work for me. I hope this will ge fixed sometime, the speed was quite playable.

[Searinox]

about to die:
Map has too many planes, 14594
********************
ERROR: Map has too many planes, 14594
********************
==== ShutdownGame ====

I am getting the EXACT same error that Necrotek is getting when switching from Launch Command to the next zone, with the exact same number of planes reported. Trying to load any other savegame afterwards from the black screen results in a Z_Malloc error and a permacrash. A workaround I am imagining possible, can you just remove that limit check command so that it loads the map anyway? It's pretty useless since Q2DS isn't designed to work with anything other than the original PAK files, and those are all the same worldwide, no need for map size checks.

I am SURE that it's NOT my savegame. Because I loaded the game WITHOUT demos(to prevent memory hogging) and once at the main screen I typed "map strike" so it would load directly to the level without loading anything else beforehand and it still produced the exact same error. I then tried loading all the subsequent levels with the "map" command and they all worked. I can say for certain that every single level in the game loads except for that one and given the fact that I cannot even boot this level clean I seriously ask if this level has ever worked for anybody.

PS: Yes I am the one who recently sent you the three emails. I finally found the proper thread for this project. :P

Has anyone actually made it past Launch Command?

[MrSkiz]

Extract the pak files (and delete them afterwards), that fixed the problem for me. However saving/loading doesn't work for me. I hope this will ge fixed sometime, the speed was quite playable.
If Quake2DS runs fine (M3DS Real + GBA RAM pack), is there a chance of performance "boost" by unzipping the paks ? Loading times maybe ?

[simonjhall]

Before releasing the game, I ensured that every single level could be loaded cold. Do you know the name of the actual map? If so, try starting the game directly at that level rather than loading it from a save.

[Searinox]

Before releasing the game, I ensured that every single level could be loaded cold. Do you know the name of the actual map? If so, try starting the game directly at that level rather than loading it from a save.
I stated everything you're asking about in the above post. I HAD tried to start the level directly. I loaded the game without even letting demos load and used the MAP command to start the level directly. The map is "strike.bsp".

In short, all I really have to do is launch the game, press A to bring up the OSK and type "map strike", hit enter and it gives me that one same error, it's that easy to cause it. I did hash checks on the PAK files(with the two demos unremoved) and compared to others', they seem to be identical to the ones in the original full version. Furthermore, I am using YOUR config file, so there isn't much room for variables. Does it not do it to you too?

[simonjhall]

Yeah the map command was what I was getting at, cool :)
It's bizarre then that it doesn't work. I'll have to check again from my end then that the level loads. But as I said before, I can't give an update without invalidating all your save files so you're just gonna have to skip that level, I'm afraid.

[Searinox]

Please do try it. If not I can zip and send you my entire setup PAKs included so you can check if there's anything wrong. I'm okay with the incompatible savegames issue as long as I can PLAY the level. XD

Update: Z_MAlloc errors on level transitions on Launch Command and Pumping Station. They can be overcome if booting the game without demos and then loading directly at the transition points without shooting or bringing up the menu -- is Q2DS not freeing up RAM well enough when unloading levels?

[olesolo]

I got a DSi XL and Supercard DSTWO. I can't run a Quake II. Can someone help me? Any links to step-by-step tutorials?
Thanks in advance!

[LDAsh]

It's possibly your microSD is too laggy for it. Try it on a different, faster SD and use this to test their speeds:- http://www.ds-xtra.com/CF_Bench As for getting it running faster, I think the only way is to decrease the texture memory by resizing them down manually and repacking. I don't think the polycount is to blame, I think it's too many texels per frame.