Quake 3

[Xmas]

There is a lot of R&D into realtime DXTC and it is perfectly possible (although most of the code for it is x86 only). The published realtime methods so far are not very high quality, but hopefully that will be changing soon...

Vanilla DXTC doesn't work well for lightmaps, but for most other Q3 textures it's very good. With the tight dot pitch on the Pandora I'd have thought you could also drop a mip level without hurting image quality badly (and losing one mip level reduces texture memory footprint by 66%).

I know Simon Fenney of Imagination has done a lot of research into PVRTC in the past, including realtime, but I don't know what his more recent results are. I would have thought there's a good chance that it would be in any SDK that is provided for the chip.

High quality PVRTC compression is significantly more complex than S3TC or ETC because the blocks are not independent, the reference colours are interpolated between adjacent blocks (which makes it better suited for certain kinds of textures). Realtime ETC compression may be possible with acceptable quality, but ETC is limited to RGB. S3TC is not supported on Pandora.

btw, losing the top mip level reduces the memory footprint by 75%.

 

[whiskthecat]

So, I know this is way into the future, but I was just bored and wondering if it would be possible to implement voice chat using Pandoras microphone?

 

[Patrick R Ludvigsen]

So, I know this is way into the future, but I was just bored and wondering if it would be possible to implement voice chat using Pandoras microphone?

If I recall correctly voice chat has been added to the latest builds of ioquake3

 

[TomCooksey]

Which was sadly merged after my check out... I'll merge it back in once done.

 

[Megatog615]

Keep in mind that you cannot modify any of the original data. If you do your client will fail the pure check when you connect to an internet server and you will not be able to play online. Texture compression will have to be done at load-time.

 

[Kings]

Some kids got bored and made a q3 urban terror map of my highschool. It took 3 years and a lot of pictures to get it perfect. Then they used it to make a virtual fly through of the school. Still a classic at LAN parties though.

 

[Adventus]

QUOTE
Keep in mind that you cannot modify any of the original data. If you do your client will fail the pure check when you connect to an internet server and you will not be able to play online. Texture compression will have to be done at load-time.
Surely you could bypass that? Even if it meant keeping the original data around....

 

[Julius]

Or simply play on Pandoral only servers (with the same media), which is probably better anyways, due to the controls.

 

[flatmush]

You could just compress the textures at load time if they're not already compressed, save them in a cache folder and then next time you could just load the compressed version but still use the normal version for the pure tests.

 

[Jeric]

+1 to pandora only servers since, lets face it, keyboard + mouse murders controller in most cases. Just look at the dreamcast q3 when you have pc players join in.

However it should be left as an option you can enable or disable at server startup since otherwise you'll get grief about people wanting to dm with their buddies. Then again I suppose either a bluetooth mouse/keyboard or some usb thing would work too (though I guess you'd need a splitter....if that'd even work), right?

 

[cb88]

+1 pandora only server as long as we can still join other servers

there will be few people to play with.... not everybody will be playing quake online

sure a dedicated pandora server would be awesome but lets not limit ourselves anyway you can plug a full keyboard and mouse into the usb port X.x

 

[icurafu]

+1 to pandora only servers since, lets face it, keyboard + mouse murders controller in most cases. Just look at the dreamcast q3 when you have pc players join in.

However it should be left as an option you can enable or disable at server startup since otherwise you'll get grief about people wanting to dm with their buddies. Then again I suppose either a bluetooth mouse/keyboard or some usb thing would work too (though I guess you'd need a splitter....if that'd even work), right?

You might use the dpad on the Pandora along with the usb mouse.

 

[Megatog615]

QUOTE
Keep in mind that you cannot modify any of the original data. If you do your client will fail the pure check when you connect to an internet server and you will not be able to play online. Texture compression will have to be done at load-time.
Surely you could bypass that? Even if it meant keeping the original data around....

Or just set r_picMip to a higher value by default, like I said? Q3 can compress textures on the fly too with r_ext_compressed_textures. If the Pandora can't do the built-in compression algorithm, write your own compression for the renderer with the extensions available.
Converting the textures to a smaller size by hand is a half-ass way to do it and it breaks compatibility.

Textures are loaded and converted to a standard format at load-time so if you change r_picMip it will actually change the textures at load time.

Also, keep in mind you'll need a CD-Key handy to play it.

 

[Adventus]

QUOTE
Or just set r_picMip to a higher value by default, like I said?
Yes, thats the easy way to do it, but not neccessarily the best performance/quality wise.

QUOTE
Q3 can compress textures on the fly too with r_ext_compressed_textures.If the Pandora can't do the built-in compression algorithm, write your own compression for the renderer with the extensions available.
Yep, The r_ext_compressed_textures option enables S3TC compression in the OpenGL driver during texture loading. The pandora does not support S3TC, it does support PVRTC and ETC (hardware-wise atleast). PVRTC is, in most cases, superior. It also has the option of 2bpp which could be useful for certain textures (ie lightmaps, which are not being compressed at all at the moment). The downside ofcourse is that, as Xmas pointed out, it requires the data to be precompressed offline (unless you want a very long load time.... ETC would be faster).

Just to be clear, I'm not asking Tom Cooksey to implement PVRTC support. I was just putting the idea out there. Its additional work that i may end up doing myself.

 

[God Ginrai]

Some kids got bored and made a q3 urban terror map of my highschool. It took 3 years and a lot of pictures to get it perfect. Then they used it to make a virtual fly through of the school. Still a classic at LAN parties though.

Nowadays they'd get arrested for planning another Columbine.

Or simply play on Pandoral only servers (with the same media), which is probably better anyways, due to the controls.

That's never better. Better connectivity gives better options. You should have the option to choose which servers you connect to. You should not be limited. Especially on Quake 3. Quake 3 Arena was the first game on consoles to allow gameplay between PC Users and console users.

-God Ginrai

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

Yeah, I'm actually picking up Quake 4 and UT3 for my 360 just so I can get used to playing a more fast-paced FPS with the dual analog setup. I know some people that can still "frag t3h n00bz" whether they play with a mouse and keyboard or a controller, but I must say, I'm not one of them.

See, Pandora's making me learn a new skill! :lol:

 

[Dingo_aus]

I am going to boycott UT3 and it's creators from now on - I bought the PC version because they specifically said they would release a Linux port "soon" after shipping.

Well it has been over a year and it seems talks with Microsoft on collateral issues means they have gone back on that promise and UT3 will never get ported.

...which is a damn shame because UT2K4 was one of the best Linux games I've ever played and that is why I trusted and supported the next version.

 

[CronoTriggerfan]

I am going to boycott UT3 and it's creators from now on - I bought the PC version because they specifically said they would release a Linux port "soon" after shipping.

Well it has been over a year and it seems talks with Microsoft on collateral issues means they have gone back on that promise and UT3 will never get ported.

...which is a damn shame because UT2K4 was one of the best Linux games I've ever played and that is why I trusted and supported the next version.

Wow man, that sucks. Even as a Windows guy, that's disappointing. Just one more reason to use Windows, though, I guess. Besides, Linux is only free if your time is worthless. :lol:

 

[Chilly Willy]

I am going to boycott UT3 and it's creators from now on - I bought the PC version because they specifically said they would release a Linux port "soon" after shipping.

Well it has been over a year and it seems talks with Microsoft on collateral issues means they have gone back on that promise and UT3 will never get ported.

...which is a damn shame because UT2K4 was one of the best Linux games I've ever played and that is why I trusted and supported the next version.

Wow man, that sucks. Even as a Windows guy, that's disappointing. Just one more reason to use Windows, though, I guess. Besides, Linux is only free if your time is worthless. :lol:


No, it's one less reason to use Windows.

 

[Swiss_Cheeseman]

...Also, keep in mind you'll need a CD-Key handy to play it.

I don't see why that would be necessary. Maybe for connecting to official servers but since the vast majority of them are most likely running punkbuster and are full of PC players there seems to be little point. Cross-platform multiplayer is a gimmick at best.

Does the GPL source even include the CD-Key stuff?