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10. FAQ: But Quake?

10.1 What about that 3Dfx GL driver for Quake?

The 3Dfx Quake GL, aka mini-driver, aka miniport, aka Game GL, aka 3Dfx GL alpha, implemented only a Quake-specific subset of OpenGL (see http://www.cs.unc.edu/~martin/3dfx.html for an inofficial list of supported code paths). It is not supported, and not updated anymore. It was a Win32 DLL (opengl32.dll) released by 3Dfx and was available for Windows only. This DLL is not, and will not be ported to Linux.

10.2 Is there a 3Dfx based glQuake for Linux?

Yes. A Quake linuxquake v0.97 binary has been released based on Mesa with Glide. The Quake2 q2test binary for Linux and Voodoo Graphics (tm) has been made available as well. A full Quake2 for Linux was released in January 1998, with linuxquake2-3.10. Dave "Zoid" Kirsch is the official maintainer of all Linux ports of Quake, Quakeworld, and Quake2, including all the recent Mesa based ports. Note that all Linux ports, including the Mesa based ones, are not officially supported by id Software.

See ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake/unix/ for the latest releases.

10.3 Does glQuake run in an XFree86 window?

A revision of Mesa and the Mesa-based Linux glQuake is in preparation. Mesa already does support this by GLX, but Linux glQuake does not use GLX.

10.4 Known Linux Quake problems?

Here is an excerpt, as of January 7th, 1998. I omitted most stuff not specific to &3Dfx; hardware.

• You really should run Quake2 as root when using the SVGALib and/or GL renders. You don't have to run as root for the X11 refresh, but the modes on the mouse and sound devices must be read/writable by whatever user you run it as. Dedicated server requires no special permissions.
• X11 has some garbage on the screen when 'loading'. This is normal in 16bit color mode. X11 doesn't work in 24bit (TrueColor). It would be very slow in any case.
• Some people are experiencing crashes with the GL renderer. Make sure you install the libMesa that comes with Quake2! Older versions of libMesa don't work properly.
• If you are experience video 'lag' in the GL renderer (the frame rate feels like it's lagging behind your mouse movement) type "gl_finish 1" in the console. This forces update on a per frame basis.
• When running the GL renderer, make sure you have killed selection and/or gpm or the mouse won't work as they won't "release" it while Quake2 is running in GL mode.

10.5 Know Linux Quake security problems?

As Dave Kirsch posted on January 28th, 1998: an exploit for Quake2 under Linux has been published. Quake2 is using shared libraries. While the READMRE so far does not specifically mention it, note that Quake2 should not be setuid.

If you want to use the ref_soft and ref_gl renderers, you should run Quake2 as root. Do not make the binary setuid. You can only run both those renderers at the console only, so being root is not that much of an issue.

The X11 render does not need any root permissions (if /dev/dsp is writable by others for sound). The dedicated server mode does not need to be root either, obviously.

Problems such as root requirements for games has been sort of a sore spot in Linux for a number of years now. This is one of the goals that e.g. GGI is targetting to fix. A ref_ggi might be supported in the near future.

10.6 Does LinuxQuake use multitexturing?

To my understadnding, glQuake will use a multitexture EXTension if the OpenGL driver in question offers it. The current Mesa implementation and the Glide driver for Linux do not yet support this extension, so for the time being the answer is no. See section on Mesa and multitexturing for details.

10.7 Where can I get current information on Linux glQuake?

Try some of these sites: the "The Linux Quake Resource" at linuxquake.telefragged.com, or the "Linux Quake Page" at www.planetquake.com/threewave/linux/. Alternatively, you could look for Linux Quake sites in the "SlipgateCentral" database at www.slipgatecentral.com.