yquake2remaster/doc/030_configuration.md

Configuration Guide

Yamagi Quake II provides a lot of configuration options. This guides shows how to configure Yamagi Quake II to match you needs. This guide is for advanced users, if you just want to play you're likely happy with the defaults and the options that can be set through the menu.

Choosing a Renderer

Yamagi Quake II ships with 4 renderers:

• The OpenGL 3.2 renderer: This renderer was developed for the needs of modern graphics hardware and is usually the best choice for OpenGL 3.2 capable graphics cards. It provides a very detailed look and feel, matching the dark and dirty atmosphere on Stroggos. The texturing renderer looks mostly the same on all GPU drivers. Depending on the display the default lighting may be too bright or too dark, it can be adjusted through the menu or through the vid_gamma cvar.
• The OpenGL 1.4 renderer: This is a slightly enhanced version of the original OpenGL renderer shipped in 1997 with the retail release. It's provided for older graphics cards, not able to run the OpenGL 3.2 or Vulkan renderer. The OpenGL 1.4 renderer has some limitations. The look and feel is highly dependent on the GPU driver and the platforms OpenGL implementation, especially the texture rendering may vary to a wide margin. The global lighting may not be rendered correctly, especially liquids may be too dark or too bright.
• The Software renderer: Shipped for historical reasons only. Setting the OpenGL 3.2 or Vulkan renderer to match the software renderers look and feel is often the better choice, since it's faster and provides colored lighting. The software renderer may show some rendering errors on widescreen resolutions.
• The Vulkan renderer: The Vulkan renderer was ported from vkQuake2 to support plattform with no or bad OpenGL 3.2 support. Like the OpenGL 3.2 renderer the look and feel is always the same, regardless of the GPU driver. It's lightning rendering matches the OpenGL 1.4 renderer. Unlike the OpenGL renderers the underwater warp effect is supported.

Choosing a Sound System

Yamagi Quake II ships with 2 sound system:

• The OpenAL sound system: This is the default and highly recommended. It provides full surround sound support and even HRTF for headphones. But also the plain stereo playback is much better than in the original sound system. The setup is done mostly through OpenAL, have a look at the documentation of your OpenAL library.
• The SDL sound system: This is the classic sound system, providing an experience like the original client. Set s_openal to 0 and execute an snd_restart to activate it. The classic sound system may be somewhat problematic on modern systems like Windows 10 or Linux with Pulseaudio.

Tuning for Precise Timings

Yamagi Quake II comes with a highly evolved asynchronous client. While the default settings are usually good, some players may want to tune for more precise timing or better vertical synchronization accuracy.

Quake II was never meant to run on todays hardware. Modern hardware is hundred times faster than the hardware of 1997. With faster hardware inaccuracies scattered all over the code become visible and a problem. We're unable to fix those inaccuracies, because the game data, the network protocol and the whole look and feel depends on them. We can just try work around them.

Additionally modern high resolution LCD displays are much more prone to tearing and missed frames than the low resolution CRT displays of the late 1990th. This is a big problem, because precise timings and keeping the frame rate constant are at least partly mutual exclusive. So players have the choice:

• Keep an accurate frame rate, rendering exactly as many frames as the display can show. For example on a common 59.95hz display the game should try to render about 60 frames per second and rely on vertical synchronization (vsync) to slow itself down to 59.95 frames per second. With this approach tearing and missed frames (perceivable as micro stuttering) are minimized, but on the other hand the timings may be a little bit off.
• Keep precise timings and the cost of a less accurate frame rate. With this approach the timings are optimal, e.g. movement like strafejumps and the clipping against walls are a precise as possible. But the frame rate may be a little off, leading to slight tearing and missed frames.

The first approach is the default. To switch over to precise timing the following console variables must be altered. There's no need to alter all of them for good results, it depends on the display, the hardware, the GPU driver and the preferences of the player.

• Make sure that busywait is set to 1. That's the default. Setting it to 0 saves some CPU time but is plain deadly for the timings. You'll never get precise timing and tearing- and / or micro stuttering free gameplay with busy waits switched off!
• r_vsync can be set to 0. Enabling the vertical synchronization allows the GPU driver to wait for the display, thus "stealing" time from Yamagi Quake II. This stolen time may add some variance to the internal timing. Disabling vertical synchronization will always cause tearing!
• cl_maxfps must be set to a value lower than the renderer frame rate. With r_vsync set to 1 that's the display refresh rate and otherwise the value of vid_maxfps. Yamagi Quake II enforces this restriction with an margin of 5%. For example, if r_vsync is set to 1 on an 60hz display 60 * 0.95 = 57 FPS. If cl_maxfps is set too high (above 90) the infamous 125hz bug will trigger and the physics will be off. That may be desired.
• vid_displayrefreshrate must be set to the framerate of the display. The default is -1 which means autodetect. In most cases that's okay, but for precise timings it's a good idea to override the autodetected value and set the display refresh rate by hand. The displays EDID info or the GPU driver may be lying. Only full numbers can be given, e.g. 59 or 60 for a 59.95hz display. If round up there's a small risk for imprecise timing. If round down micro stuttering may occure.
• When running with vertical synchronisation enabled, vid_maxfps can be set to any value higher than the display refresh rate. If the vertical synchronisation is disabled vid_maxfps should be set to the desired target frame rate.

Putting it all together we come up with three so to say standard configurations that can be used as a baseline for experiments. For a 60hz display:

• Precise frame rate and slightly imprecise timings:
  • busywait set to 1.
  • r_vsync set to 1.
  • cl_maxfps set to 60.
  • vid_displayrefreshrate set to -1.
  • vid_maxfps set to 300.
• Somewhat precise timing and some micro stuttering:
  • busywait set to 1.
  • r_vsync set to 1.
  • cl_maxfps set to 60.
  • vid_displayrefreshrate set to the displays refresh rate minus 1.
  • vid_maxfps set to 300.
• Precise timing at the cost of tearing:
  • busywait set to 1.
  • r_vsync set to 0.
  • cl_maxfps set to 60.
  • vid_displayrefreshrate set to the displays refresh rate plus 1.
  • vid_maxfps set to the desired frame rate.

And there's always the option to disable the asynchronous client all together by setting cl_async to 0. In that case cl_maxfps and vid_maxfps are tied together, just like with the original client each renderframe is also a clientframe. With that both precise timings and tearing / micro stuttering free rendering can be archieved by setting cl_maxfps to a value higher then the displays refresh rate and activating the vertical synrchonization by setting r_vsync to 1. But if cl_maxfps is set too high (about 90) second the 125hz bug will trigger and the physics will be off. Additionally it will flood servers with packages, at least one package per frame. That may be considered abuse.

Getting a classic look and feel

Yamagi Quake II has some features to provide a better experience on modern hardware. For example widescreen support, HUD scaling or FOV alterations. Not all users may like these changes.

HUD scaling

All levels of scaling can be switched off in the Video menu. It's also possible to switch only parts of the scaling off, for example the menu and the console can be scaled, but the HUD not. The cvars are:

• r_consolescale for the console.
• r_hudscale for the HUD.
• r_menuscale for the menu.
• crosshair_scale for the crosshair.

Please note that's not always clear which GUI elements are part of what subsystem. The loading plaque is part of the menu and not of the HUD, for example.

Field of View

Yamagi Quake II has a different FOV calculation then the original client. Yamagi Quake II determines the optimal FOV (horizontal and vertical) with the Horplus algorithm and the gun is rendered always with a static FOV of 80, the original client only had a vertical FOV applied to everything.

• The FOV itself can be altered through the Video menu or the fov cvar. That gives a smaller or wider FOV, but not the classic Quake II look because the Horplus algorithm is still active.
• The Horplus algorithm can be disabled by setting horplus to 0.
• The gun can be rendered with the global FOV by setting r_gunfov to the same value as fov.

4/3 Cinematics

While the original Quake II client stretched cinematics over the whole window, Yamagi Quake II always renders them with 4/3 aspect. The old behavior can be enforced by setting cin_force43 to 0.

Sound system

As already said above, Yamagi Quake II has two sound systems. The old one and OpenAL. Additionally some new sound effects were added. We recommend to stay with OpenAL, even if the stereo rendering is somewhat different to the old sound system. OpenAL is much more distortion free and more reliable, especially on modern platforms like Windows 10 or Linux with PulseAudio.

The new sound effects can be disabled with:

• s_doppler set to 0 disables the doppler effect.
• s_underwater set to 0 disables the underwater effect.

Renderer

While Yamagi Quake II still supports the Software renderer, configuring one of the OpenGL renderers to give a classic look and feel is often the better choice. The OpenGL renderers are much faster, more reliable and support colored lighting.

General cvars:

• cl_lights: Set to 0 to disable the dynamic lightning.

Both OpenGL renderers:

• gl_texturemode: Set to GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR to disable the texture filtering, giving a classic pixel look.

The OpenGL 1.4 renderer:

• gl1_pointparameters: When set to 0 the particles are rendered as blurry octagon. May be already the case if the GPU driver doesn't support point parameters.

The OpenGL 3.2 renderer:

• gl3_particle_square: When set to 1 the particles are rendered as squares.

The Vulkanrenderer:

• vk_pixelsize: Pixelates the image, simulating a lower resolution.
• vk_texturemode: Set to VK_MIPMAP_LINEAR to disable the texture filtering, giving a classic pixel look.

Retexturing Packs

Yamagi Quake II has full support for retexturing packs. They just need to be installed and should be picked up automatically. To disable the retexturing pack at a later time set gl_retexturing to 0.

The most comprehensive retexturing pack can be found here: https://deponie.yamagi.org/quake2/texturepack/ It can be installed by placing the zip-Files in the baseq2 directory. Please note that some textures are broken, especially the model textures.