[eno]

Just reading over at wincent.org that they were testing quake 3 in the classic environment of os x. Interesting reading. Hadn't even thought of trying it.

Still waiting for my copy of the beta. Anybody else tried it? I am interested in what sort of frame rates people get. It will be really interesting to compare these too when the proper os x version of q3 is released.

[Scott_H]

Welcome to the forum.

Well with the Cocoa version oD Q3A coming out very soon, who would bother with classic?

[edit to add]

Although I would agree that it's interesting to see the difference between the two as well as a OS 9 booted system.

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 09-28-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 09-28-2000).]

I heard a rumor that the Cocoa version "Thank you OMNIGROUP" ran around 10% faster or better.

[eno]

well that is certainly what i am hoping.

graeme devine at id software wrote this in his plan:

9/18/00

I've gotten many emails regarding Q3A for Mac OS X Public Beta. Yes, we're working on
a build, but it will go hand in hand with the forthcoming point release. All Mac users
will notice a significant speed increase with this point release (when showing it to
Apple they said "woah, how'd you do that?")

so things sound pretty darn promising. i am hoping for a bit more than 10% to tell you the truth

Cocoa? Ewww? I mean, Java support is great, but wouldn't it make sense to write Q3 under Carbon instead of Cocoa? Unless of course it is faster which just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Java slllloooowwww in comparison to apps written in C++/C and other assembly level languages? I have nightmares of running Java apps under OS 9 with MRJ er ARJ. Something runtime Java.

Yeah, java is slow. Objective-C,which is the other, less promoted, half of Cocoa, is darn speedy on OS X 'cause that's what most of it's native frameworks were written in. Omni develops using objective-c and that's what they've used to port Q3. It's a really nice language and it's very fast on OS X. Carbon is not nearly as fast right now.

------------------
Life is what happens to you when you have something else planned. --Mark Roberts

[This message has been edited by wyzeguy (edited 09-29-2000).]

[Cipher13]

Java slower?!?
Ok, I'll take your word on that one
EDIT: Sorry, yeah, I misread your post.

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-29-2000).]

[gaffa]

I would imagine that it would be objective C, but if the Java is compiled then the speed differential shouldn't be too great.

Cheers

Gaffa.

[wjsomni]

We did use Obj-C for the platform code in Q3, but the vast majority of the code is unchanged -- eg, written in straight C by Carmack.

He writes the easiest programs in the world to port: "Put sound output here." "Here's a framebuffer, show it." "Give me a key or something." That kind of thing.

We don't know how much faster the OS X version is than OS 9, because we've been using various post-1.17 releases that have various speedups for both OS 9 and OS X, so while we know OS X is fast we haven't tried to compile under OS 9 and compare the two.

But this is all in Graeme's hands now -- id has always said they are going to support OS X themselves, natively, so we probably won't have as much to do with future releases. Carmack and Graeme have both been programming NeXTs for almost as long as I have, so it's not like we have some magical knowledge of OS X that they don't.

Anybody else want a game ported to OS X for free? Bungie? Anyone?

Yours,
-Wil Shipley
President, The Omni Group

[Scott_H]

How about UT. Just go for it!

[eno]

We did use Obj-C for the platform code in Q3, but the vast majority of the code is unchanged -- eg, written in straight C by Carmack.

He writes the easiest programs in the world to port: "Put sound output here." "Here's a framebuffer, show it." "Give me a key or something." That kind of thing.

This just confirms my belief that John Carmack is in fact actually god. ;-)

Anybody else want a game ported to OS X for free?

Are you serious?

Then why isn't there any plan for UT yet then?

I'll write to westlake this very minute.

What about Quake 2? =) You ported it allready to OSXS why not OSX...

[wjsomni]

Originally posted by SYN:
Are you serious?

Then why isn't there any plan for UT yet then?

Yes, we'll port good games for free. We made no money off of porting Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3 Arena to Mac OS X's various predecessors.

We just like games, it's been easy to port them so far, and we think the platform needs games.

Originally posted by wjsomni:
Yes, we'll port good games for free. We made no money off of porting Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3 Arena to Mac OS X's various predecessors..

That is a sterling attitude, I must say. Keep up the good work. If anybody deserves their games to be ported, it is ID.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

OH, MY GOODNESS!!!!!! IT'S JOHN CARNMACK!!!!!! YOU'RE MY HERO!!!!!!!!!

greg



------------------
Though the day's been
really long
I still feel I'm close to
nowhere....

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Seriously, tho, you guys seem like great workers.
UT is the obvious choice to port. Everyone loves it......

greg

Yes, we'll port good games for free. We made no money off of porting Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3 Arena to Mac OS X's various predecessors.

We just like games, it's been easy to port them so far, and we think the platform needs games.

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!

I love you guys. So, is there any way we'll see UT on X anytime soon? Could you comment on other games or software you have in the works?

[Scott_H]

Okay everyone. Time to frag OS X style. Get Q3A for OS X and report back.
http://www.omnigroup.com/community/freeware/quake3/

[edit to update: Grrrr ]

I posted here before hitting the link. I don't see it there. Maybe the site hasn't been updated? I sent a note off to Omni and will post back when it get figured out.

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 10-01-2000).]

[tdominey]

Am I wrong, or isn't this ONLY FOR OS X SERVER? All the language on the linked page states that it's for "server" only. Plus, I downloaded the stuff anyway and it refuses to unstuff, leading me to believe that this is something for the server, not the public beta.

[Scott_H]

Did you read the post just above yours? The one I posted?

[crazyjohnson]

Originally posted by John Carnnack:
That is a sterling attitude, I must say. Keep up the good work. If anybody deserves their games to be ported, it is ID.

yes id makes all their software on a NeXT, so they should have no problem putting out for os x

[MacOS761]

Er, ahm... well the obvious choice is actually Half Life (can anyone say CounterStrike?). BUT I am afraid that's not too realistic... but I sure wish it would happen. How about www.anarchyonline.com ? Have you talked to them? That looks like it's going to be a stellar game.
BTW, Quake 3 Demo runs okay in Classic, but I wouldn't really say it's playable. I mean, it's a huge improvement over DP4!

------------------
We're supposed to sing about piraty things!

[Scott_H]

Well MacNN updated the story on the front page after I posted. It now has the "(not yet available)" added in.

Well, very soon now.

I whant Quake 3 for MacOS X NOW... to try it on a Dual 500 G4 ;-)

[ravedog]

Careful, careful. Omni has it coming, BUT! Read carefully, you must have a Voodoo 2 card also. (So much for ever getting my Voodoo 5 card back in my machine)

------------------
System Info:

G3 Minitower (beige)/266 410MB Ram
6GB IDE (stock internal) - OS 9.0.4
18GB SCSI (internal)
9GB SCSI (external) - OS 8.1
4GB SCSI (external) - OS Xpb

Built-in ATI Video
Voodoo 5 5500 PCI (removed - not working with OS X)
Digidesign AudioMedia III
Keyspan USB Card, MacAlly iSweetNet Mouse

EtherNet <> cable modem, DynamicIP

wjsomni: port UT, you know how this game suck so much of memory that even without optimizing the code it would be faster than on OS 9 just because of a good memory system (at last). And OpenGL 1.2 should correct some memory (hate memory for lunch) issues that Westlake got.

Westlake is waiting for MacSoft money to do it, so if you do it for free, that's will help :-) And it will help Deux Ex and Rune too.

[Scott_H]

Careful, careful. Omni has it coming, BUT! Read carefully, you must have a Voodoo 2 card also. (So much for ever getting my Voodoo 5 card back in my machine)

That spec is for the Server version. There's no way Omni is going to port it for Voodoo only.

Perhaps maybe you guys at Omni could port the Linux version of UT over to OS X?

Might be easier then trying to convince Westlake and Epic to give Omni the Mac source...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/OpenUT/

Rufo

[jtwiskowski]

id software will be releasing an update to Quake 3 Arena in a few weeks. First it brings us up to par with the latest version of Quake 3 Arena for Windows (an update to wich was released 09/22/00). Secondly it brings a noticeable speed improvement to the game. Lastly, they will be realizing a Carbonized Mac OS X Public Beta compliant version and supposedly this makes the game run crazy fast and a real improvement over OS 9. So all OS X using Quake # fans hold on ... our fun is coming!

omni just posted Quake3 for OSXPB onto the FTP servers. however I couldn't get it to run, after it launched, the screen became yellow, just like it does under OS9. I was expecting it to then go to the ID logo, but that never happened. it just sat there, the only key that did anything was return, making the app quit. and when it quit the contrast was up through the roof, like if was run through photoshop and someone put the contrast on high, you need to log out and back in to correct it.

anyone know how to make the game work?

http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/sof...SX/PublicBeta/

I just downloaded Quake 3 from omni for os x pb... and it installed okay, but I get the same yellow screen as the vasu described. I get a yellow screen with my cursor (and the resolution is switched to 640x480) and then pressing return quits and really screws up the contrast of my screen. I'm running on a 500 mhz pismo w/ 256 ram.

[Scott_H]

Lastly, they will be realizing a Carbonized Mac OS X Public Beta compliant version and supposedly this makes the game run crazy fast

It's a Cocoa verion for OS X P�. No Carbon at all.

[eno]

Careful, careful. Omni has it coming, BUT! Read carefully, you must have a Voodoo 2 card also. (So much for ever getting my Voodoo 5 card back in my machine)

Any effort by Omni to port q3a to os x is completely separate from id software's own promise to release an os x version of the next point release. As one of the moderators posted above, expect to see something from id soon with some "crazy" speed improvements.

I just wish it would happen a little faster/sooner. In the meantime - try the Omni port by all means. I haven't tried it yet, but I doubt it is any where near on par with the latest id point release for Win32 (1.25). AFAIK, id hasn't released the source for this one yet, so chances are Omni are working with an older version of the code. If you look at their q3a for os x server page you will see that it was last modified in 1999, and referes to q3a test exclusively. I wouldn't be surprised if the version that people have linked to here is the same.

[eno]

It's a Cocoa verion for OS X P�. No Carbon at all.

Which are you talking about, Scott? Omni's port or the promised id point release?

I would've thought that the Omni port would be Cocoa and the id release would be Carbon. In fact, I am surprised that Omni did it in Cocoa because as I understood it Carmack did a lot of his coding in straight C, which is not object-oriented (like, say C++ or the Objective-C of the Cocoa environment). I would've thought it would port easier to Carbon...

And BTW, looks like I was wrong in my last post. Omni hasn't just updated their q3test code for os x server - they've made a version based on 1.17 full (the latest point release for Mac/Linux).

can someone that has downloaded the omni q3a post some instructions on how to use it?

i downloaded it but it is only a package file and i am not sure where to put it. i tried putting it in the same directory as my normal q3a executable but when i launch it says it cannot find the levels....

thankx

First off, rename the q3config.cfg in your baseq3 folder that you are using to something else. Next, make sure that you have your monitor set to millions of colors... otherwise it'll be butt-ugly. Next, bring up a Terminal window and type the following:

rm .q3a/baseq3/q3config.cfg

which will remove the bad q3config.cfg file. That's what was causing me problems, and that's what fixed it.

Seems to work rather well. I'm impressed. There are a couple of glitches, but nothing major. The menu sound on the main menu is scratchy, but the sub-menus are fine and the game sounds great. Again, having your monitor set to thousands is a big no-no. I'm not sure if mods work yet - I copied a mod folder to the .q3a folder that I mentioned (seems to be where it keeps its data files; don't worry about it copying anything too big there though) and it didn't show up in the menu. It seemed to connect to instagib servers OK though. I'd like to be able to play Q3F though, any help Omni people? Also, I know this isn't your fault, but the mouse acceleration is a bit wonky on my Turbo Mouse, plus the other buttons aren't detected. All of OS X does this, so I figure it's an OS X problem.

Now for the good things. Loading is fast. Really fast. Loading player models makes OS 9 look like a dog. Second, it does seem right now that it's a bit faster then OS 9. I haven't done timedemo tests yet though, and it'll be interesting to see how well it stacks up against my Voodoo 3. Third, it really is pre-emptively multitasked... I had GameRanger running in the background on my other monitor and it looked like it was running fine! Finally I can play my MP3s in the background while I frag!

If I understand correctly, id is not releasing the OS X binaries at all, Omni is totally responsible for keeping the OS X version up to date. Is this correct, or is id actually going to be releasing binaries of their own? From what I can tell, you guys have done a bang-up job right now, with the exception of mods... Is support in Q3A/OSX for mods, or is it waiting for a newer version? If it is, where do I stick the mod folder, and how do I access the mod if it's not through the mods menu?

Rufo

Japan, you have to point it to your Quake3 folder. Not the baseq3 folder, but the quake3 folder that the baseq3 folder is in.

HTH,
Rufo

[Scott_H]

Obviously I'm talking about the Omni one. I didn't pick up that jtwiskowski was on the id version.

[edit to add]

I was under the impression that Omni hands the port over to id to distribute. That's why I thought they were the same.

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 10-02-2000).]

OK, still having problems with the Downloaded Quake 3 from Omni. I moved my files from the OS9 partion into a directory with quake: there are two things in there quake3 app, and the folder. deleted the prefs from the older version; but it still can't find the levels to load.

Ihave the demo version; not the full version of Quake; do I need the full version to get the correct files?

Originally posted by Rufo:
Japan, you have to point it to your Quake3 folder. Not the baseq3 folder, but the quake3 folder that the baseq3 folder is in.

HTH,
Rufo

Woah! Thanks Rufo. Good work!

Omni are legends for getting this stuff out... :-)

Some interesting stats:

q3a 1.17 on OS 9.04: 45 fps
q3a 1.17 in classic: 30 fps
q3a 1.17 (omni cocos): 20 fps

wonder why....

[eno]

perhaps someone at omni can correct me on this, but:

If I understand correctly, id is not releasing the OS X binaries at all, Omni is totally responsible for keeping the OS X version up to date. Is this correct, or is id actually going to be releasing binaries of their own?

id WILL be releasing binaries for os x with the next point release (either 1.25 or 1.26 or something like that). Omni has only ever done this work for free on a voluntary basis. They were never "responsible" for keeping things up to date - it's just something they did as a service to the Mac community. But from now on, expect id to deliver OS X versions just like they did with the Mac and Linux versions of q3a.

[eno]

just noticed this on the http://osx.macnn.com/ front page... a quote from Will at Omni:

We just finished polishing up Quake 3 v1.17 for OS X Public Beta. Here are some timings on a demo comparing the commercial OS 9 release and our OS X port (native Cocoa) with the same exact graphics settings (on the same machine), at 800x600 in 16 bit color and 'fastest mode' graphics:

OS 9: 45.8 fps
OS X: 54.5 fps

That's a 19% speedup under OS X! ...This is the only comparison we've done so far, but we don't have any reason to think other graphics modes are different -- we're getting good speeds in all different modes under X. ...OS X rocks for games. The sound latency is better, the graphics are faster, and it's easier to program. And, Omni will help any good game company get their game to X, for free!

[This message has been edited by eno (edited 10-02-2000).]

I seem to have done everything correctly (reinstalled Q3 from CD, set monitor to millions of colors, launched Omni Q3 app and pointed it to the "quake3" folder) but I still get the hang at the yellow screen. There was no "q3config.cfg" file in my "baseq3" folder because it was a new install, so it couldn't have been a corrupted config file. I'm at a bit of a loss. I have two monitors under OS X. Is there any chance that that's a problem? I know it's not supported by Apple, but I don't see how it would affect Q3 (it never has before). If anyone has any more tips about how to get past the yellow screen hang, I'm dyin to know...

thanks in advance...

[This message has been edited by albockiole (edited 10-02-2000).]

Still having the same problems, but thanks for the hint about pointing it to the FOLDER instead of the File; the new open and save dialogs is Aqua had thrown me off b/c they didn't allow me to select the files.

However, it claims I don't have a full Quke install...I am still guessing this new OSX version does not work with the demo files...too bad.

Just echoing a few other people's problems...I just downloaded the Q3 for OS X from OMNIGroup's ftp servers. I managed to get it to launch, by using the dialog to point the app to quake3's folder (not baseq3), but I'm getting the hang at the yellow screen too. Hit return to get back to the Desktop. At this point I am having to log out and back in to get my monitor to look normal again, it gets really bright, like Q3A is setting the gamma correction very high. There is no Q3Config file, it's a virgin install.

Some interesting stats:

q3a 1.17 on OS 9.04: 45 fps
q3a 1.17 in classic: 30 fps
q3a 1.17 (omni cocos): 20 fps

Are you sure you have your monitor set to millions of colors in the Monitors control panel? Smoothed the framerate a bit when I did, as well as making Q3 look nicer.

id WILL be releasing binaries for os x with the next point release (either 1.25 or 1.26 or something like that). Omni has only ever done this work for free on a voluntary basis. They were never "responsible" for keeping things up to date - it's just something they did as a service to the Mac community. But from now on, expect id to deliver OS X versions just like they did with the Mac and Linux versions of q3a.

What I meant by responsible was that if they wanted to keep it up to date, they would be responsible for doing so and not id. Although they very well could decide not to if they wanted to.

Look at this article posted by Inside Mac Games. It says the OS X port of Q3A is entirely under Omni's control, so it appears id is keeping their fingers out of this. (Unless id plans on making it official and removing the unsupported warning from the beta...)

I seem to have done everything correctly (reinstalled Q3 from CD, set monitor to millions of colors, launched Omni Q3 app and pointed it to the "quake3" folder) but I still get the hang at the yellow screen. There was no "q3config.cfg" file in my "baseq3" folder because it was a new install, so it couldn't have been a corrupted config file. I'm at a bit of a loss. I have two monitors under OS X. Is there any chance that that's a problem? I know it's not supported by Apple, but I don't see how it would affect Q3 (it never has before). If anyone has any more tips about how to get past the yellow screen hang, I'm dyin to know...

Did you install the 117 update for Mac? What Omni released is just an executable, you still need the .pk3 files, and 117 had a couple .pk3 files that weren't in the original version. Also, did you try doing the terminal line I gave you? It might still have your old Q3 settings around, so clearing that out like I described would fix that if that is indeed the problem.

I am still guessing this new OSX version does not work with the demo files...

And you'd almost certainly be right. This is an executable that runs with the full version 117, not the demo, which is some other funky version that isn't compatible with 117. You'll either have to get the full version or wait until Omni possibly releases a demo version, sorry.

Rufo

Also, dual monitors are not a problem. Works fine on my dual monitor system with a V3 2000 and a Rage 128, with the Rage as the primary monitor.

Rufo

[eno]

could the people who are complaining of yellow screen hangs post some more info about their systems? particularly what graphics cards they are using...

Aside from some speed issues I am having and am yet to solve, this version really rocks. Why?

For the first time ever, q3a recognises all of the buttons/functions on my logitech mouseman wheel (four buttons plus wheel).

Little things like this make all the difference.

If I could just now get it running as fast as OS 9, I'd be very very happy.

At the moment it is running less than half as fast.... 20 fps as opposed to 53 fps...!