Quake III Arena Point Release July 26th, 2001 TABLE OF CONTENTS i What's new 1 System Requirements 2 X11 Setup 3 Sound Setup 4 Playing The Game 5 Reporting bugs and getting help 6 Contacting id Software ------------------------------- (i) What's new ------------------------------- Linux Quake III Arena and Quake III: Team Arena is maintained by Id software. Please send feedback for this release to ttimo@idsoftware.com. Discuss Quake III Arena for linux on the Quake3World forum: http://www.quake3world.com/forum See the INSTALL file for installation instructions. Tips and current issues for Quake III Arena linux are listed at: http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux Changes ------- Changes for 1.31: - fix to the quake3 wrapper scripts (sends back the correct return value) - sound compatibility fixes - added quake3.xpm icon - fixed "Driver > System > Driver info" crash if you have too many GL extensions - fixed hanging when being run with a non-interactive tty (ex. xqf &) Changes for 1.29g beta: - a single installer for graphical installation / console installation, no longer distributing a seperate console installer - fixed filesystem issues: showing ~/.q3a mods and mod descriptions finding files for autodownload in the right places (server) - keyboard fixes: fixed "sticking keys" problem with the ctrl key fixed console toggle on French keyboards - fixed screenshots overwriting each other between runs - NEW: "tty" console on dedicated server: an interactive prompt has been added to the dedicated server, it will perform auto-completion and command history as does the in-game console - brightness slider / XF86 gamma setting (if supported by your X server) - fixed rcon status issues - binded K_MOUSE4 and K_MOUSE5 (linux) Changes for 1.27r beta: - linux source for 1.27i merged into the main source tree at Id - fixed duplicate mods in mod selection dialog Known issues for 1.27g Beta1: - XFree86 4.x DGA 2.0 support not yet added - brightness slider not yet fixed - fraglimit/timelimit do not get propagated properly (also Win32) - sound artifacts (double sounds) in menu - framerate drops in video playback, sound artifacts - keyboard only traversal of TA menu broken (also Win32) - some GL drivers segfault on exit(0) - shoot instead of pain/hit animation - failure to load head for body (baseq3/) Bugs fixed since 1.17: + autodownload workaround + mods menu + case insensitive demo loading (q3_ui/, not in QVM yet) + first version of joystick support added + r_logfile GL log works again + Linux DLL loading bug ------------------------------- (1) MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ------------------------------- * Linux kernel version 2.2.9 or above, glibc-2.1 or above * XFree86 SVGA server version 3.3.5 or above, running at 16 bpp depth * Pentium 233MHz MMX processor with 3dfx 8 MB Video Card or Pentium II 266MHz processor with 3dfx 4 MB Video Card or AMD 350MHz K6-2 processor with 3dfx 4 MB Video Card * 64 MB RAM * 4x CD-ROM drive (600 KB/sec sustained transfer rate) * OSS compatible sound card * Hard disk drive with at least 480MB of disk space. Multiplayer Requirements * Internet and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported * Internet play requires a 28.8 Kbps (or faster) modem A 100% full OpenGL compliant 3-D video card and Linux driver is required. Quake III Arena uses the OpenGL API for 3-D hardware acceleration. There is no software-only version of the game. If your computer is not hardware accelerated with a game compatible graphics card, you will NOT be able to run Q3A. Currently, only standalone drivers for 3dfx based cards are included with demo and point release distributions. For updates on GL drivers, in particular for the Matrox G200/G400, see http://www.lokigames.com/support/gldrivers/. Please follow the installation instructions presented there for adding the correct drivers for your 3D-acceleration card. NOTE: Linux Q3A will try to load "libGL.so" before using other drivers, and it will ignore libraries from the quake3/ directory if executed with root privilege. This can cause problems if you have a software or third party OpenGL driver installed. You can specifically target e.g. the included 3dfx based Mesa driver, by using the following command line: quake3 +set r_gldriver libMesaVoodooGL.so.3.2 For 3dfx users, you may disable the vertical sync refresh. This can improve proformance at the cost of some visual tearing of the image. Entering the following command into your shell before running Linux Q3A Demo will turn off the vertical sync: export FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0 Then run Linux Q3A from the same command line normally. A glibc compatible Linux installation is required. An easy to determine if you have glibc support is to type this: ls -l /lib/libc* If you get a report of libc6 (you may also have libc5), you have a glibc based system. The binaries were created on a Mandrake 7.2 (glibc-2.1.3) system. -------------- (2) X11 SETUP -------------- Linux Q3A requires X11 to run. There is no console-based version as in previous id products such as GLQuake and Quake2. XFree86 version 3.2 or later is required. There are two ways that mouse input is handled under XFree86: o By default, Q3A Demo will attempt to use DGA mouse handling. DGA support features direct reading of the mouse motion and provides more accurate control while playing the game. By default this support is enabled, but can be disabled by adding "+set in_dgamouse 0" to the command line at startup. This is recommended if you are using a Voodoo3 and are experiencing black screens, lockups, or mapping of mouse input to key events. This bug should be resolved on XFree86 SVGA 3.3.5 (except for a blue mouse cursor you might notice on the initial fullscreen frame). DGA mouse support does not require root privilege. o The non-DGA method of mouse input uses pointer grabbing and warps the pointer to the middle of the window on each mouse update. On systems with a slow frame rate and a lot of mouse user input, the motion can get "clipped" to the window boundaries. This method of input is more compatible however. Q3A uses the XFree86 VidModeExtension facilities if available to provide fullscreen play. This does not apply to 3dfx passthrough cards, since the passthrough cable takes over the video display upon activation anyway. When configuring your X11 server, make sure that you include lower resolution modes such as 640x480 and 800x600. Q3A will auto-switch to these modes using the VidModeExtension if you select fullscreen from the graphics options menu. If the lower resolution modes are not listed in the XFree86 configuration file, Q3A will be unable to switch to the desired resolution for fullscreen play. Instead, it will using Mesa's software mode to render into a window (very slow), or might fail to run at all, possibly putting you in a different video in X11 on exiting. --------------- (3) SOUND SETUP --------------- Q3A uses the /dev/dsp sound device for sound support under Linux. This is the default device provided by the sound drivers included with the Linux kernel. Please note that at the time of this writing, PCI based sound cards such as the SoundBlaster Live and Diamond Monster MX series were not supported. They may be supported in the future. Check http://www.opensound.com/ for support in the future. You should make sure that the permissions for the /dev/dsp device are read and write for your current user ID. Some systems re-assign the owner and reset to 644 on login. A simple way to get access is to do "chmod o+rw /dev/dsp" as root. For the more security conscious, a special sound group could be created and Q3A could be made setgid to the sound group to access the device. Q3A uses mmap() to map the sound buffers on /dev/dsp directly in order to provide responsive sound needs. Sound cards must be able to support this feature in order to work. SoundBlaster 16, AWE32 and AWE64 cards are known to work. -------------------- (4) PLAYING THE GAME -------------------- By the time you read this, you will probably have succeeded in installing from the self-extracting archive. It is recommended that you do not run Q3A using the root account or with root privileges. There are two exceptions to this: o If you are using a 3Dfx based accelerator card and do not install the /dev/3dfx configuration option. (You will have to run as root in order to access the card). o If you do not have access to the /dev/dsp device and do not wish to change the mode of the device so that non-root accounts can access it. You will have to be running under X11 or have the DISPLAY variable pointed to a OpenGL glX capable X Server. By default, Q3A tries to find the following OpenGL libraries in this order: o libGL.so You can override the library name by entering, "+set r_gldriver " on the command line. This may be needed if you are using a non-standard set up and have a different name for the OpenGL shared library. If you do not specify a valid GL library, or if the GL library specified can't find or access the hardware it expects, Mesa might fall back into slow software rendering mode (usually in a window). If everything proceeds successfully, you should have a Q3A Demo window on your desktop with a menu displayed (3dfx card owners will get a full screen view). If you want to use full screen, go to the System Configuration, Graphics, Options, Fullscreen, change the value to Yes, and hit enter to apply it. If you intend to connect to the Internet to play Q3A Demo, make certain that your net connection is open and working first. The first time you run Quake III Arena it will create a .q3a/ directory in your home directory. Saved games and preferences will be stored here. The demo offers an optional install of the HTML version of the manual, and more technical details on how to use Linux Quake III Arena. See the Help/ folder. Point release updates and dedicated server only packages do not contain the full manual. ----------------------------------- (5) REPORTING BUGS AND GETTING HELP ----------------------------------- The latest FAQ with Linux known issues lives at http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux For additional information, please see the FAQs maintained by id Software http://www.quak3arena.com/faq/ Check the Quake3World forum for discussion of Linux Quake III Arena: http://www.quake3world.com/forum -------------------------- (6) CONTACTING ID SOFTWARE -------------------------- If you encounter a bug in Q3A, particularly those involving video or network bugs, please email a description of the bug to feedback@quake3arena.com Please do NOT send reports to individual id employees. In your subject line, please describe the system the game is being played on (Mac, Linux, Win32) and the type of problem you are reporting: video, network, sound or game. Example Subject Line: "Mac/video problem" or "Linux/network connection problem." In the body of your letter (no attached files please), briefly list and describe the problems. Detailed descriptions of problems are good, but remember that brevity is best. Please do NOT send screen shots unless they are the ONLY way to show a problem. While we realize that you may have comments and suggestions regarding specific game play features, please refrain from submitting such along with bug reports. Comments on game play can be made on the official Quake 3: Arena message board at: http://www.quake3world.com/forum - enjoy!