Wirehead Studios

I finally managed to get myself a brand new rig following the slow and painful demise of my last one (bloody Starforce). The specs are as follows:

Pentium4 3.4Ghz
ATI Radeon x600 256MB 3D card (yes, I've now officially joined the crap skybox club :) )
2GB DDR RAM
360GB HDD

The problem is that it runs Q2 as if it were running a maxed-out Q4. The frame rate is terrible and my PC actually sounds as if it's being pushed for all its worth, which it clearly isn't. Anyone have any ideas what the problem may be? Every other game runs fine.

Is this an existing install of Q2, or a new one?  If this Q2 install had been on an nVidia card previously then it may have leftover settings that need to be removed.  Try renaming your config.cfg file and starting with a fresh one.  If it's a new install, you may have to scout around and see if anyone else has run into this problem.  It may be a driver issue.

I once had an i740 graphics card that would run Q1 and Q3 and ut etc fine, but Q2 and Sin, a Q2 engine game just stuttered so badley I couldn't play them.

never figured it out. I had a ati 9800 pro, and never had a problem with Q2. maybe you need to patch up to the present version? I got a recent copy of Q2 for ?2.00 (yes, 2 pounds) from GAME, about 2 years ago. maybe you need a new copy, with the patches in? send me a private message if it would help.

maybe hardware excelleration needs turning down, or maybe you need to run Q2 in compatability mode.

or maybe you need to use an independant Q2 engine. I don't know any, as i've only used engines for Q1. somebody will know of a good one.

I've tried Q2 Evolved and it runs fine, but to my knowledge it doesn't run the mission packs. It seems that reducing the screen resolution makes a difference, but ther's still slowdown even at 640x480. If anyone can recommend another engine that would be great.

I know that you can run the Q1 mission packs with telejano, tenebrae etc, but you need to adjust the shortcuts. I had to do this to get 1 of the Q2 mission packs working. an example would be like the generations shortcut or:

 '-game rogue'   added to it (but I bet you know that)

or maybe you have TOO MUCH ram....how about setting it to about 32meg from the short cut?

or try it in software rather than GL. I had to do that one time, but I can't remember why. think that was frame rates, with the 9800 pro.

Wait a second... my feather-brained memory just got a sense of de-ja-vu.  I seem to recall reading something about Q2 slowing down in ATI-based cards.  There's some stupid cvar that fixes it.  I'll get back to you as soon as I find it.

Edit:  Found it.  Try toggling gl_ext_pointparameters to 0 or 1, the opposite of whatever it's currently set for.

I'll try that too, at my birthday LAN soon to be.

BTW what does cvar stand for?

Console Variable, if I remember.

Thanks, Pho, yer a gem! The cvar did the trick. It was set to 1, so I disabled it.

Now i can give my PC a breather in between bouts of Q4 ... :evil:

Glad I could help!  :thumb:

Q2evolved.

Never tried it until today. really good. my 9800pro was never happy with Q2, so I didn't play it much, but now - I'm going to give it a new go, and do it co-op with my sons. or even juggernaut-the mission pack*. did it once long ago, and never since. the textures were a bit 'grainy' or low pixel count if i remember.

BTW in q2evolved i don't seem to be able to see the weapon i am using. like there is a 'hide weapon' control i am missing somewhere. anybody know anything about this?




*if i can get it to work

Just as a footnote, on my travels I also came across Quake2Max, which actually looks a lot like Q2E, but it runs the mission packs fine (hell, it even runs Q2Gen ;) ). Still, the best thing about Q2 for me was the 3D explosions, which neither engine has :/

Sham: As for the invivisble weapon, I'm not sure. You could check if "cl_gun" is enabled in the console.

it is. it might be a 'texture missing' thing. it comes up ok in normal Q2, just not in q2e.

If you want to play the mission packs, regardless of engine, watch out because they have a function pointers bug in both mission packs.  You'll lose your saved games if you shut down Q2 and try to reload.  I have fixed dll's uploaded.  Here's the links:

Ground Zero:
http://www.wireheadstudios.org/phoenix/mis...gue/gamex86.dll (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/phoenix/misc/rogue/gamex86.dll)

The Reckoning:
http://www.wireheadstudios.org/phoenix/mis...rix/gamex86.dll (http://www.wireheadstudios.org/phoenix/misc/xatrix/gamex86.dll)

Make sure you save each one in the appropriate folder - rogue for GZ, xatrix for Reckoning.  Do NOT overwrite the gamex86.dll file in baseq2!

thanks very much. i'll try it out later.
still haven't worked out the gun thing. might try a different engine.