Graeme on Q3 DLLs & VM

Wait one minute.

First, the DLLs I downloaded from Barrysworld made the following differences in the game, i)I don\'t have to have the .pk3 files in my baseq3 folder (i.e., extracted), and ii) the game ran much faster than VM mode.

The second thing is the .dll files should NOT be downloaded from a Q3 server. Q3 will run in either mode, VM or dll.

There is no need whatsoever for any server to download a dll file to anyone\'s machine. Period. The only download that should be prompted for is maps/models/skins and clan specific items.

Man, the whole DLL deal... *sigh*

I have to admit, I was EXTREMELY pumped for Q3. Hell, my wife even bought me one of the Q3A Hockey Jerseys, with my nick on the back. I loved the crap out of the demos, and I was dying for the game.

Then I got the game. And it just didn\'t feel right.

My system is a P3-450, with 128M RAM, 14G HD, 2 12M Voodoo 2\'s, and, most importantly, a GeForce256 DDR card. I bought the GeForce out of frustration with Q3.

I was getting good timedemo scores as far as framerate goes. But, I was having consistency problems with framerates. There were a lot of little \"hiccups\" that just annoyed the hell out of me. I play Quake from a very \"twitch\" standpoint, doing a lot of quickturns and stuff. This kind of hesitation was enough to make me not want to play the game.
(Before everyone blasts me, I tried a TON of different detail levels, resolutions, and settings. I turned off a ton of the bells and whistles graphically, and it still hesitated on me. Just enough to piss me off...)

Then the DLLs came out. I tried them. They kick ass. The game finally plays the way I wanted it to play.

I still don\'t know if the slowdowns I see with the VM are memory related or CPU related, but I know I can\'t enjoy the game when playing with the VM. I\'m curious how many people are in the same boat. If id tries to put their fut down on DLL use, I seriously doubt I\'ll be able to play Q3 much in the future.

(/me looks up and realizes he typed way too much before his first caffeine.)

Sigmund

The problem with clients downloading dll\'s from servers (once they get that mod downloading thing down) is that servers can be somewhat fly-by-night -- if you get Netbus\'ed from a rogue .dll, and you find out a week later, are you going to remember what server you were on that night? Chances are not if the server\'s a temporary one, and not on of your \"favorites\" -- i.e. a server sets up for 12 hours, downloads the dll to all connecting clients, and then disappears.

corrections -

Nor did quake2 need a cdkey.

these cdkeys are far more of a pain than they could possibly be worth.


i need sleep. badly.

One security issue is the cdkeys... as they are just plain text in a specified location on your HD, it would be quite easy to load it up and fire it off to some anonymous e-mail address using a DLL.

True, there were no malicious quake2 mods, that we know of. Nor did quake3 need a cdkey.

these cdkeys are far more of a pain than they could possibly work. id definitely needs to get their act together. Warnings about DLL files? geez. is it a legal issue or something? if so, they didn\'t seem to have the problem with quake2, why now?

Auto-downloading i couldn\'t care less about. If i want a skin/model/whatever on my hard drive, I\'ll download it myself. but still, an option that i could just turn off would be nice.

The whole quake3 thing is just getting gayer and gayer. UT is looking pretty damn nice right about now. It seems to be the least gay of the two.

id, what happened? you\'re losing a lot of the oldschool fanbase on this one.

Epic, please license the quake3 engine and de-suck it. =)

ummm does this mean they\'re not gonna fix the \"x86.dll\'s in your gamedir dont work you have to put\'em in your quake3 root dir you twit\"-bug?

Dlls are insecure because they are client side ?
Thats a load of crap. I suppose everyone at id opens up a hex editor and pours through the code to see if there is any \"malicious\" activity going on EACH and EVERY time they download ANY executable from the net. This is simply getting more and more stupid. I have a 10 page design doc for an huge adventure/action rpg oriented single player mod and I\'ve just about canned it for Q3A. There is no way anyone is going to make me work in a sandbox like QVMs. I want C++ features to play with and I want complete freedom. TF2 seems the way to go, whenever the hell it comes out anyways. If they screw up the next \"alpha test point release version 0.0001\" then its simply bye bye id. Competitors offer much more to mod authors. All id has going for it is a sweet renderer.

re-write the code -----re-write the code

warning you are about to download and load a dll file type proceed
y-yes---n-no please check your selection.

thank you for your time


the Brutal

#13, they\'re probably worried because the dll\'s will be on the client machine as well now. And if the auto downloading mod thing gets put in, when you connect to a server it could download a dll that does all kinds of crap. A warning would be nice before it loads the dll. As long as your can turn it off, what\'s the problem?

#13

You\'re forgetting, Q3 is just a kids arcade game.

haha somethings id just don\'t want ppl fuckin with eh.

\"The next executable release will probably have a warning screen come up that you will need to agree to and click through if the game is about to load a DLL.\"
---

I\'m a big fan of id, but this keeps getting worse and worse.

How lame is this? What are we, a bunch of babies? If we want \"safety\" from DLLs, then make it a menu OPTION to warn when the game is about to load a DLL, don\'t shove it in our face.

All I can see now is paranoia coming from id. Maybe we don\'t CARE as much about cross-platform.

Even so, did the DLL issue ever cause Quake2 problems with either issue? There were never any publicized cases of a Quake2 mod erasing anyone\'s harddrive and all of the popular mods always got ported to Linux anyway, so cross-platform was a non-issue as well.

- Holesinswiss

I\'m with ya #9!

Yeah AMD chips suck #10.. I have an K6-3 :(

Chiller made me laugh.

You know, id aughta make there own version of the DLL\'s to see what they can get outa them. Then, when the next Point Release is made, allow the user to select which one he wants to use. I saw around 2-5 fps increase (AMD K6-2, whatta you expect)and when your frames are a slow as mine, every frame extra counts.

I\'m just gonna give Romero the money, game or no game. The entertainment I\'ve had over the years following the debacle has been one helluva fun. What about the mission pack? should be worth a couple more years of lafs at least.

Here is a link to the bot editing docs... cdrom.com is your master.

ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames3/idstuff/quake3/tools/Q3ABotEdit.zip

#6 Yes, the time is coming near for another delay...

The time is coming near.

Triple penetration.

i dont think you can legally use \"daikatana\" and \"soon\" in the same sentence. thats a crime punishable by death in most states. hopefully your in iowa. i hear they get away with it there.

im going to make a daikatana mod, it will be out s00n!!!!!!!!!!

slopppy seconds

First post again! j00 mu55 b0w d0wn!!!!