The Quake II engine is a game engine developed by id Software for use in their 1997 first-person shooter Quake II.[1] It is the successor to the Quake engine. Since its release, the Quake II engine has been licensed for use in several other games.[2]

Quake II engine
Developer(s)id Software (John Carmack, John Cash, and Brian Hook)
Final release
3.21 / December 22, 2001; 22 years ago (2001-12-22)
Repositorygithub.com/id-Software/Quake-2
Written inC, Assembly (for software rendering & optimization)
PlatformWindows, Mac OS 8, Linux, PowerPC Macintosh, Amiga, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Xbox, PlayStation 2
PredecessorQuake engine
Successorid Tech 3, GoldSrc
LicenseGNU GPL-2.0-or-later
Websitewww.idsoftware.com/business/idtech2/ Edit this on Wikidata

One of the engine's most notable features was out-of-the-box support for hardware-accelerated graphics, specifically OpenGL, along with the traditional software renderer.[2] Another interesting feature was the subdivision of some of the components into dynamic-link libraries. This allowed both software and OpenGL renderers, which were selected by loading and unloading separate libraries. Libraries were also used for the game logic, with consequences including:

  • Since they were compiled for specific platforms, instead of an interpreter, they could run faster than Quake's solution, which was to run the game logic (QuakeC) in a limited interpreter.[3]
  • id could release the source code to allow modifications while keeping the remainder of the engine proprietary.[4]

The level format, as with previous id Software engines, used binary space partitioning. The level environments were lit using lightmaps, a method in which light data for each surface is precalculated (this time, via a radiosity method) and stored as an image, which is then used to determine the lighting intensity each 3D model should receive, but not its direction.[5][6]

id Software released the source code on December 22, 2001, under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.[7][8]

Games using the Quake II engine

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Games using a proprietary license

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Year Title Developer
1997 Quake II id Software
1998 Quake II Mission Pack: The Reckoning Xatrix Entertainment
Quake II Mission Pack: Ground Zero Rogue Entertainment
Zaero (unofficial expansion for Quake II)[9] Team Evolve
Juggernaut: The New Story (unofficial expansion for Quake II)[9] HeadGames Publishing
Heretic II Raven Software
SiN Ritual Entertainment
1999 SiN: Wages of Sin 2015, Inc.
Kingpin: Life of Crime Xatrix Entertainment
2000 Soldier of Fortune Raven Software
Daikatana Ion Storm
2001 Anachronox

Games based on the GPL source release

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Year Title Developer
2000 D-Day: Normandy[10][11] D-Day: Normandy Team
2003 UFO: Alien Invasion UFO: Alien Invasion Team
2008 Gravity Bone Blendo Games
2012 Warsow[12][13] Warsow Team
Thirty Flights of Loving Blendo Games
2017 Alien Arena: Warriors of Mars COR Entertainment, LLC
Quetoo[14] Quetoo Team
2019 Warfork[15] Warfork Team

Ports

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  • Jake2 – a Java port of the Quake II engine's GPL release. It has since been used by Sun as an example of Java Web Start capabilities for games distribution over the Internet.[16] In 2006, it was used to experiment playing 3D games with eye tracking.[17] The performance of Jake2 is on par with the original C version.[18]
  • Quake2Forge – one of the earliest community produced source ports. [19]
  • Quake2xp – a port of Quake II to modern operating systems.[20][21][22]
  • KMQuake2 – an upgraded engine for Quake II.[22][23][24]
  • Quake2maXOpenGL focused source port.
  • Quake 2 Evolved – early graphically enhanced game engine.[25][26][27][28]
  • Quetoo (formerly Quake2World) – multiplayer focused port derived from Quake2Forge.[14][29]
  • Berserker@Quake2 – graphically enhanced Quake II port.[30]
  • Yamagi Quake II – a port of Quake II to modern systems which aims to preserve the original gameplay.[31][32][33][34][22]
  • vkQuake2 – the original Quake II engine with additional Vulkan renderer created by Krzysztof Kondrak, a programmer from Poland. It was originally released in December 2018 under the GPLv2.[35][36]
  • CRX Engine – custom version for CodeRED: Alien Arena.[37][38][39][40]
  • Qfusion – a modification of the GPL version of the engine. The engine was used in the 2012 game Warsow.[41][12][13]
  • Q2Pro – a mutliplayer oriented port, which was also used as the basis for Quake II RTX.[42][43]
  • R1Q2 – another multiplayer focused port.[22]
  • DirectQIIDirectX oriented source port.
  • Fruitz of Dojo – a source port aimed at Mac OS X.[44][45][46]
  • Q2DOS – a backport of the game to MS-DOS.[47][48][49]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Grant, Christopher (August 9, 2011). "id Software looking to shorten dev cycles, stop building new engines for every game". Joystiq. AOL. Archived from the original on August 28, 2011.
  2. ^ a b "Technology Licensing: id Tech 2". Archived from the original on November 8, 2009. Retrieved September 17, 2008.
  3. ^ Sanglard, Fabien (September 16, 2011). "Quake 2 Source Code Review 2/4". fabiensanglard.net. Retrieved July 29, 2023. Dynamic linking provided numerous advantages: [...] Full native speed for mods, no need to rely on QuakeC and Quake Vitual machine.
  4. ^ Sanglard, Fabien (September 16, 2011). "Quake 2 Source Code Review 2/4". fabiensanglard.net. Retrieved July 29, 2023. Dynamic linking provided numerous advantages: [...] More capabilities to mod makers, the entire game could be altered via game.dll.
  5. ^ Milne, Rory (March 1, 2019). "The making of Quake 2". pcgamer.com. Retrieved July 29, 2023. We also had light bouncing—simulated radiosity—so every corner of the world had some lighting.
  6. ^ Sanglard, Fabien (September 16, 2011). "Quake 2 Source Code Review 3/4". fabiensanglard.net. Retrieved July 29, 2023. Contrary to Quake1, Quake2 used radiosity and colored light during the precalculation.
  7. ^ DiBona, Chris (December 22, 2001). "Quake 2 Source Code Released Under the GPL". Slashdot. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  8. ^ Foster-Johnson, Eric (January 24, 2002). "Quake 2 Sources Released". Computerworld. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  9. ^ a b Wilson, Hamish (November 13, 2023). "Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer Part 35: The New Stories". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  10. ^ Albert, Jose (November 9, 2023). "D-Day: Normandy: Un Juego FPS para Linux basados en Quake2". Ubunlog. Retrieved August 18, 2024.
  11. ^ "D-Day: Normandy: Un Juego FPS para Linux basados en Quake2". Laboratorio Linux. November 12, 2023. Retrieved August 18, 2024.
  12. ^ a b Dolinsky, Sergey (2008). "Открытые бета-тесты декабря". Strana Igr (in Russian). No. 250. Gameland. p. 142.
  13. ^ a b "Warsow". Level (in Romanian). No. 4/2008. April 2008. p. 7.
  14. ^ a b Dawe, Liam (February 8, 2017). "Quetoo, a free and open source FPS is looking to get on Steam". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  15. ^ Dawe, Liam (August 19, 2019). "Based on the classic FPS Warsow, the new Warfork is now live in Early Access". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  16. ^ "JDK 6u10: Jake2: Quake II in Java". Sun Microsystems. Retrieved July 27, 2023. The Jake2 applet example shows the future of game distribution over the Internet. Jake2 is a port of id Software's Quake II to the Java platform developed by Bytonic Software. (...). With the new Java Plug-In, it is now possible to deploy the game directly into the web page with full hardware acceleration and rock-solid reliability.
  17. ^ Miller, Ross (August 3, 2006). "Play with your eyes". Joystiq. Archived from the original on February 3, 2008. Retrieved July 18, 2009.
  18. ^ "Q24j: Jake and Java-gaming Viability". O'Reilly Media. November 28, 2005. Retrieved July 18, 2009. This is a great show of 3D prowess. Things like this, as well as the Narya 2D open source engine from ThreeRings really are starting to at least show Java can serve as a first-class gaming platform. More than that, just having seen all the… *cough* horrible code in games before, having things like Java's threading model, network and database support might really make it a BETTER platform for a lot of forthcoming games than C.
  19. ^ Shaikh, Anees; Sahu, Sambit; Rosu, Marcel-Catalin; Shea, Michael (January 2004). "Implementation of a service platform for online games". ResearchGate. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Network and System Support for Games. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  20. ^ Papadopoulos, John (August 19, 2018). "Quake2xp final 2018 version is available for download, adds lots of modern graphical features". DSOGaming. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  21. ^ Papadopoulos, John (April 24, 2022). "New features showcased for the Quake 2 HD graphical overhaul mod, q2xp". DSOGaming. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  22. ^ a b c d Fenlon, Wes (October 9, 2014). "How to run Quake II on Windows 7/8". PC Gamer. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  23. ^ Lane, Rick (February 21, 2022). "Quake 4 in Quake 2 does exactly what it says on the tin". PC Gamer. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  24. ^ Papadopoulos, John (February 16, 2022). "Quake 4 in Quake 2 Demake is now available for download". DSOGaming. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  25. ^ Klum, Marcel (December 10, 2002). "Quake 2 Evolved Beta1". Neowin. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  26. ^ Parker, Steven (December 17, 2002). "Quake II Evolved Doomed?". NeoWin. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  27. ^ Harris, Wil (November 23, 2005). "Quake 2 Evolved brings old-skool to new hardware". Bit-Tech. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  28. ^ Brinkmann, Martin (November 21, 2005). "Quake II Evolved". ghacks.net. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  29. ^ Larabel, Michael (April 1, 2012). "Quake2World Goes Into Beta With Nice Graphics". Phoronix. Retrieved August 9, 2024.
  30. ^ Larabel, Michael (January 7, 2016). "A Quake 2 Game Might Get Ported To Linux". Phoronix. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  31. ^ Dawe, Liam (June 16, 2021). "Alternate Quake II game engine Yamagi Quake II adds optional Vulkan support". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  32. ^ Burmeister, Yamagi. "Yamagi Quake II project page". Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  33. ^ "Quake 2 - Source Ports". GOG.com. Retrieved March 27, 2022.
  34. ^ "Quake II: Quad Damage Review". Gaming Pastime. August 18, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  35. ^ Larabel, Michael (December 20, 2018). "Quake 2 Gets A Vulkan Renderer 21 Years After Release". Phoronix. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  36. ^ "vkQuake2 on GitHub". GitHub. December 19, 2022.
  37. ^ Larabel, Michael (April 26, 2009). "A Battle For Good Open-Source Game Graphics?". Phoronix. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  38. ^ Larabel, Michael (November 30, 2012). "Alien Arena 7.65 To Bring Huge Renderer Enhancements". Phoronix. Retrieved August 9, 2024.
  39. ^ Graymur (March 7, 2008). "Alien Arena 2008 v7.0 released". Game Watcher. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  40. ^ Quirk, Kev (July 7, 2012). "Alien Arena – 'Quake' for Linux". OMG Ubuntu. Retrieved July 16, 2024.
  41. ^ Larabel, Michael (June 15, 2013). "QFusion Game Engine Advanced With New Features". Phoronix. Retrieved August 9, 2024.
  42. ^ Meer, Alec (January 18, 2019). "Raytraced Quake II makes me want to buy a ludicrously expensive new graphics card". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  43. ^ Papadopoulos, John (May 4, 2019). "Quake 2 RTX – Official PC Minimum System Requirements New Screenshots". DSOGaming. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  44. ^ Royal, Simon (May 31, 2016). "Quake 2: First Person Shooters at Their Best". Low End Mac. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  45. ^ Cook, Brad (March 19, 2006). "Quake Gets Universal Binary". The Mac Observer. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  46. ^ Monks, Neale (August 1, 2003). "Classic Games: Quake". MyMac.com. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  47. ^ neozeed (May 2, 2015). "Porting Quake II to MS-DOS pt1". Virtually Fun. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  48. ^ Sledge (August 17, 2023). "Q2DOS – Quake II pro DOS". High Voltage. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  49. ^ Winkie, Luke (February 16, 2017). "Meet the superfans who spent a decade bringing Daikatana back to life". PC Gamer. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
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