Quake on the GBA

[LianneJaguar64]

So I'm aware that this is/was a big meme in the community for a while, that suggested that our humble big cat machine could play Quake (although I think most reasonable people realised it probably can't). However, I couldn't help but think of this when I watched this video... I guess you never know ?

 

https://youtu.be/R43k-p9XdIk

[sirlynxalot]

Oh it was developed by Rand Linden! That explains it.  That guy is an incredible programming genius and has done many "impossible" projects over the years.  He was the person to do a port of Doom to the SNES in the 90s as well as make a fullspeed playstation 1 emulator for dreamcast (Bleem) in SH4 assembler (dreamcast's CPU) back when both PS1 and dreamcast were still being sold in stores.

 

This looks really cool, but as you might imagine, apparently it's not so much a port of Quake's codebase and graphics as it is Rand programming something from scratch for the GBA to try and approximate the look and feel of Quake.

 

[Punisher5.0]

Wasn't the argument that the Jaguar couldn't handle the Quake engine? Regardless this was a great video. What a legend Randy is.

[roots.genoa]

17 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

This looks really cool, but as you might imagine, apparently it's not so much a port of Quake's codebase and graphics as it is Rand programming something from scratch for the GBA to try and approximate the look and feel of Quake.

According to Forest of Illusion that got the prototype from Randy, there was a later version with Quake's assets but it has not been found yet.

[agradeneu]

Hm.....3D on GBA requires quite the technical wizadry.

 

However, as a game it looks way worse than Jagdoom.

[+Stephen]

15 hours ago, Punisher5.0 said:

Wasn't the argument that the Jaguar couldn't handle the Quake engine? Regardless this was a great video. What a legend Randy is.

There's no argument, it can't.  While the GBA code looks cool, it is also not the Quake engine, but as stated, a recreation of something that looks like Quake.

[youxia]

Technically impressive, but it's more of a Doom (horizontal only) with Quake's gfx.

Edited June 14, 2022 by youxia

[Punisher5.0]

9 minutes ago, Stephen said:

There's no argument, it can't.  While the GBA code looks cool, it is also not the Quake engine, but as stated, a recreation of something that looks like Quake.

Absolutely. I was just stating that the argument was it couldn't handle the Quake engine and not that it couldn't do a version of the game.

[ArneCRosenfeldt]

On 6/14/2022 at 4:15 PM, Punisher5.0 said:

Absolutely. I was just stating that the argument was it couldn't handle the Quake engine and not that it couldn't do a version of the game.

PVS should work on all systems. Quake avoids multitexturing by overlaying textures using software before the projection. So it could run on Jag, 3DO, Saturn. Spanline renderer fits the blitter. Quake uses z-buffer for enemies .. we have a z-buffer. Still: unplayable framerate. The GBA cannot do stuff in parallel, but the Jag is worse.

[roots.genoa]

[agradeneu]

Yes, you can make Quake that plays exactly like Doom and looks horribly pixlated.

 

The issue is that a "Quake" version that is worse than Doom would make not much sense. 

 

[Lostdragon]

On 6/13/2022 at 11:30 PM, Punisher5.0 said:

Wasn't the argument that the Jaguar couldn't handle the Quake engine? Regardless this was a great video. What a legend Randy is.

There have probably been countless arguments over the years, but perhaps some of the more stand out points have been.. 

 

John Romeo scoffing at the notion saying the Jaguar could barely handle Doom... 

 

 

UK magazine Ultimate Future Games claiming the game was 30% complete. 

 

 

And ahem, a certain individual swearing blind he'd been reading an interview where John Carmack had started Jaguar Quake and it was going to run in a higher resolution, with a better framerate and resolution than Jaguar Doom. 

 

Of course the individual didn't have a copy of the interview, couldn't even say where or when it had been seen and no such interview has ever been found... ?

 

 

This GBA Quake-inspired affair, is an extremely impressive piece of coding, but not something I personally would of wanted to play, had it come out. 

 

 

It's a bit messy. 

 

 

Cool find none the less. 

[JagChris]

1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:

John Romeo scoffing at the notion saying the Jaguar could barely handle Doom... 

 

I always thought this was a ridiculous statement born out of trendiness. More emotional than logical.

[Lostdragon]

On 6/16/2022 at 9:53 PM, JagChris said:

I always thought this was a ridiculous statement born out of trendiness. More emotional than logical.

It's just Romero's personal opinion. 

 

Taylor felt the hardware was  vile, grossly heterogeneous architecture etc

 

 

Carmack initally praised it, and said developing on the Jaguar  started out fun, but once he started  pushing it  hard

the architectural problems.started showing upa and he had to go through

contortions to get a lot from it. 

 

We've seen individuals claim id loved the Jaguar hardware, that itself has turned out to be not strictly true. 

 

 

Both Wolfenstein and Doom didn't perform anywhere near as well as they'd hoped at retail, nor did the Jaguar itself, so they moved onto the more profitable systems. 

 

 

I'm just eternally grateful they gave us the support they did during it's commercial lifespan. 

[ZylonBane]

On 6/14/2022 at 8:38 AM, youxia said:

Technically impressive, but it's more of a Doom (horizontal only) with Quake's gfx.

Did you even watch the video? He states repeatedly that it runs actual Quake levels.

[agradeneu]

13 hours ago, ZylonBane said:

Did you even watch the video? He states repeatedly that it runs actual Quake levels.

When I watch I am reminded of  "Doom" too, no free look appearently but a fixed view, 

however, you can only listen to what he says anyway.  

[youxia]

13 hours ago, ZylonBane said:

Did you even watch the video?

Did you actually play Quake?

[+cubanismo]

The engine demonstrated does support free look. You can see it when he dies at 9:31 and 10:38 in the YouTube link. Given the GBA only has one D-Pad, he probably either just didn't bind buttons to look up/down, or the video creator just didn't think to demonstrate the use of them.

 

Doom got to eliminate a few instructions with no x or z-axis rotation in the view, but most of its speed was from the 2D visibility test and fixed wall+floor angle (i.e., 2D maps). This is clearly full 3D geometry, so there's nothing Doom-like about it other than using Id assets. It's orders of magnitude more impressive programming. As noted in the video, the same guy wrote the Doom engine for SNES from scratch without using Id's Doom engine code, and I don't hear anyone splitting hairs over whether Doom could run on the SNES. It does, case closed.

[prog99]

2 hours ago, agradeneu said:

When I watch I am reminded of  "Doom" too, no free look appearently but a fixed view, 

however, you can only listen to what he says anyway.  

You could of course download it and try for yourself? https://forestillusion.com/2022/quake-usa-prototype Plenty of emulators out there.

[youxia]

1 hour ago, cubanismo said:

The engine demonstrated does support free look. You can see it when he dies at 9:31 and 10:38 in the YouTube link. Given the GBA only has one D-Pad, he probably either just didn't bind buttons to look up/down, or the video creator just didn't think to demonstrate the use of them.

I'm not sure it does indeed prove that meaningful free look is possible, but if it is then I'll be first to admit it's not just "more of a Doom (horizontal) only" game and even more impressive for that.

 

As it is, the ability to look up and down was not just some cosmetic change but the single most important thing about Quake. It has completely rewritten the gameplay rules, especially for deathmach.  The use of fully 3D geometry was great too, but if you remove the free look then you're left with a 2D-plane game with 3D models, which for me is "more of a Doom".

 

EDIT: yeah, I guess "try it yourself" was a good advice, so I did. Much more impressive than the vid, it really does have that Quake feel...especially feedback from weapons and sounds. But I couldn't find the freelook, did anybody manage?

Edited June 22, 2022 by youxia

[+cubanismo]

The death sequence demonstrates rotation around at least 2 axis. I can't tell if it rotates around x (looking up down), but if you can do two axis, you can do x + y, which is what "free look" is, so as a technical accomplishment, whether up+down rotation was actually in the code, it's technically feasible, which is all I was getting after. It seems pretty unlikely he put in z-axis rotation (mostly useless in gameplay, as this roughly corresponds to leaning the camera to the left or right. Watch Battlefield Earth for a good laugh in general and a fine example of the over-use of this in cinema) and not y-axis rotation, which as you note, is critical to gameplay in a fully 3D world.

[Punisher5.0]

1 hour ago, youxia said:

I'm not sure it does indeed prove that meaningful free look is possible, but if it is then I'll be first to admit it's not just "more of a Doom (horizontal) only" game and even more impressive for that.

 

As it is, the ability to look up and down was not just some cosmetic change but the single most important thing about Quake. It has completely rewritten the gameplay rules, especially for deathmach.  The use of fully 3D geometry was great too, but if you remove the free look then you're left with a 2D-plane game with 3D models, which for me is "more of a Doom".

 

EDIT: yeah, I guess "try it yourself" was a good advice, so I did. Much more impressive than the vid, it really does have that Quake feel...especially feedback from weapons and sounds. But I couldn't find the freelook, did anybody manage?

 

I just tested it and if you hold the left and right triggers at the same time then you can move the camera up and down with the dpad. Thanks for giving me a reason for blowing the dust off my GBA.

[youxia]

Cool, I stand corrected then

[JagChris]

You can see it in the checkerboard floor map called 'Slopy' in one of the videos.

[alucardX]

8 hours ago, cubanismo said:

As noted in the video, the same guy wrote the Doom engine for SNES from scratch without using Id's Doom engine code, and I don't hear anyone splitting hairs over whether Doom could run on the SNES. It does, case closed.

Technically the SNES is not running doom, the SuperFX is.