"Quake 4 v1.2 (102MB)

Version 1.2:
Aspyr Media, Inc. has released a free update for QUAKE 4, which updates any previous version of QUAKE 4 to version 1.2 (Universal). This official update addresses issues found in both multiplayer and single player since the release of the game, and includes several new multiplayer maps. In addition to the changes and fixes outlined below, this update enables QUAKE 4 to take advantage of the SMP of Intel Dual Core Processors. Players who have computer systems with this processor will notice significant performance gains in QUAKE 4. With the update, Macintosh systems with an Intel Dual Core processor, which uses the SMP, will have a performance jump of 15 to 30 percent. In short, systems with this technology will see the game run faster and smoother than before. As with any new technology, SMP is reliant upon several components working in unison. Such components include the motherboard, CPU, GPU, system ram and sound card.
Fixes/Changes:

dual core support

a fixed pure server system

fixed widescreen and aspect ratio support

fixed server IP information within non-dedicated server

REQUIREMENTS
Quake 4, PowerPC G4+, Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, Radeon 9600 or GeForce 6600 or better, 64MB of VRAM."

Reader Reports: (most recent first)
If you have Quake4 and the v1.2 update, let me know what your timedemo results are. (Include system details and game settings used - Note that FSAA does not seem to be working based on reports. Thanks)

iMac 20in Core Duo 2GHz w/X1600 (256MB VRAM)

(added 5/10/2006)
"using the id_demo001, here are some frame per seconds results for an iMac 20 inch, Core Duo 2Ghz, X1600-256mg, 1Gig Ram, with and without SMP.
(all on except vsync and FSAA, all widescreen resolutions. Note FSAA was not working in the previous version, haven't tried with the 1.2 patch)

800x500
Medium Quality: 35
Medium Quality w/SMP: 50
High Quality w/SMP: 45

1024x640
Medium Quality: 35
Medium Quality w/SMP: 39

as a comparison, the timedemo1 of Doom3:
1024x640 High Quality: 43

I won't post the rest of the benchmarks I did because the curve is clear already. Only at very low resolutions on this machine do the SMP have a significant impact.

At 800x500 MED the game in single player is almost always above 40fps and offer a beautiful sense of 3d, unfortunately at the cost of a higher resolution. I've found that the Doom3 engine does not look so bad at low resolutions though. While Doom 3's performance is great on this hardware, lowest fps about 30fps at 1024x640, with the same settings in Quake 4 the lowest fps can drop to 20, due more to the scene complexity than the amount of action.
-iRolley "

G5 Dual 1.8GHz w/ATI X800 XT (256MB Vram)

(added 5/9/2006)
"Mike, Thanks for all the work on the site, and thanks to whoever emailed you with the command to run the time demo. (see older post below) I had just got Quake 4 yesterday and was disappointed in how it ran. However, as you can see, SMP makes a world of difference (especially on this "low end" box). I did all runs twice. I didn't restart Quake 4 after all of them, so sometimes there is a negligible difference between the runs. (I don't own Quake4 yet, but on Quake3 you had to restart the game or do a "vid_restart" after changes to r_smp for it to take effect-Mike)

(Vsync Off for all tests) 1024x768 High Quality, no Shadows, no AA:

No SMP: 32.32, 32.46

SMP On: 50.30, 51.39 (1.58x increase)

800x600 Medium Quality, no Shadows, no AA:

No SMP: 31.55, 31.90

SMP On: 51.71, 53.19 (1.67x increase)

1024x768 High Quality, Shadows On, No AA, SMP On: 42.17, 43.17

1920x1200 High Quality, no Shadows, No AA - SMP On 48.58, 48.75

1920x1200 High Quality, no Shadows, 2x MultiSample FSAA (via ATI Control Panel), 4x AF (ATI CP), SMP On: 46.65, 48.64

1920x1200 High Quality, no Shadows 2x MultiSample FSAA (ATI CP), 16x AF (ATI CP), SMP On: 45.47, 47.62

My System info is:
Dual 1.8 Ghz G5 (Rev B)
1.25GB RAM
ATI X800XT w/256MB VRAM
OS 10.4.6
-Ozzy "

Dual-Core 2GHz G5 w/Nvidia 7800GT (256MB Vram) PCIe card:

(added 5/9/2006)
"First r_multiSamples aka AntiAliasing does nothing in Quake 4 OSX: There are jaggies with 16X AA that look identical to 0X AA! Yes, I have screenshots (clippings attached), notice the hand-rails in the middle back, and the middle of the table everyone sits around.
(I asked if he tried lower AA settings, like 2x, 4x etc. - but others also mentioned AA doesn't seem to work and it's not related to graphics card as a Nvidia card owner mentioned the same thing. I wrote a progammer to ask about this.-Mike)

System Setup:
Dual-Core 2Ghz G5
2GB DDR2 RAM
7800GT 256MB PCI-E
Mac OSX 10.4.6

Now to the SMP Benches...

Benchmarks:
1600x1200 (max for my CRT)
16X Anisotropic Filtering
Trilinear MipMapping
All effects enabled
VSync OFF
AA OFF <- does nothing: neither effects render output nor performace!

Results:
SMP OFF - 32.06
SMP ON - 50.32

That is 1.57X faster with SMP. Nice :) Aspyr needs to fix AA though :-\

Mind please asking for ATI users to force AA on with ATI Control Panel and test Quake 4?

(he later wrote with more info on AA not working)

Yes, I tried all of the modes listed in the configuration screen (2x, 4x, etc.), and I did restart Quake 4 after any changes. The reason I noted 16x AA is that mode should have the most pronounced effects, but none of the modes do anything - the graphics output is identical to not using AA and so is the performance.

At first I thought it may be a programming error writing the wrong integer to the variable instead of the values the engine uses - example engine may use 0,1,2,3,4 and config writes/reads 0,2,4,8,16; yet even if this were the case either values of 2 or 4 would have some affect (and they don't).

There is also no mention of the multisample extension string in the console output (GL_ARB_multisample), but this of course may not even be there if it is specified in the GL Context instead. You would still think they would output that when using/ignoring it regardless..

There is another thing I came across after playing for several hours and this happened in both single-player and multiplayer modes. There are instances when the user input (mouse or keyboard) is either lost or just not synced to the engine, and this only happens with SMP enabled. It looks like the input calls need to be synced every SMP call, but it's only doing it once every 'round' of calls.

What this means to users like myself is there are times when for few seconds your character doesn't get your new input command(s) and continues doing the last input command (it's not cleared). For example, I was holding forward key running to the terminal and clicked on it loading the next level - then it was loading so I stopped all input with the mouse/keyboard - the level loaded and I was running forward (and not holding any keys!). This doesn't happen all the time, but it is very annoying/bad when it does. It also affects mouse movement which will make you think your mouse is broken or needs cleaning (which I did).

Speculation as I do not work for Aspyr or Raven or iD: for the record no I don't think this input buggery is such a difficult thing to fix - it only needs to make sure the register/sync for input is called after each render thread is finished.

Why these things didn't show up in testing I don't know maybe it was rushed, but I do know that I play Quake 3 with none of these issues (yes I had to add AA/AF support to code).

P.S. I don't recall reading a link to a tweak guide for Quake 4 on your site. Here's one that has some nice variables: www.tweakguides.com/Quake4_1.html.
BTW there are a LOT of performance tweaks that are not enabled by default, that work just fine for OSX...(most game config tweaks work on any platform unless they're keyed to something like directX)
Best Regards, Digital "

Quad G5 w/Nvidia 7800GT, Quake4 Tweaks/CFG files:

(from 5/8/2006 news page)
"hello Mike, thanks for the tip! (info on running timedemo in v1.2 - see earlier news post below)
here are some results for the "id_demo001.netdemo":

(Note: FSAA does not seem to be working, note scores below)
---------------------------------------------------
640x480, high quality, noAA, SMP OFF: 34.8 fps
640x480, high quality, noAA, SMP ON: 57.3 fps (+65% vs SMP OFF)
640x480, high quality, 4xAA, SMP ON: 57.5 fps
640x480, high quality, 16xAA, SMP ON: 57.5 fps

1920x1200, high quality, noAA, SMP OFF: 36.5 fps
1920x1200, high quality, noAA, SMP ON: 48.4 fps (+33% vs SMP OFF)
1920x1200, high quality, 4xAA, SMP ON: 48.9 fps
1920x1200, high quality, 16xAA, SMP ON: 48.2 fps

Machine:
--------
Quad G5, GeForce 7800 gt 256MB
2.5 GB RAM, Mac OS X v10.4.6

Prior to testing I removed the existing "Quake4Config.cfg" from ~/ Library/Application Support/Quake4/q4base to make sure all settings were default.
I discarded the very first timedemo result just in case (even though i did set r_preloaddemos 1).
Then I changed video quality to "high quality" (ideal for 256 MB video memory) and the other settings like use of multiple CPUs, resolution and fullscreen anti-aliasing as described above.

Other stuff:
------------
BTW, i have written a script to load monsters and characters. It's lots of fun to have monsters fight soldiers... =)) I wrote this for myself, but if anyone wants to try it's available at
http://homepage.mac.com/boli/fun.cfg
Most commands i used i got from the info at
http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2006/03/quake4/index2.html#cheats

Also available is a script to toggle thirdperson view, as well as zoom in/out and rotate around the model (I didn't write this one, but merely adapted it for Quake4, as it was originally written for Quake3 by someone). http://homepage.mac.com/boli/modelview.cfg
At the top of the respective files is a short how-to-use...

the single player map game/walker is great for monster vs human fights. loading a multiplayer map also works well. i particularly like to put a bunch of humans somewhere, then at the opposite end of the map some monsters. some, like the "boss buddy" seem to find the humans even when far away...
BTW i forgot to put the light tank monster (spawn monster_lt_tank) into the script, will add it later.
best regards, oliver "

Dual 2.5GHz G5 w/Nvidia 6800 Ultra (256MB) AGP card:

(from 5/8/2006 news page)
"Hello Mike, I downloaded and updates Quake4 with the 1.2 update, which adds SMP support to the game. (see below for full list of changes in v1.2 update) Here are some timedemo results from the demo included with this update.

To start the timedemo:
timedemo started with the console command "\playnettimedemo id_demo001.netdemo"

NOTE: The demo has to be moved to the user's library as per the instructions in the 1.2 update manual.

My Machine:
Dual 2.5GHz G5, 2GB RAM
nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB (AGP)
Pioneer DVR-109 drive, OEM 160GB SATA hard drive
OS X 10.4.6 with all the latest updates

Results (All tests run three times):
NO SMP
High Quality, No SMP, No AA, No Vsync, all other options on.
640x480 33.72, 34.16, 34.12
1024x768 33.77, 34.11, 34.00
1600x1200 33.61, 34.05, 33.94

Low Quality, No SMP, No AA, No Vsync, all other options on.
640x480 34.58, 34.82, 34.81
1600x1200 34.49, 34.87, 34.73

Low Quality, No SMP, All other options off.
640x480 41.83, 41.81, 41.68
1600x1200 41.82, 41.95, 41.54

SMP ENABLED
High Quality, No AA, No Vsync, all other options on.
640x480 51.30, 52.12, 52.39 --> MP Speedup: ~1.53x
1024x768 51.15, 52.32, 52.33 --> MP Speedup: ~1.53x
1600x1200 45.97, 47.04, 47.04 --> MP Speedup: ~1.38x

Low Quality, No AA, No Vsync, all other options on.
640x480 52.58, 53.34, 53.44 --> MP Speedup: ~1.53x
1600x1200 49.69, 50.77, 50.78 --> MP Speedup: ~1.46x

Low Quality, All other options off. 640x480 65.81, 65.86, 66.14 --> MP Speedup: ~1.58x
1600x1200 64.68, 64.80, 65.01 --> MP Speedup: ~1.56x

The addition of SMP support in the Quake4 1.2 update gives about 1.5x increases in framerates.
Hope this is useful to some gamers and interested folks out there.
-Topher"