Quake 2

I have been running Quake 2 for some time now having been beta testing the win32-os2 converted prior to the current release. It's a good game but requires some processor horsepower my P166 MMX can struggle a bit using software rendering unless the window size is kept quite small (about 512 x 400 is playable) a mind-blowing improvement is made by using a 3D graphics card (must be a Voodoo chip) I bought an add on card and the results are impressive and it of course works with DOS games as well. I have a Orchid Tecnology Rightious 3D card although this has been well superceaded much better versions now.

There are of course a few shortcomings that need a work around the first is because of some assumptions made by ID it is not possible to load a saved game, all I can say is as soon as I find such a work around I shall post it HERE!.

Second if you start the game without the CD ROM in the drive it will hang this is not a problem when using a software rendered window but if as in my case you are useing a dedicated full screen games card this is a problem as pressing a ^esc or alt esc will not reset the hung 3D card so you are still looking at a blank screen. The solution:-

Add a couple of lines to your q2.cmd to check it is present. I use :-

ECHO OFF

		if EXIST X:\INSTALL\DATA\QUAKE2.EXE GOTO STARTGAME

		ECHO The Quake2 CD is not in CD Drive X:

		PAUSE

		:STARTGAME

		set NOWIN32LOG=TRUE

		quake2

Obviously the drive letter (X:) must be correct for your system and I am certain there are improvements that can be made and is no good if you use the on the fly conversion but it works OK for me.