Single Player Bug in R1Q2 b8012, Cause and Workaround

[QwazyWabbit]

Release b8012 is confirmed not to load SP mode in a system with the full commercial version of Q2 installed. The program insists that single player data is missing. This appears to be a malfunction in the StartGame function in the new version. It checks to see if base1 will load. There is a bug introduced in this version as a result of StartGame calling the CM_MapWillLoad function which looks for two files, base1.bsp and base1.override. This function gets called twice, first by StartGame looking in the Quake2 root folder for both of these files and the second time by SV_GameMap_f looking for them in the maps folder. BOTH tests must pass, indicating that one or the other file exists or the game will fail to start. Since base.bsp is properly stored in the maps folder of pak0.pak it never exists in the quake2 root. The result is that the first call, by GameStart doesn't find base1.bsp or base1.override in the root and announces the failure, preventing SP mode.

You can work around this bug by putting an empty base1.override file into your Quake2\baseq2 folder.

Once that file exists and you restart r1q2, the empty override file will be found in the root, passing the first test and base1.bsp will be found in the maps folder of pak0.pak on the second pass and you will be able to play single player.

[Sgt. Dick]

Where can I find the base1 override 

[Zeppelin]

i just typed "deathmatch 0" and "map base1" and the SP mode worked well!

[QwazyWabbit]

Yes, simply creating an empty text file and renaming it is exactly what I did.

It looks like the test for the files is premature. I don't know why r1ch decided to add this, I think it's pointless and should never have been added to a "final" release.

[Sgt. Dick]

Thanks, I will do that.   

[X7]

Why would you use the R1Q2 client to play single player game? R1Q2 does not load the cin files that part of the game.

As far as I know R1Q2 was make for the DM game that why the default deathmatch = 1


X7 

[QwazyWabbit]

Why would you use the R1Q2 client to play single player game? R1Q2 does not load the cin files that part of the game.

As far as I know R1Q2 was make for the DM game that why the default deathmatch = 1


X7 

I didn't attempt to debug it deeply in DM mode. The same code gets executed in DM, so it could potentially stop a DM server also if it doesn't have all the paks present. Part of what I observed was that the Quake2 file system had not completely initialized the first time CM_MapWillLoad was called, therefore the lookup of base1.bsp failed because the paks had not been loaded yet and/or the /maps folder had not been fully populated. I will look at it more closely but I just don't understand why r1ch would put that check into the code at this late stage of life of Q2 and r1q2, especially if he wanted to avoid adding a regression bug to the code.

Basically, the intent appears to be to prevent someone from playing SP or hosting a server if you don't have the original retail idSoftware paks installed. Something idSoftware didn't put into their code, so why would anyone else put it in a derivative? Furthermore, the check is incomplete since one could grab base1.bsp from just about anywhere or even create a fake base1.bsp and put it in the maps folder. There are better ways to check for the "authentic" maps if that is what you wanted to do.

r1q2 does NOT default deathmatch = 1 unless it's in the default config somewhere, the default in the source code is deathmatch = 0. (g_save.c, line 176)

As far as cinematics are concerned, I thought that was fixed and it did play the cin files, but I can't remember which version fixed it or whether it just went from map to map in SP mode without cinematics.

I will double check the SP and DM modes in a week or two and get a better handle on the bug but my workload these days is so bad I don't have much time for fun coding right now.

[X7]

I see the error

[2011-11-14 08:47] ********************
[2011-11-14 08:47] ERROR: Disconnected from server
[2011-11-14 08:47] ********************
[2011-11-14 08:47] ==== ShutdownGame ====
[2011-11-14 08:47] ERROR: Your Quake II installation is missing the single player data, you cannot start a single player game.
[2011-11-14 08:47] Wrote ./coop/scrnshot/quake998.jpg


cinematics never did work with R1Q2, thats ok, because I did all the overrides and remove the cinematic links for the TS coop servers.


X7