Why Q2Pro over R1Q2

[mmaruda]

First of all greeting and humble bows to everyone around here. I have been a long time lurker and admirer of the great job the Q2 community is doing here.

So here is a question, why Q2Pro is the go to client now instead of R1Q2?  I still remember the days of NoCheat and the time some people used EGL, but after that R1Q2 became the recommended client and I loved it all the way. Now coming back to Quake, I see Q2Pro is the new standard, I tried it ages ago and did not like it. Now it feels a bit better, but still nothing like R1Q2. I am old school, I like my Quake the way it was just in 1998 and with R1Q2 I sort of get that vibe (the packs, gl_modulate 5 and brightskins never really appealed to me). Q2Pro seemed fine in windowed mode at work yesterday, but when I launched it at home today, it was just horrible. It's like the mouse has some sort of lat ot the screen just wobbles too much. I am not really sure what it is, but the gameplay feels different, inferior to R1Q2 and I just can't stand it.

So, do I need to switch to Q2Pro and maybe change something in the config, or am I fine being the R1Q2 hipster online?

[QwazyWabbit]

I hear you. Q2Pro doesn't feel that great to me and I'm always on a learning curve with it since trying it years ago. I just updated it last night as a matter of fact and the HUD scaling and brighter digits are nice on old eyes but I like the old-school feel of r1q2 so that's my regular client. I mostly have the other clients on my machine for testing. I've never done a side-by-side comparison so I won't try here.

[bvughtoonice]

If you like r1q2 there's probably not much point in switching.

I do happen to prefer q2pro and used r1q2 for many years before. 

 http:// downloads are faster with q2pro

Some servers that arent setup correctly 404.htm header is too large r1q2 fails and switches from http:// to udp download which is even slower.

I think I also noticed one other problem with r1q2 and downloads.  There was some files missing from http:// server r1q2 just gave up and wouldn't switch to udp downloads and couldnt connect to server where as q2pro has no problem switching if it can't find the files on http:// server. it downloads UDP from the mod directory

Q2pro  in game server browser that fetches data from q2servers.com

You can use mouse in menu to select stuff in q2pro which is nice in 2016

Q2pro saves your settings upon exit of the client with no hassle which is nice for new and returning quakers who may get frustrated with r1q2 not saving settings

When i play a movie on extended desktop 2nd tv monitor and make r1q2 go full screen it messes up the screen on my TV and the movie is unwatchable my kids are quick to tell me to fix it. With q2pro I alt+enter  to full screen and the movie on extended desktop plays fine no resolution conflict.  Also in window mode q2pro you can simply use the mouse to click drag the size of your window like any other application in windows. R1q2 is a hassle using keyboard to get to menu to select different resolution to make window predefined sizes.

My only complaint about q2pro is you have to hold ESC key for couple seconds to access the menu. Opposed to just hitting ESC key once.

I personally like the visual enhancements.
 gl_celshading for black outline on players
Can make the console and scoreboard transparent
Change rail core n spiral colors separately
My favorite thing is to turn gamma halfway up in q2pro and then use gl_modulate .5 or something I change it depending on the map and how bight the map is. But it makes the screen dark which is easier on my eyes and players are bright even if they don't have bright skins.

I download q2pro from q2s.tastyspleen.net and don't have any mouse issues only things I change on fresh install is sensitivity some movement controls maybe fov and I am good to go. I am sure everyones person setup varies and plays some contributing factors.

In the end it's just a matter of personal preference if you can take the time to adjust to a new piece of software and make it work for you.

After adjusting to q2pro there's no way I could ever go back to r1q2 or vanilla quake2.exe

[Whirlingdervish]

I'm inherently biased about the situation for a variety of reasons, but I'm under the impression that for a couple years the surge in q2pro's popularity was due to it being the easy excuse for shady people to avoid using anticheat, because the developer of q2pro decided to stop supporting it. It's usage picked up quickly in certain parts of the world that were well known for less than legit play.

It's not like r1q2 stopped working for multiplayer or worked any worse during this time, other than a bug in the single player game intro and first map loading.

The line of excuse/reasoning went something like "well I want all these great features of q2pro for multiplayer, and I cant get anticheat to work with it!" when those great features amounted to graphics stuff that magically didn't drive people to EGL (which had lots of them and looked tits), and a more fully featured server browser.. you know because you need a fancy browser to find the 10 Q2 servers that actually have players in recent years.

"Oh I have windows 10 and it won't work", was the newer excuse, until R1CH fixed both of those excuses a month or so ago by updating both anticheat to support win 10 and creating a custom q2pro that uses AC again.

The only other reasons I've personally heard people use for one over the other, were due to cl_async settings making r1q2 not feel exactly like quake2.exe right out of the box (easily fixed with one line in your config and well documented for years now) and more wishy washy ones like "Oh but r1q2 hasn't been updated recently!".

I say wishy washy, since that doesn't stop them from playing q2dm1 which hasn't been upgraded in years, or pretty much any other part of this 15+ year old game most of which has not seen an update in a decade. Quake 2 isn't your antivirus product or your web browser, so the update frequency is pretty much not an issue someone should use as a deal breaking reason.
There are still people swearing by the last issue of nocheat as their client, so using that dusty old non-updated r1q2 as an excuse seems nonsensical to me.

[Barton]

cl_maxpackets

    Number of packets client sends per second. 0 means no particular limit. Unless connected using Q2PRO protocol, this variable is ignored and packets are sent in sync with client physics frame rate, controlled with ‘cl_maxfps’ variable. Default value is 30.

Even though I set cl_maxpackets to 0 I still get a 1-5ms increase when using Q2PRO instead of R1Q2. If I can't find solution around this I think I will just stick with R1Q2.

[Jay Dolan]

There's something to be said for maintained software. Even if R1Q2 had features or functionality over Q2Pro, which would be a hard case to make, I personally would still opt for the one that is actively maintained. Disclaimer: I don't use either

[Butane]

I used Q2pro for a long time but never liked the lack of support for music
So I switched to the unofficial 3.24 patch which basically adds wide-screen support resolutions and music.. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=208440395 I don't think you can get any more vanilla than that. What sucks is the slow downloads. I liked Q2pro for the fast downloads and in game browser. I wasn't a fan of the black outline/Borderlands style thing though I did get used to it.

[Muerte]

Even though I set cl_maxpackets to 0 I still get a 1-5ms increase when using Q2PRO instead of R1Q2. If I can't find solution around this I think I will just stick with R1Q2.

On what servers You are getting latency increase? r1q2 or q2pro?

Did You try to force cl_protocol 35 on r1q2 servers and 36 on q2pro servers

What is value of your cl_packetdup  command since its 2 hard coded on non q2pro servers

About q2pro
+ cl_packetdup (sending duplicate packet client 2 server)
+/- ch_health    Enables dynamic crosshair coloring based on the health statistic seen in the player’s HUD. Default value is 0 (use static color).
+ cut demos while watching (recording new demo)
+ cl_gibs
+ cl_disable_particles
+ cl_disable_explosions
+ cl_gunalpha
+ s_enable 2 use OpenAL sound engine (no r1q2bug where u can hear lift even on rail on Edge)
+ scr_lag_draw
+ gl_celshading
+ gl_coloredlightmaps real black and white textures (instead low color r1q2)
+ gl_modulate_world
+ gl_modulate_entities


- lack of anticheat support
- source is available for downloading and compiling own q2pro client 

meaning
- you can add whatever you want to adopt client to your wishes (c) claire
- with few lines of codes q2pro becoming after compiling 'legal' wallhack client (c)Revo

both EDL admins and server owners in EU last EDL season

[claire]

I'm fairly certain the latency issue is just in presentation. As muerte said, try forcing protocol 35, you can do this by appending the protocol number to the end of the connection string in the console:

connect 198.7.63.227:27910 35
connect 198.7.63.227:27910 36

If you have a good quality connection your ping should appear lower (slightly) and much more stable using 35. I've noticed my ping "cycles" using 36 where it starts out low and appears higher and higher and then goes back down and repeats. I've never noticed any affect on my gameplay, so I'm assuming it's related to this.

- lack of anticheat support
- source is available for downloading and compiling own q2pro client 

meaning
- you can add whatever you want to adopt client to your wishes (c) claire
- with few lines of codes q2pro becoming after compiling 'legal' wallhack client (c)Revo

both EDL admins and server owners in EU last EDL season

Meaning what exactly? I've never done anything questionable at all, in this community or in running EDL/EDGE. In fact I've worked very hard at staying impartial with all the drama the euro players try to stir up.  As for revo, I can't really say. Although impartiality is not really his strong suit.

I've never added anything to my q2pro client. I compiled my own (because I can) because I wanted to play with the IPv6 connectivity recently added. Actually since r1ch released a newly approved version of q2p with anticheat support I've been using that.

[Jay Dolan]

I don't think he was accusing you of anything with juxtaposing those quotes, claire. I think he was just demonstrating the vast difference in opinion on open vs closed source clients. It's worth noting that anyone could add a trivial wall hack into R1Q2 and compile that, as well -- it just wouldn't have AC. The source is available for R1Q2, too, Muerte, and as it should be. A basic wall hack would involve 2 lines of code to toggle GL_DEPTH_TEST when drawing entities. Oops. Now the cheaters will win!

[Barton]

mrt, claire: I had my cl_protocol at 0 and my cl_packetdup at 1.

I'll try the settings you mentioned when I get time, but I had the same results on TS and PF servers.

[claire]

I don't think he was accusing you of anything with juxtaposing those quotes, claire [...]

My apologies, I had to fight with multiple people over stupid shit today at work, so I've been on the defensive all day.

[Muerte]

@ claire  nhf man what  Jay Dolan wrote

 I don't think you cheating less Revo (i just wrote what i heard from u2 check pic in attachment  ) who i played most last year trying to get more fps of his new pc witch is reason he moved to q2pro
 
I would like to have q2pro compiled with client commands with my settings but since im on wifi (shared last 3 years) and newest q2pro simply not working im still on r1q2 + openal 

@  Jay Dolan Didn't know r1q2 source code is out, and about your 'suggestion' how would you avoid own AC detection (don't answer its rhetorical question - i don't want to know  ) 

[Jay Dolan]

No, that's what I was saying. You are free to download the R1Q2 source and modify it (e.g. fix a bug, add a wallhack, whatever you want). But you would not have Anti-cheat support. R1CH keeps the AC secret sauce under lock and key, which is unfortunately necessary for it to be worth anything.

[Muerte]

@ Jay Dolan heh my 'coding days' expired back in 1985 

I would like to have r1q2 with fixed r_maxfps bug  cl_protocol 36 and cl_packetdup (client 2 server packet duplicate)


wh  was rhetorical