"Colorful dynamic lighting!"
The host McCoy's voice came through the speakers, "Look at this corridor, viewers! Look at this corridor! And tell those of you who missed the live broadcast just how much important stuff they missed!"
Thanks to the fully optimized OpenGL graphics library, the real improvement in Quake 2 is far more than just a matter of color lighting.
Many things are unassuming and inconspicuous, subtly making the game better.
But within this—of course—there are also some outrageously dramatic changes.
"This gun—"
The audience, looking at the protagonist's weapon appearing at the bottom of the screen, immediately noticed something was wrong.
I was so engrossed in the colorful lights that I almost missed this.
What were the specifications of the original Quake?
Even the most complex enemy models only have a few hundred triangles in terms of face size.
Even that was the most exaggerated high-precision model of its time.
But judging from the current situation, even the machine gun in his hand is no ordinary weapon.
The machine gun that comes with the character is the first weapon to appear in single-player mode and is also the default weapon in competitive mode.
Unlike the original Quake, the weapon is placed in the bottom center of the screen.
This time, the weapon was moved to the right side, or more precisely, the bottom right corner.
The seemingly insignificant change, which appears to be merely a matter of moving the texture, has resulted in an unexpected improvement in visual effect.
It's like he's actually holding a gun!
It's worth noting that the original Quake used the same weapon display system as Doom.
To be more specific, it can even be traced back to the era of Wolfenstein 3D.
This alone is enough to show how outdated the weapon rendering is.
However, it's not that Lin Lixin didn't know he needed to make these changes at that time.
After all, a wealth of modern FPS experience tells him that moving the weapon to the bottom right corner and switching to a handheld view is the future trend.
But back then, that was simply impossible.
Because this machine gun—it's not a texture at all.
It is a model rendered in real time.
Grip, stock, barrel----
Each part has its own shape and its own material.
The barrel has a shiny, metallic finish, and the gun body has a distinct military green paint scheme.
Even the groove on the sight became clearly visible.
However, compared to the exaggeratedly precise gun modeling, the hands gripping the machine gun are even more astonishing.
Just like the colored light map mentioned earlier.
Everywhere you look, you can see GAMENOVA's unreserved lavish use of the new display capabilities.
That meant they were being told this in a very blatant way:
If you have a Nova Radeon 9000, your image quality can reach this level.
The entire test was short, just a few minutes long, and it felt more like a deliberate attempt to show off one's skills to the audience.
After confirming that everyone was alright, Lin Lixin finally activated the multiplayer mode and entered the server.
The mode remains the classic Deathmatch.
Essentially, it's a gameplay style where you try to get as many kills as possible within the time limit to earn a higher score.
It still exists in modern FPS games, but it's more often used as a form of entertainment and leisure.
For game maps of this era, which are limited in size, deathmatch is a decent competitive mode.
Unlike later games that required comprehensive strategic thinking, teamwork, tactics, and reaction speed, this was different.
Esports in this era is "very primitive, very green-skinned, and has a simple and brutal beauty."
It relies heavily on the individual skill of the players, emphasizing real-time combat and pure technique.
Just like Street Fighter, whose system is still incomplete.
Many games of rock-paper-scissors can be won by relying solely on physical abilities.
Now, even viewers watching on television have finally come to a complete understanding of what's going on today.
SOLID is now getting a free meal.
This was an exhibition match brought in by Gamenova to promote their upcoming new game.
They were still speculating about what kind of earth-shattering commotion GAMENOVA would make this Christmas season.
Will they invite a host of Hollywood celebrities to oversee things?
Will a super-large public press conference be held?
Unexpectedly, GAMENOVA ultimately chose this format.
A unique " Quake " exhibition match.
but----
This approach, however, was surprisingly effective, or rather, precise.
Not a single bit of traffic is misdirected; the targeting is extremely precise.
For these esports players who are absolutely in love with Quake, they are completely obsessed with it.
The appeal of a game like this is far greater than that of any so-called stars!
Rather, these teams are their own stars in the esports world.
"SOLID! SOLID! SOLID!"
"NOVA! NOVA! NOVA!"
The match officially began amidst the shouts and insults exchanged by the audience.
"Wait, so fast?!"
It had barely begun when the visuals startled everyone.
The frame rate meter displayed in the upper right corner briefly jumped to 190+, nearly 200 frames per second.
Even after it stabilizes, it can still maintain around 100 frames per second.
This far exceeds the limits that a CRT television can handle.
It's worth noting that in the original Quake, according to player tests, even with the latest Nova Radeon 9000, the frame rate could only reach a maximum of 60; anything higher required resorting to unethical methods.
For example, you could write a custom mod to shift some of the rendering load to the i486, or upgrade to higher-spec memory, or modify the reference Nova Radeon memory chips.
However, Quake 2, as a comprehensive and flawless upgrade, a sequel exceeding 300MB, actually boasts better frame rate performance than the original?
Does physics no longer exist?
The answer is actually very simple.
Hardware-accelerated graphics rendering library, and one of GamenoVA's signature technologies, OpenGL, the foundation of computer graphics, has been updated.
The newly established NovaGraphics graphics research studio has gathered top talents from all over the world.
In terms of research and development capabilities, it is far superior to the small workshop with only a few people that it used to be.
Despite Lin Lixin's unparalleled technical prowess, there are other developers with equally outstanding technical skills, such as Carmack.
But when faced with a highly complex project like OpenGL, you can never have too many geniuses.
The first thing we did after normalizing NovaGraphics was to iterate and optimize an entire version of OpenGL from start to finish.
Why is OpenGL so awesome?
Because it's an intermediate layer.
It enables computer systems to learn how to use the program interfaces that graphics card manufacturers have written into the graphics cards.
From drawing a triangle to rendering various complex 3D models, everything requires OpenGL to access the graphics card.
This is what is known as hardware-accelerated rendering.
This concept was first proposed by Lin Lixin as early as the NovaWonder era, when OpenGL had just been launched.
Alright.
However, at that time, both the software and hardware were very primitive, and the various protocols were in a terrible state of chaos. GAMENOVA's own platform had not yet formed a complete system.
Several years later, GAMENOVA has become a massive industry cluster with over 100 million users.
At this point, it would be much easier to promote their own OpenGL.
The work it does is very simple.
In the past, computer graphics rendering was entirely handled by the processor.
Even the simplest triangle requires calculations of 3D coordinate spatial transformation, occlusion clipping, lighting, texture mapping, interpolation, and depth occlusion before being written to video memory.
This operation needs to be repeated continuously within each cycle.
Even a high-end CPU with a frequency of tens of MHz will have its queue crammed full of these trivial details.
In the early OpenGL era, Gamenova pioneered the "hardware acceleration" solution.
Simply put, it means that the originally complex calculation operations are all handled by the graphics card.
How do I draw a triangle?
The CPU can directly tell the graphics card via OpenGL: "Hey, triangle, thanks."
This is also a microcosm of the heterogeneous computing that GAMENOVA has always pursued.
The ATHENA Processor is designed to be highly compatible with heterogeneous systems, ensuring good compatibility with all expansion devices.
This is also the main reason why it has been able to perform so amazingly in the game console field.
Then time continued to advance, reaching the Nova Radeon 9000 era.
Gamenova made a minor change.
Lin Lixin added a large number of dedicated circuits to the new graphics card, enabling it to process complex tasks such as triangle rasterization calculations, texture mapping, and linear filtering at dozens of times the speed.
The frame rate jumped from 20-30 to 60+, more than doubling.
Ironically, the image quality wasn't compromised at all; in fact, it was significantly improved.
This is an industrial miracle built through the combined efforts of software and hardware.
The visual effects brought about by this ultra-high frame rate are self-evident.
Look at those contestants in the picture, so agile as monkeys in the mountains!
It's like playing a completely different game!
While Quake also features fast-paced, mobile combat, compared to Quake 2, the first game feels like it's crawling!
As the players performed their maneuvers, both the camera angles and the characters' outrageous movements on the map kept the viewers' hearts racing.
That's too fast!
It happened so fast it was dazzling, so fast that before you could even see what was happening, it was already over.
It's not just about frame rate; it's a comprehensive optimization of the entire game's rhythm and gameplay design.
It did not touch the foundation of the highly mobile combat in Quake, but rather continuously strengthened it on that basis.
While retaining the mid-range time-to-kill environment of the original Quake, numerous optimizations to the control feedback have made the entire battle thrilling.
This radical change actually made the SOLID team feel somewhat unfamiliar.
" The Supernova Team had a bad start— the Supernova Team made a series of blunders— the Supernova Team was caught in a tough battle— the Supernova Team's defeat was inevitable— the Supernova Team made a last-ditch effort—"
I don't know if it's because of the change in projects, or because the S0LID team has become more business-oriented, or perhaps it's because Lin Lixin is more mature.
My training level is high enough.
Surprisingly, the Supernova Team won this spectacular exhibition match by a narrow margin.
"Mr. Lin, could you please give a speech on behalf of the Supernova Team? Your performance in today's match was truly outstanding, especially that last wave of railgun shots that resulted in consecutive kills and a last-minute score; it was as precise as if you were using a cheat code."
" McCoy, my friend, this is all thanks to the brand-new graphics card and the high-end esports peripherals manufactured by Thrustmaster."
"We've collected some submissions from viewers, and some have asked whether this sequel can run on older graphics cards, or whether it's a promotional tactic for newer graphics cards?"
"Of course! We've preset multiple graphics quality levels, so you can update with confidence. Trust me, Quake 2 performs even better than the original on older graphics cards."
Lin Lixin replied with a smile, then reached for the Mike, "Considering that the Nova Radeon 9000 is indeed quite expensive, I've decided to offer a 10% discount on the entire series during this year's Christmas shopping season, limited to one voucher per person. In addition—"
"Besides?"
"You can also call the hotline to check if there are any internet cafes in your area that are officially certified by GAMENOVA and are currently operating. For the price of just a few arcade games, you can enjoy an hour of Nova Radeon 9000 gameplay."