Quake 1.5 HD beta 3 - Zircon file

02/07/2024
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// MOD : Quake 1.5 HD Single Player
// Author : freddiehimself, Bloodshot12, Baker55
// Website:
// Info : Quake 1.5 HD Public Beta 3 (Zircon engine v60), based on SMC 5.30
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Info:

This MOD is a (much needed) graphical overhaul for Quake 1.5: a set of texture-replacements taken from other MODs and here and there in Internet and added together to Quake 1.5, so that it also looks acceptable - or even very good! - for modern standards.
Making these texture-sets work in Quake 1.5 has required a certain amount of effort, due to the complexity of the internal structure of Quake 1.5 itself. Therefore I decided to create a new MOD, name it "Quake 1.5 HD", so that
everyone can easily enjoy the new weapons and the new gore system in combination with high resolution textures.
The game is not heavy, at all. However, it requires a decent PC (not suitable for more than 20 years old hardware). Its weight is due to texture resolution and ray tracing: it is not path traced but it has RT light sources and shadows, so that most scenes appear much nicer than on the original game.

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Update Beta 3:

Since Darkplaces is so much dated by now, I decided to switch to the new and much better performing Zircon Engine, which has already reached v60 and seems to be ready for utilization.
I was really impressed by its performances. It does not only offer better overall compatibility with modern hardware (it should even run on Linux and Android) but also:

• Significantly improved performance compared to Darkplaces on same hardware with same settings (especially on recent hardware)
• Much better ray tracing, which provides incredibly correct lighting, and specifically a very accurate depiction of daylight and shadow/darkness
• Much more realistic depiction of lit surfaces
• Incredible working ray traced real time projected shadows of objects and world

Please notice that this version is not path traced like Sultim-t VKQuake-RT, but the results are very similar, and the game is not nearly as heavy as VKQuake-RT: it does not require RTX cards and can still be played on average laptops!

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Update Beta 2:

Game updated with e1m2 hotfix, patch 1 and patch 2.

The latest scripts for water, liquids and lava (.shader files) could not be added, since they do not seem to work with the higher-res
texture-sets in use here. But this doesn't seem to imply any issue.

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List of visual and sound improvements:

• HD environments textures (modified rygels texture pack)
• HD bestiary with dedicated shaders (monsters have high definition textures)
• HD back-packs texture for soldiers and enforcers
• HD ammo-packs
• HD health-packs
• HD water (with transparency and reflections)
• HD lava
• HD slime
• HD torch model
• New player bleeding effect (Quake 1.5 setting)
• New teleporter particle effects (Quake 1.5 setting)
• Snow weather effect (only in the E2M1 map for the moment)
• HD menus and overlays (taken from Quake Epsilon)
• New HD weapon-overlay-icons (made by me)
• Many new sound effects (Mindgrid audio sound pack)

the only low-res textures remaining are the ones for the player and weapons models.

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Important notice:

Due to the massive use of high-res textures Quake 1.5 HD is not suitable for very old machines (15+ years old).
Anyway, since it can be played in 4K with a GTX 1080 without slowdowns, I assume that reducing the resolution to full HD may have a certain impact on the performances and thus make it playable also on lower-end PCs. And with this release it became even smoother than it was before.

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Important additional keys:

F --> toggle flashlight on/off
E --> melee attack (kick)
C --> toggle between 1st and 3rd person player view

F12 --> take a screenshot (on Zircon it is not possible to take screenshots by pressing the Printscr key). Screenshot are automatically saved onto the /ID1/screenshots/ subfolder.

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Installation:

The installation procedure is quite straightforward. Just extract this archive into a folder of your choice and copy inside the ID1
subfolder the original .pak files of the game (maps: PAK0.PAK, PAK1.PAK, PAK2.PAK).
In order for the water and weather effects to work you will need vised maps.
To vise your maps you need the famous vispatch utility:

Vispatch.sourceforge.net

but it is so old that it only works on 32 bit systems. Already vised maps can also be found on-line: if you find them you can
use them, provided that you already own an original copy of the game.
To start the game, just execute zircon_64_sdl2.exe or zircon.exe if you are on a 32 bit machine.
Optionally, if you also want the original ingame-music, you need to extract the original tracks from the game-CD with an audio
utility and convert them to OGG-vorbis format, then copy them onto the \ID1\sound\cdtracks\ subfolder.

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Known issues:

Obviously, since Quake 1.5 SP is a still-in-development beta, Quake 1.5 HD suffers of the same problems of Quake 1.5 SP.
There is also another minor problem: when the monsters are hit, if they get wounded the HD texture disappear from their bodies and the original low-res texture from the original game reappears. This is due to the new gore system implemented in Quake 1.5, which seems to require other (low-res) textures.

You will get some visual artifacts and wrong colors (everything looks white) in some levels (like, for example, in "Hell's Atrium") if the "RT World" lighting option is enabled. In that case, just turn RT World off temporarily (normally keep it on to take advantage of the incredible ray tracing).

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Graphical settings:

The Zircon engine does not require particular care. It just works out of the box.
The optimal settings I found are as follows:

STATUS BAR --> DARKPLACES
GUN POSITION --> DARKPLACES
BOBBING --> DARKPLACES
SHARP TEXT --> ON
EFFECTS --> 3/6 DEFAULT

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Video Mode (pay attention: these settings are for unlimited framerate. If you want to limit power consumption and play at lower frame rates, activate v-sync on your videocard's driver):

Resolution --> 1920x1080 (will anyway drop to 1600x900 afterwards)
Type --> Widescreen 16/9
Bits per pixel --> 32
Antialiasing --> 0
Use refresh rate --> off
Refresh rate --> 0 (unlimited)
Fullscreen --> on
Vertical sync --> off
Anisotropic filter --> 4
Texture Quality --> 0
Texture Compression --> on
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Mouse Speed --> 25.5
Field of View --> 90

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Customize Effects:

Particles --> on
Quake style particles --> off
Particles Quality --> 1
Explosion shell --> on
Explosion shell clip --> on
Stainmaps --> on
Onload clean stainmaps --> on
Decals --> on
Bullet impacts --> on
Smoke --> on
Sparks --> on
bubbles --> on
Blood --> on
Blood opacity --> 0.8
Force new blood effect --> on
Polygon lightning --> off
Smooth sweep lightning --> on
Waist level lightning --> on
Lightning end light --> on
Model interpolation --> on
Sprite interpolation --> on
Flicker interpolation --> on
View blend --> 1
Upper sky scroll speed --> 1
lower sky scroll speed --> 2
Underwater view ward --> 1
Water alpha (opacity) --> 0.4
Water movement --> 1
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Customize Lighting:

Corona intensity --> 0.625
Use only coronas --> off
Gloss Mode --> 1
RT DLights --> on
RT DLights shadows --> on
RT World --> on
RT World lightmaps --> 0
RT World shadow --> on
Bloom Effect --> off
Scene Brightness --> 2.125
Glow Brightness --> 2

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Zircon seems to default to a resolution of 1600x900 pixels when set in full screen mode on a full HD monitor.

Since OLED screens provide correct/real colors, these settings refer to OLED screens. On LCD screens you may need to adjust them for more/less brightness/contrast.

Please do not mess up with the config.cfg file inside the ID1 subfolder. If you really have to, save a copy of it first.

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Contact:

For now the best contact method is Moddb. You can leave feedback on the mod page or PM me with suggestions

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Special Thanks:

to all the people who work on the development of Quake 1.5:

• Bloodshot12 --> Quake 1.5
• Baker55 --> Zircon Engine
• Sock --> AD features, higher quality AD monster models and miscellaneous
• Spike --> QuakeC programming help
• Capnbubs --> Player, Soldier and Dog models
• Terrafusion Discord --> mapping help
• Facepunch Retro thread --> feedback and ideas
• Papasmurf, Xubs, Lyokanthrope, Doommarine, Danzadan, Shadesmaster --> ideas, feedback, testing
• Mynameislol and MacD11 --> ideas, feedback, testing, sounds