UQE Hexen II

[Jacques Krige]

Six years prior to the release of UQE Hexen II when Quake's source code were released in 2000, I've spent much time learning about the inner workings of the engine. This complimented my existing knowledge on the asset editing side of things.

During mid-2006 the UQE (Ultimate Quake Engine) project were started. Over the course of the next few years a number of much needed fixes and features were added to the engine whilst at the same time keeping true to the original as much as possible.

This update addresses two main issues (v1.16):
- Fixed rotating items not being lit properly.
- Fixed gamma correction for screenshots.

More Information & downloads for UQE Hexen II is available on the following url:
http://www.jacqueskrige.site

If the game fails to start it may be that the machine is missing the redistributable package.
Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012[www.microsoft.com]

At this time the binaries are not compatible with any Windows release older than Windows Vista.

[Jacques Krige]

This video shows UQE Hexen II in action at 16:9 widescreen complete with OGG Vorbis soundtrack playback!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvK9EyKHBWk
http://www.jacqueskrige.com

[0mnicydle]

Jacques, I am getting crashes when loading levels or exiting the program if I have any discs in any of my CD-ROM drives. I am using ogg for music and don't need the game to even look for any audio CD, but unfortunately the legacy command line argument "-nocdaudio" seems to have been removed.

[Jacques Krige]

I tested this out an i can confirm that this actually does happen. I'll get onto a fix for this.

[Achelon]

Upon trying to start singleplayer with UQEHexen I'm getting the following error (before crashing):

"Mod_NumForName models/stItng2.mdl not found", it also says in the prompt (before entering the menu) that model*1 for Duke's Keep was not found.

My version is upgraded to the latest (1.11), do you know any fix for this?

[Jacques Krige]

If you have the game properly patched to 1.11, I would take a guess you dont have the mission pack. try starting the game with the command line switch "-standardprogs" and see if that works... and/or try some of the included non-MP batch files (.bat) that should be in the same folder as the executable.

[Achelon]

Originally posted by Jacques Krige:

If you have the game properly patched to 1.11, I would take a guess you dont have the mission pack. try starting the game with the command line switch "-standardprogs" and see if that works... and/or try some of the included non-MP batch files (.bat) that should be in the same folder as the executable.

Cheers, setting the launch option "-standardprogs" fixed it. =)

[Jacques Krige]

Great! :)

[Jacques Krige]

Just a heads-up that I've moved the download for UQE Hexen II to my personal site since the original site I hosted it on expired recently.

I've updated all the links on this thread, but here it is again:
http://www.jacqueskrige.com

[Jacques Krige]

The changes made to UQE Hexen II largely mirrors updates that has been done previously for UQE Quake. The FMOD sound system used to perform music playback were updated to the latest build and the playback code has had a total overhaul. An update to the view size were introduced to adjust the world view to hide as little as possible of the world behind the status bar on very low resolutions. The defaults for mouse sensitivity as well as gamma level were also slightly tweaked for this build of the engine.

The list of video mode slots have been freed-up to allow the possibility to run at 4K screen resolution. The libraries exposing OpenGL 4.5 extensions were updated. There were various tiny NPOW2 flaws with model skin texturing that has been fixed. Some models for torches and magical projectiles that emit light were not properly lit themselves have been fixed.

The ability to render the world in wireframe mode were added. It gives an interesting perspective on how the world is rendered on a more technical level by showing how geometry move, rotate and gets culled by the renderer based on the position and direction the camera is facing.

Functionality have also been added to enable the engine to load inflated versions of the original 8-bit low resolution textures to double their original size which in turn doubles the amount of texels on any given surface. This reduces the blurriness of textures to a comfortable midway point between the pixelated look of the original software renderer and the excessively blurred look of the hardware renderer. This produces a much smoother and sharper view of the world.

Some engine tweaks to ensure it properly runs on Windows 10 as well as removing the ancient assembler code from the engine and rather use standard C code instead. The assembler code was required on very old hardware to improve performance, which with today's hardware is unnecessary engine bloat.

The engine were compiled using Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 and should run great for old-school gamers running on modern hardware.

http://www.jacqueskrige.com/news/2016/09/uqe-hexen2-updated

[tuctuc]

Hello Korax, just reinstalled hexen2 And UQE again :), but I noticed that the newest UQE for some reason defaults to v-ysnc on, how can I disable that? as it makes the mouse feel very unresponsive, inputlaggy :/
For now I kind of fixed it by forcing v-sync off via driver.

[Jacques Krige]

Hey tuctuc, Thats odd. I'd have a look at that and put it on my TODO list for the next engine release. There will be a new release within the coming few months and I will have a look at this and fix it. :)

[tuctuc]

oh cool :) thank you
I also noted two other things: mouse acceleration for some reason.
and some differences from software mode, some effects are fullbright in software rendering, like when fireing the 4th weapon of the paladin and the flames of the mumy-lords in thysis.

[Jacques Krige]

Oh yes those two. I got those on my TODO list already. :)

[dragonseeker418]

Hi Jacques. I'm using UQE Hexen 2 to play both the main game and Portal of Praevus, I've been able to get music on the normal game, but not Portal. I've made a music file in there but nothing seems to work.

[Jacques Krige]

Hey dragonseeker418 :)

I'll post here what the game docs are saying:


Supported in the engine is the ability to execute OGG, MP3 and WAV playback for music. The engine takes preference when loading music files in the order of OGG, MP3, WAV if the base file name is found to be the same.
Under the "data1" / "portals" game data directories or your own custom game data directories, create a "music" directory.
A good idea would be to convert your copy of Hexen II and Hexen II: Portal of Praevus CD Audio to OGG. Name the Hexen II CD Audio OGG files from "track02.ogg" to "track17.ogg". Name the Hexen II: Portal of Praevus CD Audio OGG files from "mp_track02.ogg" to "mp_track12.ogg". Place these files in your respective "music" directories. You could also package the files into PAK files. The engine will auto-select the music type with a priority given to file-based playback, if available.
[mp_][track][02][.ogg] = [mission pack indicator][track][track number][format]


...basically you would do exactly the same for the missionpack as what you did for the normal game, only difference is that you'll start the mission pack music files with "mp_".

standard:
/data1/music/track02.mp3

missionpack:
/portals/music/mp_track02.mp3

See if you can get that working, you can add the music in a PAK file or just as normal files.

Also...
To start the engine in proper MP mode, use the following command line:
UQE-Hexen2.exe -portals -width 1920 -height 1080

There should be a few ready-made Batch files in the gme root folder too.
Lemme know if you can get it running! ;)