For those with newer NVIDIA GPUs, you can now try out Quake II RTX which just released with Linux support. Really nice to see Lightspeed Studios and NVIDIA make Linux a first-class citizen for this with same-day support.
As a reminder on what it is:
Quake II RTX is fully ray-traced and includes the 3 levels from the original shareware distribution.
Quake II RTX builds on the work of Christoph Schied and the team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, who added ray tracing to Quake II to create Q2VKPT (in turn building upon the Q2PRO code base). NVIDIA has introduced new path-traced visual effects, has improved texturing, and has made dozens of other changes and improvements, resulting in an experience that rivals games created today, and pushes your RTX hardware to the limit.
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Direct Link
Direct Link
If you own the original Quake II, it can work with the files to unlock the full game and give you online multiplayer too.
For the Linux version, if you have a card older than the GeForce 20 series, you will need to use the NVIDIA Vulkan Beta Driver at least version 418.52.05 which included support for the VK_NV_ray_tracing extension for certain older models. For those with newer NVIDIA GPUs like the NVIDIA 2060 and above you will need at least driver version 410.66, which added in the ray tracing support.
You can grab it from Steam or the official NVIDIA website. You can also find the full source code (minus assets) on GitHub.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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Krovikan 6 Jun 2019
Nvidia Vulkan Beta Driver 418.52.05, 418.52.07 and 418.52.10 don't build kernel modules with Kernel 5.0.7+
With my Kernel Linux 5.1.6 the only method for compile is:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.52.10.run --no-unified-memory --no-drm
But, with these switches I don't have CUDA. Seems important for Nvidia card, if not tell me please.
With my Kernel Linux 5.1.6 the only method for compile is:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-418.52.10.run --no-unified-memory --no-drm
But, with these switches I don't have CUDA. Seems important for Nvidia card, if not tell me please.
1 Likes
Avehicle7887 6 Jun 2019
Well I did give it a shot with my humble GPU, at least it runs. With a lower resolution it runs a tad faster, not very playable though, aiming is a pain :)
Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 6 Jun 2019 at 4:59 pm UTC
Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 6 Jun 2019 at 4:59 pm UTC
0 Likes
Jollt 6 Jun 2019
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1089130/discussions/0/1638661595046127529/ created with vim autoexec.cfg with seta vid_rtx "0" at the baseq2 folder and it works on my R7 240 hahah
1 Likes
Ehvis 6 Jun 2019
Everything maxed out @ 3440x1440 gave me 35-40 fps. Which with gsync would normally be reasonable to play something, but I couldn't aim with it to save my life. Lowering the rendering resolution to 80% upped it to 60 fps and got me a long much much better.
Even though it may not seem like much, I'm still quite impressed with it as a tech demo. Doing diffuse path tracing for lighting in insanely computationally expensive. My own little renders in Blender's Cycles renderer took 10 hours to do. Doing anything in realtime at all is pretty amazing.
Even though it may not seem like much, I'm still quite impressed with it as a tech demo. Doing diffuse path tracing for lighting in insanely computationally expensive. My own little renders in Blender's Cycles renderer took 10 hours to do. Doing anything in realtime at all is pretty amazing.
3 Likes
rustybroomhandle 6 Jun 2019
This is nice as a tech demo and great as a source reference for developers, but compared to the original, this looks uuuuugly. It's so bright and all the atmosphere has been lost.
3 Likes
iwantlinuxgames 6 Jun 2019
sweet! there is a linux version available from the steam page
0 Likes
Dunc 6 Jun 2019
This is nice as a tech demo and great as a source reference for developers, but compared to the original, this looks uuuuugly. It's so bright and all the atmosphere has been lost.Yeah, it's a bit like the “sitcom effect” (or “soap-opera effect” if you prefer) you get with high-framerate video. It looks too real. Sometimes “better” is worse.
0 Likes
slaapliedje 7 Jun 2019
We should keep in mind that this is the first official release of Quake II since forever for Linux. Pretty sweet that nvidia released it for Linux too.
3 Likes
Solitary 7 Jun 2019
This is nice as a tech demo and great as a source reference for developers, but compared to the original, this looks uuuuugly. It's so bright and all the atmosphere has been lost.You can change the time of day in the game to either specific time period (dusk, dawn, noon, evening) or your local time. When I started the game (at night) it was so dark I thought the skybox was bugged because it was just black. The first level outside area was so dark I couldnt see the enemies.
2 Likes
hardpenguin 7 Jun 2019
(...)Wait, is it Windows or Linux in the screenshot? I am confused :D
0 Likes
sub 7 Jun 2019
OMG, it ran faster on my Voodoo 20 years back :-)
And I'm sure, I was more impressed back then! :)
(Had a shiny new Voodoo 2 at the time, iirc)
Edit: Also, impressive how id software managed to release Quake 2 just slightly more than one year after Quake 1.
Last edited by sub on 7 Jun 2019 at 9:25 am UTC
0 Likes
slaapliedje 7 Jun 2019
My system ran at 31-34 FPS solid. I thought it was much faster before I turned on the FPS indicator in the settings, but it ran very smoothly. Then again I have a i9-9900k, and a 2080 RTX.OMG, it ran faster on my Voodoo 20 years back :-)
And I'm sure, I was more impressed back then! :)
(Had a shiny new Voodoo 2 at the time, iirc)
Edit: Also, impressive how id software managed to release Quake 2 just slightly more than one year after Quake 1.
I tried to tell it where my Quake II install was for the full game, but the file selector was kind of janky, so I beat the free levels already. Need to figure out how to ask me where the levels are again!
0 Likes
iwantlinuxgames 8 Jun 2019
<snip>
I tried to tell it where my Quake II install was for the full game, but the file selector was kind of janky, so I beat the free levels already. Need to figure out how to ask me where the levels are again!
cd $STEAM_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/steamapps/common/Quake II RTX/./find-retail-paks.shhowever, it will probably still fail...failed for me.....i just copied EVERYTHING in my quake 2 install directory to the Quake II RTX directory, and skipped anything it wanted to overwrite, except pak0.pak. you WANT to overwrite pak0.pak with the one from your retail install.
Last edited by iwantlinuxgames on 8 Jun 2019 at 2:47 am UTC
0 Likes
loothelion 8 Jun 2019
I tried to tell it where my Quake II install was for the full game, but the file selector was kind of janky, so I beat the free levels already. Need to figure out how to ask me where the levels are again!
Hi, this is a known issue with q2rtx-1.0.0 on Linux, a fix for it ( https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/pull/1 ) will be included in the next release. Until the officially available builds (Steam / Standalone) are updated you can do one of the following:
1. Grab the updated version of find-retail-paks.sh from our GitHub page:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/master/setup/find-retail-paks.sh
2. Manually copy over the retail PAK files and players/ directory into your ~/.quake2rtx/baseq2 directory.
1 Likes
slaapliedje 8 Jun 2019
Yeah, that's what I ended up doing.<snip>
I tried to tell it where my Quake II install was for the full game, but the file selector was kind of janky, so I beat the free levels already. Need to figure out how to ask me where the levels are again!cd $STEAM_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/steamapps/common/Quake II RTX/./find-retail-paks.sh
however, it will probably still fail...failed for me.....i just copied EVERYTHING in my quake 2 install directory to the Quake II RTX directory, and skipped anything it wanted to overwrite, except pak0.pak. you WANT to overwrite pak0.pak with the one from your retail install.
0 Likes
Avehicle7887 8 Jun 2019
(...)Wait, is it Windows or Linux in the screenshot? I am confused :D
It's Linux, themed to look like Windows :)
2 Likes
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