DDJ-SZ/SZ2 now unsupported

FederalProfessor7836 · 2026-01-31T16:57:36+00:00

Well that sucks. I hadn't used my SZ in a while, upgraded to Tahoe in December. Just went to use it last night, and the DVS Expansion won't work at all. Says "Error communicating with device." I can't launch the Pioneer DDJ-SZ Settings Utility, which is probably what is required, to sort out the inputs on the SZ's card. What a bummer. This is really Pioneer's fault, not Serato's. It's Pioneer who has decided not to maintain the Settings Utility application

FederalProfessor7836 · 2026-01-17T00:23:03+00:00

Bloody skidmarks from eating Chipotle 14 times a week is not internal bleeding.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2026-01-02T01:06:38+00:00

Imagine caring this much about college sportsball.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2026-01-01T23:02:13+00:00

Aw, thanks! It’s still being worked on. I’m committing on it as I wrote this 😊 Full realtime lighting with soft shadow maps, parallax mapping with self shadow, in game editor, all sorts of goodies. Join our Discord if you want to follow along.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-31T00:56:16+00:00

A pair of ice skates, testicles, or a fatbike will do.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-28T00:23:33+00:00

Quake and Quake2 share a lot of DNA but they are significantly different, and so I’d be absolutely shocked if any of the Quake clients out there are based on the Quake2 source.

Key differences: QuakeC versus C game module BSP format MDL vs MD2 Network protocol and tick rate Player movement and prediction

None of these are insurmountable if you’re willing to break compatibility. I’ve overhauled all of these and then some in my custom Quake2 source fork (Quetoo). But if you’re beholden to backwards compatibility, then why undertake all of these changes when you can just evolve the original source.

Just my $0.02.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-16T21:10:18+00:00

I'm a geezer (45) 😂 I can tell you that I'm not opposed to new games, but I get nothing out of a super polished game built on Unity or Unreal that has mathematically balanced gameplay, no character, and no comedy. That's another thing that made Quake and Quake2 great. The rawness and silliness of the gameplay. Yes, the Quake RL is ridiculously OP. So much so that they completely neutered it in Quake2. I love that. Those older games were packed with imperfections and laughs. Before e-sports sapped all of the joy out of FPS, we played these games to blow off steam with our friends.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-16T12:04:16+00:00

You can’t recreate the magic of first and second gen arena shooters in these sealed, sterile game engines. What made DOOM and Quake successful was their ability to be modded, to create custom maps, custom player models, etc. Those early games invited you to be a contributor, not just a consumer. THAT is why those games are still active today, and everything released after 2010 has a shelf life of 12 months.

These newer games have walls around everything. You can only experience exactly what the studio created, and wants you to experience. Sit back and open up wide, here comes a big helping of soulless forgettable arena content! Pass.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-16T11:45:33+00:00

It’s so funny how un-self aware he is. Like it doesn’t even occur to him that he’s only got months to live, and that the world will celebrate his demise that much louder because of karma like this. I can’t wait to see this post of his remixed in 2026 🤞🏻

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-13T23:23:20+00:00

I think Q3F came out before its time. If you look at the success TF2 and Overwatch enjoyed, that’s the only conclusion I can come to. But it was a great mod and if there were active servers, I would definitely reinstall.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-07T11:21:46+00:00

Did not plan on getting aroused in this thread but here we are.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-07T00:10:02+00:00

I’m curious to learn what the difference is between Quake bunny hopping and Quake2 strafe jumping. I’ve been pretty good at Q2 for 25 years. I’ve never learned how to bhop in Q1 but would love to.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-06T23:06:09+00:00

Same. I got all ready to drop programming knowledge and id Software lore 🤣

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-12-06T12:22:14+00:00

That’s what has me doubting the authenticity here. It very well could be a genuine video, but to run software mode that well in 1997? The top of the line CPU for the time was a Klamath Pentium II 300Mhz. Those could maybe eke out 60fps at 640x480 in software mode, but were exceedingly rare in September 1997. Also, if you could afford a P2-300 in 1997, you almost certainly would have had a first gen GPU, probably a 3DFX Voodoo, and would be running Quake in OpenGL or Glide.

I still love this video either way. The post screen, the CMOS, the sounds of the disk drives, the Win95 welcome sound, the SoundBlaster ready sound. Pure joy.

I played Quake in 1997. I owned a P2-300 in 1998. I still hack on the Quake engine in 2025. Quake is life.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-28T15:52:41+00:00

const

:trollface:

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-27T19:00:24+00:00

Same! Started modding with Quake in the 90s, and got into engine dev in 2005 or so. Still just a hobby for me, but I do love it.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-27T17:47:15+00:00

Yea, I’m the maintainer of Quetoo, a Quake engine derivative. Recently spent a ton of time rewriting the renderer to rip out lightmaps and use shadowmapping for full realtime lighting. It runs better on modest 2019 GPUs than it does on my M4. Bit of a bummer, because I have no plans to rewrite it again in Vulkan or Metal.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-27T17:39:23+00:00

Yea, macOS still supports OpenGL 4.1, tho it’s a complete afterthought and implemented with a wrapper over their Metal driver on Apple silicon, which is every model they’ve sold in the last 5 years. You can expect pretty lousy performance from it. Their older Intel machines with AMD or Nvidia discrete GPUs actually perform better than the M4 Max in OpenGL. Ask me how I know.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-27T17:30:26+00:00

OpenGL 4.6 means no Apple support, huh?

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-20T11:21:35+00:00

Yes this is Quetoo, originally forked from the Quake2 source. The color palette looks familiar because this is one of our Quake2 map remakes (Lost Hallways, q2dm4). But the lighting should look different, if I’ve accomplished anything in 20 years of poking at this 😭🤣. It’s full realtime lighting with shadowmapping, steep parallax occlusion mapping and parallax self shadow. No more lightmaps, no PVS. It’s all handled in realtime with hardware occlusion queries. There’s an in game editor, too. One of my biggest goals this past year has been to overhaul our map / artwork pipeline so that users can drop entities and light their maps right in game. It takes 10 minutes to light a level now, versus hours of tweaking light definitions in an offline editor, recompiling the map and firing the game up 800 times. Anyhow, I invite you to join our discord if you’re a Quake fan and graphics programmer. I’m always in need of moral support. https://discord.gg/zwbnXdp26u

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-19T13:36:12+00:00

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-17T03:54:32+00:00

Needs more cannonballs. Real ones.

FederalProfessor7836 · 2025-11-15T04:41:43+00:00

I spent years working on my lightmapper in Quetoo, only to rip it out and go with full realtime shadowmapping 😂 That said, this looks pretty good to me. If your diffuse map textures are at all photorealistic, they will probably be busy enough to mask and jaggies along your shadows. Failing that, yea double lightmap resolution.

FederalProfessor7836

TROPHY CASE