Quake II for Linux (Software Rendering)

Work in progress, under construction etc.

I am working on a small project to restore the software renderer to a recent port of Quake II.

Doom source ports offer a choice of GL or software rendering. For instance, there is Zdoom and GZdoom. To some, GZdoom looks better: the textures and sprites are filtered and look less pixelated. To others, GZdoom looks worse, for exactly the same reasons. Only the software renderer looks like the original game.

It's time to have a similar choice for Quake II!

While working on another project I read Fabian Sanglard's review of Quake 2 source and thought it might be fun to update the software renderer with 24-bit colour, going beyond the limitations of the 8-bit palette. This means coloured lighting, smooth alpha blending, less noise on the textures, and smooth shadows - all while keeping the original rendering algorithm. No GPU required.