openQ4 0.11.0

openQ4 0.11.0

Field	Value
Version	0.11.0
Release tag	v0.11.0
Commit	f8783b7f
Generated	2026-08-14 09:31 UTC
Release scale	override
Version decision	Version override was supplied manually.
Workflow	31787009431
Since	v0.10.0 (compare)

Highlights

• Windows gameplay is more reliable during streaming and avatar-overlay use. AMD OpenGL systems now avoid the persistent-mapped upload and fence path associated with driver timeouts under capture workloads, while retaining the modern renderer through a safer orphaned map-range stream. Crash logs also identify the module and relative offset responsible for an exception, making driver and capture-hook faults much easier to distinguish from openQ4 faults.
• Story checkpoints no longer fail on transient stock-map references. Save serialization once again treats an out-of-graph area-location reference as null, matching retail Quake 4 behavior, and failed save attempts cannot resume serialization after map teardown.
• Underwater play looks and feels substantially better. OpenGL adds depth-aware absorption, scattering, refraction, caustics, bloom, marine snow, and underwater projectile bubbles before the HUD. Swimming speed and vertical control, water friction, and sound occlusion across liquid surfaces have also been corrected. Vulkan retains its existing compatible water tint while broader renderer parity continues.
• Every retail and Raven map-pack loading screen is now complete. All 56 base-game and 7 map-pack load images have validated center, left, right, top, and bottom views. Generated widescreen and ultrawide screens are published atomically, so an interrupted write can no longer replace the live image with a truncated file that aborts map loading.
• Windows respects redirected per-user folders. The save root now comes from the Windows Known Folder service, so redirected Local AppData and Saved Games locations work without relying on environment-variable guesses.
• Incomplete retail-asset installs are easier to diagnose. Startup warns when the unsuffixed zpak_<language>.pk4 dialogue archive is absent instead of allowing numbered language patches to hide the missing base media.
• Experimental Apple Silicon macOS packages are more robust. MoltenVK discovery now supports both loose-package layouts used by openQ4, universal2 candidate assembly and launch validation are stricter, and OpenAL Soft migration builds fail clearly when Homebrew's package is not visible through pkg-config. macOS support remains experimental while visual parity issue #98 and real-hardware signoff remain open.

Upgrade Notes

• Replace the complete openQ4 package for your platform so the engine, renderer modules, game_sp, game_mp, and bundled openQ4 data all come from 0.11.0. Do not mix modules from older releases.
• Existing settings and compatible saves do not need to be reset. As a precaution, retain a copy of important saves before replacing an older installation.
• Retail Quake 4 assets are still required. If dialogue is missing, install the base language archive—such as zpak_english.pk4—or point openQ4 at a complete retail installation; numbered _01 through _04 patch archives are not substitutes for that file.
• OpenGL remains the default and recommended renderer. Vulkan is experimental and opt-in with r_renderApi vulkan, applied after an engine restart.
• Linux ARM64 downloads remain preview packages. The experimental macOS packages target Apple Silicon/arm64 and may be unsigned when Apple signing and notarization credentials are unavailable. Intel Mac packages are not published or supported, and Rosetta is not a supported substitute. OpenGL remains the recommended renderer; the Vulkan option runs through MoltenVK, a Vulkan-on-Metal translation layer. The macos_graphics_bridge=metal package is a Metal bridge around the OpenGL renderer, not a native Metal renderer, while platform_backend=native is comparison-only diagnostic infrastructure, not a release backend. Visual parity remains tracked by issue #98, and support promotion remains gated by docs/dev/macos-signoff-evidence.md.

Change Log

• Added a capture-safe Windows AMD OpenGL upload policy and richer crash-module diagnostics.
• Restored retail-compatible handling of transient savegame references and made save-writer cleanup safe on both success and failure paths.
• Added the OpenGL underwater view treatment and corrected swimming, liquid friction, underwater effects, and sound propagation.
• Capped loading-screen redraw pacing at 60 Hz, accounted for redraw cost, and reduced unnecessary progress updates during large reads.
• Completed and validated the five-view levelshot inventory for every supported retail and Raven map-pack load image.
• Made generated widescreen loading-screen publication atomic, collision-resistant across concurrent processes, and safely fall back to the original image on failure.
• Added a specific warning for missing base dialogue archives in partial Quake 4 installations.
• Switched Windows save-root discovery to the system Known Folder service with hardened fallbacks and consistent native path display.
• Improved reliable-network overflow handling, snapshot initialization, client visibility packing, large-allocation safety, and presentation throttling.
• Corrected localized menu-header capitalization and added missing match-series and vote-cooldown translations.
• Hardened experimental macOS MoltenVK staging, provenance, universal2 assembly, signing, package documentation, and Finder-style launch validation.
• Made the optional macOS OpenAL Soft provider use an explicit pkg-config lookup with clearer Homebrew setup guidance.
• Kept sanitizer builds linkable across the in-process BSE and runtime renderer boundary, and closed MD5R export files through the engine-owned filesystem API.
• Strengthened release artifact validation and reproducible GameLib staging across supported build hosts.

Linux ARM64 Support

Linux ARM64 preview artifacts enabled. First-class publication remains gated on accepted real-hardware native-Wayland SP/MP, dedicated-server, audio, input, display, and package evidence.