Help making Darkplaces look like Software Quake (square particles, no filtering)

Quake Quake Engines
1

Hi everyone :smiley:

I recently picked up an Oculus Go for a ridiculously low price, just to mess around with Quake in VR — and it actually works great using a Darkplaces-based VR port!

Now I’m trying to make it look as close as possible to Software Quake, just for that old-school vibe.

I’ve already turned off texture filtering, interpolation and tweaked the lighting, but there’s one last thing I can’t figure out:

How do I get square, non-filtered particles like in the original software renderer?

From what I can tell, this doesn’t seem to be configurable in Darkplaces (r_particles, r_particles_quality, etc. don’t seem to do it). Maybe it requires a small mod or shader tweak to force particles as hard-edged quads?

Any help or pointers would be super appreciated, thanks!

2

I searched for the list of Darkplaces cvars and found this list - try cl_particles_quake 1

3

Thank you for your feedback. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately, with this setting the particles look like GL Quake (rounded and filtered), but I’d prefer the square, pixelated style of Software Quake.

4

Check out https://quakeone.com/forum/quake-mod-releases/finished-works/9876-software-quake-style-pixely-particles

2 Likes
5

Wow, thanks so much, that sounds like exactly what I need, I'll test it out tonight! :smiley:

Playing Quake in VR for only €25 (the cost of the headset) is fantastic. I'll do a summary post in case anyone is interested, including my setup.

6

PK3 works perfectly, thanks again!

I'd like to ask another question… In VR, some texture misalignments in the original maps are more noticeable, like this at the end of E1M3:

dp20251026170150-00
dp20251026170150-001778×1333 232 KB

…are there any mods or PK3s that fix these small inaccuracies? I've seen mods that fix some bugs in the game, but this map remains unchanged.

Thanks! :smiley:

7

This already was in the original map source and is compiled into the original .bsp

You can try this, just fixed this bit in netradiant-custom and compiled the map:

e1m3_fix.zip

(original map from: e1m3.map / only realigned this texture). Effective change between the original file - once rewritten by netradiant - and what i used to compile the map:

--- e1m3_orig.map	2025-10-27 22:37:25.733299331 +0100
+++ e1m3.map	2025-10-27 22:38:06.862476945 +0100
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 "sounds" "9"
 "message" "the Necropolis"
 "worldtype" "0"
-"wad" "gfx/wizard.wad"
+"wad" "gfx/wizard.wad;/home/q1/wads/quake101.wad"
 // brush 0
 {
 ( 1424 272 52 ) ( 1424 272 0 ) ( 1424 240 0 ) WSWAMP2_1 0 0 0 1 1
@@ -5415,7 +5415,7 @@
 {
 ( 1372 1024 778 ) ( 1372 992 778 ) ( 1372 992 712 ) WENTER01 48 144 0 -1 1
 ( 1382 992 770 ) ( 1382 1024 770 ) ( 1382 1024 708 ) WENTER01 48 144 0 -1 1
-( 1372 992 778 ) ( 1404 992 766 ) ( 1404 992 700 ) WENTER01 224 32 0 -1 1
+( 1372 992 778 ) ( 1404 992 766 ) ( 1404 992 700 ) WENTER01 208 32 0 -1 1
 ( 1404 1024 766 ) ( 1372 1024 778 ) ( 1372 1024 712 ) EXIT02_2 0 0 0 1 1
 ( 1382 1024 770 ) ( 1382 992 770 ) ( 1372 992 778 ) EXIT02_2 0 0 90 -1 1
 ( 1372 1024 712 ) ( 1372 992 712 ) ( 1404 992 700 ) EXIT02_2 0 0 0 1 1

edit: fixed water

8

Thank you so much, it works great !!! (water included) :star_struck:

Tested on PC because I can't load it from the command line in VR.

I realize I'm asking too much, but it would be possible to create a PK3, or even better incorporate this fix into an existing PK3 that fixes the bugs in the original maps (like KillPixel's z-fixed maps).

It seems strange that no one has done this yet, I guess there's a reason for that.