Quake versions [was Re: RFS: quakespasm (2nd try)]

[Stephen Kitt <steve@sk2.org>]

On Mon, 4 Apr 2011 18:42:30 +0100, Jon Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 03:59:37PM +0100, David Banks wrote:
> > I have always had the impression that the actual pak files remained
> > unmodified by the Quake patches though?  I thought it was just engine bugs
> > that were fixed?  
> 
> That may be the case, and if so that is great news.  I shall try to verify
> that.

I've just checked, reinstalling from my old Quake 1.01 CD and upgrading.
PAK0.PAK is always that of the shareware version, but is modified by the 1.06
patch; PAK1.PAK is specific to the retail version and is never modified.

Thus:
* the "swzip"-specific MD5 sum currently in game-data-packager matches the
  1.06 PAK0.PAK;
* the retail MD5 sums in game-data-packager only match the 1.01 PAK0.PAK (and
  the PAK1.PAK which never changed).

So older shareware versions aren't recognised, the 1.06 shareware version is
recognised, the original Quake CD is recognised (but not upgraded),
non-upgraded retail installations are recognised but upgraded retail
installations aren't recognised.

If the user wishes to upgrade a Quake 1.01 CD to 1.06, the simplest option
(without using DOSBox) is to get PAK0.PAK from the shareware version. It is
possible to apply the patch using Linux tools (upackddir, the patch is itself
a PAK file and contains only an updated progs.dat), but the resulting PAK has
yet another MD5 sum.

I haven't checked the id Anthology CD, I can't remember which version of
Quake that has. I'll try to dig my CD out sometime this week...

The correct rules would thus be:
* if there's only a PAK0.PAK file, it's the shareware version;
* if PAK0.PAK matches 5906...3abb, it's version 1.06 (shareware or retail);
* if there's a PAK1.PAK file matching d76b...a685, it's the retail version;
* a PAK0.PAK matching 85fc...c86b is version 1.01 and should be upgraded.
The CD rule is correct at least for the original retail CD.

> I yearn for something akin to http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/DOOM2.WAD which
> is *very* useful for people like me -- alas, QuakeWiki is not quite there
> yet.
> 
> > WP says that 1.08/1.09 were the latest versions, FWIW.

Yup, and those versions only updated the engine, not the PAK files.

Regards,

Stephen