Earth is under siege by an alien race. The Strogg are cybernetic warriors--a mechanical frame and decaying body parts stabilized by flesh consumed in a systematic annihilation of other species and civilizations. In a desperate attempt to survive a Strogg attack on Earth, an armada of Earth's finest warriors is sent to take the battle to the Strogg home planet. Earth's initial assault force is nearly annihilated immediately, but one marine manages to infiltrate the base, bring down their planetary defense systems, and kill the Strogg's collective brain and leader--the Makron. Earth assumed the destruction of the Makron would end it all, but it didn't. That's where QUAKE II leaves off and QUAKE 4 begins.Get the Quake 4 v1.4 BETA Patch off WP (230mb)
The 1.4 beta update affects pure server and protocol consistency. Therefore, players who update to 1.4 beta from ANY previous version will only be able to connect and play against other 1.4 beta users. Save games and demos created on any previous version of the game will not be compatible with the 1.4 beta update.
Quake4 v1.4 changes
- Q4TV: games can be broadcasted live to clients connected as spectators. See README_Q4TV_broadcasting.txt for documentation
- the multiplayer game now resides in q4mp/. The game will automatically reload to fs_game q4mp when starting a multiplayer server or connecting to one.
- si_fps server setting allows server administrators to customize the game tick rate. Default is set to 60 fps, which is consistent with previous releases. If set higher, server and clients will tick faster,
allowing for tighter input control and higher FPS.You have to make sure however that server and clients connected to the game have enough CPU power to keep up. We recommend leaving this to LAN and competition games only. - builtin HTTP server for autodownload. You have the option to serve the files directly to the clients connecting to your server (in addition to the seperate download server option from previous releases) See README_builting_downloads.txt for documentation
- improved shotgun spread, more regular pattern
- railgun damage lowered to 90, start railgun ammo to 5
- update napalm weapons code, tweak damage value and range of napalm ambers updated sounds for napalm
- added filtering by mod to the server browser
- pak names are listed in the console when missing paks are required to connect to a server
- improve mapDef handling for addons addons should only have a mapDef entry in addon.conf, but multiple declarations (in def and addon declaration) are merged together
- added r_ignoreHWGamma cvar
- addition of net_clientUsercmdPacking. client->server traffic is sent once every net_clientUsercmdPacking frames. This reduces the client->server traffic, and increases the predict ahead slightly.
Setting is ignored for LAN games. Pre 1.4 behaviour is net_clientUsercmdPacking 1 - improved client->server user commands traffic better predict ahead adjustment, and slightly smaller usercommand packet size
- new ear seperation algorithm for stereo software sound, used by default in multiplayer only see s_earSeperationAlgo, s_mp_minVolume, s_mp_maxWindow
- made value overflows in idBitMsg::WriteBits into errors improved bandwidth usage for ammo counts, and various other bandwidth improvements
- callvote and admin menu map lists show the server's maps. clients and admins can load server maps that are not on the client yet.
- com_allowConsole -1 disables the console completely until the game exits (or value changed via gamecode)
- access to ingame browser from game code: custom filters and access to serverinfo data
- fixes to dropped sounds and stuck hum sounds
- added player handicap (reduces max health, and reduces damage dealt)
- warning don't get printed to the console anymore, unless you enable developer 1
- multiplayer uses 8-sided collision boxes by default
- simple items drawn closer to the ground
- GUIs for r_forceAmbient and g_simpleItems settings
- fix networking of bound entities
- add key and button state query API from the core for mods
- extensions to the server<->master protocol allow better cross-platform multiplayer compatibility
- Linux: fix console key on non-US keyboard layouts
- add a game API for mods that want to implement bots
- fix performance issues when switching between windowed mode when using OpenAL
- fix local 'serverInfo' command when net_ip is used
- add a 'listMaps' command to list maps for dedicated servers
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