Quake II Demo/Movie Playback Information

To play demos in Quake II, you must place the .DM2 files in your QUAKE2\BASEQ2\DEMOS directory. From there you can load up Quake II and play the demo by typing the command: map blah.dm2, at the console where blah is the name of the demo, and always remember to add the .dm2 extension.

How do you edit demos/movies? Check out the links and files section and take a look at tools such as DEMentED 2 and Keygrip 2.

Quake II Cinematic Playback Information

To play Quake II Cinematics, place the cinematic into your QUAKE2\BASEQ2\VIDEO directory. From there, load Quake II and type map blah.cin, at the console where blah is the name of the demo, and always remember to add the .cin extension.

Want to make a Quake II Cinematic? Check out the links and files sections for information on how to make your own.

Quake Demo/Movie Playback Information

To play Quake demos, make sure the demo is placed in your QUAKE\ID1 directory. Once there, just load up Quake and type "playdemo <name of demo> at the console. The extension .dem is not needed.

How do you edit demos/movies? Check out the links and files section and take a look at tools such as Film at 11, Keygrip, DEMentED and much more.

The following info is about playing demos and movies in Quake. When playing demos, these keys MUST be bound to the function keys, any other key will cause the menu to come up.

Slow Motion Playback for Demos, for when you wanna see things from a slug's point of view :)
alias +slowmo "host_framerate 0.007"
alias -slowmo "host_framerate 0"
bind F5 "+slowmo"

Fast Forward for Demos, if it's boring you can fast forward a little bit
alias +ff "host_framerate 1"
alias -ff "host_framerate 0"
bind F6 "+ff"

Pause Demos, for when you have found the perfect screenshot
alias pause "host_framerate 0.00000000001"
bind F7 "pause"

Unpause Demo
alias unpause "host_framerate 0"
bind F8 "unpause"

Wanna know what the scores are in a demo you are watching, now you can!
bind F9 +showscores

To use these, just cut and paste what is in green into a file of your choice, let's say demo.cfg, to run just type exec demo.cfg at the quake console, or just run quake as follows: quake +exec demo.cfg. Too hard for ya? No sweat, download my demo.cfg file (Shift Click, or right click and save as to download).
 

Here's some information on how to play Quake Movies with maximum enjoyability. Here's what I use to play Quake Movies. You cut and paste the following into your own batch file, like qmovie.bat or something.

Using GLQuake:
glquake -width 512 -height 384 -nojoy -heapsize 32000 +viewsize 120 +crosshair 0 +exec demo.cfg %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
Using Quake:
quake +vid_mode 4 -nojoy -winmem 32 +viewsize 120 +crosshair 0 +exec demo.cfg %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
Using WinQuake:
winquake +vid_mode 3 -nojoy -heapsize 32000 +viewsize 120 +crosshair 0 +exec demo.cfg %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

Explanation of commands: The width and height varibles in GLQuake define the resolution. 512x384 is a good resolution for most people, if you have a fast computer, leave it at 640x480, it looks much better, but 512x384 isn't that bad either. The heapsize allocates the amount of RAM Quake will run with. Generally, most movies or demos won't require more than the standard 8, 12, or maybe even 16 at the most. But the more RAM you allocate, the faster Quake will run without hitches, you shouldn't need to allocate more than half of the RAM you have, for example if you have 64megs of RAM, allocate 32. 32000 = Approx. 32 megs of RAM allocated. The +viewsize 120, makes it fullscreen, no pesky status bar when watching a movie. The +crosshair 0, gets rid of the crosshair when you watch movies. The +exec demo.cfg, executes the config file from further up in this page. The %1 %2, etc., let's you add more commands. For the vid_mode in WinQuake and Quake, set it to the highest possible which will run good. I find that vid_mode 4 is usually the best for most computers, which is 320x240, vid_mode 3 in WinQuake is 320x200. Always set to a video mode which will run around 30 fps+. This is important, because in many movies, if you run in high resolutions, it becomes very choppy, and you may get bad voices and music. Also, when you run in a high resolution, it tends to slow down the game, and the voice timing, and music timing is off.

Now with the explanation out of the way, you just have to put the batch files in your Quake directory. When running a movie that is unzipped into it's our directory, you run qmovie -game blah. If running a .DEM file, run like so: qmovie +playdemo blah. It's that simple! :)

Tip for GLQuake users: You might notice when running some movies or TC's that have new models, that they don't mesh properly and look very weird. This is because GLQuake tries to use Quake's model, but has a new model, same name, just different model. I have found a way to fix this, and I am pretty sure it is safe. What you do is delete all the files with the extension .MS2 in the directory of GLQUAKE in your QUAKE\ID1 directory. Then you just run the movie or TC any regular way. There are a few setbacks however. Every time you run a new movie or TC, it will have to mesh all the models again, however this is only done once in each case. Another setback is that the first time you run the game after having done all of the previous steps is that the status bar is sometimes screwed up, it doesn't appear at all. To fix that, just exit the game and restart, and your problem is resolved. I hope this helps :)

Something here that doesn't make sense? Or you have a better solution for? Or anything else? Email me.