Running a dedicated Quake Server for your DPPP Callers
Detlef Pleiss, Aug-29-97

You can run a dedicated Quake server for your DPPP callers to play multiplayer
Quake against (or with) each other.

What you need:
Besides the requirements for PBBS and DPPP, you need:
* Quake, the game, must be installed on the BBS machine. In contrast to other
network games, with Quake the game is actually running on the server, while
the connected clients more or less just act as display engines for the ongoing
game. So, the server needs access to all the level data etc. Actually the
server is the game started with just a special parameter to serve players on
external machines, in contrast to a local player. The shareware version and
the full version will both work for the server, but only the levels that are
present on the BBS host machine can be played on that server. So if you have
only the shareware version installed, callers can only play the shareware
levels, regardless of what they have on their machine. If you plan to make
profit from running a Quake server, read LICINFO.TXT that comes with the
distribution!
If you do not already have a full version of Quake, I recommend you get it
running with the shareware version first; your callers will then urge you for
the full version soon enough :-) The current version of Quake, as of this
writing, is 1.06. You can download the shareware version at
http://www.idsoftware.com/quake/index.html or
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake/
(qsw106_1.zip to qsw106_7.zip or quake106.zip)
* As Quake is a DOS program, while you are going to run it as a server on
Windows, additionally get WinQuake. WinQuake is just a replacement EXE that is
a native Win32 program. You still need the level data from the DOS version to
get it to run. Get WinQuake, version 1.09 as of this writing, at
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake/wq100.zip
Extract the archive to the directory where you installed DOS Quake.
You may want to keep these archives in your BBS's file area, so callers can
download Quake (and WinQuake) as they need.

Setting it up:
To run WinQuake as dedicated server, in contrast to running the game itself,
launch it with the command line switch
-dedicated <max players>
The optional <max players> parameter is the maximum number of players allowed
to connect to this server. The default value for <max players> is 8, the
maximum value is 16. You may want to set this to the number of (DPPP) nodes
on your machine. With the -dedicated switch, Quake does not come up with the
games graphics but with a text console. This is equivalent to the console when
actually playing the game, so you can use all the usual Quake console commands
there.
As you are not going to serve IPX or direct serial connections, I recommend
you add the
-noipx -noserial
options to the command line as well.
As the maintainer of the Quake server, you decide about what level the server
should start up with. You may want to have it run one of the Deathmatch Arenas
by adding a command switch like
+map dm5
(dm1 to dm6 are available).
The default rate a dedicated Quake server uses to send out updates to players
is 20 updates per second (so a 0.05 second interval). This rate is normally
too high for modem connections, so you may want to lower the update frequency
to i.e. 10 updates per second. You can tune this parameter with the console
command "sys_ticrate" or by adding it as another parameter to the command
line:
+sys_ticrate 0.1
It may take a little experimenting to get this parameter right.
So a complete invocation of a dedicated WinQuake server may look like this:
winquake -dedicated 8 -noipx -noserial +sys_ticrate 0.1 +map dm5
You may want to setup a link to winquake.exe with these parameters configured.

For your Callers:
While I recommend using WinQuake for the dedicated server, callers do not
necessarily have to run WinQuake to participate in a network game. The DOS
version of Quake comes with a Q95.BAT, that launches DOS Quake in a way so it
can use the TCP/IP stack of Windows 95. TECHINFO.TXT that comes with the Quake
installation (chapter: Network Subsystem Documentation) has some more
information about running Quake on different networking stacks.
In order to connect to the Quake game running on your server, a DPPP caller
launches his copy of Quake, then selects "MULTIPLAYER" from the main menu.
There he selects "JOIN A GAME" and in the upcoming menu "TCP/IP". If the
"TCP/IP" selection is not available, the problem is about the way the caller
launched Quake. Especially DOS Quake alone has TCP/IP not available. The
caller should then launch Q95.BAT (if in Windows 95) or WINQUAKE.EXE instead.
Other combinations of Quake with TCP/IP stacks are discussed in TECHINFO.TXT.
After selecting "TCP/IP", the caller should type in "10.0.2.2" in the "JOIN
GAME AT:" field. After pressing Return he should then get into the game
running on your server.
Remember that if you run non-demo levels on the server, the caller needs the
full version as well in order to participate.
