Moderator elections are being held. See Valve Developer Community:Moderator elections for more details.
Users who would like to run for moderator must be autoconfirmed and have at least 100 edits. Users can check their own edit count at Special:Preferences.
Users who would like to run for moderator must be autoconfirmed and have at least 100 edits. Users can check their own edit count at Special:Preferences.
Software renderer
A software renderer, such as those available in GoldSrc and
id Tech 2, uses the CPU to render 3D geometry, instead of a GPU. A 3D application using a software renderer can be considered to be running in software mode.
Software renderer often have limitations, and with the usage of CPU instead of GPU for rendering usually causes performance hit (especially for hardware at the time), thus, software renderer are largely deprecated in most games since early 2000s (and the Source engine requires DirectX (or OpenGL, Vulkan) compatible graphics card in order to play the game.
The GPU is still used for processing the 2D image generated from the software renderer, but no 3D hardware is used.
Contents
Id Tech 2 Engine Software Renderer
![](/w/images/thumb/1/18/Quake_software_renderer.png/300px-Quake_software_renderer.png)
Screenshot in-game of
Quake (WinQuake), using Software renderer.
![Quake](/w/images/thumb/3/3b/Quake1-16px.png/15px-Quake1-16px.png)
![](/w/images/thumb/a/a8/VQuake_software_renderer.png/300px-VQuake_software_renderer.png)
Screenshot in-game of
Quake (VQuake), using Software renderer. VQuake features some graphical improvements and solve most limitations that software renderer had.
![Quake](/w/images/thumb/3/3b/Quake1-16px.png/15px-Quake1-16px.png)
Features (VQuake only)
- Visual improvements
- Full 16-bit color
- Bilinear filtering (reducing pixelation)
- Improved dynamic lighting
- Optional anti-aliasing
GoldSrc Engine Software Renderer
![](/w/images/thumb/f/fa/Half-life_Software_renderer.png/300px-Half-life_Software_renderer.png)
Screenshot in-game of
Half-Life, using Software renderer.
![Half-Life](/w/images/thumb/a/a0/Hl_icon.png/16px-Hl_icon.png)
Features
- Colored lighting - Quake simply had monotone lighting
- Transparent textures - Glass can now be used in maps
- Water ripple
Since 25th Anniversary
Software renderer support on Linux
Missing Features and Limits and Problems
- Lack of texture filtering
- 256x256 texture size limit
- No Stencil Shadows support
- Lower limits for drawing geometry
- No Water waves
- No Detailed textures
- Overdraw from brush entities and
func_detail
is more problematic - Overbright lighting on MDLs (instead of only map geometry)
See also
External links
Software rendering
VQuake on Wikipedia
- Quake fandom wiki