DLL vs. VM

Uh oh

Before you go off and download the DLLs, we should warn you that id still maintains that users should use the VM. Here's what id's Graeme Devine had to say in a recent .plan update:

We've been following the whole DLL vs. VM debates, and id is firmly on the side of using VMs for game mods. We will be addressing the "auto swap" VM depending on which server you go to quickly (this was a bug) but I think we will be strict on saying that people should use VMs over DLL files. The next executable release will probably have a warning screen come up that you will need to agree to and click through if the game is about to load a DLL.

Id's Robert Duffy follows up in his .plan update:

Our position on DLL use for mods is that it is a bad thing. DLL's are not multi-os compatible and they pose a much greater security risk than qvm's. Note, I did not say that qvm's are totally secure, they are not, but they are definately more secure than DLL's. DLL's are for debugging only and qvm's are the only official supported way to produce and distribute a mod. Period.

A rogue DLL has the ability to do quite a bit of damage to your system. Despite the risks, many will opt for the extra frames, and if you choose to use DLLs instead of the VM you should only download DLLs from trusted sources.

Installation

Installing the DLLs is fairly easy. We'll assume you downloaded the dlls.zip file from Shugashack. Unzip the .dll files into your Quake 3 directory (usually "C:\Program Files\Quake III Arena"), and you're ready to go. Also, make sure you have the Quake 3 Point Release installed.

We ran a couple quick timedemos on an Abit BP6 dual Celeron 550 (366@550MHz) system with a GeForce DDR card to test out the new 3.68 Detonator Drivers and the Q3A DLLs. We have single and dual processor tests in Windows NT, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows 98 SE (single processor only). With about eleven objects per graph, you can compare a good number of operating system and driver set combinations. We did, however, leave out the Detonator 3.53 tests on Windows 2000 and NT4 tests with the DLLs.