File Description
TiM brings us an update to his Quake 3 Engine Minimizer. Take a gander at Daku’s review of version one:
We all need nifty tool to do the things we need right? Right. Well, what if one of those nifty tools was a nifty tool for a bunch of different games? That would be excellent. Excellence has come to us.
This minimizer from TiM, made with the help of a bunch of others whom he gives plenty of credit to, will minimize pretty much any game that runs off the Quake 3 engine. The program is very simple. You start it, choose the game you’re playing and set the buttons you will use to minimize and maximize. Right now the program supports Quake III: Arena, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force SP and MP, Star Trek: Elite Force II, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast SP and MP, the Jedi Academy demo and Return to Castle Wolfenstein SP and MP. Through a little experimentation I found it also works with Jedi Academy SP. I’m sure, though, that MP will be added before too long.
As far as the technical aspects go, it works really well. As soon as you press your hotkeys the screen disappears and you’ve got your desktop. There’s no waiting, which I found to be an issue with another minimizer I used once. So if you get lots of IMs or just want to pop out of the game real quick, this is probably the program for you.
- Daku
So what is new in version 1.10? A few new, useful things. It now comes with Auto Game Detection. This allows the minimizer to scan for any active Quake 3-based games, and automatically minimize that game. This is a pretty useful tool, so you don’t have to manually choose the game you are playing every time you want to minimize. However, if you’re picky, you can still choose the game yourself.
Another new feature is the ability to maintain your screen resolution. If you’re like me, you probably play your games at a lower resolution than that of your normal desktop usage. When you minimize, it would keep the resolution of the game, and make your desktop look ugly and sometimes even get messed up. But this new feature allows for your screen to be at your normal resolution, so that everything looks normal, and no icons get moved. :) The interface has also been optimized to take up as little system resources as possible.
I’ve always loved these minimizers. But, I only play JK2 and JKA, so the minimizers for those respective games work fine for me. But if you are a Quake 3 die-hard, and you are constantly bothered by IMs or whatever else, then definitely download this! It will make your internet gaming all that much easier. :P
~Lord Griever~
Readme
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Q3E Minimizer v1.10 by UberGames =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= File Name: Q3E Minimizer v1.10 Version: 1.10 File Size: 244k Developer: TiM Date Created: 9/21/03 9:24PM Build Time: Approx 6 hours Programs Used: Visual Basic 6, Adobe Photoshop 6.0 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= About: Q3E, or Quake 3 Engine Minimizer is a program that has been created to give you the ability to quickly and easily minimize nearly every game that has been coded using the Q3 engine as a base. The reason I made this was because I was tired of having to spectate, or suffer being killed over and over again as I used Alt-Enter to switch to my desktop which took practically forever. The concept of the Q3 minimizer isn't mine. This one is more of an extension to an idea that someone else had. I was cruising JK2files.com one day, looking at the utilities section (I had just sent in KT 101 and was looking to see if anyone had d/led it yet) when I saw a file called "JK2 Minimizer". Being interested, I downloaded the file and found out how simple it was, yet at the same time, so very very useful. Responding to people on MSN/ICQ, etc was no longer a grueling task. Later on, I was playing Elite Force online and found that I greatly missed the ability to minimize it like I could with JK2. So, I took it upon myself to create my own Minimizer. Using snippets of VB code around the internet, I managed to create a similar program I named "EF Minimizer", that I submitted to effiles.com. Many people found it immensely useful, and I was extremely happy with the feedback. ^_^ A few months later, I attended a LAN party (My first ever LAN party actually :D ) where I got involved in a heated battle of Q3A with some other people there. After a few minutes, I, by reflex, tried to minimize Q3. When nothing happened, I said at that point "I'm going to make a version of EF Minimizer that can minimize all Q3 based games". After the LAN party, I clean forgot about doing that, so the half finished "Uni Minimizer" (I hadn't thought of a good name then) sat on my hard drive for a month. After a month, I downloaded the new Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy demo (May I point out, an AWESOME demo). Whilst I was playing it, someone on MSN messaged me, and I realised that I was stuck in-game, having to alt-enter out. At that point, I remembered Uni Minimizer, and decided to complete work on it. So, after a few nights of working, I brought you version 1.0 of the new Quake 3 Engine Minimizer, or Q3E Minimizer, but now, I bring you version 1.10 of Q3E Minimizer! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Features: -=New features of v1.10=- -Auto Game Detetection Users now have the abilitity to set the minimizer to automatically scan for any active Q3 game, and then automatically set that game as the target for minimization. This feature is optional, and users may still manually choose which game they want the minimizer to target. (The detector will only work right if only one Q3 based game is running. If more than one is active, it will choose one itself) Whilst the detector and game are running, the drop-down menu is locked to prevent changing the game as it may cause errors. -Dynamic Screen Resolution Modifier A large number of gamers play their games at lower screen resolutuions, usually to get better performance from their video card, or due to older hardware. When a person normally minimizes the game, it will display their desktop at the same resolution as the game, which is usally quite ugly and quite difficult to operate with. At the request of several people, v1.10 comes with the feature to activate an option that will automatically adjust the user's resolution upon minimization and restorization, depending on what the resolutions are when the game is minimized and the game is active. - Version 1.10 supports these new games: *Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (SP) *Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (MP) (If you still want to play the JKA demo, select the JKA SP choice as they are both the same thing. :) ) -Updated Interface -=Features of v1.0 and v1.10=- -Will Minimize/Restore a specified Q3 based game at the touch of a key -Now has an all new graphical interface (Format is GIF to minimize size) -Runs in the background so as not to take up many system resources, leaving it all for fragging! -Icon in the system tray changes depending what game is running -Left-Clicking on the system tray icon will bring up the hot keys window, If game is running, it will instead restore the game -Right-Clicking the icon will access a simple menu to configure or quit the minimizer. -Quitting the minimizer will automatically restore the game. -Version 1.0 Supports the following Q3-based games: *Quake III Arena *Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (SP) *Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Holomatch (MP) *Star Trek: Elite Force II *Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (SP) *Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (MP) *Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Demo (No longer in v1.10) *Return to Castle Wolfenstein (SP + MP) [Wolfenstein had the nifty feature of naming both MP and SP windows the same thing, so I was able to put SP and MP in one option. ^_^] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Instructions for Use: 1. Extract the Q3E Minimizer_v1.10.exe to anywhere in your computer (Location will NOT affect it's functioning) 2. Upon opening it, the main window will appear. In the drop-down menu located near the bottom of the window, choose which game you would like the minimizer to currently focus on. 3. Start up that game as you would normally. 4. To minimize the game, press the default keys: Control-Z 5. To restore, press Shift-Control-Z To configure the hot keys, right-click on your current game's icon in the system tray, and choose "Settings...". From there, use the interface to select your new keys. *NOTE: When using the Dynamic Screen Modifier, when you exit the game, it will retain the resolution it was set to while the game was running. If Q3E Minimizer detects that the resolution is smaller than what it should be, it will add a "Restore Resolution..." button underneath the "Settings..." button in the Q3E Minimizer System Tray icon. Clicking this will restore your desktop to normal size.* BEWARE: If you positiong your desktop's icons in certain places, using the Screen Modifier may jumble them. You have been warned... ;) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Author/Credit: TiM -Main Coder/Graphic Artist Brian, Brad, and Jon -For your suggestions about the resolution changer and game detector. Phenix -For helping me with some of my pretty stupid questions and providing feedback BorgKiller -If you hadn't messaged me, I probably never would have finished this program, d00d. ^_^ *Not being an experienced programmer, I needed to refer to some internet samples to get this whole thing working together. Here are some people whose programming skills are awesome and their examples helped me a lot. Imran Zaheer -Creator of the Hotkeys Code MSDN Database -Referenced the code to show/hide programs Experts-Exchange -Helped me create a hot keys interface Microsoft VB resource -Showed me how to make programs appear in the system tray Brian Yule -Created the code to make the window's edges transparent FreeVBCode.com -For creating the code to adjust screen resolutions Garrett Sever (aka "The Hand") -For creating the nifty code to make the Dynamic Screen Resolution checkbox transparent around the edges. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Trouble-Shooting: I have tested this program on 2 computers, one running Win ME, and one running XP. On both, the program worked flawlessly with no errors. This may not be the case for other operating systems, so if you do come across a system that doesn't work, please e-mail me and I'll see what I can do to fix it. Sometimes, upon minimizing a game, your desktop may seem extremely bright. This is because the Q3 game will modify your screen's contrast according to your settings in-game. When you exit the game, the screen will return to normal. To restore the screen's color to normal whilst the game is running, there are 2 things you can do. First, in the game console, type '/r_overbrightbits 0' (without quotes, and sometimes without the '/' at the front, depending on which game) Secondly, if that doesn't work, go into your games video settings and adjust the brightness to a lower level. Another thing; due to the varied nature of how many monitors are out there and how they function, I cannot guarantee that the Dynamic Screen Resolution Modifier will work. The worst case scenario for this would be, upon minimization, the resolution won't change. If this happens for you, e-mail me, stating what type of monitor you have, what resolution you run your desktop at, and what resolution you run your game at. Also, if you change your desktop resolution whilst the minimizer is open, it will not automatically register the new change. To fix this, uncheck the Dynamic Screen Modifier checkbox, and the check it again. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Additional: At this point, Q3E Minimizer does not support ALL Q3-Based games, mainly because I don't own all of them. At this point in time, the only other game I can think of that hasn't been included is Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix. To give the minimizer support to other programs I need to find out what the game's window name is (The title you see for it in the taskbar), so without owning those games, it makes it a tad hard to give support to them. If you own SoF2 or any other Q3 based game I missed, and you would like to have minimizing support for them, there are a few simple things you'd have to do for me, and I could easily put it in. For each Exe the game has (Ie, JK2 and EF had a separate single player and multiplayer EXE file) you must do the following: a) Take a screenshot of the EXE's icon, preferably against a white background and send that to me (So I can make that the icon that appears for it in the system tray) b) When running the game, alt-enter out of it, and look for the game's window in the task bar. Copy down the name of the game window EXACTLY as it looks (Right capitals, any additional space bars, etc) and send the name to me. (An example would be Q3's Window is called "Quake 3: Arena", without quotes.) I can easily do the rest from there. ^_^ E-Mail them to [email protected] -Thanks!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contact: Have you seen a bug? Got a suggestion for the program? Feel like chatting? I can be reached at: E-Mail: [email protected] MSN: [email protected] ICQ: 24965853 AIM: DeltaJed YIM: timo22406 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Donate: Being a lowly high-school student with not enough hours to get a decent job, I am very poor. I only had barely enough to buy Jedi Academy, and now I'm REALLY poor. If you enjoy using this program a lot and are feeling rich, I would really appreciate any donations you could send. Once school is over, I'm planning to go out and get a job so I can buy a better computer. Any additional money would be extremely useful. If you do donate, I will add a thank you to you in the credit section of this read me and will personally thank you through e-mail. ;D I have a PayPal account under "[email protected]" (Balance is currently $0 =P ) and if you could donate anything there, I would be extremely grateful. -Thanks!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Thanks: Well, thank you for taking the time to read all the way down here. ^_^ I hope you enjoy using Q3E Minimizer and that it makes your gaming experience all the more better. Happy Fragging!!!!! -TiM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Legal Stuff: I am in no way responsible for any harm this program may cause, even though the odds of that happening are insignificant. You may freely distribute the EXE, so long as this ReadMe remains with it, intact, and unmodified. This program is not officially supported by id, Raven, Ritual, or LucasArts. "Quake III Arena" and all related assets are trademarks of id Software, 1999 "Elite Force", "Jedi Knight", "Jedi Outcast", "Jedi Academy" and all related assets are trademarks of RavenSoft and LucasArts respectively, 2000-2003 "Elite Force II" and all related assets are trademarks of Ritual Entertainment, 2003
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