fteqcc - FTE QuakeC compiler

fteqcc [options]

This manual page documents briefly the fteqcc command.

fteqcc is a program that compiles QuakeC sourcecode to binaray game data of Quake1 or QuakeWorld based games.

--help

Show summary of options.

-Fautoproto

enable automatic prototyping

-Fwasm

dump all assembler code to qc.asm

-Kkeyword, -Kno-keyword

turn language keywords on or off. Keywords available to toggle are: asm, break, case, class, const, continue, default, entity, enum, enumflags, extern, float, for, goto, int, integer, noref, nosave, shared, state, string, struct, switch, thinktime, typedef, union, var and vector.

-O0, -O1, -O2, -O3,

use optimisation level between 0 and 3. With 0, no optimisation takes place, other values include more or less of the options in the section OPTIMISATION.

-src directory

Specify a directory to look for source files (progs.src) in.

-Wall

show all warnings

fteqcc supports several output formats.

-Tstandard, -Tq1, -Tquakec

This is the default setting and generates code compatible with original Quake1.

-Thexen2, -Th2

Outputs Hexen2 compatible code.

-Tkkqwsv, -Tkk7, -Tbigprogs, -Tversion7, -Tkkqwsv

Generates KK Version 7 compatible progs

-Tfte

Generates code specific to FTE Quake.

The following options may be used to fine-tune optimisation. Some of them are activated automatically.

-Oassignments

c = a*b is performed in one operation rather than two, and can cause older decompilers to fail.

-Oshortenifs

if (!a) was traditionally compiled in two statements. This optimisation does it in one, but can cause some decompilers to get confused.

-Ononvec_parms

In the origional qcc, function parameters were specified as a vector store even for floats. This fixes that.

-Oconstant_names

strips out the names of constants from your progs, resulting in smaller files. It makes decompilers leave out names or fabricate numerical ones.

-Oconstant_name_strings

strips out the names of string constants from your progs. This can break addons, so don't use it in those cases.

-Odupconstdefs

merge definitions of constants which are the same value. Pay extra attention to assignment to constant warnings.

-Onouplicatestrings

compact the string table that is stored in the progs. It will be considerably smaller with this.

-Olocals

Strips out local names and definitions. This makes it REALLY hard to decompile

-Ofunction_names

This strips out the names of functions which are never called. Doesn't make much of an impact though.

-Ofilenames

This strips out the filenames of the progs. This can confuse the really old decompilers, but is nothing to the more recent ones.

-Ounreferenced

Removes the entries of unreferenced variables. Doesn't make a difference in well maintained code.

-Ooverlaptemps

Optimises the pr_globals count by overlapping temporaries. In QC, every multiplication, division or operation in general produces a temporary variable. This optimisation prevents excess, and in the case of Hexen2's gamecode, reduces the count by 50k. This is the most important optimisation, ever.

-Oconstantarithmatic

5*6 actually emits an operation into the progs. This prevents that happening, effectivly making the compiler see 30

-Oprecache_file

Strip out stuff wasted used in function calls and strings to the precache_file builtin (which is actually a stub in quake).

-Oreturn_only

Functions ending in a return statement do not need a done statement at the end of the function. This can confuse some decompilers, making functions appear larger than they were.

-Ocompound_jumps

This optimisation plays an effect mostly with nested if/else statements, instead of jumping to an unconditional jump statement, it'll jump to the final destination instead. This will bewilder decompilers.

-Ostrip_functions

Strips out the 'defs' of functions that were only ever called directly. This does not affect saved games.

-Olocals_marshalling

Store all locals in one section of the pr_globals. Vastly reducing it. This effectivly does the job of overlaptemps. It's been noticed as buggy by a few, however, and the curcumstances where it causes problems are not yet known.

-Ovectorcals

Where a function is called with just a vector, this causes the function call to store three floats instead of one vector. This can save a good number of pr_globals where those vectors contain many duplicate coordinates but do not match entirly.

fteqcc was written by David Walton <acceptthis@users.sourceforge.net> and J. Smith <timeserv@users.sourceforge.net>.

This manual page was written by Rene van Bevern <rvb@pro-linux.de>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others). Most information was obtained from comments in the source codes.