Necro's Quake3 Page
Updated: 19 September 2001
 
 
Quake3 Files & Links
Quake3 Win32 (Win9x/NT/2000) v1.17
Quake3 Win32 (Win9x/NT/2000) v1.27g
Quake3 non-MMX Win32 1.27g binary

Quake3 Win32 v1.27h (beta)
Quake3 Win32 (Win9x/ME/NT/2000) v1.29h beta

Quake3 Linux v1.17
Quake3 Linux v1.27g (beta1)
Quake3 Linux v1.29h beta

Quake3 Macintosh v1.17
Quake3 Macintosh v1.27 beta
Quake3 Macintosh (OS-X) v1.29f beta

v1.17: No longer used but the v1.27 patches assume you have v1.17 installed;

v1.27g: Current non-beta. Most servers seem to run this version.

v1.27h: This (binary only?) beta is compatible with v1.27g, but i don't think there's any need to upgrade unless you have problems.

v1.29f-h: Beta release. I think they are self-contained (upgrades from any version) but are not widely used.

Note: It is advisable to find out if the servers you usually play on have been upgraded before upgrading yourself. I think most are currently on v1.27g.
 
 
 

Zoid's 3wave CtF levels (exe)
Zoid's 3wave CtF levels (zip)
You will need these levels if you intend to play in any Q3ctf leagues. They are larger than the CtF levels included with Quake3. The .zip version seemed to be broken when these levels first came out but that is probably fixed by now.
 
3Wave Pack 0 (zip) Another 3wave map pack. Not sure if it has the maps from the pack above though (downloaded it in a rush after a long abstention from Quake3). 
 
NCtF: Halls of Dispair A Q3ctf level designed by Necro. Plenty of space for large games, and should run at a decent (ie very high) FPS.
 
Quake3 editing tools (17Mar2000) This contains Win32 editing tools, including map editor and compilation tools. I personally only installed it so that i could copy across the map processing tools and then deinstalled it immediately.
 
GTKRadiant Formerly the Quake3 Linux editing SDK (i think). This is a port of Q3Radiant to the GTK toolkit. Runs under both Linux and Win32. Tried it myself but it is not really my style of editor (yet).
 
Quest2 Level Editor The only alternative to the id-software supplied editor. It runs under Dos, Win95, and Linux, and while not as featured as id's Q3 level editor, i think it is more flexable, stable, and fast. Long been the best choice for those who want the power to manipulate vertices directly.
 
Quake3 Shader manual Details of editing .shader files. These control the effects that can be applied to custom textures (and skins?)..
 
Quake3 editing manual (html)
Quake3 editing manual (pdf)
Roger Wilco Allow voice comms between players. Registration no longer required.
TeamSound Allegadly much like Roger Wilco. All i know about it is what is given on its web-page. They claim to be waiting for the tools to become available to allow them to port the client to Linux, although i think in reality they've used a proprietry codec in Win32 and don't know what they are dealing with.

 
 
Running Linux Quake3
  At this time i've only run Linux Quake3 using the 3dfx Mesa drivers, and the GeForce Linux drivers. If you've got a 3dfx card then your best bet is looking at 3dfx's Linux section. I also assume you've got an existing Win32 Quake3 install (i've never come across a boxed copy of Linux Q3)..

Most of the Linux info (including links, some theory, and some startup details) is in the Linux section. It tries to deal with startup problems for people who are veterons of Win32 but new to Linux. It should be worth a read before going on the rampage with altavista..

Making sure you're getting access to all your memory
I (usually) boot Linux using a .bat file that calls loadlin. If Linux is only using 64mb of your memory (under KDE look at K->settings->information->Memory, or try cat /proc/meminfo at a console prompt) even though you've got more, try adding MEM=256M to your loadlin batfile, replacing 256 with how much memory you have. Allegadly this is a bit dangerous if your BIOS is taking some of your memory for its own use (in which case give a lower value than your amount of memory) but i have no problems with it. Oddly enough, i've not had this problem with Lilo.
[See section on Linux process layout]
Installing
I personally installed Quake3 in /usr/games/ because that seems to be the usual place to install games, and on my system, /usr has is on its own partition, which is also by far the largest. Also, i don't have my Win95 partitions mounted as boot time so i have to do this procedure as root (your system will probably be different but this should give the general idea):

cd /usr/games/
mkdir Quake3
cd Quake3
mkdir baseq3
cd baseq3
mount -o readonly /dev/hda6 /mnt/floppy
cp "/mnt/floppy/Quake 3 Arena/baseq3"/*.pk3 ./
umount /mnt/floppy

Download the Quake3 Linux patch and run it. When it asks for your installation directory, point it towards /usr/games/Quake3/ and then your installation should be complete.

1.27g for Linux comes in a tarball. You will need to unpack it and copy the files into the appropriate places (i think you can get away with unpacking the tarball directly into the Quake3 directory, but i don't normally take that sort of chance).
 

Terminating background processes
I don't think there is much gain in doing this before running Quake3 unless you've got a lower end system. On a default RedHat 6.1 install the shell scripts (.bat file equivilants) that control system services are in /etc/rc.d/init.d/ and shutting them down is an issue of logging in as root and running certain scripts with the 'stop' parameter (eg /etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail stop).  The ones that should be safe to shut down are: inet, apmd, linuxconf, lpd, portmap, atd, smb, syslog. Shutting down a service shouldn't affect wether it restarts when you reboot Linux (a lazy but easy way to restore system settings).
[See the section on Linux process layouts]
File locations
With Win95, all your Quake3 files are kept (more or less) in the same place, which is along the lines of:
  C:\Quake 3 Arena\
  C:\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3\
  ...

However, under Linux, the equivilants locations:
  /usr/games/Quake3/
  /usr/games/Quake3/baseq3/
  ...

..are usually write-protected. In order to get around this, Quake3 also looks in (~/ is a shortcut for current user's home directory):
  ~/.q3a/
  ~/.q3a/baseq3/
  ..

When looking for files, Quake3 will look in both locations, but config/screenshots get written to the home directory locations.
 

Running Quake3 from the console
I've found that having KDE (the desktop manager i normally use) in the background causes a some disk accessing, so try bypassing your desktop manager altogether by using xinit <Q3 path>/quake3 -- -bpp 16 instead of startx gives a significant (few FPS) performance gain. For instance on my system i use:
    xinit /usr/games/Quake3/quake3 -- -bpp 16
or if your using XFree86 v4.x, and want 32-bit (24-bit really) colour:
    xinit /usr/games/Quake3/quake3 -- -depth 24
[More details elsewhere]
 


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