2. Requirements

3. Interoperability

4. Demo

5. Installation

6. Display

7. Miscellaneous

8. Contact

1. Introduction

• 1.1 How to use this FAQ
  
  
  This FAQ allows you to navigate through the answers by category, or individually, or to view the entire FAQ at once. The full view is also suitable for printing.

  This FAQ is modelled on the Linux HOWTO documents for consistency and ease of navigation.

  
  
• 1.2 Authors
  
  
  The maintainers of the FAQ can be reached by e-mailing faqs@lokigames.com. Please send all correspondance directly related to the FAQlist tool to that address.
  
  

2. Requirements

• 2.1 Is glibc-2.0 supported?
  
  
  The retail release of Quake III will run on a glibc-2.0 based system if you have a 3D card based on a 3Dfx chipset. Matrox G200/G400 users who want to use the provided libGL must install Quake III on a glibc-2.1 based system. Please remember that you should upgrade your glibc-2.0 system to XFree86 SVGA 3.3.6 and the latest matching Glide2. You should really upgrade to glibc-2.1 as soon as feasible.

  Note: Quake 3: Arena releases, beginning with the 1.27 point release, will no longer provide glibc 2.0 support. Starting with 1.27, Quake 3: Arena now requires glibc 2.1 or later.

  
  
• 2.2 Are Video cards based on NVidia chips (TNT, TNT2, GeForce) supported?
  
  
  Yes, NVidia cards are fully supported. You will need to visit www.nvidia.com to get the latest drivers. The current driver is 0.9.4. These drivers require XFree86 4.0 or later to work. You can get those files from www.xfree86.org. In addition to NVidia's own FAQ, there are several installation guides available for these drivers on the internet.
  
  Please note that the 3.3.3 NVidia drivers do NOT work correctly with most (if not all) 3D programs. To play our 3D titles with acceptable framerates, you will need to use the XFree 4.0 drivers.
  
  
• 2.3 Are Matrox G200/G400 cards supported?
  
  
  Currently (as of 8/29/2000), the Matrox family of cards is supported through the Utah-GLX drivers (see http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net/).

  There have been reports of success using XFree86 4.0 and DRI (http://www.xfree86.org/ and http://dri.sourceforge.net/, respectively).

  
  
• 2.4 Are ATI Rage Pro/Rage Mobility/128 cards supported?
  
  
  Currently (as of 8/29/2000), the ATI family of cards is supported as follows:
  
  Rage Pro/Rage Mobility: Currently supported under the Utah-GLX project. You can find their page at http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net. There are installation and tweaking documents on their site. Please note that Loki Technical Support cannot offer assistance in installing and maintaining your 3D drivers.
  
  Rage 128: The Rage128 has preliminary support in the DRI of XFree86 4.0. More information can be found at htp://dri.sourceforge.net. Be sure to use the latest CVS branches, as these are often where the most up-to-date bugfixes are located.
  
  
• 2.5 What version of Mesa can I use, and how do I get it?
  
  
  The latest official release is Mesa 3.2.1, available from http://www.mesa3d.org. Bug fixes and patches have been, and will be, applied to Mesa 3.3., the mesa_3_3_dev branch. If you have problems with Mesa 3.2.1, you should try 3.3 from the CVS. Mesa 3.2 is the current stable release.

  cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.mesa3d.org:/cvs/mesa3d login

  cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.mesa3d.org:/cvs/mesa3d co -r mesa_3_3_dev Mesa

  
  

3. Interoperability

• 3.1 Can I use the Linux CD to run Quake III under Windows and/or the Mac OS?
  
  
  Yes you can. To do this, simply download the Windows or Mac point release from http://www.quake3arena.com/, and copy the pak0.pk3 file from the CD's baseq3 directory into the baseq3 directory of your Quake III installation.
  
  
• 3.2 Can I use the Windows/Mac CD to run Quake III under Linux?
  
  
  You can indeed get the Linux binaries and use them with your Windows or Mac CD. The Linux point release provides this capability. The following instructions should get you up and running:
  1. Create directory /usr/local/games/quake3
  2. Create directory /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3
  3. Copy file "pak0.pk3" from the CD to /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3
  4. Download and install the current Linux point release
  5. Put the following into a file and save it as /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3:

             #!/bin/sh 
             # Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
             cd "/usr/local/games/quake3"
             quake="./quake3.x86"
             "$quake" $* exit $?

  6. Create a symlink to the shell script in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin:

             ln -s /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3 /usr/bin/quake3

  7. Type quake3 at the command line, and enjoy.
  Note that Loki provides technical support only to the customers of the Linux version of Quake 3 Arena. We receive no funds from the sales of the Windows or Mac versions, and Linux games won't succeed if Linux users buy Windows products.
  
  
• 3.3 Will the Linux version of Quake III run on FreeBSD?
  
  
  We have had several successful reports of the Quake III dedicated server running on FreeBSD. Thanks to Keith Pitcher for a description of how it was done.

  We also have reports of success running the client under FreeBSD. [More information forthcoming.]

  
  
• 3.4 Can I use mods, skins and maps on my Linux system that were created on Windows?
  
  
  Skins and maps are simply TGA and BSP files respectively. They are fully cross-platform. Mods come in two flavors: DLLs and VM bytecode. Mods compiled to DLLs will not work in the Linux version of Quake III. Mods compiled to VM bytecode will work fine.
  
  
• 3.5 Are there be any tools on Linux for creating mods?
  
  
  The QERadiant map editor for Quake III and the actual mod tools (q3bsp, q3asm, etc.) are currently being ported. There is a beta release of the Linux q3sdk available at http://www.lokigames.com/products/quake3/sdk.php3.
  
  

4. Demo

• 4.1 Where can I get the Quake 3: Arena demo version?
  
  
  See the Quake 3: Arena demo page (http://www.quake3arena.com) for a list of mirrors from which to download.
  
  
• 4.2 How do I install the demo?
  
  
  1. Pull down the linuxq3ademo-1.11-6.x86.gz.sh archive from one of the mirrors
  2. Launch the installer with:

         sh linuxq3ademo-1.11-6.x86.gz.sh
     

  3. Answer the questions in the graphical installer
  If you have difficulties with the installer, see the answer to "The demo won't install! Is there some other way to launch the installer?".
  
  
• 4.3 The demo won't install! Is there some other way to launch the installer?
  
  
  There have been some changes to many of the distributions since the demo was originally released, and many of them are now including newer versions of the standard shell, with enhanced security features. As a result, some additional steps may need to be taken in order to run the demo installer:

  chmod +x 
  bash2 linuxq3ademo-1.11-6.x86.gz.sh
  

  
  

5. Installation

• 5.1 I ran the installer, and the files are not accessible.
  
  
  This generally happens when the file permissions are set incorrectly. One common cause of this problem is when the game is installed by the root user with a restrictive umask. Correct the file permissions as follows:

     chmod -R a+r /usr/local/games/quake3 
     chmod a+x /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3 
     chmod a+x /usr/local/games/quake3/q3ded 
     chmod a+x /usr/local/games/quake3/libMesaVoodooGL.so.3.2 
     chmod a+x /usr/local/games/quake3/libMesaMatroxGL.so.3.2
  

  The above example assumes the Quake III binaries are in /usr/local/games/quake3/.
  
  
• 5.2 I can't get the binaries installed on a glibc-2.0 based distribution.
  
  
  Quake III only works with glibc-2.0 with 3D cards based on 3dfx chips. The Matrox G200/G400 are only supported under glibc 2.1.

  You can manually install Quake III on a glibc-2.0 system with a 3dfx card as follows:

     cp bin/x86/glibc-2.1/* /usr/local/games/quake3/
     cd /usr/local/games/quake3/
     ln -s libMesaVoodooGL.so.3.2 libMesaVoodooGL.so 
     ln -s libMesaVoodooGL.so.3.2 libGL.so
  

  The above example assumes the Quake III binaries are in /usr/local/games/quake3/.
  
  
• 5.3 How do I enable the DGA mouse?
  
  
  DGA mouse is disabled by default to prevent lockups in fullscreen mode with XFree86 SVGA 3.3.3 and Voodoo3 cards. The lockup is severe enough to force reboot. Other users can enable the DGA mouse by entering:

     +set in_dgamouse 1          /commandline 
     in_dgamouse 1              /console 
     seta in_dgamouse "1"        /q3config.cfg
  

  
  
• 5.4 Can I enable SMP support using +set r_smp 1?
  
  
  Quake III is not currently accelerated when used with multiple processors (although you still get the normal benefits of an SMP system). This support will be added in a future update.
  
  
• 5.5 Can I disable mouselook in Quake III?
  
  
  No.
  
  
• 5.6 The installer incorrectly detects my LibC version as 5 on Debian 2.1.
  
  
  Manually copy the bin/x86/glibc-2.1 binaries to /usr/local/games/quake3/ (or wherever you chose to install Quake 3).
  
  
• 5.7 How do I access the console on a german keyboard?
  
  
  On a german keyboard, the [AltGR] + [+] combo to get "~" doesn't work. To work around this use the following workaround. It maps "Scroll-Lock" (code 0x4E, "Rollen" in German) permanently to the tilde.

  Look for a file in your home directory called ".Xmodmap". Keep a backup of that file, just in case.

  Use an editor of your choice to change the line starting with "keycode 0x4E", if it is already present, or add it:

      keycode 0x4E = asciitilde
  

  Log out of X and log back in again (or use $ xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap).

  You should be able to use scroll lock as the console key. If you want to play around with the xkeycaps tool (http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/) it is possible to write a wrapper around q3a that remaps the key:

  [/usr/local/bin/q3german.sh]
      #!/bin/sh
      ps2speed 200
      cd /usr/local/games/q3demoTEST
      xmodmap -e "keycode 49 = asciitilde"
      sudo ./linuxquake3 $*
      xmodmap -e "keycode 49 = asciicircum"
      ...
  

  This maps "the key beneath ESC" (which is "^" on german keyboards) to "~" and everything works as expected (except that you can't type "^" anymore...).
  
  
• 5.8 Where is the CD key?
  
  
  The first 3,000 Quake III tin boxes have the CD Key on a sticker on the last page of the manual. All other Quake III tin boxes have the CD Key on a sticker on the back of the CD jewel case.

  If you took advantage of the original pre-order shipping option, the CD Key is on a sticker on the cardboard sleeve in which the CD was shipped.

  
  
• 5.9 I have multiple sound cards. Is there a way to specify to Quake III which one to use?
  
  
  You can specify the sound device to use with:

      +set snddevice <name>
  

  The default is: "/dev/dsp". Any changes made will be archived in the config file.
  
  
• 5.10 I'm running XFree86 4.0.x, is there anything special I should do during installation?
  
  
  Please do not install any of the 3D drivers that are on the Quake 3 CD. They were compiled specifically for 3.3.6, and they might interfere with getting the game running under XFree86 4.0.x.

  You will need to make certain that you have your 3D drivers configured. We have an additional FAQ on setting up and troubleshooting OpenGL with XFree86 4.0.

  
  
• 5.11 Can I get md5sums to make sure my files are not corrupt?
  
  
  The file sizes and md5sums for the pak-files are as follows:

  -rw-r--r--    1 root     root     479493658 Jul 14 15:58 pak0.pk3
  -rw-r--r--    1 root     root       374405 Jul 14 17:13 pak1.pk3
  -rw-r--r--    1 root     root      7511182 Jul 14 17:13 pak2.pk3
  -rw-r--r--    1 root     root       276305 Jul 14 17:13 pak3.pk3
  

  1197ca3df1e65f3c380f8abc10ca43bf        pak0.pk3
  48911719d91be25adb957f2d325db4a0        pak1.pk3
  d550ce896130c47166ca44b53f8a670a        pak2.pk3
  968dfd0f30dad67056115c8e92344ddc        pak3.pk3
  

  These are the files as of the Q3 1.17 point-release.
  
  

6. Display

• 6.1 How do I tell Quake 3 which libGL to use?
  
  
  Launch Quake 3 with the following command-line:

      quake3 +set r_gldriver /path/to/your/preferred/libGL.so
  

  (specifying the correct path in place of the placeholder, of course)
  
  
• 6.2 Why is the game running very, very slowly, and the mouse is very choppy?
  
  
  You are probably running the game using software GL rendering. You must have your 3D card configured for hardware accelerated rendering. Updated information on supported 3D cards and drivers is available at: http://faqs.lokigames.com/faq.php3?view=index&product=GL0
  
  
• 6.3 Couldn't get a visual...WARNING: could not set the given mode (3)
  
  
  You have to have a 640x480 modeline in e.g. your /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config. If you try to use 532x384 or below, you also need those lines. You can try

      +set r_mode 4  (or 5 or above).
  

  Below is a sample. Do not copy these, as they vary depending on your monitor. Chances are you have a modeling, but have not listed it in the SubSection "Display":modes

  # 640x400 @ 70 Hz, 31.5 kHz hsync
  Modeline "640x400"     25.175 640  664  760  800   400  409  411  450
  
  # The Colour SVGA server
  Section "Screen"
      Driver      "svga"
      Device      "G400"
      Monitor     "Optiquest V95"
      Subsection "Display"
          Depth       16
          Modes       "640x480" "800x600" "1024x768" "1152x864"
          ViewPort    0 0
      EndSubsection
  EndSection
  

  You also have to have the following if you are using GLX:

  Section "Module"
          Load "glx.so"
  EndSection
  

  
  
• 6.4 How can I adjust the brightness? The slider seems to be disabled.
  
  
  In-game brightness is controlled by the r_gamma variable. From the command-line, you can set this manually, e.g.:

      quake3 +set r_gamma 1.5
  

  This is a floating point value (and much past 1.8 is unbearably bright, even on really dark cards with really dark monitors), and the default is 1.0.

  You can also change it in-game by bringing down the console and typing:

      /set r_gamma x.y
      /vid_restart
  

  Note that you have to do the vid_restart for the change to correctly take effect.
  
  

7. Miscellaneous

• 7.1 Can I keep Q3A from trying to connect to updates.quake3arena.com during initialization?
  
  
  Set the game variable cl_motd to 0.
  
  
• 7.2 I get the message "Running in restricted mode", then the application fails to find default.cfg.
  
  
  Quake III can't find the baseq3/pak0.pk3 file. Quake will not give an error message if the pack file is missing, it will just run in restricted mode, and look for demoq3/pak0.pk3. If it can't find the demo pack, it will again not complain, but just tell you that it could not find the very first file it expected -- which happens to be default.cfg.

  Make sure baseq3/pak0.pk3 still exists in your install directory and has not been moved or renamed.

  If this file is in place, the error is most likely caused by your Quake III wrapper script being overwritten. Your install directory should contain both a quake3 file and a quake3.bin or quake3.x86 file. The quake3 file should be a small shell script and the other is the Quake III binary executable. If the script shows a size of 916340, the script has been overwritten with the binary. You'll need to replace /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3 with the following script (making certain that there is still a quake3.x86 in /usr/local/games/quake3):

     #!/bin/sh
     # Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
     cd "/usr/local/games/quake3"
     quake="./quake3.x86"
     "$quake" $* 
     exit $?
  

  If you have installed the point release, and you are attempting to use a non-Linux CD with the Linux binary, make certain that you copied the pak0.pk3 from the CD-ROM's baseq3 directory to the location where you installed the Q3 point release for Linux.

  
  
• 7.3 When I try to run the game from the CD, I get: "No Quake3 binary for x86/glibc-2.1"
  
  
  This is caused by the game not being able to determine the location of your CD. To fix this, set fs_cdpath to the mount point of your CD drive. On a Red Hat system, it looks like this:

      +set fs_cdpath /mnt/cdrom        <-- command line
      seta fs_cdpath /mnt/cdrom        <-- config file
  

  
  
• 7.4 I can't set in_dgamouse to 1.
  
  
  Make sure you have a most recent XF86_SVGA 3.3.5 installed. If so, you can edit the wrapper script and either remove the override for in_dgamouse or replace the entire script with:

     #!/bin/sh 
     # Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
     cd "/usr/local/games/quake3"
     quake="./quake3.x86"
     "$quake" $* 
     exit $?
  

  
  
• 7.5 Quake III won't recognize my mouse wheel.
  
  
  The retail version of Quake III does not support button 4 and 5 events. This support has been added in the point release.
  
  
• 7.6 When I try to play Quake III Arena on the internet, I get a message that "Someone is using this CD key".
  
  
  This message can mean any one of the following:
  1. You are behind a masquerading firewall and have recently disconnected from a server and are trying to reconnect, wait 4-5 minutes before reconnecting.
  2. The CD key was improperly entered. Try re-entering the CD Key in the setup menu.
  3. The CD key was entered in the text installer using uppercase letter. Open the q3config.cfg file and manually enter the CD Key there, as digits and lower case letters only.
  This problem is caused 99% of the time by the CD Key not being entered properly. IMPORTANT!!!!! You MUST enter your CD key in lower case letters. If you do this through the menu it's automatic, but if you set it from the console, upper case letters will not work.
  
  
• 7.7 How do I debug my 3dfx installation?
  
  
  Prior to trying anything else, please step through our guide (http://www.lokigames.com/support/gldrivers/howto-3d-3dfx.html) and the documents on the 3Dfx Linux site (http://linux.3dfx.com/).

  Firstly, check for the installed packages and whether the files exist, have proper permissions and are the correct version:

     ls -l /dev/3dfx
     grep 3dfx /etc/conf.modules
     ldconfig -v | grep glide
     ldconfig -v | grep GL
  

  Make sure that you have the proper version of the SDK installed. In the /usr/local/glide/bin directory, use "detect" as normal user, and, if it doesn't work, then try as root. If it works as root only, /dev/3dfx is either missing or has wrong permissions. Next, use test3Dfx as a normal user and then as root. If this does not work, your Glide library might have the wrong version, wrong permission, can't be handled by ld, or may not even be installed. Next, you might want to try a Mesa demo like demos/gears. If this works with your 3dfx in fullscreen, then any remaining problem will be Q3A specific. If Mesa renders in software mode in a window, then Mesa is not compiled for Glide and 3dfx.
  
  
• 7.8 Screenshots are broken.
  
  
  If you are using a 3dfx card, you may also be using an outdated version of MESA, which switched the R and B color channel. This can fixed by upgrading to MESA version xxxx. If you are using TNT, the glReadPixels path in the nVidia June 1999 drivers is broken, but it is fixed in the XFree86-4 release.
  
  
• 7.9 I can't play an Internet game from behind a masquerading firewall.
  
  
  Sometimes this is caused by a misconfiguration of your /etc/hosts file that looks something like this:

      127.0.0.1       franknputer1    localhost
      10.1.1.2        franknputer2
      10.1.1.3        franknputer3
  

  Your machine name should be listed with its ethernet IP address instead of with the loopback address, like this:

      127.0.0.1       localhost
      10.1.1.1        franknputer1
      10.1.1.2        franknputer2
      10.1.1.3        franknputer3
  

  Thanks to Craig Block for this information
  
  
• 7.10 The mods menu doesn't work. How do I run a mod?
  
  
  There is a known issue in the Linux client, where the mods menu does not correctly locate mods and display them. You can launch Quake 3 by setting the mod on the command-line, however. The command looks like:

      quake3 +set fs_game mod_dir
  

  where mod_dir should be replaced with the directory in which the mod resides.
  
  
• 7.11 Q3A 1.27 prompts for the CD Key when I go into mods.
  
  
  From Graeme Devine:

  Mod have to edit the function ui_main.c:vmMain in both ui/ and q3_ui/ (depending what your mod is based upon). The following lines:

     case UI_HASUNIQUECDKEY: // mod authors need to observe this
       return qtrue;
  

  have to be changed so that ** qfalse ** is returned for mods (unless a mod requires its own CD key). In other words, this is a mod issue, not an actual engine bug.
  
  

8. Contact

• 8.1 How do I report a bug?
  
  
  Please visit our publicly accessible bug database (http://fenris.lokigames.com/) and post a bug report. Be sure to first check the list of known bugs and fixes/patches.
  
  
• 8.2 How can I receive technical support?
  
  
  We support our products by e-mail (preferred) and phone. Phone support is available by calling (714) 508-2140 between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) Monday through Friday, except holidays.
  
  
• 8.3 Are there additional FAQs or other sources of information?
  
  
  Some of the above owes a debt of gratitude to http://www.activision.com/support/191.asp.
  
  

Support inquries should be addressed to support@lokigames.com.
FAQ's maintained by faqs@lokigames.com.