Linux Quake III Arena FAQ

Revision History

Version 0.41-linux - Jan.19.2000

For the current Win32 version of the FAQ, and its revision history, please see http://www.quake3arena.com/.

Online FAQ documentation

The latest version of the official Linux Quake III Arena FAQ's can be found at:

Please note that several sections (like System Requirements, GLsetup related sections etc.) of id Software's official FAQ apply only to the Win32 version.

Loki has also created a newsgroup devoted to discussion of Linux Quake III Arena:

Announcements regarding driver and FAQ updates are posted in the newsgroups.


Trouble Shooting

If you are having any problems, read this first!

If you are using a config file from an older version of Quake3, we highly recommend that you remove it and make a new one with the current game. Older config files can have settings in them that may cause adverse affects within the release version of Quake3.

I am experiencing technical problems with some of the Tier 4 maps

The Tier 4 maps are the largest maps and therefore require that largest amount of RAM (memory). If the game is crashing or not loading any of these maps, there are some solutions you should try. First, we recommend turning light maps off and running in vertex lighting mode. You can do this by entering "Setup" "System" "Graphics" and setting "Lighting" to "Vertex". Second, you should turn the sound quality to "Low" within the "Setup" "System" "Sound" menu.

During a game, and on the victory screen, my name is cut off on the list of players

This is a known issue that we are planning to address.

Is there any way to disable the "MouseLook" feature?

This is a known issue that we are planning to address.

When I choose "Multiplayer" from the main menu there are no servers listed

First and foremost make sure that you are connected to the Internet or a LAN (local area network). If you are, check the filters located at the top of the screen. If you are wanting to play a LAN game, make sure that you have "Local" selected under "Servers:". If you want to play an Internet game make sure that you have "Internet" or "Mplayer" selected. You should also make sure the "Show Full" and "Show Empty" filters to ON. This will add all of the full and empty servers to your list.

When browsing through the Player Models menu I get an error saying "Low Memory"

By default, Quake3 will only allocate a certain amount of your RAM (memory) for loading player models. This statement just lets you know that you have reached the capacity of that allocated space. However, if you have more than 64MB of RAM in your system, you can change the default amount space allocated thereby increasing the potential to load more player models. To do this, bring down the console using the ~ key (located in the top left-hand corner of your keyboard) and type:

\com_hunkmegs X

Then press Enter. X is a variable for a value that you will enter. For instance, if you have 128MB of RAM installed on your system you might want to replace X with a value no higher than 96. Always leave at least 32MB of RAM out of the total amount you have for other operations. If you have 64MB of RAM in your system, leave the setting at its default. The change to com_hunkmegs will not take effect until you restart Quake3.

When playing a multiplayer game, sometimes there is a short pause, then I see my character dying

This is actually a system that we have implemented to load the character models of players that have entered the game. When playing on the Internet, frequently people will join into the game after you have. The small pause is Quake3's way of loading all of the models of those players into your game. It may seem like this process is killing you, however the game waits until you are killed, and at that instant loads the other models. This is usually an extremely fast process as quite often you will still see your death animation after the models are loaded (just and indication that you have missed very little while loading the models). You can manually force the game to load all of the new playermodels at any time by simply pressing the TAB key. Be warned, this will cause the same slight pause, so it is unwise to use this procedure in the middle of combat. If you do not want this process to happen at all, you can set the "Force Player Models" option to "On". You can find this option in the "Setup Game Options" menu. This will show all other players in the same model you are playing. This is a memory saving option and will increase the speed of the game on slower systems.

When I try to run Quake 3, I get the error "could not initialize OpenGl subsystem"

You need to make sure that you have an Mesa compliant video card, and the latest drivers installed for your particular card/distribution.

I am getting an error stating "No response from master server" or "Awaiting Authorization"

There could be several reasons that you are getting this message. This can usually be remedied by resetting the "Defaults" in the "Setup" menu, and then reentering your CD-Key.

I am getting the "CD-Key is in use" message

There have been some reports from people have problems with their CD-keys. If you are getting ANY denial message from the Authentication Server, be sure and check to make sure you entered your CD Key correctly. There have been several reports of problems that were solved when the CD-key was reentered correctly. In addition, you MUST enter your CD key in lower case letters. We do not recommend that you enter the key within the console. The message, "CD Key is in use" is a generic denial message, and does not mean that someone has stolen your CD-Key. For your own safety, never send anyone you CD-Key. Nobody at ID will ever ask you for your CD-Key information without you having contacted us first. Once again, keep your key safe. There are some programs that are circulating around that claim to be CD-Key generators. These do not work. Most of these programs are infected with viruses that will send your key to anonymous email accounts, thereby making your key invalid. We have also been seeing some issues with GameSpy compatibility. If you are having CD-Key problems and are using GameSpy, discontinue use with GameSpy and use the in-game server browser within Quake 3.

How do I enable Multiprocessing Support (SMP)?

Quake 3 Arena does have support for multiprocessors (SMP). In order to get the benefits from SMP, you must be running Windows NT 4.0 and have a compatible video card and driver combination. Right now, The Detonator drivers for the TNT and GeForce generation of cards are the only ones that are working properly. To enable the support, bring down the console with the ~ key and type the commands

     \r_smp 1
     \vid_restart
     

How do I get a mouse wheel to work in Quake3?

Support for MWHEEL_UP/MWHEEL_DOWN has been added in the point release. You have to add an entry like this to your XF86Config file:
   Section "Pointer"
      Protocol     "IMPS/2"
      Device       "/dev/mouse"
      Resolution   100
      Buttons      5
      ZAxisMapping 4 5
   EndSection
   
and restart your X server.

How do I improve the Frames-Per-Second on lower end machines?

First off, we always recommend that you run the game at the 640*480 resolution. Playing the game at a resolution of 640*480 or lower will always speed things up quite a bit. Turning down the graphics settings in the game can also significantly increase the speed of the game. To adjust the graphics options enter the main menu and choose Setup System Graphics. We recommend using one of the predefined graphics settings at the top of the menu. Setting the "Graphics Settings" tab to "Fastest" will be the fastest configuration you can get and will give you the best performance of the game. Setting the "Graphics Settings" tab to "High Quality" will make the game better looking, but also slow it down quite a bit. You should also try changing some of the settings within the "Setupā Game Options" menu. Setting the following options will help speed things up.

"Marks on Walls" off
"Ejecting Brass" off
"Dynamic Lights" off
"Identify Target" off
"High Quality Sky" off
"Force Player Models" on

When I try to play a team game with bots, they will not follow my directions

This is remedied by removing any characters that are not a letter or a number from your "player name". For example if your name is "~cooldude~", change it to "cooldude" and you should be able to control your bots. We are fixing this in an upcoming release.

I'm dropped back to the menu when the server changes levels.
This is usually due to having new content like new maps or model in your baseq3 directory. This is a known problem and will be fixed in the first update. The current solution is to remove any new content from your baseq3 directory.

I'm getting stuck at Awaiting Snapshot...
A number of problems can cause this to occur. Make sure you're not running with an old q3config.cfg file from the demo. Play from a full install of the game and not from the CD. Finally, lower your texture quality and turn on force model, or set geometric detail to low.

I'm getting stuck at Awaiting Gamestate...
A number of problems can cause this to occur. This is not related to problems with Awaiting Snapshot. We will address this in later releases.

Why does the game sometimes crash if we callvote to another level while playing CTF?

In version 1.11 of Quake3 the game will crash if players try to run a CTF game on maps not designed for CTF. Do not perform a callvote requesting a map change to a non-CTF map without changing the game type first. Before changing maps always make sure you have the correct gametype set.

g_gametype 0 ­ Free For All
g_gametype 1 - Tournament
g_gametype 2 ­ Single Player
g_gametype 3 ­ Team Deathmatch
g_gametype 4 ­ Capture the Flag

This crash will be fixed in the first point release of the game.


Fixed Bugs and Added Features    2000-01-19