I have been just having a blast lately playing Quake III. Recently brothel's computer needed to have everything reinstalled. So, of course, that requires installing some games and getting all the settings back to the way they were. I guess they have this game for the Mac now for free download. But despite all the advances in game play, I just think some of these old school games like Quake III got it really right. The rest is just adding on layer after layer of fluff in most cases. This is why retro can be so much fun. You can get down to those basic core things that makes gaming fun, stripped of much of the happy horseshit. And although, yes, gaming is indeed about eye candy to a great extent. Even this can be taken to an extreme, and often has been.

I always thought Quake 3 was the best first person shooter game out there. They totally f'ed-up with Quake 4.

It always ran great on my machine too. Even better under X.

I have not been able to get it to load properly though. The installer cd needs Mac OS 9 at first. I don't have the Legacy running on any machine.

Holy Crap I don't know what I just did different but I have Quake 3 running.

I could never get the CD key to work. For what ever reason it is up and running.

They totally f'ed-up with Quake 4.

I thought they totally f'ed-up many subsequent versions of Unreal Tournament as well, although I've never seen Quake 4. I don't think I've seen Quake 2 either. I'm assuming there was a Quake I and Quake II out there.

It's cool that you got Quake 3 running on your Mac. I was playing it for a couple hours last night on my PC at home. I finally made it to the final level on the "Bring it on" difficulty level. I've also downloaded a few cool maps. They've got a Simpson's map out there that is pretty amazing.

Q3 is very good, i can only agree. Most fun shooter, great sounds.

Rico, if you having problems with the original Q3 you can use the open-sourced ioQuake-Engine here . It's fully compatible and only needs your original map-data from the CD (baseq-folder) and the cd-key. Voila! Up-To-Date software plus classic levels.

The Map-Scene is unbelievable, true. We need a thalo.net-quakeserver! :-)

I've played quite a lot of "Urban Terror" lately. It's a FPS but a little more realistic (you have to reload weapons, health system, enviroment). Engine is also ioquake, means it has the fun feel of quake. And it's 100% free. Urban Terror

Thanks smithz. I did get Quake 3 running last night finally. Not sure why but the cd key kept failing all the time. I have two disks for some reason. I always tried both cd keys to no avail.

Last night it finally worked. I downloaded a 1.32c point release too. I loved this game in the past. It ran super smooth on my G3 with the 1ghz cpu upgrade. I have a Radean 9800 for my MDD but it will not work properly which is a pity as it has 256mb on board. A thalo.net Quake Server would be great fun.

I will have to check out Urban Terror.

I just (to waste some seconds) want to point out that super-smooth motion is killer in fps. I'm lucky to have a steady 60fps in UT if not too many people are on the server. I don't want to sound snobbish (?) but it's just important. And the 3D-Illusion just cries for stutterfree framerate.

ok. :-)

Smithz, I've heard about the True Combat mod for Quake III. I downloaded that today and will try it out in the next fews days. But I hadn't heard about Urban Terror. Here's the massive 535 MB download for the Mac. And Here's the 3.6 patch for the PC. I'm unclear as to whether or not you need to have an earlier version installed first. The link to what is supposedly a full install of 3.4 just takes you too what looks like the v3.6 patch again. It's so friggin' huge, I'm not going to download anything until I know what's what. And I can't find a download link from the Urban Terror site itself. I understand from what they're saying that you don't need to have Quake III installed. Oh, wait. I found it. [Friggin' links weren't clear that they were links.]

Speaking of mods, I've always like the Rampancy mod for Unreal Tournament. Download here. It has realistic guns that you have to manually reload. That type of thing. More info. A list of mods for the various versions of Quake, including Quake III.

io urban terror uses the ioquake-engine, so it's a standalone-package. no quake 3 needed.

I love the grenade launcher from Quake III. I love the way it "tink, tink, tinks" down the hallways when you throw them. I wish it made a more satisfying explosion though.

The "rail gun" is fun too. It's a bitch if you miss in close quarters though. A thalo.net server would be great.

I like the shotgun as my main weapon. The railgun is sweet for long range. The rocket launcher is dangerous as you can blow yourself up in close quarters.

I play on the hardcore level.

This could get addictive again.

I have a sound card and faster machine.

I almost bought a single cpu G5 today off of craigslist for $400. It is only the 1.8ghz model. I would prefer dual cpu's. If I had I could have set up the MDD as a server.

This game looks pretty good on my PC despite the fact that I have to throttle it back to 640 x 480 on my relatively able 1.84 GHz Athlon with 1 MB of RAM. The problem is my Radeon 7200 (32 MB) video card. That's still a good card considering what was available when Quake III came out. But I need to upgrade this thing eventually. My brothel has a less able processor on his PC, but his Radeon 9600 has no problem pushing the pixels around at higher resolutions. Both of our monitors are the same, a Samsung 20.5 incher.

I still have a little problem on two of the levels with the mouse input. Sometimes it lags. But it was REALLY bad until I changed internally the way the game reads the mouse. The command is: "\in_mouse 1". Then you restart the input with "\in_restart". That solved 99% of my problems. And, good god, there's a billion ways to tweak this game. Most are no longer needed as today's processors and video cards barely break a sweat running Quake III. But here's what this same site lists as the most relevant settings for effecting frame rates.

How to cheat. More cheats you can type into the console. A couple more. More.

Here's a pretty good guide. I got rid of all the runpitch, roll, and bobs and it really is much better that way. But I keep all the gibs and blood spray turned on. I find that to be very cool.

Here's another explanation of some of the command line stuff. Changing the field of view (fov) can be helpful, although I don't have the horsepower on my PC to widen it a little. I would widen just a little if I could.

I play on the hardcore level.

Remind me not to play you, Rico, if thalo ever sets up a server. I don't like to be humiliated unless it's a girl wearing leather.

I like the shotgun as my main weapon. The railgun is sweet for long range. The rocket launcher is dangerous as you can blow yourself up in close quarters.

The shotgun is a great close-quarter weapon. The best advice I've read on using it is to take your time and make sure you aim fairly dead center. The railgun is great. For some levels, it's the only gun you need – those levels that have a lot of long sitelines. But I find the rocket launcher to be an all-purpose weapon. It's good at close range, and effective at longer ranges. But you do run into that problem that you mentioned. It can work for you or agin' you. It's the splash damage. I love using it to sort of shoot around corners. You can nail people with the splash without exposing yourself to their fire.

I got the True Combat mod to show up in the Mod list in the main screen. But it didn't load. It didn't say that it failed or anything. But it didn't change anything.

Cripes Quake will not load for me now. I get the ID gray logo then a white screen then a quick view of my desktop at 680x420 then Quake crashes.

I am seriously bummed.

I would use the shotgun long range too. It is nice spray. Those outer space levels were everything is floating platforms. I would keep shooting the people that were tearing everybody up. I would have only like five frags but all my kills were the person winning.

Figured it out.

Game will not start with my M-Audio sound card chosen in System Preferences Sound control panel.

Bummer.

I played a bit of "Urban Terror"... kind of fun! Still getting the hang of the controls. People seem way more able to kill me than me them.

OK, hooked. It's official. How do we do a private thalo.net server for just us?

I was WAY better at UT than this. I don't know why. It's similar.

You mean Urban Terror? I personally like the "less-is-more"-approach and the more realistic maps.

Smithz & company: I downloaded Urban Terror and it ran on the Mac fine. But is this only an online game or can you play against bots?

Anyway, the framerate I get on my G4 isn't good enough for online play. I'd get wiped out even easier than usual. But I agree, smithz. I like the less-is-more aspect of these urban maps. I play the "Rampancy" mod for Unreal Tournament and that's great as well.