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I want to play Quake online, and have it be just like when I last played it in 1999. Well, except the few weeks I've recently been playing it in the form of a modern client, but I don't like at all how it looks or feels. I want the classic, proper software renderer and all.

So I installed an original CD-ROM copy of Quake into my Windows 10 VM (it includes WinQuake which runs on it). After that, I installed the last version of id software's original QuakeWorld client (v2.30) by extracting its files into the Quake directory.

(This was a pure guess by me because there were no installation instructions anywhere, but it seems to be the correct thing to do.)

If I run QuakeWorld there, it starts up and I am able to type connect <server_address> in the Quake console to join that server.

It "works" in that it connects to the server, displays messages such as "X fragged Y!", etc., and downloads all the missing level files and assets that I'm missing, but when it actually joins the game, it quickly exits without warning and displays as an error message related to "malloc" and "too tall player height" or "too tall level", etc. (Those are approximate messages from memory.)

Then I even grabbed the last version ever released, qw233-0005.zip, and extracted that into the Quake directory, but every server I connect to just causes QuakeWorld to dump this:

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Error
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model progs/spawn.mdl has a skin taller than 200
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OK   
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It seems like they are not playing on QuakeWorld servers at all, but rather some modern, different thing which is all incompatible. Are there no actual QuakeWorld servers?

I got the server addresses from: https://www.quakeservers.net/quakeworld/servers/so=8/

If I start Winquake.exe and check the console, it says "(WinQuake) 1.09" in the bottom-right corner. This is the last version (of Quake) ever released.

When I complained to somebody about how bad nQuake is, I was told that I could connect to these modern servers using the original client. But clearly, that is not the case. Or I need to enter some kind of secret code or something.

I'm sure it would work if I had a LAN of computers and all ran this same setup, with one of the computers being the server, but unfortunately, I do not.

Does this mean that I can never again play proper Quake online, in all its 320 x 200 pixels software rendering glory, with no so-called "enhancements"? Are there "Classic QuakeWorld" servers listed somewhere? And if so, do they have anyone playing?

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    I doubt most people are using the original Quake at this point. Even GOG (who make old games work on modern hardware) recommends using SourcePorts such as vkQuake, QuakeSpasm, or DarkPlaces.
    – Powerlord
    Commented Mar 28, 2023 at 23:16
  • @Powerlord Not to be rude, but neither what "most people" do, nor what "GOG" does, has any bearing on what I want to do. As already pointed out, those remakes are garbage that look and feel nothing like the original game.
    – user296681
    Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 23:13
  • Yes, they do have a bearing. I understand you hate the remakes, but if no one is running original Quakeworld servers because they've migrated to the remakes, then that's it. You either accept you won't get to play Quake or you use the ports despite hating them.
    – eijen
    Commented Apr 10, 2023 at 17:19

1 Answer 1

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You just need one patch to make a lot of these servers work in vanilla: Quake Vanilla Restoration Patch for Win/GL/QWCL.

You may not be interested in the rest of this patch, but it contains a modified spawn.mdl that will fix those crashes. You can also use the command line parameters -mem, -zone, -heapsize, and -surfcachesize to increase the map size limits the game will load without crashing. Here's what I add to my desktop shortcut under properties: -mem 500000 -zone 200000 -heapsize 500000 -surfcachesize 200000. I use these to play on lots of servers with the QuakeWorld 2.33 client you were trying to use.

Finally, the in-game console commands r_maxedges, r_maxsurfs, and r_maxbmodeledges can increase the rendering limits if you find that maps are not fully rendering as you play due to being larger than old-school maps. Try setting them to values in the hundreds of thousands (and put them in an autoexec). These are the values I use: r_maxedges 850000, r_maxsurfs 850000, r_maxbmodeledges 30000.

All of this should get your vanilla QuakeWorld working for most servers.

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