GL Quake what is it?

GL Quake is an unsupported hardware Quake engine that takes advantage of a 3Dfx graphics accelerator. The current version is 0.97 and is quite done. The GL engine can run Quake in either 512*384 or 640*480 resolutions and with 16 bits per pixel (bpp) with pretty good frames per second (fps). This page will try to guide you as a 3Dfx owner to take the most out of your Quake/GL Quake. If you ever wondered about the filenames it's month and date i.e. glq1114.exe.

Where to get it.

You can get it right off id Software's ftp server here:
glq1114.exe

Or here locally:
glq1114.exe

Any 3Dfx card will do.

I run GL Quake on an Orchid Righteous 3D but any 3Dfx card will do. The most famous 3Dfx card for the moment is the Diamond Monster 3D and this card is just as good for GL Quake as any other, or any hardware-accelerated game by the way. There are no speed differences between the two cards and only the price/bundled programs should decide on whatever card you should buy. If I don't recall wrong there is "bulk" variants on both the cards. note: The 3Dfx mentioned on this page refer to the Voodoo 3Dfx, not the Voodoo Rush as these cards is combined with a 2D part as well and does not have the speed as an original Voodoo 3Dfx. The only (quite annoying) part is that Diamond just released new drivers for the Monster 3D that is supporting Direct X 5, Orchid however are just sitting on their asses and does not respond to my E-mails and the drivers is from mid-summer. Anyone will of course tell you to use the 3Dfx drivers, but personally I think the drivers from the card manufacturer are better. First of all, these drivers don't have support for the Voodoo Rush cards. Second, there are no further functions built in to the driver and will give you better speed, on GL Quake that is, newer games require the newer glides and drivers, this will not be covered here.

Diamond Monster 3D.
Homepage http://www.diamondmm.com/
Latest driver m3d_109.exe

Orchid Righteous 3D.
Homepage http://www.orchid.com/
Latest driver r3dv2_0d.exe

RealVision Flash 3D.
Homepage http://www.windsoronline.com/hsc/flash3d/
Latest driver flash243.zip

Pure 3D.
Homepage http://www.pure3d.com/
Latest driver p3dw951202.exe


A simple comparison of Quake and GL Quake.

Tweaking for speed.

When I first ran GL Quake I got quite disappointed about the low fps, 27 on timedemo demo2. And the kind of brightness GL Quake had. I started to search the Internet for some tweaks to enhance the GL Quake but no luck. After a while I got over some documents about the environment settings for the Righteous card and started to experiment with it. I found out that the 3Dfx card could be overclocked and other commands could be used to give you more fps in GL Quake. Those commands will be displayed here and my survey on getting the most out of Quake. You should keep the settings in the tab for your 3Dfx card in Windows to default.

Ok, let's get down to business. First of all running GL Quake at 640x480 is not really necessary at all. Running at 512x384 are quite sufficient and should give 5 - 15 fps increase depending on your configuration. A command line should look like this: "glquake.exe -width 512 -height 384". About the command: SST_GRXCLK you should really take care, this is used to overclock the 3Dfx card. The command will make your card run hot, and perhaps even crash it! As seen in the survey below this command doesn't add that much of speed to GL Quake anyway, CAUTION! Use at own risk! Note: this survey is done on an Pentium 233 overclocked to 266 MHz with timedemo demo2.

GL Quake survey
640X480 Unvised 640X480 Vised 512x384 Unvised 512x384 Vised
Orginal
29.6
26.7
44.1
39.3
SST_FASTMEM=1
29.6
26.7
44.1
39.3
SST_FASTPCIRD=1
29.6
26.7
44.2
39.3
FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0
40.5
34.4
62.5
52.7
SST_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC=0
40.5
34.4
62.5
52.8
SST_GRXCLK=51
41.3
35.1
63.6
53.7
SST_GRXCLK=52
42.2
35.8
64.7
54.5
SST_GRXCLK=53
43.1
36.6
66.0
55.4
SST_GRXCLK=54
44.2
37.5
67.2
56.6
SST_GRXCLK=55
45.0
38.2
68.3
57.3
SST_GRXCLK=56
45.8
38.8
69.3
58.2
SST_GRXCLK=57
46.6
39.5
70.3
58.9
SST_GRXCLK=58
47.5
40.3
71.6
60.1
SST_GRXCLK=59
48.4
41.1
72.8
60.9
SST_GRXCLK=60
49.1
41.8
73.8
61.7
SST_GRXCLK=61
50.1
42.5
74.8
62.6
SST_GRXCLK=62
50.9
43.2
75.8
63.2
SST_GRXCLK=63
51.7
43.8
76.6
64.0
SST_GRXCLK=64
52.5
44.5
77.8
64.5
SST_GRXCLK=65
53.4
45.3
78.3
65.2

CAUTION! DO NOT OVERCLOCK YOUR CARD TO 65 MHz, THIS IS NOT HEALTHY! USE AT MOST 57 IF OVERCLOCKING AT ALL.

As you can see, I increased GL Quake's fps with 150% or 2.5 times faster than original! The survey is done with the console command: "gl_polyblend 0" and this gives you additional 2-3 fps from original GL Quake, use it because:

1. You can now actually see under water.
2. Increase the fps by 2-3.
3. Do wonders in deathmatch.

The most important command to increase fps is "FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0". This alone does 10 fps, and the use of 512x384.

If your wondering what "vised" is, it's transparent water. If you didn't "vis" your maps go here: Water vis section.
The vised maps are more difficult for the computer to handle hence the lower results.

My GLQuake.bat looks like this:

@echo off
REM GLQUAKE STARTUP FILE
SET SST_SCREENREFRESH=60
SET SST_GAMMA=1.3
SET FX_GLIDE_NO_SPLASH=1
SET SST_FASTMEM=1
SET SST_FASTPCIRD=1
SET SST_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC=0
SET FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0
SET SST_GRXCLK=57
glquake.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 -width 512 -height 384

The command "SET SST_GAMMA=1.3" is used to decrease the brightness GL Quake generates. Experiment with this command to get the setting you like.

Download the .bat here:
glquake.bat
And run the .bat instead of qlq.exe to increase the fps on your GL Quake.

"QUAKE(r) is a registered trademark of Id Software, Inc. QUAKE(r), the stylized reproduction of the QUAKE(r) trademark, including, without limitation, the Q in QUAKE(r), and the images depicted in QUAKE(r) are the copyrighted property of Id Software, Inc."