Getting Started Running Quake

One of the RPMs provided with the Linux distribution is the game Quake by ID Software. Unfortunately, although we can distribute the executable part of the game, for licensing reasons we are unable to distribute the data files, which are necessary to play the game. However the data files from the Windows version of the game, both the full retail version, and the shareware version, can be used under Linux.

Here are some instructions on where you can get the data files from and how to install them. For more details, please see the Linux Quake HOWTO.

Installing the data files

First you need to obtain the data files. If you have a copy of the game on CD, then the you can use the data files from that. See the HOWTO for more details, as there are several versions out there. It is also possible to use the data files from the shareware version. This can be downloaded from IDSoftware or one of their mirrors. Unzip this file, and you should end up with a file called resource.1.

resource.1 is another archive, this time compressed using lha. If you do not already have lha installed on your host machine, it can be downloaded from here. To unpack the archive use:

host% lha e resource.1

This will generate an id1 directory. Move this to /usr/share/quake on the target's filesystem.

Playing the game

You are now ready to play the game. Make sure that the DISPLAY environment variable is set, and then run:

target% quake.x11 -nosound -nolan

If you have a sound card installed, try removing the -nosound option. Similarly if you want to play a networked game, try removing the -nolan option. Unfortunately the error checking is not very good, so if the something is not set up correctly, quake tends to simply core dump. You have been warned!

To run the benchmarks go into the quake console and type:

timedemo demo1

At the end of the run it will print the total number of frame, and the average frames per second (FPS).