| Installation | Starting Q3F | Running Servers | Basic Configuration | Troubleshooting |
Preparation
The first thing you need to check is that you have the latest Quake 3 Arena Point Release 1.17 installed. Before attempting to install Q3F, you should start Quake 3 without any special options and check that you have this patch installed and working. For detailed instructions on this, check the Troubleshooting section.
You may also run in to problems if you've ever installed any updates or patches that aren't from id Software - for example a CD-Hack that changes the Quake 3 Arena executable or any 3rd Party DLL's (such as Arenaspy or an FPS enhancer). In all cases you should delete or rename any files with the .DLL extension that are present in your \quake3 or \baseq3 directory.
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Apple Mac Note: There is a known problem with Quake 3 (as of release 1.16n), Q3F (as of Beta1b) that causes certain Apple Mac's to crash with the error Type-2. Graham Devine of id Software kindly authored a .SIT patch that resolves this problem. You can get this patch from the files section on the Q3F website or by clicking here. |
Easy Installation (Windows and Linux)
We have provided online installers for Windows and Linux. This is by far the easiest way to install Q3F. The online installer will check your Quake 3 installation to see if you've ever installed Q3F before, then search for the fastest site and download only the required updates. It is capable of resuming aborted transfers and will esure that your Q3F files are all installed in to exactly the right place. If you use this Installer and it all runs smoothly, you can skip the whole rest of this section!
If you have problems running the installer (it wont work through certain firewalls) or you are using an Apple Mac, then you'll need to peform a manual installation. This is explained fully in the following section.
Manual Installation
Q3F is distributed as a 'ZIP' files and contains everything (except Quake 3 itself) that you need to play Q3F. This includes our complete map collection. There are no .EXE or .DLL files contained in the ZIP file to ensure 'cross-platform compatability'. Essentially this means that as long as the fully patched, retail version of Quake 3 Arena is installed and working on your machine, regardless of whether it is running Windows 98, NT, Win2k, Linux, FreeBSD or Mac O/S, Q3F will work.
There are however some known problems with running Quake 3 (and modifications) with certain operating systems. Click the 'Troubleshooting' sub-section above if you run in to any problems either during or after installation.
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Apple Mac Note: Use the latest version of stuffit expander to extract the Q3F ZIP files. Do not use zipit1.3.8 as it will corrupt the files! Also be sure that under your expander preferences under [crossplatform] that you have [convert text files to macintosh format] [never] checked off (Courtesy of Quake 3 Shack) |
Q3F is available as both a series of updates and a full download. If you've never installed Q3F before, then you just need to download the latest FULL release. If you need to update then get the latest UPDATE release.
All new releases contain updates to the documentation and sample CFG files, so the newer documentation in the Beta1g update, updates some of the documentation in the Beta1f update. If you're upgrading, then you should be careful to backup your CFG files as these might get overwritten.
After downloading the required files, you should extract them to your Quake 3 directory in the order of oldest first. The key thing to note is that the ZIP file contains 'folder' or 'path information - this tells the unzipping application which directories to place the Q3F files into. Generally you should extract the Q3F ZIP file straight into your Quake 3 directory (in this example we'll use C:\quake3). After extraction, you should find a new directory called 'q3f' under the Quake 3 directory.
Depending on the application you use to unzip the Q3F archive, you may or may not get the correct directory information. The really important part is that the Q3F PK3 files (the actual mod itself) is in the right place - a q3f directory within the Quake 3 directory. Confirm this by locating your Quake 3 directory, and check that it contains the directories 'baseq3' and 'q3f'.
After extraction, you should be left with the following PK3 files in your Quake3\q3f directory:
A common error when extracting the files to the wrong place is to end up with two Q3F directories (one nested under the other). If you've done this, you may find that you end up with \quake3\q3f\q3f :) Correct this by moving the contents of \quake3\q3f\q3f' up one level, and deleting the lowest directory. You should end up with just c:\quake3\q3f.
Apple Mac Note:
You will have to change the following to your q3config.cfg (located inside the baseq3 folder) to "1" instead of "0". BBEdit Lite (freeware) will accomplish this task, and put a copy of the edited config in your q3f folder which should reside in the quake3 folder (not baseq3) (Courtesy of Quake 3 Shack).:
seta vm_ui "1"
seta vm_game "1"
seta vm_cgame "1"
If you encounter any problems during or after installation, be sure to check the 'Troubleshooting' section above. If you can't find your answer there, stop by the 'Support Forum' on the Q3F website and we'll do our best to help.
Installation should now be complete, and we're almost ready to run Q3F - head on over to Starting Q3F.