Quake III with the ioquake3 source port
While there are a number of games which utilize the ioquake3 source port, games such as Open Arena, Q3Rally, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Tremulous, World of Padman, etc., but this build guide will involve only Quake III mods. Even though numerous games or even total conversion Quake III mods run on ioquake3, there are games which require a forked version of ioquake3 to run the game such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein which is called iortcw. RTCW is a game I would write about, but iortcw is a different source port with special instructions, the build process is not the same compared to ioquake3, there is mod compatibility to test with iortcw, development always requires time, and effort.
If there are problems which I see during the development cycle, I will have to troubleshoot the problem myself, which requires searching throughout the internet for difficult to understand instructions, and troubleshooting software is not always worth the trouble either. Quake III is primarily a multiplayer game with a single player mode which involves the player completing arenas to progress in the tournament ladder, the single player mode consists of several gameplay challenges to complete, and you are able to challenge yourself to complete every level with no deaths. Competing in arenas against bots is not considered a real single player experience, and I would not pay $49.99 to play against bots.
While the single player is not exactly exhilarating, but the gameplay controls are very tight after you dial in the settings, my main problem with the controls is selecting weapons, because weapons are assigned to number keys, and there are 10 number keys to choose from. Playing Quake III will actually improve your multiplayer skills, the bots in the game a very challenging to compete against, and the action does not slow down either, because the gameplay mechanics are overall balanced with every weapon having strengths as well as weaknesses. If you understand the gameplay mechanics of the game, you will see how rewarding the gameplay will feel, and the game is easy to setup as well.
Quake III mods will actually enhance the gameplay, the 4K texture packs seems to run on the Raspberry Pi 5 with a noticeable reduction in performance, but the game seems to play the same overall, and the graphics would improve if I was able to activate anisotropic filtering to enable texture filtering. Quake III has a small number of mods as well as addons, but I would not underestimate the mods, because the improvements to the graphics will add a new coat of paint to a game which was released in 1999. Setting up mods for Quake III is not complicated, but you will need to read the instructions included with the mod to understand the purpose of each file included with the mod.
WEBSITES
ioquake3 Website
ioquake3 - Play Quake 3, mods, new games, or make your own!
https://ioquake3.org/
ioquake3 source port GitHub Website
GitHub - ioquake/ioq3: The ioquake3 community effort to continue supporting/developing id's Quake III Arena
https://github.com/ioquake/ioq3
QUAKE III MODS
To load mods with Quake III, place the .pk3 files from the mod into the .q3a/baseq3 directory, and the mod will load when you launch Quake III.
Quake III Arena Remastered - [Runo] Edition - ModDB
https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-iii-ar ... no-edition
Quake III Arena Remastered - [Runo] Edition was updated recently before I started writing this build guide, and is a high definition pack for Quake III Arena without moving far away from the original source material. The mod will have better performance as well as visuals compared to the original game, but based on my experiences, the visual improvements are on the lighter end of the scale with new menu designs.
Quake 3 Neural Upscale Mod - ModDB
https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-3-neural-upscale
Quake 3 Neural Upscale Mod is a mod which replaces the base textures with textures that are sharper in appearance compared to the original textures, which are blurry, and the texture packs add up to 1.2 GB in size. While the textures in the game will appear sharper in appearance, the mod only modifies the textures without including any gameplay enhancements, and not all of the textures will improve in appearance either.
Q3Plus Mod for Quake III Arena - ModDB
https://www.moddb.com/mods/q3plus
Q3Plus Mod for Quake III Arena is a gameplay mod as well as a graphics enhancement mod which modifies the effects in the game, and the best part of the mod is the improved HUD as well as new menu designs. The Q3Plus Mod is the best mod in this list in terms of gameplay, but the mod does not contain any texture enhancements, which means the graphics with this mod will appear relatively similar to the base game.
Q3Plus Mod with the Quake 3 Neural Upscale Mod
Loading Q3Plus Mod with either Quake III Arena Remastered - [Runo] Edition or Quake 3 Neural Upscale Mod will load Q3Plus Mod with the enhanced textures, and the overall gameplay experience will improve. Running the Q3Plus Mod with any high definition mod will transform the game into a modern first shooting game, and there are more mods as well as addons to experiment with to further customize the base game.
Statistics: Posted by Moonmarch — Sun Nov 02, 2025 3:17 am