Gaming • ioquake3 - Quake III Source Port on the Raspberry Pi 5

ioquake3 Source Port on the Raspberry Pi 5

Supposedly the original Raspberry Pi Computer released on February 2012 was able to run a version of Quake III at playable framerates, I do not know which version of Quake III was running on the original Raspberry Pi Computer or the graphics settings, but ioquake3, the Quake III source port is still in development. Quake III ran on the Id Tech 3 Engine which released with Quake III in December 1999 with the source code to the Id Tech 3 Engine being released in August 2005, which is the reason why there are source ports being released for Quake III. There is an open source version of Quake III called Open Arena, which runs on ioquake3, but this build guide will require a retail copy of Quake III.

While the number of mods released for Quake III is not even close to the number of mods released for either Quake or DOOM2, Quake III is still the original Id Tech 3 Engine game which powered world renown games such as Call of Duty, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Call of Duty, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Quake III were published by Activision Publishing, but Call of Duty is the only game that was not released open source or was developed by Id Software. The Id Tech 3 Engine was competing with the Unreal Engine in the commercial game space at the time with more games being developed on the Unreal 2 Engine in comparison to the Id Tech 4 Engine, but the Unreal Engine is not open source.

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


BUILD INSTRUCTIONS

Download the ioquake3 source code:Access the ioq3 directory:Run the make command:Copy the base3 directory from a copy of Quake III to the .q3a hidden directory in the home directory:

Execute the ioquake3 binary:Exit ioquake3 to edit the q3config.cfg file.


IOQUAKE3 CONFIG FILE

The ioquake 3 source port has a surprising number of graphic settings which are only accessible in the q3config.cfg file in comparison to the original Quake III game, because the original game will contain only basic graphic settings. I did not test every graphics setting, but I believe most of the graphic settings are only compatible with the OpenGL2 renderer, which performs awfully on the Raspberry Pi 5 for reasons outside of my understanding, but runs without any problems on my X86 computer. I disabled most of the graphic settings when I was running the OpenGL2 renderer, and the performance was overall unplayable while playing the game for reasons outside of my understanding.

I did not test every graphics setting with the X86 computer with the OpenGL2 renderer, but the graphics did seem off which implies these graphic settings are experimental, and I admit the graphic settings provided more visual qualities in comparison to the OpenGL1 renderer. I wouldn't say the gameplay will improve, but overall the OpenGL2 renderer provides "brighter" visuals in comparison to the OpenGL1 renderer, because at the end of the day, the gameplay is the same, and there are Quake III mods which improve the graphics as well as the gameplay of the base game. I will write a build guide about Quake III mods at a later time, but I have to admit there are not many Quake III mods to choose from.


ADVANCED CONFIGURATION SETTINGS

NOTE: Do not adjust the settings in the game options or the settings will override the q3config.cfg file.

ioquake3 configuration settings:
ioq3/opengl2-readme.md at main - ioquake3/ioq3 - GitHub
https://github.com/ioquake/ioq3/blob/ma ... -readme.md

Quake III Arena Tweak Guide:
GameSurge - Tweak Guide - Quake 3 Arena
https://www.gamesurge.com/pc/hardware/t ... weak.shtml

To edit the settings in ioquake3, acces the ioquake3 configuration file:Changes OpenGL2 renderer to OpenGLES2 renderer:

• Improves performance but will disable certain graphic settings.

seta r_preferOpenGLES "-1"

Affects in game screen size:

• Values under 100 will cause the game to render a letterbox when the game is running.

seta cg_viewsize "90"

Affects Field of View (FOV):

• Lower values will reduce the in game FOV size.

seta cg_fov "90"

Affects Mouse Sensitivity:
seta sensitivity "5"

Affects Volume Levels:
seta s_volume "1"
seta s_musicVolume "1"

Game will open either Fullscreen or Window mode based on these settings:
seta r_fullscreen "1"
seta r_mode "-2"
seta r_modeFullscreen "-2"

Affects the screen resolution:

• Change the values of Height / Width based on your screen resolution.

seta r_customWidth "1920"
seta r_customHeight "1080"

Changes the Graphics Renderer:

• Choose from either opengl1 or opengl2.

seta cl_renderer "opengl1"

Changes the Crosshair size:

• Lower values will reduce the size of the Crosshair.

seta cg_crosshairSize "24"

Statistics: Posted by Moonmarch — Sat Jun 28, 2025 4:41 am — Replies 0 — Views 16

---