I can't think of any FPS game with more fun movement than Doom
Quake.
I don't want to derail this thread any further, but... What's the best way to play Quake in current year if I want it to be reasonably authentic without playing it in DOSBox? I did that to get into Doom a few years ago. And while it was fine, I prefer playing at a higher framerate.
Playing it in DOSBox is the most authentic way of doing it in the current year. It won't have a low frame rate like Doom, as Quake did not have such a limit coded into it.
Reasons to play in DOSBox:
- you play the original version of the game from Id Software;
- the gamma in WinQuake (the official Windows port) and possibly most unofficial source ports is higher, while this version is a little darker;
- you can play the game at the original 320x200 (double-scanned) resolution, at which the HUD fits the screen as intended and is large and readable, but scaled properly to your native resolution, while in Windows ports rendering at this or a similar resolution would be problematic and produce a blurry result;
- visually, the game looks better the way it was originally released, without any additions or attempts to smooth out the edges: low-resolution, no texture filtering, uninterpolated animations, distorted textures on the weapons, etc.—it's possible to approximate this look in source ports, but one has to turn off various settings, sometimes with commands in the configuration file, and some things still won't be like in the original version (for instance it's possible to turn off bilinear texture filtering easily, but some other things about them are still rendered using different methods);
- the original stereo sound mixing also feels more adequate in the original version;
- you can also easily use C.R.T.-screen shaders in DOSBox builds such as DOSBox-X or Staging.
If you have the GOG version, it comes with a short cut for launching the DOS version with music set up to play in the game, so all one might need to do is to change the renderer and scaling settings in the included DOSBox CONF file. In case of the current Steam version, it's necessary to add DOSBox to it and create a CONF file and a short cut for launching it by oneself, since the current publisher removed it. The original executable file is still there, but the music isn't included either.
Both releases of the game probably have full mouselook (with the vertical axis) enabled. This wasn't the case in the original game, so the
+mlook command should be removed from
autoexec.cfg in
Quake\id1. Originally, there is a dedicated mouselook button, which, when held down, enables looking up and down with the mouse. It's possible that running wasn't always on by default either, but this can be changed in the menu.
Either way, I recommend using DOSBox-X or Staging. In case of the GOG version, it's necessary to remove the original DOSBox files from their folder and replace them with one of these custom builds; it's important to remember to rename the included DOSBox executable to the standard
dosbox.exe, otherwise all the existing short cuts won't find it.
I suggest making the following changes in the existing or new
dosbox.conf file in the main
Quake folder (or in the
DOSBox folder, if the default CONF file is used instead):
fullresolution=desktop
output=openglnb
aspect=true
scaler=hardware_none
cycles=60000 // (more may be necessary to get a good frame rate, depending on the particular configuration)
For the C.R.T. shaders, it's necessary to add these two commands (they may be included in the
[renderer] section:
doublescan=true
glshader= // (this is for the OpenGL renderers, if the Direct3D renderer is used, pixelshader should be added too; there is a variety of shaders to choose from in the folders included with the two mentioned builds, but which will look best depends on the monitor used; I find that crt-lottes.tweaked.glsl looks reasonably acceptable at resolutions which aren't high enough to reproduce the complete pattern correctly; it's also possible that DOSBox Staging requires including the folder path for the shader)
The easiest way to set up music with the DOS version in the Steam release might be to copy the files from the GOG version (dosbox_quake_single.conf and CUE and disc image files, only in this case both CONF files need to be loaded in the short cut, which can also be looked up in the GOG version). I also recommend removing the
exit commands from the short cuts, as they cause the post-quitting screen not to be displayed.
An important note regarding music: there is a wide-spread misunderstanding in various configuration guides that the music tracks were mastered and burned with pre-emphasis, so that they need to have de-emphasis applied to them. This seems to have originated from one odd release which had de-emphasis flags included, but judging by other official discs and the recent official remaster of the music by Trent Reznor himself, this was an isolated mistake. Applying de-emphasis to the tracks muffles them and even makes some details inaudible. On the other hand, the remaster is even more crisp than the original release.
Still on the topic of playing Quake the authentic way, there is also something for replaying the game. Id Software released a version with hardware-accelerated graphics in 1997 called GLQuake. It has a different look and at least at the time it was mainly aimed at the first Voodoo card. It seems to work well enough with nGlide (that is, for playing at one of the original low resolutions scaled up to one's native resolution, in order to maintain a reasonably sized HUD), but it needs the 0.97 patch for music to work—this patch isn't applied in the current Steam and GOG releases, it seems.
In order to play music from files in WinQuake (the official software-rendered version), GLQuake, or source ports which don't include music players, it's best to use a program called _inmm. To use it the original executable needs to be patched with it and a play-list with the tracks in one of the compatible formats created in _inmm.
There is also another interesting thing to add flavour to replaying Quake. When Bobby Prince, Id Software's composer on Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom, released the official Doom Music album in 1997, he arranged the tracks so that they can be played in Quake (meaning that the first track should be omitted, because that would normally be the data track, and the extra few at the end would also not be used) (the information about it is on the back cover:
https://www.discogs.com/release/7024212-Bobby-Prince-Doom-Music).
Finally, there was also the Methods of Destruction album by Sonic Mayhem, released in 1996 as alternative set of tracks for Quake. It wasn't official, but Id Software liked it so much that it hired Sonic Mayhem to compose the music for Quake II and Quake III Arena.
As for unofficial source ports, the one which seems to most faithful to the original version is Mark V, when the software renderer is used. I think it needs _inmm to play the music.
I recommend using the official remaster only for the new episode by Machine Games. Incidentally, Night Dive accepted the rumour about the music tracks having pre-emphasis applied without looking into it and included de-emphasized tracks in the remaster.
A few screenshots with the crt-lottes.tweaked shader (my monitor's native resolution isn't very suitable for these shaders, actually, hence the pattern is distorted):
Quake is pretty much perfection in the genre. Everything since is either derivative of Quake or pales in its shadow.
Movement is slick and responsive. The weapon roster may feel basic but there's no gimmicks here, it's all workhorse weapons that are satisfying to use. Explosions adding their force to your movement speed makes rocket jumping possible. The enemy roster is varied and when facing multiple enemy types at once it can become quite challenging - but there are barely any hitscan enemies beyond the basic grunts and the shamblers (who have a long enough attack telegraph for you to dodge behind cover). Level design is full 3D, finally transcending the limitations of 2.5D engines like Doom and Build.
Its own sequel is mediocre in comparison, and Quake 3 doesn't even have a campaign and is therefore irrelevant for single player.
What is there that surpasses Quake? Nothing. Unreal tried to be Quakey but with its own flavor, and while it succeeded at being interesting, it's not quite at the level of Quake.
Several recent retro FPS games are inspired by Quake (Dusk, HROT) but they don't quite reach its quality, either.
Quake stands alone as the giant of its genre.
Quake is, as the advertisements of its time rightfully claimed, the most important computer game of all time.
Quake 1 is a kind of perfection but there are a few things about it that are a matter of taste.
The floaty gameplay and lack of punch in the weapons is one of those things. I wouldn't call it a "flaw" because the gameplay is perfect for what they were going for, but i always preferred the more weighty gameplay of Doom and i think this had to have been a point of controversity back then considering how much they overcorrected in the other direction with Quake 2.
Quake's movement has quite palpable inertia, but I wouldn't say it's floaty. Even more so, I don't see how you could describe its weapons as lacking a punch. Aren't you by chance thinking of some source ports where the sound mixing is different and the weapon viewmodels are smaller and their animations or bobbing lessened? Both can weaken the feeling of the weapons a lot.
