Installing on Windows

Step 1: Prepare original Quake

classicQ requires Quake 1 to run. More specifically, it needs the game data archives contained in the PAK0.PAK and PAK1.PAK files. These two files are always located inside the Quake\Id1\ folder.

You can purchase a legal copy of Quake on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/2310/

If you have installed Quake using Steam, "PAK" files are usually located in the following folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake\Id1\

Please make sure you do have PAK0.PAK and PAK1.PAK before proceeding with the next steps!

Optional: Verify PAK files

If you want to double-check that you have the correct files, you can verify their MD5 hashes against the table below.

FileSizeMD5 checksum
PAK0.PAK18 689 235 bytes5906E5998FC3D896DDAF5E6A62E03ABB
PAK1.PAK34 257 856 bytesD76B3E5678F0B64AC74CE5E340E6A685

You can easily calculate MD5 checksums with Windows PowerShell:
Get-FileHash PAK0.PAK, PAK1.PAK -Algorithm MD5

Step 2: Download classicQ

To download classicQ, simply get the latest release (under "Source code" link) from GitHub:
http://github.com/classicQ/classicQ.github.io/releases/latest
Don't worry, you won't need to compile anything.

Step 3: Generate config file

Config files are text files with the .cfg extension. They contain player settings such as keyboard controls. All Quake settings must be configured using the in-game console or by manually editing .cfg files. This is quite cumbersome to new users. Luckily, you can setup a basic config file using the configurator below.

Firstly, rearrange the keyboard settings (refresh the page to restart the process if needed)

  • W
  • S
  • A
  • D
  • SPACE
  • Left Mouse Button
  • Right Mouse Button
  • Middle Mouse Button
  • Q
  • E
  • SHIFT
  • moves forward
  • moves back
  • moves left
  • moves right
  • jump
  • (primary attack) Rocket Launcher
  • (secondary attack) Thunderbolt
  • (tertiary attack) Grenade Launcher
  • Axe
  • Shotgun
  • Nailgun

Do you play with inverted mouse?

test

Next, enter your nickname here:

Finally, click the button below to create your .cfg file:

Generate config

Please save it as initial_keybinds.cfg and keep it for later use.
You can put it into the same folder with the already prepared PAK0.PAK and PAK1.PAK files.

Step 4: Put everything together

You're almost finished! Now that you have all the necessary files, it is time to copy everything to the correct folders.

  1. Extract classicQ from .zip file to any temporary location
  2. Open the extracted files and locate the Fodquake directory (the one with an uppercase "F")
  3. Move Fodquake directory to any convenient location, for example D:\Games\Fodquake
  4. Next, open that folder and then open the \id1 directory (D:\Games\Fodquake\id1). Copy the previously prepared PAK0.PAK, PAK1.PAK files and the initial_keybinds.cfg file here (you can overwrite the existing initial_keybinds.cfg file)

Congrats! You have finished installing classicQ!
To start the game, go to the Fodquake directory and run the fodquake-gl.exe file.