| IMPORTANT NOTICE: The engines hosted here were originally developed for Mac OS 9 and remain the best choice for that platform. However, since Apple's introduction of Intel based Macintosh computers you will likely have better success with Quake engines provided by other developers. Please refer to the Other Mac Quake Engines section for links and details. |
Before consulting this section, please insure you have the latest updates properly installed. Unless otherwise noted, the following comments apply to all games available through this site.
Some tweaks mentioned below require editing console variables (cvars) or executing console commands. To bring down the console when running a game, hit the tilde (~) key, then simply type the command and hit return.
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| Minimum Hardware & OS Requirements: |
Mac OS 8.6 - 9.x OR Mac OS X 10.1 or higher.
OpenGL 1.2 or higher, CarbonLib 1.2.5 or higher (1.5 recommended), DrawSprocket & InputSprocket 1.7.x are also required when playing in MacOS8.6-9.x
PowerPC Macintosh (G3 or G4 class recommended) with at least 36 MB RAM (48MB+ recommended) + 128MB Virtual Memory for OpenGL.
A video card that supports accelerated OpenGL with at least 4MB of VRAM.
ATI Rage 128, 3Dfx Voodoo3 or better is strongly recommended. |
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| Additional Software Requirements: |
| Note that you will need to obtain the original Quake or Hexen 2 data files in order to play the full versions of those games. Retail PC or Mac versions will work fine, and can usually be had for little money in discount bins. Limited play "Hexen 2 Demo" and "Quake Shareware" archives are available in the Downloads section for those who don't have access to full versions. |
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| Game Options, Mods and The Command line: |
| Can these games be run in software rendered mode? |
| No. These are strictly 'GL' ports, requiring a video card capable of running accelerated OpenGL graphics. There are no plans to port the software renderers at this time. |
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| Accessing the command line to run mods or enable features. |
Method #1
You can edit the command line from the startup game options dialog (hold shift while launching the game). Note that using one of the drag & drop methods below will override any preference you may have set. The command line will appear dimmed out and italicized to indicate this, but your preference will not be overwritten (drag and drop is a one-time override).
Method #2
Drag & Drop a mod folder onto the game application. As mentioned above, this is a one-time override, and your command line preference will remain unchanged the next time the game is run. The game modification must be properly installed, and reside in the same directory as the game application for this to work.
Method #3
Create a plain-text file containing a single line with your command line arguments, then drag that text file onto the game application (use SimpleText, or a plain text editor like BBEdit - Do NOT use a Word Processor or a Rich Text editor like OSX's TextEdit!). The text file can then be double-clicked to start the game with those command line arguments from that point on.
Please see the "Important Notes about Hexen 2" section on the Home page about GLHexen mod compatibility. |
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| Changing the video resolution, colour depth and Sound quality. |
Launching the game while holding down the Command (Apple) key will bring up a "Game Options" dialog that allows you to edit startup settings.
You can also switch resolutions in-game via the "Video Settings" sub-menu, accessible from the "Options" menu. NOTE: Due to internal limitations, if you attempt to change the "Texture Quality" or "Monitor" setting while running a game, or while connected to a server, you will be asked to abort that game before proceeding. Changing the 'Color Depth' or 'Fullscreen' setting when running under MacOSX will also require the current game to be disconnected.
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| Does GLQuake work with the Mission Packs or Total Conversions like XMen? |
| Yes. The open source code contains all the modifications required to play both official mission packs (Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity). Popular total conversions such as XMen and MALICE are also know to function properly. |
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| Can I get rid of that dang 'Y/N' box when quitting? |
| After many requests, yes! Bring down the console, type confirmquit 0 and hit return. To re-enable the dialog set confirmquit 1. |
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| What's "Anisotropic Filtering" and how do I use it? |
| Anisotropic filtering can greatly reduce the 'smearing' of textures viewed at sharp angles or in the distance. If your hardware supports this feature, you can set the gl_anisotropiclevel cvar to a value between 2 and 8 to control the amount of filtering (higher numbers result in better quality, but will result in lower framerates). Set gl_anisotropiclevel to 1 to disable it entirely. Note that the gl_anisotropiclevel setting is ignored on hardware that does not support this feature, and it is usually only available under MacOSX. |
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| Mouse Input and Controls: |
| I bind key 'X' in the customize menu, but it doesn't work! |
| Make sure that capslock is off when binding keys in the customize menu. The game distinguishes between 'X' and 'x' but only uses lowercase key events in-game. This allows the capslock and shift modifiers to be used as normal keys while playing. |
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| Why can't I "Mouselook" like in newer games? (Does not affect GLHexen 2) |
Most newer FPS games have a "mouselook" feature that's either off or on - not so in Quake. Mouselook is a modifier (only active when the mouselook key is down) it therefore requires a little hacking to keep mouselook on at all times.
The best way to do this is to create a plain-text file called "autoexec.cfg" containing the text "+mlook" (without the quotes) and place it in your "id1" folder. If you already have an "autoexec.cfg" file, simply add "+mlook" to the bottom and save.
Also make sure LookSpring and LookStrafe are set to OFF in the Options menu or you will get unexpected results.
Note that you should always put any and all custom startup settings in your "autoexec.cfg" and avoid editing the "config.cfg" generated by Quake. |
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| How do you turn off or increase the mouse smoothing? |
Use the "Mouse Filter" slider to the "Options" menu to affect the amount of smoothing applied to the mouse (extreme left is off, extreme right is full smoothing).
Power users can also modify the m_filtercutoff cvar, which sets the upper limit of the smoothing effect. Mouse movements greater than m_filtercutoff are not averaged, allowing for unencumbered fast movement while maintaining smooth motion when it's needed most. Changing m_filtercutoff from it's default value of 96 is only recommend for advanced users since it can have adverse affects if set too high, or too low. |
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| How do I release the mouse cursor when running the game in a window? |
The mouse cursor is automatically released when a menu is activated (hit the 'ESC' key to access the main menu). NOTE: The 'Customize' menu is an exception as it requires direct access to mouse buttons to properly bind game actions.
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| Why can't I use Apple-TAB to switch to other applications in Fullscreen mode? |
Although Apple-TAB is a 'standard' way to switch applications, it is not appropriate for fullscreen games. Both the Apple and TAB keys can be bound to in-game controls, and are therefore disabled to avoid accidental switching during gameplay. Apple-Q is also disabled for the same reason.
Apple-TAB & Apple-Q will work in windowed mode however, but the later only functions if the mouse cursor is visible (i.e. the system menus are accessible)
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| General Issues and Crashes: |
| Shows an OpenGL error and fails to start up. Mac OS 8/9 Only! |
| Make sure your monitor is NOT set to 256 colors and try again. If that fails, please see the Mac OS 8/9 notes in the Known Problems section below. |
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| Game occasionally pauses with hard drive activity. Mac OS 8/9 Only! |
This usually occurs in low memory situations that force the game to 'cache-on-demand' data on the fly. If you have less than 128MB of physical RAM, be sure to turn on virtual memory (set virtual memory to at least 128MB). Do not increase the application's default RAM allocation! OpenGL uses system memory to cache textures so increasing the default RAM allocation is usually a bad idea. If you have plenty of physical RAM (256MB or more), and are experiencing demand caching, feel free to bump up the application's RAM setting by 12MB or 16MB (this extra RAM can help when playing certain mods or total conversions, but is not usually necessary for unmodified games).
Users with lower-end systems or video cards with less than 8MB of VRAM should see dramatic framerate improvement by setting the "Color Depth" option to "Thousands" and the "Texture Quality" option to "16 bit". |
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| Screen "Flashes" continuously after enabling "Sync every frame". Mac OS 8/9 Only! |
| Try disabling then re-enabling "Sync every frame" until the problem clears up. |
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| Sound 'stutters'. |
| Try setting _snd_mixahead 0.2 in the console. This has been known to occur on older systems or with virtual memory running on heavily fragmented hard drives. |
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| Computer attempts to connect to the internet when launching the game. |
Turn off the "Connect automatically when starting TCP/IP applications" option in your Remote Access control panel for MacOS 8/9 or in the Network System Preference Pane on MacOS X.
IMPORTANT: This will affect all internet applications so if you require this auto-connect functionality elsewhere, do not turn it off!
NOTE: GLQuakeWorld will quit with an error if there is no active tcp/ip connection (this is intentional, as QuakeWorld is multiplayer only) |
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| 'Unexpectedly Quit' errors or messed up desktop on Quit with Voodoo cards. Mac OS 8/9 Only! |
| There seems to be a conflict with the freeware utility GlideHackLib, and later Voodoo drivers (v1.x) on some systems. Remove GlideHackLib from your extensions folder if it's present. Since GlideHack is a library, it's safer to put a copy of it into the same folder as the games you actually use it with rather than keeping it in the extensions folder. |
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Crash at startup with "PR_LoadStrings: couldn't load strings.txt" error
(Affects only international versions of GLHexen 2 & GLHexen 2 Mission Pack) |
| Some Hexen 2 CDs have multi-language support and the file 'strings.txt' may be named "stringse.txt", or "stringsf.txt" etc. Simply rename the one you'd like to use to "strings.txt" and place it in the "data1' folder for regular Hexen 2, or the "portals" folder for the mission pack. |
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Mac OS X Only!
Please read the "MacOSX Read Me (READ ME!)" file in 1.0x releases for MacOSX specific issues! MacOSX support is continuing to improve and evolve with every release, and as a result, features may be added, removed or altered on a release to release basis. |
| GLQuakeWorld encounters problems playing demos recorded with other QuakeWorld applications. (No fix known at this time) |
| Key repeat with multiple keys pressed simultaneously may not behave as expected (last key pressed may not be the key that's repeated) |
Mac OS 8/9 Only!
Some hardware reports invalid screen resolutions or refresh rates resulting in a black display when playing in fullscreen mode. Try setting your desktop to the desired resolution before launching the game as a workaround, or try display modes with different refresh rates until a mode that works is found. |
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