first of all the UnFreeZe Game Servers are Quake III Arena game servers, unfortunately Quake III Arena is not a free game, therefor to play at these servers first you need to get yourself a copy of the game (buy it), don't worry nowadays a game like Quake III Arena ain't that expensive anymore. you have it at gog or steam for example usually (not always) at affordable prices, so check it out, I got mine at a discount just for a couple of bucks.
Quake III Arena on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2200/Quake_III_Arena/
Quake III Arena on gog: https://www.gog.com/game/quake_iii_arena
if you got the digital version it already comes in the latest official version 1.32b so right now you're just good to go and connect to the servers nothing more is required to play. if you didn't or you're old school cross version player, you'll need latest official Quake III Arena point release (patch) 1.32b version to play here. you can get yourself a copy of this patch to install it on the links down bellow just chose the appropriate one for your platform:
- Windows: https://ftp.fpsclassico.com/old/idstuff ... se_132.exe
- Linux: https://ftp.fpsclassico.com/old/idstuff ... -3.x86.run
- Mac: https://ftp.fpsclassico.com/old/idstuff ... 32.pkg.sit
after years of extensive use and testing a package containing all the necessary files (note: beside the Quake III Arena game itself obviously) has been published this May 2023. this package is expected to be a very stable version and, to the best of the public knowledge, bug free for the most part then please make sure to read the installation instructions so you don't mess it up (which seems to be the biggest source of errors so far). ok, without further redo the link for this package is as follows:
- ioQ3v6 UnFreeZe Client v23.5 package: ioq3v6-unfreeze-client-v23.5.zip
- fpsclasico client community edition: fpsclasico-client-community-edition.zip
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pak0.pk3
usual installation location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Quake III Arena\baseq3\pak0.pk3
usual gog location: C:\GOG Games\Quake III\baseq3\pak0.pk3
usual steam location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3\pak0.pk3
usual cd location: D:\Quake3\baseq3\pak0.pk3
file size: 479493658 bytes (457.28 MiB)
md5sum: 1197ca3df1e65f3c380f8abc10ca43bf
sha1sum: 9d588ea65e92944d3e23eeb6ec08f1dd666f4658
sha256sum: 7ce8b3910620cd50a09e4f1100f426e8c6180f68895d589f80e6bd95af54bcae
sha512sum: ac7b8a6c4a5e9a90d44ae3d4fb854473c5b80b7bf448c6ceaf5b48b69abc6be7a2a83eb4cc6b7dfa54e75d8273841786db14f4c6e8a2b0ecf5ffe27d6f657622
now a bit considerations to get it running on Windows is first that as can be seen on the attached screens (warning1, warning2) as I'm not a known software publisher (to Microsoft) is likely that you receive a security warning when running the executable for the first time. this is normal and can be skipped as shown in the screens (click on "More info" and then "Run anyway"). this security warning should only display for the very first time you run it. on successive start ups it should launch just fine and I believe that as the package gets some "reputation" (it gets used by various people basically) it should go away with the time altogether. secondly and no less important on Windows is that you disable "Enhance pointer precision" (aka windows mouse acceleration) as can be seen on the attached screen (mouse) for some solid mouse input (this is obviously crucial for the game). this is a well know "issue" (functionality) of Windows that interferes with games and it's something totally external to the files provided here. in addition the "binaries" provided here (the executable and the single player libraries) are self signed by me so if you want to verify their integrity as trusted software you're going to need to add my code signing certificate as trusted people. both files (the certificate as well as the shell command to add it to/remove it from the trusted store) are included under the cer folder on the package although remember that this is a extra unnecessary step and that that command needs to be run from a elevated prompt (i.e. as administrator) so don't get messed up.
on Linux on the other hand make sure to have installed all the needed library dependencies on your system and note that they're 32bit (typically "i686") versions of them. this typically include glibc, libX11, libXau, libXext, libXxf86dga, libXxf86vm, libxcb as well as have 32bit drivers for your graphic card (the open source mesa ones are typically libglvnd-glx and mesa-dri-drivers) and sound card (which typically output trough openal-soft which also generally depends itself on alsa-lib and alsa-plugins-pulseaudio). as noted sound will generally output though openal routines however whoever still prefers to keep using the original oss routines can do it by simply setting "\s_useopenal 0" and restarting the game and then following the old linux sound procedure ("modprobe snd-pcm-oss" and "echo 'ioq3v6 0 0 direct' > /proc/asound/card*/pcm*p/oss" plus setting snddevice to the appropriate /dev/dsp* device you wanna use in-game in a nutshell). finally in addition if you also need to get the necessary pak0.pk3 file to run the game from somewhere else but you got the steam version of the game you can even get it yourself with the Linux steamcmd tool (ex. ./steamcmd.sh +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows +login my_steam_user +force_install_dir quake3 +app_update 2200 validate +quit) and if you didn't got stuck at setting it up at some point you'll be good to go, no need to do any other thing.
a point of confusion here for some users about these linux instructions is that they refer to red-hat derivatives distributions. please note here that on debian based distributions the 32 bit architecture is generally refereed as i386 instead and it typically has to be enabled on your system via the "sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386" command in order to be able to install 32 bit packages. also the name of the packages there vary from the mentioned ones. for reference a typical dependency install command on a ubuntu 20.04 LTS system would probably be "sudo apt-get install libasound2:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 libc6:i386 libgl1:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxau6:i386 libxcb1:i386 libxext6:i386 libxxf86dga1:i386 libxxf86vm1:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libopenal1:i386" instead.
before proceeding further it's also important to note here (common to any system) that as with any high level application it's demanding on your computer resources (gpu as well as cpu) so in order to archive good results make sure to enable a "high performance" (or similar) power plan on your operative system (reference) as well as properly tune your graphic drivers as you see fit. this is a point typically overlooked and although for full size desktop computers is not usually the case this is a specially important point for any short of laptop/"portable" computer (which are pretty much the "norm"/trend nowadays). then please always make sure that your power plan isn't cutting your computer resources in order to save power and consequently always game with them plugged in to the wall when apply.
the provided ioQ3v6 UnFreeZe client full package is actually the recommended and only supported one thus I don't even think that it's necessary to link here all the individuals files but anyways just in case someone wanna take a look at what's inside or prefer to download/update only those files needed know that you can still access them at their corresponding ftp folder here. as can be seen there included there's Windows as well as Linux 32 bit builds and beside the generic/amd builds there's also an intel specific one (for Windows) as well as a "lowend" build with lesser cpu requirements that in practice it should run in about everything since the Windows Vista generation of computers (i.e. since about 2007) and a "legacy" one with even lesser cpu requirements. so give them a try and pick up the most appropriate and the one that runs best on your system. in addition notice that this release include some basic single payers libraries, these are the qagame something files you have under your unfreeze folder, you need to install those ones too in order for the single player/local server to work.
now here there used to be a (non comprehensive) list of features/improvements on these files however I don't think that post such stuff applies/makes sense anymore. I believe that probably the best description for the actual files at the moment is simply of an Quake III Arena 2023 unofficial patch/version specific for this particular use. I think that that's basically the most appropriate definition and what suits best these packages and post. for the most part I believe that everything (i.e. the large majority of things) should just work as-is and probably it's just better to leave it to public discussion on the forum when some specific thing doesn't or when someone else want some more info about something in particular. therefore, I'll just leave this description here and then I will write on what follows about the most remarkable/notable characteristic/settings you should be aware of, this is, a mini-how to use it, which I think that it's much more useful than a meaningless list of changes/"features".
to start with, the credits for these packages goes like this, Neil “haste” Toronto for the unlagged code, Darrell "Doolittle" Bircsak for the freeze code and notably the "ioquake3" project for several code patches and the "OpenArena" project for a bunch of features and code reference as well as obviously "me", adminless, for working out everything together and "finish" it without forgetting you all, the end-users on this forum, for the valuable feedback and testing everything out. so, now let's move on into the business, although these files will probably be compatible with many/most other Quake III Arena mods/engines/files it's been already a while since such compatibility it's no longer assured/a design goal and it's even expected that it differs more with each time. I believe that by now these files should be already stable and good enough as to truly work independently without the need to rely on other third party files and that therefor work out such scenario it's simply a waste of time and consequently of quality.
that being said, by now this should still be 99% or more at least compatible with other files, probably the only thing to note so far is that the embedded video mode sets have been updated to that of more recent popular screen resolutions from the already decades old default mode sets in the original Quake III Arena that were totally outdated by any 2010+ standards, so keep that in mind when re-using/setting a new mode set once in-game, they changed. for reference here you have the full list of the embedded mode sets in this release:
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Mode 0: 512x384 (4:3)
Mode 1: 640x360 (16:9)
Mode 2: 640x480 (4:3)
Mode 3: 768x576 (4:3)
Mode 4: 800x600 (4:3)
Mode 5: 854x480 (wide)
Mode 6: 960x540 (16:9)
Mode 7: 1024x576 (16:9)
Mode 8: 1024x768 (4:3)
Mode 9: 1152x864 (4:3)
Mode 10: 1280x720 (16:9)
Mode 11: 1280x800 (16:10)
Mode 12: 1280x1024 (5:4)
Mode 13: 1360x768 (wide)
Mode 14: 1400x1050 (4:3)
Mode 15: 1440x900 (16:10)
Mode 16: 1600x900 (16:9)
Mode 17: 1600x1200 (4:3)
Mode 18: 1680x1050 (16:10)
Mode 19: 1920x1080 (16:9)
Mode 20: 1920x1200 (16:10)
Mode 21: 2048x1536 (4:3)
Mode 22: 2560x1080 (ultra)
Mode 23: 2560x1440 (16:9)
Mode 24: 2560x1600 (16:10)
Mode 25: 2560x2048 (5:4)
Mode 26: 3200x1800 (16:9)
Mode 27: 3440x1440 (ultra)
Mode 28: 3840x2160 (16:9)
in addition regarding these video mode settings it's to note that on these releases the default game resolution has been made 1280x720 (standard hd), this is r_mode 10. Standard HD rather than FullHD (1920x1080) was choosen since as hinted before FullHD isn't always the best option, specially on laptops, where many of them doesn't even have a FullHD display just to start with. millage with FullHD settings will greatly vary from computer to computer so it's really up to you to determine whether it's really worth or not to run the game at FullHD as well as at any other resolution of your interest of course. as a general generic rule of thumb I think that for other than "recent" (2013+) full size desktop pcs or high end gaming grade laptops most people should still do better running the game just at (s)HD instead (i.e. virtually any 2007+ computer).
and basically that should be it about core settings. just know that such settings come pre-optimized for this particular use already and that sure while I won't deny that it's probably still possible to chug some more from them (it will always be no matter what btw) any potential gain/improvement is gonna be pretty much marginal and mostly irrelevant overall by any 2020+ standards and it comes at the risk of hitting some rare issue by trying to go much further. so do as you please of course but I think that you'll probably do better just by taking my advice and not wasting your time without sense.
coming to the game settings themselves, there's mainly two "tiers" in a nutshell here, the "standard" (a.k.a. the default) settings and the "hardcore" (a.k.a. the "lowend") settings. as hinted by the name the game comes pre-configured already with "standard" settings so there's really no need to do anything else anymore, the game should provide adequate settings "for general use" just out of the box. the only point of attention at the "standard" (default) settings to remark here is probably the cg_forceskin game client variable that controls whether to force enemy skins to green color (value 1 and active by default) or not (value 0) and leave them as "red"/"blue" (yellow/cyan here) as that could play a part on maps where there's a predominant green background texture (rare but happens sometimes, ex. q3dm11). for the rest I think that it's pretty much what most players should expect and need from the game then I don't think that you should need to make any major adjustments over them.
as mentioned in addition to these "standard" game settings the mod also comes with a pre-defined set of "hardcore" settings if not equal at least very similar to those of the most "hardcore" players. for easiness of use to make these settings easily accessible to all the players you can simply access these settings by issuing a "\exec hardcore" command at your console. know that if these are just too much (or they aren't simply that much of a deal to you) you can just go back to the "standard" settings by issuing a "\exec standard" command on your console or simply by resetting your settings from the in-game main menu options at any time. nevertheless, don't get mislead by this, probably as a general generic recommendation for other than lowend computers (i.e. atoms/netbooks/embedded micro-computers) where the hardcore settings do really bring a noticeable performance gain (probably a +10% or even more) or "hardcore" (competitive alike) players looking forward to maximize to the highest their performance, the "standard" settings are probably still the recommended ones and what will "work" best for the "usual" player with the "usual" actual hardware.
I don't think it's necessary/makes sense to make of this post a in-depth game configuration guide (that already exists as pointed at the end of this post), so don't take this post as one, this post it's just some sort of online "documentation" (basic guide) for the provided files. however, that being said I believe that it's important to drop here at least the most significant settings involved in these "hardcore" settings at least for reference. notice that probably for changes on some of the following settings to take effect it's likely that it requires some sort of "restart" like a "\vid_restart" or a "\snd_restart". ok, then the things that you should probably want to look for when using these settings are as follow:
- cg_centertime: how long (in seconds) messages on the center of the screen will be displayed (standard: 3, hardcore: 0)
- cg_crosshairhealth: controls whether the crosshair will change color depending on your health status (standard: 1) or not (hardcore: 0)
- cg_croshaircolor: when cg_crosshairhealth is disabled (0) selects the crosshair color (according to q3 color codes, default 6, magenta)
- cg_drawfriend: 2 will allow for selecting of the friend mark color
- cg_friendmarkcolor: when cg_drawfriend is 2 selects the friend mark color (according to q3 color codes) or automatically with 0
- cg_frozenfriendmark: 1 selects a different mark for frozen teammates, 0 (default) selects the same mark for all the teammates
- cg_forcemodel: 2 and 3 (default) will force enemy and team/enemy models respectively
- enemy_model: when cg_forcemodel is 2 or 3 selects the enemy model to force (default: keel)
- enemy_headmodel: when cg_forcemodel is 2 or 3 selects the enemy headmodel to force (default: keel)
- cg_lgrcore: switches between the standard lightning gun (0) and a "hardcore" custom one (1)
- cg_markstime: controls how long (in msecs) weapon impacts marks stay (standard: 0, i.e. no marks, hardcore: 2700)
- cg_noexplosions: 1 (hardcore) disable weapon explosions (standard: 0, i.e. explosions enabled)
- cg_nofragmessage: 1 (hardcore) disable the frag message (standard: 0, i.e. frag message enabled)
- cg_weaponselecttime: how long in (in seconds) the weapon select pop-up will display (standard: 2.1, hardcore: -1, i.e. won't display)
- g_baseq3: canon vq3/single player/default 1. training/UnFreeZe 0, it gives the slightly modified UnFreeZe ruleset that you see at the servers.
- g_ra3: canon vq3/single player/default 0. training/UnFreeZe 1, it gives Rocket Arena 3 alike ruleset (i.e. allows for rocket jump).
- dmflags: canon vq3/single player/default 0. training/UnFreeZe 8, it disables falling damage.
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\setu teamoverlay2 ""
\cg_drawteamoverlay 1
\teamoverlay2 1
- High-Resolution Textures: xcsv_hires.zip
- ffmpeg (5.1.x):
- Windows: ffmpeg-5.1.2-essentials_build.zip
- Linux: ffmpeg-5.1.1-amd64-static.tar.xz
disclaimer: this software is covered by GPL licenses and is provided as is without any kind of warranty.
- ioQ3v6 UnFreeZe Client source codes: https://ftp.fpsclassico.com/ioq3v6-unfr ... .5/source/
- fpsclasico signing certificate: https://ftp.fpsclassico.com/ioq3v6-unfr ... v23.5/cer/
- fpsclasico client source codes: https://ftp.fpsclassico.com/ioquake3/source/