Editing Getting Started

==Overview==
This is a quick-start guide to getting, installing, and actually running the game.

===Components===
Quake consists of three parts:
* A platform-specific Quake [[Engines|engine]], which is the program you run to actually play Quake.
* The platform-independent game data archives ''[[pak0.pak]]'' (required, contains the game code, main content and the levels of the first episode of the game) and ''[[pak1.pak]]'' (optional, contains the three later episodes as well as their monsters).
* The [[Quake Soundtrack|soundtrack]], which exists as audio tracks on the original Quake CD-ROM, which you can leave in your drive while you play. The soundtrack is optional. Modern engines usually support playing the soundtrack from files instead of the CD-ROM.

Therefore, a minimal installation of Quake consists of just ''pak0.pak'' and a single Quake engine.

There are many engines to choose from, each with different features and platform (hardware + operating system) requirements. The [[Engines|engines]] article discusses the options in more detail.

==Getting Quake==
You have several options for getting Quake.

The '''only''' legal way to get the required file ''pak0.pak'' is to get one of the official distributions. This will also give you at least one basic engine, and maybe also the soundtrack, and maybe also ''pak1.pak''. To get an official distribution, you can either buy a CD-ROM or commercial downloadable edition, or you can freely download the shareware edition. Either way, you can freely download and use alternative engines if you don't like or can't use whatever engines you get with the official distribution.

===Buy Quake on CD-ROM===
One way to get an official distribution of Quake is to buy it on CD-ROM, which will include at least one basic but well-tested engine, the soundtrack, and ''pak0.pak'' (and ''pak1.pak'', as long as you don't get a shareware CD).

Apart from rummaging your favourite market of used goods (flea market, friends, random online communities) you can get Quake CDs from these vendors:

*[http://www.amazon.com/QUAKE-Windows/dp/B000H1AGA6 Amazon.com: QUAKE: Windows: Video Games]
*[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Quake-II-III-PC/dp/B00005RW1V Ultimate Quake: Includes I,II and III (PC CD): Amazon.co.uk: PC & Video Games]
*[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atari-Replay-Quake-Jewel-Case/dp/B00004YNT4 Replay Quake (Jewel Case): Amazon.co.uk: PC & Video Games]
*[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atari-Replay-Quake-Box/dp/B00004YNT5 Replay Quake (Box): Amazon.co.uk: PC & Video Games]
*[http://video-games.shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQPlatformZPCQQ_dmptZVideoQ5fGamesQ5fGamesQQ_sopZ12?_nkw=quake+-%22quake+4%22+-%22quake+IV%22+-%22quake+3%22+-%22quake+2%22+-%22quake+II%22+-%22quake+III%22+-%22quake+wars%22+-etqw+-territory+-arena+-64+-saturn&_sacat=1249&_trksid=m270&_odkw=quake+-%22quake+4%22+-%22quake+IV%22+-%22quake+3%22+-%22quake+2%22+-%22quake+II%22+-%22quake+III%22+-%22quake+wars%22+-etqw+-territory+-arena+-64 Ebay] (don't forget to check your local branch)
*[http://www.idsoftware.com/games/quake/quake/index.php?game_section=buy id Software]

Be careful that you don't accidentally buy a shareware disc. The shareware edition is useful, but there's no need to pay for it; it's free to download. However, the soundtrack is on the shareware disc and isn't available elsewhere (legally), so if you did happen to get the wrong disc, at least you'd have gotten something for your money.

===Buy the Steam edition of Quake===
Since August 2007, an official release of the full/registered Quake has been available on Steam (steampowered.com). Steam is a vendor which allows you to pay to download a Win2K/XP/Vista edition of Quake which includes four official engines: WinQuake, QuakeWorld, GLQuake, and GLQuakeWorld. This edition does ''not'' include the soundtrack.
* [http://store.steampowered.com/app/2310/ Quake on Steam]

===Download the shareware edition of Quake===
Another way to get an official release of Quake is to download the shareware edition. The only restriction in this edition, besides no soundtrack, is you won't have access to the Episodes 2-4 portions of the original single-player game. Those require ''pak1.pak'', which you only get with the 'registered'/commercial edition.

* [ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake/quake106.zip quake106.zip] - Quake 1.06 shareware edition; contains ''resource.1'', which is an lh5 LZH-encoded archive (LHA) containing the actual game files, including ''ID1\pak0.pak''. The zip contains an installer program (''deice.exe'') for DOS/Win32 which unpacks the entire archive, and a script (''install.bat'') which runs the installer and then tries to launch the DOS Quake engine. If you can't/don't want to run these, use an lh5-compatible LHA extractor like [http://www2.nsknet.or.jp/~micco/english/lhmelt_e.htm LHmelting] to extract what you need from ''resource.1''. Some multi-format archivers/extractors may also work.

==Installing Quake==
All Quake and QuakeWorld installations work on the same principles. You just need to have a folder hierarchy like this:

* Quake root folder (e.g. ''C:\quake'')
** ''ID1'' subfolder (e.g. ''C:\quake\ID1'').

In the Quake root folder is where the [[Engines|engines]] live. It doesn't matter the folder's name is or where it exists on your file system. Engines can generally coexist in it.

In the ''ID1'' subfolder of the Quake root folder, you must have the file ''pak0.pak'' from the official Quake distribution (shareware or commercial, doesn't matter). Some engines (notably, the official GLQuake) may require the presence of ''pak1.pak'' from the non-shareware Quake distribution as well, but generally this file is optional. Case usually doesn't matter on Windows or DOS folder names, but on non-Windows systems, some engines expect the ''id1'' to be lowercase.

So, to summarize, '''installing Quake boils down to just getting an engine executable into a folder, and ''pak0.pak'' into an ''ID1'' subfolder.''' That's it.

===Windows===
{{todo|todo=move this to a separate article.}}

Original Quake CD-ROMs and the shareware version only come with a DOS/Win95/98/Me-only game engine which has no hardware-accelerated graphics rendering. Unless you have extremely old hardware (like from 1996 or earlier) requiring this engine, ignore it and start with [[Fitzquake]], which is a basic but widely compatible [[NetQuake]] engine with fast, high-quality OpenGL graphics.

You can install Quake wherever you want on your hard drive. C:\QUAKE_SW is the default suggested by the official installer (''install.bat'' and ''deice.exe''), but in examples here we'll use C:\quake.

All you need to play single-player is ''fitzquake.exe'' and ''ID1\pak0.pak'':
# Install C:\quake\ID1\pak0.pak (and the non-shareware edition's ''pak1.pak'', if you have it). See info above if you want to get ''pak0.pak'' from the shareware. If you just run the official installer, it will install this file along with several others you don't really need.
# Unzip the [[Fitzquake]] distribution into C:\quake.
# Run C:\quake\fitzquake.exe.

If this runs OK, you will probably want to continue using it for single-player games, although you can try experimenting with other [[Engines|engines]], which have different feature sets.

If you want to play multiplayer games, you'll want [http://ezquake.sourceforge.net/ ezQuake], a state-of-the-art QuakeWorld engine.

===DOS===
''TBD''
===Mac OS X===
''TBD''
===Mac OS Classic===
''TBD''
===Unix===
On Archlinux, several Quake engines are available in the [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ AUR]. At the time of writing this included [[DarkPlaces]], [[ezQuake]], [[Fitzquake]], [[FuhQuake]], [[QuakeSpasm]] and [[TyrQuake]].

* [http://www.mobygames.com/game/linux/quake-the-offering Quake: The Offering for Linux - MobyGames:]
* [http://www.quakeforge.net/ The QuakeForge Project]

====Installing from the original CDs====

If you own the original CDs, you can either install the games directly or create installable packages for Quake, both mission packs, as well as the corresponding soundtracks. You first need to install a program called [https://wiki.debian.org/Games/GameDataPackager game-data-packager], with the usual commands (sudo aptitude install game-data-packager for Debian).

Once this is done, packages can be created using the following commands (insert the appropriate CD first):
* game-data-packager quake --package quake-registered (for the original game)
* game-data-packager quake --package quake-armagon (for the first mission pack)
* game-data-packager quake --package quake-dissolution (for the second mission pack)

Similar commands exist for the soundtracks, which must be packaged separately:

* game-data-packager quake --package quake-registered-music (for the original game)
* game-data-packager quake --package quake-armagon-music (for the first mission pack)
* game-data-packager quake --package quake-dissolution-music (for the second mission pack)

See the program's help on options --target-format and --target-distro to customise the output format (deb, arch, rpm) or make it fit for a particular distribution. In general, game-data-packager quake --help will tell you everything that the program can do for quake, and game-data-packager (without any option) will list all supported games.