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In Quake, entity bounding box also doubles as entity's hitbox.  
 
In Quake, entity bounding box also doubles as entity's hitbox.  
  
It controls both physical behaviour of the entities (i.e. governs their movement and collisions) and also how player's weapons interact with the them (raycast damage tracing (from shotguns, thundergun), projectile collision (from nailgun nails, grenades and rockets), splash damage (from rockets and grenades) and environmental damage (from moving brushwork like doors, lifts and trains, and from environmental hazards like water, acid/slime and lava (for monsters only in some engines and mods)).  
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It controls both physical behaviour of the entities (i.e. governs their movement and collisions) and also how player's weapons interact with the them (raycast damage tracing (from shotguns, thundergun), projectile collision (from nailgun nails, grenades and rockets), splash damage (from rockets and greandes) and environmental damage (from moving brushwork like doors, lifts and trains, and from environmental hazards like water, acid/slime and lava (for monsters only in some engines and mods)).  
  
 
One of differentiating gameplay qualities of Quake is quite strong physicality of both the levels and the entity movement, giving levels and situations robust and realistic feeling.
 
One of differentiating gameplay qualities of Quake is quite strong physicality of both the levels and the entity movement, giving levels and situations robust and realistic feeling.
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General scenarios:
 
General scenarios:
* player is using vanilla Quake engines: Quake, QuakeWorld
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* player is using vanilla Quake engines: (Quake, QuakeWorld)
 
* player is using limit removing Quake port: FTEQW, Quakespasm Spiked ...
 
* player is using limit removing Quake port: FTEQW, Quakespasm Spiked ...
  
===Vanilla Quake===
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===Vanila Quake===
  
 
In vanilla game the map is stored in BSP29 format which was targeted at medium level Pentium chip (e.g. around 90 Mhz) with medium amount of system memory. As such, limitations imposed on maps are quite severe (at least by today's standards).
 
In vanilla game the map is stored in BSP29 format which was targeted at medium level Pentium chip (e.g. around 90 Mhz) with medium amount of system memory. As such, limitations imposed on maps are quite severe (at least by today's standards).
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Conclusion:
 
Conclusion:
* map size (hard limit, any axis): +/- 4000.0u
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* map size (hard limit, any axis): -4000.0u .. +4000.0u
 
* level of map detail: very low .. low (basically how original Quake episodes look)
 
* level of map detail: very low .. low (basically how original Quake episodes look)
  
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Few advanced Quake engine ports, especially limits removing ones like FTEQW and QSS, allow for much bigger maps due to implementing following important features:
 
Few advanced Quake engine ports, especially limits removing ones like FTEQW and QSS, allow for much bigger maps due to implementing following important features:
* [[BSP2|BSP2 format]]
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* BSP2 format
 
* new network protocols
 
* new network protocols
  
 
Storage format for map geometry is again float, but now both on disk and in-memory. This allows for practically unlimited level geometry sizes.
 
Storage format for map geometry is again float, but now both on disk and in-memory. This allows for practically unlimited level geometry sizes.
  
Map structure indexing is now using 32bit indexes, thus effectively removing any realistic limit on how detailed the map can be (32bit number allows for 4 billions of object slots of any kind). This means map can be very big and very detailed which meshes much better with modern sensibilities. Resource economy is less critical.
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Map structure indexing is now using 32bit indexes, thus effectively removing any realistic limit on how detailed the map can be (32bit number allows for 4billions of object slots of any kind). This means map can be very big and very detailed which meshes much better with modern sensibilities. Resource economy is less critical.
  
 
Networking code is now capable of using so called **bigcoords** extension whis uses new coordinate coding allowing full range of float movement.
 
Networking code is now capable of using so called **bigcoords** extension whis uses new coordinate coding allowing full range of float movement.
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As such, with BSP2 format, practical limits are much higher (virtually unlimited) and became much softer, and should one be nearing the maximums, it might lead to less obvious failures and bugs inside the engines.
 
As such, with BSP2 format, practical limits are much higher (virtually unlimited) and became much softer, and should one be nearing the maximums, it might lead to less obvious failures and bugs inside the engines.
  
So as long as one stays within reasonable bounds, anywhere between +/- 16 Ku ~ +/- 128 Ku, the engines are battle tested enough and will deal with any realistic map, but it is advised to not try to reach limits needlessly.
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So as long as one stays within reasonable bounds, anywhere between 16 Ku ~ 128 Ku, the engines are battle tested enough and will deal with any realistic map, but it is advised to not try to reach limits needlessly.
  
 
Keep in mind that many modern mods (and maps) use BSP2 format nowadays, and while not many of them are bigger than 8000u across, the playtimes often grow exponentionally as map volumes can now be filled with more brushes, thus more details, and thus more rooms and thus more paths between them, inflating the actual play experience considerably. It's not uncommon for new maps to be "size" of whole episode or even two of original game.
 
Keep in mind that many modern mods (and maps) use BSP2 format nowadays, and while not many of them are bigger than 8000u across, the playtimes often grow exponentionally as map volumes can now be filled with more brushes, thus more details, and thus more rooms and thus more paths between them, inflating the actual play experience considerably. It's not uncommon for new maps to be "size" of whole episode or even two of original game.
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Conclusion:
 
Conclusion:
 
* map size:
 
* map size:
** hard limit, qcvm imposed, any axis: +/- 4194304u
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** hard limit, qcvm imposed, any axis: +/-4194304u
** soft limits, reasonable, any axis: +/- 8000u, +/- 16000u , +/- 32000u , +/- 64000u
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** soft limits, reasonable, any axis: +/-8000u, +/-16000u , +/-32000u , +/-64000u
 
* level of map detail: medium - very high (examples arcane dimensions etc.)
 
* level of map detail: medium - very high (examples arcane dimensions etc.)
 
* bsp filesize on disk: anything > 256Mb can be considered insane
 
* bsp filesize on disk: anything > 256Mb can be considered insane

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