I just dug out a game I have not played in years because I am going to try and make it to a LAN party next weekend(I think). The game I am referring to is called Quake. Yes, it is rather old but the name was tossed around as a potential game to be played so I wanted to make sure I had it ready to work on my laptop, which I would be bringing, instead of my desktop. I recently got Windows 7 Professional installed on my desktop. It runs 32bit and my laptop runs 7 Ultimate in 64bit. I really doubt there will be much of any difference between the two in terms of playability. My recent games like Team Fortress 2 and slightly older ones like Freedom Force works fine on my laptop. Even Tron 2.0 from some years ago works great on my laptop.
Anyway, back to Quake. It installed fine using the installer that came with my original CD. I tried to get it running using GLQuake with no luck every which way I reconfigured the compatibility settings. Eventually after some digging I found ‘Fitzquake’. Since the source code for Quake was released some time back people have taken it upon themselves to update the code and make it playable on newer machines. After using that executable it started just fine. I was even able to pump the resolution to 1920×1080(1080p) which is HDTV standards. The game does look like crap now days compared to these new fangled ones but man, does Quake run fast as hell. Of course the reason it looks like crap is that the textures and overall technology running it is mostly from around the DOS era days before and just after the start of 3D accelerators. I played a few levels before I saved it and quit. I was a little surprised that I still remembered those levels pretty well. I would like to try multiplayer co-op one day just for fun. One of my oldest friends and I beat the game together many, many years ago. 🙂