Quake III Arena

Quake III Arena

73 ratings
Quake III Arena - How to fix the Resolution, FOV, and FPS
By xX_RaptorSc0pez_Xx
This short, easy to follow guide will teach you how to fix the Resolution, FOV (field of view), and FPS (frames per second) in Quake III Arena in order to make it more enjoyable on modern monitors.
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Fixing the resolution
(Note that this will make your character model look weird in menus but the actual game will look totally normal).

Step 1
Go your Quake 3 installation folder (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 3 Arena) and open the “baseq3” folder. Then open the file named “q3config.cfg” with Notepad and press CTRL+F. In the search box search for “customheight” and press enter and you will find 2 lines:
seta r_customheight "1440"
seta r_customwidth "2560"
Change the values in the quotes after these lines to match your screen’s resolution. Mine is 2560x1440 so that is what I changed them to (as seen above).

Step 2
Just below these lines you will find another that says:
seta r_mode "3"
Make sure to change this value to “-1” so that the game will use the resolution you put in above.

Step 3
Make sure to press File→Save in order to save these changes.
Fixing the FOV (field of view)
In order to make the FOV look normal at your desired resolution you may need to change it.

Step 1
In the “q3config.cfg” file, CTRL+F and search for “cg_fov” to find the line:
seta cg_fov "110"
Change the value to change the FOV. I find 110 looks best to me personally.

Step 2
Make sure to press File→Save in order to save these changes.

Note: If in-game, you can also open the console and do /cg_fov 110 or whatever number you want to play around with the FOV in-game.
Setting your FPS (frames per second)
Step 1
In the “q3config.cfg” file, CTRL+F and search for “maxfps” to find the line:
seta com_maxfps "0"
Change the value to change your maximum FPS. Setting it to 0 will unlock the fps, making it so it will be as high as your PC can output.

Step 2
Make sure to press File→Save in order to save these changes.
Bonus Fix
This step is optional but since you are already changing stuff, I highly recommend doing it.

Step 1
In the “q3config.cfg” file, CTRL+F and search for “lightning” to find the line:
seta cg_trueLightning "1"
Make sure to set the value to 1. This makes it so the beam from the Lightning Gun follows the crosshair a lot more closely (like it does in Quake III: Team Arena), making it much easier to aim than it is leaving this value at it's default setting.

Step 2
Make sure to press File→Save in order to save these changes.

Hope this helps! :D

If you also play Team Arena you'll need to do these steps for it's config file aswell:
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2959316453
I also recommend checking out my other guide on how to get Upscaled Textures, an HD Main Menu/HUD, and HQ Sounds: https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2960682722
2 Comments
Anrvidhr 13 Aug @ 12:18pm 
Nice, possible to play then this on such resolution. But I wanted to record the game for my youtube channel, so regular cinematics disappear then, black screen I see during them, what also was recorded. And after some gaming, one mission, something malfunctioned trying to stop shadowplay recording and trying to quit from game (not sure what happened), that I needed to hit reset button on computer's case, as it was so busy that not responded. Probably Q3 Arena anyway needs some their developers adaptation, or maybe more settings need to set, like maybe compatibility for Windows, I don't know for sure. Possible to play it like this, but I wanted to record it under best user experience, what slightly missed, eg. cinematics. I also using 2560x1440 currently, but planning to switch on 4K or even higher. But anyway, nice guide, what works I think.
dogmobile 10 May, 2023 @ 4:17pm 
king :2016dig: