There are many bugs and oddities you might encounter when playing Quake. If you think that a certain one is missing below, please add it.

Quake returns to the operating system with an error message or does not even seem to start at all.

The game does not have enough memory allocated to load the map. This usually happens with very large maps. To be able to load it, the memory heap has to be increased manually by using the -heapsize # command line parameter when starting the game. For example: glquake.exe -heapsize 64000. For software rendered engines the commandline parameter is -mem # where # is the amount of RAM in megabytes, eg -mem 64.

Unless you are using a 3Dfx graphics card (you would know if you do so) this means that you should just go ahead and delete the file opengl32.dll from your Quake directory.

The engine tried to launch Quake in a resolution that your display does not support. Specify the video mode on the How to specify command line parameters or just use a modern client. Works best if you use the native resolution of your display.

Quake drops to the console with an error message.

Quake is a dark game. Not being able to see much is part of its atmosphere and you should keep it that way. If you are using one of the Recommended Quake Engines then you can use the brightness slider in the menu. If it does not have any effect, make sure to run the game with -bpp 32 in the How to specify command line parameters. Using the idgamma tool is not recommended.

You are using an ATI graphics chip? Add -bpp 32 to your commandline to force the engine to use 32 bit color depth.

Pass -no8bits as command line parameter or use a bugfixed engine.

See How to specify command line parameters.

• Fish are counted twice, so the monster number and kill statistic on the intermission screen will be wrong.
• Jumping monsters like fiends and dogs can get stuck on some architecture.
• Jumping monsters can deal a huge amount of damage or even instantly kill you if they land on your head. Keep your distance, Mario!
• You cannot look up or down straight in most source ports.
• Vores can damage themselves with their magic missiles.
• You cannot blow up fallen zombies.
• Grenades will be stuck if you fire them downwards onto a sloped floor.
• Falling down any more than 256 game units always takes 5 health points.
• Shamblers only take half the damage from rockets and grenades.
• It is possible to lose the episode runes upon returning to the start map.
• If you ride an elevator and a monster or another player jumps on your head, you will be squished quickly.
• In cooperative mode, weapon pickups do not trigger their targets, which sometimes breaks progression in custom maps.
• Sometimes maps, mods, or misc files do not have all lowercase filenames which keeps them from loading on case-sensitive operating systems.