If you have ever played Quake Live on the steam account you're using, then it *is* in your steam library, it's just not shown due to the way steam handles free to play games, just go to the store page and hit the blue play now button on the page under the green line as shown below.



If for some reason you still don't see this, you can try entering:
into a web browser that has your steam client registered, logging into steam via the browser isn't necessary as it will start your steam client.



If you still had an active paid subscription on the day that the old launcher based client was shut down and the game officially moved to steam, but you had never played it on steam so did not get a free copy, then if you can prove this you should still be able to claim a free copy from Bethesda Quake Live Support on https://help.bethesda.net/app/ask/p/827/pf/PC

Any time you click on one of the tags in the browser it is added as a filter, clicking the tags in the filter list removes them again.

Click "Change filters" and check the filters are all clear and that Type: is set to Internet.
The default settings are:


As shown in the image above -
Type: Intenet
(Ticked) VAC Enabled
(Ticked) Hide Passworded Servers
(Unticked) Hide Empty Servers
(Unticked) Hide Full Servers
Maximum Ping: None
An empty black bar reading "Add a tag or map name" so no other text or red circles with x's under that, if there is anything there click it to remove it until it says "Add a tag or map name".
Final drop down reading 'Common tags'


If that doesn't help try https://ql.syncore.org/ to check the servers via a web browser without having to install anything or you can use the Gamespy3d/All Seeing Eye like program Steam Server Browser:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=543312745 (requires subscribing to the workshop to install)

With the game not running right click 'Quake Live' under your Steam library, select Properties then go to the Update tab, disable the Steam Cloud option. You must do this or the next steps would be overwritten with cloud backups as soon as you start the game.

Then rename, move to a different folder as a backup, or delete if you don't mind losing forever - "repconfig.cfg", "qzconfig.cfg" and if you have created one "autoexec.cfg" from

\Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\<Long number that is your SteamID here>\baseq3

And then when you start the game your config will be the default.

Delete the following (defaults given, your steam folder may be in a different location):

The folder
and the file

That will reset your workshop completely, which game verification won't do.

When you next start steam the workshop files will download again, if you use ExtraQL you will have to set it up again before starting the game or /steamnick will not work.

• If this is a problem in windowed mode try just alt-tab out of the client , and then resizing the window a tiny bit by dragging the edges or corners, that will make it pop out to it's minimum functional size and it should work from then, if not then try the other options here.
  
• Alt-enter switches between windowed mode and fullscreen, try that twice.
  
• Locate "quakelive_steam.exe" via properties on Quake Live in your Steam Library -> Local Files -> Browser Local Files. You might not see the '.exe' part depending on Operating System settings.
  
  Right click the file and select Properties, then move to the Compatability tab and tick the Override/Disable High DPI option (yours may appear differently as this image is from the Win10 Creators Update released April 5th 2017).
  
  
  
  In the April 2018 Windows 10 update this has changed a fair bit, you can leave everything unchecked if you make use of the new global override in the advanced scaling settings (shown further below):
  
  
  
  The advanced settings (global) are accessed by clicking the link on the option pane shown above, or via Windows Settings > System > Display > Advanced scaling settings:
  
  
  
  
• If you have an Nvidia GPU, under "Manage 3d settings" in the Nvidia control panel, on the General page you see first, make sure DSR Factors are all off so it's not rendering at a higher resolution than necessary.
  
  

This is commonly caused by one or more of the following:
1. Incompatible resolution for current display monitor (most common problem)

• Locate your config files, where <SteamID64> is a long number :
  STEAM:
  
  \Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\<SteamID64>\baseq3
  
  
  
• put
  
  seta r_windowedMode "8"
  seta r_fullscreen "0"
  seta r_displayrefresh "0"
  
  into an otherwise empty autoexec.cfg. That wil force it to a fairly basic resolution windowed mode so you are cutting res/refresh out of the problem entirely and should get into the game unless something else is critically wrong (driver missing).
  
  If autoexec.cfg doesn't exist to be then you will have to create one yourself, in case you have known file extensions hidden (windows default setting for Explorer unfortunately) it is best to just copy one of the .cfg files already in the folder, rename it autoexec.cfg, and then open it with a text editor (eg notepad++) and delete all lines within it then add the two shown above, this just ensures you don't create 'autoexec.cfg.txt' with windows hiding the .txt.
  
  
  
• if/when it does start check r_lastValidRenderer to see what it's using, if it says software, then again, you're missing openGL support in your gpu driver.

Start the game launcher and play.
If you have manually created by hand .cfg files or used the console command "/writeconfig autoexec" and do not want to remove your file, you will have to go through them and find and remove r_mode and r_displayrefresh settings
in qzconfig.cfg and any other cfg remove r_mode and r_windowedMode settings, or set them to -2 (for native desktop resolution)
If opening a file that already exists, you'll need a linux format capable text editor such as Wordpad (built into Windows), or notepad++ (free) , NOT the regular "Notepad" that comes with Windows as that will show a garbled file with no line breaks.
This should get you back in game where you can use the menus to select the resolution you want again.

If that fails please read the "How to Reset Config to Defaults" section and follow the instructions.

2. No OpenGL system installed, or corrupted
Please (re) install graphics drivers from your card manufacturer (eg ATI/Nvidia/Intel) and not from Windows Update as they do not contain the OpenGL ICD. This is very common after major windows updates such as the recent Windows 10 Creators Update.
3. Incompatible video card
QuakeLive requires an OpenGL capable graphics card, please see the System Requirements
4. OpenGL ICD crash
Please try rebooting your system

The most common causes for this have been changes with mouse drivers, or tools that change mouse DPI based on the program running. It is also really quite possible that even what may be perceived as fairly large changes to sensitivity may simply be either fatigue or recovery making you slower or faster, or even simply changes in server latency or the dodging patters of your opponents that are making you feel as if something is off when your turning circle has not in fact been changed.
Below is all that is needed to check for genuine changes in sensitivity if you are sure that is not the case.

• Check your mouse surface/mat is clean and free of lose particles
  
• Check your mouse sensor is free of particles/fine hair etc.
  
• Check your mouse settings are as you expect with your mouse driver
  
• Check any hardware DPI switch on the mouse,
  
• Check all of the settings in the game are as you expect

The relevant console variables that effect the feel of your mouse as you look around are (default values listed) :

sensitivity 4
m_pitch 0.022
m_yaw 0.022
m_cpi 0
cl_mouseAccel 0
cl_mouseAccelOffset 0
cl_mouseAccelPower 2
m_filter 0
cg_filter_angles 0

Kovaak's Sensitivity Matcher can be used to check that your turning circle is not changing within the game from one match to the next by reliably giving exact input for testing : https://github.com/KovaaK/SensitivityMatcher

• If you are running Windows 10 May 2019 Update (v1903) you may be finding QuakeLive closes almost instantly on start most of the time you attempt to start it.
  
  This will give the following fault in Windows Event Viewer
  
  Faulting application name: quakelive_steam.exe, version: 0.1.0.739, time stamp: 0x5751f20b Faulting module name: MSCTF.dll, version: 10.0.18362.1, time stamp: 0x4222293a Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x000775d2
  I reported this to Microsoft via the feedback app on April 11th and currently believe only they or potentially Valve can resolve this.
  Starting from the .EXE directly may be more reliable for you (Steam still needs to be running).
  Right click quakelive_steam.exe and in the compatibility tab you should disable "Fullscreen Optimizations" by ticking that option, and then you may get the game to start more reliably by setting Windows 8 compatibility mode, or setting it to run as Administrator.
  
  UPDATE: initial testing indicates this has been fixed for Win10 build 2004 (aka 20H1 from the Insider Release Preview Ring) this should be on general release to the public in a few days.
  
  
• Steam does sometimes have issues, and does maintenence regulalrly on Tuesday evenings that may cause interruptions, check https://steamstat.us/ and wait on the page until it has automatically refreshed once after a few seconds (counter at the base of the page) for correct information.
  
• Do check for the existance of "C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\<your SteamID64 here>\baseq3\error.log" and see if there are any clear error messages in it, such as "GLW_CreateWindow" mentioned below.
  
• If you just have a grey screen/crash on start, or the message: "GLW_CreateWindow:could not register window class" then see the section above on GLW_CreateWindow...
  
• Try locating Quake Live in your Steam library, right click it and select properties, 'LOCAL FILES' then "VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES".
  
• Try running the game as Administrator
  Locate "quakelive_steam.exe" (the .exe may be hidden by OS settings), right click, select "Run as administrator".
  
• Try following the tips in the Game starts but often crashes section below.
  
• New for 2023 - Check your cfg does NOT have vid_xpos 0, or vid_ypos 0, set them to any other value eg. both at 40. At 0 seems to often cause grey screen on start due to Windows new memory checks.

Paths in this guide assume Steam is installed to C:\Steam, if yours is not you will have to adjust the paths listed.

• You may want to disable Steam Settigns -> Shader Pre-Caching. Especially if using 3rd party security software.
  
• With the game not running, clear (delete) the folder C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\<Your SteamID here>\Cache
  
• With the game not running, clear (delete) the folder C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\<Your SteamID here>\Local Storage
  (This is very likely the problem if the file in Local Storage has reached hundreds of MB in size)
  
• With the game not running, disable Shader Pre-Chaching in Steam Settings -> Shader Pre-Caching, then remove the folder C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\steam_shader_cache
  
• In your Steam library right click the game and select properties, there you can temporarily add the Steam Launch Option "+set fs_skipWorkshop 1" (without quotes) to bypass all workshop files and see if they are causing your crashes. If that helps then remove the launch option or set it to 0, then try clearing your Steam Workshop files, see the section "How to Reset the Steam Workshop Content" in this guide.
  
• Check the QuakeLive 3d profile under "Manage 3d settings" -> "Program Settings" in Nvidia drivers, if there is no profile add the game, and check that Threaded Optimization is off as that's caused several problems before. Edit 2024: Even on an i9-13900K with an RTX 4090 Threaded Optimisation ON can cause 30FPS drops when there is a lot of fire such as Clan Arena round starts, it is just not compatible with Quake Live.
  
• Under "Manage 3d settings" in Nvidia control panel, on the General page you see first, make sure DSR Factors are off so it's not rendering at a high resolution than necessary and overloading your card perhaps.
  
• Make sure you are using the latest graphics drivers from your GPU Manufacturer, and not from windows update, windows update has been known to replace your drivers without you realising especially after major updates, and the windows update version is missing a vital component for opengl. You might notice this has happened if the control pannel for your graphics driver is missing a lot of settings you're used to as well.
  
• Uninstall your graphics card drivers, run Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)[www.wagnardsoft.com] in safe mode to clean up, then install the latest again.
  
• Try disabling any antivirus product for Quake Live specifically, especially 3rd party products such as bitdefender, kaspersky etc, they've often occasionally caused QL and other games problems with their updates. If that does not work, try disabling the antivirus completely temporarilly.
  
• Check your CPU and GPU temperatures with Open Hardware Monitor[openhardwaremonitor.org] CPU temperature arround 60 degrees C is fine, termperatures in the 70's and above are concerning and you should check your computer cooling is functioning as expected.
  Nvidia and ATI GPU's should be under 100 degres C, or they typically start downclocking to protect themselves at some temperature shortly after.
  
• Streaming software or any software that hooks into the game or adds overlays can hugely effect stability, OBS will often cause crashes, but also uninstalling Nvidia Geforce Experience seems to positively improve Quake Live's stability even if not actively using it for "Instant Replay" (also known as Shadowplay) or recording. Hot virtual keyboard is also known to cause problems/crashing.
  
• If the error "FS_FileForHandle: can't get FILE on zip file" is thrown on map load - make sure g_log is set to "" and not any other string or number.

• In the game console, or in an autoexec.cfg set :
  com_idleSleep 0
  r_primitives 2
  
• If your Windows Power Profile is set to 'Balanced' you are very likely to have frame rate performance issues in game as your CPU is not pushed by an old game it will mistakenly use power saving functions causing game stutter, you should set the profile to 'High Performance' instead at least when intending to play.
  
• If you have vsync enabled (graphics card driver settings for the game, check the game advanced menu, or via r_swapinterval 1 in the Quake console) then your frame rate can only ever be as high as your monitors current refresh rate, which on a laptop especially is typically only 60hz.
  
• Windows 10's last major update, the 'Creators Edition', introduced 'Gaming Mode' which actually causes poor performance problems in some cases.
  Disabling Gaming Mode for Quake, or entirely for the system has helped some with otherwise unexpected large FPS drops, it can also be an idea to disabled so called 'fullscreen optimisation' under properties -> compatibility on quakechampions.exe (quakelive_steam.exe for ql), this certainly helped gain FPS when web streaming some titles.
  
• Check the QuakeLive 3d profile under "Manage 3d settings" -> "Program Settings" in Nvidia drivers, if there is no profile add the game, and check that Threaded Optimisation is off as that's caused several problems before.
  
• Do make sure you don't have applications, especially games, that have not quit properly still running via Task Manager, if in doubt reboot your PC.
  
• Check the resolution you are running the game at, 1980x1080 and beyond require a very good graphics card to maintain the highest frame rates, and integrated laptop graphics usually cannot manage decent performance.
  
• Check post processing is disabled in the advanced menu options (or r_enablePostProcess 0;vid_restart), on older cards this can be rather demanding.
  
• If you are able to access the in game console check /r_lastValidRenderer it will state the graphics processor it is currently using, on multi-GPU systems (Nvidia Optimus or Intel HD systems) you may find this is not the one you expect it to be, so you need to find out how to force it to use the one you want.
  If you are unable to check the console, then after the game has exited open "qzconfig.cfg" and search for r_lastValidRenderer there.
  
• Under "Manage 3d settings" in Nvidia control panel, on the General page you see first, make sure DSR Factors are all off so it's not rendering at a high resolution than necessary.
  
• Make sure you are using the latest graphics drivers from your GPU Manufacturer, and not from windows update, windows update has been known to replace your drivers without you realising especially after major updates, and the windows update version is missing a vital component for opengl. You might notice this has happened if the control pannel for your graphics driver is missing a lot of settings you're used to as well.

You can mute individual players with
escape -> admin -> click a player, then click the toggle mute button
this mutes both their voice and their text chat.

You can mute all voice coms with the sound page in the menu, or
in the console

On many severs these days there is an admin bot known as 'minqlx' which often has pre-recorded ''fun'' sounds, you can toggle these on and off by typing the following into in-game chat, not the console :

• Steam does sometimes have issues, and does maintenence regulalrly on Tuesday evenings that may cause interruptions, check https://steamstat.us/ and wait on the page until it has automatically refreshed once after a few seconds (counter at the base of the page) for correct information.
  
• Try closing down Steam and and Steam games fully and checking Task Manager that they aren't still running in the bakground having failed to close properly and then try again.
  
• Try rebooting your PC
  
• Sometimes a PC's DNS or route information can be out of date and need to be reset, DNS issues prevent a system from being able to find the IP address of a domain name (such a quake.com), route info denotes a network path. Open an administrative elevated cmd.exe (hit start, type cmd.exe, hold ctrl+shift and hit enter, then allow cmd.exe through the authentication popup) and type:
  ipconfig /flushdns
  route -f
  (the latter *requires* a reboot to regain any internet access, and be sure to retain the spaces before the non alpha characters)
  
• Sometimes an ISP's DNS servers are at fault, you can try using free alternative DNS servers such as Google Open DNS by following Google's configuation instructions[developers.google.com]
  
• Try disabling antivirus/firewall temporarilly
  
• In game try
  \net_port 0
  \net_restart
  in the console, especially if more than one person is playing on your home network. The 0 will automatically select a free port for you.
  
• If your firewall is otherwise blocking all traffic, you may need to forward UDP 27000-27017
  
• For in game issues try the Network Debugging section below after the Steam error code list.

• k_EAuthSessionResponseOK = 0, // Steam has verified the user is online, the ticket is valid and ticket has not been reused.
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseUserNotConnectedToSteam = 1, // The user in question is not connected to steam
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseNoLicenseOrExpired = 2, // The license has expired.
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseVACBanned = 3, // The user is VAC banned for this game.
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseLoggedInElseWhere = 4, // The user account has logged in elsewhere and the session containing the game instance has been disconnected.
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseVACCheckTimedOut = 5, // VAC has been unable to perform anti-cheat checks on this user
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseAuthTicketCanceled = 6, // The ticket has been canceled by the issuer
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseAuthTicketInvalidAlreadyUsed = 7, // This ticket has already been used, it is not valid.
  
• k_EAuthSessionResponseAuthTicketInvalid = 8, // This ticket is not from a user instance currently connected to steam.
  
• Game Ban = 9 // The user has received a "Game Ban" by the developers.

Human readble names (except for err 9) taken from: https://github.com/teknogods/TeknoMW3/blob/master/steam_api_emu/SDK/EAuthSessionResponse.h

First of all now that Quake Live is on Steam, it's worth double checking Steam's status on https://steamstat.us/ espcially if your problem is on a Tuesday as they regularly perform servicing on that day, once the page is loaded wait for it to auto refresh itself once to get accurate information. If that's not the issue then -

Any interrupted connection or blips on netgraph (cg_lagometer 1) can be caused by something on your system, or outside of your system (ISP) causing a delay, or actually completely blocking your connection to the server for a time.

This can be faulty hardware (dying network card, any wifi connection), any internet using software (especially bittorent), malicious software (botnet infection), anyone who shares your internet in your home, oversubscribed lines on your street, ISP problems.

Checking the cvar cl_currentserveraddress will get you the server IP in game (you must do cl_currentserveraddress on a currently active server, if it's one you just left, make sure you get the FIRST ip that spits out and not the one labelled "default:" also do not put in the PORT (eg ":27017" ) just the first 4 sets of 3 digits) , run tracert in a cmd prompt on that IP (or even better download a tool like winmtr[winmtr.net] (FREE) or Ping Plotter Freeware[www.pingplotter.com], set trace delay to 1 second to best simulate quake traffic) to identify where along the route your problem is coming from.

For mac you could try http://support.moonpoint.com/os/os-x/homebrew/mtr.php (free command line tool installed with homebrew) or visualroute[www.visualroute.com] (limited free or commercial mac/pc)

There are 2 common scenarios in homes

COMPUTER ----> MODEM -----> INTERNET

In this scenario the first ping listed is to your modem, the second ping is the first hop outside your LAN and on the internet.

COMPUTER ----> ROUTER ----> MODEM ----> INTERNET

In this scenario the first ping is from your computer to your router, the second ping value is router to modem, so the 3rd value and any subsequent ones are outside your LAN and on the internet.

Any problems (high pings) from the internet side of your modem are ISP routing issues so it's not a problem with your own equipment, but something you have to try and convince your ISP to look into and solve, directly contact the router owner, or change ISP.

The first HOP after the modem is your local router (UBR if cable) and if this is struggling to respond quickly it tends to mean your street is oversubscribed by your ISP.

It's very worthwhile reading this despite it being an old post, even if you're not dealing with .DE : Martijn Schmidt from the i3D.net NOC on .DE routing[www.quakelive.com]

Also Level3 (backbone provider) on Routing Issues[blog.level3.com]

And if you want to understand more: Networking 101: Understanding Internet Routing and Peering[www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com]

More than one machine behind your router that wants to play at once?

In the quakelive console of each machine type

net_port 27977

(or 27963 etc, in the range 27000 to 27999) to change the port used for quakelive (every machine needs to be on a different port)
then

net_restart

Some poor quality routers (not always meaning cheap) lock up or have problems with TCP auto tuning, they don't like large TCP receive windows that vista/7 can allow, so you can try various options (in bold) to limit the size.

If your having problems with quake you can try one of these in an administrator level cmd prompt (start-&gt; type cmd, hold left ctrl+left shift then hit enter for admin prompt).

If it has no effect or makes things worse, then I recommend you reset it to the default.

(in order of restrictiveness) :

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled disable auto-tuning
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=highlyrestricted
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=restricted
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal this is the default
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=experimental allow super large windows, if your router has problems as it is, this would make it worse.

netsh interface tcp show global shows current state

In the game console :
in_joystick 0
in_restart

this will disable input from joysticks/joypads.

If you have font characters rendered on the screen, it could be a couple of things.

• If it looks like the below image
  
  Then set r_debugFontAtlas 0
  
  
  
• If it has no black background and covers more of the screen, then you need to disable the 3rd party software OverWolf.
  
  
• If neither option works, then reset your config files with the help of the "How to Reset Config to Defaults" section above

The Ultimate Quake Live Guide
Quake Live Linux Dedicated Server Install/Config
Uploading & Using Steam Workshop for QuakeLive

Lorfa's Console Guide[www.regurge.at]

All other steam Quake Live guides

This doesn't seem to happen for everyone, but sadly there is no permanent fix known at this time.

A temporary fix that has worked for some: the game must be running, and then go to recording devices, disable the device you use and then enable it again.

It is often still asked if com_hunkMegs should be raised by players with large amounts of memory, com_hunkMegs only controls the amount of memory reserved for game asset use, it only needs to be raised if a custom map that you are trying to load refuses to load due to lack of memory, this is really very rare however, especially since the default was already raised to 128 in the last releases of the game. There is zero benefit to having memory reserved sitting empty beyond the size of the maps you are playing.

Similarly com_soundMegs should only really need to be raised if many audio samples were being added to the game by mods you were using.

com_zoneMegs cannot be changed via cfg, as it is allocated prior to config loading. There should be no reason to attempt to change it.

If you often see small empty squares within in-game chat messages these are extra Unicode characters for which support in the game requires the "Universal Font" installation option from the installer of Microsoft Office 2010 and later. The font's licence is granted along with Office. It installs the "Arial Unicode MS regular" font, the filename being "arialuni.ttf".

If installing it manually by right clicking the ttf file, the option to "Install for all users" must be chosen from the list requiring administrator approval, otherwise the game does not pick it up.