In a series of articles I will try to explain as much about Quake 4 as possible, from the very beginning till the end. First I will start off describing how to install the game and how to obtain all needed components to play the game.

After that there will be several guides on tweaking, weapons, gametypes, maps and tournament play. The first part of this guide will be about installing Quake 4 and the other needed components.

Requirements

Before you can install everything necessary to play Quake 4 in tournaments or on public servers, you will first need to make sure you have the required components.

Quake 4

First of all you will need the Quake 4 CD's or DVD and the newest Quake 4 patch.

This patch can be downloaded from several sites, but to keep this guide simple I will use the Id Software website as an example.

Browse to http://www.idsoftware.com . At the top right of the frontpage you will see the Quake 4 logo with the text "Quake 4 1.3 Point Release (win32 full)" (The version could be different since new updates might be released). Click this link after which you will be taken to the filefront download website. Click "Download now" to start downloading the Quake 4 patch.

Installation

Quake 4

Once you put your Quake 4 CD 1 or DVD into the CD/DVD drive it will start automatically by default. From the Quake 4 autoplay screen select "Install". The autoplay screen will close and the installer will open.

Choose your preferred language for the installation and click "Ok", after which Quake 4 will ask you for your cdkey. This can be found on the back of the Quake 4 book that came with the CD's or DVD. If the entered key is valid, Quake 4 will continue the installation and ask for you to agree with their license.

If you are asked to install punkbuster, choose "Yes" and accept the punkbuster license. Quake 4 will ask you where to install the game, since I have a games disk I install my Quake 4 to "D:/Quake 4", but you can choose to install Quake 4 at any location you wish. Hit "Next" 3 times and the installation will start. This can take a while and depending if you have CD's, you might have to insert the other CD's that came with your Quake 4.

It will ask you if you want to create a shortcut on the desktop and register the game, which is entirely up to you. After that it will ask if you want to install DirectX. If you have not yet installed DirectX you can do that now, if you are not sure just choose "Yes". After that click "Next" and "Finish" and the installation of Quake 4 is completed.

Quake 4 Point Release

Now it is time to update the version of Quake 4 to the newest one available. Run the downloaded patch, in my case "Quake4_1_3_Patch.exe", choose your language, accept the license and choose your Quake 4 directory (it should have selected this already). Click "Next", wait for the installation to finish and click "Finish". Your Quake 4 is now up to date!

We are now ready to start Quake 4 for the first time! Open Quake 4 and after all the intro movies you should see the main menu.

To check if the patch is correctly installed, pull down the console by hitting CTRL+ALT+~ (CTRL+ALT+`) and the console should come down. To make this easier the next time we need the console, type "set com_allowconsole 1" in the console and hit enter.

At the bottom right of the console you can find the version of your Quake 4, which should be in my case 1.3.

The next article will be about the basics of Quake 4, the arsenal and gametypes are up first.