Quake3World

Hello everyone. I am having a very frustrating time with something that I hope someone here can help with.

I've had Quake 3 Arena installed on my computer (eMachines T3085 with an AMD Athlon XP 3000+, Windows XP HE, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, and an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU) for a while now. I've enjoyed playing it almost nightly to relax. I've had no issues with it, and keep it up-to-date w/ the patches.

I also got Quake 4 last year and installed that. That ran just fine as well, and I ran through the single player mode to the end. Then, I didn't play it for many many months (I did keep playing Q3A though).

Recently, I tried playing Quake 4 again, only to find out that, while I can hear it just fine, I can't see it. All I get is a white screen. So, I guess somewhere along the way my video setup (drivers?) got changed. Someone on the NVIDIA forum suggested that it may be the drivers, so I installed the most current drivers for my GeForce. After the first reboot my hard drive churned for a long time, and it took Zone Alarm forever to load. I tried playing Quake 4 again, but I still only got a white screen. I decided to reboot again.

This time, when I launched Quake 4, it worked!! Now, I can also SEE Quake 4 and play it just fine. So, I played for about 15 minutes. It was bliss (again).

Later, I went back to Quake 3 Arena to play DM online, but now all I get with that is a black screen! I can hear everything fine. I can't see this game at all now.

WTF?? I just can't seem to win at all here, and it's really getting to me. Is it such a difficult thing to want to be able to play Q4 AND Q3A on the same computer? what must I do to get both games to work (i.e. SEE them)?

I tried running glsetup on the Q3A CD, but I'm running WinXP, and that version is for 95/98 and won't run. Is there a version of glsetup for XP? Should I even try glsetup, or will that mess up Q4? I would hope that I don't have to rollback the drivers to play Q3A then reinstall the drivers to play Q4. Because that wouls really get on my nerves after a while....

Please help me. I'm about to really lose it here..........

Thanks in advance.

Is everything in your firewall configured correctly to allow Q3/Q4 internet access? The white screen sounds like the game is waiting for the response from the firewall to either allow or deny access.

You don't need to run the glsetup program because the nvidia drivers come with different, more updated opengl files.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, my firewall (Zone Alarm) is set up for both programs to have access to the internet, both as "access" and "server." The Zone Alarm "warning windows" have come up right over top of the Quake games before, so I don't think it's a window waiting for my input to allow access to the internet.

When I get the black screen, I can hear the noises of the main menu just fine. I can move my mouse over the menu items and it'll make the regular noise. The game is up and running. I just can't see anything.

And it's good to know I don't have to run glsetup.

Any other ideas?

even so, try disabling zone alarm completely to make sure it really isnt your firewall.
and by disable i mean quit