Software Update: Quake 3 Arena Source Code 1.32

Game developer id Software has released the source code of Quake 3 Arena 1.32. The code is via this page from FileShack’s servers and weighs approximately 5.46 megabytes. id Software didn’t include textures and maps in the source code, but did include an editor called Q3Radiant that allows you to create and modify Quake 3 levels. Most of Q3A’s source code is published under the GPL license, but a few third-party libraries are subject to different terms. In this text file lists which files are not covered by the GPL license. The same document also contains global notes from id Software, specific notes are included in the download. John Carmack, co-owner and lead developer of id Software, lets in a reaction know the following about ‘his’ code:

Personally, I think the Q3 code is pretty clean on the whole. It was a commercial product done under time pressure, so it isn’t a polished gem, but I consider it good.

Anyone working on the Q3 codebase today should just delete all the asm code and use the C implementations. Making a commercial game with fairly high end requirements go 10% faster is sometimes worth writing some asm code, but years later when the frame rate pressure is essentially gone, the asm code should just be dumped in the name of maintainability. All the comments in the world wouldn’t change this decision a bit.