GLQuake, by default, eliminates pixels from the textures but also causes those textures to appear less detailed. Some changes to the graphics are rather controversial and cause some players to have a preference for the software-based engines such as the vanilla game and WinQuake. This source port also allows for 32 bit color and resolutions up to a maximum of 2560x1440, though unlike WinQuake they cannot be changed in-game and thus must be added on the shortcut's target line. This means that some of the graphical improvements require the user to manually activate them. Some of the changes such as transparent water, reflective surfaces (the most buggy, this often causes sound problems), and shadows (can be unstable at times), were in the testing stage when the final version was released. This source port, unlike WinQuake, doesn't focus on preserving the original look of the game and instead tries to improve upon the graphics of the vanilla game. For modern users this engine is also more stable than WinQuake, which often has color problems until the screen is flashed (either manually or by picking up Ammo or a Powerup), and the vanilla engine which requires a DOS-based emulator such as DOSBox. Using that specialized hardware and OpenGL, GLQuake allows for many processes to be faster. Though slightly older than WinQuake and the first source port created, it is the only official rendition of Quake that is fully hardware accelerated. Unofficial versions have been released ever since to add new features such as fog as well as fix glitches to the original game. The game's version number under GLQuake is shown as 1.09, whereas the port's latest internal version number is 0.97 (0.98 was stopped in the Alpha stage). GLQuake is responsible for almost every unofficial modern source port.

With the edits made to the game, they carefully corrected many of the issues found in the original DOS version, which was known to have some framerate stuttering, albeit not to the point that would make the game unplayable. It was created as a test for Quake 2's hardware support.

It was officially made by Id Software, but is not supported by them. GLQuake is a source port of Quake that uses the OpenGL graphics library, and was released on January 22, 1997.

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