Combining PAK files, mods, etc, and launching?

[Brimstone]

As I enjoy downloading and trying all the engines, textures, mods, SP maps, etc, that I can get my hands on, my Quake directory is filled with numerous subdirectories used by the game switch to launch.

I've heard of several who modify and combine their own PAK files. Would it be possible to combine or rename (in ascending) order to cut down on having so many subdirectories? It seems easy enough to do, but I think in the end, it would cause nothing but problems.

Secondly, for those like me, that have various campaigns or mods they play, how do you handle launching each one?

For me, I simply set up batch files that contain the commandline options and game switch for the particular engine that I'm using. Inside my Quake directory, it looks something like this...

Launch Qrack.bat
Launch Qrack Omicron.bat
Launch Qrack RA.bat
Launch Qrack BBelief.bat
Launch Joequake.bat
etc...

Is there a better way to it?

[R00k]

Or shortcuts on the desktop with different "-game" parameters.

example:

TARGET:

C:\quake\glQrack.exe -dinput -mem 64 -zone 1024 -bpp 32 -noforcemparms -refreshrate 100 -m_smooth -game ctf

[Spirit]

With Fitzquake you can change the mod ingame (as with Darkplaces).

[Brimstone]

Or shortcuts on the desktop with different "-game" parameters.

example:

TARGET:

C:\quake\glQrack.exe -dinput -mem 64 -zone 1024 -bpp 32 -noforcemparms -refreshrate 100 -m_smooth -game ctf

Sure, of course. It's a matter of preference, but I'd just prefer to keep the files in my Quake folder versus a bunch of shortcuts on the desktop.

With Fitzquake you can change the mod ingame (as with Darkplaces).

Excellent. I didn't know that was possible.

[Canadian*Sniper]

I've heard of several who modify and combine their own PAK files. Would it be possible to combine or rename (in ascending) order to cut down on having so many subdirectories? It seems easy enough to do, but I think in the end, it would cause nothing but problems.

If you just want to combine the sounds, models and maps into 1 PAK file then use PAKExplorer to extract all the files from all the PAK files then create a PAK file with all the files combined in the same PAK file. That's what I do.

But if these mods use a progs.dat, splash screen, etc then it may be a bad idea.