What do the veterans recommend?

[Ranger]

What custom engine should I use? I mean what's good overall (appearence, UI, graphics)?

FPS/ system requirements isn't an issue.

[=peg=]

Well, if you are mostly into single-player games i'd say:
DarkPlaces, FitzQuake, DirectQ ( Windows only)

If on the other hand you spend most time playing online multi-player games:
oldskool: ProQuake
newskool: Qrack

If you also wanna be able to play QuakeWorld, these clients can do both:
DarkPlaces, Joequake, FTE

Yeah, I know, not really a single answer, but hey, It's all a matter of preference..

I'd still love to see one kick-ass do-it-all client one day.. some come close (DP/FTE) but currently none of em quite nail it (yet)

Btw, personally I use Proquake4 for online games and DirectQ for Single-Player games..

[badaim]

I use Joequake but most of the players use GLPro. Its all your preference on what engine your more comfortable playing. Try them all out..

[Ranger]

Which of these engines support fullbright textures/palette?

[Neil]

All of them?

And Qrack is my engine of choice.

[=peg=]

for glpro use gl_fullbright 1
for qrack use gl_fb_models 1 and gl_fb_bmodels 1
I think all the others render fullbrights correctly by default (although I'm not sure about joequake and FTE)

Mind you, in terms of faithfulness to the original quake by id, Fitzquake and DirectQ are the ones to go for..

[Phenom]

qrack

QRACK

[Baker]

If you also wanna be able to play QuakeWorld, these clients can do both:
DarkPlaces, Joequake, FTE

JoeQuake can't play Quakeworld

[=peg=]

Hmm, that's what I thought too, but sir Henry told me he used joe to play QW as well..
(in any case, I never tried to do so myself..)

[MH]

It's basically a case of try them all, find the ones that suit you best, and use them. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and each is best suited to a particular task.

Take QRack for example; lovely engine with lots of nice features and eyecandy, but current versions can't run huge maps. DarkPlaces has everything (with extra kitchen sink) but sometimes deviates from standard Quake behaviour. ProQuake is very finely tuned for multiplayer but you may find it lacking if you also do SP, Fitz is very trad-Quake but you may find yourself missing the eyecandy, the BJP engines are even more agressively trad (not even supporting full- or overbrights) and seem primarily positioned as mapping tools, which makes sense as the author also make some damn fine mapping tools.

My own engine (DirectQ) is the one I use (naturally) and does have huge map support (in spades - the next full release will get you 72 FPS on maps and scenes that normally drop others down to the 20s or lower), but it's also quite trad-Quake in appearance which you may not like (and it's short on multiplayer and server features which you may like even less).

If it was me and if I was in a position to be neutral I'd maybe pick Fitz and QRack as the primary engines, alternating between them depending on my mood, but keeping the others in reserve for when situations require them.

[Ranger]

Nice mhquake

Oh, I meant full bright textures like:
[see pic]


I've tried a couple GL based engines and they lack that;
those textures would appear dull and dim

[spooker]

I don't think that's what's generally meant by a full bright. I think full bright usually means when the player model is completely white. Some people think it's unfair because you can easily see them regardless of the background color.

[Magnus]

ProQuake I think is the most professional/competitive client.

Darkplaces is the most flashy client.

[Ranger]

What engines are these?

for the first pic, I know the bottom part is regular GL quake.

[golden_boy]

top in the first pic might be Fitz, the other pic might be Tenebrae.

Also, you should just go and try all engines. There is no best engine anyway.

It's not like it's a lot of effort to test them all.