nv1Quake
v0.10 — Quake on the NVIDIA NV1 — Free, with source
GLQuake, ported to the NVIDIA NV1 / Diamond Edge 3D — the 1995 accelerator with no depth buffer, no triangles, and a CPU that streams every texel to the chip. It draws quadratic patches instead, and everything in this renderer follows from that.
Three builds: a software-emulated one that runs on a modern Windows PC, and two for real NV1 hardware — Windows 95 and DOS.
💖 A community experiment, made with love
nv1Quake is a community experiment created by passionate fans of id Software and NVIDIA. These applications were created out of love and curiosity. If either company asks us to remove them, we will comply immediately.
This is an unofficial project. It is not made or endorsed by id Software or NVIDIA. "Quake" is a trademark of id Software. No Quake game data is included — you need your own copy of Quake.
✦ Downloads
🖥️
Windows 10 / 11 — emulated
The NV1 chip emulated in software, so you can see what it drew without owning one. Runs on any modern Windows PC.
⬇ Download (2.7 MB)SHA-256 a591286f0f2e93be97fc7cba35df5d34b28abf22ba7c04cb654af22c364f555b
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Windows 95 — real NV1
For a Diamond Edge 3D / NV1 card with the NVIDIA Windows 95 driver. Not yet run on real hardware.
⬇ Download (0.5 MB)SHA-256 0c12a944a7eeca8080451184c3383d8610027655a41b5ffd12d2f6ba42a3f35f
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DOS — real NV1
A genuine MS-DOS installer and DOS/4GW build for the NV1 and NVIDIA's DOS resource manager. No sound. Not yet run on real hardware.
⬇ Download (0.9 MB)SHA-256 7c4bc30cf10c6942fa5f0b36d905ad8176e2770a4b92bb17dc38cc4e36c366dc
Source code: NV1Quake-0.10-source.zip (2.5 MB, SHA-256 18f1824a8edca91a13134ce5ac2bb374d4c89f2f2268cfee8fd295a25d2f21cd) — or on GitHub. nv1Quake is derived from id Software's GPL Quake source release and is licensed under the GNU General Public License.
✦ What You Need
Your own copy of Quake
The installers contain no game data. Copy PAK0.PAK (and PAK1.PAK for the full game) from your own Quake into the id1 folder. Quake's data stays copyrighted by id Software.
For the real-hardware builds
An NV1 card (Diamond Edge 3D, STG2000) and NVIDIA's driver and resource manager. Use -vidmem 2 on an Edge 3D 2200 with its expansion modules. The 650,000 texels a frame it asks for is a lot for a period CPU, so start with nv1_subdiv 0.5.
✦ Where It's At
- The emulated build is playable, around 22 fps on
demo1at 640x400. - The Windows 95 and DOS builds link NVIDIA's real libraries and are correctly formed, but have never been run on a real NV1.
- Known issues: the first-person weapon models still look wrong, textures warp as you move (partly authentic NV1 behaviour), water is opaque, and the hardware sound path has never run.
✦ Thank You
Huge thanks to everyone at id Software for Quake, and for releasing the source; to NVIDIA for the NV1 and an SDK with enough in it to work out how the chip really behaves; to the Quake community and the retro gaming community for keeping all of this alive; and to Carcenomy for buying an NV1 — which is what inspired these builds in the first place.