Quake engine

Quake engine
Developer(s)id Software, (John Carmack, Michael Abrash, John Cash)
Final release
1.09 / December 21, 1999; 24 years ago (1999-12-21)
Repositorygithub.com/id-Software/Quake
Written inC, Assembly (for software rendering & optimization)
PlatformDOS, AmigaOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Nintendo 64, Zeebo, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
PredecessorDoom engine
SuccessorQuake II engine, GoldSrc
LicenseGNU GPL-2.0-or-later
Websitewww.idsoftware.com Edit this on Wikidata
Ingame screenshot of the first-person shooter Nexuiz, running on a modified Quake engine

The Quake engine is the game engine developed by id Software to power their 1996 video game Quake. It featured true 3D real-time rendering. Since 1999, it has been licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.

After release, the Quake engine immediately forked. Much of the engine remained in Quake II and Quake III Arena. The Quake engine, like the Doom engine, used binary space partitioning (BSP) to optimise the world rendering. The Quake engine also used Gouraud shading for moving objects, and a static lightmap for non-moving objects.

Historically, the Quake engine has been treated as a separate engine from its successor, the Quake II engine. Although the codebases for Quake and Quake II were separate GPL releases,[1][2] both engines are now considered variants of id Tech 2.[3]

  1. ^ "Quake engine GPL release". GitHub. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  2. ^ "id Tech 2 GPL release". GitHub. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  3. ^ "id Tech 2 page". id Software. Archived from the original on September 17, 2008.