Fitzquake and Darkplaces should both work on a clean install of quake.

For Fitzquake, all you really need is three files:
/quake/fitzquake.exe
/quake/id1/pak0.pak
/quake/id1/pak1.pak

I'm sure darkplaces is similar, except darkplaces might come with its own dlls.

As for the gfx.wad, this can happen if you launch with a .bat file from a directory other than the quake dir:

Incorrect:
c:\quake\fitzquake

Correct:
cd c:\quake
fitzquake

If it's a shortcut, make sure the "starting directory" is your quake directory. 

11111!!!!! 

I think what you meant to say was:

OMG
!!!!!11111 

did you buy Company of Heroes yet? I fancy a game against you, I gotta get you back for all that ownage you gave me in dawn of war! =) 

I'm free for an ass-kicking in CoH. Come back to #tf, please. We miss you. 

Installed only the pak files to C:\Darkplaces, C:\Quake Darkplaces, C:\QUAKE and still got the same effect. the game stutters so bad I cant even play it. I Cant adjust the options ingame (If this is the problem)Cuz It takes three minutes to shut the damn thing down and try again, Toggling options is impossible.

*that is how bad it stutters. 

c:\WHAT\EVER\PATH\engine.exe
c:\WHAT\EVER\PATH\id1\pak0.pak
c:\WHAT\EVER\PATH\id1\pak1.pak 

on all attempts they were in id1 

it sounds like Dark Places is starting out with the real time lighting option on. You'll need to go to the graphics menu and change the setting
option labeled rt_world from on to off. Once the rt_lights are off, Dark Places will function pretty well for any graphic card. Yeap, it will take about three to five minutes just to get to that menu unless you have a blazing fast video card.:( 

That sounds like when I tried running a GL engine with a Glide Wrapper on my old ATI Mach 64 once... 

graphics card? Lemme guess it's some cheap ati? 

Turned off rt everything, decreased the screensize to a tiny little box, Then it ran with improvements. But thats no way to play the game!!

Do I just need a better video card? Im running it on a 2002 dell. I dont even have a Ati, just whatever came with this computer. 

check the video card in control panel, display devices.

no way to help you without havin some more info unfortuantely. 

Its very odd, I mean I could run darkplaces / fitzquake in 1024x768 just fine on my old geforce 3 what 4 years (??) ago. The only thing I can think of is to re-install your graphics card drivers, check that you dont have other programs running in the background, etc. 

Well, since they decided to fuck up the default config and not give the possibility to make it right in the menu, you have to resort to config editing. Here's how you fix it back to usable:

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/firefox-2/geek-to-live-top-firefox-2-config-tweaks-209941.php 

it's sometimes hard to find what embedded graphics you have.. you could try with sisoft sandra or some debugger memory print hacks or just looking at the motherboard.

Perhaps you don't have good opengl drivers for it?

Did the computer come with a manual or some driver cd? That could help too. 

This is just a heads-up for those of you that have orderd Dark Messiah of Might & Magic on STEAM.

Once the game has fully preloaded, right click on it go properties and then click on the "local files" tab and then click the "verify integrity of the game cache" button.

The reason is that the pre-load is missing sound files from the game which results in most spoken dialogue being replaced by an awful white noise that will destroy your playing experience and also your ears too...

Verifying the game cache takes 20-30 minutes and then steam will download all files that were missing and you will be good to go.

On the game itself, I've only played the tutorial mission and about 10 minutes of the game proper, so far so good, cant really comment on the gameplay yet because its mostly scripted stuff so far =) 

White noise....

Von and I will like that :) 

if you can comment more on it when you've had the chance to play, i'd appreciate it :) 

Intel (r) 82815 graphics controller.

As for a manual or a driver cd, the computer was given to me. Dont get me wrong, it has a pentium III. Its not a piece of junk. Its fairly new, so I cant uderstand why quake wont run darkplaces. I agree, it should! 

my gateway thingy uses the 82845 chipset, and i had a hard time running fitzquake at high quality settings. darkplaces ran like a disco strobe until the rt lighting was turned off.
..you need a gfx card 

try to run in software... i don't know which clients have software mode. Maybe joequake.
For starters you could just try fuhquake (quakeworld), it's very compatible. 

"Dont get me wrong, it has a pentium III. Its not a piece of junk. Its fairly new, so I cant uderstand why quake wont run darkplaces."

Does... Not... Compute 

So Im upto chapter 5-ish now, heres what I think so far:

The game design seems to jump from great to mediocre from map to map, there are some great set pieces and combat areas followed by some dumb chase sequence or a "proetect the NPC with 5hp" situations that get frustrating quickly, but on the whole so far it has been very enjoyable and I can overlook some poor segments as the good parts overshadow them well.

Combat is very good and feels meaty, if you've played the demo you know what to expect, the full game adds a lot more weapons, spells and bow types which all have their own special abilities and combos. The RPG element shows through in the weapons as the more powerful ones require skill points placed in certain skills in order to use them.

Ahh yes the skill system, well you are given skill points for completing mission objectives and finding secrets and completing side areas which you can then spend on upgrading a variety of your characters skills. These are set into 3 basic categories, Warrior skills, Assassin skills and magic skills. Putting more points in to warrior skills can earn you more HP, different combo attacks, increased weapon damage etc. Assassin skills can let you walk undetected, allows you to backstab enemies that have no detected you, and all kinds of things like that, while magic skills open up new spells, increase your mana pool etc.

It seems the game is quite generous with skill points too, so you can have a totally maxed out warrior build but also a fair few points in assassination or magic too, so there is plenty of room for quasi-warrior-mage characters.

The game has some really cool maps, my favourite so far is set in s string of mini-islands with lots of buildings attached to the sides of sheer cliff faces, with all manner of rope brides, cave systems, and rocky outcroppings to explore.

Overall I am enjoying it so far!

PS - This game has spiders, and they make my skin crawl! No other game has given my shivers when spiders appear quite like this one! They even crawl up the walls to get you! Yikes! 

Daz go map :p