Скачать или смотреть WinQuake Explained — The Secret Hack That Restored Quake's Speed

We finally solve the WinQuake mystery, and explain why id Software shipped a separate WinQuake.exe instead of just running the DOS build in Windows. This short deep dive shows what caused a painful 25 percent FPS hit when DOS Quake ran inside Windows 95, why online play and Windows NT compatibility broke, and how id fixed it with a native Windows build that recovered almost all the lost performance.

Key takeaways
Running Quake.exe in Windows 95 dropped performance from about 48 to 38 FPS, because Windows used a virtualized DOS box that added overhead.
Big issues forced a rewrite: unacceptable speed loss, fragile networking through the DOS box, and complete incompatibility with Windows NT due to near pointer memory tricks.
WinQuake was a native Windows solution with modular backends for video, sound, and controls, letting players trade latency for speed and pick the best path for their machine.
Video paths: GDI for reliable windowed mode but slow, DirectDraw for faster fullscreen with DirectX required, and a licensed Cytek MGL path that used WinDirect to take direct control of the GPU and restore near-DOS performance.
Result: WinQuake hit about 45 FPS, recovering nearly everything lost to Windows, and the executable still runs in windowed mode on modern Windows 11, showing how robust engineering and long-term compatibility can keep software alive for decades.

If you want more technical detail, watch the full breakdown to see developer quotes, performance charts, and how WinDirect pulled off the near-DOS experience inside Windows. Like the video if you enjoyed the history, subscribe for more retro tech deep dives, and leave a comment with which old PC game mystery you want solved next.

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