Using the KMQuake2 engine and user-made maps with Steam

In this guide, I provide instructions for:
• Installing KMQuake2, an improved engine for running Quake 2.
• Altering the setup so you can use the Steam Overlay while playing KMQuake2.
• Loading a user-made level or level pack from within Steam.

Installing Quake2 and KMQuake 2 (the improved engine)

First, install Quake 2 and the KMQuake2 engine. Perform the following steps:
1. Install Quake 2 from Steam (duh).
2. Go to http://www.markshan.com/knightmare/
3. Click DOWNLOADS on right side of screen
4. (Recommended) Under the category “Quake2 Unofficial v3.24 Patch”, download “quake2-3.24-win32.zip (1.08 MB)”, then right-click the downloaded zip file and Extract All to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 2 (say YES to replacing duplicate files).
5. Under the category “Version 0.20”, download “kmquake2_020_update7.zip (12.7 MB)”, then right-click the downloaded zip file and Extract All to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 2.
6. (Optional) If you plan on playing the mission packs The Reckoning by Xatrix and/or Ground Zero by Rogue, then under the category “Version 0.20”, download “kmquake2_020_b3_missionpack.zip (5.02 MB)”, then right-click the downloaded zip file and Extract All to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 2\xatrix and again to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 2\rogue (say YES to replacing duplicate files).

Getting Steam to automatically run KMQuake2

Now it’s time to setup Steam to run KMQuake2 instead of vanilla Quake 2. To do this, perform the following steps:
1. With Windows 10 File Explorer Options, under the View tab, make sure “Hide extensions for known file types” is UNticked.
2. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 2.
3. Rename quake2.exe to something memorable, like NOTQuake2.exe.
4. Then rename kmquake2.exe to quake2.exe
5. Test it: run Quake 2 from Steam by clicking the green PLAY button and it should launch KMQuake2 instead of vanilla Quake2. You should be able to access the Steam Overlay with Shift+Tab, and should be able to take Steam screenshots with F12.

Loading a user-made level or level pack

Now for an example of how to run a level pack.
1. On the internet, find and download the file grinspq3, which is Castles of Stroggos 3: The Final Objective. Extract the zip file to your Downloads folder.
2. Look inside the grinspq3 folder. Note that this folder includes a .pak file. Because a .pak file is included, you will need to copy or cut the grinspq3 folder and paste it so it is inside your Quake 2 folder and parallel to your baseq2 folder.
3. Many map packs have .bat files for launching the game, and grinspq3 is no exception. Simply running these .bat files should run the maps just fine, but if you want to run map packs from within Steam (so you can use the Steam Overlay or take Steam screenshots), you will need to copy and paste some text from the .bat file into Steam. Here's how to do it:
- Right-click on one of the included .bat files and select Edit to open it up (don’t worry about the Windows security notification, provided that the .bat file is a small 1 or 2 kilobytes in size).
- Highlight all the text after “quake2.exe” and copy it.
- Right-click Quake II in Steam game list, select “Properties…”, then under LAUNCH OPTIONS, paste in what you copied from the .bat file; in this case, I paste in “+set game "grinspq3" +clear +map grinspq3 +set skill "2"” (skill 2 means Hard difficulty, since I’m a gaming badass).
- Then you can play the map pack by clicking the green PLAY button in Steam. To go back to playing the basic Quake 2 maps, remove this pasted-in text from the LAUNCH OPTIONS.
4. If your map pack doesn’t include a .bat file(s), it likely contains one or more .bsp files instead. Copy or cut these .bsp files and paste them into your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 2/baseq2/maps folder (create the maps folder if it doesn't already exist). Then run KMQuake2, open the console with the tilde(`) key, and type map (whatever).

As always, refer to the text files that came with your maps if these instructions don't get the job done.

A few extra Quake2 goodies

I also like the following addons:

Music originally included with CD release of Quake2:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2320/discussions/0/864974467511619676/

Improved textures that are faithful to the original textures:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-2-neural-upscale

A few altered sounds:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-ii-heavy-metal-q2hm

My custom Tourettes Guy skin and sound files (WARNING: gratuitous explicit language):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1neKwS4Bt_Jgteul6J3XivMX1oePYFUqK/view?usp=sharing
(unzip this and set it up so Tourettes_Guy folder Quake 2/baseq2, alongside male, female, cyborg, and crakhor.)

Finally, here are a few repositories of Quake 2 goodies that I’ve found:
http://www.3dgamersedge.com/spq2revsnum.html
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jimw/q2/
https://dukeworld.com/planetquake/3dgamersedge/